Friday 29 May: Durham Police have put the tin lid on the Dominic Cummings affair

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/05/28/letters-durham-police-have-put-tin-lid-dominic-cummings-affair/

618 thoughts on “Friday 29 May: Durham Police have put the tin lid on the Dominic Cummings affair”

  1. Morning all.
    Can you tell the difference between a droplet and an aerosol?

    This video might help you if you are thinking about whether to wear a mask for protecting yourself, other people or just for fashion:

    https://youtu.be/JJpt6Bse0j8

    1. Norwegian goes to the pharmacy to get some deodorant.
      “Aerosol?” asks the pharmacist
      “No, armpits” responds the Norwegian.

      I’ll get me roll-on.

      3. ‘Morning, Paul, that reminds me of a ponder I had before going to sleep last evening, having suffered chronic backache for years I considered the idea of getting heel lifts for my shoes and this led me to ponder further on the idea of an air-filled insole that could be marketed under the brand name, Air Soles.

        I’ll get me shoe-horn.

    2. Since what I cough up in the morning can be measured with a ruler, it’s nether droplet nor aerosol. Gob is probably a fair description. And it stays stuck either side of the epiglottis, so I suppose the safe social distancing in my case is to avoid deep throat massage, especially when those next to me in the supermarket queue insist on using their tongues.

      1. Urrrgh!
        Too much detail!
        As one who harks up interesting shades of yellow & green on the walk to the bus stop in the morning, I sympathise.

        1. If you can’t knock a bird off its perch at 15 feet you are hardly gold medal material.

      2. Try some dissolved menthol crystals. That will get the sticky gloop moving.

        1. You’d never clear out my epiglottis with the tongue that far out. Must try harder.

  2. Trump signs executive order to narrow protections for social media platforms. Fri 29 May 2020 01.29 BST.

    Gary Shapiro, the president and chief executive of the Consumer Technology Association, said: “We oppose today’s unconstitutional, ill-considered executive order. The free speech protections in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act are the legal underpinning of our vibrant US online economy and our nation’s global digital leadership.

    “America’s internet companies lead the world and it is incredible that our own political leaders would seek to censor them for political purposes. These same politicians extensively advertise on them and just a few minutes online will reveal these platforms contain a multitude of political views.

    “Section 230 protects these companies as well as any start-up website which hosts others’ speech – from community bulletin boards to social media sites to the Fox News comments section.”

    Morning everyone. This is either stupidity or hypocrisy on the part of Shapiro. We all know that Twitter, YouTube etc. already censor their content and that it is mostly against the political right as defined by the Neoliberals. The very act of fact checking Trumps tweet was an exercise in censorship. It is not (or shouldn’t be) up to Twitter to check his posts; that is the job of the public and his political opponents.

    The argument that these platforms are privately owned and are thus entitled to refuse customers or regulate their content is a false one in that they are guaranteed immunity from civil lawsuits (and avoid taxes) because they are viewed as platforms and not publications. This definition carries with it the implicit obligation to accept any content and transmit it without interference of any kind. If they do not do this then they have in effect become editors of publications and not providers of mediums of free exchange and should be subject to the same laws as the MSM.

    The platforms are (or ought to be) digital blackboards where anyone may write, pin up, paste or draw whatever they please. If this offends local laws then it is up to the authorities to prosecute the individuals involved, not the blackboard.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/28/donald-trump-social-media-executive-order-twitter

    1. This is to preserve free speech and stop the left wing taking it over.

    2. ‘Morning, Minty, the phrase they used, that immediately struck me was, “…would seek to censor them for political purposes.” which is exactly what they have been caught doing.

      Talk about being hoist with your own petard, their own censorship, for political reasons, has just blown up in their ugly faces.

    3. Politics in the US is far more divided than here. Why I don’t really know. Ego? Arrogance? No sense of humour?

      It’s important to remember the difference in what we mean by free speech though. For the majority of us, it’s the freedom to say what you want – governed by your own morality – and to have others argue with it and oppose it – but always supporting the right to say it.

      To the Left – and this obviously includes the Guardian – free speech is the right to say what you want, as long as they agree with it. If they don’t, they make certain to remove your voice to ensure theirs is the only message heard. It’s a funny definition of freedom

      Left wingery has always been thus. it’s because their ideas are stupid.

      1. ‘Morning, Wibbles, “…it’s because their ideas are stupid..” and amoral.

        1. Ah, the most celebrated verb free, content free lie going.

          No one thought to ask ‘What are you going to do?’

    4. Jyst using their common sense. The word right would not have fitted into the lane.

  5. Good morning all. Nice sunny start to the day – but a chilly east wind.

    1. A lovely start to the day here, but I’m not in best fettle.
      I’ve been s***ing through the eye of a needle since yesterday afternoon on top of which I’ve not been sleeping well, so i doubt if I’ll be making much of a contribution today.

          3. A doctor prescribed flat Coca-Cola as a suitable remedy for a child (long years ago). They don’t put that in their adverts!

          4. But not in the same container. The crisps make the coke fuzz up all over everywhere.
            :-((

          5. It’s funny how Mothers always knew what’s best.
            As a kid it was plain salted crisps and lemonade, but sipping the lemonade not big gulps.

          1. Yes, and one of those…must engage brain before operating keyboard.

            ‘Morning, Bill. Do you think it is safe to correspond with him?!

  7. Morning all, productive start to the day, a double than normal quantity of Chilli Con Carne made, some of which is destined for a vulnerable relative, some for the freezer, and some for me. 🥣

    1. “Cold with Dog” – sounds just the ticket…{:¬))

      I’ll get me apron….

    2. Chilli for breakfast – excellent idea! Last nights cold curry is also good. Wakes the mouth up.
      Morning, JG.

        1. Newcastle brown goes well with a Full English or last night’s cold curry.

        2. Not a fan of alcohol early in the day, apart from Caffe corretto (espresso & grappa, wih a smidgin of sugar). Beer is best for lunch & after.

  8. 319695+ up ticks,
    May one ask, do ALL parties, concerning the daily tidal wave of illegals on the Dover run say, get a cut of the smugglers fee ?

  9. Headline in The Grimes:

    “Football to kick off on June 17 with fake cheering”

    As a person who doesn’t watch Wendyball, isn’t the cheering always fake?

    2. The cheering is for the millionaire handouts they get each week. They could not look in the eye their season ticket holders and those who are affected by BT phone bills unless they were seen to be kicking a ball around,

      Now payouts can be restored. Three cheers and an evening of clapping for the Premier League!

  10. Morning all. Still feeding out the DC letters….

    SIR – The investigation by Durham Police into the Dominic Cummings affair has something for everyone. Some will say, “Off with his head”, others will scream for a grovelling apology, while others will say he has been vindicated and this has all been a witch hunt or storm in a teacup. But he gets to keep his job and everyone gets the chance to say: “I was right all along.”

    Jonathan Notley

    London W3

    SIR – Windy Tory MPs have reported being contacted by hundreds of angry constituents. How many of these also blamed Dominic Cummings for Brexit and the Tory landslide?

    Mike Perridge

    Nettleham, Lincolnshire

    SIR – Watching Boris Johnson grilled by the Commons liaison committee (report, May 28), I thought he looked exhausted. The stress for those at the top of Government dealing with the pandemic and the economy doesn’t bear thinking about. The hounding over the Dominic Cummings affair was unbelievable. Armchair critics, and I include many MPs in that group, should try that level of responsibility out for size.

    As Mr Johnson says, he and his colleagues in Government are working flat out, and I thank them for it.

    Lesley Snell

    Upton, Wirral

    SIR – My husband is a shielded person and we are locked down.

    The Dominic Cummings affair was not about being elite. There are millions of people with lots more money than we have. Thank goodness there are – they pay huge amounts of tax to help keep this country afloat.

    I don’t criticise Mr Cummings one bit for his actions in very difficult circumstances. But I would like him and his clearly not-on-top-form boss to be allowed to get on and use their energies where best for our country.

    I hope they will be allowed to do so.

    Pauline Craggs

    London SW19

    SIR – Is it naive of me to ask why so many of those who called for Dominic Cummings’s scalp prefer to quote from the Government’s guidelines rather than from the statutory provisions on what might constitute a reasonable excuse for leaving home?

    Betty Macey

    Clare, Suffolk

    SIR – The BBC says that Emily Maitlis broke its impartiality rules by her Newsnight monologue on Dominic Cummings (report, May 28). The BBC is never wrong, so that means she did. To use the usual BBC questions, will she apologise, be sacked or resign?

    What of other Newsnight employees defending her? Do they disagree with their employer’s rules?

    Vincent O’Shea

    Stamford, Lincolnshire

    SIR – I was surprised to read the BBC’s apology. I hadn’t realised the BBC had any “standards of due impartiality”.

    Prue Napthine

    Nottingham

      2. It is jolly good.

        The BBC has standards… they’re just not quite what you’d expect them to be.

  11. SIR – The Chinese government has shown contempt (Leading Article, May 28) for the terms of the Joint Declaration negotiated with the British government regarding the handover of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

    I co-founded the Anglo-Hong Kong Trust in 1997 precisely because of concerns that China would gradually ignore the provisions of the Joint Declaration, which were enshrined in Hong Kong’s Basic Law.

    We campaigned for as many British passports as possible to be made available to the people of Hong Kong. It is now a moral imperative that the British Government offers refuge to Hong Kong citizens, just as Britain did to Jewish refugees escaping the Nazis.

    The Chinese government is unworthy of the trust we naively placed in it. By repudiating the terms and the spirit of the Basic Law, they have effectively abrogated it, meaning that it no longer really exists and, accordingly, the handover is otiose.

    Having recently displayed a craven attitude to China, we would regain much self-respect and international support if we abrogated the Joint Declaration and formed a coalition of nations to offer – in particular to students – passports out of China, the homeland they have come to fear, not love.

    Algy Cluff

    St Margaret’s at Cliffe, Kent

    2. “Having recently displayed a craven attitude to China, we would regain much self-respect and international support if we …” told China to eff right off, get in a car and eff off some more, and stop telling lies and breaking treaties. And until they do, the UK will no longer trade with them and their scabby companies.

    3. Hong Kong has a population of nearly 7.5 million, how many do you propose we take?

      Even allowing for the fact that only a small % might wish to take up the offer, that might be nearly a million people. Many of those may well have relatives in China who would be keen to leave and under familiy reunification they too could head for the UK.

      1. The sensible and ambitious inhabitants of Hong Kong emigrated to Canada when the handover took place, because we did not want them.

        1. Well you can forget that idea, pretendy PM is in grovelling mode while seeking a UN security council seat.

          Apart from that Canada is in enough trouble with China already, thanks to not releasing the Huawei exec.

    4. When we offered places to the Jewish refugees, the country wasn’t jam-packed and there was room. Unfortunately, thanks the like of Blair and Co, we’re full. We need to get rid of some, not take on more.

  12. Morning again

    SIR – The Government appears to be rowing back from the 14-day quarantine period for travellers entering our country, with the Prime Minister implying during his questioning by MPs on Wednesday (report, May 28) that it may be lifted at the end of June, only a short time after its introduction.

    It is pointless to impose the restriction now that economic activity is to be encouraged, particularly as it was not in place when the prevalence of Covid-19 was much greater.

    An unintended consequence may be increased transmission of the virus if the recent crowding of beaches is replicated during the holiday season.

    Dr David Rowley-Jones

    Ashwell, Hertfordshire

    1. Our first residential French summer course in Brittany this year is scheduled to start on July 5th. Will it or will it not go ahead? We hope so but while the politicians play silly buggers it is impossible to make very firm arrangements and plans either way.

      I would love to spit publicly in the face of any MP who is happy to take a £10,000 expenses bonus on top of a salary increase while self-employed entrepreneurs are going to the wall.

      Great Expectorations would be the dickens of a good movement to aim at our sleaze-riddled MPs.!

      1. It sticks in the craw, Rastus – except that would interfere with the expectorations…
        Hope you get back to normal soonest. Even some predictability must be an improvement.

      2. Spitting at an MP will guarantee you a prison sentence. Just accidently stamp on their foot.

    2. “The Government appears to be rowing back”.

      Why is anyone surprised? This is their normal direction of travel.

  13. What a bizarre first letter:

    SIR – The investigation by Durham Police into the Dominic Cummings affair has something for everyone. Some will say, “Off with his head”, others will scream for a grovelling apology, while others will say he has been vindicated and this has all been a witch hunt or storm in a teacup. But he gets to keep his job and everyone gets the chance to say: “I was right all along.”

    Jonathan Notley
    London W3

    It is surely nothing of the kind, J Notley. Durham Police got it right for once and their decision not to take any action against DC has effectively shot the fox of the baying mob of third rate reporters, who were wetting themselves over the thought of a scalp as they stalked a pro-Brexit, anti-Left advisor and his family. Why, even during yesterday’s 5pm briefing, they were still working in his name to their pathetic questions. If they couldn’t get him after a week of vilification then perhaps they might now realise what a total bloody sneering, self-serving, ineffective shower they all are.

    And as for that pathetic bunch of spineless Tory whimps…I trust that BoJo has well and truly marked their cards.

  14. What foolish things the authorities do. Close all the loos….

    SIR – It is a disgrace that local authorities and organisations such as the National Trust are keeping public lavatories closed even though we are allowed out again.

    It can’t be beyond the wit of man to organise controlled and supervised opening of these essential facilities.

    John Chillington

    Wells, Somerset

    SIR – We live in a very pretty village that welcomes visitors all year round. All our facilities – museum, tea rooms and public lavatories – are currently closed, which is a fact known nationally. However, people still come, and then urinate openly in the village.

    Victoria Shephard

    Hutton-le-Hole, North Yorkshire

    1. One assumes that people don’t go to Hutton-le-Hole purely for the purpose of pissing on it.
      Whilst possible, like litter, it is possible to take the pee home with you, if a tad impractical. Better to leave it in a suitable receptacle designed for that purpose.

      1. Four keen gardeners (who grew prize leeks) used to go to the local pub for a pint and a chat every night in a local village near where I used to live. After they left the pub, on one evening, they would all go to Ted’s allotment and urinate on his leeks. The next evening they would do the same to Doug’s leeks, then the following evening to Frank’s leeks and finally the fourth day to Les’s leeks. This routine of irrigation with a natural liquid feed continued all through the growing season.

        1. They told you they were taking a leak on each others’ leeks? Are you sure they weren’t taking the p*ss?

        2. Morning, Grizz. I have two manholes in the garden. A few years back, the first clue that I had a blocked drain downstream was that the grass around the lowest manhole was growing so quickly you could almost see it grow…

          1. Morning, Geoff. Which just goes to prove how much ‘liquid gold’ we are just chucking away.

          2. The sewer in my garden blocked many years ago and effluent flooded the garden. The rhubarb that got the benefit was the most magnificent I have ever grown.

        3. I remember Bob Flowerdew, an organic gardener and broadcaster, advising fellow gardeners to pee in a pot, dilute the solution and apply regularly to the compost heap. Natural goodness, innit.
          Just looked him up and he’s advising watering tomatoes, “with some wee in it.”

          2. Ah yes. Toilet food. Urine contains nitrates which is good for fruit and veg. And then there is pooh food.

            Dig a hole 12 inches deep. Take a dump in it. Sprinkle some compost over. Plant your tomato plants on top.

          3. Years ago I had a work colleague who kept pigs and he would deliver a trailer load of pig muck and straw soaked in pig urine. I would heap this up in the garden and watch it ‘steam’ as it rotted down. Opening the heap up before spreading the muck about required caution as the ammonia generated was very evident. Sadly, fresh farmyard manure is almost as rare as rocking horse shit these days.

          5. I’m still searching for any type of rocking horse shit. I’ll let you know if I stumble across some.😎

          6. ‘Morning, Korky and in your apprentice training days you were sent to the stores for knot-holes for rocking-horse tails.

            Being in engineering, we were often sent to ask for a long weight.

          9. And what there is contains hormones, growth promoters and God knows what else.

          11. ‘Morning, Philip. as I understand it, and have seen it, human waste contains enough tomato seeds to obviate the necessity of planting tomatoes.

            You might also be able to collect curry leaves!

          13. During the war, when night soil was used as fertiliser, tomatoes grew everywhere that it had been used.

          2. Morning Tom – how many ways are there to say “I’m going for a pee?”
            I’m going to point Percy at the porcelain
            I’m going to shake hands with my best friend

          3. The best I heard, way back in the 70s, when we all met at our local club, was, “I’m going to unleash Umberto at the underglaze.”

  15. SIR – I can now receive a phone call from an unidentified person, telling me that another anonymous individual has named me as a “close contact”.

    I assume that data protection means that I cannot know the identity of the infected person, yet I am told to place myself under house arrest for 14 days.

    The Secretary of State for Health admitted that compliance is voluntary, but insisted that it is my “civic duty” and that, if necessary, he will make compliance mandatory.

    Brian Gedalla

    London N3

    SIR – What safeguards are in place? My calls are screened by my answering machine and I only pick up numbers I recognise. If a contact tracer leaves a message, how do I know it is genuine?

    Bernard Powell

    Southport, Lancashire

    1. What a wheeze, phone up your unfriendly neighbour, and in an officious voice tell him to stay in the house for a fortnight.

      1. I only give my mobile number to people I know, so if I receive a call from someone who is not in my contact list, I don’t answer it.

      2. If you get coronavirus, even better, say you had contact with him! In fact, just make that a list of everyone you don’t like.

    1. Ah, Sydney: the southern hemisphere’s answer to San Francisco. More mincers to the square foot than even Brighton has!

      1. It is good that our British traditions are alive and well in our ex-colonies.

  17. A farmer is in need of a new rooster, so he goes to the local tack shop and buys a new one by the name of Kenny.

    The farmer takes Kenny home, and as soon as he puts him in the yard, Kenny starts chasing after the chickens. Within a few hours, Kenny had violated every single hen, and was working his way through the ducks!

    On seeing this, the farmer said, “you’d better slow down! You’re gonna fuck yourself to death!”

    The next morning, the farmer steps out the back way and finds Kenny screwing the sheep! Once again, the farmer says, “you’d better slow down! You’re gonna fuck yourself to death!”

    The next day, the farmer wakes up and sees buzzards circling over his yard, and he knows that his prediction has come true. He rushes out to the yard and finds Kenny sprawled out, tits up in the dirt.

    “See Kenny,” says the farmer, “I told you! You done gone and fucked yourself to death!”

    All of a sudden, one of Kenny’s eyes opens! Kenny points to the buzzards circling in the sky, looks at the farmer and whispers, “Shhh… Pussy!”

  18. Good morning all.

    Finished thriller which I started yes’day at 03.00 this morning.

        1. That’s his latest. I actually think he’s getting better over time.

          1. While I was out shopping, “Bingo”, the sequel to “Jacke wie Hose”, arrived. A week ahead of schedule.

            Spoilt for choice, I’ll probably start the German tonight.

  19. WHEN Boris Johnson announced a nationwide lockdown on March 23, few people realised it would mean they would be prevented from family get-togethers for a full 10 weeks.

    On Monday, grandparents will finally be able to see their grandchildren in the flesh again after the Prime Minister said he could allow a “limited and cautious” easing of social restrictions. But they must resist the temptation to hug or kiss them or hold babies, as people in different households must remain two metres apart. Mr Johnson acknowledged the “frustration” many will feel, but at long last families and friends can spend time together.

    Q. Can I meet my parents and grandparents?
    A. Yes, as long as they are not in the “shielding” category. From Monday you can meet five people at any one time, as long as it is in an outdoor space and social distancing is maintained. That means any two people from different households must be two metres apart, though any group living in the same house do not need to. Over-70s can be among them as long as they take extra care with social distancing, handwashing and touching surfaces. You can meet in a garden, a park or other outdoor space.

    Q. Can I visit their homes?
    A. Yes, as long as you stay outside. There is no rule over whose garden it is. However, if young children from different households are part of the group, they must not share paddling pools, climbing frames, slides or anything that would encourage them to be closer than two metres to each other or touch hard surfaces. Maintaining the two-metre social distancing rule for people who live in different households is still essential. Prof Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England, said last night: “If people are meeting in these new relaxed social distancing guidelines […] it is essential they maintain two metres. This risk has not gone away.”

    Q. How many households can meet?
    A. Up to six people from six different households. The Government decided not to press ahead with a plan to allow two households to meet (to the exclusion of other households) and also decided against a “bubble” model of a set number of nominated friends and family. You can meet five friends on one day, and five other friends on another, but people are being asked to use “common sense” and not invite, for example, three groups of five at different times on the same day.

    Q. What if you have to go through the house to get to the garden?
    A. That’s fine, as long as you take care not to touch surfaces or linger indoors. Just go straight through the house into the garden and use your common sense.

    Q. Can I have a barbecue?
    A. Yes, as long as you stick to the six-person rule and maintain social distancing. You can serve food and drinks but make sure crockery and cutlery are thoroughly cleaned before and afterwards; don’t share plates, cutlery, serving spoons or glasses, and encourage people to fetch their own plates and utensils.
    Prof Whitty said people should take care eating with their hands: “Passing things from one person to another, if you haven’t washed your hands, could transmit the virus that way.”

    Q. Can I use the lavatory while I’m there?
    A. Yes, as long as you pay special attention to washing your hands thoroughly and avoid touching things in the house. You could use a paper towel to open and close bathroom doors and consider other sensible measures such as kitchen roll to dry hands rather than a shared towel.

    Why do the majority of these questions commence with a vacuous “Can I …?” How the fück am I supposed to know your capabilities?

    Do you mean “May I …?”

      1. Performed with the original crotchless knickers, or more modest versions?

    3. Grandparents will not be able to give their grandchildren a kiss and a cuddle.

      Yeah, right.

    4. “However, if young children from different households are part of the group, they must not share paddling pools, climbing frames, slides or anything that would encourage them to be closer than two metres to each other or touch hard surfaces” makes me smile. I’ve been watching young children clearly from different households using a sculpture in Holland Park as a climbing frame all the way through “lockdown” and having a great time. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/64329627829201a9906d5c11e4f9d76b3e5f1061da40eef125ff1e91798820e1.png

    1. This proves how utterly, insanely wrong we were to ever think of living the EU. That Renault may well be assembling cars in the same Sunderland factory just emphasises the harm that Brexit has done.

  21. Given the current state of news over at least the past five years, I now consider MSM to stand for the ‘Mostly Shit Media’.

  22. Police hunt ‘Rambo’ survival specialist in Spanish mountains who has been raiding holiday homes for food and held a woman hostage before making off with some asparagus. 28 May 2020

    The mystery survival specialist has been dubbed the Requena Rambo by Spanish press, after the fictional former solder played by Sylvester Stallone and the municipality of Valencia in the east of the country which is one of the areas where he has struck.

    He also held a victim hostage for three hours before making off with some asparagus. In another incident he ended up escaping to the safety of the mountains after threatening a police officer and a couple with a gun during a burglary at a villa in a hamlet in Requena.

    Asparagus? Is nothing sacred? It’ll be Trombetti next!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8365245/Police-hunt-Rambo-survival-specialist-Spanish-mountains.html

  23. A simple soul asks – if it is OK for six people (eight in Schotland) to meet on Monday – what is so dangerous about the same six (or 8) meeting TODAY, FFS?

      1. Well, we are going to have lunch with soldier neighbour tomorrow – and with four others, too.

        We play fast and loose in yer Narfurk…{:¬))

    3. If you were reeling in Scotland and then ate some you would be left with six.

    6. A last chance for the police to get in a bit more excessive fining and heavy handed mob (ten people?) Control.

    8. Morning all 😊
      Next thing you know that Lundern’s old bill will be letting off all of the nasty journalist who were crowded shoulder to shoulder out side the Cummings residence.
      Or …….

      1. Has the search pattern moved a bit West? Launching from the beaches down towards Boulogne now to throw Farage off.

    3. I’ve heard prop aircraft flying around our area recently. And seen more helicopters than usual.

        1. Almost nothing here even though we are only about thirty miles from the main Canadian air force base.

          It does get interesting at night when the only flights are cargo to China or Europe.

        2. I had 2 army helicopters nearly land in my garden yesterday, mind you we get a lot up here on exercise, at the moment they are helping out with the NHS

        3. As I have two (small) airfields and a couple of RAF/Army airfields not far away, I see a lot of aerial traffic 🙂

          2. Oh right I remember seeing one of those in the US section at Duxford.
            If you haven’t been it’s a good day out.
            Beats shopping 😉

          4. I used to fly out of Netheravon in a DH Rapide back in ’70/71.
            Never landed in the things though!

          5. I did land back at Duxford in the same Moth 🙂 I flew out of Elmdon (now Birmingham International) in a DH Rapide in the sixties. Landed back there in the same aircraft, too 🙂

          7. That’s me. I can’t understand why anyone should jump out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft 🙂

          8. Sounds like a fantastic treat Conners.
            My favourite all time aircraft is the Catalonia.
            Years ago they had one in a workshop under repair and a rebuild. The last time I went it was up and running but parked up.
            It looked superb. I have a photo of it somewhere.

          10. You have to larff eh.
            I can’t believe how this keeps happening Bob, I know very well what I wanted to write but it seems my predictive text has a mind of its own.
            I just assumed it was okay.
            I know so well what the Catalina is, the PText actually changed it to catalogue this time. 😊
            I’ve got an iPhone one of our son’s has given me it’s a matter of swapping the essential content over.

          11. It was great, but not as good as flying out of Headcorn and Biggin Hill in Spitfires 🙂

          12. Incredible Conners, where you are pilot in your previous occupation ?
            Or do you have special contacts ? 😊

          13. No, I just don’t have any children and have spent what would have been their inheritance 🙂

          14. Ospreys.
            The engines swivel upwards for vertical take off, then forwards for horizontal flight.

      1. He’s pulled into Narridge International Airport – to refuel, methinks. Then back on the bombing mapping run, I reckon.

        1. As was Coventry

          About 100 yards from where I lived.

          Then, the City Council (re)built houes on our playground, the bujjers

          1. I don’t think Coventry was a victim of the Baedeker raids, though. It does have the distinction of having introduced a neologism into German; coventrieren – to destroy utterly.

        2. As I know only too well. Do you remember the address where you stayed?

          1. Trafalgar Place. It was a cul-de-sac with the railway at the bottom as I recall.

          2. Near the football ground and St James’s Park railway halt. I grew up in St Leonard’s.

          3. Yes, I think it was near the football ground, although, as I’m not and never have been a footie fan, that bit didn’t sink in 🙂 My aunt and uncle had a beach hut at Dawlish Warren and we used to go there quite a lot. I remember one memorable outing when my uncle Alf drove his red convertible Morris Minor along the sea front at Torquay when there was a tremendous sea running. Waves came crashing over the car and the water came flooding through the splits in the canvas top! Ah, those were the days. No H&S then!

    5. Did you say something rude about the hun somewhere. Expect a knock on the door soon.

      1. Funny you should say that. Fritz is back in zee air – and is slowly but surely getting nearer.

        He flies 180º to roughly Colchester then 360º back to the Norfolk coast. His flight legs are 5 km apart.

        Will keep a watch – and don tin hat should he get near…

    1. 319695+ up ticks,
      o2o,
      A very nice polite post, factual, no sh!te
      very hard for many UK politico’s & others to swallow.

      1. Pretty tame by US politicians twittering.

        But why does he feel the need to stir up political divisions by calling the Mayor far left?

        1. 319695+ up ticks,
          Afternoon R,
          He comes across to me as being a bloke who calls a spade a spade.

    1. ‘Morning, Duncan, as heard walking down Regent’s Street and passing two bowler-hatted, furled umbrella-bearing ‘Gentlemen’, all I heard was one saying to the other, “The man’s a c**t, an absolute sh*t.” which is a nice little phrase that could easily be applied Campbell. After all the Campbells are not held in too high regard in Scotland, after Glencoe.

      1. Indeed they are not. “Na Caimbeulaich” are treacherous people and born liars – they have bad blood in their veins.
        :¬(

        1. Doesn’t the Duke of Argyll have royal blood in his veins, from Princess Louise?

          1. ‘Afternoon, Sue, I don’t know about the Duke of Argyll, I’d rather go along with the Duke of Atholl and his right to raise and maintain his own private army.

            I just wish that I had that right and the means – we’d soon be at war!

    2. Hi DM, I saw this yesterday and was totally dumbstruck. It is offensive in so many ways and if meant to be funny has totally failed. The twat guy looks to be either drunk or high on drugs.
      This should be shared on social media until it is forced into the mainstream press, imagine the outcry if someone from the non-protected Left had done something like this.

  28. Biased, sneering and using BBC as her megaphone… it’s not the first time Emily Maitlis has forced her bosses to apologise for her. 29 May 2020.

    Last month, while the Prime Minister was still in hospital, the BBC’s Newsnight opened with an unprecedented monologue. The presenter, Emily Maitlis, was visibly angered by Boris Johnson’s colleagues describing him as a ‘fighter’.

    In a weirdly literal and deeply ungenerous speech, Maitlis informed viewers that such language was wrong. She proceeded to give her views on ‘inequality’ and other issues.

    On Tuesday this week Maitlis did it again, opening with a shockingly partisan attack on Dominic Cummings and the Prime Minister, declaring that the former ‘broke the rules’ and made the public ‘feel like fools’ and accusing the latter of ‘blind loyalty’.
    For many viewers, this was a step too far.

    BBC bosses apologised for the rant – not the first time that Maitlis has forced them to do so. This week’s monologue is just the latest reason the 49-year-old has been in trouble with her own bosses over the one-directional, partisan nature of her presenting.

    Last September, a complaint was upheld against her for a ‘sneering and bullying’ interview carried out on the programme in July. The BBC’s internal executive complaints unit found that she was too ‘persistent and personal’ in her criticism of the pro-Brexit journalist Rod Liddle.

    In truth, she didn’t even bother to disguise her contempt for him. She asked Liddle, absurdly, if he would describe himself ‘as a racist’, adding ‘because many see you that way’. She then informed the longstanding columnist: ‘All you do is write about suicide bombers blowing themselves up in Tower Hamlets.’

    Pointedly, Liddle asked her: ‘Do you have to, at every possible juncture, show the BBC’s grotesque bias?’
    He seemed to have been asked on to the show simply for her to insult him.

    And seven months before that, the BBC had to issue another on-air apology after remarks Maitlis had made on the programme about the pro-Brexit campaigner Richard Tice.

    You will search in vain for similar attacks on, or necessary apologies to, anti-Brexit campaigners.

    Maitlis has been a fine journalist but today she appears to be one of the large number of people who have been driven furious by the events of recent years.

    On social media, she proclaims her pro-Labour views and continues to retweet the most loud-mouthed Left-wingers and Remain campaigners.

    She has consistently attacked the US President and expressed other highly partial viewpoints.
    How are the public meant to believe that when she sits in front of the camera to present, this deeply partisan person somehow becomes impartial?

    After her performance this week in particular, such an idea is impossible to sustain.

    Of course, plenty of media figures are open about their political views. Several have left Newsnight in the past and pursued modestly successful careers in Left-wing activism. But they did so because – as Maitlis seems not to understand – if you are a partisan activist you cannot use the BBC’s current affairs programmes as your megaphone.

    While no one is forced to buy any British paper, if we want a television we are all forced – on threat of imprisonment – to pay a subscription to the BBC. There are supposed justifications for this. The licence fee is meant to assure quality content (something that has become ever less evident in recent years). And it is meant to mean that the BBC is a news source that everybody can trust.

    Impartiality may be impossible to achieve 100 per cent of the time but it is nonetheless meant to be the aspiration.

    Nice little piece by Douglas.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8367295/DOUGLAS-MURRAY-not-time-Emily-Maitlis-forced-bosses-apologise-her.html

    1. Absolutely spot on.
      And to make sure it never happens a again she’s quite clearly not suitable for the job …sack her !

    2. Far worse than Mailtis’s rant was the appearance of Paul Mason in which his video (“We the British People are coming for you Boris Johnson ready or f***ing not”) was uncritically aired. I think Kirsty Wark was the presenter. This was at the time of Johnson’s prorogation, when EU supporters suddenly became defenders of Britain’s constitutional affairs.

    1. In the UK, which has formally left the EU, I am already denied medication I have relied on for over twenty years because my needs do not meet the profit requirements of the “global free market” as defined and lobbied for by the “business-friendly” corporate cartels. They went generic, and therefore had to be dropped in favour of branded medicine, which can be properly sold to the surgeries.

      At the moment, it is still obtainable at a fair price in Gemany (UK price £200 for 28 tablets; German price €17 for 100 tablets) with a British prescription. I am having to eke out my ration for as long as I can. When lockdown ends, I hope to pick up another hundred tablets in December, which should keep me going for two years, if I am really parsimonious with them.

      The Americans have it harder – if they want any medication that is not grossly exhorbitant, they have to get it from Ali Hassan’s emporium under various names in Canada, and probably all sourced from unregulated backstreet suppliers in India, and probably made from cow dung.

      I understand that London cannot wait until we become more like America.

    2. So, the few contributing countries have to fund the healthcare of over 20 others? – AND all the immigrants heading into Europe as well? Can’t see much of a problem with that. What could possibly go wrong?

  30. Twitter would likely have put up a warning message on this…………..

    “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender” – WSC.

  31. It’s been mentioned this week but this time with a different twist…
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/05/27/farage-catches-french-coastguard-going-dark-to-avoid-detection/
    Just who the hell is expected to support all these people who have been brought into the UK illegally.
    The French either have to come up with the finances (which they will never do) to meet the demands of thousands of people who have not been invited to come here or we should fill a couple of CC ferries with them and dropped them off at Dunkirk.

      1. A sad reflection on some people who now infest our society with their own planned agenda.

    2. I think everyone knows full well who will be supporting them. And with every new arrival – OUR bills go up and our services go down.

      1. And our previously well functioning structure and culture are both being slowly destroyed.

      1. We will never get out of this mess while they effectively encourage workers to stay at home.

        I did have dealings with our local council this week. I sent an email requesting information and received an answer within five minutes. The follow up permit application was processed equally quickly. At least some of the at home workers are actually working.

        1. I have finally (I started the process last September) got the Bbc to sort out the free licence issue (MOH turned 75 in May). They claim there is a cheque in the post. I’ll believe it when I see it. I expect I’ll have to resort to threats (the Ombudsman and my MP) again to get it. It’s the only thing that moved this lot to respond this time.

    2. I suspect they are just enjoying the holiday and sunshine. My son is going to drag himself back to work next week, though he’s enjoyed the prolonged holiday and found the break very opportune to get a lot of jobs done around the house and garden. Although he is self-employed he had enough savings to tide him over the last couple of months, so hasn’t been too worried.

  33. What a bizarre first letter:

    SIR – The investigation by Durham Police into the Dominic Cummings affair has something for everyone. Some will say, “Off with his head”, others will scream for a grovelling apology, while others will say he has been vindicated and this has all been a witch hunt or storm in a teacup. But he gets to keep his job and everyone gets the chance to say: “I was right all along.”

    Jonathan Notley
    London W3

    It is surely nothing of the kind, J Notley. Durham Police got it right for once and their decision not to take any action against DC has effectively shot the fox of the baying mob of third rate reporters, who were wetting themselves over the thought of a scalp as they stalked a pro-Brexit, anti-Left advisor and his family. Why, even during yesterday’s 5pm briefing, they were still working in his name to their pathetic questions. If they couldn’t get him after a week of vilification then perhaps they might now realise what a total bloody sneering, self-serving, ineffective shower they all are.

    And as for that pathetic bunch of spineless Tory whimps…I trust that BoJo has well and truly marked their cards.

      1. What will they do when the Graun finally folds? Declare a period of state mourning?

    3. Perhaps one of the witch hunters should be selected and then targeted for a merciless assault of media harassment so that he or she can be subjected to that which he or she has been eager to subject on others.

      There would of course be many candidates amongst journalists and politicians – might I propose that Emily Maitlis and Steve Baker be subjected to several doses of their own medicine. Any other ideas?

      1. Ian Blackford, for one, then Stephen Kinnock and any other MPs or similar who also broke lockdown but seem to have escaped vilification on the Cummings scale!

      2. What about something along the lines of, “Emily Maitlis caught dogging with 2 strangers in BBC car park.”?

      4. Hi Rastus, the one person that has been omitted from censure is the producer. He/She knew beforehand what mateless was going to say but still allowed it to go ahead.
        Everyone should complain to the BBC about the producer, keep the pressure on and see how they react.
        The Government should be doing the same.

  34. SIR — It is a disgrace that local authorities and organisations such as the National Trust are keeping public lavatories closed even though we are allowed out again.

    It can’t be beyond the wit of man to organise controlled and supervised opening of these essential facilities.

    John Chillington
    Wells, Somerset

    “The wit of man?” I’m afraid that any semblance of “wit” has been bred out of mankind by successive generations of liberal idiots. For example: we have long known how to preserve food supplies from times of glut to times of need by drying, salting, sugaring, freezing and canning. But we haven’t learnt much more.

    Every winter we suffer flooding with deluges of colossal amounts of water that drown villages and ruin lives. Yet every summer we enter a period of relative drought — as now — when wildfires are reported and crops are crying out for irrigation. Strange then that the “wit of man” serially fails to come up with a solution for storing that excess of water for such times when it is sorely needed.

    We can construct more and more housing (and associated infrastructure) for people who cannot stop breeding (not to mention all the imported breeders), yet are failing to provide more reservoirs and underground pipelines for the one substance that our lives depend upon as much as the air we breathe.

    1. The solution to the water excess problem is to dry and salt it, Grizz. Pack it in sacks, and then when it’s needed, just rehydrate.
      Morning, BTW!

      2. Osbert Lancaster carton from another age. Pint-clutching matriarch to similar: “If they was to dehydrate war-time beer, we’d have nothing left to pour cold water on.”

      1. BBC Suffolk reported a fortnight ago that a local water company was considering a hosepipe ban. With reservoir construction effectively banned the excess rainfall in my area has one destination if the aquifers are full, the sea.

        1. All the land is needed to house the “New Countrymen”, not store water so they can flush their cludgies.

          1. Where I live the local councils built huge water supply after WW2 to feed the industry in the area.

            All but one of the large water users have gone and the remaining one pays to clean/recycle it’s water rather than letting it pollute the local rivers as it did in the past.

            The water treatment needs renewal but no chances of running out.

            What are Hose Pipe bans?

      2. Funny how other countries can build oil and gas pipelines thousands of miles long and yet one ot the largest economies in the world can’t get water from the rain-soaked north to the rest of the country.

        1. Wait until St Greta and the greenies get involved, tthat will be the end of any pipeline.
          I suppose that is why strong countries can build.

      3. EU policy not to build new reservoirs.
        Lack of water is supposed to nudge people towards saving water.
        Apparently the UK water companies weren’t allowed to build reservoirs for this reason, despite the population rising.
        We will see whether the govt is still following UN policy soon enough, if they carry on with all this rubbish.

    4. Short-term thinking in Government has a lot to do with the crises you describe, Grizz. What’s the point of implementing expensive and possibly unpopular measures if you risk being voted out for your troubles?

      I suggest revising the electoral system. We should consider having an election every year for 20% of constituencies, so that in any 5 year period all seats have come up for election. This might go some way to providing better continuity of Government and a more responsible body of people representing the electorate. Plenty of downsides I’m sure, but left-right-left swings would be diminished.

      1. I recently proposed (elsewhere) doing away with politicians and moving to a model of direct democracy.
        Withe “everyone” being on the Web, and good security / identification available, the whole country should be invited to vote in place of the politicians. Each vote would be preceded by an A4-sized explanation, one page for and one page against.

        1. I agree. Get rid of the party system and place all prospective (independent) candidates before their electorate so that a “whittling down” process can be achieved before the final few are put up for election.

          Only after the election would like-minds be permitted to form alliances that would benefit the country. Any signs of a resurgence to the party system and those involved would be disbarred.

          1. That is how Nunavut elect their government. No parties involved, the elected politicians get together and decide who does what after the election results are in.

            No less effective than the rest.

          2. Indeed. He loved the German people and the German people loved him. Let’s not forget that.

        3. How very Swiss. The important thing to remember is that the word “democracy” in the UK means Government by a group of politicians, elected by the people, who receive directions and instruction from elsewhere.

    5. Yo Mr Grizzle

      You should realise that the National Front ooops Trust’s preferrred member is somone who would not lower themselves to use a Public Loo, (unless it was on ‘Ampstead ‘Eath of course) therefore they gets your money without even taking the P155 out of you

          1. Having often been the tortoise pulling up behind the hare at the next set of lights, I agree.

  36. SIR — If bishops should not make political comment, why are 21 of them allowed to sit in the House of Lords?

    Religion is about lifestyle and cannot be separated from politics.

    Harry Edessis
    York

    Ah, religion and politics. Even Kipling failed to notice that they are the two real “impostors”, and not triumph and disaster. Religion and politics were both formulated as means of mind-control over the masses. No other human inventions — in the history of civilisation — have been remotely as successful.

  37. Did any one else see this today ?
    Not sure if it’s true but……
    Allegedly, “Just Giving” the ‘charity’, is taking 2 mill for commission/admin from the vast amount Sir Captain Tom raised to support the NHS.

    1. The constant barrage of charity adverts has drove me to breaking point. With millions having their incomes cut or their jobs lost, many will lose their homes and many their small businesses, what have the charities done? Plague us for money – showing absolutely NO concern, for those facing hardship. Only for themselves.

      1. Small charities ( and probably large ones as well) are also deluged with emails from platforms wanting us to use them for fundraising. We’ve had some generous donations over the last few weeks, but we’re not being quite so brazen about it.

      2. The thing that gets me is the “Adopt a girl” adverts and some snivelling Englishwoman saying “her” girl shouldn’t be forced into marriage, etc. She should try Luton, Bradford, Telford and any number of towns nearer home to stop that. Then there’s the Wateraid ad. We’ve been pouring money in for decades. What have they done with it? Why is the infrastructure (which we have provided) not working? The govt takes too much in taxes to waste abroad for me to feel the slightest bit charitable.

      2. They claim to pass on 97%.

        My head hurts when trying to calculate 3% of £38,000,000. Give us a clue.

  38. Nigel Farage fury: How Brexit Party leader sparked backlash with Vladimir Putin confession. 07:30, Fri, May 29, 2020.

    As many wonder whether the Brexit Party will have another role to play in the future, unearthed reports reveal how Mr Farage sparked fury in 2014 for naming Vladimir Putin as the world leader he most admires.

    The then Ukip leader’s comments emerged days after he provoked anger by accusing the EU of having “blood on its hands” for encouraging the turmoil in Ukraine, which led to Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

    They were “unearthed and emerged” did they? Lol! It looks to me as though his Cross Channel comments have rubbed the Government up the wrong way and Hey Presto slagging off article appears in the Express.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1288304/nigel-farage-news-brexit-boris-johnson-vladimir-putin-spt

    1. I remember those comments being made at the time (and agreed with them).

    2. I don’t think Vlad would stand for this English Channel Boating Lake nonsense….

    4. Their incursion into Ukraine was an act of war and against treaties all parties had signed at the end of WW2. Creating the ‘buffer zone’.

      The E.U undermine legitimate governments to get their own way. As we have seen in several instances in Europe.

      And they blame Vlad for intefering in Western politics!

      I prefer his stoicism over Western puppet governments.

      1. And, it’s not even as if the EU is a country in its own right. Just a bunch of jumped up would-bes if I could-bes. Nothing changes and and the sooner they implode into the gutter-snipe ways they embrace, the better.

    5. IIRC, Farage said he disliked the man personally, but admired his attitude towards the EU’s meddling in Ukraine. Not the same as ‘admiring the man’.

  39. Groups of up to six people allowed to meet in England from Monday. Thu 28 May 2020 19.44 BST

    Up to six friends or relatives will be able to gather in parks and gardens from Monday, two metres apart, Boris Johnson has said in a cautious easing of lockdown restrictions in England.

    Dentists will also be able to reopen from 8 June, provided they take safety precautions including using protective equipment, and it was confirmed that schools can go ahead with plans to reopen next week.

    This is just Boris and Co trying to pretend that they are in charge. From what I see the smarter portion of the public have already decided to do as they like and if the government doesn’t like it that’s too bad!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/28/groups-up-to-six-people-allowed-meet-england-monday-coronavirus-lockdown-easing

    1. Mrs Murrell says that EIGHT people can meet. Why doesn’t the PM follow her?

      1. If he said 8 she’d say 10, just to be seen to be making her own decisions.

        1. But the harridan pre-empted him – so he was following – so he had to be different.

          Plonker. He could have said that we agree with the sensible approach of Mrs Murrell and want the UK to be as one…..

          1. AFAIK, The First Minister of Scotland is on the COBRA committee. My guess is that the six-person limit was proposed, then Nicola Sturgeon decided to be different just for the sake of it.

    2. I’ve already broken the rules when I invited a distraught neighbour in the other day and we sat at the kitchen table while he poured out his troubles. I couldn’t solve his problems, but I hope he felt a little better being able to talk them through with someone.

      1. Our next door neighbour came for dinner on Sunday evening – I’d had a cup of tea with her on Saturday. A birthday party in her garden three weeks ago, with eight neighbours all sitting well apart was the start of it here. They can’t keep us all locked up for much longer.

        1. Yes I think we just need to get on with our lives. If everyone just went back to normal , I can’t see that there’s much the police could do about it. When I went up to Oxford yesterday the A34 was fairly busy, road works and such like on the go and people out and about, though the office was like the Marie Celeste with everyone working from home.

          1. More home working wouldn’t be a bad thing – fewer people on the roads and less time wasted commuting.

          2. I had managed to get my home working up to 4 days a week without senior management noticing well before lockdown.

        2. I’ve just had a neighbour around for un apéro à la française. We sat out in the garden the regulation distance apart and chatted.

  40. Took the bicycle to Blackheath earlier today. When I was a Wolf cub a fellow cub persuade me that we should try the rich Villas on the edge of the Heath for ‘Bob a Job’ . Turns out that was a Huge mistake. Ah ‘come in said the lady of the house I think I can find you something to do’….that turns out to be half a ton of brass and silver for cleaning…..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2535fca3b7a182d3b38baf845d0863cae51a27a3b089d6a208fb8e20bbbb284d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/94d22a1b3ac79584372fa739bb16d94db55076ded3587b5bc185b6928417be38.jpg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh0sp50xYkA

    1. The better off tend to be the worst tippers. Learned from 30 years in the hospitality industry.

        1. My brother-in-law. Worked in Insurance all his life. Owns three property and dines out on groupon. Tight fisted git.

    2. Stopped at Blackheath several times with work, but only once actually managed to get the the excellent open mic session in the pub near the station.
      A bunch of young’uns, there to support a group of their mates, were gobsmacked by someone just getting up, ignoring the microphone and belting out a sea-chanty.
      I ended doing a second spot thanks to them!

    3. Stunning picture of the church.

      Coincidentally, and seeing lots of youngsters around here doing good deeds during lockdown, I was thinking about Bob a Job the other day and what today’s going rate would be. A fair few bob more I suspect.

      1. Hmm, “A fiver for a diver” and have you all afternoon.

        I’ll get Minty’s cynic hat and leave by the back door.

    1. Well, thankyou, Mayor of West Yorks for liking my tweet. I’ll now go and have a nice cup of tea – no millk, no sugar, Sainsbury’s Red Label with some Co-op 99 leaf.

  42. The view over London from the Royal Observatory is very similar to the one from the London Eye, or so the guy serving coffee from the Kiosk told me and £80 cheaper!
    You can just about make out St Paul’s in the first photo:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/567cc1779e4d97bb838d81399963bb47f81bd1ad4d537b4edfadd18ce505f779.jpg

    I had the pleasure of working for 5 years with David who was the Project Manager for the Millennium Dome…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4ca2f2b01ca8083a84d41d98468e88d53536eab06238b89baf20b95757a264f9.jpg

    1. Far more congenial surroundings than at the Eye.

      I had to check on those prices, it really is £30 each.

  44. Good morning all. An interesting article in TCW which gives evidence that not only do lockdowns not make any difference to the spread of the virus, neither does social distancing:

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/norway-leads-the-way-out-of-lockdown/

    Everything that government has done in this crisis has made things far worse. Locking people at home in a sealed environment is a perfect way to ensure that everyone in the household gets it. Preventing people from getting sunshine and exercise is a great way of lowering immune systems and making people more vulnerable to infection. Moving elderly Covid patients from hospitals to care homes is a great way to seed the virus amongst the most frail, all to “protect the NHS.’ Lockdowns not only fail in their objective to arrest the spread of the virus but actually make it worse. And that is before you count the human and economic cost of keeping millions of people under house arrest and the coming economic tsunami. Why could the government just have done nothing?

    Truly, Ronald Reagan was correct when he said that the most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help!”

      1. Can’t argue with that! What I still can’t figure out is, is this cock-up or conspiracy? I.e. was Boris just bounced into lockdown by a panicky media, or did he always want to do it? I hope it is not the latter, but why would you refer to serial hysteric Neil Ferguson for a prediction, unless you wanted a ‘Professor’ to justify your lockdown? Boris and Carrie are both fully signed-up to the ‘climate emergency’ bollux, so nothing would surprise me.

    2. 319695+ up ticks,
      Morning Jk,
      Now now, credit where it is due, the lock-down has been a great success in
      overcomming & re-placing common sense in the main with fear & political muscle flexing ie power over the peoples.
      The blatant Dover treachery shows far more the a few hundred “guest’s” arriving.
      The peoples are actually building the gallows that shortly their children will swing from.

      1. If Norway starts to undo lockdown and cases suddenly start to increase do you think they will go straght back into lockdown?

        1. Cases are already increasing – the famous “R” value has been rising from 0,7. No surprise – but the hospitals are not overwhelmed, nor are they likely to be, and the economic activity is increasing noticeably – you can see many more people around, much more traffic, and sales – both industrial and retail – are improving.

      2. What is the state of their economies? Sweden accepted that its less restrictive measures would lead to a higher death toll early on but that when they were lifted the country would be in a much better state than others.

    4. But now the government knows how easy it is to impose an authoritarian lockdown on the country. Given this is is exactly what the greens want to achieve, it’s not surprising that they are trying to take control of post-corona Britain.

  45. You can tell a Black Lives Matter activist.

    He’s the one who wakes up with a brand new 72 inch TV and no neighbourhood.

  46. Fritz has just flown over Fulmodeston. Anti-Aircraft fire from the dummy airfield (which was clearly one of his targets) persuaded him on his way south.

    1. Working out likely crop yields, so that Germany can supply our starving population after Brexit?

    1. What did your daughter say to that?……yeah but no but yeah but………………..

  48. The first case of someone in China suffering from Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, can be traced back to November 17, according to government data seen by the South China Morning Post.

    https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coronavirus-chinas-first-confirmed-covid-19-case-traced-back

    If there is some truth in this it could explain how Italy soon got the reputation for having the record number of COVID-19 infections in Europe.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51952712

  51. From The Grimes today:

    “Professor Sambrook, who spent 30 years at BBC News before taking over as director of the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff University, will analyse how the BBC’s commitment to impartiality is applied on social media.”

    A few weeks later:

    “The BBC is delighted to confirm that Professor Sambrook found that there had been no breaches of the BBC’s commitment to impartiality – especially when applied to social media.”

    Remember, you read it here first….

    1. I take that to read that there is bias other than in social media, that last piece of the sentence hangs them

      1. Very close:

        Professor of Journalism and Director of the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies.

    5. Shades of the Chuckabutty report on anti-Semitism…promotion for Sambrook must be a dead cert.

    7. FOR THE AVOIDANCE OF DOUBT

      I WAS PREDICTING………………………………………………….

      The fact that the learned Professor worked for the beeboids for 30 years could not possibly cloud his judgement, could it?

  53. Crossword – cricket clue7 letters beginning with Y

    Yorkers – Balls…………. FFS !!!

    who compiles this crap…..

      2. “Neil Harvey’s at slip, with his legs wide apart, waiting for a tickle”.

    2. Just listening to England/New Zealand TMS from last year’s cricket World Cup on Radio5X. They’ve rerun all the WC England matches. Tomorrow 10am the semi-final and Sunday the final.

  54. 319695+ up ticks,
    Is it not a paradox to call for 6′ 6 6/8″ segregation whilst the country is filling up with new party member guest’s quicker than a politico at a money trough.

    1. I loved the Beatles I saw them live in the early 60s at Finsbury Park Astoria. Unfortunately i never heard a sound from the stage for all screeming.
      But I never really took to that strange woman.

        1. I’ll send that to my best mate he’ll love that.
          He sings well and plays guitar.

          1. But please, Eddy, get him to tone down the background music. There are many times when it drowns out, almost, the singer’s voice.

          2. Listen very carefully.
            I will tell you this only wence.
            I use to live in a 6 bed shared house in Whetstone noorff lundun.
            My mate had one of the three single rooms next to mine. He kept me awake ’till the early hours shagging his pub singing duo’s partners wife. To that song.
            It was a long and lonely road for me that night. 1971.
            I got my own back later with the barmaid at a local pub.

  56. I’ve spent an hour processing my garden herbs I put them in paper bags to dry three weeks ago.
    Rosemary any one ?
    Oregano ?

    1. A good line from the film A Touch of Class.

      A married American, (George Segal) has an affair with an English woman (Glenda Jackson) and they rent a flat in Soho for their ‘love nest’ The woman wants to make her nest homely with home cooking and she asks another woman with a flat in the same in the building:

      “Do you have some oregano?”

      To which she gets the reply:

      “God I hope not – I had a check up only a couple of days ago.”

    2. I have a burgeoning bush – of rosemary but oregano, that’s another story.

      How far are you, Eddy from rural Suffolk, north of Ipswich?

          1. I’ve still got one gnarled old bush that was here when we bought the house 25 years ago.

          2. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but this is at least the fourth plant that has failed to survive; in the ground, in pots, protected or left in borders, they have all snuffed it! The same applies to blueberries.

    3. Ooh, oregano would be lovely. If you have any to spare I would be delighted, would you email me?

          3. Although not a practitioner I was once told that Vice is nice but incest is best….

          4. Ah, keeping it in the family. A good tradition in certain parts of the world.

          6. Candy is dandy, liquor is quicker, vice is nice, but it depends how hard it’s tightened

            EDIT forgot the booze!

          7. Come on, Plum.

            Who, amongst others, offered to collect him from
            Toulouse Airport?……..that is an example of kindness
            and real friendship.

    5. That’s how I’m going to look if this lockdown farce keeps up much longer.

  58. Exclusive: Durham chief constable under investigation over handling of Cummings investigation
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/29/exclusive-durham-chief-constable-pcc-investigation-handling/

    The police chief who carried out the investigation into Dominic Cummings is now facing an inquiry over her force’s handling of the matter, The Telegraph can reveal.

    Durham Police have received a number of complaints from members of the public angry at the way the investigation was dealt with.

    The complaints came after the force announced that Mr Cummings might have committed a minor breach of the lockdown rules when he drove to Barnard Castle on Easter Sunday.

    It is understood some of the complaints are against Durham’s Chief Constable, Jo Farrell, who was appointed to the top job last summer.

    They just don’t give up, do they?

    1. Far left, let’s find a reason to be unreasonable.

      Hanging would be too good for them – give ’em the works, hurdle, cutting and quartering with the heads on a pike over both London and Tower Bridges – thus end all traitors.

        1. Too many candidates for just one bridge, Peddy.

          We’d keep Jack Ketch busy for a week.

    4. They can’t accept losing anything. They are just embarrassing spoilt children.

  60. And so on to Greenwich Park, for coffee and to salute General Wolf and Harrison of Longitude fame.
    When I was about six, I joined a small group of older boys who had some penny bangers. It being a windy day they were sheltering between the roots and the trunk of a very large one of many along the avenue to General Wolf’s statue. Extracting the gunpowder from each banger and lighting the powder on the ground produced a satisfying Genie. Poof! When a Royal Park’s Policeman appeared, accusing the entire party of setting fire to the tree and demanding our names and addresses. Being so young I duly complied only to discover I was the only one to give my true address! Well if the Police officer could fit up the boys then I suppose it was only fair that they shouldn’t provide their correct addresses!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/69f95d1c054afd114fce1abff2993258a418cdc9600c9ebe72fa081f6767971f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/348f5a4e3b02536ad55e624dd62f44154d201e2d6d02947ac9d45d76770a822f.jpg

    1. The old Royal Naval College is now the University of Greenwich with 17,500 students and 1500 staff…

      1. And the poshest works canteen in the world, if they are still eating in the Painted Hall as we used to!

    2. Great views from the front of the statue. The rear of the plinth still bears the scars of a German bomb exploding close by in 1940.

  61. That’s me for the day. The dahlias weeded, watered and fed. Tomatoes and trombetti watered and fed. Time for ME to be watered and fed..

    TTFN A demain – when we Break The Law…..

    1. Splendid. We’ll Crowdfund to produce the bail monies! (all being well that is…)

          1. And an extremely impressive one. A person for whom the word “impossible” does not exist. She served in Iraq and Afghanistan and was instrumental in creating the BMHs in London and elsewhere. Not her fault if HMG buggered it all up. We feel privileged to have her living next door.

        3. I have a friend who told me the same thing
          …….and yes, he had used it in defence
          of the Realm,……… three times!!

      1. Disappointingly I learned the other day neither the Meershum pipe or the Deerstalker appeared in Doyle’s account….

          1. Oh FFS next you’ll be telling me Dominic C went on an unnecessary journey to Barnard Castle during Lock Down!

          2. Sherlock Holmes is fiction, whereas Dominic Cummings going for a drive to test his eyesight is… er….

          4. ….being hounded to the nth degree by rabid lefties who want to stop Brexit?

          1. He once was, apparently, according to the literature, but he’s been dead these past 400 years. 😛

          2. The Merchant of Venice is actually Antonio (who has to give the pound of flesh if he defaults on the loan) rather than Shylock.

  63. Down through the park and to the Cutty Sark. As I have mentioned before I spent the first 3 years of my life living within 200 yards of the vessel. However, it didn’t go into the dry dock until around 1956. I was there for the official opening by HM Queen Elizabeth II

    In the photo you can see a life size model of a sailor in the rigging. 50 years ago after pub closing time I happened to be passing the ship when a bloke on the ground was shouting to another almost at the top of the mizzen mast: “Come down COME DOWN! I’ll give you the pound…”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/839c33af84be04c53bf5b9d26c0d825fa97dbd091c0be95a0b8697235898e981.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b6440105df887046c4f2a4def8ed861949d550a7e5656d3f08bfcd14d4a07f97.jpg

    3. Good afternoon, Stephenroi.

      Thank you for posting such wonderful photographs.

      I visited when I was working in yer Canning Town/ Silvertown/Lower Lee/
      West India Docks, in the late eighties/early nineties [I cannot remember the
      exact year]
      we crossed the Thames by the Woolwich Ferry and then visited The Observatory
      Gardens.
      …..A lovely day out and what a difference to the sh*t hole we were working in!!

      1. Afternoon Garlands. They haven’t improved much unless you are happy with Arabic/Punjabi.

        1. Dear One, I am struggling with my ‘friends,’

          What are you on about, Dearest……?

          I am sorry, I think my much loved friend has
          turned the corner into Dementia……I am
          desolated for Her and more especially for
          her Husband.

          1. Sorry to hear that, Garlands.

            I know with Dementia there isn’t much change in the beginning but then speeds up rapidly. Could it just be a symptom of Lockdown and they will return to who they are when they can get out?

            Other than that i am very sorry to hear your news.

            As per my post white british make up 28 % of Canning town.

    4. I clambered aboard yon clipper in April 1962 with all the other 11-year old nippers in my class.

      I didn’t enjoy it as much as I ought to have done since I’d left mu Dad’s old Coronet 120 box camera on the ferry from Charing Cross pier. I was more relived when I luckily discovered it where I had left it on the return journey. [That ferry trip was fated since my beloved Conway Stewart “Nippy” propelling pencil slipped out off my jacket pocket and still lies, some 58 years on, in the Thames mud].

      The day out (on our three-day visit to the Capital) to the Greenwich Maritime Museum was, however, success. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a070a8f50531d6578608c5349b454c7844a59fa5329e5eca9c5fff8282383add.jpg I digress. Your photographs have brought back wonderful memories, thank you.

        1. I did a lot of fencing in the Army.
          Trained to use Dannert Coils and 6′ angle iron pickets.

    1. Our lockdown meetings are rather different. Only one participant shows the background of his house – it is very tidy shelves with model railway engines featuring prominently. Our boss shows the company still photo of him looking a lot younger and more tanned than he does today. Everyone else has the video switched off and shows only black screens with our initials.

      We are a software development team. Lockdown is heaven for us, because we don’t have to see anybody

        1. I would say only two in the team qualify for that title. But it’s all relative, and I probably am quite far down the scale myself.
          We’re not a good team – everyone is too much working for himself, and too keen on proving he is the best and suspicious that others are trying to put him down.
          Part of my role in the team (and the reason I persuaded them to accept me as a freelancer earning telephone numbers) is to pour oil on troubled waters and make things run more smoothly. Since I started doing work at that company, the achievement I am most proud of was defusing a situation where one engineer made another one look stupid, almost by mistake.

          1. Ah, the joys of “teamwork” with such guys… I remember it well.

    2. I must watch more TV than is good for me as I identified all of the actors and named three of them immediately. I had to look up ‘Neil Reid’. ‘Ian Fletcher’ was the tough one: English actor, often plays hard men, not about much recently. Well, I might watch too much too TV but I have never seen ‘W1A’ (from which the characters come) as I had no idea it was Hugh Bonneville. Lost weight, lost hair – lost me!

      And I still can’t remember the name of the actor that I thought it was…

        1. I know – I wrote that. It’s who I thought he was that I’m struggling with!

          And I should have written ‘recognised’ rather than ‘identified’.

    1. They should. But Iran is a long way from California.

      Agit Pai IMHO is useless. He is the primary reason why the FCC has done little to control the tsunami of marketing and criminal scam calls we all get here. About 80-90% of our phone calls are just that. A firm believer in “deregulation”, i.e. abdication of responsibility, in the case to telecommunications. Lining himself up for a very high paid job in one of the telecoms companies when he exits the FCC.

    3. Putting aside the Twitter/free speech argument for a moment it’s worth reminding the world of this:
      “The struggle to free Palestine is Jihad in the way of God. Victory in such a struggle is guaranteed because the person, even if killed, will receive one of two excellent things.”

      Simply, if all Muslims die in killing all kuffars, they will have left the Earth purified in completing Allah’s task. Man may be dead but Islam endures forever.

  67. I don’t think I’m on a dark desert highway, but I do have cool wind in my hair…….
    No warm smell of colitis yet. 😆

    1. I’ve got a cold smell of mojitos right now.

      [Not a proper mojito since I have no rum, but I’ve added chilled vodka to a syrup that I made from lime zest and juice, mint leaves, a bit of sugar and water, brought to the boil then strained and chilled].

      Sláinte!

      1. Victoria Moore, the DT’s wine consultant, once gave a recipe for a home-made “less industrial” Pimm’s [Pimp’s].

        2 parts gin
        2 parts dry vermouth
        1 part Cointreau
        dash of Campari.

        Use this as you would standard Pimm’s and mix with the rest [ice, lemonade (or ginger ale), mint, cucumber, fruits of choice, etc …]

        I love it.

        1. Hi Grizz, looks a good substitution but far too complicated to mix after a few jugs. I like the simplicity of half Pimms, half lemonade, lots of ice and fruit. For a bit of ‘zest’ add quarter bottle of Vodka (once room in the jug – not before) 😃. That gets the party going.

      2. I looked for some Pimms when I went shopping today, but there was none to be found. In fact, the booze aisle was very poorly stocked 🙁

        1. how disappointing for you Conway. Last Monday I made a large jug full and we sat in a shady spot in the garden enjoying it, then a second jug, then a third! Just two jugs this evening – everything in moderation.

          Luckily I had stocked up towards the end of last Summer so still have a few bottles left but following your experience I will definitely grab more when I see it.

    1. Good evening Grizzly.

      As much as I admire your cooking skills,……. that picture sucks

      1. 😛

        Ay up, Garlands. There was no cooking involved. The pollack came out of a Findus packet (same as the chips and peas) and the sauerkraut came out of a jar. Some days, when I’m in the zone in my studio, I have to take the easy (and quick) way out. It tasted very nice, actually.

      1. I fell in love with it in New York when I bought a delicious Reuben sandwich in a Jewish deli.

        [Rye bread with (many) slices of salt beef, Emmenthal cheese, and sauerkraut with a Russian dressing. It were gorgeous!]

  69. In an attempt to persuade the powers that be to import Hong Kong into a country creaking under the weight of an increasing population, the author of an article I’ve just skimmed through presents the map below showing areas in yellow where few people live and where the aforementioned millions could go.

    Excuse my ignorance but isn’t there a reason why those places are empty and won’t the newcomers bugger off to our existing towns and cities after a while?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0537b0faef24c0b6c1c088f0380c586f877f540c8c9d316fb4647167de529ad9.jpg

    1. When I was recruited from Germany to Sweden another batch of German dentists were recruited to the Kiruna area (Arctic Circle) . After one winter most of them broke their contracts & moved south.

      1. Although I wouldn’t live in a Metropolis for all the tea in Tesco’s, I understand why millions gravitate to centres of population and always have done.

        1. #Me neither. London’s OK for a w/e visit but any longer becomes a gruel.

          1. We live in very pretty a stone house with a garden of almost a hectare around it. We are at the end of a cul-de-sac surrounded on all sides by farmland so we have no troublesome vexatious neighbours. But as well as being in an idyllic place we are not cut off from the world.

            We are just seven minutes drive from the centre DInan, a beautiful medieval town, twenty and forty minutes respectively away international airports at Dinard and Rennes, twenty five minutes away for St Malo ferryport and fifteen minutes away fron the SNCF railway station at Dol-de-Bretagne.

            So we are very lucky and have found lockdown a doddle – apart from the fact that the politicans have done and are still doing their best to destroy the first-class little business we have built up over the last thirty years.

          1. …and amenities.

            Just as I wouldn’t live in the big city, I wouldn’t live in the back of beyond.

  70. Classic Quartets at the BBC – 7pm.

    BBC4…. soon to be replaced by BBC3 to attract younger viewers???

    Recent films on BBC from the 1940’s including Citizen Kane. Does any one watch these films….?

    1. Plum, the BBC owns the U.K. tv rights in the RKO catalogue (Citizen Kane, King Kong, lots of Fred & Ginger) outright and has possession of the original 16 mm prints (stored at the British Film Institute) – but in recent years has chosen not to broadcast them, so if they’re getting an airing now, even Covid-19 isn’t all bad? Copyright In these films will lapse in the next ten years or so.

        1. No, it is 16 mm. I was there at the meeting when scanning and digitising was discussed.

          1. Hi Sue,
            I am not convinced about all of the prints being on 16mm stock.
            https://stories.bfi.org.uk/keepfilmonfilm/index.html
            The link shows the BFI asking for donations for restoration and refers to 35mm.
            Clearly 16mm prints were distributed, but the web reveals that Ted Turner organised a 35mm restoration circa 1991, so why bother to digitise an inferior 16mm version?

      2. Hi Sue,
        I did wonder if many viewers watched films from the 40’s often shown early afternoon.
        I guess Auntie thinks old fogies like to enjoy a film after lunch and….. zzzzzzzz…

        Any reasonable fim worth viewing on the BBC is late evening…..when we’re
        in bed for more ….zzzzzzzzzs

        1. There are few (including Cit. K.) on iPlayer at present. I’m going to watch Wagon Master later.

          1. I’m not sure if I will renew my TV licence.
            BBC is appalling and if BBC4 goes there isn’t a lot worth viewing…

  72. BBC Midlands Today News:
    ” Playing tennis is now allowed as long as you don’t handle your opponants balls”

  73. The ‘Close’ is inviting everyone to its ‘Friday Evening Entertainment.’

    Tonight is Mexican Dancing……’great fun…….’

        1. Sorry to hear about your friends with possible dementia. Let’s hope it’s just the lockdown that makes it seem like that. Somebody asked me yesterday when something happened and I couldn’t, for the life of me remember! Every day is the same 🙁

          1. Good evening, Conway.

            Last Thursday I was at Olney Market….as usual; I was just
            getting out of my car when a very cheery individual, in a mask,
            said….” Hi J…., How are you”
            I obviously looked confused because she lowered her mask….
            The most awful thing is …..I still didn’t recognise her…………
            and I still cannot place Her!!

          2. It’s not always about age. I had difficulty recognising old acquaintances when I was in my 30s…

          3. Did I say it was?

            I would remind you I was 28 at my last birthday!!

            I would also remind you…… I come from Hartwell!

            No other excuse required!!!

          4. Hartwell. Not three miles from Hanslope Park and we all know what goes on there…

          5. I frequently see up-to-date photographs of old work colleagues on a private FaceAche forum.

            Occasionally (very occasionally) I recognise one of them!

          6. “I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.”
            — Groucho Marx

          7. I am terrible at recognising people, especially if I meet them out of context. There is a medical condition which means you find it hard to identify faces and I think I must have it, along with dyscalculia.

          9. I thought we’d have to have a barcode tattooed on our foreheads, Johnny 🙂

          10. Oops… I introduced myself to the same person twice within ten minutes a while ago. That was embarrassing!

          12. Well… not quite, but I do have to remember what she’s wearing if I am looking for her in a supermarket or similar place.

      1. We had that about twenty minutes ago!
        Thank you for reminding us!!

        Good evening, Aeneas!

  74. A guy settles into first class on a plane waiting to take off. An
    Entourage of Cardinals and Bishops gets on the plane with the Pope. The
    pope takes a seat beside the guy and pulls out a crossword puzzle he
    starts working on it. The guy is thinking wow am I ever lucky be sitting
    by the Pope maybe you’ll get stuck on a word and I can give him a hand.
    Sure enough the pope start scratching his head and looks up at him and
    asks, ” do you know a 4 letter word that ends with UNT and it describes a
    certain type of woman?” After a few seconds the guy answers
    “…aunt”. The pope smiles and thanks him, looks down at the puzzle
    and back up again….
    “You dont happen to have an eraser on you do you?”

    1. Dammit, that’s the one scheduled for June 2nd, now I have to find another!

  76. I met a neighbour on my walk today. We discussed the Covid-19 panic and both agreed this is a biological weapon. It is difficult to understand why China would release the virus in Wuhan where their borough laboratories are located. It is also difficult to believe that the Chinese are deliberately stoking the insurrection of the population of Hong Kong.

    We talked at length about the conspiracy theories doing the rounds since the assassination of JFK and that of his brother Robert, 9/11 and the fact that Morgan Stanley occupied 50 floors of Tower 2 almost all of whom escaped, that the first Tower collapsed very quickly in a manner which suggested it had been dynamited whereas the second Tower stood for an hour or more enabling the evacuation of the Morgan Stanley people before collapsing rapidly in a similar fashion.

    We postulated that people such as the Clintons, Obama (and Trump whose father had Mafia links) seem to come from nowhere and accumulate vast wealth in office, ditto Tony Blair.

    We concluded that not all conspiracy theories should be discounted and that the Truth may be the precise opposite of what we are told.

    Osama bin Laden batted for several sides and was assassinated because he was a witness to the foulest deeds.

    There is more to this than Soros. There are evil forces at work, Russian Mafia, Chinese Triads and a whole load of boughten politicians and the security services around the globe.

    1. Hi, Corim.

      You have just given voice to many theories that I have felt contain more than a soupçon of veracity for many years now.

      LBJ did the world a service in eliminating the threat of JFK, even if he went on to present a bigger threat himself.

      1. Building 6 did not collapse – it was demolished after the attack due to the damage it sustained when the Towers came down, You lot are as bad as Pretty Polly, inventing plots out of thin air.

        3. Pretty Polly does not exist, jackthelad: She is George Soros in disguise. (At least that is my conspiracy theory.)

          1. Yep. Poor or should that be ‘rich as Croesos’ old George is a ruddy minnow in the scheme of things.

            The people seeking to control us are an agglomeration of Russian mafiosi (that includes Putin), the Italian and American mafiosi and Chinese Triads. They all work together, gangsters all.

            Ian Fleming knew full well what he was writing about. Our own MI5 and MI6 have been bought by globalist villains and ineffectual for decades.

          2. Don’t forget the Irish Mafia, Cor, of whom little is known. Its members never discuss their business, due to the strict code of O’Mertagh.

        4. It’s the late night chat, Jack. Beats the drink-fuelled insults. At least they’re all still talking to each other.

      2. “LBJ did the world a service in eliminating the threat of JFK, even if he went on to present a bigger threat himself.”

        Did you ever consider ‘self-sectioning’ under the Mental Health Act, Grizzly ?

          1. the most banal possibility is simply that JFK was accidentally shot by one of his bodyguards who was unfamiliar with his weapon. A documentary discussed this hypothesis a couple of years ago, and it ties in with the fact that after the event the Secret Service was extraordinarily keen to remove the President’s body asap.

          2. What makes me think this is likely is that although JFK was allegedly shot from behind (by Lee Harvey Oswald) JFK’s brain shot out of his head from the rear of his head. Jackie was reaching out to retrieve it from the back of the car they were travelling in, and not to help the Secret Service man leap on to the back of the car as was originally thought. Watch the footage.

          3. Jackie was reaching out to retrieve his brain?

            What was she going to do with it – dust it off and put it back?

          4. They anted proof, that at least one POTUS had a brain

            Some later ones failed the walk and talk test

          5. I would have thought that an instinctive reaction in that the surgeons would need it.

          6. My mother’s youngest brother, a US Naval Captain and anaesthetist, was one of a team standing by at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Maryland; they were stood down …

          7. Er, I thought that Dallas was in Texas and not faraway Maryland. Or is my knowledge of the distance between Maryland and Dallas sorely lacking?

          9. I was a twenty-one-year-old undergraduate when JFK dealt with potential Armageddon – The Cuba Crisis – in 1962; perhaps your Mum was wiping your @rse …

          11. Not nasty, Elsie; merely suggesting that Grizz may have been too young to remember:

            The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict.

          12. “Perhaps your Mum was wiping your @rse” is not offensive? Don’t make me laugh, lacoste.

          13. So your final riposte to Grizzly (“perhaps your Mum was still wiping your @rse”) is not nasty, lacoste?

      3. Hi Grizz,

        I think JFK was assassinated (shot by two gunmen to order) and because as Vice President LBJ was keen to prosecute the war in Vietnam. His brother was assassinated because he was investigating the Mafia influence on government policy.

        The Twin Towers were attacked by aircraft flown by Arabs, trained to fly in the USA, and whilst the air defences were absent. This is thought by many to implicate George W Bush. The conspiracy theory is that Bush ordered the attack on his own people in order to implicate Osama bin Laden, an accomplice, to justify the prosecution of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Russians probably planted the explosives which brought the towers down having got wind of the plot and to hold Bush to ransom.

        The Americans released Covid-19 in Wuhan and have funded the establishment of the so-called Pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. Curiously many can be seen waving small American flags whilst protesting.

        I do not know whether any of this is the Truth but some of it rings truer than the hogwash we are fed daily by MSM and our politicians.

        1. I reckoned that you, cori, as our distinguished Nottler architect, would have understood the unique vulnerability of the Twin Towers to attack by heavily fuel-laden jetliners – because of their design (concrete core stairways/ lift shafts and outer metallic skin).

          The Empire State – and virtually any other conventionally-built NYC skyscraper – would, very probably, have survived such an attack …

          1. The Empire State building was hit by a B-25 bomber in 1945, killing the three crew members and 11 people inside the offices. Not that it was carrying much in the way of high octane fuel.

          2. Hi lacoste,

            I would agree that the collapse of the external walling is explainable given its connection to the core was a weak lattice beam floor system but the simultaneous collapse of the concrete lift and stair core suggests detonation from explosives.

            I am not postulating that I know the Truth but that the explanations we are given on many matters are suspect and that conspiracy theories often have merit and bear scrutiny.

            We have so many examples in the UK of inexplicable D-Notices following such events as the death of Doctor Kelly (who denounced Blair’s claim about Iraqi WMD) and that placed on the enquiry into the Dunblane massacre where senior Labour politicians, all of whom were Scottish Freemasons from the same Lodge, all of whom were thought to be paedofiles.

    2. Sounds about right Corim. But….
      Bin Laden had died about 5 years before he was captured by the tough boy US navy seals and because she pointed it out, Benizier Bhuto was blown to pieces in her car.
      And I think it was called building 6, collapsed after the others had and none of the suspect aircraft didn’t go anywhere near it.

    4. Cantor Fitzgerald’s corporate headquarters and New York City office, on the 101st to the 105th floors of One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan (2 to 6 floors above the impact zone of a hijacked airliner), were destroyed during the September 11, 2001 attacks. At 8:46:46 a.m., six seconds after the tower was struck by the plane, a Goldman Sachs server issued an alert saying that its trading system had gone offline because it was unable to connect with the server. Every employee that reported for work that morning was killed in the attacks; 658 of its 960 New York employees, 68.5% of its workforce, which was considerably more than any of the other World Trade Center tenant

    5. It was the second tower that was hit that fell first. I had always assumed it was because the second plane hit the tower lower down, so the fire would have more of an impact on the structure.

      What seemed dodgy to me was Building 7, which was stuffed full of official secrets the authorities didn’t want us to know about, and which was the only building outside the towers to collapse.

  79. If Cummings needed any more reassurance that he is safe, it is provided by Thereson May weighing in to criticise him. All he needs now is for Blair and Cameron to call for his resignation, and he’ll be in the job forever!

  81. Emily Maitlis broke the rules – but this is win-win for her, lose-lose for the BBC

    Her Newsnight monologue was a flagrant breach of impartiality. The real question is why she did it

    CHARLES MOORE

    BBC Newsnight is a late show. Not many people watch it. So it seems worth repeating in full the introduction to Tuesday night’s programme, delivered by the presenter, Emily Maitlis:

    “Good evening. Dominic Cummings broke the rules. The country can see that, and it is shocked that the Government cannot. The longer ministers, and the Prime Minister, tell us he worked within them, the more angry the response to this scandal is likely to be.

    He was the man, remember, who always ‘got’ the public mood, who tagged the lazy label of ‘elite’ on those who disagreed. He should understand that public mood now. One of fury, contempt, and anguish. He made those who struggled to keep to the rules feel like fools. And has allowed many more to assume they can now flout them.

    The Prime Minister knows all this, but despite the resignation of one minister, growing unease from his backbenchers, a dramatic early warning from the polls, and a deep national disquiet, Boris Johnson has chosen to ignore it. Tonight we consider what this blind loyalty tells us about the inner workings of Number 10. We do not expect to be joined by a Government minister, but that won’t stop us asking the questions.”

    Some will agree with the Maitlis view, some won’t. But I suspect that those reading it here will agree that a view is what it is. It is not a statement of unquestionable facts, or a balanced introduction to any ensuing report. It is a denunciation.

    Her first full sentence – “Dominic Cummings broke the rules” – pre-empts what the entire argument has been about. In her second sentence, she purports to tell us what the country thinks and feels. In her third – because of what she said in her first – she implies that Boris Johnson and his ministers lied. And so on.

    If I said that hers was a fierce condemnation of Messrs Cummings and Johnson on moral grounds, giving no chink of light to different opinions, and presenting Ms Maitlis’s own opinion as objective truth and the opinion of the entire nation, I would be indulging in good old British understatement. What she did is not allowed under the BBC’s own laws, known internally as “Ed Pol”. She has broken the rules of public-service broadcasting far more unquestionably than ever Dominic Cummings broke the rules of lockdown.

    So even the BBC felt it had to do something. First it announced that Ms Maitlis had indeed breached rules: “we believe the introduction…did not meet our standards of due impartiality”. Later it gave further reasons: “By presenting a matter of public and political debate as if the country were unanimous in its view, we consider Newsnight risked giving the perception that the BBC was taking sides”. I like “risked”. There was no risk whatever: that perception was certain, just as it is widely perceived that it is darker at midnight than at noon.

    Ms Maitlis must have seen this too. Such people are often (and often rightly) accused of living in a bubble. Even after the EU referendum and the December general election result, they seem unaware that many millions of people do not share their views. But she is an intelligent woman and she must have known that, if charged, she would be found guilty. So the interesting question is, why did she do it? Perhaps, acting like her estimation of Mr Cummings, she felt it was all right to make “those who struggled to keep to the rules feel like fools.”

    Long ago, I remember the novelist Kingsley Amis telling me that the trouble with broadcasters, especially BBC ones, is that they were “much more concerned with ‘How will it go down at the club?’ than with the viewers.” His expression “the club” now sounds a bit old-fashioned, but the point holds. Star presenters think more about congratulations from colleagues and Twitter followers for their “courage” than about the licence-fee payers (almost all of us aged over 40) who pay their salaries. They bask in their peers’ praise for “telling truth to power”, yet it is they that are the unanswerable power in the realm.

    As well as the adulation, there is the rivalry. One should not think of BBC presenters these days as servants of the corporation, let alone of the viewers. They are stars, with their agents, their speakers’ fees, their Instagram accounts, their profiles to consider. How are they doing against other stars, both within the BBC and outside? Who is beating Huw or Piers or Victoria or Nick? Who looks “braver” (i.e. more conformist) in attacking Boris? And who, in a world in which almost all their programmes are declining in importance, can evade the lengthening shadows on Sunset Boulevard? Ms Maitlis did not win the Question Time role when David Dimbleby retired: now she can find a different way to shine.

    So perhaps she thinks the fame accruing will compensate for any discomfort felt by her employer or disapproval from the viewers. She may even calculate that she will ultimately win. She could be right.

    Already you can see her defenders lining up. They cannot say Ms Maitlis is a woman persecuted by men, since her boss, Fran Unsworth, the head of news, is a woman. But already they are claiming she is being unfairly victimised against “misogynist” Andrew Neil, who has allegedly also perpetrated bias. Last year, after the BBC censured Naga Munchetty for comments biased against Donald Trump when presenting BBC Breakfast, there was such an outcry among colleagues that the Director-General himself overturned the ruling.

    Ms Maitlis might well win such a reprieve, perhaps slightly qualified by bureaucratic mumbling about “fresh guidelines” on BBC impartiality on social media which have been commissioned from its former Director of Global News, Richard Sambrook. Then Ms Valiant-for-Truth will have prevailed against the “suits” and the Government. She will have been allowed to state, as fact, that Dominic Cummings did break the rules and that Boris lied.

    Even if she loses, and the ruling against her stands, she is most unlikely to be demoted, let alone sacked. The suits will be portrayed as having given in to Government pressure. In due time, Emily will be promoted to a show with more viewers than Newsnight, or hired by a rival channel.

    Win-win for her: lose-lose for the BBC. Either it punishes Ms Maitlis and is painted as the establishment stooge, or it caves in and excuses her, thus proving its internal weakness. If the latter, it then confronts a Government which, more than any before it, does not believe in the licence fee. Since the clear intention of Ms Maitlis and of most BBC coverage has been to destroy the Government’s reputation as it tries to overcome a deadly plague, the Government is now less friendly to the fee than ever.

    The best thing for Boris to do right now is to let the BBC stew in its own existential juice, and strike when Covid-19 has passed. In the meantime, we who must, by law, pay for the BBC would like coverage which helps the country get out of the nightmare rather than deepening it. This week, the BBC led with the Cummings story every day until yesterday. In the alternative world of Britain as it is, the signs were of a tentative return to the beginnings of normality. That is news, but you did not hear it on the BBC.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/29/emily-maitlis-broke-rules-win-win-lose-lose-bbc/

    1. The BBC hired her, no doubt at high salary. The BBC managed her career, promoted her and gave her more and more money. She is the face of the BBC systems, processes and attitudes. She is also an example of what the BBC call”talent”. The BBC treat “talent” in this way, they rise on a trajectory of ever inflated remuneration.
      It’s not necessary to pay newsreaders and presenters salaries well into six figures. It would be relatively simple to replace Maitlis and all the others with perfectly photogenic, articulate, and intelligent people for salaries well short of six figures. The BBC do not do this because Maitlis and the others of her ilk are the creatures of the BBC, created to do what they do. The BBC will be very reluctant to abandon them. Similar stories are obvious in C4 and ITV.

    2. The Bbc has long since lost my viewership. If it weren’t for MOH (and the racing) I wouldn’t have a TV.

    3. Back in the 1970s, I applied for a job at Lime Grove as a TV sound engineer. They had an age cut-off, and my 23rd birthday was approaching, so this was my last chance.

      After about three interviews, I got to the last two, but in the end they chose the other candidate. When I sought feedback, the clincher was not that I had messed up the question about phase variation when producing a stereo image that also had to work in mono, it was because they felt I was not sufficiently a corporate person. To be part of the BBC, you really have to fit in, and fitting in is not something I do very well.

  82. TV Advert NHS and Ibruprofen

    I am concerned about an advert that purports to come from the NHS which advocates the use of ibruprofen for treating the symptoms of COVID-19.

    Ibruprofen is a non-selective COX inhibitor the use of which is being constantly updated by the NHS (recent publication attached).

    The major adverse effects of non-selective COX inhibitors such as ibuprofen include
    increased risk of gastric and oesophageal ulceration, while chronic use can lead to an
    increased risk of thrombotic events such as myocardial infarction and stroke. A link has been
    noted between ibuprofen use and increased severity of skin disease in varicella infections,
    including chickenpox and shingles, therefore NICE Clinical Knowledge Summaries CKS
    advise against the use of ibuprofen in these patients (Gould 2013). NSAIDs may also
    exacerbate or precipitate bronchospasm in patients with asthma and are contraindicated in
    this group of patients.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0be541edf38b847d0ba91a187bbb5a3bd8df0316c21f37093e629997c2172c64.jpg

    As far as I can see this advert amounts to misreprentation of current NHS advice available to the public and health professionals and has been brought to us by the pharmaceutical industry.

    1. Yes. As Ibuprofen can be bought cheaply without prescription big pharma don’t like it.

      The side effects mentioned are no secret.

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