Friday 15 May: A prolonged lockdown will be far more damaging than a second wave

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/2020/05/14/lettersa-prolonged-lockdown-will-far-damaging-second-wave/

636 thoughts on “Friday 15 May: A prolonged lockdown will be far more damaging than a second wave”

  1. First! (On Friday). Since I haven’t been on the NoTTL site yesterday, I shall now go to the thursday site and have a read. Good night (or good morning) all.

    1. Good morning, to you, too, Elsie. Enjoy catching up. I’m too tired to do that and Best Beloved doesn’t sleep too well if I spend the wee, small hours on here.

      Good night and God bless, one and all.

      1. And the same to you, NtN, although I too am now off to bed. I just watched Son Of Paleface on YouTube.

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolk although I’m only second today,as Max would have said, “I wanna tell you a story.”

    A cop pulls over a car and asks the driver why he isn’t wearing his seat belt.

    The driver says, “Officer, I always wear my seat belt. I must have just forgotten.”

    The man’s wife says, “Aw come on honey! You never wear your seat belt!”

    To which the husband replies, “Shut up you old cow!”

    The cop asks, “Does he always yell at you like that?”

    To which she replies, “Only when he’s drunk!”

    1. Hi, Con. Like domestic electrics though, it would need a certificate from an external party, such as the EU…

  4. ‘Morning All

    Spiked

    The science seems increasingly clear – and, as the government keeps

    saying, it’s essential, now more than ever, that we ‘follow the

    science’. Certainly, a recent study at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in

    Paris would suggest that a substance in tobacco may stop smokers from

    catching Covid-19. As one report

    about the study noted, ‘nicotine could prevent the immune system going

    into overdrive due to the infection, as has been seen among some of the

    worst-affected cases’.

    When scientists and politicians told us that life will never be the

    same, no one expected that we’d wake up in an alternate universe where

    nicotine is actually good for you – but that seems to be where we are

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/14/light-up-for-the-nhs/
    The “Merchants of Death” (Thank You For Smoking) will be pleased

    2. I thought it was something simpler. All that tar coating my lungs making it difficult for the virus to get in.

      Good morning.

  5. Yesterday, Wibbling posted James Forsyth’s article from The Spectator:

    The British state needs rewiring
    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-british-state-needs-rewiring

    It included this:
    Cabinet government has also been a victim of lockdown. Even one ally of the Prime Minister admits ‘everything is getting more fractious’. The mood of the outer cabinet (everyone in cabinet apart from Gove, Matt Hancock, Rishi Sunak and Dominic Raab) is turning rancorous. They are irritated to see decisions taken before the cabinet has met. They feel that their advice is being ignored.

    We may have our views of the BBC’s Laura K but she made this very point yesterday evening on R4’s 6pm news (though TBH, her whole two minutes of editorialising sounded like it was inspired by Forsyth’s piece):
    “…the number of people making decisions is tiny…more than half the cabinet has no clue what’s going on.”
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000j1k5, from 13:50 to 15:50.

    Had Allotment Man won the GE in December, his collection of turnips would still have had to deal with the mess bequeathed by the Stick Insect. Mrs Thatcher was accused of running a cabinet dictatorship but that was unfair, even if her own basket of vegetables was a weedy, sickly lot.

  6. Hate speech: blasphemy for the 21st century. Spiked. 15 May 2020.

    The effect of this will be to make everyone feel unsafe – unsafe to think, to speak, to discuss, to share ideas. The Scottish minister behind the bill, Humza Yousaf, says ‘we all have a responsibility to challenge prejudice in order to ensure Scotland is the inclusive and respectful society we want it to be’. But what he is doing is giving law the job that manners and argument used to do.

    Yousaf says that the ‘stirring up of hatred can contribute to a social atmosphere in which discrimination is accepted as normal’. But there are limits to what criminal law can safely aim to accomplish. In imagining a Scotland without hatred, he is inadvertently laying out something quite terrifying. The inevitable consequence of this legislation would be what Orwell called ‘crimestop’ – ‘the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of a dangerous thought’.

    Morning everyone. You can read the details of this bill in the rest of the article and they make its predecessor the Blasphemy Law look like Magna Carta. I just want to speculate here on the motivation for it. Why would someone abolish one law under which there have been no prosecutions for a hundred and seventy five years and replace it with another unless there was an intention to use it? Now if this intention exists it cannot be against the original offences and offenders or there would be no need for a change so by implication it is aimed at a modern version of blasphemy. Fortunately we have the thinking of the Bill’s originator Humza Yousaf to guide us as to the nature of this blasphemy, ‘we all have a responsibility to challenge prejudice in order to ensure Scotland is the inclusive and respectful society we want it to be’. Mr Humza clearly feels that present Scottish Society is prejudiced and lacks inclusivity and respect but for what? It cannot be the status quo or no change would be required so it must be a new player on the scene and bearing in mind the Bill’s originator that can only be Islam! What we have here masquerading as a general good is actually an Islamic Law prohibiting any criticism or denigration of its beliefs or tenets.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/15/hate-speech-blasphemy-for-the-21st-century/

  7. Good morning folks,

    Nice start here again, off to hit / lose a few golf balls after a long break

      1. The cartoon is usually at the bottom of the comment. I have tried again but no luck. NOTTLERS need to press the red instructions if they want to see Bob’s cartoon for today. It hits the NUTS on the head.

          2. Now it does but for how long, one wonders. Is it possible for Geoff or one of the Mods to complain to the Californian teenagers to get off their Playstations and fix their code?

            Prof Ferguson might help, he’s good with code, so he says.

  12. Good Morning survivors

    Only yesterday I watched Fergus Walsh explaining that we had a very small risk of catching COVID-19 as lockdown was eased because infections in the UK population could only be measured in thousands.
    Then the Sun came out with reports from the Midlands that the infection rate waa reckoned to be about one in four.
    Now this morning the DT reports scientists say possibly tens of millions of have been infected.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-uk-antibody-tests-lockdown-deaths-cases/

    With a 100% accurate antibody test on the cards we could be looking at an infection rate of 110% !

  13. Morning all.. Lockdown fiasco……..

    SIR – The initial justification for the lockdown was to “flatten the curve” to ensure that the NHS would not be overwhelmed. Following an extraordinary national effort, NHS capacity has surged, to the point where Nightingale hospitals lie empty, and bed occupancy and A & &E attendances are lower than ever.

    Meanwhile, healthcare not related to Covid-19 has been on hold for more than over two months. Urgent cancer referrals, chronic disease care, mental health provision and many other critically important services are all but suspended. With a workable vaccine a distant prospect, herd immunity seems the only feasible long-term solution to get our healthcare system, economy and society back to normal. Prolonging the lockdown will not lower the total death toll; rather it will spread it over a longer period of time and exacerbate the impact of the suspension of non Covid-19 healthcare.

    Advertisement

    The long-term interests of the nation are best served by lifting the lockdown and dealing with a second acute crisis (should it occur), rather than a prolonged and ultimately far more destructive one.

    Dr Louis Savage

    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    SIR – As a lifelong Conservative supporter, I am left incredulous by the Government’s pandemic response. It has been disastrous in almost every way, and successful only in scaring people so much that they’re afraid to go back to work.

    The daily briefings have consisted of doom and gloom with little or no context. It’s a fact that very few people below the age of 25 have died, so why all the fuss over getting the young back to work? The door has been left open for overzealous health-and-safety officials, unions and devolved nations to disrupt efforts to ease the lockdown.

    Where the Government has failed most drastically is in defending the vulnerable. The deaths in care homes are a national disgrace and the ministers responsible should be removed immediately. It’s easy to be wise in hindsight, but surely it was possible to look at what happened in Italy and prepare more effectively.

    We still do not have a credible testing, tracing and isolation strategy.

    Politicians will move on, while we the people pay the price for of their ineptitude with higher taxes, job losses and a much-diminished quality of life.

    Maj Mike McKone (retd)

    Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria

    SIR – Where’s the logic in saying you can meet only one friend or relative in the open air, but you can go to work all day and commune with many people?

    Alf Strange

    Sheffield, South Yorkshire

    SIR – On Wednesday my wife and I went for a walk. We met another couple (from one household) in a public place. We had a dilemma. Both of us (keeping our distance) could speak to one of them, or one of them could speak to both of us, but both of us couldn’t speak to both of them.

    Dr Peter I Vardy

    Runcorn, Cheshire

    1. The appropriately named Mr Strange has put his finger on the nub of the chaos created by HMG.

    2. Dr Vardy,
      Have you considered stopping talking over each other and letting one person at a time finish what they are saying?

  14. SIR – If the BBC axes BBC Four (report, May 14), it will be the last act of what is becoming an unloved service.

    The news coverage has a Left-wing bias, and the main channels mostly show tired, formulaic programmes.

    Younger people watch YouTube or similar channels; older people are the ones who watch BBC programmes.

    The Covid-19 crisis has driven people to sign up for streaming services, so the BBC is already in trouble. Chasing younger viewers will hasten its demise. It should focus on pleasing its older viewers and hope that the core audience increases as the population grows up.

    Kevin Platt

    Walsall, Staffordshire

    SIR – How can the BBC justify closing BBC Four while charging the over-75s a licence fee? The average age of BBC Four viewers is 62, so older people are being asked to pay for a diminished service.

    No commercial organisation could contemplate such an action.

    Bryce Mitchell

    Chorleywood, Hertfordshire

    1. Apart from News, I suspect this household watches very nearly as much BBC4 as all other TV channels combined.

      1. BBC4 is the only BBC channel I now watch. The ‘news’ can go jump!

      2. Isn’t this just another page in the bBC play book? Threaten to ditch a channel – the last time I believe bBC6 was amongst the proposed ‘victims’ – get a few friendly ‘viewers’ to mount some form of protest to the cuts. Amazingly, the proposed cuts are halted as the price of the bBC tv tax is increased to take the strain. Personally I no longer view ‘livestream broadcasting or any bBC catch-up services’ but from memory I can see no reason why bBC 1 & 3 and bBC 2 & 4 cannot be merged as the basically cover the same ground. This may have the knock-on effect of reducing the number of repeats shown as their will be more content available and the reduction in staffing and production costs will also benefit a more streamlined service. A bonus for when they go to subscription.

  15. Morning again

    SIR – I was deeply moved by Christie Watson’s article (“Nurses are beginning to be recognised as they should”, Features, May 12). Never in my 50 years in NHS practice did I have to experience what our healthcare professionals are currently facing. Their dedication is phenomenal.

    So imagine my incredulity when I read about the intransigence of the teaching unions (report, May 13). I am sure there are many dedicated teachers who wish to return to their schools and colleges as soon as possible. Yet there appears to be no desire on the part of their unions to work with other agencies to give pupils the education they deserve.

    I know of a further-education teacher who did not exercise her right to refuse to go into the workplace when she was asked to join a rota to ensure that students with special educational needs could continue their studies. Needless to say, she was not given personal protective equipment. She has continued to work in college and from home, supporting her students, their parents and her team. At the end of each 12-hour shift, she can finally provide for her own family’s educational requirements. This, to me, is true professionalism.

    Rosemary Lee

    Bude, Cornwall

    SIR – Why haven’t all non-working schoolteachers been furloughed with an 80 per cent salary, capped at £2,500 a month?

    J M Pearson

    Cambridge

  16. I gather than the Government yielded to Sad Dick, Caliph of Londonistan’s blackmail mail of colour and handed over billions to keep the insanitary Tube running.

    1. ‘Morning, Bill. I am hoping for some cunning plan from this government to sink Mr Khunt when the postponed election takes place next year.

      Blimey, just realised that “cunning” and “government” appear in the same sentence. I really have lost the plot now…

      1. ‘Morning, Hugh – and you included ‘plan’ in the same sentence. We are being very oxymoronic this morning.

    2. Good morning, Bill

      The creation of the position of ‘Mayor of London’ was a part of Blair’s sinister master plan to destroy Britain. And how well that plan is working!

  17. The excess deaths subsequent upon the lockdown tragedy will soon exceed those as a result of the Chinese Virus. Medicine abandoned its ethics as it abandoned the sick other than those defined by politicians .

    SIR – I was shocked to read that malnutrition is rising rapidly among those over-70s who are afraid to go out, and that 1.28 million people of all ages are being told not to leave their homes at all (report, May 14).

    I have been an NHS volunteer responder for 36 days now, and have yet to receive a single request to help a vulnerable person via the GoodSAM Responder app on my mobile phone.

    As one of 750,000 similar volunteers in England, I wonder if my experience is typical.

    Bruce Chalmers

    Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex

    1. It certainly is here, Brucie. No response for weeks and then told to reapply. Certainly not. Instead we went out to find our own fun, and have now been delivering prescriptions for our beleagured pharmacy for about 6 weeks. Got us out (legally) and kept us active. Another session this afternoon.

      ‘Morning, Epi

      1. My meds are delivered to my door every month, usually by one of 3 OAPs (that age group) driving a small van but yes’day & last month they were delivered by a much younger chap, using what looks like his own car.

      2. Similar here. One false alert in all this time. I’m doing things off my own bat and via the local volunteer group. Disappointed.

  18. SIR – Dentists should be allowed to get back to work without delay. We are essential healthcare professionals with huge expertise in cross-infection control. We know that dental pain is currently being suffered by thousands of people of all ages, and that they are unable to access care.

    Current Care Quality Commission guidelines stop dentists from seeing patients in person.

    Urgent dental centres have a very limited remit, meaning that most people are left untreated. Allowing us to get back to work is the compassionate thing to do.

    Niall Hutchinson

    Crowthorne, Berkshire

    1. I think dentist should revert to their title as Mr., Miss and Mrs rather than the assumed Dr. that presumably enhanced their perceived status having behaved as no doctor would be allowed to either by conscience or professional permit.

        1. Surgery is part of a GDP’s ‘portfolio’. I used to enjoy doing surgical extractions of roots.

          2. I had gum surgery a long time ago. I hope the dentist enjoyed it, I certainly did not.

          4. I don’t have a lawn but I have plenty of dandelions in the front garden, which, as they fade, are replaced by nettles.

          5. And you had the cheek to comment on my wildflower lawn, which I’ll have you know, is a carefully tended masterpiece!!

          6. I didn’t criticise your wildflower lawn, I suggested that you exercise restraint with the red tulips.

            Sometimes I’m a little bit wicked. ;-))

          7. Aha, so you’re French and your real name is Leon.

            Five francs s’il vous plait

  19. Seventy nine years ago today, the Gloster E.28/39 had it maiden flight.

    Those were the days. Creativity,imagination and design in the darkest days of the War. (Sighs….looking at what we have today).

    2. Sadly, the imagination wasn’t reciprocated in the higher echelons of the RAF or the Government of the day. Whittle presented his engine at a time when the RAF was still flying and specifying biplane fighters that barely exceeded 200 mph. He offered the potential of 500 mph and was rejected. The Germans got their hands on his patent, enter the ME 262. We, especially the RAF, literally dodged a hail of bullets when the Germans took until April 1944 to get the 262 operational.

      4. Quite. It was as well that yer Germans were so inefficient, in some ways. Not that it mattered in the long run, of course…{:¬((

      5. It is quite chilling to know that the jet-powered 262 first flew in July 1942. I think some 1,400 were built, so just imagine the carnage if Mr Hilter had had the means to get it operational earlier in the war. Fortunately only about 300 were used in combat, against which the P47 Thunderbolt and P51 Mustang had some successes due to the greater agility of these piston-powered aircraft. The 262 could not use grass airstrips, thus further limiting its use.

        1. He did have the means. The Luftwaffe were going crazy trying to get it into the squadrons, but Hitler decided it was more important to get a bomber version into production (the Sturmvogel) and intentionally delayed the interceptor (Schwalbe). He did us all a favour. Galland was fuming.

          While Hitler was chasing unicorns, the fighters weren’t being built when they could have been.

          Politicians never change. Always sticking their fingers in the wrong places.

    3. We once led the world in so many ways. Now we bumble along in the wake of banana republics…

      1. Yo HJ

        in the wake of banana republics..

        Which we pay £Millions to annually from ODF

      2. HJ, the British still have the innovation skills but appear to have lost the skill to develop it, sell it and create a benefit for the Country. If something new is developed then either the Chinese will steal it or the Government will allow the Japanese et al. to buy it and develop it for their benefit. Everything is up for sale in Internationalist GB.

  20. 319259+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    In many respects the lockdown is showing up as a power play as in politico’s ” we can do”
    peoples “you will do,”
    with if “you won’t do ” the threat level increases.
    As for hospitals with one standing empty and the services in many cases neglected due to the media induced fear judge what is really going on in some sections if this is fact then the NHS top hierarchy needs some very serious pruning.

    https://twitter.com/IanRH64/status/1260863579458330624

  21. Is it just me, but Discurse “notifications” (via the black button) seem to be locked on yesterday’s.

    3. Not just you Bill – it’s really playing up today! Refreshing does nothing to help – it just tells me I have 3 notifications but in fact there is nothing new, and the list is all from yesterday. [Edit – I have tried logging out and back in; used another browser – still the same snags]

          2. Alive and well – greeted by thunderous applause on his recent public appearance.

            I bet you are relieved.

    3. Yesterday evening my son and granddaughter let off some of his Spanish crackers – not to applaud the NHS but it was a good opportunity to make some loud bangs when no-one can complain and he knew it really annoys the neighbours (the local informers who clap).

      1. These past few weeks have been a sobering lesson in how easily totalitarianism could be established in Great Britain.
        I do fear for my grandchildren’s future.

        1. Morning Anne. It’s here I’m afraid. It’s just masked at the moment.

          2. And people will stand on their doorsteps and applaud weekly as the clock strikes 13.

        2. Tell them to emigrate. This country and the rest of Europe will be majority muslim in the next 20 years.

      2. Thank God we live in the middle of nowhere. None of that clapping malarky round here.

  24. ‘We could open up again and forget the whole thing’. Spiked 14 May 2020.

    Spiked: How did we get this so wrong?

    Wittkowski: Governments did not have an open discussion, including economists, biologists and epidemiologists, to hear different voices. In Britain, it was the voice of one person – Neil Ferguson – who has a history of coming up with projections that are a bit odd. The government did not convene a meeting with people who have different ideas, different projections, to discuss his projection. If it had done that, it could have seen where the fundamental flaw was in the so-called models used by Neil Ferguson. His paper was published eventually, in medRxiv. The assumption was that one per cent of all people who became infected would die. There is no justification anywhere for that

    This is a common sense appraisal of how we came to be where we are. Well worth a read!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/15/we-could-open-up-again-and-forget-the-whole-thing/

    1. What an excellent article. It’s like Climate ‘scientists’ who need government (our) money who say what the government wants to hear rather than what the science says. If you tell the truth the cash flow stops.

    2. The flattening of the curve, the prolongation of the epidemic, makes it
      more difficult to protect the elderly, who are at risk. More of the
      elderly people become infected, and we have more deaths.

      An aspect one seldom sees discussed. Flattening the curve is synonymous with prolonging the epidemic.

  25. Our Prime Minister is a green activist who believes that Britain needs to make reparations for our ‘historic role’ in the Industrial Revolution (that awful thing, which freed millions of ordinary people from lives of grinding poverty):

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/02/04/brexit-news-latest-boris-johnson-eu-trade-dealclaire-perry/

    If you view this lockdown from the perspective of Extinction Rebellion then it is a dream come true. Are we being led by people with an agenda?

    1. 319259+ up ticks,
      Morning Jk,
      We most certainly are, and the many fools within the herd had better believe it.
      The semi hidden agenda is to have us down on our knees, cannister rapping the deck, five times a day.
      Part of the agenda can be seen in book form between the dispatch boxes & on the HOc canteen menu.

    2. I didn’t vote Conservative, because I foresaw being this disappointed with them.

  26. 319259+ up ticks,
    Has disques got a lock down, knock out, on
    notification’s ?

  27. Why aren’t they spotting the contradiction?

    Main headline; ‘London ‘virus-free by June’ ‘ and ‘Just 24 people a day in the capital are catching coronavirus’, accompanied by a rapidly falling curve on a graph.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8321677/London-records-just-24-new-covid-19-cases-day-raising-hopes-lockdown-eased.html

    Further down the page is the headline ‘Commuters slam Sadiq Khan’s ‘terrible’ tube service for ‘putting lives at risk’ on packed carriages…’

    Another rabbit off.

    1. It might even suggest that the packed transport has actually been a good thing in terms of herd immunity

      2. This graphic was published yesterday. I like it, even though the red sector looks a bit more than 0.27%, which would be a much smaller area at only 0.97° in arc. The red shown is closer to 3° or just over. It’s based on a calculation that there are around 220,000 people with the virus this week and is separate from the headline concerning London.

        I’m starting to sniff a change in emphasis from ‘voracious killer sweeping the land’ to ‘it’s not much worse than being licked by a kitten’ as they try to get the nation back to work.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99644d79bc6372c5f126ca781e701912eb9544f1257ff2baae4ada2f46cabc54.jpg

        1. When the testing finally gets out into the open field as opposed to hospitals, nursing homes etc. a similar graphic showing how many have had CV and recovered placed next to this one might be illuminating.

          1. The report will be delayed, only to be published 30 years after the Rochdale etc grooming report.

          2. Can’t possibly be true, Tom. Millions are affected, hundreds of thousands dead – and that’s just in the UK…{:¬))

          4. If it helps, I do a Right Mouse Button on the image, select ‘Save As’ and it automatically goes to my ‘downloads’ file to be ‘saved’ and from where I retrieve it, using the little picture icon at the bottom of the unposted dialogue box.

          5. It posts initally as a photo (which I’ve saved it as on my PC), but on refreshing it just appears as a link. Must be Disqus playing up again. It’s been twitchy this morning.

            Yours has done the same.

          1. It seems disqus isn’t doing photos this morning, only links. Photos don’t survive a refresh.

    2. I saw a description somewhere which said that if a virus can move freely (as it has in London) it does not have to mutate into something really nasty but runs thro the population and dies out quickly. Not quite the herd immunity idea but a similar outcome.

      1. Mutations tend to go in the opposite direction, from dangerous to less dangerous rather than the other way.

        Mutations occur on reproduction, so the more a virus is transmitted the more it has a chance to mutate. The most successful viruses are the ones that spread and mutate the most and therefore it’s in their interest to keep their host alive. That’s why we can’t cure the ‘common cold’, because there is no such thing as the ‘common cold’. It’s whole range of closely-related viruses resulting from past (and present and future) mutations. It’s a moving target. If you catch a cold, it’s not the same one as the last time you had one, because you’re probably immune to that one. You’ve got one of its cousins. If you’re with someone with a heavy cold for a long spell and you don’t catch it, it’s likely that you’ve had their cold before and are immune. That’s why they can’t get a vaccine for it and that’s why when we get our autumn flu jab it’s not a catch-all, it’s a vaccine for the strain of flu virus that they expecting to be most widespread in the coming season.

        Killer viruses, the real killers, such as Ebola, Lasa Fever and such tend to kill their victims so quickly that they don’t have much time to pass it on. There is an outbreak, rapid, deadly, but limited both in duration and spread, then the virus lurks in its usual hosts until somebody decides its time to clean a monkey for dinner.

      2. I hope not she is a very very bright bunny. The non-dems folk on the Ground would love to see her as the US Attorney General.

        2. I am always amused by claims that Democrats. on average, tend to be more educated than Republicans.

          The education that they have received seems to have resulted in an ability to twist the truth without self awareness, guilt or remorse when found out.

          1. When they say “more educated”, I’m guessing they mean “possess more formal qualifications.”
            There is a phenomenon whereby the cleverest people drop out of formal education at the point where they have invested the least for maximum benefit. For many people, this point occurs when they get a Bachelor degree.
            The ones who stay on tend to be the second and third rate brains who still feel they have something to prove, or have no idea what to do once they step off the railway track of formal education.
            This accounts for all the idiot academics out there.
            They aren’t brilliant nutty professors – they are simply mediocre, second raters.

          2. Oops. I have higher degrees; that must make me a second or third rate brain 🙁

          3. Clearly you are the exception that proves the rule! Don’t tell me you didn’t know plenty of Dorks with Doctorates though…

      1. It appears that there are certain echelons in American society / Politics that make Nigerian Corruption look lily white.

        1. Yes, and it crosses all political allegiances.

          I think they get to a position where they genuinely believe that the law and societal norms do not apply to them, only the little people.

          1. I read, many years ago in The Economist, that the top elites believe they have more in common with each other than their countrymen. It explained how that’s why they behave the way they do – why wasn’t Pinochet arrested when he came to the UK some years ago was an excellent example. An extension of this behavious is that the rules are for the little people.

          2. The British govt of the day gave an undertaking prior to his visit for medical treatment that Pinochet would not be arrested.

      2. By his disguised NWO agenda and rhetoric, he conned the yanks into believing he was a good man, a fake, even the kids aren’t their own.
        I remember how joyous he and Clinton were when they captured D Bin laden. Only to dump the body in the sea because it wasn’t him, as Benazir Bhutto had pointed out Bin Laden had died several years earlier. And then she was murdered.

        1. Oh crumbs, if the kids aren’t theirs, does that mean all the bitching about Michelle O really being a trannie might actually have a grain of truth?

    1. ‘Morning, BoB, sorry, old troop, I don’t tw@t but I endorse the the added epithet.

    2. I’m locked out of Tw@tter at the moment Bob – they can’t send me a text to answer as my phone is dead.

  30. Hate speech: blasphemy for the 21st century. Spiked. 15 May 2020.

    The effect of this will be to make everyone feel unsafe – unsafe to think, to speak, to discuss, to share ideas. The Scottish minister behind the bill, Humza Yousaf, says ‘we all have a responsibility to challenge prejudice in order to ensure Scotland is the inclusive and respectful society we want it to be’. But what he is doing is giving law the job that manners and argument used to do.

    Yousaf says that the ‘stirring up of hatred can contribute to a social atmosphere in which discrimination is accepted as normal’. But there are limits to what criminal law can safely aim to accomplish. In imagining a Scotland without hatred, he is inadvertently laying out something quite terrifying. The inevitable consequence of this legislation would be what Orwell called ‘crimestop’ – ‘the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of a dangerous thought’.

    Morning everyone. You can read the details of this bill in the rest of the article and they make its predecessor the Blasphemy Law look like Magna Carta. I just want to speculate here on the motivation for it. Why would someone abolish one law under which there have been no prosecutions for a hundred and seventy five years and replace it with another unless there was an intention to use it? Now if this intention exists it cannot be against the original offences and offenders or there would be no need for a change so by implication it is aimed at a modern version of blasphemy. Fortunately we have the thinking of the Bill’s originator Humza Yousaf to guide us as to the nature of this blasphemy, ‘we all have a responsibility to challenge prejudice in order to ensure Scotland is the inclusive and respectful society we want it to be’. Mr Humza clearly feels that present Scottish Society is prejudiced and lacks inclusivity and respect but for what? It cannot be the status quo or no change would be required so it must be a new player on the scene and bearing in mind the Bill’s originator that can only be Islam! What we have here masquerading as a general good is actually an Islamic Law prohibiting any criticism or denigration of its beliefs or tenets.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/15/hate-speech-blasphemy-for-the-21st-century/

      1. Insulting people based on national characteristics or nationality has been explicitly excluded, so no, it won’t.

        2. So the jokes about Pakis can still be used by the BBCs comics …. good.

        3. Nationality is covered by the 1976 Race Relations Act (BBC v. Souster, 2001) on “…the basis that the English, Scots and Welsh constitute separate groups defined by reference to national origins but not on the basis that they are of different ethnic origins.”

          1. I think this was mentioned in an article by Neil Lyndon on Conservative Woman last week – they have done some legal trickery to ensure that insulting the English is not punishable.

    2. 319259+ up ticks,
      Morning As,
      Was the outer apparel of this yousaf
      bloke inclusive of a sheepskin ?
      Does he realise that decapitation, limb
      trimming, rape / abuse, stoning’s etc
      are also discriminatory and could never be judged as the norm, and have no place in a decent society.
      Thin edge of the anti UK wedge material.

    3. Prejudice is best challenged by free thought and speech, not by law.
      If people don’t believe they have free speech, they will not speak out at all.
      Blasphemy laws hinder free speech, and thus argument.
      In any case, if God is so great, why would he give a shit about someone blaspheming, and in the remote case he does, cannot the blasphemer be punishe by God rather than by those on earth taking offence on his behalf?

      1. Indeed, ‘Morning, Paul. The Almighty also trades under the name, Thunderbolts are us.

    4. The proposed bill also includes anti-misogyny laws. This is the price Humza must pay to protect Islam from ‘hateful’ criticism.

      1. Anti-misandry laws would wipe out about 50% of telly adverts.
        So all families would be completely ethnic; just not white ethnic.

    5. Nicola Sturgeon received a visit from one of George Soros’ closest emissaries recently. I wonder why ?

    6. We either have free speech or we have censorship. There exists libel and slander laws for those who libel and slander. ‘Hate speech’ is a cop-out term for those who do not want to hear alternative points of view to those espoused within their own social bubble.

    7. The result of putting legislative power in the wrong, green untried hands.

      That silly house and the other two assemblies must go.

  31. To make your day:

    “The mathematical models underpinning the government’s Covid-19 strategy are largely informed by “educated guesswork, intuition and experience”, one of its scientific advisers has said.

    Graham Medley, who sits on the scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage), made the remarks on Monday during an online lecture organised by the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

    “At the moment, we’re having to do it by making educated guesswork, and intuition and experience, rather than being able to do it in some kind of semi-formal way,” Professor Medley told his audience. “But a half-good answer given before the decision is made is infinitely more useful than a perfect answer given after the decision is made.”

    He also chairs the Spi-M sub-committee, which focuses on modelling and feeds into Sage. He said that it lacked good information on how Covid-19 might be spread in shops, pubs, gyms and hairdressers. “If we want to get an idea of when, for example, in the United Kingdom we’re going to be able to open pubs, we’re going to have to understand how people might use them.””

    1. Yo Bill

      The system is parallel with the question

      How many apples in a pound of pears = Four bananas

          9. No. It’s simply that they are boring and predictable and they usually derail a perfectly sensible topic. They are like the kid at the back of the class jumping up and down with his hand in the air.

            They make it impossible to even start a discussion on, for instance our fishing industry and its troubles.

          10. Well, I’m sure that old trout, Nicola Sturgeon would welcome the diversion.

    2. Never mind the ins and outs of spreading, get the basics of validation and programming right!
      Then worry about how many peoople you have to meet to catch a cold.

  32. Good morning, all. Bright, sunny day. Still for a change – wonderful.

    The lecture from Rome was excellent. Good to see highly skilled and brainy young man giving f his best for 75 minutes. They are going to do them every Wednesday from now on.

    1. …and that violence will triumph over everything else.

      Apparently it is okay to pursue our NI veterans relentlessly at the same time. What a sad and sickening state this country has descended to.

      ‘Morning, Belle.

  34. Interesting when you look at the Telegraph home page headlines. Almost none of them actually have anything to do with news, almost all are concerned with fluff – how I played board games in lockdown, nice places to visit, and the like. Why would anyone pay for stuff like that? I guess the Barclay’s problems are that fewer and fewer are actually paying.
    Morning, all!

      1. Gone oop north, thank goodness. Now up there it’s turning to floods – some snow banks are over 9 metres high, and in this winter of global warming, there’s never been so much snow.

        1. The Swedish Muppet has been very quiet, lately. Perhaps she is caught in a snow drift.

          1. Greta Doomgoblin is lecturing everyone on Corona Virus courtesy of CNN.

            Good morning, Bill.

          5. I think it is because she is now considered to be an ‘Influencer’.

            Not by me.

    2. And if it mentions Bryony Gordon’s (the Queen of Fluff) drinking, fatness and mental problems once more I shall not be responsible for my actions.

      ‘Morning, Oberst.

      1. A long period of silence from that vapid tart would not be a bad thing….

        Morning Hugh.

      2. Years ago I abandoned reading her articles – if you can call her drivel articles. I cannot understand why anybody is remotely interested in the garbage this self-obsessed, adipose bovine person produces. I can only think that she is blackmailing the editor with some obscene photos.

        2. I think she is supposed to be relatable to female Telegraph readers. Personally, I found that idea insulting.

      3. Says it all about the Telegraph that they got rid of Delingpole and kept Bryony Gordon. Delingpole is infuriatingly shallow at times, but if his nose is held to the grindstone, he can and does produce good analysis pieces.

      2. Yo SB

        I went to school, with the one on the right

        We called him Wing Nut

        He became a pilot and flew BuccinEars

        1. In my time in the RAF, there was an individual Known as the “wing nut”. Nothing to do with ears!

        3. I used to have a friend with a similar silhouette – he was known to all and sundry as Jig (short for jigsaw piece)

    1. Makes perfect sense. In fact extend it to other activities.

      Don’t ever do anything that isn’t 100% safe. Apply it to everyone in the pursuit of equality.

      In about a week the planet will be left to the wildlife to pick up the pieces and clean the bones and Eden will return.

      1. That throws up the paradox, that it isn’t safe to be doing away with risk.

  37. Well, blow me down with a feather. Below, Phil was (justifiably) confused that a person called “Sidney” was actually a woman.

    Scanning the Grimes, I see that there is another one; Sidney Flanigan. A film actress.

    Must be suffin’ to do with yer septics and their uncertainty over male and female names…..

        3. There used to be a fat lass called that who got on the BBC a lot. She dressed like a badly-kept market stall.

          We don’t see her any more.

    2. Goes t’other way too. The actor portraying Saul in Homeland is Mandy Patinkin!

      1. I thought he was the former MP for Hartlepool…{:¬))

        Good afternoon, John.

      2. Of Princess Bride

        “My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!” 

        fame

        2. Our children know all the words. We made them watch it about 30 years ago, despite their complaints and opposition. They had changed their minds by the end.
          We have the book, but I find it unreadable.

      1. One of Caroline’s sisters is called Adelaide. Toowoomba is a rather less popular Australian’s girl’s name but Yellowbitchdinga has not caught on at all even with avid Kiplers.

  38. Funny Old World

    Time after time after time Nottl shows itself to be way ahead of of the MSM information curve often by weeks,today’s sunspot stories merely being the latest example,in fact as a news agglomeration site NoTTL is nearly unbeatable

    One might think access to such insights would lead to happiness

    However……………….

    https://files.catbox.moe/9u8yje.jpg

    2. Don’t know if you like Charlie Brooker or not. I enjoyed his Black Mirror series. He has a show on BBC called News Wipe. This episode on iplayer is called Anti-viral Wipe. It’s about Corona…(sighs) but he is funny as always.

    3. Afternoon Rik. One wonders if Herodotus pinched that off of Cassandra in Homers Iliad who could foresee the future but was never believed. A situation which seems eerily familiar!

  40. Walking the streets and parks of Bournville, I can affirm that much of the population (who venture out of the house) are in the “terrified of the virus, which is so contagious” mode:

    The biggest political ruse of our time has now spiralled so far out of control that it has become almost impossible to distinguish fact from deception. Every day we are besieged with such a selective and biased artillery of “scientific” assertions that it makes a mockery of expert insight.

    Every day we are subjected to yet more bitesized epidemiology that gives an utterly false impression of risk. And every day we are bombarded with terrifying death figures so out of context that they are effectively meaningless.

    But instead of calling out Downing Street’s constructed hyperreality, the London liberal bubble is busy getting high on confected confusion. This week the BBC has relentlessly pumped out No 10’s basic pro-lockdown propaganda message without question, genuinely convinced that they are holding the Government to account by spinning news items about a“No 10 shambles”.

    Meanwhile Keir Starmer has cemented his new role as the PM’s useful idiot, as he positions Labour as even more pro-Government policy than the actual Government.

    Arguably, the Covid crisis is being presented in such a one-sided, misleading and alarmist manner that the public is effectively being lied to. But the lie is now so dramatically compelling, so morally powerful, that, like the virus itself, it may be impossible to defeat and prove endemic. The best we can do now is to manage it in a targeted fashion. We might do this by setting “The Official Version” against the fundamental facts (as we know them so far) in two particular areas.

    The first regards the true scale of the Covid crisis. An FT study that estimates Britain has suffered 41,000 coronavirus-related deaths has been widely circulated in recent days. So too the latest ONS figures that put the weekly Covid death rate up to May 1 at 6,035. At first glance, these figure are horrific.

    But let’s put them in perspective: forty-one thousand is below the number of excess winter deaths in 1998, 1999 and 2014, which immediately raises questions about whether this crisis is truly “unprecedented”. And 40 per cent of Week 18 Covid-related deaths reported by the ONS occurred in care homes, which immediately rings alarm bells about whether it was right to pursue blanket lockdown rather than a more targeted strategy of protecting the vulnerable.

    The tragedy is we have blown coronavirus out of proportion to such a degree that it is obscuring our view of another epidemic – surging non-Covid excess deaths. Warnings from cardiology experts that soon the daily excess deaths related to illnesses untreated during lockdown – from heart disease to cancer – could soon be greater than the daily Covid death rate remain dangerously unheeded.

    Which brings us on to the second area of the official narrative that demands further scrutiny: the risks of lifting lockdown. Prof Neil Ferguson may be destined for the dustbin of history, but mainstream appetite for garbage-in garbage-out modelling is, if anything, becoming even more rapacious. My latest favourite is an Imperial College study which gloomily warns of a possible second wave in Italy; its projections are based on the strange assumption that the only change in public behaviour after nearly two months of lockdown will be mobility.

    A correlation also seems to be emerging between how one-dimensional modelling is, and how much traction it generates. Take the much-dicussed study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), which warns 100,000 may die if lockdown is lifted too early. A more sophisticated study would also project the death toll if lockdown is lifted too late, by combining data about the economy and health.

    The latter is exactly what some experts, such as Prof Philip Thomas at the University of Bristol, are exploring. He suggests that hundreds of thousands could die if lockdown is ended too slowly – and yet his findings have not enjoyed nearly as much publicity.

    We are being brainwashed into a view of the risks around lifting lockdown that is not only one-dimensional, but also downright wrong. The most disgraceful example of this is misinformation regarding the R number. Much of the public now accept the PM’s misleading insinuation that reducing the R number to lush green Zero is our only path to freedom, and Britain is doomed if the R number grows above vampire-red Number One.

    So too outlets like the Guardian, which are now furiously tracking R numbers in countries such as Germany, which have been foolish enough to start unwinding lockdown. But this Crayola-coloured impression of science misses one little fact: the R number falling straight to zero is not the only way for an epidemic to end, it could rise before falling; such is the logic behind “herd immunity”.

    Which just about captures the spirit of the deceit. Throughout this crisis, our post-Blair leaders have had countless opportunities to level with the public that finding a solution to this crisis might involve taking a risk. Instead it has sold them the old managerial lie that the only solution is to avoid all risks. We may have a new leader, but nothing has changed in British politics

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/14/official-covid-story-biased-selective-point-deceit/

    3. Meanwhile, according to a fellow dog-walker, the Congestion Charge has been increased. Well, they’ve got to make up the money somehow (see yesterday’s post about finances if cars are no longer to be used).

  42. Lovely day here now.

    My Rose du Réscht (large clump of 3 & climbing Etoile d’Hollande on the garage wall are flowering.

    Just been to W/rose. Social distancing in the store seems to be more exaggerated.

    1. I hope there was no requirement to wear a face covering. My local Asda store hasn’t demanded one yet. I still don’t really know why the government has advised people to wear one in some shops. I feared the advice would nudge some shops into requiring face coverings but the only one I know of is Belle’s local one in Wool. Perhaps it depends on how well each shop is able to manage social distancing.

    2. Our new Mme. Isaac Pereire, Bourbon rose has come into flower, it has the strongest perfume of any rose i know.

  43. Fewer than a tenth of the 18,000-strong army of contact tracers have been recruited, minister admits. 14 May 2020.

    Just 1,500 of the Government’s target 18,000 contact tracers have been hired, a Government minister has admitted.

    Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary, told Sky News: “I don’t think we’ve got to 18,000 just yet, I think there’s about 15,000 applications, we’re looking to as you say get up to 18,000.”

    This is just par for the course isn’t it? The whole thing from the kick off with Ferguson’s Folly has been a complete and utter shambles. The Ventilators. The Nightingale Hospitals. The Lockdown. It is beyond Farce and will probably turn into Tragedy. One of the things that History has taught us is that the PTB do not pause and rethink when things go awry but double down on them and compound error with stupidity. So it is here. This virus could have been overcome with a modicum of Common Sense and Modesty. Instead it is going to mutate into a Monster that will devour all that stands in its path!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/15/1500-18000-strong-army-contact-tracers-has-recruited-minister/

    1. Just shows that it’s easlier for a politician to make an announcement than it is for the people who actually have to do things to make the dream work in reality.

      1. You should never give an order that you know, will not, or cannot, be obeyed. Military Aphorism.

    2. The first cases were not traced at the start. Contacts were not tracked at the start. The incompetence and insouciance of the Government and the agencies such as the NHS, have been clearly shown up here. We have no knowledge of how it got here. It could have arrived in a perfume bottle. Everything is just guesswork.

      1. Politicians cannot run or control anything. They cause far more problems than they solve.

      2. The most likely explanation is that the the disease came from China on the multiple passenger aircraft coming to this country at the end of December 2019 or earlier. The earliest UK cases were confirmed at the end of January.
        Scotland was a hotspot at the beginning of March after Edinburgh hosted a Nike conference at the end of February at which an individual with COVID -19 infected at least 25 others of which 8 lived in Scotland. Several of those who were infected took the disease back to their own country in March. I am not aware of where the first two cases in England picked up their disease but it would be interesting to know.

    3. 750,000 volunteers given only 20,000 tasks. How many elderly people could have had their shopping and medication picked up by this army of the willing?

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/16/least730000-volunteers-nhs-scheme-yet-deployed-care-home-bosses/

      For me, the biggest scandal of this whole shambles has been the decision to move elderly Covid patients from hospitals to care homes. Presumably, this was done by some mandarin in the panic to ‘protect the NHS.’ What about protecting the most frail and vulnerable people in our society? It would have been more humane to shoot them, as I doubt that a death from Covid is a pleasant one. I hope that the families club together and hire a clever lawyer to prosecute whoever did this.

      1. I would think the only care homes to accept infected people would those owned by councils. Private homes would, undoubtedly, refuse them. I know the care home my sister was in last year would refuse and my d-i-l who is a business manager for 4 care/nursing homes would also refuse infected residents.

  44. A demonstration of logic.
    A man has a moustache. He likes his moustache and will keep it. His moustache grows. The moustache tickles his nose. He does not like this. He trims his moustache a little so that it does not tickle his nose. As the moustache grows the man has to trim his moustache a little, at least twice a week. The man finds this tedious. He reasons that if he did not have nose, the moustache would not tickle it. He ponders this, and concludes that his logic is impeccable and irrefutable. So he cuts off his nose. The moustache no longer tickles his nose, confirming his logical and irrefutable reasoning. However, he comes to discover there are disadvantages in no longer having a nose.
    So it is with Covid-19. It is highly infectious. There is no medical preventative. It is medically incurable. Everyone will be infected with it over time if they have any human contact at all. Logically, the only way to avoid it is to have no human contact at all.
    This is where we are. We have followed the logic of the man with the moustache. A logic that considered only two factors: a tickly moustache that grows, and a nose that is tickled. We see readily the absurdity of the logic of only considering two factors in respect of the moustache.
    Why did we adopt the logical argument of the noseless moustachioed one when considering Covid-19?

      1. … and stops them getting up your nose (always assuming it isn’t cut off, of course).
        Then wash the moustache, and bingo! Frisk som en fisk!

      2. He wants to grow a moustache. That’s the point. You can change the factors and get a different result. Of course.

        1. How many boy and girl Nottlers on this site have moustaches?

          I have had one for years but to be honest it could be a lot bushier than it is. But I have a mole on my upper lip which may need to be removed so I may have to shave it off next week which will sadden me.

          However our plumber has a magnificent Breton moustache which is every bit as luxuriant as the one sported by the Escape to the Château chap on the telly

          1. I had a mole removed by freezing it (painless) – this might obviate the removal of said hair

          2. Bloody moles – cause havoc in parts of my garden.

            Never thought of freezing them – how does one go about it?

          4. Afternoon, Spikey.

            But how did you deal with all the molehills it left behind? :•)

          10. Photographic evidence shows I had my first tache in 1976. It lasted until it was time to trim it, then it went the journey.

            Memory tells me I repeated the experience in 1979. One evening I shaved it off, then went back to the living room without comment. It took my wife about an hour to notice, and even then only after a slight prompt.

            Since then until 31st January 2020 I have been clean-shaven. My new Brexit beard, the first in my life, is doing well.

    1. I have to say I observe the sun when I can and the last 18 months have been abysmal when it comes to sunspots.

  46. Thanks to the latest disqusting cock-up – no notifications of replies – it’s quite impossible to follow any threads today so I shall follow NtN’s example and seek my amusement elsewhere.

    Anyway, I’m running out of fish puns (for which small mercy bassetedge will no doubt be grateful).

    I’ll have a look in a day or two to see if things have improved, until then …. “Ave atque vale”, as we say in the clachan.
    :¬)

    3. Hello DM

      Sad to say the same applies to me here as well. Disqus is really playing up , if you want a fish pun , cocking snooks!

  47. Yo All

    At last, a sensible letter to the TellyLaff

    SIR – Your obituary (May 10) for Little Richard stated that the opening line of Tutti Frutti was:

    “Awop-bopa-loobop alop-bamboom!”

    That was, of course, the closing line.

    The opening line, as any fule kno, was:

    “Awop-bopa-loobop alop-bopbop!”

    Jim Dawes

    Maidstone, Kent

  48. Does this sound familiar?

    Admiral Cotrington

    Greek War of Independence and the Battle of Navarino

    The Naval Battle of Navarino (1827). Oil painting by Carneray

    In December 1826 Codrington was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet
    and sailed on 1 February 1827. From that date until his recall on 21
    June 1828 he was engaged in the arduous duties imposed on him by the Greek War of Independence, which had led to anarchy in occupied Greece[8]
    and surrounding areas. His orders were to enforce a peaceful solution
    on the situation in Greece, but Codrington was not known for his
    diplomacy, and on 20 October 1827 he destroyed the Turkish and Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino while in command of a combined British, French and Russian fleet.[3]

    After the battle Codrington went to Malta
    to refit his ships. He remained there till May 1828, when he sailed to
    join his French and Russian colleagues on the coast of the Morea. They endeavoured to enforce the evacuation of the peninsula by Ibrahim Pasha peacefully. The Pasha made diplomatic difficulties, which came in the form of continuous genocide against the Greeks of Morea who were to be replaced with Muslims
    from Africa and on 25 July the three admirals agreed that Codrington
    should go to Alexandria to obtain Ibrahim’s recall by his father Mehemet
    Ali. Codrington had heard on 22 June of his own supersession, but, as
    his successor had not arrived, he carried out the arrangement made on 25
    July, and his presence at Alexandria led to the treaty of the 6 August
    1828, by which the evacuation of the Morea
    was settled. His services were recognised by the grant of the Grand
    Cross of the Bath, but there is no doubt that the British government was
    embarrassed by his heavy-handed gunboat diplomacy and not too impressed by the further weakening of Russia’s main opponent, the Ottomans.[3]

  50. BBC R4 COVID Phone in

    West Country Caller: “COVID has really revived our community spirit”
    Host: “How? What are you doing?”
    Caller: “We’re making road blocks!”

      1. I’m just making some naan breads! Chapati-t in the oven or a skillet?

      1. In the days of my youth that was the definition of a masturbating hippy.

        1. By the time we out in the sticks had twigged what the summer of love was all about, the local McDougalls salesman had made his dough and scarpered.

  52. Latest findings: majority of people who died from COVID had dementia.
    Teaching staff: concerns about catching COVID from kids going back to school.

    I’d forget about it.

  53. Apropos Michael Portillo who was mentioned on this blog the other day. He has a new series on Channel 5 tonight. This concerns the Empire. I’ve put it on Record.

    1. I rather like his train journeys, but I read a review of his new series. You might wish to put a perspex screen around the TV as the programme descends into the usual Empire bashing.

      1. He’s just making sure the paychecks keep coming. Don’t support the narrative…you’re out of a job. They used to be called collaborators.

  54. I think I shall log out and come back tomorrow and see if the teenagers have fixed the bluddy thing. Have a nice day, all.

    1. Given that the Chinks still find it necessary to eat bats, I wonder how self sufficient they really are in food?
      I suspect that starving millions of peasants in the countryside is a sight easier than starving 10’s of millions in the cities, who are far more likely to protest.

      The PCP of China might yet be sowing the seeds of its own destruction

      2. Apparently they are now obtaining their beef from south America where the jungle rainforest has recently been destroyed. I suppose they should try and grow there own produce,… but it might catch something.
        Australia allow the export of millions of tons of coal iron ore and other minerals to china. Perhaps that will come to a halt.
        which might be a good idea, it’s the most polluted place on the planet

        2. The problem Oz has, is its economy is heavily reliant on China.

          The Chinese would use their even more polluting home coal for the power stations.

      1. That’s rich, coming from Nick Timothy – he was in the thick of it when the cosying up took place.

    3. After seeing how much plant and insect life the Chinese turn up with at Oz and NZ airports on the tv programs, it seems that they are attempting to wipe out Australia’s natural plant life etc. Even those who now live in Australia, after a visit home, turn up time and time again with illegal stuff. They should lose their citizenship and be permanently deported out of Australia.

    4. I fear that our leaders will keep quiet and not support Australia, hoping that the crocodile will eat them last.

      We cannot abandon the Australians.

    1. One from the Charlie Brooker show Anti-viral Wipe…

      When Boris Johnson got covid-19 there were fears that he would be the first Prime Minister to die in office……………………………..since Gordon Brown.

      1. We watched Charlie Brooker show, Moh kept saying ” Switch channels , hurry up ” he hated it.. I said just relax and wait a while , he actually laughed at many of the quips , it was fast moving and basically quite honest , and had a major ouch factor. I am glad we didn’t switch channels .

  57. Help! Is my comment total really 666 – or is that just part of the Disqus glitch?

      1. Not yet. They’re hoping private services might resume in June not July, which seems sensible?

        1. Hmm. One wonders why they do not admit that they got it completely wrong – and start this Sunday…..

          2. Totally agree and one would expect Christians to have the humility to admit their mistakes, yet Welby has never admitted his gross error over the charges against George Bell so it seems unlikely that he’ll come clean over this.

          4. Any chance of a thunderbolt gutting Lambeth Palace? Or even big pointy finger and a v. loud voice giving the ABC the hair dryer treatment?

          5. Well, by going on his past history, he will soon be the Ayatollah (Supreme Leader) of Canterbury.

            Hint

            In theory, the Supreme Leader is elected and overseen by the Assembly of Experts.

            However, all candidates for membership at the Assembly of Experts (including the President and

            the Majlis (parliament)) are appointed by the Guardian Council, whose members in turn, are appointed by

            the Supreme Leader.

        2. They are looking at resuming racing on 1st June – can’t come soon enough for me! Behind closed doors, but still it will give my horses a chance to run. The first scheduled is Newcastle, which will be ideal for the gelding who nearly died as a foal (he got kicked in the head). He likes the all-weather and it’s close to the stables. Maybe, after finishing second five times, he’ll actually get his head in front this time. Fingers crossed.

  58. A Lead Doctor was being interviewed on BBC TV this morning and read out a letter she had received from a medical team.
    Doctors were being put under pressure in one trust for complaining about lack of appropriate PPE and after being forced to wear substandard kit four of their team had become infected with COVID-19.

    It is reasonable to think that with reports like this the NHS is not the place to go if you are sick.

    1. I heard from an old friend yesterday whose wife has been suffering from cancer for some years now. (I don’t go in for this ‘fighting cancer’).

      She went in for a scan in April, but picked up the virus when she was there. She’s recovered from the virus now, but it can’t have done her general health much good and things are looking bad.

    2. Afternoon all.

      From what Alf and I know those in hospitals with Covid19 are being sent home or to a council run care home – who obviously cannot refuse to take them. Defeating the object of clearing out patients to make room for the virus patients! It just doesn’t make sense. And we know now that the Nightingale hospitals, constructed at no doubt great expense, are not in use because there aren’t enough patients. You really couldn’t make it up.

    3. It’s where you go to become infected and if they do achieve that you’re sent home.
      Another box ticked.

  59. 319259+ up ticks,
    I would like to see those that have supported / voted for these governance parties for the last two decades with having the pigment in their head skin turn a bright green
    for a two month duration.
    Once is forgivable, twice even, no more.

  61. Steak and mushrooms cooked and cooling.

    Suet pastry to be rolled out in 15 minutes, pudding bowl greased and ready for the steaming pan.

  62. The descent into madness continues. The charity Living Streets should rename itself Dying Brains if it thinks that the nation’s footpaths can be be widened in anything less than a few decades. Roger Geffen can stay off my footpaths at all times at any speed. Perhaps he and Cycling UK can meet up with Dying Brains in a park somewhere and have it out together.

    Police urge people not to walk in the road and say crossing paths with others will not transmit coronavirus

    Plea comes despite pavement confrontations in which pedestrians have clashed as they try to obey social distancing rules

    People should stop walking in the road to avoid fellow pedestrians, police have said, adding that “momentarily crossing paths with someone” will not give you coronavirus.

    They issued the plea despite pavement confrontations in which pedestrians have clashed as they try to obey social distancing rules by staying two metres apart but avoid stepping into the road.

    Living Streets, the national charity for pedestrians, has said the solution is to widen pavements and launched a campaign urging walkers to petition councils for broader pathways, to which 1,700 people have so far responded.

    The advice, from Metropolitan Police officers, said: “If you do go out, please don’t walk in the road to avoid passing pedestrians on the pavement. Momentarily crossing paths with someone won’t give you Covid-19.”

    Kathryn Shaw, of Living Streets, said the charity was advising pedestrians that they were unlikely to catch coronavirus on the street but was also urging motorists to slow down and take greater care because of the increased number of pedestrians.

    “Police should not be saying don’t walk in the road. Jaywalking is not a crime,” she said. “People may need to walk in the road if they have to to feel safe and can do so safely. The onus should be on drivers to be vigilant that there might be more people taking up space.”

    Police chiefs said on Wednesday that they did not have powers to enforce the two-metre social distancing rules. However, that has not stopped them from being forced to intervene in cases including one in which a couple in Nottinghamshire knocked a six-year-old girl off her bike when they refused to make way on a path.

    Councils from Richmond and Lambeth, in London, to Bristol and Manchester have started work to widen pavements, accelerate pedestrianisation schemes and introduce one-way systems for walkers following the Government’s appeal for people to avoid using public transport.

    The Met Police said: ‘We encourage the public to follow government advice and guidelines in relation to social distancing while being aware of road safety. The officer who posted the tweet has been spoken to. The tweet was issued with the best intention to remind people about their safety.’

    Cyclists are being advised to keep as much as 22 yards apart when behind another cyclist because of research suggesting that droplets from coughs and sneezes can remain in the air.

    National charity Cycling UK acknowledged that the research – by scientists from Eindhoven University of Technology, in the Netherlands, and KU Leuven, in Belgium – had not been peer-reviewed or verified by other academics, but said greater distance “may be needed when you are behind someone else”.

    The findings, based on analysis of exhaled droplets in wind tunnels, suggested walkers should keep at least four metres clear when following others, runners should stay 10 metres from one another and fast cyclists should ride up to 20 metres apart.

    Roger Geffen, the Cycling UK director of policy, said: “Personally I am thinking in terms of at least the length of a cricket wicket [22 yards] when I am behind someone, but I am very reluctant to say there is any science behind that. “That’s what I am personally doing. I have no idea if it is right.”

    Mr Geffen said the charity’s view was that people should be considerate and, when overtaking, allow a “good distance” rather than cutting in rapidly. “You have to leave it to a certain amount of common sense about what a reasonable distance is,” he added.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/14/police-urge-people-not-walk-road-say-crossing-paths-others-will/

    1. So not only is Plod an expert in law they are now experts in medicine. Well done them….not.

    2. We went out a few hours ago. There is a pavement alongside the road past the racecourse. A bloke with dog stepped out into the road in front of our van and hurriedly stepped back again. There was a woman with a dog walking along towards him.
      Further on, we were on a small road with passing places. It was quite busy with people walking, horses moving, and some on bicycles. One man on a bike had two toddlers on bikes with him. It is impossible to control two small children on bikes. This narrow road has a 60mph limit.
      Back on the main road we met one of those young men in a noisy little fastback cutting a corner. But I know how my brakes work.
      While the overall volume of traffic has gone down, the IQs of drivers have not gone up

        1. Kelso. A lovely racecourse with excellent facilities for spectators.

          1. Ah, I’ve seen it on TV. Looks lovely. I’ve never been racing in Scotland – it’s too far.

    3. People seem to have forgotten the second part of the social distancing advice. The original advice was ‘Don’t get closer than 2m for periods exceeding 15 minutes‘ to limit exposure.

      The two seconds it takes to pass someone on a pavement is somewhat less than 15 minutes.

      That is gold-plating in spades.

      The risk of catching it from someone you pass on a pavement is zero, unless the person is one of the 1 in 350 who is carrying the infection and they either cough in your face or lick it.

      1. And presumably a very small dose might even be beneficial, if the immune system can cope and then recognise future attacks.

    4. Grant Shapps plan for cyclists and walkers getting to work is going to cause chaos on roads all over the towns and cities of the UK if implemented. It’s not the aerosols outside I worry about. it is the atmosphere in shops which is more likely to infect you as the droplets can hang about in the air for many minutes if not hours. The 2 metre rule is not effective indoors.

  63. The kindness of strangers.

    As I approached the queue outside W/rose this morning, a younger chap near the front called out, “Here, take my spot, I more able-bodied than you.” I thanked him profusely as he went to the back of the line.
    Later, as I was taking my empty trolley back, feeling pretty well cream-crackered, a marshal stepped forward, “Let me take that for you; it will save you a long walk. Take care, now.”

    3. Their fresh coffee is quite delicious .. After shopping , pre Covid , I would take my Waitrose bamboo mug, fill it up , and enjoy some peace and quiet and a rest in the car , and an enjoyable coffee before heading back home .

      1. A distant memory, Belle. I stopped having their coffee when they stopped providing cardboard cups.

    4. How are you now Peddy, are you feeling more refreshed this afternoon?

      We ate our first early radishes yesterday , little round ones which we grew in a large pot on the patio.

  64. Afternoon, all. I have had a productive day for a change. Both lawns are cut and one of them is edged (I did the other previously). I have done some weeding and general tidying up and now I am shattered. I’ve come here for a rest! The weather was perfect for what I wanted to do; dry, overcast, but not too cold.

  65. Trump suggests a drug treatment and Trump Derangement Syndrome (including JackTheLad’s cited research studies) sprouts up all over the place – and b$gger the citizenry and their rights to privacy and treatment (and BTW the drug costs peanuts, there’s no money in it for Gates or the Drug companies, unlike Remdesiver … :

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bho803qRmkk&t=11s

    1. I saw earlier the British government has just spent £20 million buying supplies of Hydroxycholorquine…..let’s hope it really does work….

          1. Pass.

            From the video, someone in France must have been using it. Perhaps Macron the mighty midget banned it.

            I know some adverse side effects were reported in some patients but it seems ludicrous to stop using it altogether because of that.

            Many people are allergic to penicillin , do we ban it for everyone? Of course we don’t.

            The actions of so many short-sighted 100% risk free morons are actually killing people who might have survived.

  66. MOH cooked a lunch of Co-op frankfurters with cooked diced vegetables amply spiced with Thai stuff, curry powder and with chopped ginger plus fried onions and on a base of buckwheat. Spreading liberally the frankfurters with some nice Polish mustard, I found the lunch to be delicious. Will shortly go for a second walk – someone nearby is selling plants with an honesty box and I’ll take a few pounds along.

  67. We should abandon every restriction. We should go back to how things were last year. If we get it we get it. Let’s not worry. A permanent lockdown is unworkable, as is permanent social distancing.

    1. Just pray that CV doesn’t do what the Spanish Flu did and mutate into a form that preferentially killed off the 20-40 years-old age group in a second wave.

    2. 319259+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Hp,
      It is my belief the politico’s have achieved all they wanted to achieve
      in establishing just who heads the pecking order & hold the power to do so, and it sure ain’t the herd.

    3. We should never use total lockdown again. Let disease take its course , inform people and businesses of the risks and allow them to take measures to protect themselves and their employees . More money being dished out to care homes today, Hancock trying to kid us the government had Care Homes covered at the start of the outbreak. Experts saying the COVID_19 is gathering speed again.

  69. I see the doom and gloom mob are at it again – “R” number rising – new wave of plague on the way – many deaths expected – end of the world etc etc..

    Yawns…..

      1. Midsummer dear boy. By Christmas we won’t be able to move for the dead.

        Meanwhile, yer French say that holidays in July and August should be OK….

        1. But only for yer French?

          We’ve now got 100% cancellations for this summer.

          1. That’ll teach you to go and live abroad…

            May be yer French will book with you.

          2. Possibly.

            We’ve had a few French, but the majority of foreigners have been Australian and from yerup German and Dutch.

  70. The arrogance of Tony Blair is being constantly revealed to us. It reminds me of an extract from a song which was an ironic impersonation written soon after he came to power in the late 1990’s.

    Now I take my hols in Tuscany – megalomania is my scene,
    So I find the term: “prime minister” tends rather to demean,
    The stature of my excellence. If it’s all the same with you,
    I’d rather be called President – but Il Duce would do!

    In fact one of his grubby ministers, Jack Straw, erroneously referred to him as the Head of State.

    2. Afternoon Richard. This present lot are bad enough but Blair and his cronies I would pay good money to watch hang!

  72. My otherwise useless MP has his finger on the pulse:

    ”
    MAYHEW, Jerome
    17:01 (50 minutes ago)
    to me

    Dear Mr Thomas,

    Thank you for your further email. I would note that each case is treated individually, and in some instances, there may be a legitimate claim for someone to remain within the United Kingdom.

    However, I do fully understand your concerns. This bank holiday weekend, over 200 illegal entrants have broken into Britain having crossed the English Channel in small boats. These journeys are incredibly dangerous – indeed lives have been lost at sea where people travel in this way.

    That’s why it is essential that all illegal entrants are returned to France. Only when migrants and traffickers alike know they will not succeed in breaking into Britain in this way will these dangerous journeys stop.

    Let’s remember that France is a safe country and these people are not fleeing persecution in France. Indeed they will have travelled through a number of safe countries before arriving in France. Any claim for asylum should be made in the first safe country, not the last.

    Organised crime and trafficking gangs are behind these dangerous journeys. The Immigration Compliance Minister says that these gangs are using false promises to take advantage of desperate situations and illegally smuggle people into the UK – including by small boats across the English Channel. It is vital for France and the UK to work together to crack down on these people trafficking gangs and put a stop to their activities.

    Yours sincerely,”

    (Much of what he says is merely repeating what I said to him…..)

    1. When I started reading that, I thought it must have been the letter you wrote.

      Then I got to the bit in brackets!.

      1. I won’t weary you with the two page justification of inactivity by some chap at the Home Office which Mayhew sent on to me yesterday… It is just too depressing.

    2. Journalists apparently can find the traffickers easily in the Calais camps. Why can’t the French police sort them out. Why can’t our Border Force catch the invaders before they transfer mid- channel from the mother ship to the smaller boats and force the mother ship to stay out of English waters. Does the Border Force require a more aggressive fleet or are they obeying orders?

    4. “Broken” into Britain? My understanding is that they have been picked up and transported here.

  73. OT = the one fledgling in the falcon’s nest at Nottingham Trent appears to have been abandoned by its parents.

    It appears deformed – so I suppose they thought, “What is point?”

        1. Unlike songbirds, which lay an egg per day , but don’t begin to incubate until the full clutch is laid, so they all hatch on the same day, raptors start to incubate as soon as the first egg is laid.

          This staggers the hatch, so by the time the last chick hatches, its siblings are bigger by stages. The reason for this is that in times of food shortage, the smallest chick becomes food for the others, and so on up the line.

          In golden eagles, which lay only two eggs, if you’re going to be a male, then it’s a good idea to hatch first, because the females are bigger from birth. This gives them the advantage in the nest and as there is usually only one eglet that makes it through to fledging, if the female hatches first, she’s usually the one to gets to fly.

    2. In-breeding perhaps, is it all the caterwauling from the minarets that’s caused it?

        1. That’s motherhood for you…..

          The babe does look very odd. Great lump on its “throat” area.

          3. If you’ve been watching ’em have you noticed a size difference in the adults?

          7. Yes, yes – I know all that. But unless the two parent birds are next to one another, I can’t tell whether a single bird is larger or smaller.

            I’m going now – to have a drink or three!

  74. That is me for the day. Leek and ham tart for supper; then the Royal Academy lecture on Manet’s Portraiture.

    (I’ll post the YouTube URL next week when it goes public).

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  76. Our five-year-old has just been on the phone. In a conversation with my wife she was wondering when she’ll be able to visit us again.

    ‘When the Prime minister says that we can visit other peoples’ houses does that mean I can come to your house and strangers’ houses?’

    ‘Well you’ll be able to come to our house and friends’ houses, but I don’t think you’ll be wanting to go to strangers’ houses’.

    ‘Hmmm. Well we’ll just have to see what the Prime Minister says, then’.

      1. Remember Teresa May scuttling off to broker agreements before she stepped down as PM . We really don’t know what she meddled with do we.
        600, 000 migrants .. to fit into a city the size of Sheffield

        1. You’re right and I’m pretty sure some very nasty surprises are in store for us, whether we leave properly at the end of the year or not. I like the sound of our negotiator, he’s saying all the right things but you can never be entirely certain.

          1. 319259+ up ticks,
            NONE of them put a foot wrong rhetorically
            & keep in mind the johnson is amnesty inclined.

          3. 310259+ up tickds
            Evening V,
            I am in no doubt you
            are, many ain’t, and many although disagreeing with the amnesty would still support a mass uncontrolled immigration party.

    2. Khan will soon be on that bandwagon. Let us not forget that we have already flown 50+ onto benefits this week.

      1. I’ve just had a brilliant idea – let’s deport Khan and send Dick and a few others after them to ensure that they stay back in their shitholes!

    3. I think that that is a really good idea.

      Find them all, fingerprint them all, round them all up and then tell them all that we are practicing Taqiyya, just as they do.

      Lying to protect ourselves.

      Then deport the whole kit and caboodle.

    1. The article mentions ‘Welsh laws being incorrectly applied in England and vice versa’, which is odd because it is only Scotland that has a different legal system.

      1. In Wales the law was that you could only take one period of exercise a day. In England, although this was widely assumed to be the same, there was no legal restriction on either the number or duration of daily exercise periods

          1. Don’t know for sure. You can’t trust those that distribute the information to tell the difference.

            If they were both guidance, the Welsh guidance differed from the English, even though the media revelled in misinforming us that in England we were only allowed out once a day (wrong) and they even gold-plated that by often claiming that we could only do it for an hour (more incorrect). Even a government minister (Gove) said we were limited to one hour, once a day on TV. If a minister didn’t know what we were allowed to do what hope have we got?

      1. They can make sure that criminal muslims don’t get prosecuted. Vaz et al.

    3. Because of this and the threat of being fined, arrested and or prosecuted. I haven’t been out for 8 weeks.
      If these are unlawful actions can I claim compensation. A couple of mill would do.

      1. One of the joys of living in the countryside and away from the two closest villages, is that, generally speaking, no one give a flying toss about how often I go out nor for how long.

      1. Thank you.
        Is it worth the risk, vis a vis likely winnings vs legal fees do you guess?

        1. Th court would probably find that the Crown believed that the prosecutions were well-founded; and that there was a “mistake of law”. So the claim would prolly fail.

          Worth a letter before action, though…

    6. They forgot to notice it wasn’t a law. It was guidance.

      From the first day, when they wrongly prosecuted the woman on Newcastle station they should have known this. The Law only applied to people who were infectious.

      1. What it shows me is that any public servant (ha ha) who is given authority is very likely to abuse it.

        1. All power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton, I believe.

  80. Make of this what you will;:
    From the DT:

    “MPs and peers have called for the immediate release of people being held in immigration detention centres amid the threat of Covid-19

    Members of the all-party parliamentary group on immigration have written to the Home Secretary to “express concern over the hundreds of people still being detained for immigration purposes in the UK, despite the spread of Covid-19”, particularly because “social-distancing measures are impossible in detention”.

    There have so far been three confirmed cases of coronavirus in detention centres – known as immigration removal centres (IRCs) – but with limited testing the true figure may be much higher, the group warned.

    Group chairman Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) said: “As a group we remain deeply concerned that the department is continuing to put detainees at risk by holding them unnecessarily in IRCs.”

    No suggestion then that they have the option of going to their country of origin to escape possible contamination?

      1. Please don’t get over-excited about fit young men.

        That Thomas chap will post all sorts of scurrilous rumours about you…

        1. Even the hand-wringing leftie realises that they won’t integrate.
          It’s not about integration it’s about tolerance.

          Yeah of course it is.

    2. ‘No suggestion then that they have the option of going to their country of origin to escape possible contamination?’

      It would certainly ensure more than adequate social distancing.

      1. Yes, but would it not be cheaper still to do that when first sighted in a rubber dinghy in the Channel?

    5. As per normal political classes eff up everything they come into contact with.
      Who the hell do they think they are.

    6. There have so far been three confirmed cases of coronavirus in detention centres

      So what? Three cases does not equate to three deaths, or anything we particularly need to worry about.
      And considering they shouldn’t be here in the first place, who cares. They can go home.

  81. A few weeks ago I wrote that the BBC has a dilemma. It hates Johnson & Co with a vengeance and wants to stick the boot in but knows that it must not be seen to be against the closing down of society and the economy. That would make it appear not to care about the deaths and that would be bad for it in a nation that is increasingly irrational and emotionally incontinent. Instead, it adopts the tactic of criticising every aspect of the handling of the crisis, as though greater readiness and different decisions would have kept the death toll in the low thousands. Auntie knows best!

    Radio 4’s 6pm news bulletin is usually one of the BBC’s better broadcasts as it relies more on news and less on opinion. Not this evening. This was a masterly ‘on the one hand, on the other’ script that at first appeared so balanced [sic] in the way that the organisation always claims to be but cleverly manipulated the listener into thinking that a loosening of restrictions might just be a bad thing to do right now and there might just be another spike and there will be more be deaths of much-loved grandparents (cue interviews with the bereaved) and so on. Just to rub the point in, it reported from Scarborough where normally stout-hearted and sensible Yorkies have collapsed with a plea to “stay away and save our souls.” Ah reet…

    We’re all gonna die!

    1. Of COURSE we’re all gonna die! Even the Son of God couldn’t avoid that.

        1. Dunno about that. All males in my line have croaked early – my Father being the most long lived, dying aged 72.

        2. That might explain all the strange death associated equipment stashed during the Obama period.

    2. The bbc pick a victim and grossly over emphasis the effect the virus is having on them.
      This is aimed to make people who never get a mention, which is the vast majority of us feel sorry for them. But no consideration is allowed for those who grin and bare it.
      And obviously given the current circumstances get on with their lives as best they can.
      Like I have often said the bbc seem to have set themselves up as an alternative political party.
      If that’s what they want left them put their money where their mouth is and put it to the vote.
      Pay to view.
      They’d be bankrupt in a month.
      And like the cowards they are, they know it.

    3. The bbc pick a victim and grossly over emphasis the effect the virus is having on them.
      This is aimed to make people who never get a mention, which is the vast majority of us feel sorry for them. But no consideration is allowed for those who grin and bare it.
      And obviously given the current circumstances get on with their lives as best they can.
      Like I have often said the bbc seem to have set themselves up as an alternative political party.
      If that’s what they want left them put their money where their mouth is and put it to the vote.
      Pay to view.
      They’d be bankrupt in a month.
      And like the cowards they are, they know it.

    4. Wurr doomed, Ah tell ye, wuurr doomed!!! (John Laurie in Dad’s Army.)

    1. BT would applaud his natty ladderwork.

      Which reminds me – is it me or you who is going to fix the leaking gutter?

    4. Ah, but they are following scientific guidance by using:

      a) the law of leverage
      b) the law of minimal viral load (this open air fix will only take a jiffy!)

      H&S guidelines do not apply because COVID-19 is not mentioned in them.

    2. It’s only 2.35 pm in California so maybe the glitches will be fixed today. Otherwise we’re going to have Disqus malfunctioning all weekend.

      1. When I spent some time “in the Valley”, Friday afternoons were always beer busts – Apple for one, always had a party for all its staff, closing a local road in the process. Beer and burgers for all. Now they are so precious out there, they probably all drink flavoured water and only eat vegan food.

        p.s. it’s only 1:45pm out there now. 8 hours behind you lot.

        1. Ah yes, my arithmetic went awry. I only subtracted 6 hours! A D.Abbott moment. I expect we’re scuppered for the weekend.

          1. Easy for me – we are normally 5 hours behind you, except for short periods when the clocks change at different times. And we are 3 hours ahead of La La land.

            p.s. took 3 tries to post this…

    3. Geoff – help!

      Is there an alternative to disqus and WordPress – ‘cos in my lengthy experience they will both waste time (and effort) in blaming each other and we, the unhappy punters, will get nowhere?

    1. Sounds about right. Or rather what is entirely wrong with our governing class. ‘They’ won’t suffer in any way..we will.

        1. Magic Carpets are us!

          The man is a psychotic idiot supported by Metropolitan Dicks.

  89. Very satisfactory afternoon. Created a frame for the trombetti out of aluminium tubing that was – 45 years ago – a fruit cage. I never throw anything away…..

    Got half way through bodging when I realised that a better system required virtually re-starting!

    Managed to get it all done without cutting myself, getting splinters or hitting my thumb with the mallet. You skilled engineering types may think I jest – but I am almost completely hopeless with my hands – so today’s effort is a triumph!

  90. Talking of doom and gloom merchants, our cleaning lady returned today (hooray). She has been with us for over 31 years and is a down to earth, sensible non-nonsense Norfolk lady.

    As she left, she said that she found the virus, “Very frightening – all those deaths – and the telly telling us how terrible it is….”

    In other words, Mrs Sensible has fallen for the propaganda….very dispiriting. I tried to put it in perspective – Hong Kong ‘flu in 1968 80,000 dead etc etc; and that 1,300 people die every day anyway.

    I fear I was wasting my breath.

    1. But, but but, that wasn’t on the telly 24 hours a day and filling all of the bits of the papers that aren’t filled with a Kardashian or Meghan, so this must be much worse.

      And it’s in colour. We didn’t have much in colour in 1968, certainly not the papers.

    2. If she’s been with you 31 years she is probably in one of the most vulnerable age groups.

        1. How did you find her?

          Most cleaning ladies who have worked for people I know were already fairly old.

          My parent’s ladies must have been in their 50’s when they were hired.
          EDIT

          I stand very corrected.

          HG now tells me that ours would have been in her late 20’s when she started and is now working for my M-i-L, so she even beats your 31 years. How time flies…

          1. She lives about 400 yards away. When the first girl we had left to have a baby, I asked Mo – then 23 with two small children, if she would be interested.

            The rest is history. Utterly trustworthy; never gossips; salt of the earth.

          2. Just like ours.

            She has been ignoring Govt “guidance” and going in to work for M-i-L and sort out problems.

            Not that M-i-L needs help, she breathes fire on all and sundry, so a mere virus doesn’t have a chance!

          3. My cleaning lady who i fired recently for being totally crap was 40. I need a Romanian or a Polish to do the job right.

          5. We have a Polish lass. Thin as a racing snake she is. Cleans the house down to its DNA in about 30 minutes. Just a blur of action! Bloody good, she is.

  91. 9:45 – Venus is splendid again. Not long this evening to enjoy it at best.

  94. Utterly off and on topic.

    With Disqus playing silly buggers, if anyone feels I should have replied to one of their posts and I have not, I apologise.

    My reply probably would not have pleased you anyway, and if so, tough tit…

    1. I’ve just attempted to reply to a comment above and it hasn’t happened.

      1. Disqus discriminates.
        It hates you.
        It ain’t keen on me either, but there you go…

  95. BBC4 – ——————soon to be dumbed down to BBC3

    Soloists at the BBC 7-8pm. – excellent.

  96. As a follow on to a previous video I posted about COVID-19’s thrombotic side effects this is a video from a German science reporter talking to the fiirst doctor to treat COVID-19 patients in Germany.

    Again this video discusses the findings from autopsies ( no gory images) in which a high incidence of Pulmonary Embolisms (PE) have been found. These have occurred as a result of arterial inflammation and the consequential clumping of red blood cells which then block arteries in the lungs causing shortness of breath.

    An interesting Q&A session at the end of the video.

    https://youtu.be/jfv9zsKJquk

  99. Lockdown is showing us the misery that Net Zero 2050 will demand

    Eco-politics succeeds only with voters who feel guilty about being rich. Covid-19 will put paid to that

    CHARLES MOORE

    Roger Harrabin, the BBC’s evangelically green environment analyst, recently wrote this on his employer’s website:

    “I’ve just had a light bulb moment. The feisty little wren chirping loudly in the matted ivy outside my back door is telling us something important about global climate change. That’s because, intertwined with the melodious notes of a robin, I can actually hear its song clearly. Normally, both birds are muffled by the insistent rumble of traffic, but the din has been all but extinguished in the peace of lockdown.”

    Ah, the peace of lockdown. It is, for us lucky ones, very real. It is two months to the day since I last left my rural county. Never before have I experienced so much quiet here, or brighter stars. My long daily walks are almost mystically beautiful in their combination of light and air, the sound of nature and the silence of machines. If I were Wordsworth, I would give thanks in verse. Like Harrabin, I love hearing more wrens and robins and less traffic, and want it to continue.

    What might that involve, though? The light-bulb over Harrabin’s head – powered, of course, by green energy – is telling him that we must, in the new eco-buzz phrase, “Build Back Better”. Governments, in their Covid recovery packages, should support only companies and projects “which decouple economic growth from GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions”. Otherwise, we shall not achieve Net Zero. I am quoting from a recent working paper of the Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment with the snappy title, “Will Covid-19 fiscal recovery accelerate or retard progress on climate change?” Its authors include the grandest of global greens such as Joseph Stiglitz and Lord Stern.

    Their opening paragraph says: “The Covid-19 crisis could mark a turning point in progress on climate change. This year, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will fall by more than in any other year on record. The percentage declines likely in 2020, however, would need to be repeated, year after year, to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Instead, emissions will rebound once mobility restrictions are lifted and economies recover, unless governments intervene.”

    The authors are in a bind. They half-recognise that Covid-19 – not just medically, but socio-economically – is a disaster from which societies will wish to recover. Yet it has brought about what they want. Emissions have fallen unprecedentedly because of the extreme economic contraction it has produced. Focus on their point that such a decline “would need to be repeated, year after year” to save the planet. They want the Covid effect – without, of course, the illness bit – to go on forever.

    That effect means two related things. The first is an enormous increase in government control. To fight the disease, we have had to surrender large parts of our freedom to work, trade, associate, travel, worship, even vote (local government elections being postponed) and in many cases our right to a family life.

    The second effect is greater poverty. This is caused by the compulsory stoppage of so many businesses, with consequent insolvencies, wage cuts and job losses. The poverty has been mitigated and delayed by government measures. This may not directly damage Harrabin or me as, on full pay, we enjoy the intertwining of chirpy wrens and melodious robins (though we shall surely notice it later in our taxes); but it was shockingly unexpected and is becoming shockingly real. It has also made billions anxious, lonely and gloomy.

    Stiglitz, Stern and Co are right that “emissions will rebound once mobility restrictions are lifted and economies recover, unless governments intervene”, but they do not seem to understand what they are saying. Why will emissions rebound? Because people will travel more – especially in cars (which are much safer than public transport against the virus). And why will economies recover? Because growth is a function of activity, and activity is made possible by energy, and globally energy remains about 85 per cent dependent on fossil fuels.

    (This applies, by the way, even to eco-activity. Part of the blessed peace of lockdown has been the absence of Extinction Rebellion street protests which cannot be organised without modern transport. The same applies to the planet-saving conferences to which rich and powerful people fly from all over the world. This year, because of Covid-19, Glasgow has been spared the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in which 196 countries would have met to talk yet again about limiting warming to 1.5C.)

    As Lord Lilley, the former Cabinet minister, put it in a Global Warming Policy Foundation webinar this week, the coming Covid recession is caused “by a suppression of supply, not by a failure of demand”. In other words, it is not what people wanted. It has been imposed upon them. In a democracy, people rarely vote for what they do not want. After the Covid lockdown, voters will want to get back to work unimpeded and take the full benefits of the collapse of the oil price in falling costs for transport and heating. They will not, you would think, be in the mood to go on paying ever-higher electricity prices for renewables.

    Even in goody-goody Germany, this thought is dawning on politicians. This week, Angela Merkel had to give in to her party’s MPs who protested that Germany should not contribute its bit to the European “Green Deal” – agreed shortly before the virus struck – for still faster climate reductions by 2030, unless all other EU member states do the same. It is an insoluble problem for green politics that they succeed only among voters who feel guilty for being rich. Greenery depends on the consumerism it hates for its very existence. Most voters will now be angry about getting poorer, not guilty about being rich.

    How can green policies survive, then? The clue is in that phrase “unless government intervenes”. Only governments can suppress the economic spirits of their people. And the only way they can do so is by exploiting the language of emergency.

    That is why the Covid-19 experience appeals to the Net Zero mind-set. Even before the disease came along, the phrase “climate emergency” had been deliberately deployed by activists and accepted by MPs. It was invented to persuade government to coerce public opinion. The remedy, you see, is “led by the science”, which is allegedly “settled”. The message to the people is: lose your rights or lose the planet.

    The Covid experience ought to have shown us the difference between a real emergency – a fell plague besetting the world – and a speculative one. Even in the Covid crisis, there is fierce debate about whether such action was necessary. Those doubts should be infinitely stronger in relation to Net Zero. Its entire edifice is based on models – we keep seeing how models can mislead – which make worst-case assumptions about the distant future. Problem, perhaps; emergency, no.

    Surely we should have some faith that our developing technology can continue to grow cleaner and quieter. Surely the resources of civilisation can make it easier for Harrabin and me to hear wrens and robins without beggaring humanity in the process. “Our house is on fire!” shouted Greta Thunberg last year. It isn’t, but it has been locked down. Once is enough.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/15/lockdown-showing-us-misery-net-zero-2050-will-demand/

    Meanwhile, in an unfortunate case of unintended consequences, CFC replacements have their downsides as well:

    Ozone layer: Concern grows over threat from replacement chemicals

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52663694

    PS There is an error in this article: “…increasing levels of ozone replacements…”. That should be ‘CFC’.

    1. I would call the dreamers ‘Happy-clappy’, but I would be wrong. They don’t have the awareness to be a happy-clappy.

      They are never happy, and if they tried to clap, they’d miss.

  100. All this coronavirus shit makes me so depressed. I’m going down the humour route. If you can’t cut it, then I’m sorry for you my friend but I shall continue;

  101. Too depressing, guys, it’s 02:44 time for bed. G’night all, God luvya.

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