Friday 23 August: This country is capable of creating an assisted dying law safe from abuse

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

747 thoughts on “Friday 23 August: This country is capable of creating an assisted dying law safe from abuse”

  2. Morning, all Y'all.
    Raining. Just as I need to wander over to the heart clinic to get my pacemaker tested. Oh, good, it couldn't be a lovely, bright, misty morning, could it? Bugger!

    1. Yes. Am at Heathrow waiting to pick up the Prodigals. After 3 weeks of NZ winter (rain) they will be delighted to return to Blighty to more rain!!!

    1. The real leader would already be leading, by opposing Liebour’s disastrous policies. Who is stepping up? No one!

    2. Assuming that the next leader wanted to introduce and implement policies that nearly all on this forum would support, it would come to nought.
      The inescapable fact is that the new leader would not be able to carry with him or her the bulk of the parliamentary MPs, they are closet Limp Dums wearing blue rosettes.
      Just when the country has never been in such need for a conservative minded political party we know in our hearts that the Conservative Party will never fill that need.

  6. ‘Incompetent’ council paints over potholes with double yellow lines

    Lymington mayor says local authority knows road is in dire need of repair and ‘shoddy job’ is ‘scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money’

    Max Stephens
    22 August 2024 • 4:35pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/08/22/TELEMMGLPICT000390767784_17243398603610_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq2aizoQ_BaLt4dX785YMTtflZBRoezaD186OgGOZAjuQ.jpeg?imwidth=680
    A council has come under fire after painting over a street’s potholes instead of repairing them.

    Locals in Lymington, Hampshire, had believed the 10 or so potholes that pockmarked Avenue Road would be filled in when the street closed for repairs.

    However, when it reopened, the seaside town found that the craters had been painted over with double yellow lines.

    Councillor Jack Davies, who also serves as the town’s mayor, claimed Hampshire county council had ignored his earlier warnings the street was in dire need of repair.

    He said the road surface was “atrocious” with only stony gravel underneath the surface dressing – and advised them not to paint over the road until it had been fixed.

    He said: “That they knew this and still went ahead and painted over the potholes is ridiculous. It just reinforces the idea that the council are incompetent. People generally aren’t surprised because they already expect the council to be stupid.

    “I honestly don’t know what process they follow that they thought that was okay.”

    Cllr Davies described the work as a “scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money”, and added: “It looks like a shoddy job.”

    ‘It’s absolute madness’
    Avenue Road lies in the centre of town and adjacent to the Lymington and Pennington Town Council and the New Forest National Park Authority.

    Paul Whatley, whose son lives in the town, said: “Signs appeared saying the road was going to be closed and we assumed the potholes were about to be repaired.

    “But they painted double yellow lines through them instead. It’s absolute madness. Someone hasn’t got their head screwed on properly.

    “There must be at least half a dozen potholes in Avenue Road. One is about two or three feet long and an inch deep.”

    Benjamin Elks, grassroots development manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Residents are sick of seeing councils paper over the cracks instead of actually tackling long-term problems faced in their area.

    “Taxpayers have seen council tax levels explode, yet at the same time services have deteriorated.

    “Town hall bosses should cut down on waste, boost productivity, and deliver the council that their residents expect.”

    Residents are now waiting to discover if the holes will be left as they are or repaired and the lines repainted – at an additional cost to taxpayers.

    A county council spokesman said: “We are currently investigating what has happened at this location.”

    *****************************
    Chris Quin
    13 HRS AGO
    A county council spokesman said: “We are currently desperately trying to come up with some excuse for our stupidity and incompetence but are not able to do even that simple task."

  7. This country is capable of creating an assisted dying law safe from abuse. 23 August 2024.

    Yet assisted dying laws across the globe include various safeguards designed to ensure that the will and wellbeing of the person in question are the only factors under consideration. These include panels, cooling-off periods, professional assessments by at least two parties, and the use of the courts to access an assisted death.

    Why are we so sure that we would make a hash of things here?

    I am actually a supporter of “Assisted Dying” but am under no illusions that the British State would be able to resist the urge to make it compulsory. We have only to look at abortion to see the lie of the land. This law, that was intended to help women in extremis, has now become a Murderer’s Charter. If you would oppose it, even by thought or silent prayer, you will arrested and imprisoned.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2024/08/23/letters-britain-assisted-dying-law-safe-abuse/

    1. 392251+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,

      Give the current political bastards an inch, a mile taken is guaranteed to follow.

    2. Yo Minty

      May I highlight a possible problem

      Yet assisted dying laws across the globe include various safeguards designed to ensure that the WILL and wellbeing of the person in question are the only factors under consideration.

      ie, who gets the money

    4. You aren't allowed to oppose abortion or vaccines. Makes you wonder about the motivation behind these two policies doesn't it…

  8. Good morning, chums. And thank you, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,161 5/6

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    1. Good Morning, Elsie,

      Wordle 1,161 3/6

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      1. Good morning
        Wordle 1,161 4/6

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        1. A (male) friend of mine of a certain age used to look at young suntanned young women of around 19 or 20 with curves in all the right places and say to himself "Phwooar, she looks gorgeous. If only I were several decades younger I could ask her out and maybe she would become my latest flame". Now, he looks at similar sun-tanned young women of 19 or 29 with curves in all the right places and says "Phwooar, she look gorgeous. I wish I had a waist-line as slim as hers!" Lol.

        2. A (male) friend of mine of a certain age used to look at young suntanned young women of around 19 or 20 with curves in all the right places and say to himself "Phwooar, she looks gorgeous. If only I were several decades younger I could ask her out and maybe she would become my latest flame". Now, he looks at similar sun-tanned young women of 19 or 29 with curves in all the right places and says "Phwooar, she look gorgeous. I wish I had a waist-line as slim as hers!" Lol.

      2. Something perhaps for a future date, Sean. At present my life is too jam-packed with activity and I am trying to reduce the pressures on my time. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

  9. I'll raise a glass…

    Jack Daniel’s owner scraps diversity targets amid ‘anti-woke’ backlash
    The change comes amid growing pressure on companies to abandon “woke” policies

    James Warrington
    22 August 2024 • 3:28pm

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

    Alan Franck
    10 HRS AGO
    Reply to Carole Dyer – view message
    Saw a youtube clip a couple of weeks ago that made me smile. Typical American fat middle-aged Harley rider takes his bike to a shooting range and blasts it to bits using various machine guns. Why? Because of the company's DEI policies. The land of the free!

    1. Normally I browse The Works (I'm a bookaholic), but today they were flying the rainbow flag so I gave them a wide berth. Go woke, go broke.

  10. 292251+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    In the past we would treat this news as honest glad tidings
    currently wariness is a top commodity, very sad to say.

    We the indigenous, if the "wonder drug " is as it says on the tin will still lose out as it will be found that ALL FOREIGN ELEMENTS overseas will have first second and third mass treatments

    Nice is anything but its name tag saying, the cost outweighs the benefits yet overseas aid (in many respects laundering) sends monies to nations who have no need of it.

    I heard one man yesterday saying it had proved greatly beneficial
    to him, such is the times we live in currently that, can he be believed or is he yet another drug booster ?

    Alzheimer’s wonder drug blocked for use on NHS after officials ignore costs to families
    Patients denied ‘game-changing’ lecanemab

    The decent peoples pray it is genuine and a great step forward.

    1. 372251+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Update,

      Dt,
      ‘Lecanemab has let me live a full life despite dementia risk’
      Trial patient reveals how wonder drug worked for him, after it is rejected by NHS owing to costs

    1. We're beginning to take this personally.
      We have friends coming for lunch.
      The last time they had to brave wind, rain and half the A12 blocked (admittedly, the last happens regardless of weather conditions).

  12. BBC and Brian May ‘spreading misinformation’ in badger cull documentary. 23 August 2024.

    The BBC has been accused of spreading misinformation in a documentary about badger culling fronted by Sir Brian May.

    The programme, which airs on Friday evening, shows the Queen guitarist arguing that badgers are not responsible for the spread of TB among cattle.

    Badger misinformation. Lol. At one time people just used to have different opinions.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/22/badgers-bovine-tb-brian-may-bbc-cull-farmers/

          2. Their population has declined in many areas, probably due to lack of natural food – larvae, insects, worms, etc. Badgers compete for the same food source, and in times of hardship, will eat the hedgehogs.

    3. It is the BBC though. Packham will be disappointed not to get a mention.

      The documentary features Gatcombe Farm in Devon, declared TB-free after efforts by the farmer and vet Dick Sibley to improve hygiene measures among the cattle.

      However, a preview of the show shared with journalists did not include the fact that reinfection had been found on three subsequent occasions, the latest in September 2023. The BBC said it would be added to the programme before it airs on Friday, prompting accusations it had undergone a "hasty rewrite" after pressure from the farming industry.

      "That it seems the BBC had planned to air this documentary without including this vital piece of information is deeply concerning, particularly as it appears they've only conducted this hasty rewrite as a result of external pressure," said Mo Metcalf Fisher from the Countryside Alliance. "Failing to do so would have left them open to the accusation of a cover-up."

      Farming organisations have also accused the BBC of failing to reflect the scientific debate around the role of badgers in spreading bovine TB.

  14. This country is capable of creating an assisted dying law safe from abuse

    Or just give the terminally ill the booster jab, or all people over 65 and right wingers, oh and Brexiteers

    2. Indeed. It never ceases to amaze me how much faith so many people retain in the Powers that Be!
      Or to put it otherwise; most people who are doing very nicely out of the system don't realise that it's broken.

  15. I wonder what this implies…?

    Black student numbers fall by two-thirds at MIT after end of affirmative action

    The figures are the first since a ruling in 2023 that universities are no longer allowed to use diversity criteria in admissions

    Susie Coen, US CORRESPONDENT
    22 August 2024 • 5:12pm

    The number of black students accepted to an elite US university plummeted by two-thirds after a Supreme Court ruling banned affirmative action.

    Black students made up 5 per cent of this year’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a significant slump from the 15 per cent who enrolled in 2023.

    Meanwhile, the proportion of Asian American students accepted at the university jumped from 40 to 47 per cent year on year.

    America’s highest court ruled in 2023 that race-conscious university admissions were unconstitutional, effectively reversing policies to boost diversity on campus.

    MIT is the first university to release statistics on the composition of its first intake since the ruling was handed down in June 2023.

    The total number of students who identify as black, hispanic and/or Native American and Pacific Islander has dropped from a baseline of around 25 per cent to 16 per cent, according to Stu Schmill, MIT’s dean of admissions.

    “We expected that this would result in fewer students from historically under-represented racial and ethnic groups enrolling at MIT. That’s what has happened,” Mr Schmill told MIT News.

    Compared with 2023, the percentage of Hispanic and Latino students dropped to 11 per cent from 16 per cent, while white students remained at a similar level – 37 per cent compared with 38 per cent in 2023.

    Sally Kornbluth, president of MIT, said the 2024 class “does not bring, as a consequence of last year’s Supreme Court decision… the same degree of broad racial and ethnic diversity that the MIT community has worked together to achieve over the past several decades”.

    Edward Blum, the founder of Students for Fair Admissions (SFA), the group which brought legal action against Harvard and the University of North Carolina to overturn affirmative action policies, told the New York Times: “Every student admitted to the class of 2028 at MIT will know that they were accepted only based upon their outstanding academic and extracurricular achievements, not the colour of their skin.”

    SFA had argued that black students were being unfairly boosted in the admissions process to the detriment of Asian applicants.

    Peter Arcidiacono, an economist at Duke University, and expert witness for SFA, told the paper: “MIT basically just took race out of the equation.”

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

    Harry Williams
    8 HRS AGO
    A worrying trend I read about was that students who are expert in playing the spoons are not properly represented and this needs looking at. Many Irish heritage students remain ashamed of this damaging fact and say they are frightened to come out and own their spoon skills on campus. Surely it is about time affirmative action made up for this, or at least run campaigns for LGBTQ+ +SP (SP is SPoon Players) to come out and enjoy safe spaces

    1. A friend in the village used to be an examiner for economics students all over the world, and definitely noticed some trends according to where they were from.

      Africans were mostly thick and would get extra marks if they could write or spell their names right. The ones he used to dread most though were from Singapore.

      He'd end up with fifty identical papers, all answering correctly and excellently according to the text book, and precious little to distinguish between any of them. They steered clear of any open question or one where there was more than one right answer. At the end of a batch, he would lose the will to live.

      1. Of course.
        But with certain passengers on board maybe better to sail into the Atlantic and take on an iceberg.

  17. Good morning all,

    I can report from dwelling unti A 101101 that our glorious leaders' weather technology policies have brought bright sunshine and a Westerly breeze. It is wonderful how they can control the temperature to the global seasonal norms between 16℃ and 20℃ as autumn approaches. I haven't heard anything from the telecranium yet so I'm able to let my thoughts wander a bit.

    Re: The Mike Lynch superyacht sinking which is all over the front page.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bbed022463fb4976f09a9fd89d407850b1a51be5922527b9cae637cc6031de55.png
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/missing-mike-lynch-s-co-defendant-in-cambridge-company-fraud-trial-killed-in-car-crash/ar-AA1p5SRC

    Run over while out jogging. Coincidence? I don't think so.

      1. Who owns HP? Blackrock?

        As an aside, I've been wondering if the 'rock' in Blackrock is an indication of Rockefeller involvement.

          1. Remember what happened to "God's banker" found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge a while ago.

    2. He wasn't really killed in a car crash as you say FM he was run over whilst jogging.
      Too many people in the public eye have died in nasty 'accidents'. But never it seems those most likely to have been involved. Big brother is very powerful and often if not always gets away with out due process.

    3. On an industrial estate. The lady driver called 999 and remained at the scene until 'responders' arrived.

    4. Good commentary here on this topic………
      https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/a-bayesian-interpretation-of-two/comments
      A probability assessment based entirely on the frequency or propensity of cyclists getting struck by cars in Cambridgeshire and modern super yachts sinking in freak weather events in the Med would probably find that the chance of these two men randomly dying in these unusual ways within 48 hours of each other to be less than 1 in a billion. I’ll leave it to pro statisticians to compile the data and do the proper math on this one.

  18. Ofsted have only gone and placed the School of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Maida Vale London in a category of concern and deemed the school 'inadequate'.

    ..rows of its pupils, aged from eight to 15, sing.. 'We wait for you under the flag of our leader,' they trill.
    Then, chillingly, they plead: 'Do not see me as too young, from the 313 I will answer the call.' This refers to the 313 mythical 'special commanders' of Shia theology, who will rise from the dead to wage an apocalyptic war against those seen as infidels.

    It's Ok, the inspectors have left behind a handy leaflet..

    Leaflet for schools
    Please read and act on the guidance in our Leaflet for schools (PDF, 189 KB, 7 pages).

    2. Is there a single Islamic School that ranks better than Inadequate? It may be prejudice against them, but I cannot recall any reports on such schools as being other than that, not even a "grade three needs improvement.".

      Perhaps the grade one and two don't get reported on, though I can't help thinking any grade one's would be trumpeted all over the news.

    3. Non-religious parents go to great lengths to get their children into Christian schools e.g. church attendance (until the child is accepted), moving into the catchment area etc. Strangely enough, I have never heard of non-Muslim parents trying to get their children into Islamic schools…

      1. In some schools in Southern France as many as 80% of pupils in private Catholic schools are Muslims

  19. Good Moaning.
    Well, duh …….
    Has anyone ever had a potential house buyer this dim? Are two major airhubs really the equivalent of a spot of ragwort in the garden or a trampoline a couple of doors down?
    Clickbait from the DM.

    "I've lived in my three-bed semi-detached house for over 15 years.

    Heathrow and Gatwick airports are both fairly nearby. I knew I was buying a home affected by nearby airports, but this was never a big issue. I expected and didn't mind some noise.

    However, in the last couple of years, and particularly this summer, the noise from aircrafts above has intensified dramatically, especially at night. The planes seem to get lower and lower. It sounds like they are right over the house.

    How can I complain about the noise from the planes above? Is this even possible? And would buyers need to be warned about this if I decided to sell?

    Now Angela Rayner has given the green light to more flights from London City Airport, I fear further expansions – and more noise – could be on the horizon."

    1. Yo anne

      If the complainant speaks nicely to the Air Traffic Controllers, they will get the pilots to turn the engines off as they fly over subject house

      Just be ready for the noise of the Fire Engines, Ambulances etc

    2. Yo anne

      If the complainant speaks nicely to the Air Traffic Controllers, they will get the pilots to turn the engines off as they fly over subject house

      Just be ready for the noise of the Fire Engines, Ambulances etc

    3. And in the meantime kahnt will be ramping it up and again blaming motorists for air pollution, blaming those who go about their daily routines.

      2. Sorry, yours was hidden when I wrote mine. I only saw your post when I clicked on "see more".

  21. Good Morning all, clear skies but still windy, plants have been taking a bashing.

  22. Assisted dying

    Why are we so sure that we would make a hash of things here?

    Sophie Korevaar

    Bristol

    Nurse………

    1. Because our political classes eff up everything they come into contact with Sophie. It's their nature.

      1. I have a sneaking suspicion the Civil Service are the ones really in charge. 'Permanence is Power' ..Sir Humphrey not wrong.

        1. Absolutely correct. But the trio in the den of iniquities support each other.
          Lords the green house and Whitehall all garbage.

          1. Yes, the cartel….some say democracy others say shamocracy…I couldn’t possible comment…

  23. Good morning, all. Calmed down here to a strong breeze and scudding broken cloud.

    This week's The Highwire has a report from Jefferey Jaxen on electric vehicles and why they aren't green at all.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/90c4dfa070f6784de7bbf7bda9ededb3f4f78b2ccb292e03cb2900d1362cb5d7.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5f17ad344eb1b12bf4fe2fa50da4bcbdb498e5ce372d52e5a91dfee703f4f161.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f7f0944acb0ec347d1563cdd00153952abf3234b63f8a99d54c9739dfa9bc494.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c22ee5d96cbf15d911a782b14e2d683a890a6fd966fba498d082b35bf302bd8e.png

    And there's me believing that switching to electric vehicles will save the World for my grandchildren.😎

    1. Marketing scam I'd say. Why aren't the cars self Charging as they move along as the wheels are turning ?

        2. We learnt in physics lessons at school that a perpetual motion machine was impossible. Something to do with the sum of clockwise moments and the sum of anti-clockwise moments.

          Physics is something despised by freeloaders and recipients of social security handouts who are determined that you can get something for nothing but they fail to see that what they get is paid for by someone else !

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f28db7d94ebc812064ce0cebde596611b33841486b2f2e3459ae5be8ba42792c.png

          4. Always losses somewhere, by friction wih surfaces, or the air.
            So, no perpetual motion, sadly.

    3. Saw a picture last night of two electric car charger stations, sitting between them was a large diesel generator.

  24. Good morning from Fenham.
    Currently at Dr. Daughter's place listening to the wind gusting outside. Not a brilliant forecast for the weekend I'm afraid.
    I hope Falstone Show is not as wet as it was two years ago.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/385aec85fa486e0f9db8b8c1ccd1f0ea8202c64a426da2e1f856ece5157a2aba.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f43e57122cb0b89cccfce8c9397f60624125bbfff4092e48324f04095ed3a9e2.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07a9588fbf92974b171e63069dc19c408b52135be984de6f8b589a624635ef0f.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c49d4071631ebbd9d80db592f9d91569d4de7e92b948c4cfb82d74d75a097246.jpg

  25. Good morning ,

    Well the wind blew , and it blew . Then the gale slackened off
    It was an uncomfortable night . Now 17c. bright sky .

    The letters are grim ..

    The way I am feeling , can I afford to live into great old age .. the energy costs are escalating , and the new government have plans for home owners ..

  26. Good morning. In answer to the header, no, it isn’t. Murder is assisted dying and vice versa. It is by definition a form of abuse. Give our lying, cheating power hungry masters free rein to kill? They already do it of course but as yet they’re obliged to lie about it. Open the floodgates and it’ll be out and out slaughter.

    1. They all lie about everything Sue.
      It's all they know.
      Since B liar opened the door years ago not one of them has even hinted at what they are trying to achieve. Apart from the obvious and it's clearly not what British people want.
      And we still have to pay taxes to support billions in forgien aid on top of what is going on in our own country.

    2. Give our lying, cheating power hungry masters free rein to kill?

      Just Don't keep taking the vaccines Sue

      1. I have recently been receiving several messages from my GP practice regarding vaccines.
        Not wishing to be rude I have to ignore them.

        1. I've had several and more mails, Eddy. Three shots were sufficient for me – now being reported it's the boosters wot do the damage. How can Pfizer have made both the virus and the vaccine…hmm…in the Wuhan lab, think it was the blogger eugyppius reported that.

          1. Four years ago my GP asked me if I had considered having a 'Covid' vaccine.
            I replied, NO!
            He has never bothered to ask me since.

          2. Know what, Grizzly – I was exactly the same, novel virus, novel vaccine, both from same outfit – what could possibly go wrong. It caused such family upset I finally caved, we all regret it now. I’d say I’ve recovered around 75% of myself. I ignore everything comes out of my GP surgery, someone I know tells me the outfit is now a Limited Company with the GPs as Directors, they own the building they operate out of – sounds almost like Private Practice although funded by government. The ‘Director’ charges his electric Jaguar on site, to the extent that the Prescription Delivery Service van has to wait to charge up. Sorry for the rant, gets me every time.

          3. I trust absolutely nothing these days, Kate, that comes with a government 'assurance'.

            All members of all political parties; all publishers and broadcasters of mass media; all higher seats of learning; all health agencies (and many more groupings who control our daily lives) are all in hock to, and heavily funded by, the all-powerful global corporations and the medical-industrial complex, whose avowed wish is to promulgate the status quo.

            Their stated mission is to have everyone continue, sine die, to purchase and use their abominable products that directly have a deleterious effect on our health and wellbeing; and to carry on selling us their drugs that are 'designed' to cure us from the health issues that are directly caused by the consumption of their products.

            Overseeing all this are the World Economic Forum and their henchmen at the United Nations.

            I have seen through all this global bullshit and I conduct my life on my terms, not anyone else's. It is remarkable how much my own health, fitness and wellbeing has exponentially improved since eschewing modern life.

            Rant over.

          4. You’re not ranting, you’re telling the truth. I won’t be voting any more, unless someone I believe to be of sufficient calibre stands up. Not holding my breath. Quite a relief to just walk away. Going to carry on with what I enjoy – gardening, art stuff, time with grandchildren (they don’t nag), reading, and of course this place. (btw sorry for late reply, shampooing hair – haven’t been to hairdresser post-lockdown, no way am I paying 30 squid to someone to trim ends..:-D) Last thing – government knew early on vaccines were not only not good but actually bad, I couldn’t get on the Yellow Card system it fell over more or less straight away and was then withdrawn. Now my rant’s over 😀

          5. No need to apologise, Katy, especially when shampooing your hair. I have very little hair to shampoo so a bottle lasts me several decades.🤣

          8. I have had several texts over the last few months from my GP surgery saying they haven't had a blood pressure reading from me in the last five years……….. eventually, to get them off my back, I borrowed a BP monitor from my neighbour. I took some readings and was a bit surprised how they varied, according to the time of day, etc etc. Also watched a YT video showing how you could reduce it naturally.
            Anyway I sent them two readings this morning, using the email address they gave me. I received an automatic reply saying " This email address is for NHS and business use only and is NOT for patient use." I give up!

          9. I no longer trust any medics, they like to tell you to buy a BP monitor, send in a reading, prescribe meds, all without seeing you. Show ’em the hairy side, Ndovu:-D

          10. Which side's that? I did as I was asked (eventually) so I'm not going to bother again. I certainly don't want any meds for it.

          12. After my life threatening reaction to the two original covid jabs, Atrial fibrillation.
            I’ve already confirmed with my GP
            I’m not having any more.

          13. So sorry to read about your jab experience, Eddy…much much worse than my own. I hope you can sue the pants off someone somewhere somehow – are you part of a class action?!

    1. I'm not sure about the cocain but a couple of glasses of red or a scotch and ice certainly help with easing the pain.
      As there is so much pain in people's lives today perhaps it's why we have so much drug addiction.

        1. I've noticed that the paracetamol I take during the day doesn't quite do the trick anymore.
          But it's cheaper than going to the pub 😉🤗

          5. It has never worked for me, Eddy…aspirin (dispersible kind) I used to like Beechams Powders think they had caffeine addition at one time, now just use the dispersible + cup black coffee. Pain in your body fills your head too, good luck whatever you take 🙂

      2. In June I was struck down with a trapped sciatic nerve. The pain made my eyes water. Ibuprufen didn't touch it so I asked the GP for something stronger. He prescribed Naproxem which also didn't help. Asked for something stronger and got Zapain. This is fairly effective but addictive so I can only take it for 3 days and then have 3 days off.
        If the pain is bearable I can walk 10 yards with a stick. My dear wife is recovering from a heart attack and has been told to restrict her exertions. This means she can only walk the Springer once a day.
        So from being a big, fit and hearty fellow I have had to buy a mobility scooter in order to give the dog a second walk.
        How are the mighty fallen?
        I am having a 3 month course of chiropractic and sport massage and I am making progress although very slowly.
        Had to give up Bowls so I couldn't defend my Singles title.
        Suffered some mild depression but I won't give in to it.
        Onward and upward!

        1. Oh, man, Delboy.
          That's terrible. A bugger especially with the title… and the expense of the scooter. Hope your hound appreciates it.

        2. Hello Delboy, I've had sciatica (left leg, couldn't put heel down for the pain) a few years ago. Spent a lot of time (and money) on various videos, books, cushions, exercises, physios etc – all to no avail. Bob & Brad videos especially bad. Then I saw a headline on YouTube 'Bob & Brad made my sciatica worse, try this man' – turned out to be Dr Charlie Johnson. He had some exercises to strengthen a weak piriformis (most exercises seem to do the opposite, which worsens the condition/pain). I did those exercises and was pain free within a few weeks – I still do them time to time. Unfortunately he now charges for advice. Whilst I don't know the cause of your sciatic pain, might be worth searching for exercises for weak piriformis, see if they help? Good luck, Kate 🙂

        3. Tried Marijuana yet? Some people swear by it for pain. I know one person using it for pain caused by cancer. Can't stand the stuff myself but used to grow it in one of my greenhouses for other old farts around here who have various ailments.

        4. Morning Delboy

          So very sorry to hear about your terrible pain , and also the heart problems your dear wife is trying to recover from .

          Painkillers are horrible, especially Naproxem .

          When pain grabs you , everything else nice in life vanishes ..

          Glad you can get out and about on your bat mobile though just to enjoy the fresh air and the springer .

        6. My sincere sympathies. When my C7 disc decided to explode, I wouldn't have been able to do anything like walk the dog. I hope they can do something to fix the nerve soon.

          Meanwhile, I always fancied setting up a service to pimp up.mobility scooters. Decorate them with flames and mirrors, add a horn that bellows "Get off my lawn!!" etc. (Of course this doesn't help.as I'm in Argentina so couldn't actually do that for you, but maybe the thought might amuse.)

        7. Sympathies, Delboy.

          I've never forgotten the sciatica pain I experienced when, as a young woman, nearing the end of my first pregnancy, I could barely walk, or crawl up the stairs. The relief after my son was born was immense. He is now 53 and I've never had any pain like it since.

          I do hope you find some relief for it, as you are unlikely to use mine….

  28. Morning all 🙂😊
    Bit late today I was awoken in the night by the window blinds rattling in the howling gale..
    I should have followed orders and closed the window. Sun's oit now and the gardens will green up nicely.
    I doubt if there are any people in our political world who are capable of achieving anything that is in the interest of the general public. Especially assisted deaths. This lot seems to have already started a battle with anyone who doesn't like what they are trying to put upon us all.

  29. Life today is not as I knew it, as I grew up

    Was browsing the Amazon Daily Offers and came across this

    Rustins Shed & Fence Clear 5L – Advanced Wood Protector for Outdoor Structures

    Back to School Deal

    1. BBC Breakfast over the past few days – the Democrat Convention and the adoption of Kamala Harris as Presidential Candidate. They really went overboard in the coverage.

      1. I hate being gaslighted by the media about Harris. She's not a remotely credible candidate and should be laughed out of the room. Either nobody wants the hot seat when the currency reset is happening, and Obama will be president behind the scenes, doing what the bankers tell him or else they've decide to let Trump win because he is best positioned to lead the people into slavery, just as he tried to lead them into taking the vaxx.

          1. Agenda 2030. Trump was pro vaxx. If you look at what happened, both parties (Rep and Dem) pushed the vaxx, so people who opposed it had nowhere to go.

          3. It’s true, it was nuanced. We don’t know what threats were brought too, to make him push the jabs.
            But it’s also pretty clear that big pharma had interests on both sides of the pro/anti vaxx conflict
            I’d support Trump, but with the caveat that there is no white knight who is going to save us. We are going to have to do that ourselves.

          4. He did, but I think he must have been got at by Fauci. And I remember the time he was musing about other methods and got accused of recommending bleach.

          5. Yes, but what was he pushing?
            Ivermectin turns out to have an adverse effect on fertility…as does the jab. Don’t know about HCQ.

          6. He didn't seem to know about Vit D. That seems to be the best way to avoid being ill with anything.

          7. He said he was taking HCQ. He did eventually get covid but he shook it off quickly. He seems pretty robust for an elderly man.

    2. Sad thing is that there are Democrats who are almost as nutty as this. They mostly lurk in Oregon and California.

        1. Thank you Janet. Just read it and nothing in the article surprises me. But it illustrates why if you have a modicum of intelligence you do not watch or read the MSM for an informative view of the candidates. Harris is incompetent and, I think, more dangerous that Biden because she has her faculties about her. Thus, in power, she could blunder in a way that Biden would have been prevented from doing so. I fear for America and all the rest of us if she becomes President. Which, sadly, given the corruption in the American electoral system, is more than possible.

    4. Anyone who tells you their pronouns upon introduction need a good slap.*

      *For the attention of the thought police, this remark is metaphorical.

  31. And so it goes on

    Three police officers injured in Manchester Airport attack

    Man and two women held on suspicion of assault after uninsured car found in unauthorised parking space

    The attack follows an incident last month involving GMP officers which made international headlines after a viral video showed an officer kicking a man in the head.Finx to self….. bits missing from that statement!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/22/police-officers-attacked-manchester-airport-violence/

    2. I'll bet there are more uninsured cars and other vehicles on our roads now than ever before.
      The recent price hike would made many people not bother, in an elderly vehicle the insurance would cost more than the car is worth.
      The chancers are everywhere.

      1. My elderly car is probably not worth much at all – but I still have it insured and MOT'd each year.

        1. We only insure our cars comprehensively when they are worth something – otherwise we just have third party insurance which is obligatory in France as it is in England.

          1. But what's happening now in the UK with our rip-off insurance companies, if you try to move to third party they will accusse the owners of being irresponsible drivers and up the anti.

          2. I don’t know how much of a price difference that would be – I just have it insured and it’s not a great deal.

          3. I think that the reason for that is not the cost of the car being insured but the cost of damage/loss that an accident might cause to one or more other vehicles, or buildings, road signs and so on. I also understand that a substantial part of any car insurance premium is to cover the cost to the insurance industry of paying out on accidents involving uninsured vehicles.

          5. My car was hit by a young driver who was insured. His father offered to pay the bill to prevent his son from losing his NCB but the cost was over £2k and it wasn’t worth it for him. I too would consider paying for damage I had caused but the cost of repairs for even a mild fender-bender can be horrifyingly high.

          6. I can’t remember the exact figure now but it was a few hundred. It was in Morrisons’ carpark and I reversed into a Range Rover, hitting the door frame.

          7. It is sometimes cheaper to have comprehensive insurance than third party, believe it or not.

          8. it does seem to be. My daughter has confirmed this (Grandson just passed test) and the horrendous cost of his insurance is actually £100s less if fully comp than if 3rd party.

      2. Perhaps cars that are uninsured and lacking MOT's, unless there is a very good claim for accidental oversight, should be confiscated on the spot, taken away, and scrapped.

        Leave the drivers and passengers by the side of the road to make their way home.

        1. According to the TV programmes about our roads and the police.
          They usually arrest the drivers and take the cars off the road.
          And any passenger's are left to their own resources.
          There seems to be a trend now of number plate cloning.
          It happened to an old friend of ours. The car was driven from Essex to Holyhead. Where it boarded the ferry to Ireland.
          All the way it was filmed speeding and avoiding road tolls.
          He had a bit of a job trying to convince the authorities that it wasn't him.

          2. Even if they are caught – which they won’t be – the Court would take their “ability to pay” into account and just award a token fine. That’ll learn ‘em.

  32. Good advert for Kia Sportage, you can fit two Afghan migrants in the boot. Not such a good advert for justice, when people smugglers are receiving shorter sentences then protesters/rioters. Ah well, so it goes.

  33. HUNDREDS OF ACADEMICS ACCUSE LABOUR OF FREE SPEECH BETRAYAL

    577 academics have now signed an open letter to Bridget Phillipson calling on the education secretary to restore the Tories’ Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023. The act strengthened impositions on universities to support free speech on their premises and would introduce a complaints scheme to resolve issues. Naturally Labour said this would “enable hate speech” and immediately scrapped it…

    Richard Dawkins, Niall Ferguson, Kathleen Stock and others have signed. The letter spells out that the act won’t be “burdensome” as Labour claims because government analysis has compliance cost at a tiny £4.7 million and that the complaints scheme would keep cases out of court. Seeing as the UK ranks so terribly on the Academic Freedom Index more protections might be a good idea…

    Labour’s response is indignant: “We make no apology for pausing the Tories’ hate speech charter, which would have allowed antisemites and holocaust deniers free rein on campuses.” As far as competition goes UCL is leading on signers with 38, followed by Oxford on 36 and Cambridge on 21.

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

    Lying so-and-so's, using anti-semites and holocaust deniers as a distraction and front to cover their Frankfurt School dogma.

    1. Makes you wonder why labour/marxist Party is so against the protection of free speech?
      I thought the only vocal anti semites were their own comrades.

    2. Makes you wonder why labour/marxist Party is so against the protection of free speech?

    3. Liebour are just vile, aren’t they? Dog-whistle politics, and purile jargon at that. It’s so depressing.

  34. Two brave men daring to speak for the majority on immigration
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/two-brave-men-daring-to-speak-for-the-majority-on-immigration/ August 23, 2024

    This is an interesting article with some good clips of Douglas Murray expressing his views on immigration. I should imagine that Murray is in danger, not just of being arrested, but also of being knifed by an extreme left wing bigot.

    Is a statement of fact incitement to commit a crime and imprisonable in Starmer's Britain? A true statement about climate change or Covid jabs will attract abuse but not threats of imprisonment – and some facts could be described as matters of opinion rather than proven fact. However some truths are too dangerous to be permissible in Starmer's Stasi.

    Here is a BTL comment under the CW article by a chap who calls himself Major Tom who is keen to contact Ground Control. Are there any lies in it?

    Is it not the supreme irony that the party that started mass immigration – Labour – is the party that seeks to stop any criticism of its policy as the people wake up to the bleak realities it has brought to the country?

    When I was a boy we didn’t have:-

    Machetes ‬
    ‪Rape gangs‬
    ‪Acid attacks‬
    ‪Honour killings‬
    ‪Arranged marriages ‬
    Declining IQ
    Women on fire on our streets
    Growing anti semitism
    Cousin marriages ‬
    ‪Polygamy ‬
    ‪Halal ‬
    ‪FGM‬
    ‪County lines‬
    ‪Jihadis‬

    Why do we have them now?

    I would add Sharia Law but it is not, YET, universally applied to non-Muslims.

      1. Any other things on Major Tom's list that you would tick?

        In the Caribbean islands they use machetes to slice the tops off green 'drinking' coconuts. The coconut water is deliciously refreshing on a hot day.

        2. Declining IQ is an unarguable fact that is clearly documented, daily, and which I have been warning about for decades.

          A huge factor in causing this exponential rise in human stupidity is the overriding obsession with eating masses of items that do not (nor ever have) formed part of the natural human diet. As a species we have only consumed the products of vegetation and grains for around 10,000 years (a mere 0·4% of our existence): this directly matches the unstoppable rise of the majority of modern diseases and chronic conditions.

          The evolution of mass ultra-processed products marketed as 'food', in the past century, has only served to accelerate that explosion of stupidity and chronic ill-health.

          We are what we eat. Very few people eat brain food these days and the effect of that anomaly is clear and widespread.

        1. I was wondering about a bow and arrows. There seem to be some modern ones that don't require the strength to use a longbow, a tradition that urgently needs reviving in every Anglo-Saxon village.

          1. We have a Malaysian blowpipe which we bought from a native villager in 1998. The quiver of arrows had to go in the hold luggage when we brought it home.

    2. I had two first cousins who married. They were both retired, she was beyond child bearing age and they married for companionship, having met at a family funeral. They saw themselves like the couple in the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss, going hand in hand in to the final sunset.

      On another topic, I've come to hate that word "bigot" as much as I hate "racist", through both being routinely misapplied. Bigot has come to mean anyone who holds to God given truths and rejects degeneracy.

      1. Yes. I used the word bigot ironically because the left use it to describe those with opinions with which they do not agree.

          2. She certainly was! I could never in my life bring myself to vote Labour – even though some of the local candidates were good people.

    3. As you are probably aware, Mr Murray is gay, so if a mu slim were to kill him, that would guarantee the killer's entry to paradise.

    4. Are you sure we didn't have arranged marriages (matching land and fortunes to land and fortunes)?

  35. Morning all. Sunny and cool today but a very noisy night, thought it was raining heavily but it turned out to be a very strong wind. On the other side of my back fence is the wild wood and, in the dark of night, branches cracking and trees creaking, I can't help but think of weasels, rabbits, moles, and badgers all hiding from the storm and the deer, alert, hiding in the bushes.

    Watched a lot of videos this morning that were worth passing on but I will refrain except for this one about the unit in government that tries to manipulate our reaction and perceptions of events. Iv'e almost stopped being outraged about this sort of thing, I expect the lowest sort of behaviour on the part of government and, with a Labour government, I'm quite willing to give credit for the lowest possible behaviour.

    How the UK Government Gaslights the Public
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fUCWwADHf8

    1. Thank you, I shall watch that one.
      Even if you know they are there, it's often hard to spot their work. Increasingly, viral videos originate from this sort of propaganda unit, but when they don't come from the legacy media, they're harder to recognise.

  36. Just hung out the washing. Give it ten minutes and it'll be dry (or in the next village!)

    2. Thanks to Windipedia I have just got wind of the fact that in 1939 Victor Fleming directed The Wizard of Oz AND Gone with the Wind (but not the Kansas tornado scene, which was directed by King Vidor).

  37. David Lammy mocked for urging people to stomp feet and beep car horns to support Ukraine. 23 August 2024.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30c3190f1e2547b9fc8be01c38c16fe75ba706591161e761f12a49f47a41c431.png

    David Lammy has been mocked for urging all peers to post social media videos of themselves singing songs, chanting or honking their car horns to mark Ukraine’s independence day.

    In a letter to all members of the House of Lords, seen by The Telegraph, the Foreign Secretary and John Healey, the Defence Secretary, asked them to support the Make Noise for Ukraine campaign by filming themselves shouting and cheering.

    It also contained suggestions for films that could be made by other Government departments, including the Home Office recording police dogs barking.

    There’s no hope. You know that everyone?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/23/david-lammy-mocked-urging-people-stomp-car-horns-ukraine/

    2. Would Lammy Lammy ever advocate this

      David Lammy has been urging all peers to post social media videos of themselves singing songs, chanting or honking their car horns to ensure United Kingdoms continuing independence.

      Nurse…..

    4. Just providing proof of certain conditions.
      The kneeling and the door step clapping also didn't have any effect. .

    5. Twerp, isn't he .

      Has he forgotten that he is black?

      He should look to his own tribe , and what on earth has happened in what used to be an intelligent wealthy Sudan.

      1. No he remembers he is black and wants to revive the spirit of primitive tribal rituals – jumping up and down and making a noise..

        My uncle Hugh became very interested in African music and dance; my father thought his brother was eccentric.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Tracey

      2. As I have mentioned here before, a few years after retiring from the Sudan my father met a group of Sudanese elders who said: "The only thing you ever did wrong was to leave us."

        How right the leaders were.

        The Traceys were a strongly Christian family and many of them went to Africa with the Christian intention of making life better for the indigenous Africans.

        1. When I was sixteen , when my parents lived in the Sudan a second time in the 1960s, I had a holiday job with the Sudan Cotton exporting association .. I worked in the office , operating the Roneo machine and being a general runaround , making sure there was enough copying paper and and anything else that needed doing ..

          The Sudanese merchants would appear in their magnificent white galabiehs and head wear, they were the cotton growers .. They were polite , they sat around drinking mint tea or whatever , or even crushed lime juice drink with ice .. it was all very friendly .

          The West ruined the cotton trade , nylon / rayon and other manmade fibres became fashionable .

          I have a couple of year books .. early 1950’s and early 1960’s .. giving the balance of trade , in put out put .. The Sudan was a wealthy country , it was productive , it had the Nile , it had the Red Sea, it had trade , it had the Southern Sudan , Dinka people , good people , and then incursions from bandits from Somalia/ etc and of course power hungry Egypt from the North , and the march of the Mahdi , although he was dead , the Egyptians were not liked .

        2. “making life better for the indigenous Africans”. How dare you think that you could possibly make life better for the indigenous Africans. Do you not know that Africans have long had standards of education, art, transport, science and medicine that the West can only dream of; that Africans invented TV, the jet engine, antibiotics, space travel and cinema while we were still living in caves; and that Africans developed democratic, peace-loving incorruptible systems of government before Magna Carta?

    6. IMO banging saucepans for the NHS was puerile enough and set a low bar. Now we have this from Lammy. Limbo dancing, anyone?

    7. The entire pantomime that is modern life makes it extremely difficult for me to maintain my normal outlook as an eternal optimist and incurable romantic!!

      1. "The entire pantomime that is modern life …"

        Please may I steal/purloin/loan that for my own — non-nefarious — use?

  38. I really don't get what's going on here
    https://www.kitco.com/news/article/2024-08-22/wyoming-launch-stablecoin-2025-response-feds-policy-supporting-too-big-fail
    They're conservatives and they are suspicious of the Federal reserve using public money to bail out selected banks. All well and good.
    But how will launching a state crypocurrency backed by the US dollar help with that? It won't be legal tender because they're not allowed to issue non gold/silver legal tender under the constitution. And it will surely reflect the ever decreasing value of the dollar?
    So what's the advantage?

    1. 1.31 dollars to the pound today. Only a few months ago it was 1.25 so as you say, steadily weakening even against the pound, which can't exactly be strong? 1.18 Euros.

      1. or as DE crows.. Pound soars to 13-month high against US dollar with UK fastest growing G7 economy.

        Translation: The Fed hints at yesterday's FOMC meeting that rate cuts may happen before election (% down = US$ down = everything else up).. surprise surprise.. anything to make LibDems economics rosy.

      2. Gold is money, so the value of fiat currencies makes sense when you measure them against gold.
        Otherwise it's all the same debt based fractional fiat shyte.

          1. Direct from the Royal mint. Via a bullion dealer. From a jeweller perhaps. Try Hatton Garden? Abroad via a bullion dealer, eg in Austria where you can buy over the counter for cash , esp if you plan to store in that country. But be aware you can only take a small amount over the EU border, I think it’s 420 euros worth of precious metals, and a sov goes over that.
            If you watch one of the youtuber gold bugs, they recommend dealers. Delingpole recommends a UK one, and so does maneco64. Of course they are getting paid for the recommendations, but might be a place to start.

          2. Might also want to watch a few goldbug and silverbug videos, they talk about all kinds of relevant things.

    2. imho, the short answer is.. they don't really understand what's going on in the process of the digitisation of finance.
      their stablecoin is just a tokenised derivative of the US$.

      what is clear to me is.. in this very slow journey everything will be done on the terms of Gary Gensler & Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) unless you fancy doing jail time.

      if you try to go off piste like, say, Alexey Pertsev who developed a token cum platform that allowed people to keep their financial transactions slightly private.. then you'll be arrested anywhere in the world and given five years.

      We should all be aware that "everything", yes everything will be tokenised within the next two decades. Everything you say, think or do will involve the transaction of data esp when IOT is fully implemented.

      So Gary basically says that anyone that desires privacy or writes code for privacy will be not be tolerated. Two-tier Keir agrees.

      1. What did Pertsev create?
        Isn't Monero private? I suppose they do need a currency for drug deals…

        1. Tornado Cash.
          Tornado Cash hides the origin of Ethereum transactions by allowing users to deposit currency into common pools, where the funds are mixed together, thus obfuscating their origin. A bit like a food processor.

          IRS paid Chainalysis & Integra to trace obfuscated Monero wallet addresses and transaction amounts.

          1. Thanks. Did not know that. I don’t hold any monero, but was thinking about it.
            I also saw in passing one called something like pirate coin (daft name) which claimed to be more secure than monero.

      2. A hot topic in software at the moment is smart contracts. I have cryptography experience, and could earn a mint…building the digital prison. Can't bring myself to do it.

    3. "ever decreasing value of the dollar?"

      Since March 1971 we have floating exchange rates so that's pretty much meaningless. It's a beggar-thy-neighbour race to the bottom.. except that the USA is very much in control, and will have the largest economy this century and the next.. for better or for worse.

      1. I meant the ever decreasing real value (as measured by how much worthless bits of paper you have to hand over to get some real money, i.e. gold), not value compared to some other fiat crap.

    1. Starmer will support this edict as these views are only the Taliban's 'uman rights!

      Do not, though, hold your breath in seeing him extend this dictum to his deputy p.m. or the chancellor of the exchequer.

    3. This is 2024 AD, these people are so different from the west. What I can't understand is , that those who pay good money to escape, want to turn our countries into the same as they have left.
      Beats me!!

      1. They do not come to escape; they come to make the kuffar submit (islam = submission) and make the dhimmis pay jizya.

  40. "The day began with Elsie travelling to her home on Arundel Road via Liverpool Road from Birkdale village and passing Farnborough Road at around 9am, as confirmed by FJ Gibb Funeral Directors.
    Elsie’s family have encouraged parents and friends from Farnborough Road Primary School who wish to pay their respects to visit the school on the procession’s way to the church.
    Elsie’s family have asked that her funeral be referred to as “Elsie’s Special Day”."

    R.I.P. Elsie, Alice and Bebe.

  41. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUvBy0VMLDY&list=WL&index=37 This episode features Dr. Georgia Ede, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist specializing in mental health and the brain.

    Anyone genuinely interested in discovering why the human species is getting exponentially more stupid by the second, and why brain disease is on the increase, you would be well advised to listen to this doctor.

    After all, although the video is an hour-and-a-half in duration (much too long for the attention span of modern man); you would be stupid not to watch it.

      1. Short or long they all give out the same necessary — vital, crucial —message that the vast majority of humans eat crap and, as a direct result, continue to suffer from all manner of physical and metal illnesses and maladies.

        Few though, it seems, are interested in improving their physical or mental health and wellbeing.

        When will they ever learn?

  42. 392253+ up ticks,

    I am beginning to truly believe that the political treacherous job lot in "government"is brought to heel by whatever means necessary, and a provisional government consisting of veterans replaces them.

    Such is the situation currently that we MUST preempt them on many issues to survive in many cases.

    Here are some synonyms for the word "preemptive" which means to take action against something that's possible, anticipated, or feared:

    averting, defensive, discouraging, diversionary, protective, preventative, deterrence, disincentive, dissuasion, and obviation.

    The current politico's are streets in front of decent peoples and they are continuing to do an odious number on us that is totally evil,treacherous and unacceptable.

    1. Well, when you do remember that you wanted to go for the walk, not us. You did. Then, when you got half way and decided you didn't want to go any further we all had to troop home.

    2. The one in the background is like my red setter. When we went to Bognor he had what we call his "Canute moment" – the waves came in, he barked at them to go back and when they reached his paws, he ran away!

      1. I have taken Dolly to the beach a few times. She likes to sniff about but never goes near the water.

        1. Charlie didn’t like getting his feet wet. He refused to go anywhere near the waves when we walked along the beach at Caister. Kadi and Oscar didn’t go to the beach.

  45. Afternoon All
    Never in my life did i think when i read this in the 70's that it could become revelant to me in my lifetime in the UK
    What are we becoming…….
    "And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward."

    Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago

    1. "We didn't love freedom enough" could be Britain's epitaph. I think we will love freedom enough when the crunch comes, and we will survive. Not the Britons of the past of course, but hopefully the people who are ready to struggle alongside us against slavery. And, bitter pill though it may be, some of those people will be muslims.

      1. Our freedom wasn't given. It was stolen from us by the state. By a system we have no control over, that does as it pleases without bothering to refer to us. By, bluntly, a dictatorship.

    3. Edward Gibbon characterised the peoples the Romans failed to subdue as those who loved their freedom.

    2. Plenty of Irish remember the Troubles…how much as really changed? It's almost as though they're being goaded towards civil war.

    4. Are people in both Ireland and the UK beginning to wake up to the fact that we are being invaded and that the invaders wish us ill rather than good?

      https://www.kcl.ac.uk/suella-bravermans-talk-of-a-refugee-invasion-is-a-dangerous-political-gambit-gone-wrong

      "When someone hears the UK home secretary speaking about “stopping the invasion on our southern coast”, they might be forgiven for thinking Britain is at war. Suella Braverman’s description of refugees landing at Kent as an “invasion” is an unprecedented comment from a government minister speaking in parliament."

      How much longer can appeasement of the invaders be considered a plausible solution?

      1. 'How much longer can appeasement of the invaders be considered a plausible solution?'

        Right up until they cut your head off.

      2. The article is dated almost 2 years ago but there has been no let-up in very similar articled. The comments to the original article are by no means all in support of it – one of the most articulate and, in my view most balanced, responses is as follows:

        ”Hon Wai Lai
        In reply to Paul Hunt
        Comments to an earlier article were closed before I got the chance to reply to your previous comment. I’ll use this loosely related thread to respond to your point about ethno-nationalism. You wrote: “Ethno-nationalist, right-wing populism has surged in fits and starts in continental Europe. But it is now experiencing a resurgence in France, Italy, Sweden and in other states.”

        As I had highlighted in my previous comment, I do not think the nationalism seen in UK, USA and many European countries, in past couple of years is ethnocentric. Nationalism prioritises interests of the existing citizens, or of a subsection of the citizens sharing to varying degrees similar nationalistic sentiments, over prospective and recent migrants, both legal and illegal. This does not necessarily entail ethnocentrism. Nationalism should not be viewed as inherently problematic morally.

        Concerning the anti-immigration, anti-Islam and anti-multiculturalism stance expressed by French politicians Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour in recent years including during the 2022 French presidential election, while we can disagree with their policy prescriptions, they are responding to real problems in French society involving migrants or the second generation who failed to integrate creating ethno-religious ghettos in the cities. A small fraction of them hold views incompatible with the secular French Republic. In the past decade, there were numerous incidents of terrorist attacks in France committed by migrants, for example: https://www.dw.com/en/french-knife-attack-suspect-identified-as-chechen-teen/a-55310643 , https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210423-policewoman-fatally-stabbed-near-paris-french-pm-to-visit-site-of-attack , https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54581827 , https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/29/nice-church-attacker-identified-as-21-year-old-tunisian-man . The most shocking was the 2015 Paris attacks which killed 130 people and injured hundred: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2015_Paris_attacks .

        There are major problems integrating the mass numbers of asylum seekers into EU over the years, due to all sorts of cultural barriers. Listen to this interview ( https://www.hoover.org/research/prey-ayaan-hirsi-ali-relationship-between-immigration-and-sexual-assaults-europe) with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, presenting a perspective on mass migration into Europe the mainstream media tries to ignore or downplay (e.g. this atrocious Guardian article from 2016: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/08/cologne-attacks-hard-questions-new-years-eve; scroll down for the top readers’ comments). Also read her article focusing on the Swedish situation: https://unherd.com/2021/04/swedens-migrant-rape-crisis . Ayaan is a remarkable woman fluent in 6 languages, born in Somalia, suffered FGM as a young girl, sought political asylum in Netherlands in her 20s, elected MP in Dutch Parliament, before settling in USA. She received international attention as a critic of Islam and advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women. Her recent book talks about how the eruption of sexual violence and harassment in Europe’s cities is linked to the arrival of several million migrants – most of them young men – from Muslim-majority countries.

        Read the following reports and analyses on gang warfare in Sweden due to influx of migrants from Africa and Middle East countries: https://www.ft.com/content/67b9104d-f988-41d1-afb3-78f9baa579a5; https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/07/24/sweden-is-being-shot-up; https://bra.se/bra-in-english/home/publications/archive/publications/2021-05-26-gun-homicide-in-sweden-and-other-european-countries.html; https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/04/19/why-arent-we-talking-about-the-islamist-uprising-in-sweden/; https://archive.ph/ecLnm; “The Death of the Most Generous Nation on Earth”( https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/10/the-death-of-the-most-generous-nation-on-earth-sweden-syria-refugee-europe/) ”

      4. We practised appeasement in the thirties. That worked out well, didn't it? Unlike now, however, we did use the time to build up our defences.

      1. Slightly less stoopid than the Lefties like Charlotte O'Sullivan pushing the we love immigrants.. immigrants are welcome.. gig.

        So many grown ass men in this country, clinging to "blame the Immigrants" excuse, like a F**king life raft, for their own Failures in Life ! Many of them convicted criminals,most are unemployed and they all seem to share a sense of misery and bitterness ! #Irelandsrealproblem

        1. I’m not familiar with Charlotte O’Sullivan. My guess, an Irish lefty that would be happy to carry a Palestinian flag?

    1. We're told that a technocracy is run by experts. Their expertise rests in their ability to lie and steal.

  52. 12 hours after the storm .

    https://www.camsecure.co.uk/weymouth_esplanade_webcam.html

    Dry breeze, sunshine here and my pot plants need watering again .

    Idiot government has ruined millions of garden nurseries and potted plants with the daft idea that peat should not be used in plant pots ..

    Nursery gardeners are furious , they have to water their plants more frequently , and the daft supermarkets who sell plants end up with wilting plants so soon after watering .

    Moisture retainers are hopeless. Why in heavens name can the Welsh and the Irish and Scots cut peat for their own use , yet we here in England have to suffer from the climate change malarkey that dictates the rules .

    I give up.

    Think about it , all the wasted water and the water meter bills just to have a lovely cheerful display in summer and spring .. all because peat has been banned .

    1. Belle. You can buy Irish peat moss on eBay. One bale will last you a long time if you are just using it for pot plants.

    2. There are millions of tons in Poland they would be more than happy to supply us but ……………………….

    3. It all started in that motorcyclists had to wear crash helmets, and look were we are now.

  53. Sorry, another old saying…hairy side means a back handed slap. I had a tick bite a few years ago, developed into the bullseye shape which can supposedly be an indication of Lyme disease …hmm….had had it previously for which I was prescribed anti-biotics, so phoned surgery, wouldn’t see me, wouldn’t give me prescription, receptionist told to tell me to go to A&E which I duly did – packed and triaged as usual, so three hour wait then further wait chemist, only for nurse who saw me and took BP to say ‘it’s a bit high, have a rest’…..

    1. Of course it would be high! You were under a fair bit of stress!

      I remember some years ago, when I was in hospital awaiting surgery, my BP on the monitor was sky-high. The anaesthetist ( Indian) sat on the bed and said "My dear, if I was about to have what you're about to have, mine would be just the same".

      I found a great deal of variation when I was monitoring it this week- low in the morning, high in the afternoon, relax and take some deep breaths and it goes down. The video I watched recommended that you empty bowels and bladder first too. He also said most people don't do it right – and use the wrong arm!

      1. Seem to remember BP does rise naturally as the day progresses. Also seem to remember it’s something to do with flight or fight trigger. I believe there’s far too much info online – blogs/videos etc, all expert in something or other. Wrong arm eh…must remember that one 😀

        1. The doc online said it should be the left one, and supported, level with the heart. I did get better readings that way.

          2. I did eventually get a reply from the “Admin team” asking me to confirm my date of birth. Presumably so they can find my records.

          3. Good grief. A long way from when my GP recognised me instantly and addressed me by First (what was once called Christian) Name.

          4. Yes – my old GP even knew my voice if I phoned to say one of the boys was ill. Those days are long gone and all the original doctors in the practice have gone. When my OH was taken ill and I went with him, he was seen by a different one each time – they were all perfectly ok and professional, but it’s not the same. I haven’t needed a doctor since I had shingles five years ago so it’s not surprising they don’t know me.

          8. I knew about the arm being supported and level with the heart – patient should be sitting up straight as well – but it never mentioned which arm to use.

  54. 392253+ up tick,

    Little wonder they the tory (ino) party and co conspirators had to take UKIP, under the Batten leadership down, in one year they proved to be a successfully building party. ( OGGA1)

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021

    ·
    2h

    I don’t think they are trying to hide it.

    * Flood the country with millions of migrants from around the world
    * Destroy national identity & national loyalty
    * Crminalise any criticism of immigration policy or at least brand it ‘racist’ & ‘Islamophobe’
    * Create millions of new Labour voters to ensure permanent socialist government

    The destruction of nation states is vital to creating the New World Order. Marxist doctrine says everything of the old order has to be destroyed to make way for their Utopia.

    For decades the Tories & Labour have created unsolvable problems, & after 5 more years of Labour what will be left to salvage?

    1. The flaw in that plan every time it's tried is that the client underclass are entirely dependent on the state and when they become the majority, sooner or later the money runs out. Everyone who can moves out when that happens. The rest are stuffed.

  55. A Church of England primary school teacher was sacked over allegations of racism after referring to a group of pupils as “chattering monkeys”.

    Charlotte Moore, a Year 6 teacher at Trinity St Mary’s school in Chelmsford, Essex, claimed she was unfairly dismissed over the incident, which the police investigated for an alleged hate crime.

    An employment tribunal was told that parents complained about Moore after she made the comment while trying to quieten her class. Parents said her language represented a “very racist comment” in light of the class being “racially diverse”.

    There were also allegations that the “strict” teacher grabbed one pupil by the back of the neck and shook another, while “jokingly” threatening to shoot one of them if that pupil continued being disruptive.

    A police investigation into Moore’s alleged behaviour was dropped but school leaders sacked her for gross misconduct after determining that the monkeys comment was “serious because of the racial diversity in the class” and because it was perceived as racist by parents and pupils.

    Moore, who taught at the school for two years until 2023, sued the school but a tribunal in east London has dismissed her claim. It noted that in addition to the “monkeys” comment she had “told the class that they [were] getting on her nerves so much she wants to shoot herself or them”.

    Police officers opened a hate crime investigation and visited Moore at the school. But they closed their inquiries within days, officers saying they were “satisfied she used the phrase ‘chattering monkeys’ to the entire class and that this had been taken out of context and would not be considered a racial slur or hate crime”.

    But school officials investigated the other allegations, including that she caused one child pain and shook another. About half of the 30 children in the class were interviewed, with the tribunal noting that they described Moore as being “very strict”.

    Moore denied all the allegations, while accepting that she used the words: “You are like a bunch of chattering monkeys. Quieten down and get on with your work.” She rejected allegations that she had physically assaulted or threatened pupils and told the tribunal she often made “overly dramatic statements” to children in a “joking way”.

    Backing the school’s decision to sack the teacher, the tribunal judge, Suzanne Palmer, said the interviews conducted by school officials with pupils had “raised concerns about children feeling scared of Mrs Moore”. The judge said there were also concerns about the “way she expressed herself in the staff room”.

    Palmer said the school was “reasonably entitled” to take the view that it was “duty-bound to investigate because of its welfare responsibilities towards the children in its care”. However, she acknowledged the monkeys comment on its own was not a justifiable reason for dismissal.

    A school governor told the tribunal that comment was not the “sole incident” cited for the sacking.

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/teacher-sacked-after-calling-her-diverse-class-chattering-monkeys-3kjr572lh

    Comments were turned off

    1. So these people consider themselves akin to monkeys. Why find it offensive unless it's perceived as a reminder of something they acknowledge. I'm sure I've been called a daft cow in my lifetime. I don't see it as a suggestion that I'm actually bovine. A friend of mine refers to any child she holds in affection as "a cheeky monkey". It's a term of endearment.

      1. In the bad old days they used to throw bananas onto the football pitch and make monkey noises when a black player got the ball. Apparently black spectators enjoyed the joke and made their own jokes about honkies.

    3. The kids thought she was very strict? So what? Of course lots of children are going to object to a teacher enforcing focused discipline, especially at that age.

      "An employment tribunal was told that parents complained about Moore after she made the comment while trying to quieten her class. Parents said her language represented a “very racist comment” in light of the class being “racially diverse”". Maybe. However when you look at the world through the Wokeish racialized lens every situation potentially becomes racist. It was noted Robin DiAngelo, she of the charmingly titled White Fragility bought into and propagated this. When you are a hammer and all that. I remember Helen Pluckrose mentioning she was exhausted having to trawl though various Race Marxist texts researching her Cynical Theories book. Finding a blissful state of mental relief watching some kids TV with her child, where everything wasn't some horrific race struggle every minute.

      Here's the rub. It will be interesting to see how this sort of thing plays out if concepts like "White Privilege" and the rest of the Critical Race Theory (not a theory) racism works its way thoroughly into the school system.

      I notice Coleman Hughes in conversation with Dark Lord of Sith Jordan Peterson has just been published this week. Mr Hughes is very good on this sort of thing.

      1. When I was at school we did not do Comparative Religions or RE – we did Scripture.

        Bertie Wooster was not an academic scholar but he took pride in the fact that he won the prize for Scripture Knowledge when he was at prep school.

    2. The boy is right. He wants to have pride in his own culture and history. Self contempt is not a good thing to inculcate into young, white, Christian children

      That nature that condemn its origin
      Cannot be bordered certain in itself.

      [King Lear]

      Those who despise themselves and their antecedents are mentally defective.

    1. The wind has dropped to 11 mph here and it's 22°C but cloudy. Forecast for tomorrow is 17°C and wet. That's because I'm having my hair done in the morning. Sod's law an' all that.

      1. It is Sod's law Sue , I hardly slept a wink last night , wind battered the windows, and I do like the top window open , it felt very warm , the air was tropical .

        Washing drying on the line and R is playing golf near Studland with some mates .

        I managed to find some one to take our huge dining table away .. now the debate is , how to sort an unused cluttered dining room out .. Jack spaniel , who died last year , had several accidents , pee accidents on the carpet , and used one of the legs of the table , thick oak , pale oak, and heavy table legs , we scrubbed the legs down and sandpapered them but the carpet has retained an odour .

        Now that Pip is getting older he has also had an occasional splash , so now the table is out of the way perhaps the problem will be solved .

        Carpet needs cleaning , again , and I might look for a rug on line to put over the area, because if we buy new carpets , the same might happen again .

        Nothing is ever easy.

          1. That would be just 'your' North of England, Tom. I have what my husband refers to as 'Yarkshire'….

          7. Didn't the Kingdom of Northumbria stretch from the Humber up to the Firth of Forth? Literally, north fo the Humber.

          8. It did Sue, and ocassionally acros to the Clyde. I’ve read that Edinburgh is named after an Edwin, king of Northumbria.

          11. From Chesterfield, I'm an old Northumbrian.
            Them lot down in Derby (who talk funny) are Mercians.

          13. The boundary between 'The North' and 'The Midlands' goes through Clay Cross (Dennis Skinner's birthplace) in mid-Derbyshire.

            Above that, people speak with a Northern accent ["Ayup, me duck", "I'll tell thee what", "'Ow do", etc]. Below there, people speak with a Midlands dialect ["dunna" (don't), "wunna" (wouldn't), "canna" (can't), "munna" (mustn't), etc].

            I'm from Chesterfield and I am NORTHERN. People from Derby are Midlanders.

          1. Actually Derbyshire is very pleasant with towns like Buxton, Bakewell, Matlock and Glossop amongst others.

            A visit to Chesterfield is worth it just to see the twisted spire!

          6. It was impressive, I thought. I expect we did go to the stepping stones, but it was rather a long time ago, now! I was there in the early 1960s. I chiefly remember the hillsides were very steep.

        1. No, no, no, no, no…..Yorkshire is the entire North of England, with a bit of Scotland loosely attached….

        3. Birmingham is my home town and my place of residence. Its geographic location is not subject to dispute – the midlands.

          1. A war? A war? Nothing as trivial as that, It started as a cricket match between Yorkshire County Cricket Club and Lancashire County Cricket Club which took place at the border town of Whalley near Blackburn in 1867. Yorkshire won by 5 wickets. Coming to be known as the War of the Roses match, this particular rivalry is deep seated in every true Northerner.

        2. I was born in Derbyshire and my mother's family, mainly, hailed from Derbyshire; but my father, and his family, were from Yorkshire.

        1. I once did a DNA test, Yorkshire didn't figure, plenty Scandinavian, some French, some Russian, other odd bits, ill-defined…

      5. The Ram of Derby? He certainly likes to ram home his views on carnivorous diets and the abysmal decline in the intelligence of people who do not share his views!

        1. The five basic laws of human stupidity.

          Law 1. Everyone always and inevitably underestimates the number of stupid people in circulation.

          Law 2. The probability that a person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

          Law 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or group of people when he or she does not benefit and may even suffer losses.

          Law 4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the destructive power of stupid individuals.

          Law 5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

          My next chore is to research the five basic laws of the overbearingly pretentious snob.

          1. Awww. Come on Grizz. Plenty of room for everyone. Being a head of a public school and owning yachts doesn't a snob make.
            Just because there are academics on here doesn't give you the right to force pork pies on them.

            This site with people like Geoff, John, Rastus, Rik, and many others have made me a better person. Not counting any of the ladies in that as they are all mad…. I give you exhibit A…Anne Allan.

          4. Who says I'm criticising anyone?

            When Mrs Allan comes for you, I may not jump in front of her to prevent a castration … tha' knows?

          9. There would be strong resistance if he were to force pork pies on me. Pork upsets my digestion. Hence no sausages except beef and only very occasionally bacon.

          10. He’s just showing off because they haven’t heard of proper food in the Netherlands. They eat all sorts of weird stuff they pick up off the forest floor. :@)

    2. Socialists loathe people who are independently-minded and self-sufficient.

      Those who run their own small businesses have to have these characteristics or their business will fail.

      Therefore socialist governments will do what they can to wipe out small businesses. The horror is that the pathetic Conservative Party was not remotely supportive of small businesses and the sooner it is completely dead the better.

      The majority of people who run small businesses were in favour of Brexit they were betrayed on all sides.

      1. CP going to get a very large wake-up call in forthcoming locals, Rastus. Either that or die in a ditch…

  60. "This country is capable of creating an . . ."

    This government couldn't wipe its own Rse without a union lacky with a fat brown envelope and a copy of the Guardian/Telegraph/Times.

    1. This government (I think the country – i e the people – probably could, except for the diversity) couldn't FIND its own arse in the first place.

    1. Badlands !

      I'm happy with being, as Grizz calls me…a poncy Southerner.
      We still use cutlery down here you know…

      1. Perfect description of my husband….:-D Cutlery? cutlery? we have whitebread up 'ere' (he loves George Whitebread character, especially My Little Pony/Bulldog chewin' a wasp….but most of all 'Ahve BIN ter Leeds'……don't talk ter me about serfisticashun……..

      2. When I first came to live darn sarth, in 1975, a young lass from the East End asked me if we all live inside the city walls in York. She was serious so naturally I said yes, we do and we shoot Londoners with bows and arrows from the ramparts.

        1. I went the other way. In 1982 i went to Birmingham and lived there for five years. My age group who i socialised with all thought i was posh. My accent is close to Pompey and also London East End. Perhaps it was the way i annunciated rather than drag my vowels.

          I have quite successfully managed to prank a few on here. Geoff, John and Oberst at least once. They are more wary now…dammit !

          2. I whiled away my time with a local Theatre Group from the last bastion of Englishness in the city. Let rooms to poor unsuspecting English students from Aston University and spent their rent on debauchery as any landlord should.
            I did feed them though…Tea and toast included in the rent and a Sunday roast which i charged a £1 surplus.
            They came back each year of their course because there was nothing better. They even got to sit in the garden free of charge. Though i missed a trick there i think. I also allowed them to bring friends home for the night though i know not what for. And…. they were all treated as friends and family when i had my garden parties. Again. No charge.

          3. My Mum and Dad took in mature students from Norway, who were at Newcastle university doing English as a foreign language. They were all absolutely charming and we have remained in touch with them all. The one in 1983 was called Vera and came to our wedding! They were part of the family and we always went to the Norwegian National day celebrations, and Mum did a pre-Christmas party for them before they went home for holidays!

        3. A family of friends, here in southern Sweden, went on holiday to Australia. The daughter told us that Aussie males asked her, "Do you have electricity yet, in Sweden?" and "Do you get polar bears in your garden?"

          This, coming from a country that did not have its own television service prior to 1960.

      3. Your 'suvvern cutlery' as you call it has been declared illegal and has to be surrendered to the police.

        From 24 September, it will be illegal to own zombie-style knives and machetes as they will be added to the list of dangerous prohibited items already banned, including zombie knives, butterfly knives, Samurai swords and push daggers.

        1. I have no idea what a butterfly knife is, but my samurai sword is going nowhere (for now anyway…)

      5. "We still use cutlery down here you know…"

        Shame you don't know how to hold them properly.

    1. That's really something….reminds me of the Icelandic Sagas I read some years ago, not an easy read.

    2. Caused by driving petrol/diesel cars and eating meat. All non-electric cars to be confiscated and all butchers shops to be burnt to the ground.

    3. "Descend into the crater of Yocul of Sneffels, which the shade of Scartaris caresses, before the kalends of July, audacious traveller, and you will reach the centre of the earth. I did it."
      Arne Saknussemm.

    4. Where is the Swedish Muppet? She should be "demanding" that all volcanoes be closed down.

  63. ISIS fanatics having a fun day in Russian jail cutting guard's throat and taunting Putin..

    Buckle up. Expect a similar incident any time soon. Let's face it, there's nothing for them to fear.
    2TK is actively encouraging them.

  64. A parasitic Birdie Three?

    Wordle 1,161 3/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Good one. Par for me.

      Wordle 1,161 4/6

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

    3. Ohyou are good.

      another par for me
      Wordle 1,161 4/6

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

    4. You're on a good roll.
      A ruddy bogie here.

      Wordle 1,161 5/6

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

  65. Jeremy Clarkson has revealed the first person banned from his new pub is Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

    When asked if Starmer would be invited to the radio, he told Times Radio: "No, he's banned. Actually, he's the first person to be banned. He's actually on a board in the hall, he's banned."

      1. I was recommended “Clarkson’s Farm” on Amazon Prime and watched the first episode fully expecting it to be the last. However, it hooked me for the three series. Yes, he does grandstand and posture but he also makes some very good points and I think that he has done a great deal of good for British farmers. He is one of the few TV personalities who isn’t woke. I think that his claim that the PM is banished from his pub is probably genuine and certainly more credible than the wokerati that hold signs saying “Refugees welcome here” but always find an excuse why “here” is not their own area or home.

        1. Saw some episodes of Series 1, and was impressed at how well he put across how much work there is in farming – literally dawn to dusk – for so little financial reward. It matched with what I learned as an 18-year-old, working on my mate's farm. I didn't then see the financial side, but do now – just because the farmer lives in a big house doesn't mean he could afford to buy it, or even choose to buy it – the old houses would also accommodate seasonal workers.
          Firstborn's smallholding has a "summerhouse" that was temporary accommodation for seasonal workers when it was built, about 150 years ago. Problem is, the timbers are rotten, we're looking at a complete rebuild.

  66. That's me gone. Signing off early. Rain expected tomorrow according to the Wet Office. So I'll make a loaf, instead of tree work.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    2. See you then, Bill, have a lovely evening yourself. Just been reading a piece re sourdough (Rod Liddle) is that by any chance one of your specialities?

          1. It is OK, but a pain-in-the-arse to maintain the damned starter.

            I much prefer a decent pain-de-campagne which is just as flavourful but much easier to make.

          2. Yes, easier starter, easier eater (although long time since I made it….) Did I ask you if you do postal…..think you replied in the negative…:-))

          5. It's extremely annoying. When I was making Kombucha, so was everyone else. I still have an array of Scobis in the freezer. Same with sour dough. Once you've made your starter culture, you need to maintain it. It is like a chain letter, or a culinary Ponzi scheme. and yet another source of extreme anxiety

      2. lol I started a sourdough culture a few weeks back when the family went away, using a garden apple. I’ve made two loaves to date and it’s really nice. Just like normal bread, really. But I use normal strong white flour as the bulk of the flour.

        1. Yes I think a good idea to use strong white, likely not as dense a loaf. Also seems a good idea to keep starter (in fridge) if you’re going to bake regularly – fab!

          4. …what's not to like?

            Er… diabetes? Sorry Paul. As noted above, I do occasionally produce a "sourfaux" loaf and freeze the slices. Since they mostly comprise of holes, toasting them can be tricky, but the current toaster at least allows me to raise the slices in order to view the degree of toastiness. And a couple of units of insulin suffice. Plus three for the porridge…

        2. While it's a few months since my last loaf, I cheat. My Panasonic "Croustina" breadmaker came with a 'sourdough' 'sourfaux' recipe. No need to endlessly nurture a starter. Merely mix (very strong) flour, water, balsamic vinegar, yeast, sugar and wait for twelve hours. Sometimes less. Add around half of the result to more flour, a bit of yeast, sugar and salt, plus some water, select the 'lean' setting, and eight hours later, a most agreeable light and crusty loaf emerges. I give it 12 or so hours to 'dry out' a bit, then put it through the rotary food slicer (I've learned the hard way to be careful with my fingers), and into the freezer. There's enough starter for two 500 g loaves, so I tend to do one white, and one granary…

  67. In my view this is disgraceful.
    Imagine the outcry if similar was was done to other groups.
    Britain is utterly wrecked.

    Hundreds of people have appeared in court over the past fortnight following the far-right riots that swept the UK.

    Yobs attacked strangers in the streets, targeted asylum hotels and assaulted police officers in disgraceful scenes fuelled by lies peddled online.

    Dozens have since been convicted of crimes for their roles in the mayhem.

    MailOnline has collated the details of some of the thugs who have been sentenced including their mugshots, what they were convicted of, and how long they have been sent away for.

    You can filter the graph by incident location, allowing you to see who was convicted in connection with riots near you.

    Some people have also been slapped with tough sentences for posting online with hateful content writing to encourage violence. To search for these people, filter the location by 'Online'.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13773209/faces-rioters-picture-gallery-thugs-convicted-violent-disorder-UK.html

    1. Gosh, just imagine they ran a similar interactive graph about men convicted of being in rape gangs! Good thing they reserve public scorn and shaming for really serious crimes isn't it.

          1. At least we know "who ate all the pies". That one is probably mp by now. Big pies.

        1. Umm, shame before expenses, expenses before shame, who are you kidding, we're Labour.

      3. Remember, the Labour hierarchy and old bill wrote these poor kids off as dare I say " white trash" who deserved no more than to be drugged and raped by those who can't be named.
        That's what Labour think of their own. What do you wonder, do they think of conservative white trash?

    2. “Far right riots” my arse. Legitimate protests; undoubtedly stirred up by Plod and antiFa (sic). A tame media, twisting of language. Now we are all brainwashed into thinking they were riots. But not like the BLM riots or the 2011 riots or any other proper riots that we’ve had. Much less than the Hareshill riot which took place just a few days before. It makes me downright angry.

      2. As with all such protests, some took it upon themselves to throw bricks and stones, smash windows and loot shops. Whatever the grievance, it loses legitimacy when expressed in that fashion.

        1. Unless, of course, these were agents infiltrated to discredit the protests. I have become so cynical these days I wouldn't put anything past the PTB.

        2. You just need one or two agents provocateurs to make the rest look violent, thuggish and illegitimate. Which is what I believe happened here.

    3. The state has promoted the exposure of its enemies by providing the MSM with photos and names. This is akin to putting people in the stocks, something I would approve of in general, but a practise that is long gone (until now). We all know how upperty the slammers can get if they think they have been wronged, now they have names and can find addresses. Shocking but deliberate.

      1. The state will have blood on its hands. I hope they all rot in hell, and soon.

        Anyway that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to say all my Prodigals are fast asleep. Bless! I was amazed they lasted this long. I am going to open a bottle of wine and enjoy the sun. I expect there will be some wide-awake people early tomorrow!

    4. Reminds me of another publication from another age.
      The DM vying to become 2TK’s Pravda?
      People need to remember this when the DM fails to publish the other side of the coin.

        1. Exactly.
          BBC Points West are following the same agenda, on air now
          I look forward to the same diligence being shown for the St Paul’s Carnival and the Colston Statue being thrown into the harbour incidents.

  68. 392253+ up ticks,

    Did I hear righ,t the political overseers are going to release those prisoners that have completed 40 % of their sentence to free up thousands of prison cells.

    If so that would be the mafia dept. of the yard. and
    that would be a great incentive to seriously re-offend in the future.

    Todays political tactics are, first create a problem then rhetorically solve it with NO ACTION taken.

  69. BBC used paedophile drivers for 30 years

    In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, victim Alex Cook speaks out for the first time

    Investigations team
    23 August 2024 • 5:55pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/08/23/TELEMMGLPICT000390914036_17244246858160_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq-IWLY18X4-CzgyIcjLEAj0k9u7HhRJvuo-ZLenGRumA.jpeg?imwidth=680
    A convicted paedophile, Niven Sinclair, was paid millions of pounds to run a chauffeur service for the BBC

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/23/bbc-used-paedophile-drivers-30-years/

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

    Green Fly
    11 MIN AGO
    It could only be the BBC – and yet it's the faultless GBNews they're trying to have shut down…

    Rebecca Harris
    1 MIN AGO
    And why would the Beeb be using such drivers? Is the can of worms finally opening (a few worms eg Savile and Edwards, have already slithered their way into the daylight)
    This will and should be the end of the BBC if what I fear has been happening proves to be core

    A Abc
    8 MIN AGO
    Just shut down this sick, sick organisation.
    It's abundantly clear to ANYONE that has been paying attention over the years that senior BBC staff have been both in on paedo circles, and providing cover for them.
    It's always been apparent that it's an organisation that harboured a disproportionate number of people with 'unorthodox' sexual appetites.
    Shut it down! This has gone on for long enough.

    1. A story from the Midlands where taxi companies were paid hundreds of thousands of £'s to transport a few special needs children to school. No one seems to be prosecuted for these massive frauds and just like Tower Hamlets someone convicted of election fraud becomes an official in the local administration.

      1. Oi! I'm entertaining tomorrow.

        Starter: Small slices of bruschetta with a dollop of guacamole, each topped with a large prawn.
        Main: Fish pie (with béchamel sauce, cod, salmon, more prawns, parsley, hard-boiled eggs, and a cheesy mash.
        Pudding: Apfelstrudel with clotted cream.

        Prep work starts a.m.

          6. Blimey.
            I looked at the recipe for creating clotted cream; thought of the potential fuel bills and …. bought a tub of it.

          7. Heat the oven to 160ºC. Then switch it off.

            Place a dish of double cream within (preferably at 10 p.m.) Close the oven door and DO NOT OPEN IT. Keep it in overnight for 12 hours. The residual heat will turn the cream clotted overnight. Next morning, you scoop off a corner of the delicious stuff, then pour the remains of the un-clotted cream underneath into a jug for use in your mashed spuds.

        2. Oh deary deary me…You can't source any of those ingredients where you live. Why not just order in chicken nuggets?

        4. Starter: Small slices of bruschetta bristles with a dollop of guacamole, mushy peas each topped with a large raw prawn.

    2. "BBC used paedophile drivers for 30 years…"

      Shirley non-nonces would fail the Beeb's job interview?

      [Do the 'nons' in 'non-nonce' cancel each other out to make a 'once'?]

        1. I wonder who was on the interview panel for Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris, Paul Gadd, Jonathan King, Stuart Hall … ?

  70. After a quick shop at Morrisons, I've had a pleasant drive along the B6318 to Chollerford where I've stopped for a tea.
    Then, after a pause for a bit of a snooze, to Bellingham and then to Falstone.
    Currently in the Pheasant Inn at Stannersburn.

    1. Owned by my second-cousins cousin! The Kershaws?
      Edit: Actually my Dad’s cousin Anne’s cousin!

      1. https://www.thepheasantinn.com/assets/cache/images/content/about-us/pheasant_inn_northumberland_aboutus_1-400x-0af.jpg
        About Us
        Our story so far…
        A family run establishment, The Pheasant Inn has been in the Kershaw family since 1985.

        Dating back to around the mid 1600s, the inn was orignally a farmhouse which was at the hub of the community. People often gathered here socially, welcomed by the farmer and his family. Over time it became known locally as 'The Crown Inn' as the royal mail was delivered here.

        In 1985 The Crown Inn, was a rather run down country pub in need of some TLC. Walter and Irene Kershaw fell in love with the place and subsequently worked hard to restore and transform the premises.

        The Pheasant Inn was born!

        1. Unfortunately Irene died last year, but Walter soldiers on. I saw him (at a funeral🙄) in November. His son and daughter in law do a great job!

        1. Indeed, Geoff! Although when BoB said he was going to Falstone, I guessed he’d be going to the Pheasant! It’s a lovely place.

  72. Cmon Starmer.. double down..

    drop all charges against Fahir and Amaad Amaas..
    invite Anthony Esan onto Strictly..
    name a tube line after Mustafa al Mbaidan..

    up the ante.. rub their noses in diversity, you know you're dying to.

    1. I bet they are all straining at the bit awaiting the opportunity to inflict more damage on the people they know who hate them.

  74. I note that a number of ex-Speccies are not here today.
    If I'm the reason, I apologise.
    But a word to the wise:
    If replying to my posts aggressively do not be surprised if I bite back.

    1. If you mean me, sos, I am not nor was I aggressive. Just had hurt feelings, but have got over it now.

      1. Sometimes….Certainly after the cork has popped. Time to step back on this site.
        Please don't be offended. Be offended when done stone cold sober.

        I think i might need to rethink that one………………………………………… :@)

        The last thing we want here is for new people to leave.

          1. The newbies just have to work out wether they are on GMT or some other time. At least then they would know to close the shutters to avoid the bats. :@)

    2. Perhaps they don't know you as i do. I could offer them an antivenom!

      People have been brutalised for years and it is a point i have raised earlier that ordinary folk who have never said or posted rude words are now spitting nails.

          2. Nice.

            I only desecrate blended whisky with coca cola. So many of my Nottler guests think i am so wonderful they bring me Malts and bottles of Champagne…the fools !
            Ebay here i come….

          3. Oi! Tobermory isn't blended. Yours was half of a "package deal" from Amazon. The other bottle was Ledaig 10 yo. Which I retained. It's good, but I much prefer the 18 yo, I'll be watching Ebay carefully… 🙂

    3. I would also point out that most of the influx of ex-Specs are mostly owls, whereas Nottlers seem to be relentless larks.

          4. Sadly!
            Although it's actually changed in a direction that would have been much better for me.
            De Coubertin will be spinning in his grave

          5. I think the rationale was that some participants were such bad riders it wasn't fair on the horses.

          6. The draw of a random horse was not a good idea.

            I competed in the UAU national championships and the horse I drew was essentially unrideable. Everyone one who got it failed to score, and when the complaints went in the owners couldn't get it around the course either.

            Our worst rider drew a different horse and scored a clear round.

          9. Never been that good nor that competitive (although I did enjoy taking part in low level local competitions and did like winning) – but I really do (did – no longer up to it) enjoy preparing youngsters for better and more competitive riders to bring on. When I was little I was sort of "in demand" to ride show ponies for professional producers as I didn't have my own pony and was a quite neat little rider and in the right age group.

            The main thing I love about racing (and part-owning racehorses) is going to the gallops and seeing the enthusiasm of the horses and their education, whether they succeed or fail on the track- knowing that they are well treated and given the best chance.

            The few horses I now have here are old codgers like me and the dogs.

          10. Conway may well be the best rider on the blog, now that Nagsman is no longer with us.

            I’ve ridden former racehorses and the sensation of the creature going from walk into canter and thence full gallop in what seems like a few strides beats any fairground ride or sportscar by a mile.

          15. Shakespeare is credited with inventing circa 400 new words . Me just a few my favourite one being Fupt in 1975….

          16. Not recently, unfortunately. The garden has had to take precedence. It was becoming too junglesque.

          18. I see yours and raise you an orchard, a veg plot, a soft fruit patch, a herb garden, two lawns, a shrubbery, a rose garden and several herbacious borders.

          19. OK. You win. The back garden of my retirement bungalow stretches (according to Surrey Interactive Map) to 0.02 Acres.

            2/3 of which I've re-turfed. 1/3 comprises a former greenhouse base, an uneven "patio" and a small portion of weeds.

            Since I know my limitations where paving is concerned (when I had feet), I aim to install 6 x 2.4 metres of composite decking in the not too distant future. I have adjustable plastic joist bearers already.

            The 'weedy' bit is somewhat invaded by honeysuckle roots. My long term aim is to turn this bit over to vegetables. I've just replaced a fence panel. Plus anti-squirrel spikes, since the blighters have been launching from the fence to my bird feeding station. I may be winning this battle. 🙂

          20. I didn't mention the greenhouse and seating areas (1 greenhouse and 4 seating areas) and area outside the kitchen 🙂

          24. Geoff said he was winning the battle so presumably. I've never tried them. I don't feed the birds; I have lots of shrubs with berries instead.

          25. Take a wild guess. I have a bird feeding station in the garden. The goldfinches have buggered off, but the tits (blue and great) keep coming.

            The jackdaws, pigeons (wood or otherwise) and the occasional magpie seem happy. Occasionally, a squirrel will leap from the adjacent fence to take food from the bird feeders. I've fixed plastic spikey things to the fence to discourage this. Along with a squirrel baffle on the feeding station itself…

          26. We have no means of deterring squirrels (except husband with gun, which is not allowed). They have moved into the loft, also. There is a self-seeded tree outside my bedroom window which they use for access (noisy). They are really very entertaining, Said tree also has revolving shifts of long-tailed tits, goldfinches, firecrests, coaltits and so much more.

          29. Geoff. Hate to break this to you but the squirrels are more intelligent than you. I can just imagine them watching your efforts and giggling.

          30. You're right, Phil. Overnight, they broke into the house, stole my 18V drill, and unscrewed all the squirrel spikes from the fence. Obviously Democrats.

      4. Fair comment. I'm a lark, insofar as I;m up before six and posting the new page before seven. But I rarely return before 9 pm. So I can miss some important stuff, despite being a moderator.

        1. My Lord Nottler

          For us, you can Walk On Water without knowing where the steppings stones are

        2. All of my best jokes………………wasted. >>>>>sobs…crawls into a corner….with a bottle of Tobermory.

          I feel better now !

    6. Not noticed. I spend less time here, too. I scroll past a lot – I never used too – much of it repetitious. Wordle, scroll. Recipes, scroll. War, scroll. Politics, scroll. USA, scroll. UKIP, scroll. Wildlife, scroll. Plants, scroll. Religion, scroll. Architecture, scroll. That's off the top of my head. Scrolling past whatever else is posted that no longer interests me doesn't leave much. Whatever keeps me here is mostly habit.

      1. Given this forum is supposed to based on the Letters page which is often more vapid than my posts. What would interest you to not scroll?
        I would like to add to that comment and i have stated it before, your comments tend to logically rebut quite a few outlandish posts in a way that is really needed here.

    1. Not quite the same, but I cleanly caught a rugby ball that had been kicked into the stands on a day when wind and rain were playing havoc and every other high ball was being dropped and passes were being fumbled.

      A chant went up:

      "send him on, send him on."

      1. My Greek nephew did that at Murrayfield when I took him and the girls for the first time! His cousins were most impressed!

  76. Evening, all. Been a dirty stop out today (although I did work in the garden before the hairdresser came to cut my hair and then I went to look at cars). The gardener I engaged several months ago to help with various projects texted me this morning to ask if I would be in. Fat chance! You have to make an appointment to ensure I'll be available (not joking; my diary is very full). If and when he does finally materialise, he'll find that most of the projects I wanted help with have now been completed. I'll let him cut my hedge, though; I haven't got around to that yet. Pretty much everything else is near completion and I'll carry on and finish it myself. I can't work like that; I don't have that sort of garden to be neglected for months and roll up when it's convenient. I need to keep on top of it all the time on a regular basis.

    As for the headline letter writer – words fail me! What planet is he/she/they/ze on? Certainly not the one where we've got a government (plus opposition) that wants to rid itself of inconvenient voters.

    1. Regarding your gardener i would suggest you tell him the things you would like done and leave him to it. He should at least know when to do certain jobs at different times of the year. Though it depends on the size of your estate i suppose. Some Nottlers live in Castles !

      1. I told him what I wanted done when he came to look at the garden. He agreed. Then he disappeared. He’s been doing other work. If he does eventually materialise he’ll find that most of the things I said needed doing have now been done – by me. I’ve just purchased an industrial strength shredder/chipper/mulcher to get rid of all the prunings. The council will find that I’m not going to submit and pay them to empty my green bin. If enough people do that, they might realise the error of their ways. I intend to become ungovernable.

        1. I think the council will just view it as one less thing they need to do. Hence the charges. I have an abandoned railway embankment behind me so i can just chuck all the garden trimmings up there.

          1. They have spaffed so much money on white elephants and other cr@p that they have a black hole in the finances. This is their way of making it up, charging for services which are not a statutory duty. They will still be collecting the recycling which they did at the same time as the green bins.

  77. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    The cracks are appearing in Putin’s relationship with China
    Ian Williams22 August 2024, 2:04pm
    Relations between China and Russia are going from strength to strength – or so they say. In reality, the strain is beginning to show. ‘Against the backdrop of accelerating changes unseen in a century, China is willing to further strengthen multilateral coordination with Russia,’ said Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency after a meeting on Wednesday in Moscow between premier Li Qiang and Vladimir Putin. Far more intriguing, though, was what wasn’t said, and which suggests a growing tensions in their ‘no limits’ partnership.

    First there were the cyber spies. A few days before Li arrived in Russia, Kaspersky, a Moscow-based cyber security company, suggested that Chinese state-linked hackers had targeted dozens of computers belonging to Russian tech companies and state agencies. Kaspersky dubbed the espionage campaign EastWind, and while not explicitly blaming China (precise attribution is always tricky), it said that the tools used were associated with Chinese groups. The US has suggested that Kaspersky is linked to Russian intelligence, which the company strongly denies, but the timing of the report – indeed its very existence – is intriguing, given Putin’s increasingly dictatorial control of Russia.

    China is now barely bothering to treat Moscow as an equal
    Then there is the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline project, once hailed as a centrepiece of their burgeoning economic relationship and designed to carry 50 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year from the Yamal region in northern Russia to China, by way of Mongolia. Although conceived more than a decade ago, it has taken on a new urgency for Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine, with the Kremlin eager to double gas sales to China. It wants to compensate for the loss of sales to Europe, which used to take around 80 per cent of Russian gas exports. The pipeline project has been bogged down in bickering over the price of the gas and who will pay for construction, with Beijing taking a very hard line. It was not mentioned in the bland communique this week and now appears to be dead.

    Russian nationalists were irked last year when Beijing decreed that vast areas of Russia’s Amur region and its Far East, snatched from the Qing Dynasty by Tsarist Russia during the nineteenth century, would henceforth be referred to on Chinese maps by their former Chinese names. Hence Vladivostok became Haishenwai, or Sea Cucumber Cliff. This has played to Russian paranoia about its thinly populated and economically deprived border regions being subsumed by China, with some nationalists suggesting that Beijing’s tactic is to bide its time until Russia collapses.

    Premier Li, China’s second ranking official behind President Xi Jinping, said bilateral relations had reached an ‘unprecedentedly high level’. Yet there was no direct mention of the Ukraine war, though Li’s meeting with Putin came amid Ukraine’s audacious snatching of land in the Kursk region – the first occupation of Russian territory since the second world war, and just a few hours before Russia repelled one of Ukraine’s largest ever drone attacks on the Russian capital.

    Last month, Nato accused China of being a ‘decisive enabler of Russia’s war’ by providing equipment, microelectronics and tools for the Kremlin’s war machine. As the war has ground on, Moscow has become increasingly dependent on China economically and diplomatically. Beijing has effectively underwritten the aggression with sharply increased trade, cushioning Putin from Western sanctions. The value of two-way trade in 2023 hit a record $240 billion (£182 billion), with half of Russia’s oil and related petroleum exports going to China.

    Beijing and Moscow increasingly define their relationship in terms of opposition to Western democracies – and to the US in particular. They share deep-seated resentments and a vision of restoring imperial greatness. Their joint military drills are increasingly complex and geographically widespread, with one recent naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman joined by Iran. After Moscow, Li was going on to Belarus, with whose army Chinese troops last month conducted joint exercises close to the border with Poland.

    All of this is deeply troubling. Two factors in particular though are becoming increasingly apparent and were underlined by Li’s visit to Moscow: first is that for all the bland commitments to ‘inject strong momentum’ into the relationship, China is now barely bothering to treat Moscow as an equal. Beijing is calling the shots. Secondly, despite a shared loathing of the West – and the marriage of convenience this has created – the fault lines in the relationship are never far from the surface.

    1. We've family friends who live along the route. They said initially it was ok, but now it's just hell. Has been for 30 years. They live in a lovely 5 bed house over 3 floors and can't get close to the expected asking price. Yes, they're being picky and want a family buyer rather than a business/man.

      They're trapped or have to heavily compromise.

      1. The crime is a bonus at Notting Hill, but all these music festivals are hell for local residents. Jammed/closed streets and no sleep for the duration.

        1. If it were in any way a civilised festival those people who live along the route could make a great deal of money in going off somewhere sunny and renting out their homes/properties.

          But it isn't in any way civilised is it.

          I wonder how long it will be before front line police start stringing up their bosses. Those same bosses who play down all the savage behaviour that is becoming a daily event.

          Manchester episodes one and two and counting.

    1. I’ve been to Auschwitz Birkenau. Most of the fashionable minorities today who wallow in fake victimhood will do exactly what the NSDAP did when given half a chance.

        1. Nazi is one of those words that’s become devalued through misuse. I had to look it up too, to get the letters right!

    2. One of the Kibbutzim (Lohamei HaGeta'ot) I worked in when I went to Israel had a holocaust museum on it, and many of the older kibbutzniks were Auschwitz survivors. I was naive at the time, and didn't even understand the significance of their tattoos. It is unbearable even to think about this, and yet the Left seem set on sending us all there again

      1. Some years ago, my wife and I spent a few nights at a kibbutz on the shores of the Dead Sea. The first night, we went into the communal dining room where there was a long queue of German tourists. Immediately in front of us was a kibbutznik in field clothes and carrying, as did all the kibuutzniks, a rifle. He turned to us and said in a broad East London accent “Trust the bloody Germans to get to the front of the queue first”.

  81. Shout me down by all means, but if militant Islam eventually does conquer the world…

  83. RFK Exposes DNC Corruption, Suspends Campaign, Backs Trump In Battleground States

    FRIDAY, AUG 23, 2024 – 08:05 PM
    The 2024 presidential election race is about to take its next unexpected turn…

    “Democrats have become the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big ag, and big money wanting to abandon democracy by canceling the primary to conceal the cognitive decline of the sitting president.
    I left the party to run as an independent…
    The DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for VP Harris based upon nothing. No policies, no interviews, no debates. Only smoke and mirrors.”
    "A Chicago circus that is based on NOTHING. Who needs a policy if you hate Donald Trump?"

    "How did the Democratic Party choose a candidate that has never done an interview or debate during the entire election cycle?" Kennedy asked.
    "We know the answer: They did it by weaponizing the government agencies. They did it by abandoning democracy. They did it by suing the opposition and by disenfranchising American voters. What most alarms me isn't how the Democratic Party conducts its internal affairs or runs its candidates. What alarms me is the resort to censorship and media control and the weaponization of the federal agencies."

    Starts at 1hour 02 minutes into the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8jRnvK5W4M&t=1s

  84. Home from church. Sung Eucharist on the Eve of the Feast of St Bartholomew. Also the anniversary of the massacre of the Huguenots. Well attended and bubbly in the cloister afterwards. I’d stay if I lived closer.

  85. anyone? Or am I even later than usual.
    Wordle 1,161 4/6

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

    1. Also posted earlier.

      Wordle 1,161 4/6

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

    2. Better than me.

      Wordle 1,161 5/6

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

  86. Well, chums, it's time for me to go to bed. Good Night, sleep well, and see you all tomorrow.

  87. (Apologies if it's already been discussed…)

    Crack down on racist hate speech, UN tells UK
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgl21053rdzo

    I agree. It would be good to go through a day without hearing a report from a public organisation declaring that the world was blessed with peace, love and brotherly understanding until the English stepped abroad. However, that's not what the UN is talking about.

    The sheer ****ing impertinence of it…

    1. If Trump does win the presidency he needs to kick the UN off American soil. Let them move to a more suitable site in a third world shithole.

      1. What should Trump do about the WEF, the global corporations and the medical-industrial complex?

        It is they who rule the world and the UN are just their useful chumps.

          2. I am puzzled. When it says "your cat will love this [grooming tool]" we are shown a labrador DOG being groomed. ???

        2. Canadian Conservative leader Poilievre has stated that when he wins power, he will pull the government out of any WEF committees and will not allow Conservative politicians to attend WEF meetings.

          It is only politician speak but it sure beats having the finance minister / deputy PM an active WEF board member.

        3. Trump has already entrusted Robert F Kennedy Jnr with the task of attacking the useful chumps.

          Trump demonstrated years ago at his speech at Davos that he is wise to the WEF and WHO and that he rejects their attempts to destroy the idea of Nation States.

        1. Wy not Gaza? That UN funded relief agency has been supporting the area for over seventy years. With all of the donated money it it must be like paradise by now!

          1. It most certainly is. Those beautiful air conditioned luxury suites with the most tremendous views of the city skyline and the ocean. Oh…sorry. I thought you said Dubai.

            That is where the money went.

      3. Won't happen. New York's local economy benefits too much from all that diplomatic spending.

        1. People and businesses are fleeing New York.

          The local economy of New York will depend for its survival on the ousting of Democrat governors and Soros funded Attorney Generals and Judges.

        2. That will be all that is left. Those dignatories/diplomats/fucking wasters will arrive and leave by helicopters from very tall buildings because the streets are full of drug addicts and muggers.

      1. The dropping of the Tories' freedom of speech bill has already been mentioned in passing but it's worth reading this from the DT.
        I don't suppose the hate-speech-obsessed UN will take much notice of the Academic Freedom Index; it certainly won't be able to see the glaring contradiction in its position.

        And if you're reading this with a glass of something expensive in your hand, I advise you to put it down before the last paragraph.

        More students to be 'hounded and silenced' on campuses after free speech law abandoned

        Academics call on Labour to rethink decision to suspend legislation that would have enshrined free speech on campuses in law

        Gwyn Wright • 23 August 2024 • 12:29am

        Students and university staff will continue to be "hounded, censured and silenced" after ministers abandoned plans to protect free speech on campuses, academics have warned.

        The Government has been accused of giving into cancel culture after Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, last month suspended legislation that would have enshrined free speech on campuses in law.

        She was concerned that the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which was introduced by the Conservatives, would have left students vulnerable to "harm and appalling hate speech" while completing their studies.

        More than 500 academics have called on her to rethink the decision in a letter, The Times reported.

        They warned that a failure to act could lead to more staff and students being "hounded, censured and silenced" for holding legitimate, legal views some may deem offensive.

        Kathleen Stock, a feminist academic whose views on transgender rights have sparked protests on campuses, Richard Dawkins, a prominent atheist, and historian Niall Ferguson are among those who have signed the letter.

        More than 50 academics at the University of Oxford and 30 at Cambridge are also among the signatories. They include historians David Abulafia, who criticised Britain's membership of the European Union, and Robert Tombs, who has campaigned against the censorship of historical texts in universities.

        The letter stated: "The decision to halt (the act) appears to reflect the view, widespread among opponents, that there is no 'free speech problem' in UK universities. Nothing could be more false. Hundreds of academics and students have been hounded, censured, silenced or even sacked over the last 20 years for the expression of legal opinions.

        "This state of affairs has serious consequences for all of us. The suppression of university research into the effects of puberty blockers facilitated one of the great medical scandals of our age, as the Cass Review makes clear."

        The academics cited a report published earlier this year by the Academic Freedom Index, which ranked the UK 66th in the global league table of academic freedom below Peru, Burkina Faso and Georgia. They dispute claims that the law would have led to the intimidation of minorities such as Jewish students going unpunished and say their right to be free from harassment and hatred is already enshrined in law.

        Edward Skidelsky, the director of the Committee for Academic Freedom and a lecturer in philosophy at Exeter University, said many academics were "very disappointed" by the decision to suspend the act.

        "The act had broad support and now the kinds of cancel culture that we've seen in recent years will be allowed to carry on and academic and students will have no recourse to prevent it," he said.

        Mr Ferguson added: "There is no good reason for the new Government to revoke this important piece of legislation. Free speech at universities should not be a partisan issue. I find it disturbing that a Labour Government should be against it."

        A government source told The Times: "We make no apology for pausing the Tories' hate speech charter, which would have allowed anti-Semites and holocaust deniers free rein on campuses. Universities already have obligations under the law to protect freedom of speech and we will hold institutions to them. Students should be challenged and face new ideas. Under this Government, that's what universities will be about."

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/23/students-hounded-campuses-free-speech-law-abandoned/

        3. Honestly, I’m sick of thinking “You couldn’t make it up” about nearly everything this government comes up with. The conservatives were bad enough but heavenhelp us for the next five long years. I hope my three grandchildren go and live in Australia, maybe? I just can’t see a bright future for them here.

    3. Just jailing those extreme right fascist EDL supporting rioters was obviously not enough for Guterres and the freedom loving UN council, maybe they should have all been shot.

      They really are trying to squash any dissent aren't they.

      1. They are succeeding in the short term but we all know what happens next.

        Apologies but do you not mean 'quash'. ?

    5. When the UN started letting in tin pot wog countries it all went to pot.

      Is that an example of what they mean?

      Asking for a Jewish friend.

  88. (Apologies if it's already been discussed…)

    Crack down on racist hate speech, UN tells UK
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgl21053rdzo

    I agree. It would be good to go through a day without hearing a report from a public organisation declaring that the world was blessed with peace, love and brotherly understanding until the English stepped abroad. However, that's not what the UN is talking about.

    The sheer ****ing impertinence of it…

    1. Gosh. Is the media finally getting it? They even mentioned Islam…and not in a good light. One would think journalists would know what the deal is…

      1. No, because there have been stabbings in Germany and the media are desperately, frenziedly refusing to accept it's another muslim gimmigrant.

        They're happy to blame when it's not at home, but as soon as the problem is here, they're silent.

  90. The dropping of the Tories' freedom of speech bill has already been mentioned in passing but it's worth reading this from the DT.
    I don't suppose the hate-speech-obsessed UN will take much notice of the Academic Freedom Index; it certainly won't be able to see the glaring contradiction in its position.

    And if you're reading this with a glass of something expensive in your hand, I advise you to put it down before the last paragraph.

    More students to be 'hounded and silenced' on campuses after free speech law abandoned

    Academics call on Labour to rethink decision to suspend legislation that would have enshrined free speech on campuses in law

    Gwyn Wright • 23 August 2024 • 12:29am

    Students and university staff will continue to be "hounded, censured and silenced" after ministers abandoned plans to protect free speech on campuses, academics have warned.

    The Government has been accused of giving into cancel culture after Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, last month suspended legislation that would have enshrined free speech on campuses in law.

    She was concerned that the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which was introduced by the Conservatives, would have left students vulnerable to "harm and appalling hate speech" while completing their studies.

    More than 500 academics have called on her to rethink the decision in a letter, The Times reported.

    They warned that a failure to act could lead to more staff and students being "hounded, censured and silenced" for holding legitimate, legal views some may deem offensive.

    Kathleen Stock, a feminist academic whose views on transgender rights have sparked protests on campuses, Richard Dawkins, a prominent atheist, and historian Niall Ferguson are among those who have signed the letter.

    More than 50 academics at the University of Oxford and 30 at Cambridge are also among the signatories. They include historians David Abulafia, who criticised Britain's membership of the European Union, and Robert Tombs, who has campaigned against the censorship of historical texts in universities.

    The letter stated: "The decision to halt (the act) appears to reflect the view, widespread among opponents, that there is no 'free speech problem' in UK universities. Nothing could be more false. Hundreds of academics and students have been hounded, censured, silenced or even sacked over the last 20 years for the expression of legal opinions.

    "This state of affairs has serious consequences for all of us. The suppression of university research into the effects of puberty blockers facilitated one of the great medical scandals of our age, as the Cass Review makes clear."

    The academics cited a report published earlier this year by the Academic Freedom Index, which ranked the UK 66th in the global league table of academic freedom below Peru, Burkina Faso and Georgia. They dispute claims that the law would have led to the intimidation of minorities such as Jewish students going unpunished and say their right to be free from harassment and hatred is already enshrined in law.

    Edward Skidelsky, the director of the Committee for Academic Freedom and a lecturer in philosophy at Exeter University, said many academics were "very disappointed" by the decision to suspend the act.

    "The act had broad support and now the kinds of cancel culture that we've seen in recent years will be allowed to carry on and academic and students will have no recourse to prevent it," he said.

    Mr Ferguson added: "There is no good reason for the new Government to revoke this important piece of legislation. Free speech at universities should not be a partisan issue. I find it disturbing that a Labour Government should be against it."

    A government source told The Times: "We make no apology for pausing the Tories' hate speech charter, which would have allowed anti-Semites and holocaust deniers free rein on campuses. Universities already have obligations under the law to protect freedom of speech and we will hold institutions to them. Students should be challenged and face new ideas. Under this Government, that's what universities will be about."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/23/students-hounded-campuses-free-speech-law-abandoned/

  94. Apparently some more Methodist( maybe) attacks in Germany. According to the daily mail (I know, I know), several people at the Festival of Diversity have been killed in a mass stabbing spree.

    2. Good night. I on the other hand have just been bloody woken up ! Is there a manual on how to tell the neighbours to shut the fuck up in a polite way?

  96. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Has RFK just started the NeverHarris movement?
    Comments Share 23 August 2024, 8:29pm
    As recently as July, Robert F. Kennedy Jr was still winning up to 15 per cent support as an independent candidate in the US presidential polls. Today, however, he just suspended his struggling campaign — and, while trashing the Democratic Party he once belonged to, he endorsed Donald J. Trump for the presidency.

    ‘In an honest system I believe I would have won the election’, he said, which is debatable, to put it mildly, even if 1.1 million people tuned in to watch him live on Twitter. ‘In my heart I no longer believe that I have a path to electoral victory in the face of this relentless systematic censorship and media control,’ he said. Kennedy urged his fans to still vote for him in the states where he remains on the ballot — but that’s largely irrelevant. The only places the RFK candidacy matters are the swing states, where he is asking people to support Donald Trump and oppose Kamala Harris.

    The timing of the announcement, coming as it did the day after Kamala Harris accepted her party’s nomination, seems to have been designed to disrupt a favourable news cycle for the Democrats.

    ‘How did the Democratic party choose a candidate that has never done an interview or debate during the entire election cycle?’ RFK asked. That’s a good question and one that many millions of Americans will be asking.

    ‘Three great causes drove me to enter this race in the first place,’ he said. ‘And these are the principle causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support at President Trump. The causes were free speech, war in Ukraine, and the war on our children.’

    It’s quite something for a member of the Kennedy family, the most famous Democratic clan in history, to announce his support for any Republican, let alone Donald J. Trump. But RFK appears to have chosen his anti-establishment politics over his impeccably establishment social and familial ties.

    He may be appearing as a special surprise guest at a Trump rally this evening. And there are reports that he might have some role in a second Trump administration— in health or energy or environment.

    But will Kennedy’s decision matter all that much? His campaign was already withering because he didn’t have much support — and a large proportion of the people who might have voted for him will not be willing to vote for Donald Trump.

    In theory, RFK appealed to millions of so-called ‘double haters’ — that is, Americans who can’t stand Donald Trump and Joe Biden. In practice, as the election grew closer, his candidacy was always going to whither away. He never had the money to challenge the Democratic and Republican machines, even after he made the tech billionairess Nicole Shanahan his vice presidential nominee. And after Biden withdrew his candidacy, and Harris replaced him at the top of the ticket, it’s fair to assume a number of double-haters went back to just hating Trump.

    But Kennedy and Shanahan do represent a growing coalition of liberals and tech-world types (Elon Musk for one) who are disgusted by the modern Democratic party’s drift away from free speech and towards authoritarian identity politics. Like Trump they see Harris as an agent of sinister left-wing forces. That’s what Kennedy was alluding to when he talked of ‘shadowy DNC operatives’ dragging him through courts and the attempt to ‘throw President Trump in jail.’

    Kennedy has been widely trashed as a crank and conspiracy theorist, but in what is certain to be an extremely tight election, his supporters could be pivotal.

    The Trump campaign is already pumping out messages about ‘unity’. Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio described the the RFK Junior’s news as ‘good news’.

    For Trump, the Kennedy brigade could be his answer to the NeverTrump Republicans who would rather vote Democrat than ever support him.

    Could RFK’s turn to Trump be the beginning of a NeverHarris movement? Possibly. The trouble is, much like NeverTrumpism, nobody has a clear idea how many of these people there are.

    1. President Trump has great instinctive political judgement. Robert F Kennedy Jnr has been drawn to Trump. They have the same or very similar ideas about American democracy and their combined experiences of its utter subversion by the Deep State and the Democratic Party are truly aligned.

      The alliance of Trump, Vance and Kennedy will open the way for a return to the principles established and laid down by the Founders in the Constitution and a re-adherence to those principles.

      We should all pray earnestly for the succession of a Trump, Vance, Kennedy government in America.

      This would rescue the world from impending disaster, thwart the wretched WEF and WHO threat to humankind and hopefully enable the deposition of our own corrupt political class and the consignment of Starmer and the profoundly undemocratic EU to the dustbin of history.

    3. As usual it’s not who votes that counts, it’s who counts the votes.
      There in lies the problem.

  98. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/08/23/germany-festival-stabbing-solingen-latest-news-attack/

    It's when you read the 'Knife crime in Germany' bit that you realise they're not serious about the problem. They're poking around at the edges desperate to ignore the elephant of muslim and massive uncontrolled gimmigration in the room.

    It's sickening. The government's first duty is the protection of citizens. They're all, deliberately making us unsafe – whether from a secure economic future, one safe from crime or physical safety. It's utterly disgusting.

    1. It's relative – a stabbing at a music festival is huge news in Germany, whereas in Notting hill, they just issue stabbing statistics every year

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