Wednesday 6 May: The relative risks of easing lockdown must be made clear to the public

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as 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 blacklisted.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/05/05/lettersthe-relative-risks-easing-lockdown-must-made-clear-public/

753 thoughts on “Wednesday 6 May: The relative risks of easing lockdown must be made clear to the public”

  1. Government scientist Neil Ferguson resigns after breaking lockdown rules to meet his married lover. 5 May 2020 • 7:17pm.

    The scientist whose advice prompted Boris Johnson to lock down Britain resigned from his Government advisory position on Tuesday night as The Telegraph can reveal he broke social distancing rules to meet his married lover.

    Professor Neil Ferguson allowed the woman to visit him at home during the lockdown while lecturing the public on the need for strict social distancing in order to reduce the spread of coronavirus. The woman lives with her husband and their children in another house.

    Morning everyone. This is the earliest account I can find of Ferguson’s resignation and it is the one all the other papers cite as their source so it is not unreasonable to suppose that it is the fountainhead.

    As always in the Police State that is the modern UK it is what is missing that is most interesting. Though the meetings between Ferguson and Ms. Staats are recounted in considerable detail there is no hint as to where this information came from; no Telegraph Scoop. No leaks from informants. No Russian/Putin Troll accusations. Nada. Nothing. It has sprung into existence with this very article like the Universe at the Big Bang. What we have instead are a series of quotes that judging by their syntax were extracted from a longer statement by Ferguson; well confession would probably be a more accurate description.

    ”I accept I made an error of judgment and took the wrong course of action. I have therefore stepped back from my involvement in Sage [the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies].

    “I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus, and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms.

    “I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic. The Government guidance is unequivocal, and is there to protect all of us.”

    So what is really going on? Well I think that he’s been sacked. His position after the exposure of his record has become untenable; not in the MSM but Below the Line where even I have been surprised by how well known the facts have become. The story about himself and his “Girlfriend” is simply a cover, not least because he’s Gay. This way he goes without the Government having to admit that the man who dictated their policy and which is bankrupting the UK is a Fraudster and Charlatan. You can see where that would lead! They’ve probably agreed a generous retirement package for him with loadsacash as an inducement and this way he will also retain his Professorship at Imperial and the other institutions of which he is a member. Such is the modern UK!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/exclusive-government-scientist-neil-ferguson-resigns-breaking/

    3. Morning, Araminta.

      Not all police states are equal. Ferguson is one of the ‘elite’ and in the unique British police state he has been shamed by his ‘personal actions’ and has gone with a smear of disgrace but without doubt remains an ‘elite’. In China he would have disappeared, in some others he would always have to cross the road in a crowd and avoid tall buildings, and in one country in particular, avoid committing suicide by shooting himself in the back of the head multiple times.

    4. An interesting theory, Minty. I have no idea one way or another, but I suspect you may well be right.

  2. Government scientist Neil Ferguson resigns after breaking lockdown rules to meet his married lover. 5 May 2020 • 7:17pm.

    The scientist whose advice prompted Boris Johnson to lock down Britain resigned from his Government advisory position on Tuesday night as The Telegraph can reveal he broke social distancing rules to meet his married lover.

    Professor Neil Ferguson allowed the woman to visit him at home during the lockdown while lecturing the public on the need for strict social distancing in order to reduce the spread of coronavirus. The woman lives with her husband and their children in another house.

    Morning everyone. This is the earliest account I can find of Ferguson’s resignation and it is the one all the other papers cite as their source so it is not unreasonable to suppose that it is the fountainhead.

    As always in the Police State that is the modern UK it is what is missing that is most interesting. Though the meetings between Ferguson and Ms. Staats are recounted in considerable detail there is no hint as to where this information came from; no Telegraph Scoop. No leaks from informants. No Russian/Putin Troll accusations. Nada. Nothing. It has sprung into existence with this very article like the Universe at the Big Bang. What we have instead are a series of quotes that judging by their syntax were extracted from a longer statement by Ferguson; well confession would probably be a more accurate description.

    ”I accept I made an error of judgment and took the wrong course of action. I have therefore stepped back from my involvement in Sage [the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies].

    “I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus, and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms.

    “I deeply regret any undermining of the clear messages around the continued need for social distancing to control this devastating epidemic. The Government guidance is unequivocal, and is there to protect all of us.”

    So what is really going on? Well I think that he’s been sacked. His position after the exposure of his record has become untenable; not in the MSM but Below the Line where even I have been surprised by how well known the facts have become. The story about himself and his “Girlfriend” is simply a cover, not least because he’s Gay. This way he goes without the Government having to admit that the man who dictated their policy and which is bankrupting the UK is a Fraudster and Charlatan. You can see where that would lead! They’ve probably agreed a generous retirement package for him with loadsacash as an inducement and this way he will also retain his Professorship at Imperial and the other institutions of which he is a member. Such is the modern UK!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/exclusive-government-scientist-neil-ferguson-resigns-breaking/

  6. Best letter

    IR – Your fine obituary (May 5) of David Twiston Davies, former Daily Telegraph obituarist and letters editor, could have added his core belief that newspapers’ marketing experts were invariably a menace.

    In the early Nineties the paper (for which I then worked) was advised by expensive management consultants that it would perish unless it appealed more to youthful readers. Of particular concern, averred these experts, was the obituaries page. “It needs to feature younger people,” they concluded. Twisters loved that.

    Quentin Letts
    How Caple, Herefordshire

    1. What is this “appeal to youth” carp? Youth, who have no money, no interest in the thing? So many businesses have gone tits-up trying that, I would have thought that the marketing folk would have stopped that particular theme.

      1. Management Consultants will say anything, no matter how fatuous, to justify their absurd fees. Both my S-i-Ls used to be in the trade and are scathing about the practices.

      2. Even the BBC is on a yoof kick at the moment, transferring millions from established mainstream programmes in the hope of gaining some younger viewers/listeners. No sign of it working so far.

        Edit: ‘Morning, Herr Oberst (manners).

  7. I saw an appeal from my local paper, the Worcester News, for subscriptions while advertising revenue and the city’s general prosperity has dried up.

    I was about to sign up when I read that, like many surviving local papers, it has been bought up by an American corporation, and that middle managers are being put under pressure to deliver good quarterly figures, so that the CEO’s bonus package can be honoured in full. The only alternative to the Easy Money bailing out this important local service is simply to let it go bust, and it is then lost to the future post-Covid environment,

    Recovery depends on public goodwill,

  8. Urgent OT. I know some NoTTLers are experts in plumbing, I have a problem.

    My domestic hot water is heated by the AGA. There is a “heat bleed” radiator” in the upstairs bathroom – which is always hot. There is also a circulating pump because there is a radiator downstairs. Been there for 45 years.

    Yesterday, the plumber removed a corroded joint next to the pump and replaced a short length of pipe. He drained the system before, and refilled it after.
    The pump works during the day. At 9pm, the timer turned the pump off – and the upstairs “heat bleed” went cold. Convection wasn’t working. Never happened
    before in 45 years.

    This is a closed system which has worked perfectly until yesterday. I know nothing at all about plumbing and heating.

    Any suggestions?

    1. Light the woodburner? Morning Bill; sorry I can’t be more helpful/constructive at this early hour.

    2. ‘Morning, Bill. Not a plumber, but something says ‘air lock’ to me. Is there a bleed valve on the highest radiator? If the system is running, have you tried opening the valve a little? It may take a while for all the air to be expelled. If you are going to open the valve, keep a cloth under it to catch any water. You may get only air first of all, but when water appears you may have solved the problem.

      Plan B – get the plumber back!

        1. Have you run the pump and tried again? Trapped wind can take a while to shift…

          1. The pump has been running all night – as I didn’t want to be woken to the sound of boiling water in the small hours.

          2. My money is on air locks.
            My faithful old boiler died 18 months ago – only 2.5 hours for old one out & new one in place. Same make, model so everything lined up.
            It then took 3 hours trying to clear airlocks – the boiler works perfectly – however it is still not a “stable” as the old one – rumble of pipes occasionally, new pump hum……………but it works!

            PS I have another thought – radiator not disturbed for many years – the actual draining & filling may have disturbed the rust that had settled in the radiator to move. A few years back this happened – the radiator was taken off the wall, taken outside and a pressure washer (with an adaptor used to clear drains) put in to flush the contents – thick brown “water” was ejected – it eventually ran clear and the problem was solved.

          3. Yes, we have new pump hum on ours. I can’t decide if it’s lessening or our hearing has learnt to screen it out.

      2. As you’ve done all that we could think of at Allan Towers – Plan B it is.
        Given your age, you are counted as vulnerable and it has to be done.
        (Just keep MR out of the way as she’s too young.)

    3. Unlikely, but is it possible that the system is working as intended and a problem has been fixed rather than created?

    4. One thought was that the system may well have an airlock in the pipes that are relieved by releasing the radiator bleed valve at the highest point, but there might also be local high spots in the pipework near the Aga that are normally released automatically by a valve designed for that purpose. If, over the years, it gets crudded up, the valve can fail to release local airlocks or do so very slowly. This will not manifest itself until someone drains the system. I had one in my 1994 boiler that I tracked down when I had to fix it i 2010. All the plumber could say was “you need a new one, mate, since that’s how we make our money. You know boilers have to be replaced every six years as soon as they come out of warranty. Hanging on to the same boiler for 16 years (It is now 25 years old) is bad practice.”.

      I think therefore you should check such pressure release valves and air valves, replacing as necessary, You might need to call out an engineer but a quick look online might tell you where it is.

  9. ‘Morning All

    While fatcat public servants can remain smugly risk averse in the knowledge THEIR jobs and pensions are safe,the fools on “Furlough” don’t seem to realise they face mass redundancies as soon as government support ends

    Meanwhile all too many of the self employed and small business owners are raking through the ashes and embers of a lifetimes work vainly looking for a spark of hope…………

    In the interests of never letting a crisis go to waste the Leftards and Greeniacs are busy in the background giving us glimpses of the mailed fist

    Tracking Apps……..It’s for your own good citizen

    Cash………..Filthy stuff spreads diseases it has to go

    Meat…….Eat your insect burger and shut your mouth pleb

    “In a letter to the Prime Minister, the (Committee on Climate Change)…says
    jobless people should be re-trained for work in geographically-spread
    labour-intensive “green” industries such as home insulation;
    tree-planting; and peatland restoration.”

    Agenda 21/30 right there.Get you hence to the fields peasants coughCambodiacough

    Agrarian economy for the plebs, HS2 and air travel for the Elites.

  10. I wonder how many other “errors of judgment” Professor Branestorm has made…..

    2. The Sunday Times claims that in 2005 he predicted that 200 million people worldwide would die of bird ‘flu.

      The actual figure was 282.

    3. The Sunday Times claims that in 2005 he predicted that 200 million people worldwide would die of bird ‘flu.

      The actual figure was 282.

      1. ‘Morning, Janet, he was only out by a factor of 709,220. Anyone can make a teeny-weeny mistake.

        1. As long as he got paid the error doesn’t matter.

          He’ll get another contract with the Government next ‘flu epidemic anyway.

          1. Yes, a few months on the naughty step and then he’ll be right back. As will Dr Calderwood in Scotland.

  11. Image that sums up the British Establishment and the values and priorities of modern metropolitan political theorists appeared on ‘Midlands Today’ on Monday evening.

    A healthy and sturdy 300-year old English oak in Warwickshire being pushed over by a HS2 contractor in a digger.

    1. 300 years of growth destroyed to make way for a trainset no one wants. Dear life. What a legacy we leave behind.

    2. Shocking.

      Probably only happening because Johnson has sold out to the Chinese to build it.

      Does Johnson get a percentage for himself ?

      1. More likely he has been told by the Chinese that unless he signs there will be another outbreak of some form of virus

        1. The present one has been partially successful. They’ll improve next time.

  15. Right been into the village. More and more like a normal day, even seen some guys going to work. No queues. At this rate Boris will probably announce the big Stand Down Sunday!

    1. Our village is post-apocalypic still, and the roads, although a little busier than they were 5 weeks ago are still only carrying a tiny number of cars. It’s more like a quiet Christmas day on the roads.

    2. People are hidden away , suspicious and scared .

      Certain things have happened in the countryside where one assumes there is no risk .. wrong .. where good hard working ag workers are absolutely flattened by this virus!

  16. The reasons for the lockdown were, supposedly, to delay the peak of the C-19 Wuhan infection so that it didn’t swamp the NHS and also gave it time to prepare.
    Those two objectives have been achieved.
    In addition, we now know that the virus is not the doomsday infection the fear mongers predicted.

    Surely it is time to ease the restrictions and allow people thought to be at risk to be permitted to make their own choices?

    1. Morning Bob

      One of the objectives was to introduce terror and immense fear .. total control of the population .

      This virus is a killer , not a bit like flu or pneumonia .. If it flattens healthy people to the extent of patients needing a month in hospital , it has to be taken seriously.

      People can have choices , but I don’t want to be infected by some careless decision so that people can be freed up to cause mayhem once more .

      1. But you could choose to stay at home – or walk the dogs on the heath or the beach and keep away from other people. It’s this compulsion that irks me.

  18. Heigh-ho for a stretched limerick

    A certain Professor called Neil
    Produced Stats we all thought were real
    He said we would die ‘twas proved as a lie
    It seems that his figures only apply to some people of colour
    Resignation was the real deal.

    1. A certain Professor of renown
      Was eager to take his pants down
      So he broke the rule
      and summoned his girl
      ….and made mad, passionate love during Lockdown!

      1. A professor of considerable clout,
        Told us all ‘don’t go out’,
        But when it came to his sex life
        He summoned a housewife
        Who readily got his dick out.

        1. Fergie did Government fool
          With his fatuous 2 metre rule.
          It turned out in fact
          That his model’d been hacked,
          And he was really resizing his tool.

    2. Dear Antonia, I think that last, bracketed, line should read, “I’ve made it pubic!”

    1. Let them wear masks! I certainly won’t unless it’s made compulsory. Then I might wrap a scarf round my face.

  22. Allison Pearson’s other article:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/should-students-pay-university-fees-not-getting-real-experience/

    Why should students pay university fees when they are not getting the real experience?

    Students who are being denied the full university experience during lockdown should be entitled to a refund, writes Allison Pearson

    Students who are being denied the full university experience during lockdown should be entitled to a refund, writes Allison Pearson Credit: Mark Draisey photography/Getty Images Contributor

    Imagine you have splashed out on the holiday of a lifetime. Maybe Whale Watching and Swimming with Dolphins in the Galapagos. You set off on the holiday brimming with excitement, but then the organiser explains that, unfortunately, there won’t be any whales at this time. Or dolphins. Or swimming. Or Galapagos. Or, indeed, a flight. In fact, due to circumstances beyond their control, the entire holiday will now be enjoyed in a Travelodge next to Gatwick Airport where you can view the glorious marine life on your laptop. Well, maybe. They’re still working on the content, but they should be able to give you something to look at for, ooh, at least half an hour a day. And don’t touch the mini-bar!

    What’s that – a refund? No, sorry, out of the question.

    I’m afraid to say this is the dire situation in which over two million students find themselves. “Am absolutely fed up with bloody Unis,” a friend texted me yesterday. She reckons that her son, who is in the same year as mine, has had a grand total of sixteen weeks of education this year. First, the lecturers were on strike, then the young people were sent home because of the coronavirus. Whatever effort they had put in was for naught. Many universities have chosen to just award a Pass or Fail, disappointing those who worked their socks off to get high grades. The Russell Group university my friend’s son attends decided not to bother with any kind of end-of-year grading at all. Or even to put on an exam. “He’s had a couple of seminars this term and is expected to pay £3K,” she fumes.

    Surely students who are denied the full university experience – libraries, lectures, events, societies – can expect a reduction? Not according to Michelle Donelan, the universities minister. Ms Donelan says that students will have to pay full tuition fees this autumn even if universities can’t open. “We have already seen over the last few months courses being delivered online and virtually to an amazing quality,” she boasted, “We don’t believe students will be entitled to reimbursements if the quality is there.”

    Honestly, what a nerve. How on earth is fitful online contact with your college supposed to compensate for lack of personal tutorials and interaction with your peers? Why is Ms Donelan so sure that online teaching, if it’s actually taking place that is, is of “amazing quality”? Besides, if young people had opted to do their degree by “distance learning” they would have paid less than half the price.

    To make up for the predicted fall in overseas students, the Government is giving universities an extra £100 million for research. In addition, the £2.6 billion from tuition fees for UK students will be paid to universities up front in the autumn, rather than in four tranches.

    Oh, and by the way, that generous £2.6 billion advance is actually student debt that will be incurred by youngsters like mine for a university course which falls far short of anything they might reasonably have expected.

    What other business could expect to charge full price when it’s closed? It’s like a restaurant demanding diners pay the bill when they’ve seen the menu but been given no food.

    I know times are hard, but it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that, once again, it’s kids who have been thrown under the bus. Ironically, the virus poses almost zero risk to children and young people yet they are the ones paying a heavy price in disrupted schooling, patchy provision and blighted degrees. It is causing huge anxiety and distress. If you have children or grandchildren in this position please let me know.

    What is being created here is no less than a bitter legacy of generational unfairness. During lockdown, I’ve been moved to see how conscientious most young people are about obeying the rules so that their elders come to no harm. It would be really nice if grown-ups in the Government could return the favour. The minister should urgently reconsider her sorry decision and give kids a refund.

    1. It would serve them right if a lot of potential students decided to take a year out to travel (when they are able to) and then work, instead of going to second-rate universties for a useless degree in a mickey-mouse subject.
      Most of those former tertiary colleges should go back to teaching worthwhile technical subjects which enable people to earn a living.

      1. I think there is a high possibility that that is exactly what will happen.

      2. Perhaps it was a bit unkind but when in the early 1960’s they took a golf course at Earlham just outside Norwich and started to build UEA everybody said that they were turning a second rate golf course into a third rate university. Of course I was there from 1966 – 69 but, like me, Bill Thomas has a very much younger wife – his much loved MR – who was at UEA in the 1970’s. My Carolne was at the University of Bath in the 1980’s.

        My views on the usurious rates of interest (now over 20 times the base BoE bank rate) charged on student loans have been posted here frequently so all I shall say is that the way students have been – and are being treated – is abominable. Of course it is true that Blair was responsible for this absurd inflation in numbers but we should cherish and support a far smaller number of students doing proper courses in proper universities and not try to keep so many young people effectively imprisoned in debt by the state for so much of their lives.

    2. The music and Mr Williams are superb, but I don’t think much of the focus puller.

  24. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Oops…another ‘do as I say, not as I do’ merchant.  What a perfect example of a hypocrite.  Whatever happened to integrity:

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/05/05/professor-lockdown-quits-after-breaking-own-rules-to-meet-lover/

    BSE, Mers, foot and mouth…all of his predictions have been wildly wrong. He was also the cause of the contiguous cull for foot and mouth, which was later deemed to have been illegal. Covid-19 will be yet another failure from this grandstanding ‘expert’.

      2. Coffeeeeee …… I read the last word as ‘sword’ and had impure thoughts early in the morning.

    3. Morning, HJ.

      Lack of integrity is not a good trait but I am more concerned by what your last paragraph indicates: a lack of accuracy in a ‘top’ scientific advisor’s modelling and his continual employment, despite his record of failure, by a Government that is looking increasingly incompetent.

      1. The incompetence certainly is obvious in the Government’s slavish following of that particular Prof.

    4. Predictions are very difficult, however after he had made a number of really major errors I’m surprised that no one bothered to check his figures.

      Surely there’s someone in the Civil Service with a Mathematics degree?

      1. It’s stats. NOBODY understands stats… That is why there is so much poor quality research these days.

  27. Toady programme favourite, Phoney Fergie OBE, Professor Cockdown…..whatever next?

    It is very funny listening to the Toady gang floundering around trying to find a new ‘line’ to take on everything. “I think we’re going to miss him, actually”

    I wonder if there are other public figures involved in unnecessary long distance travel for trysts with their married lovers???

  29. ‘Morning All

    While fatcat public servants can remain smugly risk averse in the knowledge THEIR jobs and pensions are safe,the fools on “Furlough” don’t seem to realise they face mass redundancies as soon as government support ends

    Meanwhile all too many of the self employed and small business owners are raking through the ashes and embers of a lifetimes work vainly looking for a spark of hope…………

    In the interests of never letting a crisis go to waste the Leftards and Greeniacs are busy in the background giving us glimpses of the mailed fist

    Tracking Apps……..It’s for your own good citizen

    Cash………..Filthy stuff spreads diseases it has to go

    Meat…….Eat your insect burger and shut your mouth pleb

    “In a letter to the Prime Minister, the (Committee on Climate Change)…says
    jobless people should be re-trained for work in geographically-spread
    labour-intensive “green” industries such as home insulation;
    tree-planting; and peatland restoration.”

    Agenda 21/30 right there.Get you hence to the fields peasants coughCambodiacough

    Agrarian economy for the plebs, HS2 and air travel for the Elites.

    2. An agrarian economy once produced a movement known as the Khmer Rouge. The peasants controlled it. (sorry I misread your comment)

    2. Is the man Bill Thomas? I only say that because he’s down voted it.

    1. You can’t save both.

      But you cannot save one or the other either!

      In order to save the economy you will have to spend far less on the NHS but if you continue to fund the NHS without saving the economy you will destroy them both.

      The penny has just dropped with the chancellor: furloughing – which was an attempt to save the economy – will destroy it if it isn’t curtailed quickly.

      1. So what do you think should be done then to save the economy.? I think we need to remove the wets that infect all levels of government.

  33. Much as I dislike Ferguson the Epidemiologist, at least he appears to have resigned promptly.

    Politicians and other public figures take note.

    1. ‘Resigned’?? No, sos. He was told to clear off pronto from SAGE and assured that it didn’t affect his position/stipend at Imperial whilst the kerfuffle blows over.

      1. I think he and 2 metre rule have been known about for weeks; the moment for exposure (ho, ho) was picked for when he and his models (ho, ho again) became too embarrassing to support any longer.

          8. You’d better pipe-down, Anne before you start another punning thread.

          9. I’ve already given myself an ear worm. That’s enough punishment for today.

        1. Should we blame him for giving in to what Noel Coward described as that ‘sly biological urge’!

          I suppose if you follow the example of your country’s leader – a serial adulterer – then extra-curricular fornication is no more than what we would expect. Following in the footsteps of a great and revered leader could be considered very commendable.

          Of course many of us here would find his behaviour outrageous and immoral – but what I find outrageous is the selective indignation displayed in the media. For example on the BBC news last night all we were told was that a woman had visited his home against the lock-down rules he had advocated and no mention was made of either the hanky nor the panky. If on the other hand it had been a Conservative MP who had trespassed on someone else’s territory the BBC focus would have been on the adultory (sic) with the emphasis on the Tory rather than the adult.

    1. To be fair, the Telegraph published Matt Ridley’s extraordinary article which ridicules a) the lockdown b) the deficiencies of the NHS and c) the western culture of individual sub-optimal lifestyle choices being the fault of Society.

  35. Good Moaning:
    A musical interlude.
    🎶
    Oh dear, what can the matter be?
    Fergie’s got problems with
    Epidemiology;
    He played with his Staats
    From Monday to Saturday;
    Everyone knows he was there ….
    🎶

    1. Very good! A sleepless night, Anne, composing that lot – definitely a candidate for inclusion in the Oxford Book of English Verse.

  36. Morning all. The instigator of chaos has gone.

    SIR – The Government has become a victim of its own success in persuading the public that the threat from coronavirus is enormous and all-pervading. In fact, the risk to most people is small and comparable to the many other risks in normal life that they accept readily every day.

    Lifting the current restrictions will be difficult unless people are able to understand the risks posed to themselves as individuals and to their families. For example, reopening schools will be challenging, as many parents will refuse to send their children until convinced that they will be totally safe there (whatever that means).

    Sir David Spiegelhalter, the Winton Professor of the public understanding of risk at the University of Cambridge, is a world authority; should not the Government commission him, as an independent expert, to put the relative risks of coronavirus in perspective for the public?

    Jos Binns

    Camerton, Somerset

    SIR – It is absurd for Baroness Altmann (report, May 4) to characterise a possible lockdown extension for the elderly as “discrimination”. It is common sense to match the measures taken ought to the risks incurred. Older and infirm people are facing a much higher risk than the young and fit, and should therefore be treated differently.

    I am over 70 and will gladly accept more isolation if the majority of the workforce can return to something like normality – particularly as this would help to counter the exploding national debt. Otherwise the younger generation will have to pay off that debt for many years after we’re gone.

    David Heathcoat-Amory

    London W14

    SIR – It is reported that a significant number of furloughed employees are reluctant to return to work. It is worth considering that for many people receiving 80 per cent pay for staying at home (rising in many cases to 100 per cent in the public sector), while saving on associated travel and childcare costs, leaves many financially no worse off than going to work. Staying at home may be the more attractive option.

    Keith Whittaker

    Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire

    SIR – The new NHS contact-tracing app (report, May 5) is welcome, but not everyone has a smart phone, or, if they do, enough memory on that phone to download it.

    Many pensioners and low-income families are in this group.

    Unless the majority of the public can take part in the exercise, the data will not give an accurate indication of whether the app is reducing the rate of spread of the infection of spread of coronavirus.

    Chris Barmby

    Tonbridge, Kent

    SIR – Three weeks ago I asked my wife for the time, as I have stopped wearing a watch. She replied: “Saturday”. On Tuesday I did the same thing, and her answer was: “May”.

    Dr William A McFadzean

    Swansea

      1. He probably lives on a country estate and has little people to cater to his needs.

      2. A couple of comments on Mr. DH-A:-

        Robert Spowart
        6 May 2020 8:31AM
        In the words of the Drill Instructor, Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory can go forth in short, sharp, jerky movements!

        Delete3Like
        Reply

        Jennifer Carter
        6 May 2020 8:46AM
        @Robert Spowart I have no objection to anyone, including this person, staying isolated and away from others, as long as the taxpayer is not paying their salary. The rest of us should be able to get on with living, in the full knowledge that life is never without risk. All of us, including those stay-at-homes, are all going to die of something, some day.

        Flag

      3. The H-A’s have a nice estate in Perthshire to meander around. His uncle was SuperMac’s Chancellor.

      4. What little common sense he had was knocked out of him when he went to Eton. He should have gone to his local independent school – Blundell’s – where, being three years older than he, I could have ‘mentored’ him and knocked some sense into him.

  37. 29,427 have now perished from the Communist virus.

    Thanks to NHS 111 we made sure that anyone who was finally admitted to hospital arrived there so late there was little prospect of them surviving – but hey we did save the NHS and that’s the main thing!

    All hail the NHS!

    Just please don’t make awkward comparisons with the German healthcare system.

    #NotaCult

    1. From or with? It’s an important distinction, since for example Germany only counts those who actually die from C19 in their statistics.

      1. And ‘because’, i.e. Those displaced from hospital or those having treatment for potentially terminal conditions who have their admission postponed to accommodate virus patients.

  38. Maybe in a couple of years time, when the dust has settled on this particular unpleasantness , the entertainment industry will have a new seam to mine.

    Covid programs in the pipeline could be , “I Ain’t Half Hot Mum” , “Are You being Saved” , “Drop The Dead Pensioner” , “Both Feet In The Grave” ,”1666 And All That” and “2m Encounters of the First Kind”.

  39. Always remember it’s the Chinese Virus

    SIR – It is far from short-sighted of President Donald Trump to call for an investigation into the potential escape of coronavirus from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, as Brian Worrell (Letters, May 4) suggests. It is an unfortunate fact that dangerous viruses can and do escape from laboratories that enjoy the highest levels of biosecurity, through carelessness or pure accident. A British example demonstrates this.

    In 2007 there was a minor outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Surrey. This was traced to a laboratory at Pirbright, where the Institute for Animal Health was permitted to keep the virus. Investigations revealed that underground pipes carrying laboratory effluent had been damaged by tree roots. In his report on the incident, Professor Brian Spratt concluded that it was likely that contaminated effluent had leaked from the broken pipes and then spread.

    The British Government, as well as those in other countries affected by Covid-19, must press for a full and independent inquiry into the handling of the coronavirus by those laboratories in Wuhan – the origin of the outbreak – that are known (report, May 4) to have been examining this terrible disease.

    Patrick Darby

    Malton, North Yorkshire

      1. Of course it is. It’ll be led by an independent chap looking for a gong and decision will be made to decide what the result is and a full report will be made to ensure that result is found.

        1. ‘Morning, Wibbles, “…and a full report will be made to ensure that result is found.”

          But never published for reasons of ‘State Security’, i.e., “We f*cked up and have been found out.”

    2. Lefties refuse to describe the virus as being Chinese. Dutch elm disease, Spanish flu, Yorkshire tea, it is just the way Brits are.

  40. Fat is not beautiful.

    SIR – We know that 90 per cent of deaths from coronavirus are in those with pre-existing health problems, but little has been said about tackling these problems before the next wave of Covid-19 infections.

    For instance, obesity – with its complications of diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease – is one of the commonest co-factors. Obese patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19 are 40 per cent more likely to die than other patients. Excess alcohol consumption makes the effects of obesity, such as high blood pressure, worse. However, blood pressure falls when alcohol consumption is reduced, and the benefits of weight loss on diabetes as well as general health can also be seen within weeks.

    These are important issues for the Government to address in the battle against Covid- 19.

    Professor Roger Williams

    Institute of Hepatology

    King’s College Hospital

    London SE5

    2. I think I had better increase my alcohol consumption. I had my blood pressure tested yesterday and it was 10 – 7 – the pills I take to reduce BP are clearly working too hard.

      We have been using the 5 – 2 diet for some time (or rather the more extreme 4 – 3 diet) when on certain days of the week we reduce our calorie intake to 500 or less for Caroline and 600 or less for me. Caroline,of course, looks lovely but I remain far too fat.

      One of the big cons is the BMI calculation. You are deceived into making a calculation based on your height and your weight to determine what your BMI is. But as height and weight are the only things taken into account you could get the answer from a simple table without having to do the sums.

      I thought the BMI index was a fraud when I discovered that the whole of the British Rugby team was overweight and most of the forwards were obese. And I also discovered that one Wimbledon champion (Amelie Mauresmo 25.8) had a BMI over 50% higher than another (Maria Sharapova 17,2) when both were supremely fit and neither overweight nor underweight.

      I don’t think I have ever not been overweight even though I have always been fairly physically active and fit. I am now obese – according to the BMI calculation – but my doctor says I carry my weight very well!

  41. SIR – Since the start of lockdown, 15,000 people a day have been entering Britain without having to be quarantined (report, May 4) because it hasn’t been deemed necessary by the Government’s scientific advisers.

    I was a research chemist for 45 years and can thus understand the concept of “follow the science”. However, given the lack of transparency from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), I find it very worrying that we should be following such a mantra while much of the country remains in self-imposed isolation.

    Peter Towndrow FRSC

    Grazeley Green, Berkshire

  42. Strange how hardly anyone cares that Johnson has sold out the British by globalizing C-19 treatment which means they may not receive re-purposed drugs if they need them.

    1. There is only one part of Boris that seems to function – that is his child-making equipment.

  43. Matt Hancock ‘speechless’ at Neil Ferguson breaking lockdown; Rory Stewart ends London mayoral campaign. Wed 6 May 2020 12.00 BST.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a0d2cca5ee0578be2028e8b51dbff2661234fad8a650d1cb521b4f78944fa426.jpg

    Yesterday Downing Street told us that Boris Johnson has started taking a daily walk around St James’s Park as part of his lockdown exercise regime. Perhaps it is just a ploy to get out of changing nappies? But it suits the photographers, and here are some pictures from today.

    Where’s the Stasi?

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/may/06/uk-coronavirus-live-furlough-scheme-government-ease-lockdown-pmqs-covid-19-latest-updates?page=with:block-5eb27e208f089ad29b12a527#block-5eb27e208f089ad29b12a527

    1. Why does he have to carry a paper cup of ersazt “coffee”? Not a good look. Treason wouldn’t have…..

      3. You never walk in the street eating and/or drinking only on Blackpool prom as my late mother used to say. Never wear a hat or cap indoors was another. Even a jack the lad uncle, ( mothers brother) explained to me the etiquette of going to the theater.

        People who did not follow these rules were “common” and to be avoided. She was totaly correct of course.

    2. Where’s the social distancing, or do they all live in the same household?

  44. SIR– Charles Moore points out that the current ban on ringing church bells is to include V-E Day (Notebook, May 5).

    It is, of course, true that commemorations on a national scale cannot now take place as planned. However, all over the country there will be many local and private events, at which social distancing will be properly enforced, to remember the joy and relief that was felt 75 years ago. With its silenced bells, the Church of England risks becoming still more invisible and irrelevant to national life.

    Our clergy have shown tremendous initiative in their use of modern communications technology to keep in touch with their congregations. It is a great pity that our archbishops and bishops appear to lack the imagination required on this great occasion.

    Richard Feldwick

    Wickford, Essex

    2. Why don’t we burn Welby at the stake in the fine old traditional way? Failing that does nobody have the ‘get up and go’ of my ancestor Sir William de Tracy who took three of his chums down to Canterbury and murdered Thomas-à-Becket in the cathedral?

      Chaucer made the point very clearly that there is not much point in having a ‘shitten shepherd’ when the flock is snowy white.

      1. Good morning, Rastus.

        Is it Thomas à Becket or just Thomas Becket?
        Is it Hercules or Heracles?
        is it Piedmont or Piemonte?
        is it Mao Tse Tung or Mao Zedong?
        Is it Boadicea or Boudicca?
        Is it Bombay or Mumbai? (Bombay Duck or Mumbai Duck?)
        Is it Peking or Beijing? (Pekinese dogs or Beijinese dogs?)
        We must be told!

        [Personally I remain, steadfastly, with the former on each occasion, but that is me.]

        2. And it is Madras, not Chenni.
          A Chenni curry would be too close to chien for comfort

        4. Good morning Grizzly

          I agree with your list – but I made a capitally grave error with an A which should have been an à.

          1. ‘Morning, Rastus, Charmap.exe gives you all the character you want – and thousands more beside.

            Have a grave à on me.

      2. Bonjour Rastus.
        So you admit to being descended from the Normans, and you live in France, and you travel regularly in the direction of the Holy Land. Do you hold some deep rooted Catholic Crusader prejudice against Anglican bishops?

        1. Good point.

          But I was baptised in Khartoum Cathedral and became a confirmed member of the Church Of England when the Bishop of Exeter performed the appropriate rites for me in the chapel of Blundell’s School when I was 15 years old. However I am not very pious although my wife, a convert to Catholicism – is.

    3. Not to worry.

      I am sure there will be plenty of loud Friday calls to prayer reverberating around numerous neighbourhoods across the UK, to remind us what was fought for.

      1. I noticed in the instructions for the Nation’s Toast that the drink doesn’t have to be alcoholic so as not to exclude anybody. Hmm. They made no mention of pork scratchings …

    1. It is almost certainly true.

      What would be interesting is to know what advice, if any, SAGE gave.

      1. Morning Sos

        Some one on that link commented “328 fully laden Boeing 747s (660 people) per day for 83 days! This figure cannot be correct. ”

        That’s an average of 217000 per day.

        1. 83 days for 18,000,000 is ~ 217,000 per day. Scary, n’est pas?

          I don’t know about the 747 analogy, but it’s not a perfect one because, as I understand it, the 18mn includes all access methods, trains planes ferries.

      2. One might think there was a vested interest in one or two members for having a very high death rate.

    1. Good morning all.
      Bright & sunny up here in Derbyshire, but a rather brisk 2°C on the yeard thermometer when I got the milk in just now.

    2. Good morning Peddy

      Lovely blue sky here as well, slight breeze , tree blossoms look beautiful, and the May blossom smells heavenly.

  47. If one is interested in this sort of stuff, I think this article is one of AE-P’s better ones

    If monetary union ever ends, this is how it happens
    AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD – 5 MAY 2020 • 11:56AM

    The EU is in another of its endless crises
    Europe’s level playing field has disintegrated, and so has Mr Barnier’s Brexit ​

    The central pillar of the EU’s Brexit strategy is crumbling. Brussels can no longer plausibly pretend that Europe’s state aid and competition regime is sacrosanct.

    The last six weeks have seen massive distortion and degradation of the single market. Or to borrow from Thucydides, “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must”.

    Michel Barnier cannot repeat with a straight face that European commerce is uniquely governed by level playing field principles and that Britain must therefore submit to the EU’s legal structure under the writ of the European Court.

    Personally, I think that Europe’s “DG Comp” has always been one of the best elements of the EU apparatus, an outpost of Anglo-Saxon free market thinking in a social market culture. Precisely for that reason it was long viewed with suspicion by France and her dirigiste allies.

    It is why Nicholas Sarkozy sought – and secured – a key dilution to competition law in the Lisbon Treaty. (Yet another reason why Lisbon was such a crucial turning point on the path to Brexit).

    But it was always more aspirational than real. The pandemic has exposed just how little is real. State aid rules were suspended almost entirely as soon as Germany flicked its fingers.

    North and South are today pursuing radically different policies, according to their economic means, and this will lead to radically different outcomes when Europe emerges from the Covid-19 depression.

    “It destroys the argument that the EU is rule-compliant. It hits that narrative on the head,” says Prof Lorand Bartels, an expert on trade law and Brexit at Cambridge University.

    It is also poisonous for the EU project itself. As matters stand, Barnier’s negotiating demand is that Britain must swallow the whole acquis of competition and state aid law – and future acquis through “dynamic alignment” clauses – as a condition for a normal free trade agreement (FTA) with normal global access to EU markets.

    It must also swallow “level playing field” clauses on the environment, labour, and taxation. This extra-territorial demand over how we run our society as an independent state is extraordinary.

    Level playing field clauses are of course normal in FTA deals. They are an assertion of general principle. They are nothing like the Barnier variant.

    The FTA agreements with Canada, Korea, Japan, or Singapore obviously did not include such conditions (those countries would have walked away) and nor did the EU dare to utter such notions in its TTIP talks with the US (the Americans would have laughed).

    “The EU knows that it is an impossible ask but since Theresa May was willing to give away everything, they think they can keep trying with Boris Johnson,” says Shanker Singham, head of Global Vision and a Brexit trade advisor.

    It was and is a pure power play, an attempt by a larger economic bloc to pressure Britain into giving up normal sovereign prerogatives. It is speciously justified by the claim that this island economy is too big and too close to the EU to allow for any other settlement.

    It is also irritatingly dishonest. Germany is the biggest abuser of the existing state aid and competition system, censured 67 times over the last two decades for breaches of state aid law. France has had 29 infractions. Britain has been the shining example with just four. The British have historically deployed subsidies on a far smaller scale than the Franco-German core even where permitted.

    Eight weeks of economic implosion have now rendered the Barnier demarche almost surreal. The issue is not that the EU has suspended state rules to prevent systemic bankruptcies. It would have been a policy crime to do otherwise.

    The relevant point is the way in which the national, sauve qui peut, free-for-all approach – without a joint fiscal support mechanism to offset it – has shattered equity within the EU itself. The level playing refrain has become a sick joke.

    Germany is drawing on its AAA-rating and deep fiscal pockets to bail out Deutschland Inc with €1 trillion of credits, guarantees, and emergency spending. It accounts for 52pc of the €1.9 trillion of the EU’s state aid approvals since Covid-19 hit.

    Those of us who covered the eurozone austerity crisis from 2010-16 note with weary cynicism how rigidly EU budget law was enforced during that episode (when it suited the northern creditor bloc) and how quickly state aid law is being waived this time because it suits Berlin.

    The Club Med bloc can only dream of German largesse. The Spanish are spending hardly anything. Italy’s direct fiscal support – as opposed to theoretical guarantees – barely covers two weeks of actual economic damage. The result is that southern Europe will suffer a flood of avoidable insolvencies.

    Viable firms and industries will collapse. There will be lasting structural damage and hysteresis. Club Med recovery will take longer. The shrinkage of nominal GDP – and lack of a V-shaped rebound – will cause debt dynamics to turn toxic.

    UBS says Italy’s debt-to-GDP ratio could blow through 175pc in a protracted downturn with failed containment and second lockdowns (more than a remote tail-risk). Jefferies estimates that even France’s debt could top 140pc.

    Monetary union as currently constructed will not be viable if this happens. Hence Emmanuel Macron’s furious outburst against the northern bloc in an interview with the Financial Times, and hence the near daily warnings by finance minister Bruno Le Maire that the euro project is in existential peril and risks disintegration without fiscal union, i.e the perennial French agenda, l’Allemagne paiera.

    Specifically, their gripe is with the German state development bank KfW. Berlin is using this giant lender to funnel €100bn of free money to German companies. This keeps private business intact through the downturn. It also means that these companies will be able to pick through the corporate ruins of the South, acquire productive plant on the cheap, and entrench northern dominance of the EMU system. It repeats the austerity episode.

    Who bought up Greece’s airports when the Troika forced Athens to sell off state assets for a pittance? Just guess.

    This alleged plundering of countries in distress is the eurosceptic refrain of Italy’s Lega strongman Matteo Salvini. His rallying cry is that monetary union is a conspiracy by mercantilist corporate Germany to subjugate vulnerable corporate Italy. (He is wrong, but not entirely wrong).

    Thierry Breton, the French EU industry commissioner and former head of the technology group Atos, said the EU system is unworkable if Germany is spending €100bn to help its companies to fight Covid-19 while France is spending €20bn.

    “It is in the interest of every member state that the single market does not break apart,” he said. Well, yes, but the French government itself is rescuing Air France-KLM jointly with Holland for €10bn – while Germany is preparing a €9bn bail-out for Lufthansa – so where does that leave Irish-based Ryanair competing for European traffic in the future? Or indeed easyJet in the UK?

    It has been a sorry saga. First the EU single market buckled when Germany imposed an export ban on medical kit, and in doing so severed the internal supply lines that everybody took for granted. Now the EU competition regime is disintegrating under pressure.

    The antitrust commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, is trying to play herself back into the game. She has begun to make a symbolic stand, balking at German attempts to water down EU state aid rules yet further to save the Mittelstand. This is shadow boxing. Germany will not let its family firms go to the wall whatever EU law and doctrine says. Nor should it.

    But then what remains of Barnier’s demarche? The EU is fully justified in asking that the UK does not pursue a predatory Chinese-style subsidy policy to undercut European companies and gain market share (very different from the supposed “Singapore-on-the-Thames” model).

    The UK is happy to oblige since it has no intention of going down that route. It has agreed to set up its own anti-subsidy regime. “That ought to be the end of conversation,” said Mr Singham.

    I can’t resist noting the parallel spectacle in EU environmental policy. The new guidelines for ESG sustainable disclosure exempts oil and gas from the definition of fossil fuels. Does one detect the hand of the German Gazprom lobby and the diesel fraternity in that farce?

    The German BDI industry federation wants to roll back the EU’s CO2 targets. Armin Laschet, the front runner to succeed Angela Merkel as Chancellor, is a closet climate denialist who opened a new lignite coal plant in January. The UK has essentially stopped burning coal.

    Britain’s environmental labour, and competition standards are on balance higher than EU standards, although one should be wary of such illusory hierarchies, often invoked as a screen for protectionism.

    The Labour Party erred gravely last year in demanding that the UK submit fully to the EU’s legal regime. In doing so it was stating that the EU should have the power to set future British laws without any democratic consent from British voters.

    It is beyond me how anybody in the Labour Party could conclude that an EU system run in the interest of the commercial exporting elites is the apostolic defender of worker rights. Nor can I think of a lower moment in the history of the great patriotic Labour movement.

    What would Keir Hardie have thought of a party that wished to strip itself of powers to exercise government for ever? The political weather has changed profoundly since that sorry episode. Britain is less divided.

    The EU is in another of its endless crises – the result of its internal contradictions as a constitutional confederacy trying to run a federal monetary union. You have to be a true believer these days to take either its supremacy or moral claims at face value.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/05/05/monetary-union-ever-ends-happens/

    2. State aid is often both sensible and essential unless one is happy to see ownership of national assets go abroad or vanish into foreign ownership. The EU requirement for contracts to be open to all EU businesses has killed off many UK businesses. Shipbuilding in the UK was not without its problems, but having to award contracts to Polish shipyards subsidised by the Polish government was insanity. Multiply that across almost every UK enterprise and it is little wonder that heavy industry, scorned under Thatcher, virtually disappeared.

  48. A drunken blonde goes into a bar in America. The bartender asks her what she would like to drink. She replies,

    “Gimme a beer.”

    The bartender then asks her, “Anheuser Busch?”

    To which she replies, “Fine thanks, and how’s your cock?”

    1. They don’t use them these days – they’d rather creep up silently and knock people down.

  50. 318962+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Just what is the governance parties hidden agenda ?
    Airports unchecked, beaches open, assisted entry points running smoothly.

    Seemingly swallowing the” cornering the market” pill
    gates the pill pusher is pushing

    Giving carte blanche to the HS2 scammers.
    Giving the chinks the keys to the Country’s safe.

    Nullified common sense users, as in two is company and three is an illegal crowd.
    Any vit D required get it via gates org. and not in the local park, etc,etc,etc.
    Give due, if there is no incarceration end date in sight to the clever tactics of using the home address as a cell
    whilst the hidden agenda continues unhindered.
    Who is responsible for these types being in power, not once but again & again.

    breitbart,
    JUST 273 OUT OF 18.1M PEOPLE ENTERING UK BEFORE LOCKDOWN WERE QUARANTINED.

      1. 318926+ up ticks,
        Morning Tb,
        Just go to the
        Breitbart London / Europe page
        all the breitbart current issues are listed there.

    2. We flew back from Kenya on 6th March – we were temperature checked in Nairobi and the plane was sprayed with something before take-off – but we walked straight through Heathrow in a few minutes.

      1. No point in checking anyone after a flight because they would all have inhaled the re-cycled air inside the cabin during the flight and just because temp was taken before the flight didn’t mean they didn’t carry the virus

        1. I would have thought the recycled air was the dangerous bit – all breathing in the germs. However, we were well and have had no sign of illness. The temperature checks in Nairobi were for their reassurance, I think. They did the same in Uganda during the Ebola outbreak.

          1. Exactly – the droplets from one person would have been distributed throughout the cabin. Glad to hear you are ok.

    2. Islam forbids charity to infidels. This will be for Muslim victims only.

      1. Funny how they accept charity from infidels, they are the worlds takers

  52. Email from Nigel. 05/05/2020 17:51.

    Dear Supporter,

    I’ve had an interesting 48 hours.

    As you may have noticed, for some days now I have been drawing attention to the events that are happening on our South East coast. Over 1,000 illegal migrants have come in through Dover alone this year. So, I went down there myself to investigate early on Monday morning.

    It is clear to me that this illegal migrant scandal is bigger than anybody realises. Our government should stop the boats from coming, not help them to shore as I witnessed. I have been ridiculed and sneered at by the North London commentators who would all prefer we look the other way. I believe it is they who are out of touch on this issue and not me.

    Then late last night at 10pm, I received a knock on my door from Kent Police warning me off traveling to the coast to report on this scandal. Since the very start of lockdown, I have been worried about how some police forces would use their new unlimited discretionary powers. I am more concerned than ever. It seems to me that this visit was a total waste of police time and money, as I was there as part of my role as a commentator and broadcaster.

    Mark my words — this issue is not going away. And my late-night police visit will not stop me going out to cover this illegal immigration scandal.

    Best wishes.

    Nigel Farage
    Leader of The Brexit Party.

    Received this from Nigel last night. I’m not certain why he has suddenly taken up something that has been pretty obvious for oinks.

    1. This is blatant illegal immigration which shows how incompetent and/or misguided our Border Force is. The Home Office and Government are tacitly supporting this illegality and annoying much of the electorate as well. Nigel has every right to draw attention to this criminality..No other politician appears to be bothered apart , perhaps, Priti Patel.

      2. 318926+ up ticks,
        Afternoon C,
        One Gerard Batten the very genuine leader of UKIP has been warning about the dangers of islamic ideology
        vocal / book form since 2005 all the while the peoples were supporting mass uncontrolled immigration parties and voting for more of the same.
        These Isles could no way have got into the deep state of sh!te we are in without continuing input from the lab/lib/con coalition party.

        1. Have you read Douglas Murray’s book about the growth of Islam?

          The old General Paper which I took when I took my “A” levels should be put back on the syllabus for all those in the Sixth Form wishing to go to university.

          Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, Marx and Engels’s The Manifesto of the Communist Party, Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe and Christopher Booker’s The Real Global Warming Disaster should all be on the compulsory reading list and I am sure Nottlers will be able to make some more suggestions as to what else should be on the list. The idea is to get young people to think for themselves.

          1. ‘Afternoon, Richard, I’ve recently downloaded Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe looking good for when I’ve finished three other books on my list.

          2. The Gulag Archipelago,the true horrors of communism seem airbrushed from history
            Edit
            That’s probably expecting a bit much of today’s yoof,far too long…………..
            Perhaps A Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovitch would do

          3. …too long……and extremely boring. Needed a decent editor, while Shirer’s Rise and Fall is detailed but gripping.

    2. 318926+ up ticks,
      Afternoon As,
      Ask him if knows that one Gerard Batten has been warning of the dangers of islamic ideology rhetorically & in book form since 2005 also calling for controlled immigration all the while you ( nige) were penning a letter objecting to
      Gerard Batten becoming UKIP leader.
      By the by “nige” what is your views on
      incoming islamic ideology followers or are they covered by the submissive,PCism, Appeasement umbrella ?

      1. Farage realised that we would not achieve Brexit if we tried to fight every battle at once. I believe his narrow focus is what has got us as far as we are now – and we still don’t have a good Brexit in the bag.

        1. 318926+ up ticks,
          Evening BB2,
          On reflection a Bengal lancer if ever there was one.

      2. Good afternoon, Ogga

        I know you have bad feelings towards Nigel Farage just as Nigel Farage does not think that Tommy Robinson should be so warmly welcomed in UKIP.

        I do not agree with Nigel Farage on all points; I do not agree with Gerard Batten on everything; and I do not always agree with Tommy Robinson but I do think that the issue of illegal immigration effectively condoned and sponsored by the state is one that should transcend personalities.

        If Nigel, Gerard and Tommy are all of the same opinion that this disgraceful collusion of the state with criminal people traffickers is a disgrace which should be brought to the attention of everybody and then stopped dead then I can happily support all three of them.

        2. As I’ve explained to more than a few, just because I disagree with you on certain specific issues does not mean we may share a lot of common ground on other topics.

        3. 318926+ up ticks,
          Afternoon R,
          The “nige” is still currently a tory
          or what passes now as a tory. As in prior post if I was in the trenches with “nige” I would make damn sure he was in front of me.
          A very tarnished hero, first class rhetorical / manipulator user/abuser.
          Left the party, ( getting his life back) kept the party seat.
          Tried his best to get Gerard Batten
          discredited as UKIP leader ( the best we have had by the by ) via a letter, because his rhetorical conduit puppet bolton was kicked out.
          Whether or not you agree with Tommy Robinson you DO NOT try to put him down using him as an excuse to further your own ends, that is actions the state takes.
          I summed him up as a tory coxswain and his actions on leaving UKIP confirmed it for me.
          His take on leaving the party that gave him a platform and membership loyalty can be seen
          quite clearly.
          You do not need allies of his true calibre.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc7iuUHk3Yk.

  53. Interpreting the world through his own lens, “Professor Lockdown”, Neil Ferguson, may now sit back and model how many deaths from this point forward his undermining of the #StayHomeSaveLives message is responsible for.

    1. The UK government used modelling from Imperial College London and Professor Neil Ferguson to inform its coronavirus response.

      Imperial College also modelled Sweden, warning that their rejection of lockdown would result in 40,000 COVID-19 deaths by 1 May and almost 100,000 by June…

      …the latest figure from Sweden shows 2,680 deaths, with daily deaths peaking two weeks ago.

      *** There you are, it was all worth it wasn’t it?

          3. STATISTICS

            The discipline that proves the average human being has one testicle.

          6. Recalling ‘Only Fools and Horses’, perhaps Ferguson only fires blanks.

          10. Well …. possibly PLUS her red lipstick.
            Elder son reckons the Prof was following the Swedish model.

          1. And will be for the rest of his life.
            Which will probably be longer than the cancer patients whose diagnosis or treatment has been delayed thanks to his scaremongering.

      3. Here I am with the Clydesdale filly . Taken about 65 years ago. I cannot remember why I had the blunderbus with mehttps://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6240df206fb51473b8e823ba7fe8aa3461ffd0aa0208ad458b2c4187adff09ad.jpg

      4. Looks like the beast I used to ride over 50 years ago. Lovely temperament.

      5. Like a streak of lightning flashing through the sky,
        Like the swiftest arrow whizzing from a bow.
        Like a mighty cannonball he seems to fly,
        You’ll hear about him everywhere you go…”

          1. Frankie Laine did have a wonderfully dramatic voice, though. His was one of the first I heard as an infant (along with Guy Mitchell, Kitty Kallen, Al Martino, Petula Clark, Mario Lanza, Rosemary Clooney, Nat ‘King’ Cole, Jo Stafford, Perry Como, Joan Regan, Max Bygraves, Ruby Murray, Danny Kaye, Lita Roza, Ronnie Hilton, Patti Page, Slim Dusty, Peggy Lee, Alma Cogan, David Whitfield, Nancy Whiskey, Dickie Valentine, Doris Day and a few others. The soundtrack of my early childhood.

          2. Ironically, most of them resonate more with me than the pop music of the later ’60s!

        2. Even as a 10yo, I always thought the next couple of lines, The Time will come when everyone will know the name of… rather ridiculous and trace my intense dislike of Hype to that song!

          1. Worth staying well away from that horse. Everywhere he went there was trouble.

          2. It is beyond banal and evidently written to excite Yank kids.

            I was similarly perspicacious in my infancy. I couldn’t see, for example, why people laughed at clowns. I still can’t!

      6. Morning citroen – We had a working Clydesdale Mare and foal in our top field in the 50s. My brother and I used to ride barebacked and without reins on the mare. She didn’t object. A lovely horse and a hard worker. The foreground looks like our field with a steep drop but the background is different. I had to jump off our old Fergie tractor once on wet conditions when I got too near the edge of the slope. The tractor drove itself down to the bottom and stayed upright

        1. My grandfather used to plough with horses and my father was a horseman all his life.

  56. The shameless hypocrisy of Joe Biden. Spiked 6 May 2020.

    Biden wants the American people to give him the benefit of the doubt, to presume his innocence. His plea is not unreasonable. The problem is that few American politicians have done more to undermine the presumption of innocence in sexual-assault claims than Biden. As KC Johnson, author of The Campus Rape Frenzy, has put it, ‘Perhaps no major American political figure has so consistently championed the erosion of due process of those accused of sexual misconduct’. Under the standards Biden has applied to others who have been accused, he would be drummed out of public life immediately. His presidential candidacy would come crashing down.

    Biden is not shameless. I doubt that he can remember any of it and wouldn’t understand what the fooferaw would be about if he could. Like Trump he was raised in a different world from today. What he did would not have been at all unusual for any male of his class and generation. Regardless of all this a man in his psychological condition should not be running for a bus let alone the Presidency of the United States.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/06/the-shameless-hypocrisy-of-joe-biden/

  57. 318926+ up ticks,
    Old digit dick has seemingly been left speechless, over the antics of ferguson when it could have been worse as in a brace of foreign rent boys, looking to party, at least the bent bastard ain’t poof.

  58. Is this a life worth living – or merely an existence? – Allison Pearson
    This week could be the beginning of the end or is it just the end of the beginning? On Sunday night, the Prime Minister will address the nation. Hungrily we await some crumbs of hope from him. Tomorrow, the extension to the original lockdown which Boris announced all those years ago, on the 23rd of March, runs out. Back then, I wrote that I could just about imagine staying in isolation until the end of the Spring Bank Holiday. Well, it looks like I was right. May the 26th is hotly tipped to be the date when some normal functioning in the UK is allowed to resume. Alas, the “new normal” features precious little of what makes us enjoy being alive.

    If you were being charitable you would describe the Government’s approach as cautious. Timorous is another word. Pant-wetting has been known to be used by the more exasperated critics. I have always supported the lockdown – no one could possibly take a gamble with so many lives – but getting out of it is a much bigger problem than it needed to be. Rational countries like Denmark, Germany and the Czech Republic are already doing so without all this fuss and bother. Unfortunately, having scared the public half to death to ensure compliance, ministers now fear the public who believed everything they were told.
    A staggering 70 per cent of Britons say they will be nervous to leave their homes even after lockdown is eased, vastly more than in any other country. What a bitter irony it is that, as we prepare to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day, Brits are the Nervous Nellies of Europe. The Blitz could not destroy the spirit of the British people, but 24/7 bombardment by scaremongering news media has succeeded where the Luftwaffe failed.

    A shocking new YouGov poll found that 28pc of people don’t want the restrictions lifted at all. What, not even if the Government’s five strict tests for easing lockdown are met? Nope, not even then.

    Now, that really is terrifying. More than half of all adults are being paid by the state, according to a nervous Rishi Sunak. Our society will be back in the Victorian workhouse faster than you say epidemiologist if a quarter of its citizens seriously believe they can remain economically inactive.
    Don’t get me wrong; people have cause to be afraid. I just think they’re fearful of the wrong thing. This is like that moment on a beach in Sri Lanka when the ocean suddenly recedes. Families are still playing on the sand, children laughing, but the giant wave is building, gathering pace and strength. Soon it will overwhelm them, destroying everything in its path – human beings, houses, businesses, jobs, bars, hotels, hopes. The economic tsunami is coming, you can be sure of that, which is why the UK needs to get over its coronaphobia – and fast.

    Please can we at least try to keep fears about the virus in proportion? As I know from my own patients (well on the road to recovery, thanks) it’s a tenacious bugger of an illness. Fortunately, most get a manageable version and the young may not notice they have it at all. According to the Office for National Statistics, only 215 people under the age of 60 with no pre-existing conditions have died at NHS England hospitals with Covid-19. That’s 215 fatalities out of all fit younger and middle-aged people and virtually our entire workforce. (Remember we lose 450 souls every single day to cancer.)
    Most working-age people simply do not need the paraphernalia of protections being demanded by trade unions who seem happy to milk the crisis for all its worth. The vast majority could keep calm and carry on, and children return to school, so long as they observe sensible hygiene measures and avoid contact with vulnerable groups. Meanwhile, those who are in a higher-risk category can either continue to self-isolate or employ that endangered commodity which, thankfully, the older generation still possesses in abudance: common sense. As I know from your emails, many would rather live to the full such life as is left to them than wither and die in solitary confinement. People deserve to be given that choice.

    The people did as they were bidden by the Government. They stayed home and supported the NHS so it was never overwhelmed. Now, with many hospitals empty and a hugely expanded critical-care capacity, the NHS can support the people as they figure out how best to live with the virus.

    Am I the only one who is depressed by the lack of context and positive attitude? Other countries announce the number of their citizens who have recovered from the virus. Not the UK. When Sweden publishes its Covid deaths it includes age and pre-existing health conditions so Swedes are able to make informed decisions about their own personal risk. By contrast, we are treated like a class of mixed infants: “Shhhh, you don’t need to know that yet!”

    We don’t want to be patronised. We want honesty. If people have, by and large, been patient and cooperative it’s because we were told that staying at home was for the greater good. If it emerges that lockdown, the longer it goes on, causes more harm than benefit then that cooperation is terminated. We know that thousands of non-Covid patients are not being diagnosed or treated, storing up calamity for years to come. Pubs and cafes are on Death Row. Patience is wearing thin.

    At Sunday’s Number 10 Press briefing, Michael Gove said that we might not return to the old normal “until we have a vaccine”. I have huge respect for Mr Gove, but he has got to be kidding. The most optimistic estimate says that a vaccine could be ready in 12 to 18 months. Clinical trials almost never succeed. The record for developing an entirely new vaccine is four years. The only certainty about a Covid vaccine is is that there will be no economy left by the time one is manufactured and half the population will be alcoholics and the other half on antidepressants.

    Dismayingly, the Prime Minister seems to share Mr Gove’s view that only a mass-produced vaccine will defeat corona. “It is humanity against the virus,” he told an international conference on Monday.

    Perhaps, but what will be left of humanity if these inhuman restrictions persist for much longer? Does Boris of all people truly believe that humanity can survive for months, even years, without touching or dancing or kissing or flirting or making love or hugging grandchildren and friends or restaurants or weddings or holidays or concerts or theatre or cinema or stadiums roaring with fans? In Germany, hair salons, zoos, museums and churches have all been allowed to open with no surge in infections; soon, we should do the same.

    You know, if he were writing his old column in this newspaper today, I bet the PM would be quoting Benjamin Franklin at us: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

    I really hope that, in his speech on Sunday, one of our great libertarians trusts the British people, telling them to be cautious and kind, but not afraid. We can’t hide from the dangers corona poses for ever. In the past, our parents and grandparents lived with far worse, with polio, TB, smallpox; with bombs in the blackout too. Let the people choose for themselves. It is the best, most Conservative way out of this crisis.

    What is life worth if we’re not allowed to live it?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/briton-nervous-nelly-europe-need-deal-coronaphobia-fast/

    1. Pubs open here again today – with distancing rules. Restaurants beginning to open, too.
      Sun is shining, time for a beer after work! Must support the local economy, you know!

    2. Morning Nanny. Never mind ‘location, location, location’, what we need is context, context, context. Yes, the daily Covid death numbers look alarming but, as the above points out, compared to regular daily, monthly or annual deaths from seasonal flu or cancer it is not so dreadful. In giving a daily Covid deaths figure (many of which are ‘with’ rather than ‘from’, and the vast majority in patients with significant underlying health issues), it is no wonder the unthinking masses have been scared. Project ‘Covid Fear’ has worked. Percentages would also be useful. It is truly shocking that half of adults are currently being paid by the state (tax payers), 70% are afraid of lockdown ending, and 28% don’t want lockdown to end.

      1. It is staggering that so many people don’t want ti to end, and are afraid to go out – but of course these pollsters are very selective as to who they ask. Nobody ever asks what I think – though I did do the survey on the Excess the other day.
        There are some good things about the lockdown – less traffic, for one – and who wouldn’t enjoy being off work and still being paid 80% with no travelling expenses to pay? But they seem to forget the loss of freedom to make up our own minds where we go. who we see, and when we go. Not to mention all the other problems it’s causing.

        1. There are signs of rebellion here; as I walked the dog this morning, one of my neighbours was sitting on her doorstep talking to a friend who was sitting in the middle of the lawn. When I came back, they had been joined by a chap who was standing outside the garden.

          1. Well, we had our little neighbourly lockdown party on Tuesday. I’ve also noticed traffic going up the hill on the other side of the valley is getting back to near normal levels at times. We can hear things crashing over the cattle grid – my hearing’s not as good as it was so it doesn’t bother me but if I’m outside I notice it more.

          2. We are organising a VE75 tea tomorrow (a virtual street party) six feet apart. My neighbour has invited me over. If I am not here on Saturday, you’ll know I’m in clink!

          3. A friend of mine emailed this morning – there is a street party where they are, too – she’s making a wartime cake with chickpea flour and no eggs.

    3. “Brits are the Nervous Nellies of Europe. The Blitz could not destroy the spirit of the British people, but 24/7 bombardment by scaremongering news media has succeeded where the Luftwaffe failed”.

      Thanks for posting.

          1. 318926+ up ticks,
            Pt, The current term is “coloured eye” so as not to upset the rear exits.
            I had a few, did it my way, Frank Sinatra.

    4. It occurs to me that since the ‘Lockdown’ expires on Thursday May 7th and the PM is not due to make any further statement until Sunday 10th May, we have at least three days of unfettered freedom in which we can all go out and celebrate VE Day on Friday, ring church bells, hold thanksgiving services and enjoy poking fun at the State Police in their impotent fury to bully or do anything about it.

      Should they try anything, I recommend slinging them into the nearest river or duckpond.

    1. News about the lack of security at our borders and hence the nation’s well-being is not essential but a government scientific appointee and his bit of hot totty having an appointment between the sheets is absolutely essential and therefore no action required.

    1. ‘Morning Ogga, “…many of the UKs PMs all time wish would be to preside over the biggest, long running scam, as has been/is, witnessed.”

      That scam of course has been the Common Market that morphed into the European Union.

      1. 318926+ up ticks,
        Morning NtN,
        Most decidedly so, 24/6/2016 triggered alarm among the political troughers what with eu troughing closing.
        They have been fighting a rear guard action until the next scam hits the rails in motion, hey presto,
        HS2.

        Others are “work in progress”
        One thing for sure the peoples will never be without a major scam or a scam called major type,by continuing to support / vote lab/lib/con coalition party, guaranteed.

  61. Inverse Proportion

    Am I alone in noticing that as the world’s human population careers in an upwards out-of-control direction, then the standard of leadership that emerges from it plummets downwards in the opposite direction? That is: the quality of human leadership is inversely proportional to its numbers.

    When there were far, far fewer people on the planet we enjoyed the leadership of resolute and intelligent statesmen. Nowadays the population is of such high numbers that its very presence on the planet is killing off the necessary biodiversity that ensures its survival, the quality of those entrusted to lead it has deteriorated to beyond execrable.

    The scariest thing is that there is no one — among a population of rapidly approaching eight milliard humans — who possesses either the brain capacity or the common sense to lead the species out of a fast-advancing calamity of its own causing.

    Dim breeds dimmer, and so it goes.

    1. ‘Morning, George, perhaps we need a pandemic disease that will write off at least 50% of the world’s population. It might be engineered to take out only those in positions of power.

      Oh, wait a minute….

          1. Thanks, Billy.

            Ah, but Hindolveston has decent shops (supermarkets, butchers, bakers etc) within reach. Good pubs, Cromer crabs, samphire, Holt, Cley-next-the -sea, Norwich market … (sigh!).

          2. Unfortunately, Martins Farm shop has closed. And visiting any of the places you name would definitely NOT be deemed essential by the current Narfurk plod.

          3. I used to go to a farm shop (butcher) for excellent meat on the A140 at Hainford, a couple of miles north of Norwich airport. I can’t remember their name but their meat was top class and a reasonable price.

          1. I bought a new motor mower on Monday (a Viking, made by Stihl). I just managed to test it out by mowing the back lawn in sunshine when I got it home. Yesterday it rained much of the day.

          2. Stilh make good stuff. I’ve a couple of strimmers and a very good hand clipper.

            I also have a very very old Flymo, with a Briggs and Stratton, a very old MTD Yardman and an old Cadet both B&S engines. The two push (they gave up self propelled years ago) start well. The Yardman needs to have the battery fully charged to get it to start, but once moving it is brilliant.I can do 4 hours cutting at a session, subject to temperatures outside.

          4. I’ve got a Sovereign chainsaw.

            I’m very wary of this type of equipment and even I can work it.

            Our French handyman is a fan of Stihl products, but he thinks mine is the best one, of its size, that he’s ever used.

            I upgraded the chain to the “diamond” coated version and it even goes through oak roots like a hot knife through butter.

          5. I’ve a Sovereign mower. Cheap and cheerful (was less than £100 on offer from Homebase). The engine is presumably Chinese, but it generally fires up first time. Except at the moment. Briefly fires, then stops. I thought it might have been an issue with old petrol, but having drained it and replenished with new, there’s no improvement. Tomorrow I’ll strip down the carb – I’m expecting to find a blocked jet. If that doesn’t work, I may throw it away.

            Compared to Stihl stuff (I have a Stihl strimmer), the mower is almost disposable…

          6. Put it out in the sunshine to cook.

            I had a starting problem earlier this year on one of my ancient mowers and it was cured by sunshine.
            Have you cleaned and reset the spark plug?
            A new, better quality, plug might be the answer.

          7. It’s been in all of the sunshine; no difference. The mower is only a year old; I’m not convinced that the plug is the problem (though I’ll have a look at it). There’s another mower in the churchyard shed. It’s not ours, but belongs to a couple in t’next village who used to look after a small portion of the churchyard. That won’t start, either. It prolly (©BT) hasn’t been used for three years, so I’m fairly sure that’s a stale petrol issue.

            I didn’t do the Sovereign mower any favours a month or so back, when the blade ‘found’ some plastic netting lurking in the undergrowth. I foolishly turned it on it’s side to untangle the netting, whereupon most of the oil ran out, through the air filter. New filter element, new oil – ran like a dream. With hindsight, the petrol isn’t all that old – i.e. from last summer. But I’ve ruled that out, so my money is on crud in the carb. I can get a replacement carb for around £20, except they’re not currently in stock. And, as I said earlier, the thing was so cheap it’s more or less disposable. A far cry from the John Deere walk-behind mower that I used to use in the churchyard, when I had feet…

          8. My Stihl has a Kohler engine. Apparently in tests conducted in the USA against Briggs & Stratton, the Kohlers came out, at least, as reliable if not better than the B&S in some areas.

          9. If I have an issue with B&S , it’s oil consumption.

            But that might be down to the amount of use they get here and the way I use them.. In Spring and early summer when the orchids are showing, I do a lot of hand clipping and push mower mowing.
            Once the orchids have set their seed pods and started to break open I use the tractor mower over them to spread the spores. I say spores because the seeds from the pods are finer than the tiniest grains of sand.

            For me, for any engine, it’s ease of starting that matters, my rotavator is B&S and gets used a few times every six months. When it is in use, it gets heavy use but in between doesn’t leave the garage.
            Not tempting providence, because I hope to use it tommorrow, it starts first time.

          2. Okay George. When you have the time or inspiration i would like you to immortilise Dolly. I can provide you with many pics and would be happy to pay you. Shall we say £200 for a water colour?

          3. Wow, Phil. I would be honoured to paint Dolly for you.

            The only problem is that my skill at watercolours is very poor; I am much more proficient in oils (and possibly acrylics) if that would be of any interest.

    3. Nice! Properly tidy, too, unlike my gaffe – living with two messys can be a strain!

          1. Me too, but you should see my studio right now. I need to make it more ergonomic.

          2. The whole point of having a studio, as far as I am concerned, is so that you can make as much mess as you like and you don’t need to tidy it.

    1. Just back from a shopping trip. It occurred to me on the way that now would be a good time to carry out roadworks while the traffic is thin.

      1. The Via Gellia between Cromford & Grangemill should have been resurfaced last month. It, and other roadworks, were cancelled so the council could use the allocated funding for other things relating to the shut-down.

        1. Would that be expensive lunches to consider the strategy or the tragedy?

    2. We are back from our first walk in a local wood , that we had longed for for months . The bluebells were nearly finished , there were a few wood anemones, lots of pink campion in small drifts, bugle , king cups , nettles , new ferns, and many other wild flowers, , hazel uncoppiced and growing wildly , woodbine clambering , euphorbia , no sign of the orchids I saw last year and the birds calling .. chiff chaffs , thrushes , robins , nuthatches and many more .

      We walked with out the dogs , I am glad we did . The track was muddy and slippery in places, caused by mountain bike tyres . The sunshine shone through the leafy beeches , hazels and holly trees. There were signs that tree fellers had been in there during the winter stripping the conifers out .

      As we walked along the muddy tracks carefully , we heard the buzzards calling in the blue patches of sky above . Last year we were so blessed to witness a goshawk racing through the trees , it used to have been a regular visitor to the area in the past , and perhaps it still visits / nests in the wood now.

      My account sounds so much like a day in the life of True Belle, but I have missed this Spring so much , achingly so , that just for an hour and a half or longer , my remembered little world is still there , just as it was , and nature remains quite consistent , th birds call, the midges dance , butterflies flit, and the bees buzz and the little black beetles crawl and end up upside down!

      The car was parked just off the lane , and as we sat on the tail gate of the car cleaning our muddy shoes off, dear old cuckoo called his message from a copse across the field with the lambs in .

      Moh was much happier , though I know he is desperate to play golf again , anyway we arrived home hungry, lovely greeting from the dogs , and we put together a salmon sandwich and ate half a banana each . The sun shines still, and how blue is that sky without a single contrail.

      1. Well now, how did you know there’d been tree fellers stripping out the conifers, Maggie?

        Did you find tree sets of footprints?
        ;¬)

          1. The Witch
            by Percy H. Ilott
            I saw her plucking cowslips,
            And marked her where she stood:
            She never knew I watched her
            While hiding in the wood.

            Her skirt was brightest crimson,
            And black her steeple hat,
            Her broomstick lay beside her—
            I’m positive of that.

            Her chin was sharp and pointed,
            Her eyes were—I don’t know—
            For, when she turned towards me—
            I thought it best—to go!

            Poem I learnt when I was a youngster!

          3. I am too busy avoiding a boojum to worry about woozles. (A boojum is a sub-species of snark which makes you disappear completely if you see it.)

        2. Afternoon DM

          There were some heavy tyre tracks , big machine stuff and muddy splashes and signs of ripped conifer branches and dragged trunks .. we followed a different route , and followed the bike tyre tracks .

          Tree sets of footprints indeed ..

          I am not Paddy Maginty’s missus!

      2. And so the world goes on as it will do ad infinitum regardless of coronapanic.
        Well done Belle.

      4. Moh was much happier , though I know he is desperate to play golf again

        Not many people know this

        Many years ago inScotland a new game was invented.It was ruled

        ‘Gentlemen Only…Ladies Forbidden’.. .

        and thus, the word GOLF entered Into the English language.

        1. I suspect some one will have recognised my car and dobbed me in.

          You know Bill, this virus seems to have brought out the best and worst in people. More snitches than ever.

          I wonder who snitched on the number cruncher scientist Ferguson?

          2. I suspect the faction that believes he is a charlatan have been keeping tabs on hi and his personal life.

            Then it all came true!

          3. I suspect his habits have been known about for months. They were revealed when he was becoming an embarrassment and a block to easing of restrictions.
            Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bloke.

  64. Gosh, it’s been a really unhappy last 18 hours for so many lefties – they tend to subscribe strongly to the right-wing press conspiracy to release Ferguson story in order to deflect criticism from the Boris Government. Furthermore they also tend to regard Ferguson as an absolutely key advisor the country can’t afford to lose. Numerous meltdowns in phonecalls to LBC and on Twitter. The funny thing is these are the same people who a few months back were screaming for Boris’s blood when he spilt some red wine in Carrie’s flat a there was a bit of a domestic.

  65. A couple of weeks ago my car had a flat tire. The nice RAC man came out in his lovely orange van, jacked up my car and changed the tire (sorry, I’m not very practical!). At no point did we come closer than two metres to each other. Neither he nor I were at risk of catching the lurgy.

    Can anyone therefore please explain to me what is the rationale for clamping down on ‘non-essential’ travel? I will admit to sometimes going for a drive, just because we have nice countryside where I live and I need a change of scene. My car is taxed, insured, MOT-ed, recently serviced and I drive safely and under the speed limit. I am clearly ‘socially distanced’ alone in my car. What is the benefit to this rule?

    I have no problem complying with rules even if they restrict my life, but I do always like to ask – why?

    1. Apparently it’s so that the emergency services can concentrate on
      saving people from the virus rather than road accidents.

      1. There will still be, comparatively, very few cars on the road to have an accident with. The risk is much lower now than before the lockdown. Most accidents, apparently, happen within 3 miles of home. As long as you travel further than that you should be safe. :-))

        2. Yes, when I found most accidents happened within a couple of miles from home, I moved.

    2. What? And deprive the Police Farce Service of a chance to bully and harass us?

        1. Oops, JK, you beat me to it by a good two hours. (Memo to self: must go to bed and get up earlier!)

          1. Yo Elsie

            Memo to self: must go to bed and get up earlier!

            Always better to go to bed ealier than when you get up

            Just saying

          2. I try to go to bed the same day as I get up. Unfortunately it has a tendency to be the following day.

    4. I presume you mean he changed the wheel not the tyre (note spelling) – I drive a recovery truck (sometimes as an agent of the RAC) and have never changed a tyre at the side of the road, the RAC do not carry tyre changing equipment.

        1. I have a hole on the inner tube of the tyre on the wheel of my wheel barrow which means I cannot even begin to imitate sweet Molly Malone. However, when Caroline goes to the supermarket this afternoon she is going to look for an essential puncture repair outfit.

          1. I am delighted to be able to report that Caroline found a puncture repair kit at SUPER U, the puncture has been repaired and the wheelbarrow once again is ready for use.

          2. Are you going to post a video of your Molly Malone impression?

  67. Yo All

    Something to ponder on

    How many people have died from Covid19
    How many people have died with Covid 19 traces in their body

    A suggestion.

    Data on deaths by Age group from ‘Common’ Fatal illnesses. over the period 01 January to 01 April, for last 5 years shoiuld be gathered.

    The same data gathering process should then be carried out for same illnesses for the period 01 January to 01 April 2020.

    The results of both surveys should then be compared.

    That everyone died from Covid19, is the most likely result, therefore, it will show that the NHS has miraculously cured cancer, heart problems, pneumonia and a myriad of other medical problems

    There is no way the NHS will do this: they are untouchable at the moment and their word is Law

      1. Morning sos -Two significantly more numerous ethnic and/or obese groups of people liable to die of the virus are now present in the country. The upturn in the weather and longer daylight hours may be a significant factor in the current reduction in fatal cases of COVID -19

      2. Yo sos

        this was just a starter for ten

        A ‘statitician’ ie not working for HMG would know the ideal number of years

    2. The peak of deaths from Covid was apparently the 8th April, so I would widen the dates a bit. Maybe to the end of May?

    3. The peak of deaths from Covid was apparently the 8th April, so I would widen the dates a bit. Maybe to the end of May?

    1. To be fair it seems she did the “nipping out” but otherwise, fair comment!!

    2. Easier for him to be sacked because of that than because of incompetence/or worse. The latter would include the Government – can’t have that.

    3. Maybe he can resume his job as a private tutor.

      Didn’t he have great success tutoring Prince Harry? The quality of Harry’s judgement, knowledge and intellect stands as a monument and a testimonial to the competence and achievement of Rory Stewart.

  71. Just back from shopping. More people about. Found some wholemeal flour in a village farm shop.

    Re AGA saga – followed wise NoTTLers suggestion of Plan B. In fact, unknown to me, the MR had texted him last evening – and he was here at 8.30 An hour fiddling with pump/radiator/pump/bleeding etc etc. Got “heat bleed” radiator to work. Suggested I left pump off and go out. Went our for two hours, hbr STILL working as it ought. Maybe problem solved. We’ll see this evening.

    It’s a bugger when these simple things go awry.

    Thank you for your help, anyway. I’ll stop boring you (on that, anyway).

    3. So glad that your heating system seems back to normal again, Bill. (Fingers crossed.) There is nothing worse than a cold house without any heating. I hope you and the MR are well.

    5. Hope your ladder work went OK. I was up on one this morning. I discovered I could see daylight through the roof of the shed I keep the mower in. A laburnum that has put on vast growth had been brushing the roof and in the gales had pushed a section of roofing felt up and away. So, tackled it this morning, and discovered how heavy rolls of roofing felt have got… Survived OK, but I need to go back and put tacks on the edges.

          2. Bill refers to his current lady as the Most Recent. I too have a similar but I prefer to refer to her as Best Beloved.

        2. Congrats. You’ve won some brownie points by getting the plumber to fix your heating! I know she called him, but it was your presence that cowered him into submission.

  73. What Neil Ferguson’s booty call tells us about modern politics. Spiked. 6 May 2020.

    The conspiratorial left, convinced the world is run by secret cabals of bankers and cigar-chomping media moguls, thinks the Neil Ferguson story is a ‘dead cat’. In other words, they think the Daily Telegraph – Evil Tory Rag – revealed that Ferguson carried on bonking his mistress in defiance of a lockdown that he himself bears much responsibility for in order to distract attention from Britain overtaking Italy with the highest Covid death toll in Europe. A ‘dead cat’ strategy is when a sensationalist story is introduced to the mix to divert attention from a far more serious political crisis. Ferguson’s sexual antics are the Tory regime’s dead cat to Britain’s corona death toll, apparently.

    This must be one of the very few times then where I and the “Conspiratorial Left” have agreed though we might disagree about the Prime Mover and the Reason! Ferguson was sacked because he had become an absolute burden to the Government. He and they had become indistinguishable. He had to go! The story, the “dead cat” his supposed Mistress, is a fiction designed to disguise this simple fact.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/06/what-neil-fergusons-booty-call-tells-us-about-modern-politics/

    1. You can’t believe the death from Covid as the ONS is counting everyone with CV on the death certificate is counted as a death FROM. The only reliable way is to ignore the Covid figures and look at total deaths this year so far with the average for the same period over the last 10 years. I believe all other figures are irrelevant unless the rest of the world uses the same method. Having a high death rate attributed to CV just give the validity to control us in the future. Very dangerous times and not from the virus.

      1. Afternoon Alf. It is in the Governments interest to make the both the fatality rate and the total as large as possible since that lets them off the hook for overeacting and following Fergusons advice!

    2. Or:
      The reason for looking into the political affiliations of the scientists and experts who’ve been advising governments across the world during this crisis is that it may throw some light on why those governments have made such poor policy decisions. Will the vast majority of those advisers turn out to be left-of-centre, like Professor Ferguson? I’m 99% sure of it, and I think that will help us to understand what’s happened.

      I don’t mean they’ve deliberately given right-of-centre governments poor advice in the hope of wrecking their economies for nefarious party political reasons or because they’re members of Extinction Rebellion and want to destroy capitalism. Nor do I believe in any of the conspiracy theories linking these public health panjandrums to Bill Gates and Big Pharma and some diabolical plan to vaccinate 7.8 billion people. I have little doubt they’ve acted in good faith throughout – and that’s part of the problem. The road they’ve led us down has been paved with all the usual good intentions.

      The mistakes these liberal policy-makers have made are depressingly familiar to anyone who’s studied the breed: overestimating the ability of the state to solve complicated problems as well as the capacity of state-run agencies to deliver on those solutions; failing to anticipate the unintended consequences of large-scale state interventions; thinking about public policy in terms of moral absolutes rather than trade-offs; chronic fiscal incontinence, with zero inhibitions about adding to the national debt; not trusting in the common sense of ordinary people and believing the only way to get them to avoid risky behaviour is to put strict rules in place and threaten them with fines or imprisonment if they disobey them (and ignoring those rules themselves, obviously); arrogantly assuming that anyone who challenges their policy preferences is either ignorant or evil; never venturing outside their metropolitan echo chambers; citizens of anywhere rather than somewhere… you know the rest. We’ve seen it a hundred times before.

      https://lockdownsceptics.org

    3. I think it’s more pertinent to look at how the MSM portray Ferguson as someone who ‘influences policy’, without mentioning once his past epic failures to get the numbers anywhere near the right ball park – and failing to learn from his previous mistakes. The fact that he still hasn’t published his model speaks volumes.

    4. Oi Laffed

      Ferguson should know his commandments.

      Thou shalt not Covid thy neighbour’s wife.
      Afternoon Minty

    2. My pocket calculator just throws out a “couldn’t be bothered” 1·234567899¹⁶

    1. Good idea, but his head should be tilted the other way i.e. to his right.

    2. Good idea, but his head should be tilted the other way i.e. to his right.

  76. I just came in from the shopping an hour or so ago to find my wife having a chat on the phone to our just turned 5 year old granddaughter. (A bit of background, since she was 18 months old I’ve been measuring her against the wall, first monthly, but now quarterly.)

    I joined in their conversation on speakerphone. After a few minutes the conversation went something like this;

    ‘Granda, when’s Measuring Day?’

    Me; ‘The 21st June’

    ‘How long is that?’

    Me; ‘About 7 weeks’

    ‘7 Weeks? Is that November?’ (Took me a bit by surprise that one)

    Me; ‘No, November is seven months, 7 weeks is a lot sooner than that’.

    ‘Ah’

    The conversation went on for another minute or so, to clarify when in time 21st June is. Then she came out with;

    ‘Granda, I haven’t got Coronavirus’.

    I could have wept, almost did. She was trying to find a way to come and see us and using logic to do it, but without coming out and saying what she actually was angling at.

    2. Oh pet! We’re hoping to see our 14 month old granddaughter on Sunday! (Probably through a window!) She lives on a farm in Lanarkshire and we are about an hour north. Since the lockdown ( for some) she has started to walk and talk. Face time is fine but the physical yearning to see her is ghastly. Missing so much of her formative year is a horror. I also could weep. Go grandparents!

      1. We have her after school three days a week in normal times, all day on the same days during school holidays. This is like a second home to her and she’s missing us as much as we are missing her.

        She threw me at first when she asked when was Measuring Day. I wondered what that had to do with anything and why she was asking.

        She had her own reasons.

    3. I’m sorry for what you have missed out on, along with all the parents, grandparents and children who are missing out on the basic human need for a cuddle.

      Switzerland has said that children can hug their grandparents:

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52470838

      No evidence that children under ten pass it to adults:

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/29/no-case-child-passing-coronavirus-adult-exists-evidence-review/

      We should be allowed to hug our grandchildren. I hope we will be soon.

  77. Last odd fact (from me) for today

    The first couple to Be shown in bed together on prime time TV was:

    Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

    2. “We’ve never had any complaints and we have German neighbours who are much closer – just 10 metres away.”
      Perhaps the German neighbours don’t want a midnight visit.

    3. Reduces house prices I would have thought, because loads of people won’t want to live within earshot of that.

  79. Police are appealing for more information after livestock rustlers stole 23 cows and calves from a farm in Cornwall.

    The Jersey herd, which includes 10 calves, were stolen from Lower Bodiniel Farm, in Bodmin, on either Wednesday or Thursday last week (29/30 April).

    After an initial police investigation, it is understood that the animals were most likely stolen.

    Devon and Cornwall Police said the dairy cattle may have easily been loaded onto a vehicle.

    https://www.farminguk.com/news/thieves-steal-23-cows-and-calves-from-cornwall-farm_55577.html?fbclid=IwAR1jcWuQuyMVIs91wff3AXBADzJ2U7JsjonJMtkNBdevDq9qzZRuIG83Xm0#.XrFKcSVmIyk.facebook

    1. Hadn’t realised things were so bad in the Scottish borders that the Reivers had had to come so far south….

    3. What day does Ramadamadingdong finish? We do need to allow for the beef to hang.

    4. Rustling is a huge problem nowadays. It happened to a small herd near us a few years ago. All gone, some small calves that wouldn’t even have survived the journey to the abbatoir, their owner reckoned.

  80. Just turned on Radio 4, caught the briefing and heard a government gimp saying how important it was to build HS2 to heal the post-virus world. I turned the radio off after less than 30 seconds.

    No teacups were broken in the making of this report.

    1. You should have laid down on the sand and timed how long it took for a police Person to arrive!

      1. It would mean getting out of the car and walking a quarter of a mile.

        Not much chance of that.

        2. Which beach is that Bassetedge? It reminds me of the occasional warm, perfect, summer days I experienced from my parent’s caravan near Boulmer back in the 1950s.

          1. It’s Alnmouth Bay, between the rivers Coquet and Aln, just down from Boulmer.

            Boulmer itself is almost creeping into the right hand side of the second photo in the distance. Maybe your caravan was one of those at Seaton Point, half a mile or so south of Boulmer village?

          2. Yes, I believe it was there – in those days the caravans numbered a mere 30-40. I recall walking Alnmouth beach sometime in the late-1950s and noticing Ronnie Simpson, Newcastle United goalkeeper, walking his dog. He later became more widely famous when at the age of 36 he was GK for Glasgow Celtic when they became the first British team to win the European Cup in 1967.

          3. I’ve got a very bad photo I took of Ronnie Simpson in goal making a save for Celtic, when they sent a ‘Celtic XI’ to play my home town Ashington, (non league) in 1968. Celtic won 4-3. 🙂

          4. Simpson was in goal in the first few seasons I watched Newcastle – at my first league game in September 1953 when they lost 3-7 (!!!) to a fine West Bromwich Albion side.

      1. High tide and it’s not a favoured beach for waders anyway. There were black-headed gulls passing and Sandwich terns fishing close in.

  83. Good evening from a Saxon Queen, it’s Wednesday I think, everyday still seems like Sunday’s.
    But as someone informed me busy for vicars, usually but not at the moment.

    1. Bert: “You been bonking that Ferguson chap?”

      Ada: “Not bloody likely, he’d give me Covid.”

    2. Ada: “What’s that mortality prediction app from Imperial that you’ve been running on your Smartphone Bert?”
      Bert: “It’s Tinder…Oh, there’s someone knocking at the front door – I’ll get it!”

    3. Ada – shush Bert, University Challenge is on, Prof Ferguson has just completed his Staater for Ten

  87. https://lockdownsceptics.org/code-review-of-fergusons-model/

    Code Review of Ferguson’s Model
    The code. It isn’t the code Ferguson ran to produce his famous Report 9. What’s been released on GitHub is a heavily modified derivative of it, after having been upgraded for over a month by a team from Microsoft and others. This codebase for instance is split into multiple files for legibility and written in C++, whereas the original program was “a single 15,000 line file that had been worked on for a decade” (this is considered extremely poor practice). A request for the original code has been made 8 days ago but ignored, it will probably take some kind of legal compulsion to make them release it. Clearly Imperial are too embarrassed by the state of it to ever release it of their own free will, which is unacceptable given it was paid for by the taxpayer and belongs to them.

    Non-deterministic outputs. Due to bugs the code can produce very different results given identical inputs. They routinely act as if it’s unimportant.

    And it goes on. It’s literally rubbish in, rubbish code, rubbish out. And it’s w Imperial College used to predict the number of cases and deaths from WuFlu. They might just as well have not bothered with the computer programme and taken a wild guess, or gone with the first number they thought of.

    1. Neil Ferguson he is well aware that the code is filled with bugs that create random results.

    2. Good God. Fuckup isn’t the word for that appalling, amateur mess. And these results crashed the UK economy. No validation, unrepeatable results… and that’s just the code. What is the mathematics like? Speechless…

    3. This deserves to be on the Top Story of every BBC news programme – but it won’t be. I’m not sure if I have enough contempt left in me for Ferguson and the BBC (News you can’t trust one inch).

    6. A single 15 000 line file!

      Oh my eyes.
      The country went into lockdown based on the output of a single 15 000 line file of C code?
      No wonder they won’t release it and hold themselves up to ridicule.

      I’m struggling to think of an analogy to explain how appalling that is.
      No professional engineer would write 15 000 lines of code in one file.
      Nobody with the smallest amount of pride as a programmer would do that.
      Therefore, by definition, this code was a bodge-up written by an amateur programmer.
      In other words, foggin university academics.

      Code like that cannot possibly have been adequately tested, since no unit test program on earth can handle a single 15 000 line file. Especially given that they are in the business of making predictions anyway, so what are they going to test it against?

      I’d stake my life it was full of bugs.
      Just picking a number randomly would probably have given a greater degree of accuracy!!!
      Whatever else Ferguson is, he’s no professional at his job.

      1. It was cleaned up by John Carmack who commented that it wasn’t actually all that bad. Only bugs he found were in unreachable code. I trust him, he’s a brilliant software developer, he’s the guy that gave the world Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein.
        I gave it a quick once over. I think Carmack is right in that originally it was Fortran which has been hacked into C, now cleaned up into some fugly looking C style C++.

        1. “Not actually all that bad” relative to what?
          The fact that there was unreachable code is itself a further sign of poor quality code.

          The kind of bugs that you pick up from refactoring tend to be the low-hanging fruit that you get from code reviews. I doubt he would have picked up logic errors, of the type that would creep in when several people modify the logic over 13 years. Do we know if the original file was even under version control?

          Read the article linked on lockdownsceptics above, it’s also written by a developer, who describes a bug multiple bugs that she found.
          I’m sure John Carmack is a good developer, but who is paying him to give his opinions? We’re now in political territory.

          From the GitHub site, written I think by an Imperial bod (I added teh bold):
          “So I agree the checksum regression test is not a perfect solution. As another example of the issue you highlight, we deliberately run it single-threaded so we don’t get variance between different thread performance giving different results between runs. Fused multiply accumulate and vectorization will just add to the issues.
          This isn’t a problem running the model in full as it is stochastic anyway.
          However, we haven’t had the time to work out a scalable and maintainable way of running the regression test in a way that allows a small amount of variation, but doesn’t let the figures drift over time.”

          Come on, it’s crud.

          1. Well yes it’s obvious the code is crud, but it runs to spec in single-threaded mode. It has a race condition in multithreaded mode which causes the two runs not producing same results with same seed scenario.
            It’s easy enough to criticise the code but is the actual logic correct. That I don’t know. Does it model the viral transmission well? I’ve no idea. This is pretty typical of code hacked together by academics with a basic understanding of C but no professional programming experience. I’ve seen a fair bit of similar looking code crying out for vectors and algorithms.

          2. Amateur programmers modified it continuously over 13 years, and had no regression tests to check if earlier functionality was broken by later changes. Apparently the Imperial team believed that it ran correctly in single threaded mode, but this was disproved by someone else (also posted on GitHub iirc).
            What really disgusts me is that nobody in the government asked to see any quality standards from Mr Guru Ferguson – his word was just accepted. Too many ignorant PPE graduates in the civil service as well as government. Cummings is trying to remedy that by bringing in more technical people, but unfortunately, his eyes are too dazzled by youth, high IQs, new technlogies and big talk, whereas in fact what he needs is suspicious old foxes with years of experience dealing with crappy code, and no illusions left.

      2. So the whole world economy has been trashed because politicians believed in this charlatan?

        1. I guess so.
          If anyone in government knew the smallest thing about software, they would have asked to see evidence of some professional standards.
          For example, what is your testing procedure, what software quality standards do you adhere to, can we see your source code, can we see your software design documents, do you use version control, what static analysers were applied to this code etc etc.

          But he’s an academic, so he’s exempt from all that.

          The arrogance of academics – they claim their work is so rigorous – I’ve always suspected that, as a commercial software developer, I work to a far more rigorous standard than they do. And now I’ve got proof!! It’s not enough to say that the maths is super high level and correct, because the mathematical theory is too closely bound up with the software that implements it.

          Dominic Cummings is sniffing in the right direction, but he should have called out Ferguson on this! Cummings is too fond of the big plan – he was going to recruit some software developers for his grand schemes – assessing Ferguson’s software tools would have been a job for them. But you have to be suspicious enough to realise that that job needs doing first.

          1. I’m afraid that no-one in government knows the smallest thing about anything, much.

            I doubt whether any of them have worked out that PPE isn’t necessarily a degree…

          3. The software, dirty though it is, isn’t too buggy supposedly.

            The question is does the model follow the right logic. Only a group of epidemiologists could answer that. No code review will uncover bad science.

    7. Yep, think of a number, add 22, take away 8 add 2/3 of 9, add 7/8 of 56, take away the number you first thought of divide by 23, square the result, add 7, take the square root and the answer’s 4.

      1. That’s what they wrote the program to do, I’m guessing. It’s about as accurate.

        1. My process is totally accurate, unlike Ferguson’s I suspect.

          Try it with any number you like.

    8. Non-deterministic outputs? I’d love to know how a program can produce different results for the same inputs. Does it run on a quantum computer?

      1. Montecarlo simulation based on seed number. Not necessarily the same answer each time it’s run.

    9. Nobody writes a single file of 15000 lines in C++. That’s against everything people are taught from first principles of headers and source files.

  88. Grrrrr, making a fish pie, not done one for eons. Forgot whether you cover the pan when
    poaching the fish in milk. I’ve put a saucepan lid on it. Last time I made a white sauce was
    for a mistake, it ended up as scrambled eggs with meat so I am not too positive .

    1. If you are not sure or don’t have the skill then buy those fish in a bag which contain a parsley sauce. Empty however many into an oven dish and then pile on mash potato. Bake for 20 mins or so and there you have it.

  89. I meant to post this earlier – from The Grimes. I thought it had its funny side – especially with yer British plod thinking drones are a good idea:

    “Latvia shut down large areas of its airspace and issued aviation warnings after an experimental drone that can loiter in the skies for days disappeared during a test flight.

    The 26kg (4st) drone had enough fuel to keep it in the air for 90 hours when its controllers lost track of it shortly after take-off on Saturday and it was last seen flying at 600ft.

    Despite reduced air traffic across Europe due to coronavirus, the drone has caused serious aviation problems, including the closure of airspace over Riga International Airport.

    Officials suspended flights below 19,500ft across all of Latvia and an incoming flight from China was redirected to Tallinn, the Estonian capital.

    “Residents who notice a 5.5-meter-wide and 3.5-meter-long unmanned aerial vehicle [UAV] are asked to contact the Aviation Search and Rescue Co-ordination Centre immediately,” wrote Apollo, a Latvian news website. No reported sightings were confirmed. Three private planes, a military aircraft and mobile radars were deployed to spot the drone, with no success.

    The drone belongs to the UAV Factory, a producer based near Riga that also produces drones for the Latvian army. The company’s flight licence has been suspended. Officials said that it was possible the drone already landed.”

  90. Great excitement today; I saw an aeroplane – and I had a haircut. And we found 3 kg of wholemeal flour.

    So may thrills on one day are proving too much – so I’ll bid you good evening and go and have a lie down.

    I was thinking of putting in for Ferguson’s job. I am useless with numbers – so should be a shoo-in.

    A demain

      1. We’ve seen it!!! Coming up across the way…….. even MH could see the Face of the Man in the Moon!

    3. The joys of lockdown-induced second childhood, Bill …
      Another glass of Hardy’s Shiraz …

      1. McGuigan Reserve here. Which is a shame, since I ordered Yellow Tail, and this was the substitution. I had more success with the local brewery yesterday. 12 bottles Hog’s Back TEA, 5.5 pints of draught TEA (this is the first time in three months that I’ve tasted something approximating to pub beer), and a hamper of assorted fresh meat from Alf Turner, a rather good butcher in Aldershot. Deliered free. They’re also selling various wines, and local bread. But I’ve cracked the bread problem. Received 2 x 16 kg bags of flour directly from Heygates today. There’s 500g of dried yeast in the fridge, so I’m good for 64 loaves at least…

  91. https://evidencenotfear.com

    Toby Young describes this site as a more militant version of Lockdown Sceptics.

    “As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious disease in the UK”
    Public Health England

    If COVID-19 is not a high consequence infectious disease, why has the UK been thrown into uncharted territory without debate? We are seeing far-reaching and irreversible changes to our way of life. But it is not yet too late.

    Now is the time for people everywhere to start making decisions based on evidence, not fear.

    1. “Toby Young describes this site as a more militant version of Lockdown Sceptics.”

      How long has he been reading NOTTL?

      1. Clearly he hasn’t.
        He should come here. He’d learn a thing or two, e.g. us oldies are more bolshie than them thar young’uns

  92. I was sitting reading in the garden a few moments ago listening to a couple of distant green woodpeckers when a screech of swifts flew low overhead. The first of them I’ve seen this year. Martins and swallows have been around for a while now.

    1. Last week in April/first week in May is when they arrive. Not seen any so far, but I’ve hardly been out.

      Swifts don’t stay long. Late arrivers and early leavers.

      A single clutch of eggs, incubated for about three weeks, another six weeks to fledge the young, then some feeding on the wing to train the youngsters and they are off. Last week in July ususally sees the back of the majority, with only a few birds hanging on into early August.

  93. Oh FFS!

    “MPs have accused Facebook of showing political bias after it appointed former Guardian editor in chief Alan Rusbridger to its powerful new ‘supreme court’.

    The social media giant announced on Wednesday that Mr Rusbridger would be one of 20 initial members of its independent Oversight Board, charged with hearing appeals against and potentially overturning Facebook’s decisions”.

    1. I’ve a great idea Why doesn’t the government levy a Tax on Facebook for every UK subscriber to help pay for the extraordinary war on Covid….?

    2. I’ve a great idea Why doesn’t the government levy a Tax on Facebook for every UK subscriber to help pay for the extraordinary war on Covid….?

    3. Another money-for-old-rope-while-telling-people-how-to-think scheme for lefties then.

    1. That depends upon whether one regards the soubriquet “lawyer” as less offensive than “showman”.

    1. That was the treat it like flu scenario when the transmission rate was 3. Growth of deaths had we done nothing was likely to be exponential.

      1. Ferguson’s models tend to give horrendous results that don’t ever seem to materialise.

        Do you seriously think doing absolutely nothing was an option?

  97. Just picked up on this. When the ‘gender’ crap is front and centre in public statements on illness and death from a Government dept you know we are lost. The announcement somehow fails to mention which genders – the science has declared that it is the male of the species – is at greater risk. Now why would that be?

    https://twitter.com/iainmartin1/status/1257397102373736451

    2. Best response for me:

      You just need to self id as something else & you’ll be fine, isn’t that how biology works? You can self id back to male when the virus is over.

      1. We could all self-id as something that can’t catch it, like maybe an Atlantic Grey Seal, or a Lion’s Mane Jellyfish.

        After a week or two it would have vanished and we’ll all be saved.

        1. Apart from David Lammy.
          He’d be declaring everyone a racict instead of declaring himself as a moron.

      3. “When did you become the Department of Invisible Whims and militant Wishful Thinking?”

      1. Apparently it’s all to do with the Chromosomes………

        Philip
        Goulder, Professor of Immunology at the University of
        Oxford has pointed out that there are significant differences between the
        immune systems of men and women, and that several important genes are found on
        the X-chromosome. Whereas males have one X-chromosome and one Y-chromosome
        women have two X-chromosomes – and they produce double the amount of a protein
        known as TLR7, which detects certain viruses, including the coronavirus that is
        causing the current pandemic.

      2. The comments in reply are pretty scathing, and some very funny.

        “ORLANDO (Amaryllis)
        @amaryllisalpha
        How many genders are there today?

        @Papa_Juliet
        38. I found one down the back of the sofa 😂”

  98. You’ve got to shake your head. These celebs are so far up themselves their heads are popping out of their mouths.

    Multimillionaires Madonna and Robert de Niro and a bunch of other actors who made their pennies selling stuff such as records and films to consumers have sighed a petition calling for the world ‘not to return to normal after Covid and to stop the pursuit of consumerism’.

    Is there no end to their vanity?

    They make a living pretending to be somebody else, saying words written by somebody else and they still think we need to hear what they think.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8292475/Stars-scientists-call-world-not-normal.html

  101. Random thoughts etc.
    Last night the sky was quite clear. Running diagonally across it was a vapour trail. I had expanded a little from where it disappeared over the Northern horizon, but was mostly of a consistent diameter and narrow for a condensation trail which normally expands and dissipates.
    The night was without a breath of wind and the trail was lit up like a neon tube. by the moon. Extraordinary.
    Two days ago I was looking out at the fields. The fields are planted with potatoes but are bare at the edges as the long wet period last month caused a loss of about a tenth of the planting. Across one of the bare patches I saw small dark animal moving. I got the binoculars for a better look and caught a glimpse of what may have been a deer. As I looked another small deer moved across the bare earth before disappearing in to the bright yellow potato flowers. Roe deer, probably quite young as the older ones tend not to go out in broad daylight but may sometimes be seen at twilight.
    The Scottish Government has opened up consideration of changes to the hate laws. One of the changes that may happen is to include old people as victims if rebuked or treated unfairly for being old. Of course while this is not unreasonable (within the delusional parameters of the hate crime construct) it is at odds with the looming plan to lock us all up, solely on the grounds of our age.

      1. On the K&A a couple of years ago, whilst in a Lock I came within 8feet of a deer before it casually sauntered off…..

      1. I made two ukuleles three years ago from the same table top. one lent out to our neighbour she said she wants to learn to play it.
        I also made a Martin 00 concert guitar from a kit during convalescence after my hip resurfacing op back in 2008.

        1. the nut and the bridge caul was made from antler, part of the handle of a very old carving set.
          probably around 150 years old.

          1. Wonderful work, ECD. I love both craftsmanship (especially with wood) and guitars. I have a Fender acoustic dreadnought-style with cutaway and an Epiphone Les Paul solid body electric. I play them both quite dreadfully!

      3. I’m still having problems, I put in my details and so many times it tells me something went wrong.
        as far as posting links etc it’s almost a dead loss.

    5. I didn’t realise ECD was a skilled luthier. What a wonderful skill to have, I am quite envious.

      1. I could consider changing my name to Martin ;-)) if you get my drift…..I did have a dream.

    6. Wow! What a clever chap! My old man is a bit of a guitar buff and is very impressed! An absolute joy to have such skills.

    9. This is splendid.

      eh calm down has created a marvellous piece of work with tremendous skill and I am extremely impressed. While Caroline was assembling this I was watching The Repair Shop on TV – a brilliant programme in which incredibly skilful craftsmen restore family heirlooms. e calm down’s work is on a par with this. I have so much admiration for genuinely talented and gifted people like him!

      Here is a part of the e-mail he sent us:

      I invented the plastic flower pot ‘lathe’ to get the embellishments circular. Part of a Honduras mahogany coffee table that belonged to my parents. The front and back were 20mm thick to start with I hand sawed it down the (it took me over an hour) middle and then hand planed them to thickness. Thd sides were part of and old door frame. the Neck was a piece of cherry left over from a job, I made some kitchen work top for some one years ago. Never throw any thing away, that’s my motto. Cheers.

      2. Repair Shop is a wonderful programme.
        I find it relaxing and uplifting at the same time.
        The people are genuine experts, not puffed up graph fiddlers.

    10. Very very impressive. Hope he posts a tune on you tube so we can hear the instrument.

      1. That might be pushing my technical abilities too far Stephen.
        But it has very good quality sound, it’s the quality of the timbers.

          1. I can play, I now have 7 guitars and two ukes. But it’s the problem with recording and posting it that I will have.
            Our eldest son plays lead in a local pub band.
            *I only do request if they are asked for ;-))
            *Ronnie Scott circa early 1970s

          2. Apols. You son should be able to help with the technical side of recording and uploading to youtube.

    11. Thankyou so much for doing this for me Caroline and Richard.
      And thankyou also for all the favourable comments from Nottlers.
      It seems that the reason I can’t access the website especially on my mobile is I have stopped accepting cookies.

  104. Does anyone know how many new cases per day are being reported. I just dont see it anymore.Also what is the recovery rate I cant find that either.

      1. It doesn’t suit the agenda. People will not be terrified and cower in their homes if they know that 99% of people who are infected recover.

        1. True, but to be honest they will never know the true recovery rate as it would require 100% testing of the population for antigen and antibody presence. So I believe.

          1. I think they should be doing that now, but they’d be astonished how many people had had it and recovered from it. It certainly wouldn’t fit the agenda.

    2. The rates of death are meaningless. The only true measure is to find out how many people died between January and end of April and compare it to the average for the same period over the last 10 years.
      All death certificates with COVID 19:on them will be recorded as deaths from CV even if the person died from a heart attack and tested positive for CV. Worthless numbers that cannot be called statistics.

    3. The rates of death are meaningless. The only true measure is to find out how many people died between January and end of April and compare it to the average for the same period over the last 10 years.
      All death certificates with COVID 19:on them will be recorded as deaths from CV even if the person died from a heart attack and tested positive for CV. Worthless numbers that cannot be called statistics.

      1. Do you notice though on its page that shows age/sex/underlying illness death rates is still based on 70,000 Chinese cases?

    1. Have just been out to look at the moon (and find the cat), it’s a lovely clear night, and very cold.

  106. Now there’s more evidence to support the theory that Soros wanted Gaddafi removed, and that he might have “persuaded” David Cameron to do it..

    More tomorrow !

    1. Good night, Rik, and all other NoTTLers. Last night I stayed up until 5 am. Tonight I shall go to bed at 2 am (in 5 minutes’ time). Tomorrow I hope to be back to normal, sleeping from around 11 pm to 7 am.

        1. Good point. I must do better, I must do better, I must do better…

  108. If I was a speculator I would probably be buying shares in beer, wine and spirit manufacturers.

  109. Evening, all. Been another lovely day here, fighting CBA syndrome. Apart from lazing in the sun, I have cut one of the lawns and trimmed the bushes either side of the path so that it will be easy to bring the fridge freezer up to the house tomorrow. Feeling virtuous, I indulged in a few glasses of anaesthetic (copyright BT).

    1. I have to say that it seems people are now claiming that black and Asian people are more susceptible to the virus. perhaps they need to obey the rules that have been set down, perhaps instead of reacting to their cultural instincts.

  115. BBC4 – 9pm.Recommended viewing –

    The Eddie Chapman Story – Double Agent.

    1. Put machine guns on the drones. That should work more effectively.

    2. The French don’t want to stem our rise in immigrants. That’s why.

  117. Evening all – spent most of the afternoon in the garden today – I think it did us good to get out and socialise yesterday, as I felt much more like doing something today.

  118. You’ve got to shake your head. These celebs are so far up themselves their heads are popping out of their mouths.

    Multimillionaires Madonna and Robert de Niro and a bunch of other actors who made their pennies selling stuff such as records and films to consumers have sighed a petition calling for the world ‘not to return to normal after Covid and to stop the pursuit of consumerism’.

    Is there no end to their vanity?

    They make a living pretending to be somebody else, saying words written by somebody else and they still think we need to hear what they think.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8292475/Stars-scientists-call-world-not-normal.html

    1. Good idea.
      Stop going to the cinema, stop buying music, stop downloading their contributions.
      Marginalise them completely.
      Ignore them.

    2. Who? Self -serving publicity-hungry virtue-signalling lefties – oh and they’re rich too, off other people’s money.

    3. And more to the point, are more loaded than most small towns, and have the gall to tell us about consumerism. How do they think they got all their money??
      When they start giving back all the money their fans paid for film tickets, CDs, downloads, concert tickets, etc, I might listen.

    1. By the time you add in the USAAF 8th army losses in bombing raids over Germany, you are very close to 100,000 deaths.

      Uncle was a Lancaster pilot. He always got very mad when someone started running off about Bomber Command committing “war crimes” under Harris. Nobody today understands it really was a fight to the death. Had Hitler won, everyone’s future would have been dramatically different. Those who were not shot or put into labour camps, that is.

      Different times, different values. My Dad and my uncles did not wait to be called up – they volounteered even though a couple were in so-called protected occupations.

      1. As one of the bomber pilots commented , if Hitler had invaded us , we would have been turned into a giant concentration island . No ifs no buts .

        Virtually every family somewhere will have a memory locked away about the loss of a loved one .

      2. All Bomber Command air crew were volunteers. Bomber Command was the ONLY way to carry the fight to the enemy until quite late in the war.

    3. It was a long time ago – you can’t bring them back. Don’t get too upset.

    4. Belle: and not to forget the Americans also lost over 38,000. Both Brits and US made an enormous sacrifice in aircrews. It was a deliberate strategy in 1943/44 to use bombers as bait to achieve air supremacy for D-Day.

  122. Why would you rely on the models of a scientist who has a long history of wildy over-estimating the seriousness of pandemics – unless you wanted an ‘expert’ to justify what you wanted to do anyway?

    Why would you lock millions of people in their homes, whilst still allowing airline passengers and illegal migrants to ‘seed’ the virus round the country?

    Why would you terrify people over a virus which 99% of people are not at risk of dying from? Unless you wanted them to accept the most draconian restrictions on their freedoms to ‘save’ them from the virus?

    Why would you not re-assure people that the virus was not as bad as first feared, and instead prepare them for a long-term future based on isolation, of fear of other people, reliance on the State, acceptance of your every movement and transaction being monitored, your civil rights restricted – if this was not what you wanted all along and the first phase was just psychological softening-up?

    At risk of sounding like Pretty Polly – is this all a globalist conspiracy?

    2. But why bankrupt the country? Total control of a people with an economy that’s not viable, what would the point be?

      2. Wipe out all the small, locally-owned businesses or make them reliant on loans from the State. Only large, globalist corporations will survive. Keep everyone poor and terrified, compliant and easy to control. Aren’t 53% of adults now paid in some form by the State? More money can always be printed, control is what matters.

        Now I sound like a refugee from Breitbart! I do hope this is more cock-up than conspiracy, but something is not right about all this.

        1. But if it’s multi billionaires causing all this, where will their money keep coming from if no one has a job to earn money to buy things with?

        2. I take Breitbart with a generous pinch of salt, but there’s more to the current situation than meets the eye. The crisis may not have been deliberately engineered, but an awful lot of vested interests are taking full advantage of it.

          1. Indeed. I have read that the Chinese are looking to buy up Western companies at fire-sale prices. That Bill Gates wants everyone to be vaccinated (his company’s will produce the vaccine of course), that we will not be allowed to travel unless we download the app which allows the State to track where we are and who we interract with. That cash will be outlawed so that every transaction can be tracked. Whether this is cock-up or conspiracy, we seem to have fallen very quickly down a very deep rabbit hole.

          4. Farage said a week ago that the Acquisitions and Mergers in the City was extremely busy, with companies being bought up by Chinese.

        3. A slave economy? They haven’t lasted well in the past. Except maybe the Romans, Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas et al.
          Well, if it comes to it, I’ll be signing up to be the nubile young lady oiler.

      4. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but the answer will be that we need to join with a larger group. We should not break free from the EU.

          1. Can’t come soon enough for me, but the remainer/rejoiner faction have a fanatical belief in the Projekt, akin to religious fervour.

        2. Or we might just break free from the crumbling EU, only to be absorbed into a larger, global entity. One run by people like Soros and Gates.

      5. Brown did his utmost best to bankrupt the country. Leaving the eu was not on the horizon then, so why?

        1. Brown was a socialist Chancellor. All socialist Chancellors have bankrupted the country!

          1. Yes, I know, but Brown deliberately ‘went for it’! To deliberately bankrupt the country appeared to be his raison d’être, his sole purpose.

    3. I said something along the same lines earlier. Dangerous times but not from the virus.

      1. Certainly the reaction to the virus has been far more damaging than the virus itself. It does seem totally out of proportion, this is not Ebola or Cholera. I hope this is just hyper-sensitivity/obsession with Health n Safety but the more I think about it the more I worry that there is some hidden agenda to all this.

        1. The loss of freedoms, the closure of all sorts of small businesses, the talk of tracking people’s movements, extra surveillance, overkill on policing, and the rush to create a vaccine? ‘Follow the money’ usually points to the culprits.

          2. I haven’t used a cash machine since before the lockdown – I’ve still got that £30 in my purse – it normally goes on cafe meetings with friends, or odds and ends at small shops.
            I suppose the only people who really need cash are the very poor, with no bank accounts, but even those have the option of the basic bank accounts which were made available years ago to benefit claimants. I would think very few elderly people are now in that position, even if they don’t do online banking.
            When we finally get back to normal and resume fundraising activities for our hedgehog rescue – that is where we really need people to use cash, as we have no facility on our stall at village fetes, etc, to take any other form of payment.

          3. We all really need cash. We are so used to enjoying the benefits of cash, that most people haven’t woken up to the implications of losing it.
            If nobody can withdraw their money from the banks, then the sky is the limit for bank charges (i.e. negative interest rates).
            Every electronic transaction will be visible to the authorities or big business. They can do data analysis to discover things about you that you weren’t aware of yourself.
            Chinese style “social points” are just round the corner.
            Once we lose cash, banks will be free to charge what they like for electronic transactions.

    4. Practice run.
      It’s now known how easily people can be frightened and cowed into compliance.

  126. Is the next mega scandal looming on the horizon ?

    Why has Johnson just given control of all the UK’s coronavirus R and D and all decisions about what happens next to the World Health Organization ?

    What could possibly go wrong ?

    It sounds insane, so what’s his motive ?

    Just by unconnected random coincidence, it just happens to be exactly what multi billionaire Bill Gates wants !

    That’s the Bill Gates the government doesn’t want to talk about. I wonder why not ?

Comments are closed.