Saturday 6 June: Looking forward to a plate of spaghetti and a matching face covering

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/06/05/letterslooking-forward-plate-spaghetti-matching-face-covering/

1,024 thoughts on “Saturday 6 June: Looking forward to a plate of spaghetti and a matching face covering”

  2. SIR – Those masks with valves fitted concentrate the breath into a much smaller stream and increase its velocity and range, thereby posing a greater risk to other passengers.

    David Lane
    Birmingham

    Only if you wear it back-to-front, you numpty. Go and look up the word ‘valve’.

        1. No. Incorrectly worn inside-out so that the valve permits the egress of air (or CO2) rather than the ingress of air.

          4. They are going to be necessary soon if you want to use public transport.
            My journey into Cambridge on the guided bus takes an hour. A bog-standard surgical face mask is good for only 30 minutes. Am I supposed to change it mid-journey? That would be 4 masks there & back. I’m not planning to make the trip this side of Christmas.

          5. Change it halfway and drop the discarded one in the used ticket bin – or floor as it’s better known.

    3. I bought one of these for the forthcoming restrictions. It has one outlet valve, thus there is a concentrated stream of exhaled air as Mr Lane suggests, though some exhaled air does appear to come out of the edges of the mask. Incoming air does not pass through the valve.

        1. Cheap and nasty, I’d agree. I’ve actually bought two more so I intend to remove the valve from one, then make a hole in the other one and fit the valve in the wrong way round, so I have a mask with both an inlet and outlet valve. Hope it works because as it stands, all types of these masks tend to mist my glasses up.
          I was once very familiar with military respirators as an NBC instructor, and our S10 type had an inner air guide designed to direst exhaled air directly to the outlet valve, while circulating air was drawn over the lenses to act like a car de-mister and keep the lenses clear.
          These Covid versions are indeed very very basic and have no filtration.

  3. Good Morning Folks,

    The blue sky is back but it is a bit chilly.
    Even the central heating came on this morning for some reason.

    1. Sea horses in Studland Bay were on either Springwatch or Countryfile recently.

      1. I remember swimming in the Fleet by Chickeral Ranges several decades ago and seeing the odd looking pipe-fish that were quite common there.

  9. SIR – I can’t go for a quiet pint, but can, it seems, protest in central London.

    Alan Lorraine
    Gateshead

  10. SIR – Pascal Soriot, the chief executive of the Britain’s largest quoted company, AstraZeneca, a world leader in pharmaceutical research and development, has said he is “keeping his fingers crossed” that the Oxford coronavirus vaccine works. If it is any help, I’ll do the same.

    David Elstein
    London SW15

  11. I wonder if someone has mentioned to the black people and the white metropolitan elites behind BLM that if black people just changed a bit themselves and fitted more into the civilised culture of the countries they find themselves in like most other immigrant communities have done over time and not try to change that country to suit them that things would get better all round for everyone and there would be far fewer black deaths on the streets.

    1. Bob3: “They don’t listen and they’re not listening still. Perhaps they never will.”

    2. Is that the same way as the white invaders of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries fitted in with the black culture there at the time?

      I think that white Europeans, in particular, are now being hoist with their own petard since it has now turned around to bite them back in a big way. Ye reap what ye sow!

      1. Morning Grizz. I think that what is happening now is of a different magnitude. The whites who went to Africa were always a minority, even in India they were simply administrative and military personnel. What is happening now is more akin to the invasion of the Sea Peoples who in 1144 BC swamped and destroyed all the major civilisations of the day in the Fertile Crescent. That is what is going to happen here when the political will no longer exists to even pretend that there is an immigration policy. When this point is reached, and it cannot be too far off, they will throw the gates wide open and Africa’s uncounted millions will upstakes and head for paradise.

        1. ‘Morning, Minty, “…and Africa’s uncounted millions will upstakes and head for paradise.”

          And it won’t be long before the bennies run out and this country descends into the same shitholes they will have left.

          Maybe before that, because of lax immigration, the indigenous population may well finally rise up and take it upon themselves to start slaughtering immigrants.

        2. True up and until ‘swamped’; numbers were small and the notion of a ‘country’ only began later and even then nothing like as firmly established as we see the world today. That took two world wars and the long process – instituted by world bodies convened by the ‘white colonialists’ that gave nations both great and small international rights that emanate solely from the Christian West. You might argue that that served their purposes too; but what does one replace it with? History is not a material thing and has no existence other than in memory and records. It never started and it never stops. As a story it never ends and the relationships that were once so unclear or unjust have passed away. But the optimism that once gave nations hope that this present might lead on to at least some kind of improvement, almost as if by itself, is over. The belief in western civilisation is coming to an end. That was the real story of Nineteen Eighty Four. If western Christianity cannot cope, what comes next? The ideologies that came after it seem to be far worse, impelled by modernism; if you believe in the perfect world how many people are you willing to kill for it to become true? We know what the Marxists can do and we are learning about the Islamists daily. They have an idea a belief. What do we believe in beyond shopping?

        3. And by the time that happens, Minty, thankfully I shall not be around to suffer the consequences.

        4. True up and until ‘swamped’; numbers were small and the notion of a ‘country’ only began later and even then nothing like as firmly established as we see the world today. That took two world wars and the long process – instituted by world bodies convened by the ‘white colonialists’ that gave nations both great and small international rights that emanate solely from the Christian West. You might argue that that served their purposes too; but what does one replace it with? History is not a material thing and has no existence other than in memory and records. It never started and it never stops. As a story it never ends and the relationships that were once so unclear or unjust have passed away. But the optimism that once gave nations hope that this present might lead on to at least some kind of improvement, almost as if by itself, is over. The belief in western civilisation is coming to an end. That was the real story of Nineteen Eighty Four. If western Christianity cannot cope, what comes next? The ideologies that came after it seem to be far worse, impelled by modernism; if you believe in the perfect world how many people are you willing to kill for it to become true? We know what the Marxists can do and we are learning about the Islamists daily. They have an idea a belief. What do we believe in beyond shopping?

      2. …and just to prove that BLM:

        A twin-engine passenger plane has an engine failure and the altitude and speed are both decreasing rapidly. The pilot speaks over the intercom…
        “I’m sorry it has come to this ladies and gentlemen, but unfortunately we are going to have to jettison the luggage in order for the aircraft to remain airborne”.

        Baggage is thrown out but still the plane’s speed continues to decrease. Once again, the pilot gets on the intercom, “I hate to do this, folks but in order to save the majority we are going to have to start off-loading some passengers. The only fair way is to do this alphabetically, so we’ll start with the letter ‘A'”.

        “Africans? Are there any Africans on board?” There was no answer so the pilot calls, “Black people, are there any black people on board?”

        Again silence. “C – coloured people? Are there any coloured people on board?

        Still there is silence. A little black boy sitting near the rear of the plane turned to his mother
        and whispers, “Mum, ain’t we African? Ain’t we black? Ain’t we coloured?”

        She replied, “Yes, Son but for the moment we is Nïggers. Let them do the Muslims first. If that don’t work, we is Zulus”.

      3. But what have we sown?
        How far back can we go to justify fighting battles from history?
        Haven’t we learned anything from history?

        1. Only extremely simplified to the level of distortion history. I read last century of someone at the U.N. who was told by an African delegate that the European powers left too early. He has a point as the state of these countries emerged from ‘white colonialism’ to far worse black majority rule. The contempt or indifference African rulers have for their own people (c.f. Angola, D.R.C., Zimbabwe, C.A.R. et al) can no longer be placed at the feet of white imperialism today more than replaced by the Chinese, who really do believe Africans are apes.

          1. I quite agree. I’ve always felt the colonial powers left way too early, leaving behind people still with an Iron Age tribal mindset in possession of 20th century weaponry.

          2. Their western educated and financed (c.f. Tiny Rowlands) leaders were soon practised crooks of a very high order who think less of their people than Rhodes or Ian Smith.

        2. More to the point, what have we learnt?

          Squabbles, battles and wars have always ben fought (and always will be) because of our intrinsic pugilistic and tribal nature. Most wars ensued over territorial claims (or sheer hatred of the enemy for political, social, religious or cultural reasons).

          The mass invasion into the African continent by many European nations was, though, a little different. Not only was it to claim territory (and empire-build) but also to rape the land of its untold riches. An unforeseen by-product of that invasion was the gullible attempt to educate and “civilise” the happy tribes that lived there. All problems latterly arising within that continent (and now without it also)can be traced directly back to this time.

          If we had left the indigenous peoples of Africa alone to carry on their simple lives, then none of what is happening in the world right now would have ever taken place.

          1. Well if the Romans, the Saxons, and Normans had left us alone we would still be living our simple lives too.
            The are two kinds of people, those that use history to stir up old enmities and excuse atrocities for their own agenda and there are those that use history to try to learn from and stop repeating the same mistakes over and over for the betterment of civilisation.

          2. “There are … those that use history to try to learn from and stop repeating the same mistakes over and over for the betterment of civilisation.”

            And where do you ever find that type? Mankind never learns from his mistakes. “Lessons must be learnt” is a frequent plaintive cry but it is seldom acted upon. Modern man is simply too stupid to learn and it will only get worse the more of us that are being bred through indiscriminate and unstoppable breeding. Just wait until the water/land/oil/food/shelter runs out. What lessons will be “learnt” then?

          4. Am I Bollocks! You are sounding like Tony Blair. Pull your hat (the wool) over your eyes and all will be right with the world.

          7. Lessons will be learned almost always means ‘next time we won’t get caught’.

            Humans are fallible. I read here that one of the things that would bump us off is AI. Personally it’s our only bally hope. Get the emotion and ego and greed out of the way and everything gets better. Mandelscum would be facing a firing squad, Blair arrested, the state smaller.

            Decisions would be based on logic and knowledge, not back handers and corruption.

          8. Spot on Grizz : “…or sheer hatred of the enemy for political, social, religious or cultural reasons)….”

            Not for a cause, just sheer hatred and a refusal to accept responsibility for our *own* actions.

            Looking at it the other way, those ’empire builders’ advanced that civilisation dramatically. In 100 years we’ve gone from sailing wooden boats about in the channel to space travel. In the same time period Africa hasn’t. We have advanced (in some ways). Look at the crime demographics. Which group does all the killing in London? Is it Brits in Peterborough causing the gang wars? Is it a white bloke blowing himself up while looking for a loo and a snack bar?

            We’re better. I accept some groups are not – truly not but as a society we have, overall; improved our lot.

          9. ‘The mass insurgency into the African continent by many European nations was, though, a little different.’

            An achievement of this kind of thinking is the combination of dire literary skills matched only by a complete misunderstanding of the subject. What does ‘mass insurgency’ even mean? Presumably like Hollywood films, imagery triumphs over details such as facts.

          10. Point taken. ‘Insurgency’ was the incorrect word for what I was attempting to say. It does so happen that, occasionally, the wrong word comes out whilst in a train of thought. That is why most writers proof-read and then self edit. It would have been more correct to have used the word ‘invasion’ since that is what it was in reality.

            Since amended.

            Now, what was it you were saying when complaining about my “literary skills”? Or were you just being belligerent?

            [And, yes, I do know what ‘belligerent’ means!]

          11. Point taken. ‘Insurgency’ was the incorrect word for what I was attempting to say. It does so happen that, occasionally, the wrong word comes out whilst in a train of thought. That is why most writers proof-read and then self edit. It would have been more correct to have used the word ‘invasion’ since that is what it was in reality.

            Since amended.

            Now, what was it you were saying when complaining about my “literary skills”? Or were you just being belligerent?

            [And, yes, I do know what ‘belligerent’ means!]

          12. I cannot do your reading for you. Your knowledge here – based upon what you have written – is incomplete and if I may say so unsupported by self evident facts. You are also landed with the task of explaining how, after they ‘shook off the imperialist yoke’ – the Africans have fallen on each other with a level of savagery of unparalleled – yes, unparalleled – violence in modern history. Five million died in the Wars of Mineral Wealth involving several countries in their own Black Scramble for Africa (1998-2003). I am quite well acquainted with Africans both Francophone and Anglophone and they are remarkably wry when it comes to western sympathisers with notions about ‘Africa’s problems’ that they have experienced first hand. It is educational to listen to their very different responses to the expostulations of white western anti-imperialists.

            I like Africans. I think Africa has enormous potential. It will not come to pass unless there are reforms – the west is complicit in holding these back – and nothing at all to anyone’s advantage in ventilating without purpose over Cecil Rhodes, Kipling or even the long dead beastly King of the Belgians.

          13. Just because I have written an incomplete history of outsiders’ influence within the dark continent doesn’t mean that I am ignorant of those historical facts.

            I was simply encapsulating (within the constraints of this forum) one pertinent aspect of the history of the place. I had no intention of writing a thesis.

            Strange how you are quick to jump on me for not telling it how you’d prefer it to be told.

          14. ‘How I would prefer not to be lectured’ would be more accurate. I notice you were quick to ask for a translation of a comment that was in need of no elucidation at all.

          15. Thomas Pakenham’s ‘The Scramble for Africa’ is an interesting read.

          16. Germans wanted their Place in the Sun. So they took their beach towels with them.

      4. If you are demonstrably further advanced than another culture, why would you devolve to fit in?

        What you could do is share your technology and education to improve the lot of those less advanced.

        1. Where did I say that further advanced civilisations ought to devolve to fit in?

          It was precisely the Europeans’ sharing of technology and education that caused the problems in Africa in the first place. Look at Zimbabwe. We educated them, taught them agriculture, gave them law and order, and how did they repay us? By killing off the whites, stealing their farms, then running them into the ground! As for their economy after whitey was banished…!

    3. Whilst I agree with that statement – it’s exactly what my family members did when moving abroad – I have met and like several third generation West Indians, Indians and Sikhs and more recent Africans who have tried or seem perfectly content to fit in and why not!? Age is a factor and ghettoisation another; ‘communities’, much loved by leftists who don’t live in them, have been an unmitigated disaster.

    4. Are you suggesting that achievement comes not from your skin colour but personal responsibility and effort?

      Waycist! I is black, I is oppressed. Said the lazy waster.

  12. Morning all

    SIR – Face coverings will be obligatory on public transport from June 15. I wonder if the Government will next insist they be mandatory in pubs and restaurants when they reopen.

    Ken Culley

    Marlborough, Wiltshire

    SIR – If face coverings are to be compulsory for public transport, why doesn’t the Government say, with some attempt at honesty, that it is a psychological tool, nothing else. It makes frightened people feel safer.

    The fact that there is genuinely little for most people to be frightened about is irrelevant. To make them feel safer is what the Government, any government, requires to get the economy and society working again.

    Will there ever be a point when the British people decide to leave the nursery and join the grown-up world?

    M A Owen

    Hockwold, Norfolk

    1. Bucket on the head, stand in the fish tank and sing ‘Jerusalem’.

      Who’d have thought a popular TV show from fifty years ago would predict the future.

  13. Our descent into docile servility.

    SIR – We humans have evolved to inhale each other’s germs. We cannot change that by force of will. It is the way things are. We are social animals.

    So forget social distancing. Forget face masks. Simply warn the vulnerable to continue being vigilant while the rest of us get on with working, to help pay for additional care for those at risk or afflicted.

    Frank Jones

    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    SIR – Will Underground passengers obey the sign “Face coverings must be worn”? They don’t obey “Dogs must be carried”.

    Tony Dearman

    Prestwich, Lancashire

    SIR – Face coverings are going to make identifying transgressors difficult. They seem a licence for disguise on public transport or at stations.

    A T Patrick

    Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire

    2. Perhaps, Tony Dearman, they don’t possess a dog and therefore are not in a position to carry one??

      Just a (silly) thought…

      ‘Morning, Epi.

      4. Dress code: ‘Shirts must be worn’. Worn out or just a bit frayed?

      5. The slogan writers do make silly mistakes in their pursuit of brevity.

        The one that gives me gyp, is the caution after every detergent product advertisement, “Keep away from children” so I invariably growl, “I always keep away from children.”

        1. ‘Nothing acts faster than Anadin’.

          Boots pharmacy – ‘dispensing with accuracy’.

        2. Shrewsbury made a boob with their signage recently. Instead of having “No parking. Enforcement in place” they missed out the full stop. People are contesting their parking fines.

    3. Both problems can be solved with a short bungee attached to the dog’s legs and then hooked around the back of the head of the owner. For those that forget their pooches before arriving at the station, I am sure some enterprising company can lend out Jack Russells that can be left behind at the end, using a similar system to the Boris bikes.

      These handy canine face coverings can be customised to fit – for the street cred rapper gangsta look try a pitbull. Small children can use chihuahuas and Yorkshire terriers, and if you want to show off your virility, try a Great Dane.

    1. Good morning HJ

      We are faced with the prospect of TOO much information re the young child Maddie case .. The press will be pouring over every disgusting detail.

      The government has spent £millions investigating the mystery of the dissappearance of Maddie , yet what have they done about the Muslim rape gangs in Britain .. nothing !

      1. Of course not. It would be politically incorrect, of course. Much more importantly, investigating rapes in Rotherham or grooming in Gloucester would not require long weeks to be spent on the sunny coast of Portugal.

    3. Signed – the “response” is a masterpiece of obfuscation – lots of words but none address the actual petition! Edit – apparently I had already signed!!

      1. If you have two email addresses you can sign twice, as I discovered when my granddaughter once wanted to sign one of these petitions, so I let her fill it all in using my second email and voilà – a second vote.

    5. They are just hoping we’ll all forget about it with all the other turmoil assailing the world.

  15. SIR – I got an appointment from my GP for a blood test at my local hospital. I arrived early and found a queue of seven distanced people in the car park.

    A nurse acted as gatekeeper and operated a one-in one-out policy. At least one other person had the same appointment time as me, and I waited 30 minutes before being ushered in.

    I am youngish, fit and able; had I been elderly or disabled, there was nowhere to sit or find cover from rain. The brilliant phlebotomist was embarrassed and apologetic.

    I rang my GP to suggest patients should be warned, and was told to complain to the hospital. This I did, to be informed that phlebotomy had been contracted out to a health trust and was out of the hospital’s hands.

    I tried to speak to the trust, but nobody knew where to direct me. Why can’t Tesco or Waitrose run the NHS?

    Katrina Welton

    Sevenoaks, Kent

      1. Morrisons is my favourite British supermarket.

        Before it took over, and vastly improved, the beyond awful Safeway supermarket in Fakenham; the choice was poor, the quality suspect and the prices were sky-high. Morrisons changed all that for the better.

        1. In Fakenham, they went downhill for some time – but have recovered amazingly.

          1. When Tesco opened in Fakenham there was an agreement with the local council for them to allow visitors to the Thursday market to park on the new car park, free of charge. It made shopping there an impossibility for out-of-towners on a Thursday. Is that agreement still in operation?

          2. Yes. The carpark is free fr three hours every day of the week. Get there early is the answer!

        2. The only ones who accept a foreign credit card to charge for deliveries to my mother. Hat-tip to Morrisons!

          3. The Tesco website would only allow a card registered to a U.K. address. Somehow I got round this by putting my address in France and an old UK postcode.

      2. They are certainly more relaxed than Tesco when it comes to distancing rules.

          1. I prefer NO music in supermarkets rather than someone else’s choice of ‘mood music’.

          2. Pre-Morrison’s there was Safeway’s, pre-Safeway’s, there was Presto’s and there was a Presto’s in Blyth.
            On a shopping trip there with my much missed sister, the PA began playing Connie Francis’s Stupid Cupid.
            Queue sister & I jiving in the aisles much to the delight of those watching!

          7. Morrison’s ain’t bad. Have you been in one lately, always assuming they have the same in all their stores?

          8. I went in Morrison’s in New Milton before the lockdown. It was a ghastly experience, aisles too narrow, overcrowded and very noisy beeping tills. Then there were the self-service checkouts which all spoke far too loudly in that patronising tone which could be heard all through the store. I couldn’t get out quick enough.

        1. Ever been to a Booth’s? They beat Waitrose at their own game. It’s a family-owned business, sadly only in the NW.

          2. Of course there is Roys of Wroxham and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia.

          4. In summer, those fleeting few weeks between winter and winter, we take a drive down to Booth’s in Morpeth. For the fun of it and to buy a few items.

          5. I’ve used their Ulverston branch many times. A bit pricey, but quality local produce.

        2. I think it was the late Alan Coren who said ‘I like Sainsbury’s – it keeps the riff-raff out of Waitrose’.

    2. When the ‘gatekeeper at w/rose sees me approaching as I hobble with my walking stick across the car park, he often ushers me to the front of the queue.

  16. SIR – You report (June 4) that separate is the most misspelt word.

    Many years ago, my primary school teacher, a lovely lady called Hetty Douglas, told the class: “Do not forget that there is a rat in separate”, which I have never forgotten.

    George Brown

    Stretford, Lancashire

    1. There is an ate in separate as well, which must go to prove that in historic Lancastrian primary schools, rats are edible.

    2. Shurely “seperate” is incorrect. Nothing to do with rats!

      Must do better Hetty…..

    3. ‘Morning, Epi – and by extension, George Brown, I used to have a problem with believe until I realised that there is a lie in believe.

        1. Damn, I was just typing something along those lines!

          Manners…’Morning Nanners.

        3. Damn, I was just typing something along those lines!

          Manners…’Morning Nanners.

          1. ‘Morning, Hugh, another of those slogans that was misrepresented, “If Typhoo put the ‘T’ in Britain, who put the **** in Scunthorpe?”

    5. As A.J. Wentworth B.A., the prep school master, thinking he was being very witty, told the eleven year old boy, Mason:

      “Mason, you spell the word embarrass with two ‘r’s – the ass I am sure you are familiar with.”

        1. If you have not come across H.F. Ellis’s Wentworth stories you are in for a treat when you do.

          Wentworth was a very English, self important prep schoolmaster who was totally unaware of how the boys in his class always ran rings around him.

          Even though he is not very bright and very bumbling he is held in very deep affection by both the boys and his colleagues – especially the long-suffering headmaster.

          https://farragobooks.com/book/the-papers-of-a-j-wentworth-b-a/

          They made a television series featuring Arthur Lowe as Wentworth. You would have thought it would have been brilliant but sadly it missed the mark completely.

          1. I asked, Richard, because no English, English teacher, would use ‘ass’ in that context. it would be arse with great emphasis.

    6. It isn’t normally the rat part of separate which gets misspelled; it’s the par bit.

  17. And about time too.

    SIR – In his video message (“Prince Charles: Gardens are needed more than ever in Britain ‘beset by anxiety’,” report, June 3), our patron, the Prince of Wales, supporting the National Garden Scheme, said that “currently” our gardens were closed.

    That was the case until a few days ago. I am delighted to say that gardens are now able to reopen and will start in earnest this weekend.

    George Plumptre

    Chief Executive, National Garden Scheme

    London SW1

      1. Good morning Peddy,

        Do you remember Peter Sellers’s last brilliant film, Being There, in which he played a very naive, austistic and childlike gardener who has led a shelterted life and has never had to face up to the realities of life. When he does enter the real world people mistakenly take his banal utterances to be words of infinite wisdom.

        Prince Charles reminds me of this character but, of course, without any of Peter Sellers’s charm and charisma.

        1. ‘Morning, Rastus.

          I don’t know the film but you’re spot on about Charlie.

        2. Nice suits though. You’ll recall that Chauncey’s suits were bespoke (for his patron) from a tailor that worked decades earlier and the police investigating his background were baffled.

  18. SIR — I note that some people are warning schools against the computer game Fortnite, saying it engenders aggression and violence…

    John Evans
    Ormskirk, Lancashire.

    I would rather warn against its abominable and inexcusable disregard for the English language, John.

  19. Good morning, all. A sombre D-Day with, appropriately, rain and cold weather.

    Those few remaining who took part must wonder why they bothered.

    1. Good morning, Bill.
      It must have been 7 or 8 years ago when we had a period of foul weather at this time of year and I got fed up with the incessant references to it being caused by Climate Change.
      So I began countering with “Well, if you remember, it was even worse sixty-whatever-it-was years ago,” often getting the response, “How the hell do you expect me to remember that?”
      To which I would counter, “Well what year was it Sixty-whatever years ago and what major event was delayed and nearly failed because of the weather?”
      Even then, there were the odd one or two for whom the penny spectacularly failed to drop and no, I am not talking about total morons, but normal, supposedly educated people.

  20. ‘Morning again,

    Mrs Murrell has been shooting off her mouth again, this time calling Trumpton a racist, and Boris as well, in her attempt to clamber aboard the BLM bandwagon. This in not an entirely unexpected distraction from someone who is still trying to build her socialist paradise despite the increasingly precarious state of Scotland’s finances:

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/06/05/scottish-leader-conclude-trump-racist/

    One of the leading BTL comments:

    “I find it hard not to conclude that Nicola Sturgeon has the IQ of a gerbil”

    which does a great disservice to all gerbils, everywhere.

      1. Indeed they do. In 2002, a virus knocked out the auditory nerve in my right ear and I have been deaf in that ear ever since.

        A few years ago, they implanted a stem cell into the ear of a gerbil that had been deafened by a session of heavy metal. The gerbil has very similar hearing to a human being, whereas a mouse can hear higher pitches. 46% of the gerbil’s hearing was restored. They must have used a talking gerbil to do the tests.

        So the chance of hearing once again in stereo before I am sent to a better place hinges on the talking ability of gerbils.

        Never let it be said that gerbils do not matter!

      3. Gerbils may well matter, Still Bleau, but I’m blowed if I’m going to kneel down in support of them; at my age it’s almost impossible to get up again after I do so!

        :-))

        2. Ah yes. Even more difficult in narrow pews. By the time I stand up everyone else has knelt down again.

      1. It’s not their fault, Belle, they are forced into the trade because of socioeconomic deprivation as children.

        1. I read an interview of a famous footballer. He described the area where he grew up as being “tough”. I was bit surprised at that. When
          I was a young teenager our family moved to that area. I was quite pleased, as it was much pleasanter than where we had been previously.

    2. No summer here. Rain, gusting wind and 9.4C…Coronation weather though that was on June 2nd when the weather was still fine this year.

      1. Bright blue sky here with some white clouds arriving from the west: would like some of your rain as yesterday’s fall was very disappointing.

          1. Thanks, Peddy. I’ve just checked the radar and we should be getting some light rain now but precipitation is not in sight. Fingers crossed for later.

      1. ‘Morning Joseph, I needed Google to translate that.

        Nurse, more coffee, please.

    4. Paint over it, and if anyone repeats the graffiti, shoot them.

      Black lives DO NOT matter. That is a racist statement. You do not judge by the colour of your skin but by the sodding content of their sodding character.

      WHO you are is all that matters. NOT what you LOOK LIKE.

      However, it’s quite clever. By defining an enemy using their own racism they get to say other people who don’t support them are racist. The racists making racists through racism. Disgusting. Evil almost.

  22. The Communist revolution is here. They’ve successfully indoctrinated the youth, and have used the coronavirus and George Floyd’s death to assert control of the cities. Next step will be civil war.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C1VwMQVoWqE
    Tucker Carlson

    https://www.trunews.com/stream/red-dawn-alert-violent-communist-revolution-sweeping-usa-cities-and-towns
    RED DAWN ALERT! VIOLENT COMMUNIST REVOLUTION SWEEPING USA CITIES AND TOWNS
    (Sounds like hysterical conspiracy theory nonsense, but right now it’s hard not to agree)

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/05/national-guard-members-look-for-place-to-stay-after-dc-mayor-kicks-them-out-of-hotel/
    National Guard Members Look for Place to Stay After DC Mayor Kicks Them Out of Hotel

    The D.C. mayor has had “black lives matter” painted on the main D.C. street, which is actually federal property, not D.C. property.
    The TruNews commentator says that the Pentagon has instructed the military personnel guarding the White House and president to disarm.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/pentagon-disarms-guardsmen-in-washington-dc-in-signal-of-de-escalation/2020/06/05/324da91a-a733-11ea-8681-7d471bf20207_story.html
    Pentagon disarms National Guard activated in D.C., sends active-duty forces home

    Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper made the decision to disarm the guard without consulting the White House

  23. Good morning all.
    A day to remember the gallant heroes who, on this day in 1944, fought for the freedom we have today and is being given away freely by the blithering idiots in Whitehall and Westminster.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOolfjkLoJw

    It also the day, 48 years ago, that our son was born.

      1. Glor…or…or…or…or…or…or…
        or…or…or…or…or…or…
        or…or…or…or…or…or…
        or…or…or…or…or…or…
        or…or…or…or…or…or…ria…

    2. I received an email in Swedish this morning from Microsoft (they think I’m still in Sweden) to say that a new version of Edge is on its way & will take effect in the next update.

      1. Odd that Microsoft’s new version of edge is actually Chrome.

        I wish that multi billion dollar company would stop chasing the last thing.

        Let Google have search. Concentrate on making Windows usable or at least consistent. No, in fact, bin it. Microsoft should push into hte healthcare market. A crowded, disparate, messy market. Get in there and do it better. Microsoft’s dev tools are much better than anyone else’s. Use them!

        1. Here you are then…

          Din webbläsare kommer att uppdateras automatiskt. | Visa som webbsida

          Gör dig redo för nya Microsoft Edge
          Din dator kommer snart att uppdateras med den senaste webbläsaren som rekommenderas av Microsoft. Det behöver inte göra någonting – du får automatiskt nya Microsoft Edge vid en Windows Update.

          Vi är stolta över den här uppdateringen och det här är vad du kan förvänta dig.

          Allt du behöver för att surfa
          Efter uppdateringen visas en välkomstsida där du får tips om hur du kommer igång. När du sedan öppnar webbläsaren kan du förenkla övergången med hjälp av inställningarna.

          Bra att veta:

          Dina favoriter, lösenord och öppna flikar finns kvar precis som du lämnade dem

          Även webbplatser som är fästa i startmenyn eller aktivitetsfältet och genvägar finns kvar efter uppdateringen

          Du kan logga in på Microsoft Edge på flera enheter och synkronisera historik och inställningar

          Ger dig det bästa från webben
          Med nya Microsoft Edge får du en webbupplevelse i världsklass och fler sätt att kontrollera dina data och skydda din integritet. Personanpassa webbläsaren med nya produktivitetsfunktioner som Samlingar för att hålla ordning även på webben.
          UTFORSKA FUNKTIONERNA I MICROSOFT EDGE

          Ladda ner nya Microsoft Edge idag
          Du behöver inte vänta på den automatiska uppdateringen – börja använda nya Microsoft Edge redan idag. Följ bara installationsanvisningarna och upptäck allt du kan göra i din nya webbläsare.
          LADDA NER MICROSOFT EDGE
          Följ Microsoft Edge

          Avbryt prenumeration | Sekretesspolicy
          Microsoft Corporation
          One Microsoft Way
          Redmond, WA 98052

    3. I love it when they call! I invite them in, I make them tea and then I convert them to atheism.

      Yes it takes a fair while and they keep trying to leave and go on about this chap down their road called Jehovah but I ignore that, and their Haynes manual to life called the bibble and keep haranging them until they admit I’m right.

      I hope they then live enlightened, dignified lives.

      1. I tell them how I always support the Salvation Army and respect the armys charitable works.

        They make excuses and leave quickly.

    4. Don’t let them in Anne! My mother used to say to them “we’ve already got one, thank you!”

      1. Oh no – if you have time and a little theological scraps of knowledge, it can be excellent fun to warmly invite them in then play with them.

        1. My mother used to try to convert them. They would squirm with embarrassment. It took ages for the next ones to call after the word (as it were) got out.

          One has to admire their tenacity, we get them around here, where the hamlets are often miles apart and have few house and many dogs.

        2. Yes! I must admit that they tend to back off a bit when confronted with a real person with an ‘O’ level in Religious Knowledge! She lives locally and has terrible BO!

          1. “My name’s Jeffrey Dahmer ….. that’s D A H M …… Oh, must you go so soon?”

          2. But that was pre covid, now they will want to know who your most excellent tailor is.

      2. ‘Morning, Sue, There was a knock on the door this morning.

        I opened it to find a young man standing there who said: “Hello sir, I’m a Jehovah’s Witness.”

        I said: “Come in and sit down.”

        I offered him coffee and asked: “What do you want to talk about?”

        He said: “Büggered if I know – I’ve never got this far before.”

        2. OH made that mistake when he was living on his own – took him hours to get rid of them.

          1. They keep trying to leave me.

            The record so far is nearly 5 hours. 5 hours of a captive audience to rail at about the idiocy of religion. Ah, it was a good day.

      3. I dispensed with a doorbell. Friends (used to) call by appointment or I (used to) go out and meet them. Carriers tip me off when to expect them. Before now I used to tell them I am Jewish. I must have been very convincing because they never came back. They are actually rather nice people but a bit strange. The Little Austrian Corporal used to murder them by the lorry load.

      4. I dispensed with a doorbell. Friends (used to) call by appointment or I (used to) go out and meet them. Carriers tip me off when to expect them. Before now I used to tell them I am Jewish. I must have been very convincing because they never came back. They are actually rather nice people but a bit strange. The Little Austrian Corporal used to murder them by the lorry load.

  25. Dear M P,

    Being in lockdown I tend to read a wide variety of sources about the Covid-SARS2 virus currently circulating. I also read a variety of news sources and in particular the hundreds of BTL comments from members of the General Public. It seems in recent weeks that every new strategy proposed by the Government to deal with the apparently diminishing effect of the contagion makes the Government look foolish. I’m beginning to wonder if it no longer wishes to be in office? If through incompetence it should fall, at least the outgoing Conservative Chancellor will be able to leave a note for his successor: “Sorry there’s no money left” which will be a turn up for the books!

    In case you haven’t seen them below is a selection of BTL Top comments about the wearing of masks from an article in today’s Daily Telegraph. You will not be surprised by the vehemence of the comments considering that for the past two months millions of us have been going shopping without the need to wear masks. I and no doubt millions of others despair.

    Yours sincerely,

    Stephen

    PS I haven’t included my address to save you having to reply.

    Free Dom5 Jun 2020 3:10PM
    Why? Because weak and stupid politicians, who do not understand science or risk or probability have caved in yet again to the baying morons in the media. Who is worse – the numerically illiterate media or the numerically illiterate politicians? You could not make this up if you tried. The country is led by donkeys, advised by donkeys and caring only for good headlines in the donkey media – and all the while the economy is dying! Unbelievable, just unbelievable.
    Flag
    Ben Gerstein
    5 Jun 2020 2:56PM
    The government (that I voted for) is absolutely useless and the dissembling, hypocritical, opportunistic opposition are even worse. I despair of this country.
    Flag
    Stuart Morgan
    5 Jun 2020 3:06PM
    Totally agree. No politicians with any guts or common sense. Just pandering to remainstream media, identity politics and incompetence.
    Flag
    Fred Clark
    5 Jun 2020 1:03PM
    I’m increasingly reminded of this quote from the appropriately named Apocalypse Now:
    Colonel Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?
    Capt. Benjamin Willard: I don’t see any method at all, sir.
    Flag
    Nicholas Hares
    5 Jun 2020 3:31PM
    “Why are we being forced to wear face masks when the evidence for their usefulness is so thin?”
    Because, through panic-stricken hysteria, the Government has taken leave of its senses. Just when we think that those who govern us cannot become any further divorced from reality, they pop up with another insane policy.
    The rationale for this policy is, supposedly, that it will encourage people to use public transport by giving them the confidence that it is ‘safe’ – and, of course, in this day and age, ‘staying safe’ is paramount. I seriously wonder whether anyone within the Government has ever commuted by public transport in the Summer. A commuter train – or bus for that matter – in thirty-forty degree heat is unpleasant enough without being compelled to wear a sweaty face mask. And they think this will encourage rather than deter the use of public transport!
    We hear that Sadiq Khan is calling for an extension of the face mask rule to include all shops. I normally dismiss anything Khan says as the rantings of a deranged cultural Marxist; but, given that Cabinet ministers appear to be playing a little internal game to see who can formulate the most unnecessarily authoritarian measures, I fully expect an announcement shortly of exactly that policy.
    As someone who considers himself a Tory, I am now utterly ashamed to say that I voted Conservative in December. The Government’s response to covid-19 since mid-March has, at best, been farcical and, at worst, scandalously reckless. Johnson seems incapable of admitting that his government’s response has been wildly disproportionate and shows no sign of any serious willingness to end the madness.
    Terrified of not being seen to be ‘doing something’, Johnson has dug himself into a hole and keeps on digging. After this fiasco, and with perhaps the deepest recession in three hundred years approaching, it is becoming hard to see how Johnson can win another General Election.
    The terrifying conclusion, then, is that, having endured this hardship, we have a Starmer-led government from 2024 to ‘look forward’ to.

    1. Yo Stephen

      PS I haven’t included my address to save you having to reply.

      You do not need to, Google Knows

      1. He knows my address from the many previous missives I’ve sent him. The purpose of not including it this time was to save him his obligation to reply as a constituency MP ( and to signal a degree of exasperation).

        1. He knows my address from the many previous missives I’ve sent him.

          So does my MP but that did not stop his office from requiring me to confirm my address – it was on the original email – before forwarding my query re the Dover invasion to the Home Office. I haven’t received a reply from the latter and the time is running into weeks.

    2. The solution’s obvious: don’t vote for Kier Starmer. Anyone doing so is obviously insane.

      We’re leaving the EU. That is what Boris was elected to achieve.

      The COVID 19 situation was a response based on faulty data. At the time, who knew? Most government responses are wrong because those promoting them have an agenda.

      The deepest recession was under Brown, but as he lied about that and Labour voters are thick he got away with it. The truth wouldn’t be understood because far too many people are simply sub average intelligence who need to be told how to wash their hands.

      A recession is *easy* to avoid. Cut. Taxes.

      1. Yep

        Just cleaned the Keyboard.

        I found enough crumbs for uS to live off, for a week

        Also found some wwww and zzzzzz

      1. It wasn’t originally, and it was allowing comments! But, oddly enough having read the first 4 comments, it isn’t now!! 🤔

    1. I understand that the girls of that era used to refer to such short dresses as; “fanny pelmets”…

        2. The mystery to me was, “How did they manage to wear them that short yet not flash their knickers?”

    2. The group I had in Germany in the 60’s played in the Fortunes’ interval in the Storyville Jazz Club in Cologne

  29. All 57 members of Buffalo’s Emergency Response Team RESIGN in ‘disgust’ over the suspension and criminal probe of two cops for shoving a peace activist, 75, to the floor during protests

    Fifty seven officers have resigned from their positions on a Buffalo police squad in support of two colleagues who were suspended after they were filmed shoving a 75-year-old peace activist to the ground, causing him to crack open his head.

    The two officers were suspended without pay and are now under criminal investigation after footage showed them knocking Martin Gugino to the ground and leaving him with critical injuries in front of Buffalo’s City Hall in upstate New York on Thursday night prior to the city’s 8pm curfew.

    This of course is what should happen all over the United States. The cops should either quit or go on strike for two weeks, which by my reckoning would bring all those most critical of them howling for forgiveness.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8390857/Two-Buffalo-police-officers-suspended-video-shows-shoving-elderly-man-ground.html

    2. We do not know the circumstances of why he was pushed. Perhaps he refused to move. What on earth is a 75 YO man doing there anyway.

    3. From the video it’s fairly clear that the officer who pushed the gent appears to be attempting to push him back not to push him over. If he had wanted to deliberately put him on the ground he would I think have used his baton. It’s an unfortunate outcome that could have been avoided had the gent moved away instead of towards the officers.

      1. It looks as though he has a helmet in is left hand and a recording smartphone in his right.
        He advances to the oncoming police detail and touches one of them.

        You might say that he has assaulted a police officer one of whom may have pushed him away for fear of being assailed by his own weapon.
        You might say that one of the police officers said to his colleagues that morning
        “I am going to kill a tall unarmed white man today because I am a racist who hates people of every colour and I believe in equality for all”
        You might say that the tall unarmed man should have been wearing his helmet.

        On the other hand you might say anything you like and have it reported by the MSM as something you didn’t say which then ferments a global uprising over any semblance of authority.

      1. Sadly true. Black on Black and Black on Hispanic/vs is their biggest cause of mortality.

        Which is sad, at a deep and fundamental level.

    5. I read that it was staged but is that true?? He had artificial blood. I cannot find the reference but has anyone else seen it?

  30. Was Covid-19 created in a lab? China has some urgent questions to answer. 5 June 2020 • 9:30pm.

    I said earlier that the CCP has worked earnestly for 40 years to understand us. One thing it has never understood, however, let alone liked, is our love of freedom and openness. To Chinese leaders, these things seem dangerous, even unpatriotic.

    So it has been a constant source of pain to them that a free entity, Hong Kong, exists – or should I say existed? – on their doorstep. Deng and his successors had the wit to see that the wealth of the former colony should not be destroyed; but they regarded all that stuff about free speech and emerging democracy as a form of subversion. Hence Xi’s attempt to impose a new national security law on the territory.

    Morning everyone. I don’t like the Chinese Government. It’s not simply that its Marxist, which is bad enough, it’s also inherently nasty. The people who run it didn’t get their positions by running Panda Farms or joining Chinese Lives Matter. My dislike of it is founded not in modern day Hong Kong or the Virus but on its invasion and occupation of Tibet 70 years ago, where its present day rule is as malignant now as when it began. All this said the quote above is as fake as anything the Chinese have ever offered to excuse their activities there. Not because of what it says about them but because of what it says about us.

    “We” are not lovers of Freedom and Openness. In many respects the same methods; Control of the Media, Surveillance, Censorship, Harassment of Dissidents, even the murder of individuals in China, are identical to those used here. The importation of Migrants into the UK is exactly mirrored by the export of ethnic Chinese to Mongolia and Tibet, and with the same intention; while in one respect they are superior. They are Patriots; a word and practice that is an absolute anathema to the ruling elites in the UK.

    China has never been a democracy so no tradition of it exists in the Public Consciousness; even Hong Kong lauded here, was not a democracy under British rule; that was only brought in at the end to needle the CCP. The opposite pertains here. There was once a Democracy but it now exists in memory alone.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/05/covid-19-created-lab-china-has-urgent-questions-answer/

    1. I’m not with you on this, Minty. The nastiness of Chinese society and national psyche long predates the invasion of Tibet.

    2. Morning everyone. I don’t like the British Government. It’s not simply that its Marxist, which is bad enough, it’s also inherently nasty

      1. Fortunately, it’s also bloody useless. They can’t even blther properly.

        1. ‘Morning, Paul, is that blither or blather? Either will do as they are (blithering idiots) and do (blather).

        2. Morning Oberst. Unfortunately the British government isn’t useless, not when it comes to ruining our economy, our freedoms, freedom of speech, social order, justice system, police, education – and many other institutions now totally corrupt. Not all down to this government but they’re carrying on the new tradition of ruining this country.

          Just one quick example, for years every study into the family unit has proved beyond doubt that children grow up better in a “mother and father” household. Yet apparently the government is about to put yet another nail in this coffin by introducing “no fault” quickie divorces. It seemingly can’t wait to get rid of this irksome marriage lark.

          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/05/no-fault-divorces-voted-monday-amid-backlash-mps/

          1. Paul, you say “It seemingly can’t wait to get rid of this irksome marriage lark.” to which I agree and add, “…they’ve already undermined it with their ‘same-sex marriage’ bill.

    3. BTL:

      Max Bonamy
      6 Jun 2020 6:09AM

      The article by Charles Moore on the engineered, ‘gain of function’ (i.e. weaponised) origins of Covid (no comments allowed):

      Even though China has now officially admitted Covid did not start in a wet-market and the American military is not responsible, expect a lot of resistance to the man-made + lab-leak verdict not only from China of course, but from those large parts of the British Establishment that have been well and truly bought by the CCP.

      These corrupted parts must be pruned, deracinated and burnt-on-the pyre.

      1. China has not ‘officially’ admitted that Covid-19 did not start in a wet market.

  31. Delingpole: Greta Thunberg Calls on E.U. Leaders to Condemn ‘Police Brutality’ in U.S.
    *
    *
    *
    Quite what influence the decaying E.U. superstate might have over U.S. policing is not immediately apparent.

    But perhaps Thunberg has been inspired by the example of the Chinese Communist Party which also now refuses to allow major institutions to adopt a neutral position on contentious political issues.

    For example, the giant Hong Kong banking corporation HSBC was recently bullied by China into publicly expressing support for China’s crackdown on Hong Kong’s freedoms.

    Thunberg has her finger on the pulse. In the coming new world order, virtue signalling will be made compulsory – and anyone who dissents will automatically reveal themselves as the enemy.

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/05/greta-thunberg-calls-on-eu-to-condemn-police-brutality-in-u-s/

    Tucker Carlson on cults, Pavlik Morosov, manipulation of American snowflakes, etc., etc.

    https://youtu.be/UcBeFM_267k

    1. Greta is branching out now that the Western world is following her green dystopia

    2. Moral:
      If you are going to confront an overpowering armed force that is in authority ensure that you have all the evidence to support your allegation of brutality but more importantly don’t provoke it and keep your helmet on.

      Really he should have been wearing full PPE.

    2. Well mate, in that case you’re a terrorist, and should be shot.

      Not keen on that idea?

      I wonder why.

    3. I find it rather sinister and disturbing that the author of this definition throws in the environment, which is a very real and genuine concern, with the woke lunacies.

      Is there an anti-environment agenda being pushed here?

      1. I would say that there are serious concerns for the environment – especially plastic pollution, habitat loss and deforestation, along with concerns that “net zero” will lead to a huge increase in devastation caused by mining for rare minerals.

        Having said that – people like XR are more concerned with “climate change” which is a natural cycle and man has little to do with it.

        1. Upsetting the Carbon Dioxide / Oxygen cycle on a planetary scale is a major consequence of deforestation, industrialisation, urbanisation and the global human population expansion that feeds this all. Simply letting trees grow to maturity and then using the wood, locked up in things rather than simply burning it, would do so much to restore this cycle’s balance, especially since trees grow faster when there is more Carbon Dioxide around, as long as there is adequate water, sunlight, soil nutrients and symbiotic creatures. Doing this need not diminish our quality of life; it would actually enhance it greatly. All it needs is money, land and patience, but something the Quarterly Return and the Executive Bonus package is not prepared to spare.

          Mining for rare minerals must be down a lot to humanity’s insatiable appetite for throwaway smartphones. David Icke (who has been politically censored in the West) may not be far off the mark when condemning 5G, but perhaps not for the reasons he thinks.

          I agree with you though that “Net Zero” concentrating its fire on the old conscientious democracies is fiddling at the edges, when the real problem is with the fast breeding tyrannies of Africa, Asia and South America.

          I also argue that the Woke Squad (often referred to by Big Business-friendly interests as “liberals” or “lefties”) are anything but true socialists and are the natural enemy of environmentalists as they are of democrats, even though they are often lumped in with them by media people.

          1. The rare earth minerals are not only for smartphones – they are also essential components in solar panels and wind turbines.
            Manufacturers of smartphones and everything else should be made to produce things to last – instead we have built-in obsolescence, and things which just stop working. It’s wastefulness like that which makes me despair.

          2. “Upsetting the Carbon Dioxide / Oxygen cycle on a planetary scale…”

            This presupposes that there is (or was) an ideal state that mankind has disturbed. That’s wrong and it’s driving environmental policy in the wrong direction.

            I don’t disagree about the appalling treatment of the environment.

      2. Overpopulation is bad for the environment. Pol Pot used the surplus as fertiliser.

      3. Come on, J, you know how some environmentalists see the world. We don’t have to be dismissive of environmental worries to regard some campaigners as dangerous and stupid people.

        1. Few dangerous and stupid campaigners are environmentalists. Most are looking after their own tribal interests and want supremacy over other tribes. This has been the way for our species as far back as I can remember.

          2. “Few dangerous and stupid campaigners are environmentalists.”

            It doesn’t take many and I didn’t say it was many.

            The meme not discredit environmentalism, only the type of idiot pictured.

    4. You rather hope that one day they’ll grow out of it and accept that no, the world isn’t going to conform to their demented hypocrisy and that their barmy ideology is considered tiresome and tedious.

      Who didn’t sigh and roll their eyes at these clowns? Did anyone take their egotistical attitude seriously and get angry with it?

      1. Sadly, they seem to lack any sense of self-awareness or irony and actually believe the crap they spout.

      1. We call them liberal Canadians.

        They were lying I the street last night outside the rainbow cafe, protesting white Male privilege or something.

    6. Thanks, Anne, nicked and posted to Ar$ebook – it needs a wider audience.

    3. Good stuff! Time someone took the preening, bumptious, self-righteous hypocrite to task!

  34. SIR – Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, suggests that Covid-19 could have escaped from a biosafety level-4 containment laboratory in Wuhan in China (report, June 4).

    There are now over 70 level-4 biocontainment facilities worldwide, where the most potent pathogens are stored. The number of such labs has increased in the past 30 years, and they now require greater scrutiny within global biosecurity strategy.

    Biosecurity is the poor relation of other securities, especially cyber, because a pandemic or biological terrorism appeared unlikely global threats until Covid-19 struck. We must now prepare to face such threats; with the right measures in place, governments can ensure their people and economies are resilient.

    To develop an effective biosecurity strategy, we need America, Britain and France – all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – to work together. It is probable that China and Russia will veto measures to broaden the Biological Weapons Convention and other controlling protocols. A quick win could be to expand the globally recognised Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to include biological ones, so that it can investigate breaches and accidents.

    Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
    Tisbury, Wiltshire

    [Hamish de Bretton-Gordon OBE (born September 1963) is a chemical weapons expert and was a director of SecureBio Limited until its dissolution on 17 August 2017.[1] He was formerly a British Army officer for 23 years and commanding officer of the UK’s Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment and NATO’s Rapid Reaction CBRN Battalion.]

  35. Such was the blizzard of media news and comment that I listened to yesterday that I have forgotten who said this and in which programme: “If the UK used Spain’s counting methods, this week’s 300+ deaths would have been 40.”

    Does anyone know if this is this true? Are there such differences in recording methods in countries as to make comparisons so completely pointless? We have mentioned on here the possibility of the over-counting of deaths because of the changes to death certification. Is there another factor at work?

    If the figures are accurate perhaps it’s not so much about tactical errors by HMG & Co but because we have a greater proportion of vulnerable (i.e. unhealthy) people, although that won’t be enough to satisfy critics, whose logic appears to be that the NHS much save everybody from themselves. To be fair, PHE at least did its best in this regard, regularly lecturing the nation on its eating habits and outdoor activities rather than planning for ‘the big one’, which this isn’t but which was still too much for it.

    1. If that is true, how many deaths would have been declared in Spain using the UK method?

      I use the term method loosely., it seems that your lot like my lot have not risen to the occasion with this managing a pandemic lark.

    2. I am reasonably familiar with some aspects of Spain. Their statistical methodology and health service are good, (or excellent) nevertheless, I only know of 2 covid deaths there.
      One was elderly and the other person had very sadly been in poor health for some years; he caught the bug when he was admitted to hospital for an unrelated matter.

  37. SIR — I note that some people are warning schools against the computer game Fortnite, saying it engenders aggression and violence…

    John Evans
    Ormskirk, Lancashire.

    I would rather warn against its abominable and inexcusable disregard for the English language, John.

  38. In the back woods of West Virginia, the redneck’s wife went into labour in the middle of the night, and the doctor was called to assist in the delivery.

    Since there was no electricity, the doctor handed the father-to-be a lantern and said, “Here, you hold this high so I can see what I’m doing.”

    Soon, a baby boy was brought into the world. “Whoa there,” said the doctor. “Don’t put the lantern down… I think there’s another one to come!”

    Sure enough, within minutes he had delivered a baby girl. And once again, he implored the father,

    “Don’t put down that lantern… It seems there’s yet another one in there!” cried the doctor.

    The Redneck scratched his head in bewilderment, and asked the doctor, “Do ya thank it’s the light that’s attractin’ ‘em? “

  39. As all of the people in lockdown do not have Covid-19 and all of the people not in lockdown do not now have Covid-19, and anyone who has Covid-19 will either stay at home or go to hospital, there is clearly no reason not to end lockdown completely, as of now? So why is it not being ended completely in order that everything can go back as it was, no masks, no social distancing etc etc.? Why are controls being tightened?
    The risks are now so minuscule as to be non-existent?

    1. Control, control, control.
      Get the population to give up their hard won freedom, it is D-Day after all, and keep on pushing to see where the breaking point is. Firstly it will set citizen against citizen and then the noose can be tightened more.

    2. They are still finding new cases – 1650 new cases reported yesterday in UK. They must be coming from somewhere. The bug hasn’t gone away but we need to learn to live with it and take our chance.

      1. 27 here yesterday. The count is up & down like a sine wave – was 6 on 02 June.

      3. No new cases in the Borders for a week.
        Are these new cases discovered by testing, or per self-declaration, or per death certificates? The failure to distinguish between these categories has muddied the waters so that even the sharks are confused.

        1. This is quite deliberate – to keep us all in our place and scared for our lives.

      4. Good afternoon, J.

        In Northants we have had a low incidence of cases
        and deaths,…… until three days ago.
        NGH is in lock down and so is Wellingborough Sorting Office.

        1. Afternoon G!

          There was an outbreak in Weston-s-M hospital which was closed for over a week.

          I’m waiting for the increase in cases following last weekend’s trip to the beach and all the BLM demos.

        2. Afternoon G!

          There was an outbreak in Weston-s-M hospital which was closed for over a week.

          I’m waiting for the increase in cases following last weekend’s trip to the beach and all the BLM demos.

          1. I’m hoping there won’t be an increase, showing that the possibility of outdoor transmission is negligible (which is, of course, stated in government guidelines).

          3. Given the predominant ethnic composition of those riots, maybe Karma will swing into action.

  40. Sent by a Spanish Pal
    I just kneel before God

    https://www.vozpopuli.com/miquel_gimenez/

    He said: Below, find a great article which I sympathize 100%. I’m confident you will like it.

    I made a quick translation by Google. I trust you will understand it. There are some slang words not translated, Google is not so intelligent, yet.

    The last slogan to become a herd of sheep is to kneel for the murder of George Floyd. Well, I just kneel before God.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/009c409f48391461229732f4799c357aff6ba577a22698cc10b0ad9cc6e50437.png
    PUBLISHED 05.06.2020 – 04:45

    The orchestrated wave vandalism in response to that heinous crime is showing how little our civilization is and to what extent it has been stupid, reaching incredible limits. The image of artists, pseudo artists, palanganeros of the false intelligentsia or people of good faith and null critical spirit prostrated with fennel is the portrait of this world that we have had to suffer. That all those who roar through the streets shouting “fucking police” and then wipe out a supermarket, a humble neighbourhood store, the Louis Vuitton store or a mega Apple centre, savagely attacking those who stand up to them, are the army of the crime is evident. May their masters love us all on their knees before their plans, too. That your soul falls to your feet watching how soldiers of the American National Guard throw themselves at the feet of these protesters is devastating. That we see images of women kissing the boots of these urban guerrillas is vomiting.

    Those who forged this ordeal at the Sao Paulo Forum, well paid by Soros and the international plutocracy, may feel satisfied. After undermining the democratic spirit in Europe and removing from politics those who felt a robust belief in freedom, they find the expeditious path for their world super state, in which there will only be owners and slaves, rich and poor, leaders and masses indoctrinated, yes, happy to follow the slogans under pain of social excommunication. It is neo-communism, the utopia of decadent and left-wing millionaires who talk about the town but are unable to tip the waiter or make a contract with their housekeeper.

    Let us remember, for those who boast of their communist affiliation, that this terrible ideology has left behind them millions of murdered throughout the planet throughout its sinister journey. In that Africa that worries the posh progressives so much, about thirty million, dead up or down. And in Spain, about a hundred thousand in the republican zone. But you can walk around with a hammer and sickle in your lapel and nobody will tell you anything, even if the European Union has put red ideology on the same level as Hitler’s.

    What it is about is to intoxicate an agrafa society (illiterate?) that neither reads nor is interested in reading and coercing by violent means those who oppose this whitewashed dictatorship of sofa justice, adherence to manifesto and cockatoo repetition of the slogan.

    No one in this fight will kneel for the vile murder of retired police captain David Dorn, also black, seventy-seven, who had come to the aid of a friend of his who owned a pawnshop. A bullet, fired by a young white man, and something else. And its agony recorded by a mobile insensitive and impervious to the slightest notion of humanity. No one will kneel by those who, also on their knees, are killed by cutting off their heads at the hands of ISIS. No one will kneel down for those who suffer hunger, misery and disease in South American countries at the hands of allegedly left-wing drug governments. Nor have I seen any of these kneel by the victims of ETA, on the contrary, they acclaim the murderers as heroes and sit down to agree with them. Standing proud, they love the rest of us on our knees, fearful, supplicating for sins that we never committed. They want to make us feel guilty, they want us to recognize that we are racist, fascist, macho. “You are the rapist,” they say.

    Well, I will not kneel before the horde. My empathy towards the victim will always exist, before each and every one, be they white, black, women, men, of this or that belief and ideology because we are all potential corpses in the hands of the first murderer who is created with the power to take your life . But on your knees, only before God. If you let me choose, before the Christ of Lepanto or that of the Good Death. My father taught me that, on my knees before other men, never. Never.

    And, to quote the poet, if I die, I die with my head held high. Humiliations, not one.

    2. ‘Morning, Tom.

      Your Spanish pal is bang on and I agree with all he says. I genuflect before no man.

          1. What! A social gathering? We might enjoy ourselves.
            The government won’t allow that.

      4. One has visions of a bucket or water and a wet sponge on a pole ready for sponging out cannon after it’s been fired!

    4. ‘prostrated with fennel’ should be translated ‘prostated on their knees’ – I haven’t tracked down why the word for fennel is used in this way, whether they are two different words with different etymologies or whether the expression arose from some incident. Apparently ‘rezar de hinojos’ to pray on one’s knees is a standard expression.

  41. Disgraced lawyer Phil Shiner could become only person charged over historic Iraq War abuse claims. 5 June 2020 • 9:00pm.

    Thousands of criminal complaints against British troops had been brought by Mr Shiner on behalf of Iraqi civilians. But many of those claims are now subject to scrutiny by the NCA, the British equivalent of the FBI.

    Last night, former defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon said: “Phil Shiner has never really apologised and it is now time that he did.

    “He has never shown any remorse for the misery that so many veterans and their families have suffered for years.”

    So says the Secretary of Defence who looked on as it was happening!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/05/iraq-war-veterans-deserve-apology-phil-shiner-false-abuse-claims/

    2. The Service chiefs also looked on whilst the foot-soldiers were persecuted. I think the only one that raised the issue, was retired. A disgrace.

  42. Afternoon All

    Obviously the MSM is pure poison but the news is so toxic that even through the cynicism filter of NoTTL it is reducing me to incandescent carpet chewing,head banging rage at our cretinous leaders and opinion formers

    I’ll take a break for a couple of days,just to give the jaws and skull a little healing time,I need pleasant distractions……………

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5db7ffaa0eab75bd8effd466bc9e746ad4232ee74c07d8a926db2276a066ad8f.gif

    3. Carpet chewing? I never thought of you as a rug muncher !

      Come back to us soon.

    4. With you all the way Rik. Incandescent indeed. Thing is there’s nothing we can do about it except fire off emails to our MP. I just don’t understand how the government can be so appallingly unaware and oblivious to what’s going on. If you’re blik and protesting about some ruddy American criminal you’re fine, no perlice action. Pay a visit to the park/beach and you get a bo…..ing and a fine.

      Enjoy your distraction whatever it is. See you soon.

      1. I won’t be emailing my MP – she’s on maternity leave. She has an assistant dealing with her post, and apparently there were people complaining that she shouldn’t be on maternity leave when she’d only been in the job a few months. There were quotes from some of them in our local paper – nasty people around.

        1. That’s a bit of bad luck for her constituents. But there’s no need for nasty comments. We have enough nasty people in this world as well as stupid ones.

    6. Understandable. I try not to think about the last years of the Roman Empire.

      1. Were you there? We had a history teacher known as “The Ancient Brit” mainly for her appearance, but also as she seemed to be as old as Methusela.

  43. This is the Police mandate –
    ““Be and be seen to be, unfettered by obligation, deciding each issue without fear or favour, malice or ill-will.”Taking
    the Knee, as it is now widely named, is a dereliction of those duties –
    an action which would result in a Court Martial in military circles

  44. Afternoon all. Blessed rain at last – but only for about 5 minutes. More more more pleeease!

    Just broken off from doing the ironing with Smooth keeping me company. They’ve just played Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams. Got to be their most boring song ever.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mrZRURcb1cM

    1. Not boring, nice toon. Of course the words, like in all music, are ignorable.

        1. Really boring. Mike and the Mechanics did some good stuff, but this is very bland. If you want words, you write poetry or books.

          1. It’s a good job it takes all sorts and I enjoy hearing what I would call “easy listening” music. I like the lyrics to make sense.

        2. Really boring. Mike and the Mechanics did some good stuff, but this is very bland. If you want words, you write poetry or books.

    4. I am sympathetic but as someone caring for a very vulnerable person I cannot sign. I think a slow roll back (and some gentle, very British defiance of unenforceable regulations) will be the best way forward. Best Wishes.

      1. It should now be voluntary, so that vulberable people can still be shielded, the rest of us get back to normal.

    6. Voted 6534th; will get my granddaughter to vote when she arrives for the week she likes filling in forms for everyone using all our surplus email addresses.

  46. To win justice for George Floyd, we need the rage that abolished slavery. Jericho Brown. Fri 5 Jun 2020 17.31 BST.

    Don’t tell me it’s a Black Rage and here it is.

    I do not mean to incite anyone to riot. I mean to remember that the worst thing about the current moment of protest is that it wouldn’t have happened had George Floyd lived. History should tell us that whatever anyone does in the present moment to express rage at the police state is as necessary as Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in 1831.

    Nothing about Britain’s Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 or the Royal Navy’s 50 years campaigning to stamp it out, or even the 365,000 White Americans who perished in the Civil War. It was all due to Nat Turner. Would it also be too much to point out the Floyd wasn’t arrested because he was Black but because he was caught committing a criminal act and no one as yet has provided a single shred of evidence that the arresting officer, Derek Chauvin, expressed any racist views or inclinations while carrying out his duties!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/05/george-floyd-rage-slavery-killing-us-police-state-protest

    4. What justice do they want, precisely? All white people on their knees, ritually begging forgiveness of their black overlords?

      I’m seriously a) getting sick to the back teeth of all this b.s.
      b) getting worried that the PTB are already capitulating to this communist propaganda and serious violence is headed our way.

      1. Then it’d be ‘you’re not kneeling low enough!’

        It’s time to say it’s not because you’re black, that’s just an excuse. The comedy bit was seeing John Boyega there. Actor in Star Wars films. Hugely well paid. Well known.

        Complaining about how he is ‘oppressed’. There’s a bunch of black people complaining about a stereotype of racism while reinforcing that stereotype.

    6. Who would have thought 6 months ago that we would now be experiencing lifestyle changes for ever, the fright and fear of change and loss, and insecurity are unbelievable .

      I have to get ready to go out shopping shortly , and mentally be prepared to queue with my trolley in the rain wearing my mask!

      1. Morning Belle. Most generations in most societies in history have always faced some major trauma or disruption to their lives. We, as in the majority of people on this blog, are just getting it at the end!

      2. Why will your rainy trolley be wearing your mask?
        ;-))
        Morning, Belle.

      3. Why leave until Saturday when you have all week to do the shopping?

        ‘Morning, Belle.

        1. Hi Peddy.

          I had to try to track down another bottle of TCP .. Son has damaged his finger trying to sort out his motor bike chain, his finger looks horrible , red and swollen , broken skin etc. so I went to our local village chemist .. there is a world shortage of TCP apparently , so purchased a small bottle of antiseptic spray for skin instead.

          I then visited a local farm shop for more dog food , eggs and bought a fresh free range chicken and some locally made pork sausages .

          Locals are genuinely concerned that there will be a Covid spike , and that all the thousnads of visitors to the area last weekend will have undone alot of the good work that lock down aspired to.

        2. Indeed, Peddy.
          Until she stopped driving, my mother always went to collect her pension from the post office on a Saturday morning, and always complained about the queues…

      5. That is why I loathe New Years Eve.
        All that compulsory jollification and hope.
        I’ve been around long enough to see it turn to ashes with monotonous regularity.

        1. I hate new years. We’re told to enjoy it and celebrate but all I remember is it was the time three yobs wanted a go at the war queen and I got slung up on charges for assault by the police – which were dismissed as self defence. Apparently a black eye and a bruise were not comparable to a broken jaw, fractured skull, ribs, knee and several missing teeth.

          We go out to friend’s houses now but that time of year still shakes her up.

          1. I can’t remember ever celebrating New Year; it’s the one day of the year I make it a rule to go to bed early.

            Oh yes, I remember one year when my brother was over from Australia and we went to a midnight service for New Year at Salisbury Cathedral. I think that was short lived experiment on the part of the cathedral.

      6. Why will your rainy trolley be wearing your mask?
        ;-))
        Morning, Belle.

      7. Belle – bugger the mask! Unless it’s a carbon graniculate military full face type, it’s useless. C’mon you’re a QARNNS – you know that!

        Terry
        xxx

    7. It’s always about getting ‘justice’ when that doesn’t actually mean justice but rather oppression of other opinions.

      Justice has been served. The police officers arrested, charged, judged and jailed.

      If george Floyd hadn’t been a career criminal, if he hadn’t dealt drugs, if he hadn’t used counterfeit money then the police would not be standing on his neck and he would be alive.

      These are not slaves – by virtue of their actions they are clearly free people. What’s needed is a cold assessment that these are now mindless thugs hell-bent on destroying property.

    1. We had a brief mention of it on the lunchtime news.
      Black lives matter is far more important than all the hero’s who died beating German tryanny.

      1. A lot of black Americans didn’t get to make it home in 1944, too. They deserve recognition, as well.

    3. UK Churches are all still closed. I don’t suppose Welby gives them a thought.

      1. Even if they were open, Welmeaning would shudder at the thought of commemorating such a appalling anti German event…..

      2. Our rector has started celebrating the Eucharist in church, but unfortunately, he has to be on his own. At least there is one service going ahead. I’ve been invited to a Zoom service tomorrow. I’m going to see if I can get it to work on the laptop.

    4. The UK Christian churches are not in the least interested in ringing bells. They act as if we have already been defeated, so it’s good to hear that the French can still do it.

      2. Welby should be burnt at the stake for high treason and devil worship!

    5. Bonjour and thank you.
      D-Day is something for which I would both clap and ‘take the knee’.
      May I tactfully suggest that ‘commemoration’ is a more appropriate word than ‘celebration’?

    6. Is that 18h44 your local time or UK time? If UK time then 19h44 your end and the significance of the time and year of the landings is obvious.

  49. Conners horse running this afternoon, Newmarket now on ITV channel
    Not sure of its name.

    1. I think it came second at 15/2! Seem to remember Conway saying he had a lady trainer.

          1. As opposed to the UK on 6 June 2020 – where “the firm is going…” under.

          2. Good to firm – but wet on top so the sprinters are leaving skid marks as the come out of the stalls

      3. Yes, ran well but the winner was just faster. He’s a home bred and we’ve got his full sister at Julie’s as well.

  50. This year I won’t be going to the Maldives because of covid19.

    Normally I don’t go to the Maldives because I can’t afford it.

      1. Already lost £300 on flights and the next lot cost £600. Plus £700 deposit for the apartment. I’m going even if i have to damn well swim.

          1. Not a difficulty for me. Other than not being able to go to restaurants and Bars, having to queue a bit for shopping, my life isn’t any different under lockdown. Lucky me.

          2. I’m getting used to it – but I dislike the restrictions on who I can see and where I can go.

          3. I would just go see them anyway. None of the guidance has made any sense and it was always several weeks passed when it might have been effective. I have always been suspicious of arbitrary rules made up on the spot.

          1. That looks so unspoilt. Are there nice little places to eat on the quayside?

    1. Aaaahhhh ….. poor Caff. All the meaning drained from her pathetic existence.

      1. She could always take out her whining on her husband. Second thoughts…..she probably does already.

  52. There is a delicious if somewhat expensive irony in all these protests aimed at the actions of the police. Large demonstrations and the threat of riots requires the deployment of large numbers of officers many of whom will no doubt be on overtime. The net effect is the demonstrators are enhancing the wealth of police offers whilst potentially diminishing the wealth of any taxpaying relatives….

    1. They don’t do irony. And, so far as I know, there has been no police brutality here.

          1. I actually caught a snippet of Dick of the yard while listening to Smooth. She did say that policemen kneeling is not right – goodness me!

          2. What she meant was that they should lie face down…..

            Stupid cow (as well as murderer).

          3. How is it that the U.K. has been reduced to such dreadful levels of ineffective PTB? And we’re being told face masks have to be worn on public transport after all this time when we were told masks were of no use?

          6. They are such idiots. How can they not see how utterly ridiculous they are. They’ve lost control of the situation as have the police with these demonstrations. God knows when and how order will be restored.

    2. It’s no good trying to talk sense to these cretins. Very little in way of a brain cell.

        1. I think so. Lifted the picture from a google search. When I changed my avatar from grumpygrey to Alf I wanted to show my Englishness (weird word) as my DNA test showed me to be between 88 and 100% English. I chose the latter number.

  55. A chili-tasting contest (sorry it’s in German).

    Chilitester — Wettbewerb
    Chili Nr. 1
    Volkers Maniac Mobster Monster Chili
    Richter 1
    Etwas zu tomatenbetont; amüsanter Kick.
    Richter 2
    Angenehmes, geschmeidiges Tomatenaroma. Sehr mild.
    Ich
    Ach Du Scheiße! Was ist das für ein Zeug!? Damit kann man getrocknete Farbe von der Autobahn lösen!! Brauche zwei Bier um die Flammen zu löschen; ich hoffe, das war das übelste – die Texaner sind echt bescheuert!

    Chili Nr. 2
    Ottos Nachbrenner Chili
    Richter 1
    Rauchig, mit einer Note von Speck. Leichte Peperoni-Betonung.
    Richter 2
    Aufregendes Grill Aroma, braucht mehr Peperoni um ernst genommen zu werden.
    Ich
    Schließt dieses Zeug vor den Kindern weg! Ich weiß nicht, was ich außer Schmerzen hier noch schmecken könnte. Zwei Leute wollten mir erste Hilfe leisten und schleppten mehr Bier ran, als sie meinen Gesichtsausdruck sahen.

    Chili Nr. 3
    Didis berühmtes “Brennt die Hütte nieder” Chili
    Richter 1
    Exzellentes Feuerwehr-Chili! Mörder-Kick! Bräuchte mehr Bohnen.
    Richter 2
    Ein Bohnenloses Chili, ein wenig salzig, gute Dosierung roter Pfefferschoten.
    Ich
    Ruft den Katastrophenschutz! Ich habe ein Uranleck gefunden. Meine Nase fühlt sich an, als hätte ich Rohrfrei geschnieft. Inzwischen weiß jeder was zu tun ist: Bringt mir mehr Bier, bevor ich zünde!!
    Die Barfrau hat mir auf den Rücken geklopft; jetzt hängt mein Rückgrat vorne am Bauch. Langsam krieg ich eine Gesichtslähmung von dem ganzen Bier.

    Chili Nr. 4
    Lauras Black Magic
    Richter 1
    Chili mit schwarzen Bohnen und fast ungewürzt. Enttäuschend.
    Richter 2
    Ein Touch von Limonen in den schwarzen Bohnen. Gute Beilage für Fisch und andere milde Gerichte, eigentlich kein richtiges Chili.
    Ich
    Irgendetwas ist über meine Zunge gekratzt, aber ich konnte nichts schmecken. Ist es möglich einen Tester auszubrennen?
    Sally, die Barfrau stand hinter mir mit Biernachschub; die dumme Kuh fängt langsam an heiß auszusehen; genau wie dieser radioaktive Müll, den ich hier esse. Kann Chili ein Aphrodisiakum sein?

    Chili Nr. 5
    Lindas legaler Lippenentferner
    Richter 1
    Fleischiges, starkes Chili. Frisch gemahlener Cayennepfeffer fügt einen bemerkenswerten Kick hinzu. Sehr beeindruckend.
    Richter 2
    Hackfleischchili, könnte mehr Tomaten vertragen. Ich muss zugeben, dass der Cayennepfeffer einen bemerkenswerten Eindruck hinterlässt.
    Ich
    Meine Ohren klingeln, Schweiß läuft in Bächen meine Stirn hinab und ich kann nicht mehr klar sehen. Musste furzen und 4 Leute hinter mir mussten vom Sanitäter behandelt werden.
    Die Köchin schien beleidigt zu sein, als ich ihr erklärte, dass ich von Ihrem Zeug einen Hirnschaden erlitten habe. Sally goss Bier direkt aus dem Pitcher auf meine Zunge und stoppte so die Blutung. Ich frage mich, ob meine Lippen abgebrannt sind.

    Chili Nr. 6
    Veras extrem vegetarisches Chili
    Richter 1
    Dünnes aber dennoch kräftiges Chili. Gute Balance zwischen Chilis und anderen Gewürzen.
    Richter 2
    Das beste bis jetzt! Aggressiver Einsatz von Chilischoten, Zwiebeln und Knoblauch. Superb!
    Ich
    Meine Därme sind nun ein gerades Rohr voller gasiger, schwefeliger Flammen. Ich habe mich vollgeschissen als ich furzen musste und ich fürchte es wird sich durch Hose und Stuhl fressen. Niemand traut sich mehr hinter mir zu stehen.
    Kann meine Lippen nicht mehr fühlen. Ich habe das dringende Bedürfnis, mir den Hintern mit einem großen Schneeball abzuwischen.

    Chili Nr. 7
    Susannes “Schreiende-Sensation” Chili
    Richter 1
    Ein moderates Chili mit zu großer Betonung auf Dosenpeperoni.
    Richter 2
    Ähm, schmeckt als hätte der Koch tatsächlich im letzten Moment eine Dose Peperoni reingeworfen.
    Ich mache mir Sorgen um Richter Nr. 3. Er scheint sich ein wenig unwohl zu fühlen und flucht völlig unkontrolliert.
    Ich
    Ihr könnt eine Granate in meinen Mund stecken und den Bolzen ziehen; ich würde nicht einen Mucks fühlen. Auf einem Auge sehe ich gar nichts mehr und die Welt hört sich wie ein großer rauschender Wasserfall an. Mein Hemd ist voller Chili, das mir unbemerkt aus dem Mund getropft ist und meine Hose ist voll mit Lavaartigem Schiss und passt damit hervorragend zu meinem Hemd.
    Wenigstens werden sie bei der Autopsie schnell erfahren was mich getötet hat. Habe beschlossen das Atmen einzustellen, es ist einfach zu schmerzvoll. Was soll`s, ich bekomme eh keinen Sauerstoff mehr. Wenn ich Luft brauche, werde ich sie einfach durch das große Loch in meinem Bauch einsaugen.

    Chili Nr. 8
    Helenas “Heiliger Strohsack” Chili
    Richter 1
    Ein perfekter Ausklang; ein ausgewogenes Chili, pikant und für jeden geeignet. Nicht zu wuchtig, aber würzig genug um auf seine Existenz hinzuweisen.
    Richter 2
    Dieser letzte Bewerber ist ein gut balanciertes Chili, weder zu mild noch zu scharf.
    Bedauerlich nur, dass das meiste davon verloren ging, als Richter Nr. 3 ohnmächtig vom Stuhl fiel und dabei den Topf über sich ausleerte. Bin mir nicht sicher, ob er durchkommt. Armer Kerl; ich frage mich, wie er auf ein richtig scharfes Chili reagiert hätte.
    Ich
    …

    Peter Busfield

    1. Hmm, can’t be funny. It’s a well-known fact that Germans have no sense of humour. {:¬))

      1. The same as the rest of the civilised world then? Merely a way of disguising poor meat for the third world.

    5. Ha! Thanks for the giggle. Weird that it’s in German, though; I was once warned off a bowl of carrot soup because it was zu scharf!!! – es gibt INGWER drin …

    1. One thing about the medicines from the Apoteket here in Sweden, the caps just screw off easily without needing to push them in first.

      1. When i complained about these push caps and other types as well, I was told they were following EU directives.

        1. They’re childproof. We give them to the grandchildren to open. :-))

          1. Ever since video recorders were invented, every household has needed a grandchild.

        2. If that’s the case then Sweden must be openly defying those same directives.

          1. Don’t worry, Canada followed the same directive, must be part of the free trade deal.

            I can buy bottles containing a hundred allergy pills without the push top, selective child protection I suppose.

    2. We are losing our country to the mob. If nothing is done it will end far worse than if early action was taken.

      1. They have defaced the statue of Churchill on this day of all days , and no one has been arrested . These people of a different colour and odour need sending back to the murderous kingdoms and tribes of their grandfathers , if I were PM I would remove their British passports and rights of residence, education. welfare and health and housing. They have insulted the memory one of the greatest men this past hundred years has produced .

        1. Many of those people are not black – they probably have no idea of history either.

          1. They are of the generation who thought that Churchill started the (imperialist) war and attacked poor, defenceless Germany.

        2. Funnily enough Winston used to be a very favoured Christian name given to black boys by their parents to honour the great man for whom they had such respect.

      2. The police used to be important now they are impotent. Shame on dame dick. Shame on Home Secretary. Shame on the whole bloody shebang.

  58. I got a flash message a few minutes ago that the Welsh have agreed that 16 year olds can vote in Welsh elections. It may have been recorded on this site but I am a bit late to the party today. Sadly I didn’t catch the source.

      1. It puts pressure on the UK government to follow suit. I hope Boris sticks to 18 as the starting age.

        1. Once the left can get it reduced to 16, I doubt you will ever see a Conservative government again, not even the wishy ones like the recent past.

          1. We were told their brains don’t mature until at least 25. (used to excuse the grown up migrants disguised as children).

            I think only tax payers should be allowed to vote.

    2. Thin end of the wedge – won’t be long before they’ll demand voting at 16 in the general elections…..

    3. Age qualifications have always been necessary for things like club membership, driving licences, drinking in pubs, voting in elections, sexual consent etc. etc .

      I have two sons the older of which always tried to take over. When Henry, the younger of the two, was 10 years old he made some friends of his own age and they formed a club and drew up the club’s rules. Of course Christo, aged 12, wanted to take over and run the club but the articles of association clearly stated that nobody with pubic hair was allowed to join the club and so his application for membership was rejected.

        1. I think that most boys of 12 are so proud of the physical signs of growing up that nothing would induce them to take such drastic action.

    4. Certainly true for the next assembly elections — a Lab/Plaid ” government” now guaranteed.

        1. That’s not a bad idea letting just the women have the vote – the chaps could then sit back and nod sagely….

          1. Once they have told the girls which way to vote, of course….

            (Takes even deeper cover).

    5. Why as late as that?

      They should vote as soon as they can go to school.

      1. But did he deserve the fast track to hell courtesy of some cop and his buddies?

        He was a mighty big guy as well, deserved to be handled with caution.

        1. Of course he didn’t, but then glorifying a two bit drugged up gangsta seems somewhat bizarre to me.

          And as you say, this was a big guy, apparently high on drugs, who couldn’t be controlled inside the police car. It might also have been an unfortunate accident. If the police had deliberately set out to kill him they could have found easier ways.

          The use of his death to justify the killings, looting and criminal damage all across the States also seems somewhat bizarre to me.

        2. No – of course he didn’t. But the officer was rightly sacked and charged with murder.

    2. Trump sometimes earns the disrespect.

      How about his attack on Republican Joe Scarborough? Representative Scarbourough dislikes Trump, is that a reason to dug up twenty year old, often disproved claims that he was responsible for the death of a young woman who worked for him

      Fake media half of the posters here will claim, must be mad max. For once, take a look at what Trump is doing with his vindictive campaign against anyone not following him. If he cut out this type of BS, whatever good he does might be recognized.

      1. I keep an open mind on Trump – he seems to use Twitter as others might just jot their musings in a diary for their own and nobcdy else’s reading. He tweets or speaks before he thinks. He doesn’t care or think about anybody else’s opinions.

        He was doing quite well as President until this year’s crises.

    2. The rioters and looters aren’t. They’d rather those evil white men had died NOT fighting for their freedoms to protest… but then they wouldn’t be able to protest so we would never know…

      Hmm. Bit of a paradox there.

  64. Apropos my earlier comment re Norwich City Council. Latest NCC response and a few comments from ordinary – I think that means ‘unwoke’ – people.
    Apologies, the full response from NCC has not pasted across.

    https://twitter.com/NorwichCC/status/1268879553964933121

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d3fb659ab268029103bb02a9401cbcf1d63f683f3dd4bd1c85190e680548a0a9.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/75f474e2e4f0ae48ffd0c3f064be4c229e97ee60639ba727d28f94a267a20616.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e693c0125968396d593f364a49d0be7cab658e90ee706d5c43e90ec0ae366266.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b8b381d74ff8484c065d9387773f9eb7df82749983900c34975e5b730a94d5da.png

    1. Depressingly, I don’t think matters two hoots which party controls a local council, or even a national government.
      They all seem equally weak kneed.

      1. Whenever I used to attend council meetings, voluntarily or as part of my job, I invariably lost the will to live after having to suffer listening to the bilge that was spouted therein.

          3. Friends in high places? Bookbinder is/was a totally repulsive man in all respects.

        2. Staff meetings in schools are terminally tedious. I used to arrange an extra English class for my “A” level Eng.Lit. class which started soon after the Staff meeting giving me an excellent excuse to leave.

          1. I used to fall asleep in meetings in Sweden. Made my boss wild but there was nothing she could do about it.

      2. The “elected” members are completely under the thumbs of the gauleiters council officers.

      1. Does Norwich and some of its people suffer from a high level of parochialism? I did a lot of work in Norwich and found that some of the people wanted to retain control of everything, including my data scripts. I had to push the problem up the managerial tree to have the blockage removed in my favour: what the manager in Norwich wanted just wasn’t practicable and anyway, I wasn’t prepared to let others, even good mates of mine, take control of my team’s work.
        Another sign of ‘Norwich Rules’ was the inability of people, including me, who were earmarked for promotion into the managerial grades to obtain a position in the Norwich Telephone Area office. I was informed that Norwich Area only promoted out and I was advised to not waste my time trying. Known as the Norwich Telephone Company, it was a well earned sobriquet.

        1. I don’t really know about that so much, Korky, but I do know that when I worked at Norwich Airport, those who lived in the city always took great pains to tell me that they were ‘quite different’ from other Norfolk people who came from outside the city.

          ‘Really?’ I would answer.

      1. She actually looks nicely dressed, the rest of her clothes look clean and not threadbare, and her sandals look to be in good condition.

        1. In South Africa we passed the townships with dreadfully poor housing but all were well dressed with the men wearing ironed white shirts and the children smart school uniforms.

    3. Could it be because those Nigerian princes keep sending me emails about the US$10,000,000 that they are trying to smuggle out of the country?

          1. Can’t , not yet , social distancing and all that . We also need a thing put on the chimney to persuade them not to build there any more! They moved over to the chimney next door where the house is unoccupied at the moment! They had 4 chicks .

          2. I instigated a chimney fire in our last house in Dorset by burning some creosoted wood in the hearth. The flames shot up the chimney, there was a loud roaring & when I went into the rear garden to have a look, there was a blue cone of flame like an angry Bunsen burner
            shooting out of the pot. I wasn’t worried, because the whole chimney was outside the main wall, except I feared that some well-meaning neighbour might call the fire brigade, but they didn’t. All over in 15 minutes.

          3. We loved them at our last house where they did the same thing until it got cold and we lit the stove. Lot’s of sticks falling down but soon all clear. A man came with the protector thing, climbed a ladder three stories, walked up the roof and along the ridge and plonked it in. My hands were dripping as I watched.

  71. Now there’s bright sunshine again, the blackbird is singing his heart out & the roses, especially Bobbie James, are throwing out the scent.

  72. OT – cars. It is over 20 years since I had breakdown cover in the UK. Any of you got suggestions of good outfits (and, more importantly, those to avoid)

    1. I’ve been with Britannia Rescue for years. Needed them 5 or 6 times, always efficient and timely.

    2. Check with your insurance company,
      they sometimes offer very good deals
      on cover.
      I have found the RAC to be very efficient
      on the rare occasions I have had to call them out

      Good afternoon, Bill.

        1. Try LV. When MoH pranged her car last year they settled the claim within days and within one week she had a new set of wheels.

          I believe LV are currently Which recommended.

          1. My experience with them is disappointing. They tried to increase my house insurance premium for some spurious reason (years ago, can’t remember the reason) so I told the to gfam and went elsewhere.

          3. Liverpool Victoria. My sole experience of them was in 2007 when mum’s house was flooded. They were b awful.

    4. GEM. We had AA for 20 years but the price kept going up. We switched to RAC ten years ago but they swindled us. They changed their computer system 9 years ago and dropped the Sultana off the cover. The policy was worded as “principal insured” – myself -so was ignored, as we had not requested changes. Only discovered when Sultana phoned for assistance and they refused to turn up. (Wildly inconsistent and incompetent, as they had turned up to her call last year.). After writing to the CEO personally, and in bad temper we got some blah blah and some money back.
      So now we are in GEM. It is much cheaper, no strings, and they answer the phone. Of course we have no idea what their response is like, but they are the highest-rated organisation in reviews.

    6. With a Skoda Yeti you won’t need it. When was your last breakdown on the road, anyway?

  73. Totally off-topic

    A black kid asks his dad, “Dad, what’s democracy?”
    (Wait…the kid doesn’t know his Dad…let’s start again…)

    A black kid asks his mom, “Mama, what’s a democracy?”
    “Well, son, that’s when whites work every day so we can get all our benefits!”

    “But mama, don’t the white people get pissed off about that?”
    “Sure, they do but that’s called racism!”

    1. Some of the million that Professor Branestorm said would be dead by now….taking a break from distancing.

    2. Well, for those who like crowds it at least beats destroying our heritage in Whitehall.

        1. And dogs aren’t allowed on most beaches.
          Mind there are no bins…..
          But the morons wouldn’t know what a rubbish bin looked like.

          1. They could take it home with them if there are no bins – after all, presumably they brought it with them in the first place.

          2. Absolutely correct.
            Where we live we find lots of empty drinks containers and food packets strewn around on footpaths and tracks used by cyclists. It makes me angry when I see it. I have asked the parish council to provide bins. But I think they realise local residents clear it up, so the council can’t be bothered.
            I think that this reflects on the current situation of accepted anarchy going on today.

    1. I feel I’ve reached saturation with this victimhood narrative. It’s been going all my life, and the more people pander to it, the stronger it gets. I’m fed up now, and our government, police etc are useless.

        1. Well I gave up watching the BBC about twenty years ago, so that probably has something to do with it!

  76. From what I read most days in the press, black lives don’t matter a hoot to many black people who go out, deliberately, to kill other black people.

    Why is this, I wonder?…(sarc).

  77. I think I’ve just heard the most feebly dusguised admission of guilt ever.
    Surely ‘the black police association’ must be a racist set up. The head of it spoke on the bbc radio news half an hour ago.
    She had the insane notion that because black people who break the social distancing rules, do it to show not only solidarity but in doing so they show outstanding bravery.
    If this is the message and if they fall victims to the virus it can no longer be considered everyone else’s fault. Surely.
    And…….go and have a good lie down who ever you are. Take your time.

    1. I daresay that another inquiry will be needed to explain the spike in BAME deaths in July.

      1. Let us hope that the loose horse injured lots and lots of these fuckers.

      2. I thought that mounted police had long sticks or laths to strike offering mobsters. I remember seeing that at football matches.

    3. I can trump your suffering; I’ve just seen her on telly.
      She has a strange hairstyle.

  78. First we had Bill’s loaf and now we have Korky’s rolls. The second time I’ve made bread this week and also the second time in >30 years. Lessons learned: use Bill’s idea of a bowl of water in the oven and secondly, as one of this batch burned slightly I will, in future, use the large oven where a more even distribution of air from the fan is available. Two will disappear shortly as I munch them for my tea. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/49026c264b101b5ab7c3955358b32f7bf7ee0827ea76e308c7348027f35e7bac.jpg

    2. Nice buns.
      I’ve just baked a small sour dough.
      Friday is baked two very large white bloomers and two wholemeal.

      2. Yesterday I made a lemon Madeira cake with drizzle icing, it’s a cake my wife will eat and enjoy. Learning new, and honing a few old, skills during this lockdown.

          1. When she was able to do wifey cooking I was the fortunate one. She made wonderful cakes etc. Alas she no longer has the strength to do much at all.

          2. You making a lovely cake for her, Korky, has got to give her a lift!

    3. Very good, K. I can ONLY do tin loaves. My son – stuck at home with his wife and her two adult children – makes a couple of different types of loaf a DAY…!

      I have an AGA (spit) and have to turn the loaf round half way through the bake, because it is hotter at the back.

      1. I can’t do tin loaves because I no longer have any tins, something I will rectify when this virus nonsense eases. Last week’s effort was baked in a square cake tin but went out of shape: tasted fine. I used my small fan oven and turned the rolls at 20 minutes but one had started to burn so it’s the big oven in future.

          4. Probably my favourite shop/business. 3 year guarantee – always honoured. Listen to their customers; answer any question…

    4. I would have thought you were too old to be putting buns in ovens….
      };-O

    7. Why the obsession with white bread/ loaves, buns &etc?

      I never eat white bread …

      2. Dat’s ‘coz you’ze a Alligator.
        I trust dat you only eat white meat at the moment, bro.
        Black lives matter, don’tcha kno?

      3. Lucky you to have the choice. When my shopper purchased what the store had at the start of lockdown I was grateful for anything. Sometimes one has to take what is available and be thankful.

    1. We have witnessed the appeasement of the blacks in London and major cities several times in my lifetime. It never works out well. We are dealing with primitives and our Police need to get a grip and arrest and prosecute these goons.

      As to the support given by Soros-funded white youth I favour a few strokes of the birch and financial penalties to cover the cost of the damage they are doing to our monuments with their puerile graffiti and clearance of the mountains of rubbish they habitually leave behind.

      Edit: Watching the young men from the Household Cavalry attempting to remove graffiti from the Haig monument yesterday, whilst being hectored by some infantile Home Counties girl, I thought makes a case for reintroducing conscription. This would at least instil those old fashioned concepts of duty, respect, virtue, discipline and obedience into their corrupted minds.

    1. If they had not succeeded and the Nazis had won, I wonder if ‘Black Lives Matter’ would still be prominent today?

      1. Hitler was a mite p!ssed off over Jesse Owens, so I doubt the SS would be kowtowing a rampaging bunch of the differently tinted.

        1. Q: Who didn’t shake Owens hand after he won?
          A: He was the most successful athlete at the Games and, as a black man, was credited with “single-handedly crushing Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy”, although he “wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either”.[5] – Wikipedia.

        1. Well, I’m a a pure Aryan. Worth remembering that the Reichschancellor loved the German people and liked their English cousins.

        1. Many green faces before they got off the landing craft, due to the bad weather.

    3. And in today’s news, an elderly former soldier is to face a special court (no jury) for crimes alleged to have been committed in Northern Ireland decades ago.

  82. That’s me for what has been a slightly better day. Never without pain (or, thank you nurse, bearable discomfort) but at least the headache went. And the builder came to look at the roof leak – and promised to do a couple of other fiddly jobs.

    I don’t actually remember D-Day as such – but I do remember my mother being terribly excited in June 1944. And being taken out to see what we later knew as the overnight diversionary “Window” raids.

    I have made many visits to the Normandy battlefields and cemeteries – and am always moved to tears by how young they were – especially at Pegasus Bridge.

    Anyway – we are having flatiron steak for supper.

    I’ll join you tomorrow – in he hope that the storms will have abated and the gales dropped.

    A demain.

      1. Ask your village butcher for “paleron”.

        I assume you only buy meat from him? No one in his right mind would buy meat in a French supermarket.

        1. Grand Frais isn’t bad and you can get it cut by their resident butcher.

          Ours even advised us not to choose what we were after because it wasn’t particulary good that week and recommended an alternative that was superb..

          1. Good grief… A chain… Ugh.

            Each to their own. The MR spent hours discussing the different cuts between English and French butchers with our excellent village chap – who had fled Paris because of you known what.

            Gets yer French up to speed.

          2. We must be very lucky with our local chain store then.

            We buy on the twice weekly local market, we buy from various permanent stalls in the covered market and we buy a few from LeClerc.

            Grand Frais compares well with all of them.

          3. Visiting Grand Frais is a real breath of fresh air. Unfortunately our nearest is your local one in Bergerac. But their variety of fresh produce is unbeatable and makes the French supermarket chains look quite pathetic. And I can get undyed smoked haddock there! The only place I’ve seen it in France.

            BTW, to the left of GF, as you face the building, is a good wine merchant who sells wines that aren’t French! Yes really! They had a selection of Italian wines and a really good Californian Zinfandel at a reasonable price. Worth a look.

          4. Agreed.
            We’re also great fans of their Haddock!.

            If you have fussy/allergenic house guests, the Leopold Marché just up the road is also very good. We get guests in the cottage who have children with all sorts of problems, the LM has provided for all their needs so far.

          6. It’s a supermarket that specialises in Bio products and foods/ingredients for people with allergies, vegans, vegetarians etc.. Quite pricey but good quality. A number of our frieds have different food intolerances and we’ve managed to find things there that we’ve not seen elsewhere. We don’t use it very often, but some of the gite guests have said how good it is.

        2. I have always assumed paleron to be the equivalent of the cut of shin of beef here. We bought it regularly, always delicious with long slow cooking – 140 C for two and a half hours as a casserole with vegetables. We found very early on that supermarket meat was not a good idea, although la boucherie within the supermarket was acceptable, in season we would find some lovely Roussillon lamb, and steak hâché would be minced before your very eyes. I could never bring myself to try the tauro advertised in the local butchers after the Céret bull run (which brought crowds to the little town by the thousands) and the after ‘entertainment’, poor bulls.

          1. Flash fry for 30 seconds a side. The English call it “flat iron”. One usually has to order it from the village butcher.

        3. Paleron? Whenever I’ve bought paleron (and not from supermarkets) it has been completely tasteless and has resembled shoe leather on the plate. Absolute rubbish. Sorry Bill, but we buy our steak in the UK from known sources with provenance. French steak is a joke, sadly the indigenous population are brainwashed into believing it to be the world’s best. As you will know, it is impossibly to buy British beef in France. Their loss.

    3. I always weep when visiting even the smallest of the memorials particularly when reading the “visitors” books.

      For WW1 it’s the huge number of “known unto God” that really gets to me. Their name might well be on the walls of the grand memorials but the individual grave has no record of its occupant.

    4. Bill, leave the flat iron to another day (Tuesday is best after washing day on Monday) and enjoy the steak instead. :-))

      PS – Glad your day was slightly better.

    5. I too, have visited the Normandy battlefields, coastal defences and military cemeteries – with my wife and young children in 1977.

      We visited the British and American cemeteries – including the magnificent Omaha Beach cemetery – also the (grim) German War Cemetery of La Cambe; there were an astonishing number of recent tributes of dried flowers for the ‘residents’ …

        1. The German ones from WW1 are even bleaker. Big heaps covering massed graves and dark trees around them.
          Grim.

  83. Don’t you just love our weather?

    After a few spots of rain during the week,
    today we have a down pour which so far
    has lasted for longer than three hours; we now
    have a thunderstorm!

    1. Good afternoon, Flower.

      Just pitter patter here. Could do with a good hard rain. Strawberry, beans and trombetti would say thankyou.

    3. Stop boasting. We’re still getting the dullness and the cold, but precious little rain.

      1. Not half cold. Stove roaring away.

        The chaps who bought our house in Laure finally were able to move in on Thursday.

        It rained all day – without ceasing…..

  85. Yay. A female police sergeant of colour has given me the ultimate cop-out (sorreeeeee).
    If I stand next to people, if I mill around in a crowd of more than 6 people, that is fine.
    All I have to do is claim I feel passionately about something.

      1. They are looting black owned stores in their neighbourhoods and doubtless they will be wondering why there are no black owned stores to shop in when the rioting ends.

  87. Looks like government are showing themselves to be helpless in the face of demonstrations. That will only encourage more. Just waiting for it to kick off…

    1. I’ve reached the stage were I expect nothing else.
      The police only exist to bully the law-abiding.

    2. I think it has kicked off .. look what they are doing in Downing Street .

      The BLM mob have been given the goahead to do what ever they want . Our memorials will be trashed and and nothing will be safe . They hate us.

      1. Govt have shown weakness, and it will be exploited. Regaining control will be difficult. Remember 1981?

      2. The mistake we always make is hoping that the supplicant will be beholden to us for assisting them. They do not. In fact the more we give the more they hate us.

      3. The mistake we always make is hoping that the supplicant will be beholden to us for assisting them. They do not. In fact the more we give the more they hate us.

      4. Wasn’t the stage set for what we are now experiencing when the XR mobs were given carte blanche to close roads and destroy centuries old lawns in one of our great university cities? It is looking as if this government hasn’t the will to confront violent protestors, illegal immigrants, rape gangs, slavers etc. Currently the government ministers look like a complete bunch of losers and those waiting in the wings will be worse. What a mess.

  88. JD says in a thousand words what Nottlanders have been saying in a few dozen.

    Tell MPs ‘not in my name’ if you are horrified by this social experiment

    Are we going to stand for the pathological coercion of our nation – or finally start organising against it?

    JANET DALEY

    Many people who lived through the last war – or whose parents have vivid recollections of it – will tell you that they are infuriated by any suggestion that our present emergency is anywhere near comparable to that experience. We are not descending into bomb shelters at night, emerging in the morning possibly to find our homes and family possessions destroyed. The deprivations that we are enduring today are relatively trivial: locked in, as most of us are, with our myriad electronic devices and forms of entertainment which would have seemed magical to that stoical population gathered around the wireless every evening to listen to whatever the government permitted the BBC to offer.

    No, our lives now are nothing like theirs in terms of either scarcity of food and comfort, or actual danger. And yet… even in the worst stages of the Blitz, people were allowed to hug one another, to meet and embrace their loved ones even when they had recently been far away (like the men who came home from the front on leave), to sit huddled together with strangers during the most frightening moments, to have sex with someone who was not currently a member of the same household, to form new relationships that involved physical proximity, to share a convivial drink with neighbours and friends.

    I expect you can see what I am suggesting here. The material privations that are being imposed on our society may be nothing like as severe as those of the Second World War, nor are they likely to last anything like so long. But they are much more unnatural and especially alien to the human impulses that prevail in times of anxiety and loss of life.

    With very little apparent concern or consideration of the possible consequences, we are engaging in an unprecedented social experiment. In effect, the government is coercing an entire population into behaving in ways that were once manifested only by people with pathological conditions like agoraphobia or extreme anxiety about personal contact. It is quite remarkable how little general discussion there has been of this.

    Those who object are regarded as either foolishly sentimental or, oddly, the very opposite – ruthlessly determined to put practical considerations (like the economic future) above the need to protect lives. And this is being done – the undertaking of all this unquantifiable, speculative social intervention – in the name of that small proportion of people who are known to be, in truth, the only ones in real danger from the virus.

    So as someone who just about counts, because of my age, as one of those being protected by everybody else’s sacrifices, I assume the moral right to say this: please don’t. Don’t give up the freedoms and the opportunities that are proper to your stage of life for my sake and do not go meekly into that imprisonment to which the government has sentenced you. Since age is the main issue here, surely those in the relevant category count as grown-ups?

    I, and presumably many of the others (but not all, I realise) who are being protected at such cost, are fit to make judgements about how much danger we are actually in, and what matters most to us in this equation. It absolutely horrifies me to think that my grandchildren might be disadvantaged into the indefinite future, in order (possibly) to protect their grandparents’ generation from – what?

    Mortal illness – which must come in some form eventually? The inevitability of death? This may not (perhaps cannot) be understood by 45-year-old government ministers and their similarly aged scientific advisors but one’s perspective on these things changes with time. Into your eight or ninth decade, you come to terms with the fact of mortality and come to appreciate the most basic truth of the human condition: that nothing is more important than family and friendship.

    By all means, let those for whom the danger is actually greatest (or who do not have the capacity to make a conscious decision) be given maximum protection. But leave it to the rest – who have been told by countless television medics and health page features that chronological age means almost nothing anymore – and to those who care for them, to decide on their own priorities. Of course, they must not (and I can promise you, will not) be irresponsible. Otherwise, I cannot see how this is ever going to end.

    The most pernicious of these measures – the social distancing rule which makes an aberration of the most basic emotional need – is the one that the scientific authorities are most adamant must remain. At first we were told that it must stay in place “until we have a vaccine”. Then, without any explanation or apology, we were being given the new message that there might never be a vaccine.

    So normal human interaction is to be suspended far, far into the future? When the number of new cases is down to almost nothing, will we hear yet more about the risk of a “second wave” in the autumn, or the winter, or next year? When – and on what grounds – do we decide that this is over? Or is that logically impossible? Must it be decided simply by popular resistance and a gradual collapse of government authority?

    Surely, Downing Street must be thinking about this, even if their scientific advisors’ narrow frame of reference does not allow for it. Perhaps the prime minister is too influenced by opinion polling which apparently shows that a fair cohort of the population does not want the lockdown relaxed – at least not yet (maybe never). If so, he is being misled. The pollsters’ question – do you support these repressive laws or would you rather just let people die? – can only be answered in one way. It means next to nothing.

    Here is the more important question, to be asked of those on whose behalf all this damage is being done: is this what you want? If you are inclined to say that it is not, why not write to your MP or petition the government and say so? Perhaps we could adopt that slogan immortalised by anti-war protesters: not in my name.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/06/tell-mps-not-name-horrified-social-experiment/

    1. “to have sex with someone who was not currently a member of the same household” Gawd, just think of all the incestuous goings on, and not just in Cornwall.

      2. Up until the age of 32 I never had sex with anyone who WAS a member of my household. Only because I lived alone.

    1. Stupid ********. We should be raising standards to exclude keep cheap junk.

      1. Ichneumon fly?

        I used to watch their grubs emerging from caterpillars on my way home from school.

    3. Gosh, what a wonderful loaf … bet it smells delicious .

      We had rain here for five minutes .. very drying wind .. and it was so cold when we walked the dogs , I wore my thick fleece jacket .

      1. A loaf lasts the two of us three days. A habit I learned in France 60 years ago – always have bread with a meal.

    5. Talk about great minds – my loaf should be ready in about an hour and half…

        2. It looks delicious. A loaf like Mrs Gunner used to sell in the 50’s.
          I believe they shut down years ago and the brand is now Islamic.

          1. Mrs Gunner? Didn’t her husband feed dodgy beefburgers to his own daughter?

          3. There was a small chain of shops. My grandfather knew her well and when I was sent to buy a “split tin” and other bread for the family she would offer me a small cake or some fruit. To me she looked about a hundred.

          1. My set is called “the MR”. The moment any excess appears, she ensures that it is removed pronto.

        3. So do I Bill, but I can’t find a set of scales that’d confirm it.

    8. Artanoon Bill. Looks great is it for trombetti sandwiches? My loaf finished about 45 minutes ago.

    9. Your butler looks a bit glum there, Bill. Did he not get a pay rise this year? ;-))

    10. Wow. I just took a white sourdough loaf from the breadmaker, sliced it and put it in the freezer (before I saw your post, or I’d have traded photos). I’ve learned to stop the machine 10 minutes before the ‘end time’, otherwise the loaf is a bugger to get out of the tin. I’ve finally started using the Fermipan yeast, and am more than happy with the result. Bon appétit…

    11. Wowsers. No wonder you’re chuffed.
      I’ve piled up yet more books I can’t get rid of because the charity shops are closed.
      Oh – and I forgot how to assemble an archive box.

      1. The first one takes about an hour. Then, they are progressively simpler. I speak from vivid recent memory….

    2. The perlice were kneeling in admiration at the time.

      The last tosser who did that was identified and banged up – much to the disgust of his luvvie sleb parents.

  93. No arrests in parliament square, thousands breaking the rules. Wadda fiasco……again.

    2. I’m past being surprised. I’m just becoming lethargic and switched off.
      I’m probably like many Germans in the 1930s.

        1. Exactly. These past few weeks have given me insight into how stuff like Hitler and Stalin happen.
          You just feel helpless and unable to care any longer.

    4. They are adhering to the recommendation to wear masks. Does this mean that the police won’t be able to identify them from photos and videos?
      Is this some kind of karma driven unintended consequence?

      PS. But me they will vilify and prosecute if I go into a shop or get on a bus with no mask…

    1. Oh, thanks. There are some things on that list that I have never heard of. Now I have. Now I have something more to worry about…

      1. Shigellosis and rotavirus killing three thousand a day, who would have thought it? That must be somewhere around the maximum daily covid count.

    2. The current covid figure is ~ 2,500 a day since we are told it started, so it is scary.

      What I do not trust at all is the way covid is blamed when there are so many other underlying causes where covid is merely one of those cited. I doubt that the figures for Covid as a singularity are particularly high.

        1. ‘Afternoon, Sos, just like the government and Mostly Shit Media, we need to strike the fear of fake into their weak, sheepish, little minds.

    4. Where’s road and house hold accidents?

      Even if we exclude the nutter nations like Italy and India the graph would still need to increase by a factor of 100.

    5. Good afternoon, Our Susan

      All the big numbers apply to people in far away places of which we know little and care even less.

      Places where billions in western “aid” might have solved many of the medical problems. But was stolen by the dictatorial tribal chiefs and stashed in Swiss banks.

      1. ‘Afternoon, Bill, it helps to keep the population down a bit.

        Oh, wait a minute – no contraception or sterilisation….

        1. Just teach ’em to boil water before use, Anne, never mind £2 a month crap.

    6. March 9th eh? Why not find a chart for January 1st if you want to downplay the effect? Or perhaps April 1st after the bug spread a bit.

        1. It’s time we had a chuckle , this lack of hugs and personal contacts is getting me down.

          Although we did sell a chunk of land yesterday. It was on the market for less than a day at a “you must be joking” price. No subject to contract here, the signed, accepted offer is legally binding.

  95. Am I alone in thinking it hypocritical that protestors who are ‘remembering’ the death of a black criminal are defacing monuments to people who gave their lives so that these protestors could destroy society?

      1. I am the least racist of people. My last two girlfriends were from the Philippines, and I found the exotic alluring. I have black cousins in America. I am proud of my parish priest coming from Malawi, and a former parson’s wife in my village being a Tamil from Sri Lanka. One brother has married an Italian, and my sister married a Jew.

        Yet, just in the space of the week as we witness the deification of an American criminal for being murdered by an American policeman only fractionally less vile, every bulletin is turning me into a racist to the extent that I want nothing more to do with these people and their campaign, and rather resent their intrusion on my well-being and my country.

        The whole premise of American culture is a conflict between one group of settlers and another. The indigenous folk have long been banished into reservations where their culture has been debased into little more than providing gambling dens. This is not my culture, and I consider myself an indigene and resist all invasion from settler tribes with gangster American values of the street or the debased and rootless values of the dispossessed American.

        I do not forgive those black Londoners who broke into my car in 1992 and stole a much-loved violin that had belonged to my mother and grandfather just to feed a drug habit. I weep inside each time I hear Alma Deutscher play her Stradivarius, because I miss the violin that I was just beginning to master. Gangs were seen hanging around the street the evening it happened.

        There was this big fat black woman on the tube last year who refused to move away from the door to let more people in from the platform, and accused me of molesting her when I pushed her out of the way to make room. She said her rights were more important than anyone else’s.

        I wish they would go away, and I have no desire to go to London or any other city in my country where they hang around, and certainly do not have any wish to listen to their music, however much the rappers are praised by media people.

        1. Sorry to hear about your personal experiences Jeremy. Having worked, lived and played in London myself, I can only say that my encounters of criminal activity or unpleasantness have not been attributable to any particular section of the community. Maybe I’ve been in different parts of the city.

        2. “I am the least racist of people. My last two girlfriends were from the Philippines…”

          Be very wary of using such an opening line in public. It can lead to that “Some of my best friends are black” moment, so loved by the Guardianistas.

          Anyone who ever finds himself in such a corner must first reject the charge and then respond with: “…and some of my worst enemies are white.”

          1. When I was an SDP activist in the 1980s, I objected at Party Conference to race questionnaires, even when proposed by Shirley Williams, and continue to object to questions on skin colour being put on the census returns. The less racial awareness, the better, as far as I am concerned. I was also a Guardian reader then, and married to a Methodist active with the Peace Movement.

            It is also true that some of my worst enemies come from my own racial background. I married one and was divorced by one. My own daughter declared that fathers are not important, and ridicules any attempt by me to be a father to her. She is now 33 years old and completely estranged from me. Another enemy of mine was the father of a girl I fell in love with in the nineties who pursued me with a vendetta that was as spiteful as it was malicious – he got me blacklisted from any employment as well as chasing me out of the Bromyard Folk Festival and a New Years Eve ceilidh I used to attend regularly in West Malvern, and was part of a witch hunt that has blighted many innocent lives, including the Benedictine monk that baptised me.

            However, I judge them by who they are and what they did to me, and not by their skin colour. If they choose to identify themselves as my enemy because I belong to the wrong group, then I do feel I have licence to dislike them and return the feelings. This is certainly the case with BLM as it is with feminists and militant islamists.

          2. Hi Jeremy,
            I loathe racial profiling on official questionnaires.
            For what it’s worth, I identify as Anglo-Saxon; also I note that Irish and Northern Irish people are considered to be (ethnically) separate populations by the British Government (who are just a bunch of Normans).

          3. We might struggle to find many Normans in the Government. As far as I recall the Home Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are both Indians, the Foreign Secretary is a Czech Jew, the PM an American-born Turk, and the Head of State is a mix of German and Scottish. Even Henry VIII was the product of a liaison between a French widow and a bit of rough from North Wales. The only true Englishman, if we believe what BBC types assert, is David Lammy.

            If I must put down something on forms, I prefer the term ‘Mongrel’, and my skin colour a sort of Maggot Off (I believe Dulux has another name for it). I know, judging by the number of red beards in the family, there is Celt in there. I also remarked how many Dutch people look my paternal grandmother, who had a Dutch-sounding maiden name.

            As for telling apart the vastly different ethnic groups in Ireland, the simplest way to tell them apart is: Wear Green = Republic, Bowler Hat = Northern Irish. The English have a separate ethnicity for each county. Woe betide anyone who refers to a Yorkshireman as a Lancastrian, and suggest either share any DNA with those hailing from Surrey.

          4. Well said, and although I like Boris, you hit the nail in his head. A Yankee Turk! But also a classic liberal. The Welsh are probably what remains of the original English people, if one were able to do enough dna tests.

  96. The Poison Dwarf was on R4 this morning, full of self-justification for his blatantly partisan (and alleged bullying) conduct. The way he went on, anyone would think that he walked on water as Mr Squeaker, whereas quite a few of us would wish that he was under it. The one bright moment in his otherwise sickening hubris was his admission that he would have liked a peerage, so that he could go on supporting good causes – including his own, presumably. His disappointment was palpable, I’m pleased to report

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8394599/John-Bercow-says-lot-enemies-reveals-disappointment-snubbed-peerage.html

    1. He was my MP Hugh. His answers to my written missives were not always acceptable (or reasonable). I met him in my village a couple of times over various issues, one issue was HS2. He was very affable, he even bought me a pint in my local (he had a very telling half of lager). He came across as a diplomatic but not committed constituency MP who said the right things and made the right faces to suit the moment.

      Various aspects of his conduct as speaker were inexcusable.

      His lack of peerage will be eating into him for years. No loss really.

    2. I know let’s have an Annual Quarantine Day(s)- From March 24th to say 1st July should do it……

  98. “From the Telegraph to the Daily Mail via the Guardian, hacks are busily assigning C19/economic blame to those they don’t like. This is not the fast lane to Truth. I don’t like BoJo much either; but I despise the anti-Brexit media > Whitehall > Diehard Tory > Internationalist Left axis that will plumb every depth in a bid to be rid of the People’s will to be independent.”

    John Ward on song over on the Slog:

    https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2020/06/06/opinion-why-media-accountability-has-become-an-oxymoron/

    1. I don’t know why these machines aren’t fitted with a gun that sprays indelible purple dye when they are being subjected to a violent attack….

      (Yes I did think about bullets but dye won’t actually kill any innocent passer by)….

      1. I’ve always thought the authorities should load water cannon with a fluorescent dye so that rioters can be rounded up later.

          1. In Sweden we had to wear blue tops & white trousers as scrubs. I smuggled one of the tops away as a souvenir.

          2. My dentist wears white scrubs. Tight in all the right places, she’s rather cute.

      2. There was a system whereby the notes were sprayed in that way, rendering them unusable. Maybe your idea is better, but purple might not show up on some of the perpetrators.

    2. Hate to say it but, It’s quite likely these awful demos, robbery, looting etc have just confirmed the previous impressions.

      2. They have indeed. And I thought that it was just my own bigoted thoughts that imagined blacks as law breaking thugs mired in a violent gang culture.

        2. They keep making heros out of law breaking thugs mired in violent gang culture, so it’s not surprising.

  101. Latest news from Le Figaro.

    President Trudeau joined a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Ottawa today and publicly went down on bended knee for 8 minutes and 46 seconds which, apparently, was the length of time the police officer had his knee on George Floyd’s throat.

    How many Nottlers are delighted to see that the leader of a former British colony is setting such an inspirational example to us all!

    4. And they showed that degrading spectacle on TV every hour, on the hour.

      I am surprised that he went tat far, it must have been tough balancing his luvvie feelings against the fear of upsetting Trump.

    1. That’s criminal. Where’s this lower life than amoeba from. Should be dismissed and lose his pension. Wonder if he was a fast tracked plonker.

        1. Like the rest of the police services. Lost the plot just listened to some news and police standing around not policing while vandals deface Churchill’s statue in Exparliament Square. Nobody cares anymore. They are all just standers and watchers. Makes me so angry.

          1. Yes, it’s all too easy to believe that that guy is the real thing when you see them in inaction.

            The ones I feel sorry for are the really dedicated police.

            The ones who run towards danger while normal people cower.

            The ones who handle the aftermath when things go wrong.
            The ones who have to get tough when the riots start.

          3. I not sure you’re right, the exhibitionists just get more airtime.

            The ones I knew in the UK were very dedicated.

          5. True. They’re probably being held in reserve for when it all kicks off tonight.

        1. Yes. It all of us at some time in our lives. I’m quite relaxed about. In the scheme of things it didn’t kill anyone.

    1. Good night, Peddy. The weather has calmed down here and all is tranquil now.

      1. We had 5mts of rain , that was it . We need more, the wind was so drying .. if it doesn’t rain tomorrow , the garden will need watering again.

        Goodnight PM.

        2. I trust you abbreviation is 5 minutes not 5 metres. We had a very prolonged and heavy rain storm from an extremely large fat,black and slow moving cloud, which wasn’t supposed to happen. The forecast was showing sunshine for the last couple of hours of the evening, so I went for a walk to my shed (about half a mile from home), which I reached before the rain reached me. At least the rain filled all my buckets so I have water again when I need to wash finds.

  106. Black lives matter no more nor less than than white lives. Everyone’s life is precious. Unfortunately we are having to deal with morons who believe that black lives matter more than white lives.

    These advocates are mostly stupid ignorant morons with no self-awareness and little knowledge of history. We have to give these idiots a little space to rethink their prejudices but now is probably the moment to put a stop to this nonsense.

    1. I am becoming a bit annoyed by this repeated white privilege mantra. After time served in Burma, my father became a milkman working on a farm, tied cottage and all that. I fail to see how we enjoyed white or any other bloody coloured privilege. It might not have been serfdom but it wasn’t much better, since there were no black kids to harass, the poor kids took the brunt of any us vs them shenanigans.

      White privilege, not round here.

      1. My dad served with The Royal Artillery in Burma. I have his Burma Star. He went out as a fresh faced soldier and returned a bit of a wreck.

      2. My dad served with The Royal Artillery in Burma. I have his Burma Star. He went out as a fresh faced soldier and returned a bit of a wreck.

      1. The protesters in Bath appear to be mostly white. I suppose anything will do for a protest. Cummings’ trip or an American criminal murdered, it’s all the same to them. Next week it’ll be back to climate change.

      2. These folk are not Bathonians but shallow imports. They care and know nothing of the privations of Bathonians during the last war.

  107. Thought for the day.

    If Covid is still rampant and thousands of BAME BLM protesters catch it from white antifa super spreaders and die, is that racism in action?

    1. ” …is that racism in action?

      No; merely the corollary of Darwinism, sos: The extinction of the witless and fitless …

  108. “The demonstrations were largely peaceful but in London some demonstrators clashed with the police.”

    So ended Radio 4’s 10pm news bulletin.

    1. Bikes were thrown at the police horses, one of which lost his rider and bolted through the crowd.

  109. Time to start preparing supper.

    Whole lemon sole with a caper-lemon-shrimp sauce, new potatoes, washed down with NZ SB, followed by Brie, then summer pudding & cream.

    Man gönnt sich ja sonst nichts.

      1. ‘Morning, John.

        Tonight I’m having tagliatelle with an aubergine sauce.

  112. The next time one of these protest marches happens (tomorrow?) the police should just let them get on with it.

    If they burn down 10 Downing Street so be it. Let them attack Buckingham Palace and let the Guards deal with that.

    It might just wake up the woke to the way they’ve been manipulated.

      1. When the mob burns their outlets, The BBC, The Guardian, their white privilege houses etc. they will be awoken, trust me.

          1. One needs to be very careful when using such statistics.

            Within the whole of London “whites” are still the greatest proportion, but they are now in their own enclaves, which themselves are shrinking. Give it five years, ten at most and white British will be just another minority.

  114. A section of the community has decided it is beyond the law and can do as it pleases. It just confirms that the steriotypical image was correct, but we knew that already. What will the authorities do, take the knee or give it.

      1. I was under the impression that Mr Floyd was given the knee, I don’t think the protesters have seen the link yet.

  117. A few days ago we witnessed this symbol of abject defeat and surrender.

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/NINTCHDBPICT000587032472.jpg?w=620

    I’ve looked into it but for some odd reason there is no mention of how these two were fired a few minutes later. Which, of course, they must have been.

    After all, had it been a demo about Muslim grooming gangs things would be very different.

    Recently Naga Munchetty, an Indian employed by the BBC (why?) put forward the idea that she and other presenters were not supposed to be neutral. I’ve looked into it but for some odd reason there is no mention of how she was fired a few minutes later. Which, of course, she must have been, especially as it’s her second offence.

    I sit on that sofa as a woman, as a person of colour from an ethnic minority who is not a robot.

    We’re talking about Black Lives Matter now, we’re talking about George Floyd. We are not robots. We are not there to simply, blankly, read the news. That isn’t our job.

    Heathrow airport is that way => pack your bags.

    1. I’ve just caught a few minutes of the BBC news coverage of yesterday afternoons demonstration. The “reporter” Chi Chi Uzundu, might as well have been a demonstrator. Her support for it was unequivocal!

        1. Morning Rik. That’s the footage but Izundu’s contribution has been edited out. Lol!

      2. That appears to be the tone of the entire Anglo-American media.

        But remember folks, no one controls the media, no one gives orders, they are all brave seekers after truth. If they all say the same thing (and they do) then that’s merely because it is the truth.

    2. Munchetty was born on 25 February 1975 in Streatham, South London.

      Bit difficult to repatriate her.

      1. Munchetty was born on 25 February 1975 in Streatham, South London.

        Bit difficult to repatriate her.

        Then we’re doomed aren’t we. But ‘difficult’ is not a synonym for ‘impossible’.

        Every year there are more Naga Munchettys who of course are ‘British’. One day there will be more of them than us and then it’s game over since we can be sure that stoked with an endless diet of resentment, self-righteous anger, and the horrors of white privilege they will be sure to deal with us ruthlessly.

        Does anything about her, other than her passport, make her British? Has she apologised to Indians for the alleged crimes of the British Empire in India? I mean after all, she’s British not Indian. It’s like Tebbit’s cricket test but in a form that means something. Someone should ask her!

        In the 1920s millions of Greeks were ethnically cleansed from Turkey. In 1945 millions of Germans were ethnically cleansed from various parts of Europe. Nearly a million pied-noir left Algeria in the 1960s. Idi Amin kicked out 60,000 Asians from Uganda. Has some fundamental change in the international order happened since then?

Comments are closed.