Tuesday 23 June: A return to normal life is prevented by examples of pointless paralysis

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/06/22/lettersa-return-normal-life-prevented-examples-pointless-paralysis/

756 thoughts on “Tuesday 23 June: A return to normal life is prevented by examples of pointless paralysis”

          1. Indeed. Still looking at the daisies from the sunny side…
            Glad for that, BSK.

  2. “I’m ashamed and embarrassed that a small number of our fans have decided to put that around the stadium,” said Mee. […] “It’s not right, we totally condemn it.”

    These comments are referring to a banner saying ‘White Lives Matter’ flown above a football match.

    So (c) Mr Mee, how do you think your club’s white players and fans will feel knowing that you dont think their lives matter?

    1. Of course. It’s only a matter of time before they are ejected from the club for racial impurity from the black ideal. To oppose this is racist, it seems.

      1. They shouldn’t wait to be thrown out, they should boycott every game from now on.
        There is absolutely nothing more effective than hitting the club in the pocket, but they won’t, and for that reason I don’t care how theses fans are treated!

        1. 320517+ up ticks,
          Morning VVOF,
          Precisely, people power used correctly
          hit them in the turnstile takings.
          People power works in the polling booth
          and is successful in bringing the Country to it’s knees why not make it work for the
          Countries benefit.

    2. Shock, horror – not everyone agrees with the propaganda put out by Black Lives Matter, which is a political organisation not a Civil Rights movement.

    3. Morning, BSK.
      I wonder what percentage of their paying customers are white?
      Any chance they might boycott the club?

    1. We had that last week – and maybe this week as well. 30C last week, then Saturday it rained it down to about 17C. 30C again today, apparently.
      Gorgeous morning – cool & shiny, not a cloud in the sky, which is that steel colour well-known in hotter climes.

    3. I wish we could go back to Farenheit scale.
      Every time I hear a Centigradectemp I have to compare it mentally to the only reference point I know, which is 28=82.

      With Farenheit, I know exactly what thickness of blouse, length of sleeve to wear to be comfortable.

      1. I’m the opposite, BSK. I know 104F is a tad warm, but apart from that, C is the measure I can cope with.
        -12C and below = cold (breath freezes in your nose as you breathe in)
        +35C and above = warm (Breath scorches the rim of your nostrils as you breathe in)
        Between = comfortable
        Never worn a blose, so can’t comment. SWMBO has some lovely, floaty, ultra-feminine ones made from Indian cotton. Very summery!

      2. Morning Stormy. With 2 other reference points you can work any temperature out.

        16=61 and 0=32.

      3. When centigrade is literally part of 100, why is it so difficult? Why convert it?

        It’s simple: 14’c is pleasant, 18′ is warm, 19.5 is too hot.

      1. I think JBF may be referring to today’s last letter…

        Marie Stopes and eugenics as ‘racial progress’

        SIR – Given that University College London is to remove the names of Francis Galton and Karl Pearson from lecture theatres (report, June 20) because of their views on eugenics, it is surprising that it continues to celebrate the name of Dr Marie Stopes.

        Galton and Pearson provided the theoretical basis for eugenics, but it was Stopes who applied eugenic breeding practically in Britain by opening the Mothers’ Clinic in Holloway in 1921.

        As Sir James Barr (the vice president of the clinic and former ex-president of the British Medical Association) put it: “You and your husband have inaugurated a great movement which I hope will eventually get rid of our C3 population and exterminate poverty. The only way to raise an A1 population is to breed them.”

        Stopes’s eugenic intent was reflected in the clinic’s slogan: “Joyous and Deliberate Motherhood, a Sure Light in our Racial Darkness.” It figured in the tenets of her Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress, and even in the branding of her contraceptive devices – the “Pro-Race” and later, “Racial” cervical caps. On her death in 1958, she left her Whitfield Street clinic in Whitfield Street to the Eugenics Society.

        While Stopes’s contemporary disciples spin her work as giving women “reproductive choice”, in the case of those she deemed “parasites” who should face compulsory sterilisation, the choice would have been made by the state.
        Mark Halliday Sutherland

        1. Blimey.
          Assistant to Dr Mengele, was she?
          Next stop after not allowing them to breed is rubbing out the ones who have already bred.

        2. The race she was concerned about was, presumably, the white variety. Clearly it’s a case of burn the witch!

  5. Boris has been hamstrung by the election result, having an 80 seat majority doesn’t give him much excuse for not doing what the people voted for, he is clearly floundering, painted into a corner, how does he follow world government instructions and trash his country without any plausible reason?

    1. 320517+ up ticks,
      Morning B3,
      He cannot serve two masters & that is why the political butler is taking over the household reversing the roles
      of as was.

  6. Even after the white carnage on Saturday our MSM still wont support the white lives matter banner flown over Burnley yesterday

    1. Hi Bob, it’s the rules you see:

      “White Lives Matter” = Racist

      “Black Lives Matter” = take a knee, apologise for everything in history, tear apart your culture and let the mob do as it pleases.

      We are doomed.

    2. They are associating that with right wing politics..

      White lives do matter , and considering we have had 3 good men stabbed to death in a park a few days ago , the message white lives matter, all lives matter .

      The media just don’t get it.

      The Black Broadcasting Company are going overboard for reaction.

      1. the BBC does have a problem looming up in the future. to make room for black eople in the BBC they are going to have to fire other black people.
        Already 110% of BBC staff are BAMEs, except for 2, Sue and the Director-General.

  8. Morning all. Back home in Surrey away from central London and constant protest.

    SIR – The audiology departments of three local NHS trust hospitals tell me they cannot open until given permission to do so by NHS England.

    Hearing aids can only be serviced if they are posted to a department, which will then post them back.

    Since March, I and countless other deaf people have become ever more isolated, not by fears about Covid-19, but by the deterioration of what little hearing we may have left. Without my hearing aids I am a danger to myself and to the world I live in: I hear neither fire, water, traffic nor most alarms.

    People return, as requested, to hospitals, but in this case they are turned away.

    Erica Barrett

    Hastings, East Sussex

    SIR – It beggars belief that England is now the only place where people cannot get married.

    So low down on the Government’s agenda is this empirically proven commitment to the stability of society that betting shops, for example, have a higher status. They may welcome up to 10 customers at a time.

    Advertisement

    That the bishops of the Church of England have been conspicuous by their supine silence here is shameful enough, but the unreasonable, unjust stance of the Government augurs ill for the social health of British society.

    Rev R C Paget

    Brenchley, Kent

    SIR – Spitfires were not made from recycled church railings (Juliet Samuel, Comment, June 20).

    Many households did donate aluminium saucepans for the drive to build more Spitfires. Sadly, the misguided removal of iron railings from buildings and parks was an early example of gesture politics. Few were used and most were left to rust in dumps, many of which were still around in the Sixties and Seventies.

    The Covid crisis has seen many more wasteful examples of well-intended but useless schemes. The removal of railings in the Second World War blighted the urban landscape, but the current lockdown has blighted the lives of young people and ruined the economy for decades to come.

    Gp Capt John Skipper (retd)

    London SW19

    SIR – Until food establishments are allowed to open I will not be going on a shopping trip. Shopping out should be a pleasurable experience, which definitely includes a cup of coffee.

    Alan Ripley

    Polstead, Suffolk

    SIR – If the Government wants to promote a return to normality, the best thing would be to cease the daily press conferences from 10 Downing Street.

    Statistical updates are available online. Any changes can be announced by more conventional means.

    Ending the daily “crisis briefing” would go a long way to persuading the public that normal life is resuming.

    Brian Gedalla

    London N3

  9. SIR – Saudi Arabia is believed to be seeking a controlling interest in BT (report, June 21). Meanwhile, the Chinese government is strengthening its controlling interest in the strategic electronic chip maker, Arm. This is in addition to French control of our water industry and European control of our railways.

    What is the thinking behind the policy that allows foreign governments – both friendly and hostile – or affiliated companies to take control of key British infrastructure and technology firms? Do other countries allow this?

    If we cannot fund such things ourselves, our Government should at least insist on retaining a controlling interest.

    Dr W R Parker

    Lowestoft, Suffolk

    1. 320517+ up ticks,
      Morning E,
      Morning Doc, sort of like Nigeria like, 51% / 49% when the Nigerian has the whip you call him sir.
      May one ask what’s this “government” thing then whats
      one of them ?

    2. French and Spanish control of our electricity. Not to mention train franchises.

  10. SIR – A study has shown that sunshine could diminish brain power (report, June 22).

    A tracing app that doesn’t work. A useless travel quarantine. Vacillation over the distancing rule. Mandatory registration of pub users. And now a Sage professor has suggested that the elderly should wear coloured ribbons to indicate – um, I am not sure what.

    It’s been a sunny spring.

    Dr Martin Henry

    Good Easter, Essex

  11. Disorganised DVLA

    SIR – The apology for the work of the DVLA and its “mountains of paperwork and a reduced staff” (Letters, June 22) hardly resonates in the real world.

    If commercial firms operated in this way they would go bankrupt. Instead we have manufacturers of bread and flour, to take just two examples, adjusting their systems and operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with staff on shifts.

    DVLA staff will all be on 100 per cent salary, even when at home, so why are they not working on a rota basis to clear the backlog?

    As Juliet Samuel wrote last Saturday: “The myth of Britain as a well-run country has been exposed by the ineptitude of the state apparatus.”

    Dr Roger Litton

    Harrogate, North Yorkshire

    1. Back in August last year the DVLA was running a backlog with the same excuse. Inefficiency is endemic.

  12. Morning again

    SIR – For many of us, the burning question is not when will schools and pubs will reopen, it is when the DVLA will be working again.

    While one’s driving licence photo ID is stuck unprocessed in the backlog, you cannot present it when asked to for Covid-19 tracing. The letter saying it has been delayed but you are legal to drive would be unacceptable to a venue that required contact IDs.

    Sue Doughty

    Twyford, Berkshire

    SIR – To give credit where it’s due, I applied for a driving licence renewal on June 13 and received the new one in the post on June 18.

    Christine Tame

    Brockham, Surrey

    SIR – It is not only the DVLA that has put up the shutters. I ordered a certificate from the General Register Office on April 16. Payment in full was instantly taken from my card, but I am still waiting for the certificate.

    Phone inquiries are greeted with a long recorded message followed by: “We will now disconnect your call.” If it were a private company, I would be on to Trading Standards by now.

    Graham Snowdon

    Sheffield, South Yorkshire

    1. If I were asked to produce ID (other than for driving) I would have a two word retort ready*.

      *My grateful thanks to Prof. Murgatroyd’s School of Wit and Repartee.

  13. ;Morning All

    Wizard Jape Chaps!!

    Anything and anyone who can produce this much hate,fury and hysteria from the po-faced wankeratti is all; right (see what I did there) in my book

    I note reverting to type the Mail has been “forced” to delete positive comments and manipulate upvote counts,anyone would think it was Brexit all over again

    I’m only surprised that there were no calls for the RAF to shoot the hate-plane down

    Oh wait……………………..give it time

    Now listen up fuckwits………….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0eacc2f69c48ab4bcae7b4f07378251fd5e8827d6e4389558d421ac4bab754d3.jpg

    1. I will be following the trial of Derek Chauvin with interest. Do we know at this point that it was a ‘racist murder?’ Should we not wait for the evidence first? Two facts that I have read about:

      – George Floyd did not die from suffocation caused by the knee on his neck. He died from a heart attack cause by the illegal drugs in his system. I have never understood how a knee on the back of your neck when you were lying face down could cause you to suffocate. Certainly it would be uncomfortable, but surely the knee who have to be on the throat to cause suffocation?

      – the knee on the neck is a restraint technique discussed in the Minneapolis police department manual. Perhaps it is a dangerous technique which should be banned, but at the time Chauvin was going ‘by the book.’

      Is it possible that in fact this was not a ‘racist murder’ but a cop trying to restrain a violent criminal, who died due to the drugs in his system, not the knee on his neck?

      1. That is why I pick up on the word ‘murder’ every time it is used.
        So far, no trial or verdict, so the word is wrong.
        Both characters in this drama appear equalling unappealing, but I believe the US still has some regard to the legal system developed in the mother country.

  16. Good Moaning.
    This morning, MB is going to Cape Canaveral – aka the dentist round the corner.
    Houston, he has a problem.

      1. I’m a bit embarrassed. He snapped a tooth when biting into a home made flapjack.
        To my relief, the dentist explained that the tooth had had root canal treatment years back (so far back, MB had forgotten) and that the tooth had become brittle over the years.
        Like the 50% chance that eye surgery triggers a cataract.

          1. The dentist first stuck in a temporary tooth – with, I presume the dental equivalent of Gorilla glue.
            MB has a hard bite, so he snapped that within 24 hours.
            She is now making him a one tooth denture to close the gap until she can do an implant in January.

          3. 🙂 That thought had crossed my mind. I suspect he will wear if for cosmetic purposes.

    1. 320517+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      When he does turn up there is going to be an awful scattering to behold.

    2. If a country with as poor a reputation for justice as today’s South Africa can bring Zuma to court why can’t Britain bring bring Blair?

      1. ‘Morning, Rastus.

        …why can’t Britain bring bring Blair?

        Are you practising Zulu English?

    3. Shouldn’t Pietermaritzburg be renamed?
      Sounds terribly …. well, not blek.

      1. This is the way the BBC are heading .

        Some of the BBC local news reporters look and sound totally out of their depth.

        All business must employ black people in SA , doesn’t matter whether they are any good at their job or not.

    1. Note that Ribena are keeping a low profile.

      After all, it’s made with Black-currants.

  22. Putin’s almost desperate plea for preservation of international order. June 23, 2020.

    So far, so predictable, you might say, but the last third of Putin’s epic 9,000-word essay is quite different. It is an almost desperate plea for the preservation of the international order embodied in the rules of the United Nations and the actions of the Security Council that have kept the peace between the nuclear-armed great powers for the past 75 years.

    He writes: “The victorious powers…laid the foundation of a world that for 75 years had no global war, despite the sharpest contradictions….What is veto power in the UN Security Council? To put it bluntly, it is the only reasonable alternative to a direct confrontation between major countries.”

    Vlad must be looking at the present turmoil in the Anglosphere and remembering the end of the Soviet Union. If the West fragments, as now seems likely, all the old geopolitical certainties, the UN, NATO etc. will go with it. This will leave a unilateral world of everyone for themselves. China for example would certainly seize Taiwan given the slightest opportunity. The War that would follow would draw in half the world. There seems little cause for optimism anywhere.

    https://cyprus-mail.com/2020/06/23/putins-almost-desperate-plea-for-preservation-of-international-order/

      1. 320517+ up ticks,
        AS,
        The opposition omitted the “so” as a prefix to
        castigating him far right.
        His successful run as UKIP leader for a year showed quite clearly that there is a decent political following outside of the odious lab/lib/con closed shop coalition party.
        He was not to be tolerated, upsetting the lemming
        type march to DOOM.

      2. There are a lot of things on which Gerard was completely right, never mind “not far wrong”! 🙂

  24. A tiny, brave protest by Burnley supporters sick of the scandalous
    characterisation of all white people as the guilty party in a
    non-existent race war reveals all media as complicit in the élite
    revolution to replace the unacceptable decisions of our democratic
    tradition by a technocratic oligarchy whose aim is to arrest the
    ever-increasing accession to prosperity and liberty that free markets
    and free speech were providing.

    1. Has anybody asked a BBC journalist (such as the odious Emily Maitlis) why

      WHITE LIVES MATTER IS RACIST
      whereas
      BLACK LIVES MATTER IS NOT RACIST

      Anyone with even the meanest intelligence and a basic understanding of logic – even a Burnley football supporter or the directors of Burnley Football Club – should be able to understand that one statement does not logically follow the other.

      Let us hope that Burnley Football Club very quickly goes bankrupt when all its supporters with an IQ of over 80 stop supporting it.

  25. International Co-existence

    On a group of beautiful deserted islands in the middle of nowhere, the following people are stranded:

    Two Italian men and one Italian woman
    Two French men and one French woman
    Two German men and one German woman
    Two Greek men and one Greek woman
    Two English men and one English woman
    Two Bulgarian men and one Bulgarian woman
    Two Japanese men and one Japanese woman
    Two Chinese men and one Chinese woman
    Two American men and one American woman
    Two Irish men and one Irish woman

    One month later on these stunning islands, the following things have occurred:

    One Italian man killed the other Italian man for the Italian woman.

    The two French men and the French woman are living happily together in a ménage-a-trois.

    The two German men have a strict weekly schedule of alternating visits with the German woman.

    The two Greek men are sleeping with each other and the Greek woman is cleaning and cooking for them.

    The two English men are waiting for someone to introduce them to the English woman.

    The two Bulgarian men took one long look at the endless ocean and another long look at the Bulgarian woman and started swimming.

    The two Japanese have faxed Tokyo and are awaiting instructions.

    The two Chinese men have set up a pharmacy/liquor store/restaurant/ laundry, and have got the woman pregnant in order to supply employees for their store.

    The two American men are contemplating the virtues of suicide, because the American woman keeps on complaining about her body; the true nature of feminism; how she can do everything they can do; the necessity of fulfilment; the equal division of household chores; how sand and palm trees make her look fat; how her last boyfriend respected her opinion and treated her nicer than they do; how her relationship with her mother is improving and how at least the taxes are low and it isn’t raining.

    The two Irish men divided the island into North and South and set up a distillery. They do not remember if sex is in the picture because it gets sort of foggy after the first few litres of coconut whiskey. But they’re satisfied because at least the English aren’t having any fun.

    1. One of the best yet, Tom!
      :-D)
      Keep ’em coming – and good morning, as well!

      1. Thank you, Paul, I think we all could do with a little laugh in an attempt to lift us from the dire straits we seem to be in.

  26. Good morning, all. Warm start to the day. Clear skies. Sunshine. A touch breezy.

    About to go shopping…ugh.

  27. Here is a headline on YouTube which is at best disingenuous and it is interesting that this event is not of interest to the broader media:

    Randomly attacked 92-year-old woman now terrified, no longer feels safe in NYC

    1. I’m not surprised, she was pushed to the ground without warning and the little shit who did it just looked over his shoulder and then carried on walking.

      1. There are no swallowtails in Dorset. There are only two small colonies in the UK [in the east of England: Wickham Fen and Hickling Broad] and their only food item is milk parsley.

          2. It is rather a long walk from Continental Europe, even with that many legs?

          4. The one in the article is of a continental sub-species that no doubt was blown off course. They are more washed-out in appearance than those on the Norfolk Broads and enjoy a slightly more varied diet of umbellifers.

          5. We had several reports of Swallowtail butterflies in Dorset last year,
            including one of caterpillars on carrot leaves in a garden in Wimborne,
            suggesting they might be breeding. You might also have seen on
            Springwatch that the Continental Swallowtail definitely bred in Sussex
            last year.

            Rather suggests that my observation that it was possibly a swallowtail could be correct.

          6. “Rather suggests that my observation that it was possibly a swallowtail could be correct.”

            On the contrary, I would contend that it suggests otherwise. The larva is not a swallowtail butterfly (it is a mullein moth as Belle has now been correctly informed); and the photograph clearly shows that it is present on an entirely inappropriate food item for that fastidious species.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11949024b747eaee31d10d3c6b6f19c6cecdccbab677b6a297217e70289ad413.jpg

          7. You categorically stated that there were no swallowtails in Dorset.

            You were wrong and you won’t admit it.

          8. You are just starting an argument out of thin air as you have a natural wont to do. I said that Swallowtails do not breed in Dorset: they cannot do so since their food stuff is not available. Those continentals arriving in Dorset are vagrants blown off course; that fact does not negate my original factual assertion.

          9. “Rather suggests that my observation that it was possibly a swallowtail could be correct.”

            On the contrary, I would contend that it suggests otherwise. The larva is not a swallowtail butterfly (it is a mullein moth as Belle has now been correctly informed); and the photograph clearly shows that it is present on an entirely inappropriate food item for that fastidious species.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11949024b747eaee31d10d3c6b6f19c6cecdccbab677b6a297217e70289ad413.jpg

          1. Looks like a Buddleia, which is not usually a caterpillar host in my experience.

      1. It does look like a Mullein moth caterpillar. When I was a kid a classmate had some Mullein plants in his garden. When the caterpillars pupate under the lowest leaves on the ground, they create a casing made of tiny stones to protect the chrysalis.

        1. I think you’ve hit the bull’s eye.

          Caterpillars eat holes in the leaves of verbascums, buddleia and figwort.14 Mar 2019

          Problem Solving: Mullein Moth – BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine

          Please see my post above with the other caterpillar. I have many Buddleias in the garden, but only Lochinch gets attacked. I have no verbascums or figwort.

          1. It was someone else who mentioned the Mullein moth but I had seen them back in about 1965! I don’t know what might be doing the damage to your plants but there are insects such as leaf cutter bees that can slice chunks out and fly away leaving you with no culprit at the scene of the crime! I have to admit that when I find Mullein, I do look to see if there are caterpillars abroad but I have never seen them since that time in my friend’s garden. Back then, a considerable amount of time was spent hunting for caterpillars and their chrysalises. I have a couple of George II ha’pennies that I disinterred at the base of a poplar tree looking for poplar hawk moth chrysalises! Where I did this was about a quarter of a mile from where that ghastly attack happened in Reading.

    3. Looks like a cabbage white.

      https://www.google.co.uk/search?sxsrf=ALeKk03zVnxNbziSXoUus2Fbp9t6wD_GKw:1592905232782&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=cabbage+white+caterpillar&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiw7b200pfqAhXJUBUIHS2cA1oQiR56BAgHEBA&biw=1366&bih=623

      The swallowtail is found almost only in Norfolk in the UK, the caterpillars feed on milk parsley. Belle’s specimen appears to be on Buddleia. Which in turn possibly solves the question of what is attacking my B. Lochinch? Every year my Lochinch, growing against the west wall, gets well & truly mampfed by some beast which I have never scene. It’s only the flowering shoots which get attacked. Has anybody experienced the same?

      https://www.ywt.org.uk/wildlife-explorer/invertebrates/butterflies/swallowtail

      1. ‘Afternoon, Peddy, “…some beast which I have never scene.” Is Beauty in the next Act or Scene?

  29. Good morning all.

    Bright, sunny & warm.

    Just popped a bottle of Prosecco into the ‘fridge for later.

        1. Birthday.
          So far, only acknowledged by my mobile phone company, FFS!
          (but then, it is a secret!), so don’t let on!

  30. I was super thrilled when a bitter business rival bought me some flying lessons in order to bury the hatchet. Can you imagine my excitement last night when on my maiden lesson the pilot suggested we flew over the Etihad stadium to show the Burnley fans down below my new found flying skills?

  31. This year, we need Pride’s spirit of solidarity and inclusion more than ever. Mon 22 Jun 2020.

    Diversity is a strength, let’s celebrate it.

    Elton John is a singer-songwriter, David Furnish is a Canadian film-maker, Billie Jean King is a former professional tennis player, Ilana Kloss is a former professional tennis player, Ian McKellen is an English actor, Skin is a singer and songwriter, Edward Enninful is editor-in-chief of British Vogue, Frank Ocean is a singer-songwriter and Helena Dalli is European commissioner for equality.

    Aside from the hypocrisy on display here, (these people have all become rich while being oppressed) the sheer fecklessness of it is depressing. Have none of them ever read a book about revolutions? Do they not know that the Useful Idiots are the first ones to be offed? That none of them have led to Utopian Bliss? That all of them required oceans of blood?

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/22/this-year-we-need-prides-spirit-of-solidarity-and-inclusion-more-than-ever

  32. Thought for Today:

    O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,.
    And men have lost their reason

    [Mark Antony – Julius Caesar]

    1. I must be careful quoting Shakespeare or BLM will demand that all his plays are not performed in theatres or on television or film, statues of him will be torn down and all his poetic and dramatic works burned. And of course if BLM demand this then our craven politicians and the MSM will cravenly surrender to them.

      Remember the person of colour, Martin Shapland – a Lib/Dem candidate, complained when Alastair Stewart quoted Shakespeare’s man proud man speech in which mankind is referred to as having the face of an angry ape? Shapland, a man of obviously very low IQ, thought this was directed at all people of colour.

      As you would expect, Stewart was sacked.

      1. Judging by BBC4 ‘Hamlet’ on Sunday, Shakespeare is tolerated provided all the actors are non-white – the Lefties who are the audience will watch as par of their lifetime Guilt Trip.

    1. A very rich man commits suicide because he is depressed about being isolated.

      Pull the other one.

      It was probably drugs.

  34. I’ve just realised that it is four years today since the referendum! Not seen anything in the media about it.

    1. The remainers were still confident they would win.

      Tomorrow is the anniversary of the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

    3. The attempt and not the deed
      Confounds us.

      [Lady Macbeth]

      Procrastination is the thief of time

      [Edward Young]

      1. Not so much a thief as more like I’ve set up a direct debit to stop him bothering me. I’m having a really difficult time getting going today.

      2. ‘Procrastination is the thief of time’ was the fave quote of one of my English teachers. He must have used it at least once a week.

  35. SIR – It may be my baking, but has anyone else noticed that birds don’t like sourdough bread?

    Lesley Thompson
    Lavenham, Suffolk

    For your education, Lesley, feeding birds (any birds) bread is as deleterious to their health as feeding milk to cats and hedgehogs is. It may be a popular thing to do but you are doing them far more harm than good.

    1. S0dding pretentious Lavenham.
      They would give the birds sour dough bread, rather than stale Mother’s Shame.

      1. I fear that you are short changing the ladies of Lavenham. Only ARTISAN sour dough bread will do.

      2. I used to love visiting that bakery in Lavenham; their rye bread is the best I’ve tasted.

    2. So why are cats so keen on milk and cream if it’s bad for them; you’d expect them to instinctively reject it rather than being really torn between the bowl of tuna and the bowl of cream when offered both.

      1. H’mmmm ….. if you were offered the choice of a cream bun or a vegan cup cake, which would you choose?

        1. When I start grating Parmesan, Missy comes from wherever like a flash. I give her only a small pinch because several years ago she promptly threw up a plateful.

      2. They like the fat. All creatures do.
        Especially yesterday’s mouse, that gave up it’s life for a nibble of a bit of dried-up, less-than-average Red Leicester that was in the super-trap.
        Snap!

        2. Past three days my yard snap traps have dispatched 3 mice, 2 shrews and 1 (hopefully just passing through) rat.

  36. SIR – It may be my baking, but has anyone else noticed that birds don’t like sourdough bread?

    Lesley Thompson
    Lavenham, Suffolk

    For your education, Lesley, feeding birds (any birds) bread is as deleterious to their health as feeding milk to cats and hedgehogs is. It may be a popular thing to do but you are doing them far more harm than good.

    2. Slightly safer (unless you get between them and their lambs) than the Russian small bear 🙂

  39. RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Just stop these stupid protests – it’s getting silly

    When the Monty Python team couldn’t think of a proper ending to one of their more fantastic sketches, they came up with a brilliant device for calling a halt.

    The late, great Graham Chapman would march on set, dressed as a British Army Colonel, complete with swagger stick, and announce: ‘Stop this, it’s getting silly.’

    We’ve now reached that stage with the tedious Black Lives Matter demonstrations.
    *
    *
    *
    Until that happens, maybe we can take a lead from the farmers who hosed down a field in Derbyshire with manure to stop an illegal rave. Locals dubbed it Poo Corner. How about enlisting them to do the same in Trafalgar Square, to discourage demonstrators?

    If the usual suspects still insist on showing off every weekend, we could call it The Slurry With The Lunatic Fringe On Top.

    The Black Lives Matters sketch has run its course. Joke’s over. Cue Colonel Chapman.

    Stop this, it’s getting silly.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8448903/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Just-stop-stupid-protests-getting-silly.html

    2. It is not at all silly. If you cannot see how serious this is then you should maybe not comment. We are close to total loss of control.

      1. I think you will find that that is a quote from Littlejohn’s article, perhaps “he” rather than “you” might be more appropriate.

        1. I was referring to Littlejohn’s article. Perhaps if you had taken a moment before being rude you might have realised that. Then again, if you had put the article in quotes and had put anything else you yourself added outside the quotes it would have been clearer. From the lack of quotation marks I took it that none of post were your words.

          1. Ah, with you. The solution there though is to remind those causing the disturbance that they are standing against society and will be dealt with harshly.

            As I’ve said before, full blown riot control, break a few bones, smack a few heads in. If they get narky, shoot them.

          2. “… they are standing against society and will be dealt with harshly fairy cakes.
            Something like that.

      4. But nothing is quite as silly as the British MSM, police and politicians and they need to be constantly reminded of how low we hold them in our regard and how very, very silly they are.

        Nobody has any respect for them any more – have they even got any respect for themselves?

      5. I think you will find that that is a quote from Littlejohn’s article, perhaps “he” rather than “you” might be more appropriate.

  40. Interesting fact relating to Antifa activitists (in Germany):

    Violent left-wing agitators are predominantly male, between 21 and 24 years of age, usually unemployed, and, to BfV, 92% still live with their parents. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most Antifa members in the United States have a similar socio-economic profile.

    Clearly there is something to be said for chucking young men out of the family home and make them responsible for their own bills and laundry.

    Full article from the Gatestone here https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16149/antifa-history-part-2

    1. Enlistment and being sent off to war seemed to work in the past. Perhaps we are hard wired for conflict to ensure survival of the fittest and with the heavy industries mainly gone, there is little outlet for aggression.

    2. Violent left-wing agitators are predominantly male, between 21 and 24 years of age, usually unemployed, and, to BfV, 92% still live with their parents.
      In other words, life’s losers.

      1. Good morning. Can you remind me what your “name” was before you changed it?

        I was away during the great name change event.

        1. I am not sure if I should reply on his/her behalf, Bill, I hope I am not committing a faux pas of nottler etiquette here; it is very similar to the previous name, Ascanias I think it was before.

          1. Almost right – ‘u’ not ‘a’. If you click on my avatar the profile will be displayed – @ascanius

          2. When I changed my avatar I changed my name from rastusctastey to Rastus C. Tastey as it was better punctuated that way. I cannot decide whether my new avatar – which shows me as rather less fanatical – is better or worse that the piratical one.

            Grizzly went through a phase of changing the photo with a change of hats with every post he made. He then posted an avatar of himself without a beard which led me to fear that his beard is a false one furnished him by a theatrical props company.

          3. I prefer your new avatar – we can see who you are – a friendly, kindly person.

          4. Which reminds me, we have not heard from Olaf Bloodaxe or harry Lime for some time. Assumed names are hardly unknown in these parts.

          5. Doesn’t Elsie Bloodaxe interchange ‘her’ name with Harry Lime from time to time? I understand that HL is ‘the master’ and EB er, makes his crumbles? My sincere apologies to all concerned if I have got this wrong……

      2. In a sense, that’s unfair. My godson completed his degree and now lives with his folks. However he works full time as a junior solicitor. He does the family washing, makes and cooks their meals and does his bit to keep the house tidy. He’s saving for his own flat while his career is getting started.

        He’s a good lad with a great brain (what wasn’t knocked out by rugby) and a big heart.

        1. He sounds like a solid young man.

          Probably doesn’t have any time left over to dress in black and annoy people.

        2. It wasn’t the ‘living with parents’ bit on its own which I was referring to – it was the whole package, especially being unemployed. Young men with too much time on their hands.

          1. Aye, sorry – I get what you meant, that the real problem is a dissaffected underclass looking for trouble.

    3. 320517+up ticks,
      Morning C,
      The segment of society in question is topped up daily
      incoming via the Dover route with the obvious governmental nod.

      1. Stands for soemthing German -it’s the group that did the research – would have to go back to the article to find the detail.

      2. The Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV): “the domestic intelligence service of the Federal Republic of Germany.”

  41. Douglas Murray
    What isn’t being said about the Reading attack victims?
    23 June 2020, 9:45am

    Imagine if on Saturday evening a white neo-Nazi had stabbed three men to death. Imagine, furthermore, if in the wake of the killings it had turned out that all three of the victims were gay. Or ‘members of the LGBT community’, to use the lexicon of the time. And then imagine if two days later nobody in the UK or anywhere else was very interested in any of this. So what if the victims were all gay? Why bother sifting around for motives. What are you trying to say? Bigot.

    Well something that might well be analogous to that happened in Reading on Saturday evening and over the days since.

    On Saturday evening, Khairi Saadallah went on a stabbing spree in Forbury Gardens, Reading. His victims were three gay men, James Furlong, David Wails and Joe Ritchie-Bennett. It has since emerged that the 25-year old suspect, who is now in police custody, came to the UK from Libya in 2012. He is reported to have come to the attention of MI5 last year as an individual who had the potential to travel overseas for terrorism purposes. The Security Service apparently decided that he was not an immediate risk.

    The families of Furlong, Wails and Ritchie-Bennett might beg to differ on that last point. But who knows. So far there has been almost no interest expressed in the possible motives of the attacker. Quite possibly there is a mental health component. In which case I would expect that to be looked into. Quite possibly there will be some drugs-related component. In which case I would expect the usual voices to demand an investigation into that. But anything else to see here? Any other reason why a migrant from Libya who was given asylum in the UK might want to go around stabbing gay men? Well who would even ask such questions? What do you want to find? Bigot.

    So far the most analysis there has been has been to inform us all of the wonderfulness of the victims. We can learn that the victims were not just ‘proud gay men’ who attended Reading Pride, but that at least one of them – Furlong – was also ‘a strong advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement.’ Perhaps Saadallah didn’t get that memo. Perhaps if he had known how involved in social activism his victims were then he would have left them alone and stabbed some people who never much bothered with such things, or kept themselves to themselves.

    For the BBC – among most other major news outlets – every question that this case throws up remains stubbornly unaddressed and unaddressable. On Monday night’s News at Ten, the BBC managed to talk about the three Reading victims without once saying that the police think they might have been targeted because they were gay. All that there was that nodded to that possibility was a tribute from someone who said that the victims were part of the LBGT community.

    Why leave nearly all the analysis out? Of course there were will be a trial, the due process of the law and so on. But if the attacker from Saturday night had been a white skinhead, or a neo-Nazi or had been wearing a big red MAGA hat I am fairly confident that the gay press and all of the mainstream media would be crawling over every angle of this story by now with an unparalleled fury, hurling allegations of ‘adjacency’ against all of their favourite enemies. As it is I am reminded of nothing so much as story after story over recent years. Stories like when Omar Mateen walked into the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida four years ago and gunned down 49 people.

    People know after a story like this that it isn’t good. They know that there’s more to say and doubtless more to see here. But they have made a very basic calculation. The calculation is that dead gays aren’t good. But they aren’t as bad – indeed they are a price worth paying – compared to asking any of the questions that sane people would ask after an attack like this. Sure we have a societal piety that is opposed to homophobia. But the societal piety which says that we should not risk ‘othering’ Libyan asylum seekers is stronger. The fear will be that talking about Islamic homophobia as a potential motive in this case might increase prejudice of some other kind. It’s a calculation of a very cynical and inept kind.

    That is why the media is silent on this. It’s why the gay press is so muted. They are willing to take this sort of thing, absorb it and just hope it doesn’t happen too often. It’s a matter of hierarchies. And the gays aren’t as high up this one as people like to think.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-isn-t-being-mentioned-about-the-reading-attack-victims-

      1. The article is on the Speccie FB page with comments but as is par for the course there, the comments are quite crudely pro or anti and insight is in short supply.

        1. The quality of comments and debate on FB on any subject is why I have abandoned that platform.

          1. When I was on local political groups I just attracted all the loony left simpletons whose idea of debate was to use the C word when they had no argument.

        2. You need to control where you post on Facebook.

          Over here there is a local petition doing the rounds to have a statue of Sir John Macdonald removed from our high street. By controlling where it is posted, comments are quite positive towards the petition, it looks like everyone is in favour.

          Gritting teeth, joining a lefty luvvie group to have the opportunity to Express my concern about the petition. Expecting a ban soon.

      2. As I type (14:00), the Speccie are switching off the comments below various other Coffee House articles because they are predominantly about not being able to comment on Douglas Murray’s article with lots of rudeness directed at Fraser Nelson. He deserves it.

      2. It is somewhat ironic, that Forbury Gardens are next to Reading Gaol where Oscar Wilde was incarcerated. It seems that it is not the state that persecutes otherwise law-abiding citizens so much as what a good dose of enrichment can do to tolerance within our society. I had a feeling these men were Gay as we never heard about wives, children and girlfriende etc. Of course, they will be forgotten as Douglas Murray suggests this process is already happening.

        1. Douglas Murray wrote a biography of Bosie; they were both at Magdalen, though separated by more than one hundred years.
          Many gay men are acutely aware that if a muslim were to kill one of them, the killer would get free membership at Allan’s Skypark.

          1. This week’s Mark Steyn Show includes a Muslim Cleric’s assessment of the talent up there in the Skypark. Clearly, it’s up there with winged horses and other such stuff for comparison in terms of likelihood. Good discussion by Mark for 40 minutes with that diversion into theological absurdity/madness. https://www.steynonline.com/10397/melting-down

        2. Douglas Murray wrote a biography of Bosie; they were both at Magdalen, though separated by more than one hundred years.
          Many gay men are acutely aware that if a muslim were to kill one of them, the killer would get free membership at Allan’s Skypark.

    4. I believe Murray is homosexual, attacks like this must cause him considerable concern.

      I wonder if a heterosexual man could have written the same without being castigated by the usual suspects.

    5. Just as feminists are very quiet about the Muslim abuse of women and animal rights activists keep quiet about sheep rustling and slaughter and all halal killing of snimals.

      The abominable hypocrisy of such people is an outrage.

    6. What the bally aardvarking toss does thheir being bally gay have to do with *anything* this side of Pluto?

      I can only assume it lets the gobby shites make a lot of noise, scream and shout about how hard done by they are, to exacerbate that they are ‘victims’. Yet because they were likely killed by a Muslim we can’t say anything. The media go nice and quiet.

      What IF a black fellow had killed those men? Would that just underscore the racism of ‘black lives matter/white lives don’t’?

      But it’s a gimmigrant. A criminal, violent, ‘mentally ill’ gimmigrant. So we’re not allowed to talk about it. The BBC certainly won’t, trapped between it’s shibboleths of veneration for the Muslim and terror of upsetting the gays.

      We need to talk about the desperate silence surrounding this medieval deathcult of a religion and to say no to these people. Not to look after and monitor them, just not let them in. If the damned state were not so ardently pro Left let the world in these men would not be dead. It is the fault of every single arrogant Lefty promoting mass uncontrolled immigration that these men, just the latest in a catalogue of Muslim immigrant killers; are dead.

    7. Douglas Murray’s article raises two questions:

      Were the three, seriously-injured survivors, also gay?
      How did Khairi Saadallah recognise his prey?

  42. 320517+ up ticks,
    May one ask would these treacherous politico’s sit up and take notice if there was a sudden surge in the purchase of pitchforks, longbows, etc,etc ?
    Along with a daily rendering of ” They’ll always be an England” by the SAS choir with a detachment of Royal Marines in close attendance.on
    parliament green ?

  43. 320517+ up ticks,
    In a Country of decency this odious tripe would when sentenced never see daylight again for a very long time, and while they are starting their sentence their parents / grand parents great grand parents should be starting their return to origin trip, same day, NO ifs or buts or
    political / legal bollocks, MANDATORY.
    Don’t do it then kids must suffer.

    https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1275369211158765568

      1. 320517+ up ticks,
        Afternoon B3,
        Adhering to the same voting pattern and with the same type anti GB politico’s in play the same issues will still be around in 2033.

    2. 320517+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      In today’s odiously twisted political climate it is a wonder he was not shot down.

  44. What is a terrorist organisation? How is it defined? Here are the official UK Government criteria.

    “A. Under the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretary may proscribe an organisation if he believes it is concerned in terrorism, and it is proportionate to do. For the purposes of the Act, this means that the organisation:• commits or participates in acts of terrorism;
    • prepares for terrorism;
    • promotes or encourages terrorism (including the unlawful glorification of terrorism); or
    • is otherwise concerned in terrorism.
    What is meant by ‘terrorism’ in the proscription context?
    A. “Terrorism” as defined in the Act, means the use or threat of action which: involves serious violence against a person; involves serious damage to property; endangers a person’s life (other than that of the person committing the act); creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or section of the public; or is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system. The use or threat of such action must be designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and must be undertaken for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.”

    My underlining. The law of unintended consequences as this law, ( just as I mentioned with respect to increased prison sentences for “racially aggravates” offences) was written with only white people in mind, that is, native Britons.

    As I read this is it seems to me to be very clear, incontrovertibly clear, that the BLM is a terrorist organisation.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/869496/20200228_Proscription.pdf

  46. ;Morning All

    Wizard Jape Chaps!!

    Anything and anyone who can produce this much hate,fury and hysteria from the po-faced wankeratti is all; right (see what I did there) in my book

    I note reverting to type the Mail has been “forced” to delete positive comments and manipulate upvote counts,anyone would think it was Brexit all over again

    I’m only surprised that there were no calls for the RAF to shoot the hate-plane down

    Oh wait……………………..give it time

    Now listen up fuckwits………….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0eacc2f69c48ab4bcae7b4f07378251fd5e8827d6e4389558d421ac4bab754d3.jpg

  47. SIR – I note that Becky Clark, the Church of England’s Director of Churches and Cathedrals, has said that monuments to those involved in “discrimination or exploitation based on race” may be altered or removed (report, June 20).

    Bath Abbey (a fascinating repository of monuments to empire builders) would be almost completely denuded. Why doesn’t she go the whole way and dig up the bodies as well?

    Chris West

    Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

    Words to shudder to

    SIR – Thomas Pomeroy (Letters, June 16) asks which words may, like droplet, raise a post-pandemic shudder. I propose: load, spike, aerosol, furlough, nightingale and the letter R.

    Thea Macdonald

    Godalming, Surrey

    1. Guess which religion doesn’t like iconography? There are no statues or images of Big Mo allowed…

    2. Well,the New Testament is all about discrimination. So that’s that then.

  49. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/437c2aaebf183dc1455576f87e18fa000bc19fa1792a0eda3236ab1622b9cfbc.jpg

    Ashurnasirpal.

    I built a pillar over against the city gate and I flayed all the chiefs who had revolted and I covered the pillar with their skins. Some I impaled upon the pillar on stakes and others I bound to stakes round the pillar. I cut the limbs off the officers who had rebelled. Many captives I burned with fire and many I took as living captives. From some I cut off their noses, their ears, and their fingers, of many I put out their eyes. I made one pillar of the living and another of heads and I bound their heads to tree trunks round about the city. Their young men and maidens I consumed with fire. The rest of their warriors I consumed with thirst in the desert of the Euphrates.

    Obviously we need to get this guy’s statue removed as soon as possible.

      1. 320517+ up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        With a manifesto like that currently he would make a good leader …. period.

    4. 320517+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      Another party leader coming on line if he starts with the
      dangerous upstarts we are suffering now then the current serving politicos where do I join ?

    5. And destroy any references to his grandfather Sennacherib. Can’t be teaching kids that kind of poetry…

    1. ‘Afternoon, Mags, I think we’ve all known that he has mental health problems. It’s been abundantly clear from his actions ever since he took up the post.

      I sincerely hope that the next Mayor (if there ever is one) doesn’t buy water cannon but invests in a muck spreader or two and a healthy pile of slurry.

      1. I gather he travels around in an armour plated Range Rover

        All right for some! Sadiq Khan is driven to work in £300,000 five-litre armoured Range Rover while commuters endure packed Tube trains and drivers face new £15 congestion charge
        EXCLUSIVE: The mayor wore a black face mask as he travelled to City Hall today
        He was whisked from his South London home in a luxury Range Rover
        It came as he announced congestion charge will be hiked from £11.50 to £15

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8323259/Sadiq-Khan-catches-chauffeur-driven-ride-work-luxury-Range-Rover.html

        1. Sounds sensible to me. Why travel on the tube when you can get the tube passengers to pay for your own private carriage.

          2. A young man who came from Lanzer
            Was asked to define the word “Panzer”
            “It’s a number of tanks
            Advancing with clanks”
            Was his witty, intelligent answer.

    1. 320517+ up ticks,
      Morning Anne,
      What ,sort of like prior to conspiracy theories becoming fact ?

  53. Bbc lunchtime News: As Boris left No 10 a reporter shouted “Aren’t you gambling with the Public’s health?” Last week they were shouting “When are you removing lockdown?” He just can’t win, can he?

    1. Please do not watch the BBC, it only encourages them and before you know it, they’ll be in your house.

        1. It’s up to you, but if you do let them in, they’ll be BBCing all over your furniture.

  54. This year, we need Pride’s spirit of solidarity and inclusion more than ever. Mon 22 Jun 2020.

    Diversity is a strength, let’s celebrate it.

    Elton John is a singer-songwriter, David Furnish is a Canadian film-maker, Billie Jean King is a former professional tennis player, Ilana Kloss is a former professional tennis player, Ian McKellen is an English actor, Skin is a singer and songwriter, Edward Enninful is editor-in-chief of British Vogue, Frank Ocean is a singer-songwriter and Helena Dalli is European commissioner for equality.

    Aside from the hypocrisy on display here, (these people have all become rich while being oppressed) the sheer fecklessness of it is depressing. Have none of them ever read a book about revolutions? Do they not know that the Useful Idiots are the first ones to be offed? That none of them have led to Utopian Bliss? That all of them required oceans of blood?

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/22/this-year-we-need-prides-spirit-of-solidarity-and-inclusion-more-than-ever

    1. Hogwash. Diversity is not a strength. By definition it is divisive.

      You don’t make something bigger if you divide it.

      1. Approving and celebrating homosexuality was the thin end of the wedge, which has allowed every other sexual perversion to come out and be normalised including paedophilia, which is being pushed for all it’s worth.

          2. I disagree Anne,P.I.E has morphed into M.A.P.whose sinister protagonists are deeply embedded in LGBT organisations and as for drag queens in the library……………

            “Houston Public Library has banned a man who
            had been previously charged for sexually assaulting a child from reading
            to children at Drag Queen Storytime

            The
            library apologized after not completing a background check on Albert
            Alfonso Garza, 32, last known to be reading to kids at the Montrose
            Library”
            One of a number of similar cases

    1. If we protested every time a gimmigrant killed Britons we’d never get anything done.

      That said, the police would be out in a flash with every weapon of oppression going. Let the savages run riot, but if the majority kick up a fuss, stamp on it. However, there are millions of us. If we stood together just once the state would have no choice but to obey.

      1. Agreed, Wibbles, although a majority of us stood together 4 years ago and where are we now?

  56. Afternoon all.
    Free speech UK … well bo££ux to that say Lancs coppers ….

    The pilot who flew a “White Lives Matter Burnley” banner over the
    Etihad Stadium is being investigated by police as it emerged that the
    “racist” protest was orchestrated by a notorious far-right firm

    Burnley supporter Jake Hepple, who has previously posed for pictures
    with Tommy Robinson, has taken apparent responsibility for the stunt.
    “I’d like to take this time to apologise… to absolutely f***ing
    nodbody,” he wrote in the private post.

    The Suicide Squad, a group of far right Burnley fans, are thought to
    have been involved in raising funds for the flight. Sources close to the
    investigation said police are likely to question those involved, but
    suspects could be quizzed under a racially-aggravated public order
    offence relating to the message, rather than for the flight itself.

    “It’s now apparently racist to say White Lives Matter, the day after
    three white people got murdered in a park in Reading, but all we’ve seen
    on the TV is Black Lives Matter after George Floyd got murdered,”
    Hepple, of Colne, Lancashire, added in his Facebook post. “What a mad
    world we live in.”

    The aircraft behind the stunt was a single-engine Cessna 182, which
    is believed to have been owned by Air Ads Ltd, a
    Stockport-based company, that has been commissioned for several protests
    over football matches in the past.

    Bob Stinger, one of the pilots associated with Air Ads, responded “no” when asked by the Telegraph Sport
    whether he was at the controls. He has declined to comment further, and
    the company has failed to respond to multiple requests for comment.

    Meanwhile, an unidentified airline company told a BBC reporter that “we don’t take sides” so long as an add is legal.

    Air Ads Ltd has been involved in several other high-profile stunts,
    including flying a banner over Burnley’s Turf Moor stadium reading ‘Go
    Clarets’ for a local newspaper and advertising a marriage proposal.

    Lancashire Constabulary’s East Division Football Unit, which is
    responsible for policing Burnley games, said it “will be fully
    investigating”, the Monday night flight while Burnley have vowed to issue lifetime bans to the supporters responsibl.

      1. 320517+ up ticks,
        Afternoon VOM,
        The fans should self ban in their own interest
        you hit a footballers wallet then that hurts.

    2. 320517+ up ticks,
      Afternoon IA,
      “Far right” are we talking Salvation Army here? hold up
      many a true word is spoken in jest how about a new
      party called just that, with the likes of Batten / .Braine /
      Robinson / Benjamin on the NEC THAT would be a
      “so far right” terror squad, striking terror into the current
      politico’s.

      2. I’m looking for inspiring slogans, Horace, see my earlier post to Issyagain.

    5. I love that man’s response and ‘apology’. Bluddy good for him.

      Should we commission our own banner to fly over the Palace of Westminster? What should it say? “Wake Up, Not Woke” “Close Our Borders”

  57. 320517+ up ticks,
    breitbart,
    FOOTBALL STARS OUTRAGED AFTER AIRCRAFT PULLING ‘WHITE LIVES MATTER’ BANNER FLIES OVER MATCH.
    They will be further outraged when they have to get a day job as a main income with a match fee added with bus fares.
    The perfect time for the cricketer to enter via the turnstile, hello Boycott.
    Back to reality the whole family attending a match to watch local lads, as was.

      1. That’s not what i posted…..
        I’ve been censored.

        My banner said ‘Fuck all matters’. Bastards !

  60. The Anatomy of Revolution.

    Fall of the old regime

    Revolutions begin with problems in the pre-revolutionary regime. These include problems functioning—”government deficits, more than usual complaints over taxation, conspicuous governmental favoring of one set of economic interests over another, administrative entanglements and confusions”. There are also social problems, such as the feeling by some that careers are not “open to talents”, and economic power is separated from political power and social distinction. There is a “loss of self-confidence among many members of the ruling class”, the “conversion of many members of that class to the belief that their privileges are unjust or harmful to society”. “Intellectuals” switch their allegiance away from the government. In short, “the ruling class becomes politically inept”

    Sound familiar?

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

    2. The French wrote the manual.
      The English borrowed a copy but then couldn’t read it.

    1. Thanks, Philip, saved to the bookmarks bar while I figure out a pithy riposte – not just for Nottlers but for Ar$ebook as well, unless I’ve been banned for past sins.

  63. “Hanna smiles at police in the hope that they won’t ask to see her documents.”
    The subtitle of picture illustrating another BBC propaganda story. In this country we do not carry documents. Only vehicle drivers may be asked to show licences.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-53113685

    1. I have some knowledge in this area, its not rocket science. To get here legally you will be on a limited time visa which is associated with the reason you came to the uk. After the expiry date and to remain here you will have to apply for an extension or “Indefinite leave to Remain”. Once granted, you may remain forever, subject to not leaving the country for extended periods of time. If you want to become a citizen, that is another process. If parents bring children here, it is their responsibility to sort out their immigration paperwork. The process although easy to understand, is expensive and requires very careful handling to make sure that it is done correctly. Maybe, the parents couldn’t be bothered.

    2. I have some knowledge in this area, its not rocket science. To get here legally you will be on a limited time visa which is associated with the reason you came to the uk. After the expiry date and to remain here you will have to apply for an extension or “Indefinite leave to Remain”. Once granted, you may remain forever, subject to not leaving the country for extended periods of time. If you want to become a citizen, that is another process. If parents bring children here, it is their responsibility to sort out their immigration paperwork. The process although easy to understand, is expensive and requires very careful handling to make sure that it is done correctly. Maybe, the parents couldn’t be bothered.

    3. It’s quite possible that there are thousands of people in the UK who are here and have been here for most of their lives. They don’t have UK passports and or were born over seas. I’ll be my shirt that these people (who don’t actually matter) will outnumber the falsely disgruntled black people
      by at least 80 – 1.

    4. … and they can opt to present that licence at the police station within 7 days, if I recall.

    5. So, why are they not documented? Could it be that their parents didn’t apply? Why is this the fault of the State?

    6. We do not YET carry documents, Horace. If the ID crowd get their way, we’ll all have to shape up at the sound of “Ihre Papiere, bitte”.

  64. Oh my goodness gracious me !

    What a surprise…. Theresa May is making $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ on the international lecture circuit.

    I wonder how and why that has come about ?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8449371/CRAIG-BROWN-Theresa-did-32-second.html

    Looks like this fits the pattern of useless senior UK politicians receiving massively paid non jobs, what could possibly be the explanation ?

    Could there be a connection to Davos…. and………..

    2. What on earth can she possibly talk about?

      I don’t dislike Ms May, but every decision she made was the wrong one. She was appallingly advised and yet didn’t question it. Her philosophy was big state and her personal ethos toward headlines and acclaim.

  65. Anyone called Michael or George is in deep doo-doo…..

    Royal honour showing an angel standing on the neck of Satan gets slammed for ‘looking like George Floyd killing’
    *Campaigners are in uproar over one of Britain’s most senior Royal honours
    *Image on The Order of St Michael and St George features angel on Satan’s neck
    *But activists say that it looks like the recent killing of George Floyd in the US

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/06/23/01/29935434-8449259-image-m-18_1592871074106.jpg

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8449259/Royal-honour-gets-slammed-looking-like-George-Floyd-killing.html

  66. The OED has just added a new word for the 2020 edition

    Kneepotism
    noun
    the practice among those with power or influence of favouring minorities or races, especially by giving them jobs.

  67. The OED has just added a new word for the 2020 edition

    Kneepotism
    noun
    the practice among those with power or influence of favouring minorities or races, especially by giving them jobs.

    2. That was a bit more than what we would recognise as a ‘firework’, surely. That was horrific.

      1. You can buy them quite big now. Personally i don’t think individuals should be able to buy them. Just organised displays.

  69. I have just booked lunch at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne for Tue.7th July. the timid should stay at home. The staff were just so pleased.

      2. Barely two weeks, I should be able to fly over tonight and escape quarantine just in time.

        2. I wore Tweed (the material, not the perfume) this morning. Before I took the dog for his walk the sky was overcast and filled with black clouds. By the time I’d gone a few hundred yards, the sun had come out and I was frazzled!

    4. In the fantasy world of intersectionality we’re all powerful oppressors therefore merit no consideration whatsoever.

    1. A nod to Bob Dylan’s cards with words on them! Of course Dominic Frisby’s best was the Brexit song – but this one ain’t bad!

      One of his big failings – to which he confesses – is that he went to public school. In fact this was St Paul’s Boys’ School in Barnes whose sister school, St Paul’s Girls’ School across the river in Hammersmith, has as near as dammit come out in support of BLM – but what would you expect it is Harperson’s alma mater.

      1. He was a couple of years ahead of George (Gideon) Osborne at St Paul’s School – I know who would provide a more entertaining evening.

    1. Except that it isn’t really. It is another way of making life less buggered – but no hope for complete removal of these stupid and (generally) ignored rules is in sight.

      1. Quite.
        I am torn between delight that all those BLM rioters might get it and the worry that we get locked down again because they do.

  78. The DM reports that the person responsible for the White Lives Matter flyer paraded by plane over the Burnley Football ground was a supporter of Tommy Robinson.

    Is there any punishment harsh enough for the MSM, the courts, the politicians, the police and all enemies of free speech to impose upon him?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8448635/Burnley-FC-apologise-White-Lives-Matter-banner-flown-match-against-Manchester-City.html

    Looking at the comments under the article it would appear that the general caving in to black anarchist racists by the establishment has not gone down at all well with the general public.

      1. As I said earlier, they will still feed the coffers of these clubs at the turnstiles though.
        Sheep, spineless sheep!

    2. Comedian Omid Djalli said: ‘Burnley FC have apologised for an idiotic minority who want a race war. Well done the Premier League for keeping on highlighting injustice.’

      Standing truth on its head. He’s popular with the BBC. The two go together.

  79. What is a terrorist organisation? How is it defined? Here are the official UK Government criteria.

    “A. Under the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Secretary may proscribe an organisation if he believes it is concerned in terrorism, and it is proportionate to do. For the purposes of the Act, this means that the organisation:• commits or participates in acts of terrorism;
    • prepares for terrorism;
    • promotes or encourages terrorism (including the unlawful glorification of terrorism); or
    • is otherwise concerned in terrorism.
    What is meant by ‘terrorism’ in the proscription context?
    A. “Terrorism” as defined in the Act, means the use or threat of action which: involves serious violence against a person; involves serious damage to property; endangers a person’s life (other than that of the person committing the act); creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or section of the public; or is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system. The use or threat of such action must be designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and must be undertaken for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.”

    My underlining. The law of unintended consequences as this law, ( just as I mentioned with respect to increased prison sentences for “racially aggravates” offences) was written with only white people in mind, that is, native Britons.

    As I read this is it seems to me to be very clear, incontrovertibly clear, that the BLM is a terrorist organisation.

    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/869496/20200228_Proscription.pdf

      1. Yes, it does. Why are kids from “National Action” spending years in jail while the authorities smile on Extinction Rebellion and BLM and prevent tight . right-thinking citizens from interfering with their protests, violence and destruction?

        Oops!

      1. Neither have we. Can’t understand why they’ve been going on all this time every day. What on earth can be said day after day.

          2. The government has been distinctly uninspiring – there’s been nothing uplifting in what any of them have said. And I think this is why Boris had such a majority in December last year, he did at least have a bit of gumption about him. Seems to have been knocked out of him by the virus.

          4. I don’t think he looks well. There’s an article in today’s DT about the long-term effects of Covid-19. He seems a different Boris to the one who won the December election.

  83. DT gone into full woke mode over the Burnley banner incident. Apparently ‘white lives matter’ is racist, but ‘black lives matter’ isn’t. No comments on the two articles about it. Hence loads of comments in response in unrelated articles.

    1. I wonder what would happen to any footballer, black or white or asian who refused to kneel? End of career I suspect, certainly in the UK.

      1. That would really bugger up the club finances. They rely on the ‘top’ players and if they’re sacked Sky etc won’t cough up the dosh.

        1. It would take a lot of courage to refuse but would the player’s team mates support that right not bend?

          I very much doubt it. And I suspect they might refuse to play with the refusnik.

          1. This is Lynch mob time. If you are not with them, it’s you that they are intending to lynch.

        2. The answer is that nobody who believes that black lives are not more, not less but of the same value as other lives should not support football team any more. The clubs must be starved of money until they have to sack all their players because they are bankrupt..

    2. With the Daily Mail sticking a knife into Tommy Robinskn along the way, just in case you did not realise how disrespectful the stunt was.

      Wikipedia maintains a lust of people killed by US cops, the count is about 40 this month. So much opportunity to disrupt the UK when all of those “victims” are remembered.

    3. The DT has completely misread the mood of the public which can see that white lives matter is no more racist than black lives matter and that people are sick to death of black people being allowed to express views freely while white people are not.

      1. I get the feeling of serious pushback coming from the “ordinary” folk (= sensible folk)

        1. Erm….Alistair Crampon? Gordon Broon? Peter Meddlesome? Jeremy Carbunkle? Dianne Lammy? Naz Shit? John MacIRA? Yvette 50%off Coupon? David Moribund?

  85. Guess what ..

    I have just booked the sweep .. we need our chimney cleared of the stuff the Jackdaws crammmed inside it and abandoned for next doors chimney .. and the sweep is now booked … he will be social distancing .. The Sweep is almost fully booked for months .. why because just in case there is a second lockdown .. and people do need to get their chimneys swept before the Autumn!

    Talking of chimneys ,, BLM have requested the Mary Poppins brilliant chimney sweep roof top dance routine be wiped from the film, they don’t like the sooty faces.. ignorant wassocks, aren’t they!

      1. Persons of colour being manipulated by whitey, of course they should be banned. Harry Corbett should be removed from the history of the BBC.

    3. It’s a requirement of insurance here to have your chimney swept every year. Living in a wooden house with open fire, it seems sensible!

    6. This woman is an insult to the human race and a disgrace to the feminine sex.

  88. Afternoon all. Have just had a phone call from my hairdresser offering me an appointment on 10th July which I have accepted. Then she asked me to “bring a mask”. Said I would but did she want me to wear it? Yes. So I objected and said quite bluntly I am not wearing a mask. So I am now the last customer of the day!

    It’s all such a load of old borrocks.

  89. I am off. Time for a medicinal drink. The bronchitis that I thought had gone, has returned. A veritable “second wave”. Contacted my GP surgery – setting out symptoms etc. Dr phoned within half an hour to ask me what the symptoms were…. Before anything can happen, I HAVE to have a virus test.

    His mob don’t do them – so tomorrow, I’ll have to drive 17 miles to have the test. GP said that the “clinician” (by which, I assume, he means “doctor”) will be able to examine my chest and prescribe if need be…

    Test results in 48 hours will be sent to me (or not/or lost – my B-i-L has had three and they lost them all…)

    So I may see you tomorrow, depending…..

    3. Good luck Bill. Fingers crossed for you.
      In all likelihood your B-i-L’s test results were negative and they were really annoyed.

      KBO.

    4. Best you head back to Laure.
      Yer French are far more efficient.
      HG went in for her regular check up and was informed that there was not the usual fee, because everyone is entitled to a free check up after the lockdown.

      1. I had a biopsy on a lesion on my leg yesterday and was told the results would probably take 6 weeks!

        Hop the leg doesn’t drop off in the meantime.

        Expectations are so low now with the NHS but, unfortunately, they are often far exceeded.

        1. Perish the thought, AtG, but if it should drop off, I’ve a spare pair of prostheses. To put your six weeks in perspective, it took me 13 weeks to have my legs “trimmed”, heal, do the rehab and walk out the door. FFS…

          5. There once was a fellow from Ghent

            Whose rule was incredibly bent
            To save himself trouble

            He pushed it in double
            But instead of coming he went…

        2. Brilliant typo, if it was deliberate, I salute you!

          Hop the leg doesn’t drop off

          PS. Good luck with it.

          1. Unintentional but I’ll accept the compliment as they’re so rare these days. 😂😂

    5. Hope all goes well tomorrow Uncle Bill! Will be thinking of you and expect all will be well after a little anaesthetic!

    7. For anything ‘chesty’, Bill; I prescribe a large whisky (or whiskey), fresh lemon juice, four cloves and 1tsp honey – topped up with boiling water …

      If that doesn’t work within half-an-hour; have another !

    1. That picture defines the moment when the BBC defied its Charter and betrayed its poll-taxed public.

      In such circumstances, any organisation of integrity should cease to operate.

      Perhaps the BBC should consider voluntary liquidation ?

          1. It still produces a lot of very good programmes.

            Get shot of all the politics and political correctness and it would be brilliant, and could sell its stuff with no need for a licence fee.

          2. I haven’t found them yet; the politics and political correctness keep getting in the way.

          4. What sort of things do you think I would watch on TV? As far as I know, Bbc of whatever number doesn’t do horse-racing 🙂

          7. I liked James May’s programme where he took things apart and rebuilt them. Can’t remember what it was called.

          10. While I might need repair (dodgy knees, hips and hands) I am not a great fan of watching other people repairing things, although I have caught it on a couple of occasions and it was okay on the whole. I am more of a participant than a voyeur 🙂

    2. Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive. I was at the Guildford count, whilst history was being made.

      Admittedly, remain won Guildford, but it was worth being there to see the faces of the “I’m In” crowd, when the result became clear. By the way, the avatar is sunrise on 24/6/16, taken from the Spectrum, Guildford. Four years on, and we still haven’t properly left. But my views apparently don’t matter; nor does my life.

      Perhaps I should self-identify as Black, you honky bastards…

      1. I shall never forget the look on Dimbleby’s face when he had to announce “remain can’t possibly win”. I was at the count in Shrewsbury (Shropshire voted 60:40 to LEAVE). I drove home to a stunning sunrise, believing I was living in a free country. Four years on, that has still to happen.

  91. Nice breezy sunny day out there,
    Time for a singalong

    Oh, oh, oh!
    Let’s go fly a banner
    Up over the Burnley Manor
    Let’s go fly a Banner and send it soaring
    Up past the blogosphere,
    Up where no censor is near
    Oh, let’s go fly a Banner!

    When you send it flyin’ up there
    It makes the Left so angry down there
    You can dance on the breeze
    Over ‘ouses and trees
    And you can thrown in a BLM spanner
    With those words on your Banner

  92. I have just been watering the garden and it has got so much warmer this evening , my glasses have steamed up because I am so warm. The sun feels so much stronger late afternoon.

    High whispy cloud in the sky, very still , not a flutter of air , this morning was pleasantly breezy. Lots of traffic on the road .

    Shame about the young swimmer who went missing off the beach at Durdle Door at the week end .

    Too much drama and too many crowds again I expect.

    1. It was quite cool out on the water all day today. Some sunburn but it felt very pleasant, the sea was very confused all day though. A large southerly swell and very fresh SE wind against a fairly large tide made for an uncomfortable but still enjoyable day’s fishing. Still not too many sailing folk out at sea. Navy exercising with aircraft but didn’t hear any gunnery today.

  93. ‘In venues where two metres isn’t possible, customers may sit one metre apart so long as measures are put into place, such as back-to-back seating, perspex screens, partitions between tables, disposable menus and regular cleaning of commonly touched surfaces are put in place.

    Additional changes will include reducing the number of people allowed in enclosed spaces; improving ventilation; the use of protective screens and face coverings; providing hand sanitiser; and changing shift patterns so staff can work in set teams.

    All indoor hospitality will be limited to table service, meaning bar orders won’t be an option. The Government will ask staff to limit contact between staff and customers.

    Businesses will be asked to collect contact details from customers, as is currently the case in several other countries, in order to aid track and trace should cases emerge.’

    Sounds like great fun! All down the pub everyone!

    On second thoughts, I think I’ll just have a few friends round for some cheap supermarket beer in the back garden. With all the restrictions in place, going to the pub sounds as much fun as a trip to the dentist,,,

    1. Indeed so, but I still feel we owe it to our local pubs and restaurants to support them.

      If we don’t they’ll be lost, possibly forever.

      Big conspiracy theory:
      Who do you think might be delighted if all pubs close forever?

      1. I agree that we should support our local shops and businesses, but if it becomes more of a chore than a pleasure then I think that after a while a lot of people simply won’t bother. I’m not sure if the furlough scheme will no longer apply to these businesses, if so it is the worst of all possible worlds. It would have been better to let them open in a month or so and let them trade properly, rather than hamstringing them in this way.

        And I agree that a certain demographic would be pleased if pubs close down, but I also think that governments generally don’t like the idea of pubs. Free-spirited people chatting and enjoying each other’s company? Far better they stay at home with a takeaway and Netflix.

      6. We made a special effort to order carry-outs from the local restaurants we like to frequent, to help them keep their heads above water. Just back from the curry house, where they offerd us free dessert in thanks.
        If you’re ever in Bærum, visit Spice Rootz.

          1. The small business doesn’t have the capital, or access to it, that the big guys have, yet make life worth living, as well as delivering a service that’s needed.
            The others who have dug me and me Mother out of a delivery hole are Valley View groceries in Dinas Powys, who would take an oder by SMS, deliver, and accept payment by international transfer – when the big supermarkets didn’t have any slots, and many wouldn’t take a credit card with a foreign address. I’ll be taking them a bottle of champagne when I next go to Wales, as a tiny and insignificant expression of my deepest thanks.

          2. I fear that the great British public won’t.
            I hope they do, but I’m not holding my breath.

      7. They have tried with increasing the tax on alcohol, that got rid of a few; then they tried by forbidding smoking within, that got rid of a whole lot more customers. I actually think they well succeed in their aim this time – the closing down of the British pub. They have been longing for this for years.

        1. The only word for them is bastards.
          I hate the way the left is trying to destroy our culture

          2. It’s still hanging on, but I hope it doesn’t decide to bite its fingernails.

            {:-((.

          3. The ‘b’ word is used so frequently in our household in a way that it never was before….! I am so angry about all of this, it is all gathering apace now, and waiting for that leader to emerge from one of us. Whoever it will be, it certainly will not be a politician. At times like this it is never politicians who become our saviours, not when we are being attacked from within.

    2. Now I’ve worked out that the local brewery will locally deliver bright / sedimented beer, plus meat hampers from an excellent local butcher (and wines, local bread, etc.) for free if the bill exceeds £40, I fear it will be a while before I don my muzzle and head for the pub.

        1. I am a share-owner in a pub. I need to be able to support it once it opens, but I’ll have to get the push-bike out to get there.

        2. Not driving at the moment. Sent an application off months ago, but DVLA aren’t dealing with any paper applications. Apparently, my Ophthalmology consultant is far too busy dealing with Covid at present…

          And Motability aren’t dealing with new clients, should the licence finally arrive.

          2. At the moment, it’s no big deal. The nearest public transport is a pleasant mile and a half walk away, but I can get most of my needs delivered online. Sent the C-Class to the scrapyard a few months ago. It needed more spent on it than was justifiable, with 240k on the clock, and it owed me nothing. And three years off the road had taken their toll.

            All is rather fluid at the moment, anyway. The Verger’s cottage where I currently reside is going on the market in a week or so. The parish has offered to cover my rent elsewhere for five years. Which is generous. But there’s currently no reason to believe that the C of E will have a role for organists, post lockdown. I’ve applied for a vacant retirement bungalow at t’other end of the Parish, which doesn’t tick all the boxes, but is affordable. I’m shortlisted for an interview in July. Driving would then be handy, since it’s a bit more isolated, and further from any bus route. But it’s across the road from a railway station, so not all bad.

            If all else fails, I’ll sod off back to Carlisle, where rental values are about a third of those in Surrey / Hants…

          3. Two things I remember fondly of the Church: ringing a proper peal of bells, and organ music. If the C of E is to do away with that tradition, it will be the poorer for it – and the thought saddens me, Geoff, as does your current redundancy. I hope your situation resolves well for you. Carlisle would be my preferred location over Surrey, anyhow, but it’s not my move.

    3. Our restaurants have been open for outdoor service for over a week now.
      Restrictions are quite severe with a mandatory six feet between tables and tables needing to be sanitized after each customer leaves.
      All staff must wear face masks which certainly cuts down interaction with waiters that you don’t know and most intrusive of all, the powers that be have deemed that commercial dishwashers do not kill the bug so it is all disposable glasses, cutlery and dishes all round.

      Just having a few friends round sounds much more enjoyable.

    4. The government guidelines (not fully published by the media) are to remain within 2M of a person for no longer than 15 mins.

      1. So when you pop out for a quickie, you now need to set a timer.
        What if you chat for ten minutes then go for a pee, does the timer reset?

  94. A glorious day for democracy. Spiked. Brendan O’Neill. 23 June 2020.

    It was four years ago today. Four years ago that the largest act of democracy in the history of this nation took place. Four years ago when almost 34million Britons traipsed to voting booths to give their verdict on our membership of the EU. Four years ago that 17.4million people – the largest bloc of voters this country has ever known – instructed the government to take Britain out of the European Union. Or as a shaken David Dimbleby succinctly put it on BBC News in the early hours of the following day: ‘The British people have spoken and the answer is: we’re out.’

    Brexit is now irrelevant. I believe Brendan is in Australia at the moment. If he is wise he will stay there!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/23/a-glorious-day-for-democracy/

    1. Australia is looking good. Provided you don’t get into trouble with the Law you can keep renewing your Visa.

      On the plus side you don’t have to learn Hungarian to stay.

      Fair dinkum.

  96. Evening, all. Been a lovely, sunny day here. So nice that CBA syndrome reared its ugly head. Sat out in the garden, soaking up the rays and reading a book about the psychology of training racehorses. Fascinating.

    1. LeisureWilliam Henry Davies, 1911

      What is this life if, full of care,
      We have no time to stand and stare.
      No time to stand beneath the boughs
      And stare as long as sheep or cows.
      No time to see, when woods we pass,
      Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
      No time to see, in broad daylight,
      Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
      No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
      And watch her feet, how they can dance.
      No time to wait till her mouth can
      Enrich that smile her eyes began.
      A poor life this if, full of care,
      We have no time to stand and stare.

        1. You have, but with my memory, it never hurts to be reminded.
          The poem always makes me think of Firstborn’s farm, with all the nature around it.

          1. A good friend of mine quoted it at every opportunity.

            He was a real softie over it.

            Strange, coming from a professional rugby league front row forward!

      2. WHD’s poem rests gently in my brain – some sixty-five years after reading/ hearing/ learning it at school …

      3. It was interesting that I had just finished “Early One Morning” a novel based on a true story about racing drivers that worked for the Resistance and one of the characters said that he slowed down his breathing to make everything happen slowly when racing. The exact same thing was written about good racehorses in the training book.

          8. I love that tune.

            I whistle it in the garden, and the hares seem to recognise it, because they look up, twitch their ears and when they spot me they settle down again.

            I can often get within social distancing distance of them as long as I move slowly and steadily.

          9. I remember it from Radio Newsreel on shortwave, with it going in and out of tune, and all the atmospherics.

          10. Now sing it, Sos,

            Proudly with high endeavour, we, who are young forever,
            won the freedom of the sky, we shall never die!
            We who have made our story, Part of our country’s glory
            Know our hearts will still live on, While Britons fly
            We Know our hearts will still live on

            You who have seen us flying, hold to one hope undying
            Someday over all the world, ev’ry war shall cease
            Pray that a new generation, people of every nation
            Take the highways of the sky, on wings of peace
            They’ll Take the highways of the sky,

            Sing for the splendour of living, sing for the gladness of giving
            Thanks for all the happiness, any morning may bring
            Sing for the world of tomorrow, leaving the past and its sorrow
            Life belongs to those who lift their hearts and sing
            For those who lift their hearts and sing

            Songs of a new generation, brothers of every nation
            We salute you as you fly far up into the blue
            On the world of tomorrow, leaving the past and its sorrow
            Lifting up our joyful hearts, to fly with you
            And lifting up our joyful hearts.

        2. Interesting.
          I used to do that as a sub-aqua diver. Manage your breathing, takes a bit of discipline, but worth it.
          That poem is one of the few that says anything to me, so I keep it on the PC, for opportunities like this. I have a small collection that I really like.

      4. Don’t know about squirrels, but if I find out who has been burying acorns, there’ll be hell to pay. I must have rooted out a dozen Oak saplings in the last couple of days…

        2. I get at least a dozen saplings under each oak and I have 21 oaks. In the autumn the deer arrive at dawn and eat some of the acorns, but in so doing the tread other acorns in, which in due course take root and grow. Instead of rooting them out, just mow them or cut the tops off, that normally stops the growth.

          1. That’s all very well, but there are no oaks nearby! The bloody deer must be importing them. The small ones pull out relatively easily, but the more advanced ones have been lopped off a few inches below the surface.

            The self seeding sycamore are worse…

          2. We’ve got self seeded ash, elm and beech as well as sycamore , though the beech is not such a problem.
            I think we’ve the wrong soil type here for oak as I’ve only discovered two or three round the valley.

          3. A year or three ago, a Swedish farmer wrote to the King to inform him that the oaks, planted for the Navy some 300 or so years ago, were now ready for felling.
            That’s forward planning, that is!

    2. I went to a coffee morning with four friends today – outside in the garden of one of them.

  98. What volcanoes did for us: huge eruption in Alaska ‘led to rise of the Roman Empire’. 23 June 2020

    The rise of the Roman Empire was due in part to a gigantic volcanic eruption 6,000 miles away in Alaska, an international team of scientists claims.

    The eruption of the Okmok volcano in the Aleutian islands of Alaska more than 2,000 years ago caused a severe cold spell in Europe that led to crop failures, food shortages and political and social unrest, they argue.

    Right now I’d settle for a Super Eruption because it would be a lot easier to deal with than what we have!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/23/huge-volcanic-eruption-alaska-led-rise-roman-empire-scientists/

    3. I’ve thought for a long time that it will be volcanoes that would trim the world’s population. If Yellowstone blew and a few others around the world in a chain reaction it would certainly have a terrible impact. It would be a catastrophic as a nuclear war but without the radiation.
      Cheerful soul ain’t I.

      1. Quite a few of the worlds geological disasters are greatly overdue. A couple of them going off right now might do more good than harm!

      2. Warmists contend that the Little Ice Age wasn’t the result of reduced solar activity but a greater frequency of volcanic activity.

      3. ‘Evening, Alf, we need some sort of Global Catalyst to clear the heads and minds of the stupid left.

      4. Trouble with Yellowstone is that it would decimate both the US and Canada’s food producing regions, before the dust wiped out other countries’ agriculture as it drifted around the world.

        We would not have an obesity problem, that’s for sure.

        1. Yes Jack. We became aware of Yellowstone in the early 90s when we had a holiday in Colorado. Read up about the area before we went and that must be where I learned about it being a crater.

          I think it’s more likely to be some enormous natural disaster that might happen rather than man made. Yellowstone fits the bill but a chain reaction of volcanoes would have a devastating effect.

          1. Do you think that the African countries will welcome refugees from the US and Canada?

  99. James Kirkup
    Helen Whately is right about student nurses
    23 June 2020, 1:22pm

    Helen Whately, the care minister, is being tarred and feathered. She wrote a letter to an MP about student nurses, saying they are ‘supernumerary and not deemed to be providing a service’.

    The outpouring of fury online and, sadly, from some traditional media outlets provides an object lesson in all that’s wrong with the way Britain debates politics and government in the era of Twitter.

    Whately’s comments should not be ‘controversial’ or even newsworthy, because she said nothing wrong.

    Student nurses are indeed ‘supernumerary’, which means that they are not counted towards the total of nursing staff in the NHS. This is not just sensible, it’s something recognised and demanded by bodies such as the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).

    The RCN says that keeping student nurses out of the numbers for NHS nurses is about patient safety: it stops ministers using students as substitutes for fully-qualified staff. It also protects student nurses’ learning time, by preventing managers from deploying them to wards when they should be studying.

    It follows from this that the activities carried out by student nurses cannot be recognised as work or a ‘service’ for the NHS in the same way as the work of qualified nurses is.

    So Whately wasn’t just noting a long-established and perfectly sensible NHS workforce policy, she was describing a policy that is actively defended by nursing groups as good for patients and good for nurses.

    But of course, none of that matters, because this is the Age of Stupid. Why bother to spend time thinking about something when you can just jump straight to dumb outrage? Given the choice between a better understanding of the world in a few minutes’ time or righteous anger now, too many of us choose the immediately gratifying dopamine hit of anger.

    Twitter, as the BBC’s Amol Rajan has noted, industrialises the worst aspects of human behaviour, handing out dopamine like sugar to toddlers, and rewarding the biggest pushers. The dumb outrage at Whately’s letter was turbocharged by Piers Morgan, the quintessential journalist of the Twitter age.

    Add in the role of the NHS and you have the perfect story of our times. Even before the pandemic, the national conversation about the health service was shallow and adulatory, especially on workforce issues. That veneration, which chills reasoned criticism and prevents the NHS being as good as it could be, is now a settled fact of politics for the next decade: doctors and nurses are right and good, and anyone who doesn’t accept that is axiomatically wrong and probably evil.

    But Helen Whately wasn’t wrong and she isn’t evil. Saying so is about defending things far more important than her.

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

    BTL:Captain Detterling • 2 hours ago • edited
    Piers Morgan is ‘a journalist’ only in the sense that if I run for a bus I am ‘an athlete.’

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-dumb-outrage-against-care-minister-helen-whately

          1. I must have been just after you, Peddy, a few hours ago – signed at 52,560.

          2. I had a somewhat prickly relationship with one of the German dentists in Sweden. We were heading along a corridor when he opened a door for me & said sarcastically, “Alter vor Schönheit.” (Age before beauty). I resisted the temptation to reply, “Schweine folgen ihren Herrchen” (Pigs follow their masters) as that would have ben a grave insult.

    2. It looks as though I signed it some time ago – though the government’s response was about the fears of people worried about radio waves. I’m more concerned about the Huawei aspect.

  102. This article makes for disturbing and depressing reading…but there’s a good idea BTL

    Hardeep Singh
    The rising threat of genocide against Christians in Nigeria
    23 June 2020, 3:36pm

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-rising-threat-of-genocide-against-christians-in-nigeria

    Six years ago the kidnapping of 276, mainly Christian, schoolgirls by Islamist group Boko Haram in Chibok, Nigeria resulted in international condemnation. #BringBackOurGirls trended on Twitter and even Michelle Obama, then First Lady, posted an image of herself with the hashtag. For a brief period in 2014, an awareness of Christian suffering in Nigeria was heightened worldwide.

    Last week, the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for international freedom of religion or belief published a report on its findings of Christian persecution in Nigeria. Their plight may no longer be at the forefront of our minds here in the West, but it has nevertheless been meticulously captured here. The report includes the testimony (in graphic detail) of numerous Nigerian survivors of violence over the past decade. It makes for grim reading, and it’s difficult to fathom the barbarity described.

    One victim is Rebecca Sharibu – the mother of schoolgirl Leah Sharibu who was kidnapped by Boko Haram two years ago and remains in their captivity. According to the APPG there are thousands of girls like her, and ‘millions of others who suffer… unspeakably.’

    Boko Haram are not the only threat facing Nigerian Christians. APPG chair Jim Shannon points out that ‘attacks by armed groups of Fulani herdsmen have resulted in the killing, maiming, dispossession and eviction of thousands of Christians.’

    At times, the scale and horror of the atrocities being perpetrated in Nigeria is truly staggering. Amnesty International estimates that up to October 2018 approximately 3,641 people may have been killed, 406 injured and 5,000 homes burnt down in clashes between predominantly ethnic Muslim Fulani herders and Christian farmers . The Christian Association of Nigeria say that in six months in 2018, over 6,000 people were killed. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced due to the conflict. In April, more than 300 Fulani herders reportedly attacked Christians in the village of Hukke, near Jos. Several people were reportedly killed and 23 homes set on fire. A survivor said: ‘I saw the Fulani as they came towards me, they started shooting, I fell and they passed over me into my house and killed my two sons, they then went straight to the pastors house and shot and killed him, they set some houses on fire and left.’ Often there is a retaliatory response to Fulani violence by young men compelled to become vigilantes – men who’ve lost faith in the authorities to protect them and their families from murder and mayhem in the name of Allah.

    Although much of the world’s media has remained silent on Christian persecution since the Chibok kidnappings, some brave British parliamentarians and journalists have travelled to Nigeria and spoken to survivors in an effort to shine a light on ongoing persecution.

    On a 2016 visit to a war-ravaged village of Jong in central Nigeria, Baroness Cox narrowly missed an ambush by Fulani gunmen with AK-47s herself. Meanwhile, Douglas Murray captured the nightmarish fate of Christian villages in northern Nigeria here in the Spectator.

    Despite being less well known in the West compared to the gun-toting jihadists of Boko Haram, the Fulani violence has claimed thousands of lives in Nigeria, and ravaged a much wider geographical territory, stretching across more states. There are various theories about why this is all happening, including competition for land due to desertification caused by climate change. But it is clear that religious ideology features prominently in the conflict. Islamists – including the Boko Haram splinter group known as Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) – have been responsible for the destruction of churches and many Fulani herdsman appear to have adopted similar tactics and targeted Christians and symbols of Christian identity. Christian pastors and community heads are singled out, and herders are reported to have shouted, ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ‘wipe out the infidels’ when launching attacks. The level of violence poses important questions, not least whether what is happening in Nigeria can be described as an ‘unfolding genocide’.

    Veteran Catholic parliamentarian and APPG Vice-Chair, Lord Alton told me,

    “ ‘Climate change didn’t behead eleven Christians at Christmas, destroy churches and schools, abduct, torture, rape, and forcibly convert women and girls like Leah Sharibu. Peaceable Muslims who have embraced diversity and plurality are victims of this ideology too. The UK and Nigeria are signatories to the 1948 Convention on Genocide – which lays a duty to prevent genocides from occurring. This timely and welcome report from parliamentarians warns that in Northern Nigeria a genocide has long been in the making.’

    There has been (and will continue to be) an important debate around all the underlying reasons behind the violence, and there are several potential factors – beyond religious ideology, Islamic revivalism, and its associated territorial expansion. Competition for resources, poor land management by the Nigerian government, climate change, exponential population growth and insecurity all play their part.

    Often the Nigerian government’s response in the farmer-herder conflict has been inadequate and has allowed violence to emerge and escalate. The report says that ‘there is the belief that the lack of political will or capacity to address conflict is one of the main drivers of violence’ and has made a series of recommendations to help ameliorate the tumult. But the Nigerian government has been swift to rebut the contents of the report. A presidential spokesperson said the religious farmer-herder tension is a longstanding battle for arable land between farmers and herders, and Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has been taking steps to ensure security in the North regardless of religious beliefs.

    Crossbench peer and APPG Co-Chair Baroness Cox says that:

    “ ‘It comes as no surprise that the Nigerian Government would wish to divert attention away from accusations of potential complicity. Yet our serious concerns remain: President Buhari must take swift and effective action to protect all citizens; to call to account those who have perpetrated such horrendous atrocities; and to ensure that adequate humanitarian aid is available – as a matter of urgency – for those suffering the tragic loss of family members and the destruction of their homes and farmland.’

    The British government must do all in its power to work with its Nigerian counterparts to tackle the violence, before it’s too late.

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

    BTL:

    ellybee • 21 minutes ago
    David Olusoga should make a documentary about it – he likes to trade off his Nigerian connections. Funny that he didn’t mention any of this though in his recent interview in The Times where he said he was ‘exhilarated’ about statues in the UK being toppled and that Britain needed to face up to its past. Sounds like he needs a bit of perspective and a sense of proportion – the tenets of slavery and race persecution are alive and well in today’s Nigeria – shame on him for not speaking up about it but instead poncing off his ethnic links when it suits and trying to paint Britain as the bad guy in contrast to Nigeria aka him. And of course, thank you BBC for shoving this hypocrite in our faces at every given opportunity.

        1. I’m not sure when they depart and the latest elected ones arrive, but I believe that it has to be another African nation.

    3. 320517+ up ticks,
      Afternoon C,
      Me & a mate use to go down the coast from Ikeja on a Sunday he would count the dead on the right me on the left on the trip down.
      You never use the express way when you knocked off work, guaranteed to be held up,you join the go slow through town.
      Especially at months end things got extra sticky on account the police become the robbers awaiting payday.
      Love to take groups of rear exits from over here to over there as an eye opener and ask “is this what you want”.

    4. Arch Bish of Cantab very silent , so is the Arch Bish of York .. in fact the silence is achingly embarassing .

      The church has forsaken it’s people!

      ( and so have the pseudo intellegentsia like David Olusoga)

      1. Welby is a secret leader of a pagan sect dedicated to stamping out Christianity.

        Don’t take my word for it – just look at the way he behaves.

        1. I would suggest he’s the Antichrist, but he’s too wet for that. Besides, Greta is at the front of the queue for that appellation…

          Meanwhile, Boris has announced that places of worship can open fully from 4th July. I rushed over to the C of E website to see how I need to prepare. Zilch… No advice re. singing, choirs, music, anything. They’ve had three months to prepare for this, FFS.

          All I could find was a webinar hosted by the Royal School of Church Music, recorded in May. Don’t have the time or the inclination to watch 90 minutes of lefty waffle, but – among the 4 comments below the video, is this gem…
          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f9b376802c8810cb63f7e512f4338f9072e7a0b50a45b4ab1347ba74d77e7f37.png

          I hope I’m wrong, but I believe I may have outlived my usefulness…

          1. I hope my church will let me know when services can restart – they have been pretty good about sending stuff for contemplation and Youtube links. Our director of music put together an organ recital for the last one.

          2. To stay within the (questionable) law, I hope he used an instrument other than the one in church. It’s currently only legal to practice on church organs. Ridiculous, I know. I explored whether I could add a musical element to our Zoom services – I have Hauptwerk virtual pipe organ software – and while it worked (just) on the laptop, with a slight latency issue, when I tried to run Zoom at the same time, everything crashed and burned. Just as well, really. If the fifty-odd participants in our virtual services all speak at once (the Lord’s Prayer, for example), the result ain’t pretty…

          3. I noticed the lack of co-ordination when we had a church Zoom meeting, too 🙂 The first hymn was so pathetic they didn’t attempt a second. I don’t know what Stuart played, but he also accompanied a couple of members of his (very musical) family in a motet. I expect they are all going to prison (although I doubt very much they’ll be going to Hell) 🙂

      1. Ours are all native, wild hedgehogs, that are released when they are well.

        APH are hybrids bred for the pet trade – an American fad that took off here.

        1. He was used in a photohoot for the RSPCA to attempt to prevent them being bought as pets and found to be unsuitable and being releaed into the wild (illegal I believe). We somehow were persuaded to keep it.

          1. They are quite cute – but people mistake them for wild ones – you can read a good article about wild hedgehogs and the illustration is of an APH.

          2. Why would anyone want a pin cushion for a pet or are they soft spined and cuddly?

          4. Why would anyone want a pin cushion for a pet or are they soft spined and cuddly?

    6. Well done Jules!

      Have just sent some dosh (My late and much missed sister was a hedgehog fanatic) That ‘Just Giving’ website are a real pain in the way they try to con an extra 15% – and I’ve told them so!

      1. Thanks so much – unfortunately all these fundraising platforms cream off a lot of the dosh that people donate – even a simple donation via Paypal – they still take a cut. But thanks very much – it’s much appreciated.

          1. Thanks Geoff – much appreciated.

            Help a Hedgehog Hospital
            Lloyds Bank

            Sort code: 30 98 29
            Account number: 0114500

    1. Missy used to love sliding on the plastic flooring in the kitchen in Sweden.

      1. In normal circumstances it would but we now have our laws applied selectively. No longer are they applied without fear nor favour.

    2. Bet they went over any possible grounds for prosecution in considerable detail.

    4. As no criminal offence was committed, it would be interesting to see on what grounds Burnley FC will try to ban the person or persons responsible from Turfmoor. A court case could result, with possible donations for legal expenses for the ‘offenders’.

          1. Seems that way. Unless they can move to another airport – but that would be costly for them.

        2. Nothing to do with the content they don’t like – oh, no siree. What justification are they giving? It can hardly be health and safety if they have had no incidents.

        2. ‘Evening, Cori, I thought a prerequisite for playing for Yorkshire CCC was to be born in Yorkshire. My daughter, now 54 is eligible. Born 31/01/1966 in Fulford Hospital., York.

      4. It will be something along the lines of ‘not in keeping with the ethos… yada yada yada’.

    5. Note that Tommy Robinson is described as “the former EDL leader”. Nuff said.

  107. 320517+ up ticks,
    ” How far does it have to go” you may well ask, tomorrow will be four years awaiting for fulfilment to the cries on the 24/6/2016 victory, job done, ditch UKIP, leave it to THE TORIES, gullible fools barely covers it.
    We must have multiple dead before the establishment acts rhetorically
    then another quota of dead before some sort of soft action is taken.

    https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1275424681026359297

    1. To be honest the very best counter arguments against BLM tyranny and racism has come from splendid black people like Candace Owens.

      Let decent black people join those of us who are morally and philosophically against racial hatred and let the BLM movement just have the white trash who think of themselves as left wing zealots.

      1. Well said Richard.

        I know you don’t count them but 17,410,742 upticks on what should be this auspicious day.

        1. One thing about the vote, that one seldom sees discussed, is that in all probability many of us old white xenophobic bigots who voted to leave will have voted to stay the last time.

          2. I’m fairly sure you’ll be in a minority.

            Almost all of the people I know, who will admit to voting leave, voted to stay in 40 years ago.

          3. It was 45 years ago, soc !

            As a 34-y-o business exec and a father of two, I was strongly against the EU scam – disguised as the ‘Common Market’ …

          4. I was ~ 10 years younger and still believed in it being about trade rather than politics.

            I used 40 because I was too lazy to look it up, and knew it was roughly that long ago!

          6. You were only conned because we were all assured that it was strictly a vote for free trade. The long term goals were kept well hidden.

          7. Exactly, but Heath went on TV and lied through his teeth that we would not be giving up sovereignty. At that time I a) was not interested in politics, b) liked Europe and thought easy trade was a good idea and c) was totally naive and trusting. I know better now!

          9. I know I did. I would only be fooled once otherwise the shame would be on me rather than them.

          10. I suspect if we had been asked to vote to join the EC in the first place the answer would have been NO. We had no choice.

          11. It depends on how it was presented. If they had been honest about it, I can’t see many people having opted for it.

          12. I’m not sure.

            The economic advantages of a free trade block were certainly appealing.

            What was hidden were the real objectives.

            BLM is a similar turning point. The “West” needs to handle this uprising very carefully.

  108. Evening all. I see that God-Emperor Johnson is graciously going to give us back more of our previously-cherished freedoms on the 4th July. Be beware! If we incur his wrath then he will not hesitate to ‘put the handbrake on again’ and put us all back in deep-freeze.

    This must never happen again! We must never allow weak-willed politicians to be panicked by a scare-mongering media and discredited scientists to do this to us. Not on a whim or an R number. There was no parliamentary debate on this, and the legal basis of the lockdown is looking extremely tenuous. We must have an independent review of the government’s handling of this, from ‘following the science’ on lockdown, the lack of PPE and general lack of preparedness of the NHS and PHE (Operation Cygnus anyone?) to the care-homes scandal. But Johnson should not threaten us with lockdown again if we are not good boys and girls.

    No more! Never again!

    2. Wholeheartedly agree. And of course we can never now ban the wearing of hijab (I think that’s what it’s called) because we are to become accustomed to wearing face masks!

      The whole lockdown should be scrapped. We are living through a most unnatural time and it’s awful. I’d love it to be declared unlawful that would be brilliant.

    4. Ooh, I don’t know. I’ve quite enjoyed working from home and driving along empty roads, with deer poking their snouts out from the tree line.

  109. One last thought. Hairdressers, etc., can now open for business. Why not nail studios? Not that I frequent them.

    2. You are looking for logic?
      Didn’t tattoo parlours open before restaurants in some southern US states?

      1. Mine will make appointments for emergencies and I made an appointment to pick up some solutions I needed.

  111. The BBC has a diversity problem – it’s just not the one they think it is. 23 June 2020.

    In a week when three innocent men were stabbed to death in a Reading park it is inevitable that our thoughts turn to other mass killings and the causes of them. So it was perhaps timely that BBC1’s Panorama had an episode on the terrorist threat to the UK.

    Except they got the wrong kind of terrorist. Hunting the Neo-Nazis was a report into a far-right global network which is recruiting in the UK.
    What planet is the BBC on? I can guarantee that no normal person believes that far-right extremism is on a par with the threat to their country posed by the Islamist kind. Maybe that’s because it isn’t. The appalling death toll from multiple bloody attacks since 7 July 2005, when 56 innocent people were murdered in London, is almost entirely down to fanatics who cry, “Allahu Akbar!” as they detonate their bombs and wield their knives.

    This fact is an acute embarrassment to the bien-pensant, left-wing “anti-racists” who run the BBC, The Guardian and even the higher echelons of the police. They feel far more comfortable investigating hateful white people. Last year, a counter-terrorism officer tried to claim that the far right “is the fastest-growing terrorist threat in the UK” even as MI5 admitted it was struggling to keep tabs on at least 23,000 jihadists, about 3,000 of whom posed an immediate threat to the public.
    Intelligence expert Colonel Richard Kemp said yesterday that the authorities “know full well” that the far-right extremists Panorama got so excited about are “not a serious threat” but it was “a pretence to appease the sort of people that want to damage the UK such as Islamist terrorists and the hard Left.” Shamefully, the BBC colludes in that pretence.

    It is a very grave matter when the national broadcaster is so badly out of tune with the instincts of the British people who give it a deafening £3.83 billion a year in licence fees. Impartiality should be their watchword, not a constant hectoring assertion that all right-thinking people agree with left-wing producers. They don’t. The Beeb desperately needs to change, although not in the way it thinks it does. Director general Tony Hall announced this week that the BBC is to “increase diversity” by investing £100 million to produce “diverse and inclusive content”. This initiative, Lord Hall said, came about after “the senseless killing of George Floyd and what it tells us about the stain of systemic racism”.

    Do you suppose that an increase in BBC “diversity” will include non-metropolitan, right-of-centre people who make up the silent majority? You know, doing something completely crazy like hiring a couple of people who don’t read The Guardian and live in Tufnell Park with a cat called Muriel Spark (in the immortal words of the late Victoria Wood).

    No, me neither. No chance. Yet it is precisely that kind of “inclusivity” – including people with normal, decent views – which the BBC desperately needs if it is to continue to justify a tax imposed on every household in the land.

    You would struggle to find a better rebuttal of systemic racism than a series currently on BBC1, I May Destroy You. Written and partly directed by Michaela Coel, who was born in London to Ghanaian parents, this new drama is so brilliant you don’t watch it thinking that most of the characters are black. That’s irrelevant. They are human beings equipped with the full repertoire of virtues and vices.

    People don’t object to great work that is truly colour-blind. What drives us mad is a tokenistic “diversity” agenda and a leftist, anti-British groupthink imposed on viewers and listeners by a privately-educated liberal elite. The BBC boss class is as far from diverse as Mayfair is from Mablethorpe.

    I’m surprised that Alison hasn’t worked out that the BBC is just another Marxist propaganda outlet like the Guardian. There is no far right!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/bbc-has-diversity-problem-just-not-one-think/

    1. I shan’t be watching I May Destroy You. I’m old-fashioned enough to think that in a white, European country, the sorts of things I want to watch will reflect my culture and ethnicity. There was a time when I didn’t notice characters were black, but now, thanks to diversity quotas, I do and it makes me uneasy because I don’t find it inclusive.

      1. Evening C. I don’t watch BBC any longer except for the occasional BBC4 documentary!

        1. Since the Bbc stopped televising the racing (horse variety for the avoidance of doubt), I haven’t found anything worth watching on it (and even then I used to record it to whizz through the rubbishy bits and concentrate on the races themselves!

          1. To think that over here the quality of British TV programming is applauded.

            There again there is nothing to compare it to.

          2. Yes, if you like costume dramas which are very popular – the “Britain as Disneyland East” model.The rest of their stuff has gone downhill fast. PBS here still runs things like Midsomer Murders, but the plots are now so bizarre, there’s no point. And their newer series are painfully woke, obviously having had the diversity department make sure the percentages are acceptable.

            The best TV I have seen in late years are the series produced by HBO, like The Wire, or Treme.

        2. Television is seldom switched on in our humble cott except for something that has been very carefully selected. The week before last we tuned in for the final episode (and the preceding weekly episodes) of Pride and Prejudice. We will not be paying the bbc tax should it return.

      2. Precisely, Con! At the start of a BBC programme this evening they featured 5 women just moments before it started…of whom 4 were BAME. Frankly I’m sick of it.

      3. Its not just the quota element, it’s which roles are played by which races.

        Can anyone remember a crime story with a black murderer or rapist? There was a black serial killer in East Enders a few years back. But not the routine drugstabby sort, he was, as we were constantly reminded, a Christian. Generally theres only place you’ll find black men committing crime and thats real life.

        Basically it’s an inversion of reality where almost all crime is depicted as being committed by straight, white, men.

        And gays too, it’s hard to remember any time a gay man was depicted as criminal on-screen, or even as unsympathetic. Their characters are always there standing in moral judgement, available for life coaching and parental advice. The only time gays commit crime is either because they are in denial or because they were righteously responding to homophobia (from white men naturally).

        Can anyone recall a corrupt cop who wan’t white? There was Denzel Washington in a film a few years ago but I can’t think of another example.

        Its a running joke for me and a source of annoyance to Mrs 301 as I always point it out – the role of police in UK soap operas. Any serious case – murder rape, armed robbery – will always be investigated by a woman. Bonus points for her senior rank + youth, being black and being lesbian. Any male coppers are just there to silently back her up and drive her around.

        If a white man does appear to hold senior rank and have authority then this should be a warning of a plot twist ahead. The case is a phoney, he’s corrupt or racist or both, he’s a wife beater (that was a story in Casualty once). Or the current crime story is a red herring thats leading to something bigger.

        Essentially then, positive roles are assigned to non-whites and women generally. The brave, fearless, hard working, creative, wise, loyal, caring, empathetic, patriotic, honest etc. While white men have to pick up the slack to play all the cowardly, vain, stupid, lazy, traitorous, unreliable, criminal, inept, thoughtless and whatnot.

        The gay agenda creeps in here too. Its rare to see non-whites play gay characters. Its highly suspect since if being gay is so wonderful, why does the otherwise PC film/TV business allow white men to monopolise this vital niche? Its almost as if, somehow, there were an agenda to depict white men as weak and effeminate.

        This doesn’t just apply to the BBC of course. Every TV network in Anglo-American media operates the same unspoken rules most of the time, not to mention every film plus Netflix, Amazon.

        You’ll see it in drama, cops ‘n robbers, sci-fi, kids TV, comedy, soaps – everything.

        And, of course, it’s a constant theme of advertising as well. The wonders of diversity are constantly extolled. Where diversity = less white people.

        Mostly about advertising:

        https://uniformpattern.blogspot.com

          1. Thanks Polly!

            The trick is to try and step back and see what they actually show us, the lies are usually right there in plain view. But as the saying sort of goes, there is nothing harder to see than what’s right in front of your face.

            Of course this goes on in radio, books, magazines, posters, online etc too but it’s still TV that has the biggest impact.

            These days I can hardly bare to watch TV, the cringe levels are off the scale. What’s interesting is to go back and see how the pozzing* was there not just ten or twenty years ago but fifty or sixty. It was more subtle years ago, more strident and blatant now.

            *Pozzing being the practice of injecting the progressive sexual, racial agenda into, well, everything really.

            And the term taking it’s name from a quaint practice indulged in by some members of the gay community which one can look up if one really feels the need.

        2. There’s a show called Mind Hunter that’s sort of a retelling of the origins of the FBI crime profiling unit. It goes through where they interview real serial killers. So the show features interviews with actors playing real serial killers. The actors are all based on real people (except one, I’ll get to that in a moment). But the thing is, almost all the real serial killers aren’t what TV usually portrays.

          They’re usually homosexuals, or transsexuals, because that’s what they were in real life. And that fact plays a part in their crimes.

          Anyway you can sort of see that this was making the producers really uncomfortable. Serial killer after serial killer (based on real ones, using their real names) is dressing as a woman and murdering people and things like that.

          So in the show there’s a lesbian character who seems to serve no purpose. She basically just goes around telling the FBI gay and tranny stuff is TOTALLY normal. Of course she’s really there to tell the audience “don’t think about how all these guys were sexual degenerates.”

          So I decide to research whether her character is based on a real person like the others, and surprise- It’s not. They stuffed her in their because they needed to tell us not to notice the similarities. Our Hollywood people are predictable idiots.

        3. I concur. It’s one reason why I rarely watch new detective series (although even some of the older ones are getting woke and thus repelling me).

    2. Radio 4 has just a run a similar programme with the same ‘investigator’. It was tedious stuff. It featured the USA which is hardly a fair comparison given that it might be more susceptible than the UK to a bit of gun trouble for a fairly obvious reason.

      Here’s the opening sentence from the Panorama blurb:
      “Panorama investigates a global network of neo-Nazis whose aim is to destroy society and discovers that it is recruiting in the UK.”

      I suspect that in terms of recruitment they have a lot of catching up to do with the other lot…

      1. Unfortunately we do have swastika waving “Nazis” here in the US. In general, though the two political climates are just drastically different.There is nothing anywhere near the British Labour Party here – the Dems are much more like your Conservative party, while the Republicans are way out on the right.

  112. Goodnight, Gentlefolk, I can say no more because my heart aches for the course we must take.

  113. Man who organised the banner “refuses to apologise”

    Well thank gawd for that,stick to your guns,the Leftards would only take it as a sign of weakness anyway

    Never,ever,ever apologise to these puerile tossers!!

    https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/23/burnley-fan-who-arranged-white-lives-matter-banner-refuses-apologise-12890013/

    Let the memes flow………….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e7175e59369135d9db180938ce7ad47f98e7922b997516158e38279f45ec496b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ded1fc7cea39feb494f5f6b25a394c6de6ed32dddd2206a1985ca32aa4e1e3d.jpg

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