Friday 10 July: Sunak should seize the chance to take the economy in a new direction

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/09/letterssunak-should-seize-chance-take-economy-new-direction/

816 thoughts on “Friday 10 July: Sunak should seize the chance to take the economy in a new direction”

      1. Precisely. There is no such thing as ‘bad’ weather, only inappropriate clothing.

        2. And there is no such thing as a small slug, only a slug that has not yet consumed enough of my plants to become a giant slug :-((

        5. At bottom, we are inherently waterproof.
          And in most other places, too.
          Morning hall.

          1. When teaching our boys to swim, we had to tell them to “think duck”, as they would swim round with their mouth open and fill up with water.
            Ducks don’t sink because they keep their ar****le tight shut so as to not fill up with water, and the boys needed to keep their mouths likewise.

          2. Skin’s waterproof and, if it’s raining but still warm, the least wet the soonest dried.

            It used to be common to see Sappers engaged on manual work, take their shirts off and place them under shelter when it rained so they could put the dry shirts back on when the rain stopped.

      2. Those are very pertinent questions, Ethel, & we must get to the bottom of it.

  2. Chemical weapons and cover-ups: the Western media’s Syrian shame. 10 July 2020.

    Two years ago, in April 2018, the US, the UK and France fired over a hundred missiles against the Syrian regime. It was alleged that Bashar al-Assad’s government had carried out a chemical-weapons attack on Douma, a suburb of Damascus, killing nearly 50 people. The airstrikes were launched a day before a planned inspection by the OPCW.

    What should have been one of last year’s biggest news stories has gone largely unnoticed. Major Western powers – the US, the UK and France – went to war on dubious grounds. When inspectors at a supposedly neutral UN body, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), could not find evidence that justified Western powers’ actions, their work was censored and manipulated to fit the desired facts.

    Morning everyone. Wow! Imagine that! The most surprising thing on show here is the authors naivete. There’s good reason to think that pretty much every chemical attack attributed to the Assad Government was a false flag operation run by the UK’s Mi6 through their proxies the White Helmets. The one at Douma was particularly egregious since it involved the slow suffocation of the victims before the bodies were placed to simulate the attack. This has all been suppressed in the MSM of course and even the OPCW was suborned so as not to embarrass the PTB. This gives some sort of insight into the lengths they are willing to go to in preventing exposure. One would like to think this is the worse they get up to but the reality is that no reliance can be placed on anything that you read in the MSM. Truth has been extinguished in the West!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/10/chemical-weapons-cover-ups-western-medias-syrian-shame/

    1. “Bellingcat” as an objective source……………
      Oh how we all laughed
      ‘Morning Minty

    4. Now you go too far, Araminta. MI6 could never have done that – they are too amateurish and ineffective.

      1. Agreed.
        Next thing we’ll see is allegations the Salisbury incident was a scam.

      2. Maybe not MI6 but the whole chemical attacks story stank right from the start.

    6. The USA’s interventions since WW2 have been cack-handed in the extreme. They have leaped into wars that were a failure of diplomacy and power, such as the Korean War. Their involvement in VietNam was a failure from Tonkin to today, at the cost of millions of lives ruined.
      Iran is a chicken come home to roost. Had the USA (and their catspaw, us) been more subtle, more patient, and more open to a democratic route, Iran might well have become a strong ally of the West. Instead they insisted on supporting the Shah as a despot instead of managing relations in a more advisory and less interventionist manner.

    1. Message from Orwell’s grave:

      “I must state that Tony Blair is my megalomaniac illegitimate descendant who read my nightmare vision for the future and thought that it would serve as the perfect instruction manual for creating the foulest of all possible worlds.”

    2. Terrifyingly.

      What is interesting perhaps is that it’s not direct statist government (although with the treacherous scum trying to block Brexit we came close) but that the state is not enforcing the rule of law to stop the left hijacking society. Organisations and groups are happily breaking the law by sacking people because of their beliefs and colour – only the people are white, not black. Where is the equalities act now? Or as we all know, was it only supposed to work one way?

  4. Good morning from a 1000 year old Saxon Queen with Longbòw
    and cleaned axe in handbag.

    A bright start with a pale blue sky with a few fluffy cotton wool clouds
    of which saffron shards of the sum is peaking through.
    About to have some Twinnings English breakfast tea with a
    chocolate croissant.

    1. ‘Morning, Ethel.

      I’m having a litre of full cow’s milk instead of goat’s milk for a change. Inspired by the posts the other day, I bought a packet of chocolate hobnobs. I might just try one in a minute.

      1. 321160+ up ticks,
        Morning JBF,
        You do,
        Sad to say, to many in party first mode willing to don a hair shirt
        and suffer self inflicted lifestyle wounds via the polling booth
        regardless of consequence.
        The angle of the political road to sh!te land is daily dipping down at an alarming rate.

        1. Thank you for reminding me of this one. How quickly satire is overtaken by reality! Tom Lehrer retired when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace prize!

        2. Another one from that Charterhouse and Cambridge graduate with the twisted smile, Jonathan King…

  8. Morning all

    SIR – Hats off to Rishi Sunak: a serious politician who tells it straight and seems on top of his brief.

    He has the opportunity to become the most reforming chancellor in years. He should simplify the tax system, lose stamp duty forever, encourage the green agenda with tax incentives, take away the pensions triple lock and encourage saving for long-term social and health care.

    It’s time to let individuals keep more of their hard-earned income – and watch the country prosper.

    Mike Metcalfe

    Glastonbury, Somerset

    SIR – According to your front page (July 9), Mr Sunak will “pay half the cost of a meal out for everyone”.

    It is not, of course, the Chancellor but the taxpayer who will pick up the tab. But, strangely, this temporary, gimmicky, bribe to persuade us to go out is comforting, replacing the horrible “stay at home” mantra of previous months. The pictures of Mr Sunak serving meals in a restaurant are powerfully symbolic of his views about lockdown – and, together with his hopefully permanent stamp duty cut, give hope that he will never allow such damage to be voluntarily wrought on our economy again.

    Tim Coles

    Carlton, Bedfordshire

    SIR – All credit to Mr Sunak in his attempt to lure customers back into restaurants. But then he ruins it all by serving a meal sans mask, sans gloves – sans common sense.

    Andrew McCabe

    Beedon Hill, Berkshire

    SIR – It is nice that the Chancellor wants to buy me dinner. But I worry about what he might be expecting from me afterwards.

    Anthony Tanney

    Wickham Bishops, Essex

    SIR – Until all restrictions are done away with in pubs and restaurants, many of their regular customers, no matter what incentives the Chancellor comes up with, will not frequent them – for the simple reason that there is no atmosphere whatsoever.

    Martin Thurston

    Midhurst, West Sussex

    SIR – The Chancellor has done little to encourage the public to visit town centres. Businesses need customers.

    A simple way of attracting people would be for parking in, and public transport to, towns and cities to be made free at weekends.

    Tony Ellis

    Northwood, Middlesex

    SIR – It is an indication of the poor state of the British economy that the Government has decided to support the hospitality industry in preference to the manufacturing sector.

    John Catchpole

    Beverley, East Yorkshire

    SIR – Could someone please remind me how to spend cash?

    Graham Winter

    Orpington, Kent

    1. Vote Labour,Liberal or Conservative and they will do a bloody good job of helping you…..

    2. Tony Ellis should learn that parking charges are the responsibility of the local council, not the Chancellor. Public transport is also not the Chancellors brief. If the council want all their local businesses to die, and from what I see, this is the case, then they need do nothing.

      1. My County Council suspended parking charges during the lockdown. Now people are being encouraged to go out and shop, they are reinstating them – they need the money to try to make up the shortfall (although the government in the guise of the taxpayer is pouring a fair amount of dosh into their coffers).

    3. I really don’t think that returning the economy to the binge shopping, binge drinking and binge scoffing of cheap fried chicken is a good idea.
      It’s the moment for setting strong apprenticeship schemes linked to college courses in place, not repeating the YTS disaster and resurrecting the worst parts of our service economy.

      1. Too late. TV channels have been flooded with adverts for the purveyors of chicken bits and minced beef. Those not having it all delivered are clogging up roads in mile-long queues for drive through fast food outlets.

    4. Thanks for posting that; Mr Tanney’s letter made me laugh!

      Morning all.

    5. Someone should tell Graham Winter that these days it’s well nigh impossible to pay by cash for anything after Covid.

      1. I regularly pay with cash with no problems. In fact, I don’t recall it ever being refused.

  9. SIR – The BBC has confirmed that it will start charging over-75s the full licence fee from next month.

    This is despite the fact that its output now openly targets the 16-24 age group. No normal company would survive with such a policy.

    Dr Brian Wareing

    Chester

    SIR – Rather than extending the licence fee to include the elderly, the BBC should become a subscription service, like Netflix or Amazon Prime. Then only those wishing to receive its transmissions would pay for them.

    Michael White

    Penwortham, Lancashire

    SIR – Over- 75s should continue to receive a free TV licence unless there is a wage earner in the same household.

    Means testing is unfair to those who have been careful and saved throughout their working lives.

    Patricia Richardson

    Haywards Heath, West Sussex

    1. If the BBC is going to start charging over-75s, a fairer way would be to keep the entitlement for existing free licence holders and only start charging those who reach their 75th birthday as from a certain date e.g. 1st August this year.

      1. Make the BBC subscription only, as Netflix. Then you can choose whether you want to pay & watch or not.

        1. Perhaps. But my suggestion only addresses the licence fee as it stands, not reforming the way the BBC is funded in future.

      2. I would second that – my wife reached 75 birthday exemption level three weeks ago.
        I could have claimed a “free licence” for 6/7 weeks BUT it is Crapita that runs the BBC licence
        and you do not want to interfere with them – it could take aeons to right the follow on mistakes.
        Better to suffer the over payment of £20 than risk the potential trauma.

        2. MOH turned 75 in May. I not only claimed the free licence, but got a refund on what I’d paid last September and complained about their having done nothing to sort it out last year when I informed them about the forthcoming birthday. Crapita indeed.

    2. 321160+ up ticks,
      Morning Epi,
      The same with the voting pattern if the peoples REALLY wanted change, people power works.
      Mass people power works proven by the fact the governance parties are still in office, so it should work in a good beneficial cause also.
      The peoples say NO.

  10. SIR – It is disingenuous of Professor Michael Marshall, of the Royal College of General Practitioners, to say that it has been business as usual (Letters, July 8). Thousands of patients have struggled to access primary care.

    Redirection from a practice website, with an instruction to call NHS 111, submit symptoms for a 48-hour response or consult an online information leaflet, is not an acceptable standard of doctoring. It also means that elderly patients without computer skills cannot access the medical attention they need.

    Hospital doctors have soldiered on magnificently – along with my vet, the dustmen and supermarket staff. Where have the GPs gone?

    Dr A C E Stacey

    Rustington, West Sussex

      1. Quite a few GPs, like my nephew, discovered that their pension arrangements would be messed up if they continued to work beyond the age of 60 and so, at a time when Britain needed more doctors, many competent members of the profession were taking early retirement.

        Gideon Osborne was one of the most arrogantly stupid chancellors we have ever had and – my goodness – he has had considerable competition.

        1. I always kept wondering if he had hidden depths, but I’ve come to the conclusion that he doesn’t. He was good at looking clever, that’s all. A walking advertisement for unearned privilege, as is his buddy Cameron!

          1. However ‘posh’ people thought Cameron and Osborne to be the truth is that they are as common as dirt because they are not gentlemen and do not have the remotest idea of how to behave. Being a gentleman has nothing to do with birth, race or money.

          2. I came across Cameron at Oxford. He looked through me. I was young and shy enough in those days to be intimidated by him. Someone wrote in the Mail a few years ago words to the effect of “Cameron and Osborne closed their address books shortly after they left school and weren’t interested in meeting new people outside the Eton circle”
            I think both of them made a lot of enemies during their political careers because they snubbed so many people in this way. Neither of them got involved in politics at Oxford – Cameron certainly didn’t. It was all beneath him – he knew he could just step into a safe seat whenever he wanted. That didn’t endear him to anyone in the Conservative Party either.

            I understand not being interested in other people – but if Cameron had had the Oxford Union training (he would have been a year behind Gove, IIRC), he would have learned a lot about politics – and it might have become clear that he wasn’t really up to the top job.

            Boris on the other hand loves people – especially female people (note: I am not one of his exes). When he left Oxford, it was impossible to find anyone with a bad word to say about him. Very suspicious, I always thought! (people-pleasing).

          3. My abiding memory of Boris was during an interview with Paxman. They were both on bikes pootling around London.

            Paxman said something deeply derogatory about London – likely true but still. Boris paused and sighed. You saw an visible and audible deflation that’s very hard to fake. He was unhappy about the place being talked down.

            Now, London is a toilet. It’s a hell hole run by a fool where workers go in to it and wasters live in it. Yet Boris stood up for it. he seemed to care.

          4. When friends, acquaintances and relatives, here in Scandinavia, tell me they are “going to London”, I say to them, “Why don’t you visit England instead? It’s much better, a lot prettier, far cleaner, the natives are more friendly and the food and beer are infinitely superior.”

          6. I think his instincts are good, but he has a history of caving in to extremists. Remember Stonewall and the “ex-gay” advertisements!

        2. A son will exceed the Pensions limit assuming reasonable growth over the coming years – for the last few years he has been handed a tax bill on his company’s contributions (25% of his salary). He was limited to £10K per year and the balance was treated as “Income” and taxed at his highest rate.

          He has solved the problem!

          He is now living overseas at the parent company having worked 20 years with them in the UK.
          The highest tax rate is 30% and the full pension 25% of his new improved salary goes into the parent company pension scheme.
          His UK Pension will sit there until he retires. Meanwhile his new overseas pension will grow rather than capped at roughly £1m limit..

          1. My UK pension isn’t there any more.
            Realised a number of scrappy pensions into a private funded scheme based abroad, where, when I croak, my estate will get whatever is left. Admittedly, I hold all the risk, but also have control.

          2. This is why this missive comes to you from just outside Zug! We got fed up with paying the state 65% of the warqueen’s salary and worked out it was cheaper to buy another house and decamp for many months of the year. That is stupid, by any reckoning. Truly, the state is a pig. A nasty, greedy, indolent pig.

    3. Today I finally got an answer to my two phone calls to the surgery. It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know apart from the telephone number (in Shrewsbury) I have to ring to get a local blood test – but I’m not to ring until Monday because the email they have sent today may take a few days to get there! I have a blood test request form, but I’m not allowed to use it because they have gone paperless. Once we’ve had the blood taken, I have to wait a few days and then ring to see if the results have been sent and then, maybe, I’ll be able to make an appointment – for a month’s time, probably!

    1. I have had to work extensively with police and security staff to simply try and create a safe working environment for my employees.

      Ha! She supports the political movement Black Lives Matter, one of whose aims is to defund the police!

      2. Joined-up thin… Ah!
        With people like that in parliament, no wonder they are all feckin’ useless.

    3. You’ve brought this on yourself, dear. You chose a side to garner a few votes and to make yourself feel better. You forgot that you are a servant, not the master. Now you don’t like it – bet you did when you assumed you’d get to tell us what to do, eh?

    4. Comment, response and counter response:-

      bob_of_bonsall
      1 hour ago
      With her history of making anti-White racist comments, Dawn Butler has alienated a large part of her constituency.
      Throw in her misuse of expenses, and it becomes easy to understand that, whilst retaining a large enough core voter base to get re-elected, there will be a number within Brent who heartily dislike her.
      Reply Delete 1 0

      jad
      37 minutes ago
      So you implicitly support the fact that she’s been subject to violent threats?

      Your attitude demonstrates the familiar continuity between support for the Tories and the political Right generally, and the violent fascist thug element at its fringes.
      Reply 0 1

      bob_of_bonsall
      just now
      No I do not support anyone threatening her, just pointing out why I can understand people resorting to such in frustration at her own inflammatory statements and her misuse of expenses.

      As for violent Fascist thuggery, I thought AntiFa had cornered the franchise on that activity.
      Delete

    1. Katie Hopkins is doing sterling work alerting the world to this systematic genocide. How can we help them? Lobby our governments to give them asylum?
      What if they decide to carve out a piece of territory for their own? I very much doubt they would get the UN backing that the Kosovan muslims got – more likely the UN would sent in troops to crush the “racists.”

        1. What is that website? I’ve never heard of it before.

          I noticed a news item about Christo. Was he the least talented artist ever to become famous (or is this honour shared by D. Hirst and T. Emin)?

      2. 321160+ up ticks,
        Morning BB2,
        For many their justification is, if any was needed, is the fact they were born there.
        “Our governments” policy for decades has been mass uncontrolled immigration, the change in a nation over a short space of time under these governance parties has been treacherously remarkable, as in giving succour to a person seeking asylum for genuine reasons to the current
        odious indigenous race replacement.
        Courtesy of the lab/lib/con coalition party there is NO room at the
        United Kingdom inn for genuine seekers of asylum.

      3. Goodmorning Bb

        I suspect white South Africans who aren’t farmers ignore the the news , just going onto IOLza and accessing some of the SA news ,there isn’t much news about the horrors out there .

        People skirt around the issue, and don’t say alot. It is a similar attitude to the one the British government have with the taking the knee and the Marxist air punch and the destruction of our statues and history by the blacks in this country .

        Our own cities will be lost to a rough culture of black privilege.

    2. Let’s see how the blacks in Africa feel after the Chinese have done with them. I doubt if black lives matter to the Chinese – Chinese lives don’t matter to the CCP.

  15. Good morning, all. Sunny start with a breeze. Let us hope it gets better – and warmer.

    Last night we watched the first of three progs about BEETHOVEN on BBC4. Brilliant, I was dreading seeing people dressed up as the gent – but no. Just well-informed talking heads and lotsa music. If you like classical music – DO watch on catch up and record the next two.

    1. If you liked that you may also like the BBC2 iPlayer programme on Pluto – remarkable.

      The BSR documentary with its analysis of Town Crier records from Florence is also remarkable.

      1. The Pluto program was excellent. I’m hoping the one on Goofy will be as good.

        1. I thought it was always a white woman in those advert with a black “husband”….

          2. It varies. I notice that white husbands tend to go for coffee coloured wives. Is they waycist?

          4. Have you noticed that the vast majority of those adverts have a really scruffy black husband with a smart white wife?

            We suspect that it is subtle racism.

  16. Morning, all Y’all. Sunny day this morning – up to about 08:00 or so, now clouded over.
    Late signing in due to having to read a huge instruction manual on operation & care of paint sprayer…

  18. Morning all sunny start cloudy now. I amused myself by watching the Met Office 10 day outlook on YouTube, (classified as fiction) and from what I understood it will continue to be sunny unless it is cloudy and it will continue to be dry unless it rains.
    All this using a megabuck super computer, perhaps I should lend them my iPad, at least the forecast would be better value for money.
    I repeat my words of wisdom from last week, Black Clouds Matter.

      1. I find anything past 72 hrs questionable although having the North Atlantic on the doorstep does not make it easy for them.

  19. Good morning all

    Why is the DT so difficult to read on line , the format is so messy and all over the place .

    BBC have just talked briefly about today being the start of the Battle of Britain eighty years ago.

    One Spitfire with engine running .. oh dear . Moh is playing golf now , so he missed the distinct rumble of the engine .

    Has any one here been gifted a flight in a Spitfire.. I have heard it can be very expensive.

        1. The son of my wife’s Godfather (himself a Wing Commander Rtd) has flown a Spitfire part of the Battle of Britain flight.

        2. Try the Spitfire Simulator at Manston Battle of Britain Spitfire and Hurricane Museum.

      3. Ahem, they are not from Biggin Hill, they are from Headcorn. The Two-seater shown is Elizabeth (I’ve flown in her) and the twin engine is the Devon (I’ve flown in that as well).

        1. Wonderful. I obtained the images from the website with its link to Biggin Hill. The nearest I ever came to interesting flying was doing aerobatics over Pegwell Bay in a Chipmunk flown by an RAF pilot …..

          1. I can recommend Aero Legends. Very friendly and of course, not far from the White Cliffs so even the shortest (and therefore cheapest) flight time gives you the opportunity to over-fly Capel le Ferne.

    2. I find the website v annoying. When browsing,there may be a couple of articles I might want to read but after clicking on one link and reading the article, when returning to the previous page the suggested stories have changed.

      Also, why can’t they fix the top of the page to stay put so you dont have to keep scrolling back up to see the menu tabs??

      1. Right click the article and open in new link. Do the same with the other articles on that page.

      2. Right click the article and open in new link. Do the same with the other articles on that page.

      3. The DT seems to have abandoned the concept of allowing readers to express their views even on topics which are not racially sensitive or gender sensitive issues!

        For example in yesterday’s DT there was an article on independent schools failing to provide on line tuition for state school pupils during lockdown. The writer seemed to think this was the fault of independent schools and not the fault of the state schools. I wanted to raise some points about this view but, as is now so frequently the case, there was no facility for readers’ comments.

        1. The problems I see, Rastus, would be:
          – Different stages in the curriculum – if they are even using the same one.
          – Making contact at all
          – HTF will the teacher know who the strangers are?
          and – why should independent schools sort out the ineffective state schools?

    3. Morning T_B, I was gifted a flight in a Stampe-Vertongen, a biplane which would not look out of place in WW1.
      I had the full experience, silk scarf, leather flying jacket and leather earphones. Not quite a performance plane, we had to climb high enough to allow a long dive to do a loop the loop manoeuvre but still an enjoyable experience.
      If my kids ever take the hint about what I would like to do next, I’ll post a report on a Spitfire flight for you.

      2. Firstborn, aged 8, had a flight in a Tiger Moth at Duxford. Lucky b***er. We have a photo somewhere of an unrecogniseable small boy in a leather flying helmet & goggles, all too big – matching the grin underneath.

          1. Loop the loop?
            My dinner would have been flying through the atmosphere!
            It takes all sorts, and thank goodness for the people who are brave enough to do such things.

          2. I’m not normally that adventurous but it was too good an opportunity to miss.

        2. I’ve done that out of Duxford. The Tiger is supposed to be quite tricky to fly, but I thought she was a lady.

    5. I have flown twice (once from the former RAF Lashenden and once from Biggin Hill). It’s a fabulous experience.

  20. Morning, Campers.
    I must follow Richard Littlejohn’s advice when I take Spartie out for a walk. That should get the pursy-lipped neurotics jumping into the brambles pdq.

    “Just when you thought it was safe to start going out again, the World Health Organisation announces a new danger.

    Having earlier insisted that there was no need to wear masks, the WHO now says that Covid-19 can be spread through ‘airborne transmission’.

    With social distancing reduced to one metre, the new guidance is that droplets from an infected person can travel up to ten metres. Don’t panic!

    Meanwhile, scientists have carried out a separate study into the ‘projectile trajectory of penguin faeces’. That’s another one of those sentences I thought I’d never read, let alone write.

    Zookeepers are being advised not to approach penguins from the rear since their ‘high rectal pressure’ can propel their, er, emissions up to 1.34 metres.

    Here’s a plan. To ensure proper social distancing, why doesn’t the Government issue everyone with a penguin, to be carried under the arm or worn on your head every time you leave the house.

    No one would come within ten yards of you. That way we wouldn’t have to wear PPE to combat Covid-19, just p-p-pick up a penguin.”

      1. Oh well, if we all wander around in large garments that cover us from head to toe, we’ll be gifted eternal life.
        No woman ever dies in Bradford or Jeddah.

    3. LOL! There’s a handy sharp utensil at the other end of the penguin for prodding those who don’t withdraw fast enough.

    4. The neural pathways inside Littlejohn’s brain must be quite something…I like him, but he’s very much controlled opposition.

    5. Our swift chicks growing up in their box give us endless amusement when there’s nothing else to watch on the telly. Especially when they put their little rear ends over the side of the nest…….. it’s quite projectile, but contained in a little sac, which the parent birds pick up for disposal. They are very clean and tidy birds, unlike the starlings , which were our guests in the spring.

      1. Good morning J

        That is so interesting , and I am delighted that you are following their progress. Sadly not many swallows, swifts or housemartins around these parts this year. I haven’t seen many flying insects either .

        There must be loads where you are ,just to rear a nest of swifts , the parents must be quite busy.

        1. They are doing very well – I must take another little video while they’re still with us. After last year’s disappointment, the parents are very attentive, but they are having a hard job to find food while the weather has been poor the last couple of weeks.

          Sometimes they leave the chicks for several hours on end, then they get mobbed when they return and all hell breaks out! The chicks are nearly as big as the parents now, and growing fast – but their wings are still like sparrows’ wings, and they won’t go yet.

        2. Same here regarding the birds. So far I have seen one single Painted Lady on all my Buddleias, plenty of bumblies though.

          1. It’s been so dull here for the last couple of weeks – until this morning, that I’ve not seen any butterflies at all on the Buddleias. No Painted Ladies, and nothing much else here yet.

            Swallows, Martins and Swifts have all been in short supply, though when we had the fine spell a couple of weeks ago, there were some parties of swifts flying around in the evenings. We only have the one pair nesting here, in spite of all the other boxes we have available.

  21. Cancel culture’ doesn’t stifle debate, but it does challenge the old order. Billy Bragg. Fri 10 Jul 2020.

    Speech is only free when everyone has a voice – that’s why young people are angry.

    Despite the blatant lie in the title; since what is the cancel culture but the intimidation of those who hold dissenting opinions from Bragg and his ilk; the article is in essence an attack on Free Speech. Here sophistry and hypocrisy are employed to imply, as in the quote, that Free Speech somehow inhibits accountability. How you could have accountability without the former is not addressed since it implies that any dissenting opinions would be eliminated beforehand. It is a constant amazement that the Left always think if they suppress the opposition it will go away and worst of all that it has no downsides for them. He should look at the author JK Rowling who has moved from darling of the Feminists to cancelled enemy of the Trans activists.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/10/free-speech-young-people

  22. Just wondering , are all these people who are jetting off on holiday still on furlough pay .

    Do people travel for the sake of travelling . One would assume that over 100 days of being furloughed was sufficient enough reason to return to work, or am I just being too critical?

    1. Of course people who are getting 80%of their pay while doing no work will be happy to stay on furlough……..

      I presume that untill their employer decides they want them back, that will continue. Then they find they have no job left at all.

      People are desperate to get away from four walls. Not everybody lives in a nice house in the countryside as we do.

          4. I don’t think he’s going to be checking what people spend their taxpayer largesse on. If it’s legally gained, they can spend it as they wish.

          5. Belle’s thread is about people on furlough going on a free holiday
            subsidized by the taxpayer.
            Payback time will affect all of us who pay taxes for generation s to come.

          6. By your logic that would include pensioners like us – part of our income is subsidised by the taxpayer, although of course, we did pay for other people’s pensions during our working lives.

            Government is nosy enough, without prying into what people spend their legally gained money on.

          7. Apparently we finally paid off our US WWII debt in 2006. Therefore MB and I spent most of our working life contributing to that debt.
            Our grandchildren will be doing the same for the 2020 panic.

          8. No it isn’t. I’m sure they pay for their holidays out of their furlough income. How they spend it is their business.

          12. I’m well aware of pennies dropping, but it doesn’t mean I agree with your logic. What people spend their money on is their own business, whether we agree with their choices or not.

          13. I agree with the point that if they’re being supported by taxpayers and they have spare money for foreign holidays then something is wrong though. But it’s a bit blurred here anyway, as people may be using their savings, it’s not a normal benefits situation.

          14. Exactly. They may be using money refunded from cancelled holidays, or they may be using savings from not going out and spending much, whichever it is, it’s not our business to tell them what they can or can’t spend it on.

          15. ….but that wasn’t the point.
            Furlough is not their money….it has to be paid for by the taxpayer.
            It’s not money for nothing….

          16. On the contrary – it is their money – in the same way as my pension is my money. Paid by the taxpayer or not – once it is paid it ceases to be the taxpayer’s business.

          17. If only! If that were so, all we need to do to get more money is to plant more trees, and look after them so they don’t wilt and die before producing a crop.

            As I said before, these days the money is coming from the Magic Fairy, and don’t you dare say you don’t believe in fairies!

          18. Yes, but what the recipients do with it is their business. If they can afford to go on foreign holidays, perhaps the furlough money is too generous, but that’s a different argument.

          20. No. You put down your sherry glass for 5 minutes & pay attention. The tax-payer via the Chancellor pays the furlough money, maybe too generously, maybe not; that is one issue.

            What the recipients do with it is up to them. They can go on a trip if they want, they can piss it against the wall, feed & clothe themselves, whatever. But fundamentally it is their business & an entirely separate issue.

            In the same way, how I spend my State OA pension or my NHS pension is my business & nobody else’s.

            Do I have to make it any plainer than that?

          23. I thought Rishi is simply making me pay the bill but putting his signature on it as well, as if I should be grateful he’s ‘helping me’ by forcing me to spend my money.

            I don’t want to eat out. I don’t want to pay for people who do. I don’t send them Mongo’s ruddy vet bills, do I? Hell, this is a short step from incentivisation to enforcement. Bah! They’re already trying that one by ramming oppressive taxes to make us obey their nonsense.

      2. We too are exceptionally lucky. Our garden is three acres in size and we have plenty of space so we hardly noticed le confinement. – apart from the fact that it has not done our business much good. However we have, once more, some students with us and we are hoping that next year we shall be fully booked again as usual.

        1. Well, we don’t have three acres, or such a large house as you – but we like our cottage, and our views across the valley on all sides.

        1. They might not be ‘wanted’ by everyone in Cornwall but they are needed. The majority of folk in Cornwall know this.

          2. Will the trains be stopped at the border? Will they be turned back or will the passengers have to change and catch one specially brought down from Edinburgh?
            Or will a change of driver etc…. be enough?

          3. By the time the train from Euston arrives at the border it will be time for the driver (& passengers) to change his face mask.

        4. Indeed, Bill.
          When all you hear is that tourists / visitors / grockles are unwelcome because they crowd the place, buy all the housing (from whom??), then it’s no surprise that they will stay away and take their money elsewhere. Regarding Cornwayy, personally, I don’t go near the place (In-laws live in Devon, not too far from the border), as it’s been made very clear that me & my money are not welcome. F**k ’em.
          One needs to be careful what one wishes for, you might get it!

    3. I suspect that all these people are just minding their own business.

      ‘Morning, Belle.

      1. There seem to be more darkened windowed BMWs and Mercs and Audi’s on the roads these days , not forgetting of course almost armour plated 4x4s.

        The bling laden braggarts are everywhere now.

        1. Fortunately, we don’t see too many of them here. Though our narrow lane is used as a rat-run and there is certainly more traffic than 25 years ago.

          2. Our end of the Cotswolds is downmarket compared to the other, and Stroud is full of XR lefties.

          3. I really meant, they all come down the motorway .. many setting off at 5am , they have BBQs in our fields. heathland and beaches..

            People live modest lives down here , the only exciting stuff one usually sees are spanking new tractor/ old tractors/ horses and cart outings, horse riders , but look on with astonishment when we see convoys of VERY expensive cars that have either come from Slough, Reading, Derby , Leicester or London.. and proving they are fast and eager to get to where they want to go!!

          4. They process through your village?

            There is lots of money in the Cotswolds, but round here, people are pretty normal and live quietly.

      2. From Bill Blain a Strategist for Shard Capital investment firm:
        Last week a chum of mine was made redundant from his job running European M&A for an Indian conglomerate. He’s going to turn whistleblower. His Indian bosses, who have a few business interests in the UK, told him to go apply for each and every UK bailout package there was to get money from the government. My chum explained to him the money wasn’t on offer for the billionaire owner to repatriate back to India, but to support UK businesses and employment. The boss-man lost his rag, and my chum lost his job.

  23. From remittance man in the comments in article https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/07/09/500bn-borrowing-will-loom-economy-decades-ifs-warns/
    “…
    I really do despair over the complete lack of awareness of these supposed “experts”.

    For good or bad, Britain finds itself in deep debt. Obviously this has to be paid back. The only way this can be done is through taxation. So far so good. The problem comes after this point in the thought process.

    The standard way, chosen by just about every politician and bureaucrat, is to raise taxes. They add a percent or two to income tax, squeeze more from businesses (which cost is then passed on to consumers) or penalise some hitherto untaxed sin (if any still exist). The problem being this is a game of diminishing returns. As taxes go up people stop doing taxable things or (because it has become more worthwhile to do so) find ways to avoid paying tax, all tax.

    What very few leaders (Trump, Kennedy and one or two others) have the cojones (or more likely the intelligence) to do is cut taxes and stimulate the economy. Somehow very few of them can get their heads around a simple fact – 30% of a big cake is a lot more than 50% of a small cake. It’s a lot easier to collect as well.

    …”

    A man after my own heart. Finally, someone (outside this group of wise souls) gets it.

    1. What is so unconscionable about this thinking is that there is only one cake. A bigger cake for someone must mean a smaller cake for someone else. In this race to cut taxes and attract mobile money, it becomes a competition of the grab, who can get the snout in the trough before the runt fights his way through. Survival of the fittest.

      This natural law of the jungle is all very well, but if you are tending a garden, you don’t want all the careful work digging and preparing the ground, fertilising and watering, to be rewarded with a bed full of nettles and docks because they are good at crowding out the things you really want to grow, or even providing a goodly variety so one can pick and choose and still have enough left over for the birds and the frogs.

      The answer therefore is to make boundaries, and keep the jungle out of the flower and vegetable bed. It is why we have nations, and it is why national taxation and revenue has to be protected.

    3. Mrs Thatcher understood this and so did her friend Ronald Reagan who was responsible for the reflection that the most terrifying things a person could experience was somebody saying: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

      1. Yes. The problem isn’t the economics of it but that government never lets it actually happen.

  25. Maybe those supporting BLM have common ground with those passionately against BLM have common ground, and is also the reason the worst calamity brought on us by Covid is social distancing and mask wearing. It is also the reason why I took my own divorce and forced separation from my family quite badly, blaming feminists and social “reformers”.

    Not many of us like to be looked at and treated as if we were some sort of disease.

  26. Mail to a Conservative MP……….

    That all sounds basic common sense and inarguable. As apparently applied during 1980s UK politics but which has since been abandoned in favor of Tony Blair’s ”third way” which is a pathway to make believe and ”words meaning whatever one wants them to mean” as in Lewis Carroll.

    Does it ever occur to you that the Conservative Party has similarities to a 737 ? Boeing decided they wanted to change it into something else, but for approval reasons still called it a 737. The Conservative Party as in the 1980s no longer exists. It became Nu Labor and Tony Blair still rules through his heirs, Cameron, May and Johnson. The former solid dependable Conservative Party resembles a Max, although still airborne, but only just.

    Your way so eloquently expressed which was mainstream over 30 years ago has become ”a revolutionary act” and aiming for common sense is rebellion. You’re a rebel in the terms of 2020, yet you remain with Nu Labor hoping to change it back to how it was which is impossible. Surely there is something new you can do to reverse the nosedive of UK politics… like going public ?

    Back to David Cameron and Theresa May. Have they been selling government policy and legislation to billionaires ?

    I think they might have done. If they have, what are you going to do about it ?

    If I’m right, and if nothing is done to cleanse the past, doesn’t the Conservative Party risk being a Max ?

    Polly

    1. Only the younger generation will save the Cons by kicking the Tory left to the kerb where they belong.

        1. Go for it. One of my on-off regrets is that I didn’t pursue politics when I was your age. I wanted to find out about life instead. Of all my contemporaries (and there are not a few) who are now in the House of Commons, most of them are less intelligent than I am (and, believe it or not, less modest too!).
          But if you’re serious about getting into the HoC, you’ll have to tone down telling the truth, at least until you’ve decided that you’ve got high enough up the ladder.

          Oh, and political activist men are no use as potential husbands! 😉

    1. It’s time The Times employed a fresh cartoonist this one is long past the ‘best before date’

    2. I’ll shed no tears for Boot’s, a customer-unfriendly firm, although I sympathise with those who will lose their jobs.

      1. The end came when they were bought out by the US firm Walgreens. But they’d been in decline before that as supermarkets and the web took over their markets.

        Used to be a great firm with a research wing that did real drug product invention. They developed Ibuprofen.
        And my mother used to use the in store library, I assume the books were cleaner than those in public libraries!

        1. I used to love the children’s section of the in-store library, the books were oh! so much more interesting than those available for children in the public libraries. The subscription was expensive for those days, though, a whole 15 shillings per annum back in the fifties if I remember correctly.

          1. They sold all sorts of photo chemicals. And other oddities, I remember buying a photo tinting outfit to use on my Brownie 127 contact prints in those black and white days!

        2. Boot’s the Chemist was the only firm my father worked for (apart from a six year interregnum with the RA sorting out an uppity Austrian). They were excellent and very ethical employers in those days.

          One of the less successful treatments developed by their boffins of that era was an ointment for the removal of foot corns. Some dumb customer decided to apply it whilst lying in bed and accidentally squirted it on his private parts. Before he could wipe it clean, his penis had sustained a substantial notch half way down (or up, if you prefer). He sued Boot’s for damages and the case proceeded to the High Court. All the press were too demure to report on proceedings which continued for three days save for the DT. I can recall my Dad reading us the accounts with hoots of laughter interspersed with sniggers of “poor man…poor man”. Boot’s won.

  30. SIR — As we come to a possible end of the lockdown, I have been reflecting on whether it has permanently changed my life in any significant way – and I find that it has.

    When I entered lockdown, I despised Marmite. Now I adore it, and even think about it during work hours – just as it is becoming impossible to buy in local shops.

    Alice Loxton
    Stratford-upon-avon, Warwickshire

    That condition, Alice, whereby you go directly from hating something to loving it — completely bypassing the middle apathetic stage — is known as sublimation.

    It is identical to the technical principle in which certain substances transmute directly from a solid state to a gas, wholly missing out the liquid stage.

    You have provided concrete scientific proof that no one can ever be blasé about Marmite. You either love it or you hate it. 👍🏻👎🏻

    1. It is not the end off “lockdown” just a change of emphasis. Nor are we anywhere near it.
      No one in government or opposition is telling the truth. We will remain masked and handcuffed until a vaccine is ready. Free movement will then be available only to those with a vaccination certificate.

      1. OK. You get injected. Receive your stickyfoot. Then the virus mutates (in the same manner that the cold and ‘flu do).

        What then?

        1. More of what we have now. As in you can go as close to a friend as 40 inches, but not 36 inches…

  31. EXCLUSIVE: Archie needs a friend! Meghan bemoans one-year-old will lack social skills because he doesn’t interact with other toddlers, complaining she’s too famous to join ‘Mommy and Me’ class

    Meghan Markle is worried Archie doesn’t have enough interaction with other toddlers his own age, a close friend told DailyMail.com
    The Sussexes and their one-year-old son Archie have been holed up at Hollywood tycoon Tyler Perry’s mega-mansion in LA since March
    ‘Meghan said Archie needs to learn emotional and social skills by being around other young children, something he can’t do with adults,’ the friend said
    By being in a baby group, Archie would have the opportunity to play with other toddlers and help develop his brain, Meghan told her friends
    But although Meghan said she’d love to join a baby class where she could have playdates with other new moms, she understands it would be ‘impossible’
    It wouldn’t work out not only because of COVID-19, but because ‘she’s just too well known to do normal things,’ the friend added

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8498177/Meghan-bemoans-Archie-lack-social-skills-doesnt-interact-toddlers.html

    Well well well!!

          2. No need to get prickly!

            (I have NEVER thought any NoTTLer was dim – apart from one…)

    3. The daily Megain newsfeed – and she’s trying to sue the tabloids for misrepresentation?

      2. He would learn a few skills if both his grandfathers could cuddle him , and that his lovely little cousins in the UK could play peekaboo with him . His mother will cripple him with her own emotional baggage . She is a bad woman!

        3. Is she as evil as Theresa May.? A close call but at least May had no children of her own whose lives she could thwart.

        4. I think that story is made up – I reckon the DM have a psych on tap who is telling them what narcissists do, as material for their next “story.”
          Isolating the children is classic narcissist stuff. My mother did it to us. No other children were ever good enough for us to play with.

          1. Well someone seems to be feeding them this twaddle – of course it sells papers and ads.

  32. Well – so much for the bright, sunny start. It has been raining on and off all morning – more on the way and it is decidedly chilly. Grrr.

    1. Still dry and moderately sunny here. OH was lucky his tennis match was this morning, not yesterday.

      1. Long Newntonians coming up tomorrow for the weekend. First visitors since goodness knows when…

          1. Better sill – BREAD! Dan turns out two or three loaves a day.

            We are OK for flour.

        2. OH has just arrived home, absolutely whacked. The match was only half over when the people who had booked the court after them turned up.

  33. SIR — Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Business, July 9) argues that the expansion of China’s economy has “peaked”, in part due to the straitjackets imposed by Xi Jinping, and because the regime underestimated the intrinsic strength of the US. He suggests that China “will eventually settle down”.

    However, there is a plausible alternative scenario. President Xi may well decide to seize as much territorial, economic and geopolitical advantage as he can before the window of opportunity shuts. When absolute rulers have behaved like this in the past, the consequences for everyone have usually been dire.

    Terry Smith
    London NW11

    It is a historically-proven fact that mankind is, intrinsically, a warlike species: it is ingrained in our DNA. In common with most animal species, we are biologically programmed to fight for various reasons. To protect ourselves, our family, our tribe, our race and our species. To compete for food, water, mating rights and shelter. To dispute territory. It is innate in all species to fight for what they think is right or to gain advantage over others.

    Absolute rulers have always existed. They always will.

      1. Of course, D-cup.

        Wimmin have never been known to rip each other’s hairpieces off in a spat over a chav bloke, have they? :•)

        [Hell hath no fury …]

        1. That is mostly because those people are not civilised creatures. They are barbarian savages with no place in society.

    3. Whilst the US and its allies have been spending trillions on fighting wars in (now) desolate countries, the Chinese have been investing in infrastructure projects across the globe which they operate and control as well as buying up rights to raw materials and foodstuffs….

    4. Morning, Grizz.
      Not confined to human beans.
      All creatures fight for their territory and sex. To do otherwise means obliteration.

      1. Morning, Nursey.

        Did you miss the initial clause of my second sentence, “In common with most animal species…”?

        You probably need an espresso. :•)

        1. Most animals don’t kill one another because they can. They don’t act out of hate, greed or spite. If there’s plentiful food, two goats don’t set about knifing one another over who gets to graze in the field.

          Yes, animals may kill young but that’s genetic dominance. Not because the offspring is a girl, and they didn’t want a girl cos of ‘culcha’. Most animals protect their offspring. Some of ours use them as a meal ticket – with no interest beyond that.

          Humans are a repellent species.

          1. Humans are the deadliest virus that ever existed. They infect and destroy ALL other living things, as well as its own living environment.

            I cannot believe that any other organism, in the universe, would ever evolve and then “test” (and use) nuclear weapons within the only environment know to support life. It is way past time for mankind’s extinction event replacement by something infinitely more intelligent.

            Anyone disagreeing with this hypothesis is simply providing conclusive proof of humanity’s accelerating stupidity.

          2. I disagree.

            The use of atomics was hideous, yes. No question there. Howevver it ended a war. A brutal meat grinder that had consumed millions of lives.

            Sadly, often the only way to stop bloodshed is a massive strike to cow the enemy into submission. It wasn’t popular but my suggestion for Afghanistan was abject brutality. The objective is to stop the killing. Not spread it out. The nuclear weapon strikes did that.

          5. They kill to eat, but because they do not know when they can return for the food or if it will be there tomorrow they kill far more than they need to. They live in a perpetual now. There’s no evil in it.

  34. Copaganda: Why film and TV portrayals of the police are under fire. MichaFrazer. Indy 10 July 2020.

    If, like me, you were presented with images of police and prisons from before you could talk, it might seem impossible that a world could exist without them. But dismantling the police’s stronghold on our collective psyche means dismantling the pop culture that has for so long portrayed them as a positive, non-violent societal force. As the Color of Change’s report on policing on TV suggests: if police are to be portrayed on screen, firstly, there should be people of colour in the writers’ room, and people who have been on the receiving end of the criminal punishment should be consulted. Secondly, the realities of policing should be made transparent to viewers – this means getting rid of both the bada** car chases and explosions, and the socially awkward antics of buddy cop duos.

    You could have a world without policemen, and I am no great admirer of them; it would be called Hell. The problem we face here is that, the writer, Ms Frazer, has clearly had no experience of the realities of life else she could not have written this article. If she ran into difficulties with the local drug gang (as I have) who would she go to to? Social Security? It is impossible to argue with someone of such naiveté because they live in a dream world where those who are not good are merely misguided and only need educating to see the error of their ways. Would that it were so. Evil is omnipresent and seeks only the opportunity to exercise itself. It does this by preying on the innocent and helpless.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/police-brutality-tv-copaganda-brooklyn-nine-nine-paw-patrol-cops-george-floyd-a9610956.html

    1. If anything, it is white middle and senior police officers who are traduced in TV dramas. Almost to a man or woman, they are rude, belligerent, overbearing, bullying, disobedient slobs with relationship problems and a liking for drink. Somehow, though, they have the loyalty of their subordinates! Serious documentaries, however, show the modern police at all levels other than the very senior as conscientious, compassionate and competent. Of course there are exceptions and, sadly, police forces suffer from appalling leadership at the top. However, the dictum that there are no bad soldiers, only bad officers is as relevant to the police as to the Armed Forces.

      1. Everything you witness in a TV police drama comes about as a figment of the limited imagination of the scriptwriter; many of whom churn out the same old, same old, tired and hackneyed storyline to suit those who are paying for it.

        The reality is a million miles from what you watch on the telly. I was never shouted at or barked at by any senior rank during my service. A lot of us were on first name terms away from the public eye. And we never drove to arrest a suspect with blue lights flashing and sirens blaring. Ever!

    2. I’ve experienced an European country without law and order,where the “police” were just another mafia and the strongest ruled unchecked,horrors happily beyond most peoples imagining and the worst of it is what it can turn yourself into to protect you and yours……………….

      As always the worst sufferers are the weak,the women and children.naive??,the woman’s a cretin

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4c851fd80aab0bd267d5918ecb9bd6cc194d3b8ce17b8abb61524d6af9b8ccd7.png

    3. There is a town in Oregon that has actually done a bit of defunding the police malarkey. They now have a small group of social workers that respond to a specific subset of emergency calls.

      They still have police with guns and that is who turns up for anything except situations where the dispatcher can be sure that it is a person fighting depression or overdosing on something illegal.

      That makes sense to me although our esteemed policeman might not agree. So much for no policing.

      1. Similar to establishing Traffic Officers to deal with minor issues on the motorway, rather than having police do the job. Its also a cheaper option.

  36. Awake since 4:00am, I took myself off for a short walk up to Twerton Roundhill (or High Barrow Hill) overlooking Englishcombe Village as well as Bath. As it’s a fairly clear morning it is possible to see the Mendips, the Brecon Beacons and the Cheviots from the top:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0473c65f6f89dcdc4832485eb3b7974489428ff69e012e7980332d42ba2c5bf0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a07697868188844ffd6a268712f92244ac8d877e7dbdca2ee5133f59b494acb.jpg

    1. Nice!
      The top picture looks cozy & friendly – hilly but not mountainous, green but not wilderness, hedges and broadleaf trees.
      Looks like England, in fact.

        1. For the moment,Saruman and Wormtongue promoters of #OrcsLivesMatter are hard at work…………………

      2. England’s green and pleasant land; replete with pubs, chip shops, post offices and decent bakeries.

        I wonder what it is I’m missing.

        3. No. Not decent bakeries.
          Unless you have the misfortune to live in Sweden of course!

          1. That’s me.

            The best bakeries (of my experience) are in Yorkshire. The vanilla slice I bought from a bakery in Knaresborough, 21 months ago, was the most delicious small cake delicacy I have ever eaten.

          2. I have duly made a note to sample more Yorkshire bakeries.
            My area does a mean lardy cake and bread pudding too.
            But the bread is by and large woeful.

          3. I lived in Norfolk for twelve years and I was invariably disappointed by the poor quality and lack of choice of bread, buns and cakes in the bakeries of that county. The selection, quality and variety of produce in Yorkshire bakeries is in a different league altogether.

          1. Yup. We have to queue at a counter in a busy and noisy supermarket here in Sweden to post letters and parcels. The peaceful aura (and smell) of an English post office is much missed.

    2. Lovely, my old home town although I have no desire to return to live there. Living 30 mins away is close enough now the lunatics are running the place.

    3. Lovely. Rather better than the 04:00 views I had when doing a geriatric ward round.
      Morning, King Stephen.

    5. I had an early morning paper round which took in Englishcombe village. Mr White who ran the paper shop on Coronation Avenue would drop me off and collect me. Later I did the round which took in Whiteway and the area between Roundhill and Haycombe Cemetery.

      In winter snow we would toboggan on Roundhill. There was a solitary tree and a Ordnance Survey station on top. I always imagined Roundhill was a volcanic formation.

      1. Interesting. I’m currently in temporary accommodation along The Hollow. Roundhill does indeed have the typical profile of a Volcano albeit without the crater and given the presence of geothermal springs in Bath one could easily imagine volcanic activity. However, there is as you probably know a more mundane explanation for the springs. By the way were you aware that there is construction work in progress adjacent to the Abbey in order to reconnect the Abbey to the thermal spring for heating purposes?
        For anyone interested:
        The Bath Hot Springs rise in the centre of the city of Bath in Somerset. Around 1.3 million litres of water flow from the springs every day at a temperature of around 40 °C. There is some debate about the source of the water but the generally accepted hypothesis is that rain water falling on the Mendip Hills to the south of the city infiltrates the Carboniferous Limestone and flows to the north, beneath the North Somerset coal field reaching a depth of 2.5 km from where it obtains its heat. It then rises up through fractures in the Jurassic rocks beneath the city. The chemistry of the water is dominated by calcium and sulphate with sodium and chloride also in high concentration.

        1. Interesting. I remember there was a Victorian water fountain near the Abbey dispensing the foul tasting mineral water. This will have been decommissioned after the spring became infected and someone died after swimming in the Roman Baths.

          I understand that a new borehole was made to intercept the water source below the level of the contamination.

          I remember also that warm water would bubble up in the grass verge of the playground at Moorfields Junior School on Englishcombe Lane when I was a pupil there in the fifties.

    6. At 4am I still hadn’t gone to sleep 🙁 Insomnia and I are becoming firm friends.

      1. For me its the other way Early to bed but very early to rise (and very much wide awake at 4:00 am…:-(

  37. What’s the difference between people from Dubai and people from Abu Dhabi?

    People from Dubai don’t like the Flintstones, but…

    1. Being from an older generation, I always thought that Abu Dhabi was where the monkey and the chimp went on honeymoon.

      (I guess only Annie will get that one.)

          3. Expecting 3 grandsons (twins and a single) within 3 weeks of each other! My heart is singing🎤

          5. I honestly can’t wait! A granddaughter of 18 months and 3 little boys….. What can I say?

          9. Congratulations to you & your offspring.
            Lucky you though. It’s something I’ve given up any hope of.

          10. Thanks Bob! I have the daughter and son in law of very dear friends of our (35 years) who have moved to Bonsall quite recently! I’m dying to see the Via Gellia! We could bring you a couple of ours!

  38. There are a number of reasons why I watch very little TV apart from sports …. and, atm, that’s a pretty full diet with so much football on TV … is that in the evenings I settle down to a couple of hours with this (a free, but excellent, reading). I back it up with the Gutenberg online text https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2988/2988-h/2988-h.htm#link2H_4_0019 …. Really, I find this a wonderful experience and Mark Twain had such an interesting life …. Missouri and the rest of the USA was no place for snowflakes in the period of his life, from 1835 to 1910.:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFSglRo4DQ4&t=5877s

      1. Two extracts (Mark Twain = Sam Clemens):

        He read hungrily now everything he could find relating to the French wars, and to Joan in particular. He acquired an appetite for history in general, the record of any nation or period; he seemed likely to become a student. Presently he began to feel the need of languages, French and German. There was no opportunity to acquire French, that he could discover, but there was a German shoemaker in Hannibal who agreed to teach his native tongue. Sam Clemens got a friend—very likely it was John Briggs—to form a class with him, and together they arranged for lessons. The shoemaker had little or no English. They had no German. It would seem, however, that their teacher had some sort of a “word-book,” and when they assembled in his little cubby-hole of a retreat he began reading aloud from it this puzzling sentence:

        “De hain eet flee whoop in de hayer.”

        “Dere!” he said, triumphantly; “you know dose vord?”

        The students looked at each other helplessly.

        The teacher repeated the sentence, and again they were helpless when he asked if they recognized it.

        Then in despair he showed them the book. It was an English primer, and the sentence was:

        “The hen, it flies up in the air.”

        They explained to him gently that it was German they wished to learn, not English—not under the circumstances. Later, Sam made an attempt at Latin, and got a book for that purpose, but gave it up, saying:

        “No, that language is not for me. I’ll do well enough to learn English.”

        ……………..

        Orion Clemens in the mean time had married and removed to Keokuk. He had married during a visit to that city, in the casual, impulsive way so characteristic of him, and the fact that he had acquired a wife in the operation seemed at first to have escaped his inner consciousness. He tells it himself; he says:

        At sunrise on the next morning after the wedding we left in a stage
        for Muscatine. We halted for dinner at Burlington. After
        despatching that meal we stood on the pavement when the stage drove
        up, ready for departure. I climbed in, gathered the buffalo robe
        around me, and leaned back unconscious that I had anything further
        to do. A gentleman standing on the pavement said to my wife, “Miss,
        do you go by this stage?” I said, “Oh, I forgot!” and sprang out
        and helped her in. A wife was a new kind of possession to which I
        had not yet become accustomed; I had forgotten her.

        Orion’s wife had been Mary Stotts; her mother a friend of Jane Clemens’s girlhood. She proved a faithful helpmate to Orion; but in those early days of marriage she may have found life with him rather trying, and it was her homesickness that brought them to Keokuk. Brother Sam came up from St. Louis, by and by, to visit them, and Orion offered him five dollars a week and board to remain. He accepted. The office at this time, or soon after, was located on the third floor of 52 Main Street, in the building at present occupied by the Paterson Shoe Company. Henry Clemens, now seventeen, was also in Orion’s employ, and a lad by the name of Dick Hingham. Henry and Sam slept in the office, and Dick came in for social evenings. Also a young man named Edward Brownell, who clerked in the book-store on the ground floor.

    2. I have abandoned all support for and interest in English professional football and cricket teams since they abased themselves by grovelling in front of BLM pressure. Indeed I would be delighted if both these professional sports ran out of money and went bankrupt.

      I can still enjoy English Literature without having to watch the garbage the RSC is currently turning out on TV.

      1. I sympathise Rastus – I am certainly close to the edge myself (I have long since completely abandoned the RSC).

  39. Cancel culture’ doesn’t stifle debate, but it does challenge the old order. Billy Bragg. Fri 10 Jul 2020.

    Speech is only free when everyone has a voice – that’s why young people are angry.

    Despite the blatant lie in the title; since what is cancel culture but the intimidation of those who hold dissenting opinions from Bragg and his ilk; the article is in essence an attack on Free Speech. Here sophistry and hypocrisy are employed to imply, as in the quote, that Free Speech somehow inhibits accountability. How you could have accountability without the former is not addressed since it implies that any dissenting opinions would be eliminated beforehand. It is a constant amazement that the Left always think if they suppress the opposition it will go away and worst of all that it has no downsides for them. He should look at the author JK Rowling who has moved from darling of the Feminists to cancelled enemy of the Trans activists.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/10/free-speech-young-people

    1. It’s a bit like pulling down statues thinking that it’s going to change history.

          2. You can paint a few leaves of the bindweed with systemic weed-killer gel. Don’t get any on the clematis leaves though.

          3. I’ll leave it till they both de down and I can see what’s what. I never use weedkiller. Our garden is wild, and we like it that way.

        2. Only after they’ve burned all the books and of course, as they say, once it’s on the internet it’s on there forever.

    2. Very one-sided article! Only lefties have the right to free speech. Anyone else is “far right” and beyond the pale.

    3. It is high time that rational thinking became a compulsory subject in the Sixth Form and young people shown that they have to be presented with all sides of an argument before coming to a conclusion.

      1. I thought that’s what debates were all about – I don’t suppose schools have debates anymore.

      2. Doesn’t rational thinking require a functioning brain?

        In the same manner that a car needs petrol?

    4. Those who have studied John Milton’s poetry will know that he uses the phrase reason’s garb to describe an argument which is specious. Very few people today seem to be capable of identifying an argument which is specious – witness the reactions to BLM which is a racist anarchic organisation which uses racial hatred of whites as its principal weapon.

      The Lady in Comus can see that the foul Comus is trying to seduce her by giving her false logic: he obtrudes: false rules prankt in reason’s garb. And the narrator in the debate in Pandemonium (Paradise Lost Bk 2) concludes : Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason’s garb, counseled ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth, not peace.

    6. It’s only a question of time before someone produces a film titled ‘Trans Spotting’ dealing with the vital (organ) issues of our time…..

    7. JKR has gone up in my estimation since she decided to speak out. Of course, she can afford to and has nothing to prove.

      1. I keep feeling a crunch moment will occur and she will revert to luvvie type. I cannnot believe she is standing her ground and not folding. Good for her.

      2. Let’s hope she has learned some compassion and will not lash out at the next person who deviates from the accepted line in order to prove how virtuous she herself is. She has supported some movements to shut down free speech herself in the past.

    8. Challenge the old order….

      Does chanting abuse ‘challenge’? Does rioting, looting and robbery challenge? Does having people sacked challenge? No. It’s the desperate attempt to silence. There is no engagement. That’s what ‘the old order’ don’t understand. We talk about our problems. We raise them in civil debate. Like this fellow: https://twitter.com/i/status/1276660471500660736

      The young – certainly the mob of Lefty idiots – don’t. The Left do not want free speech. They want control over language.

    1. He refers to decimation as killing one tenth of the enemy. However, the traditional definition is:

      Decimation (Latin: decimatio; decem = “ten”) was a form of Roman military discipline in which every tenth man in a group was executed by members of his cohort. The discipline was used by senior commanders in the Roman Army to punish units or large groups guilty of capital offences, such as cowardice, mutiny, desertion, and insubordination, and for pacification of rebellious legions. The word decimation is derived from Latin meaning “removal of a tenth”.[1] The procedure was a pragmatic attempt to balance the need to punish serious offences with the realities of managing a large group of offenders.

      3. It also made the executioners allies of the officers. One assumes that there was some sleight of hand involved here where the men were killed by those from another unit to prevent possible resistance at killing a known comrade!

        1. AIUI, the men were split into groups of ten, nine of whom would kill the other one.

  42. Government could decriminalise non-payment of BBC licence fee.

    Culture Secretary fires warning after broadcaster decides to go ahead with plan to end free TV licences for most over-75s

    On Thursday night, the BBC chairman, Sir David Clementi, said: “The decision to commence the new scheme in August has not been easy, but
    implementation of the new scheme will be Covid-19 safe    . The BBC could not continue delaying the scheme without impacting on programmes and
    services.

    See you in jail

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/09/government-could-decriminalise-non-payment-bbc-licence-fee/

    1. ‘Decision ….has not been easy’ – don’t, for one moment, believe you.

    2. WTF is “Covid-19 safe”? Summonses handed over from 2 metres distance?

    3. The nub of all this is that the BBC want more cash to continue building their empire. They could ask the Government to raise the licence fee, but they decided it would be easier to milk the over 75s.
      The BBC’s statement that it is ‘paying‘ for the over 75s’ licences is sheer doubletalk.
      See you in clink, OLT.

    4. They’ve got to catch you actually watching live TV – they’re not going to be able to do that where I live

      1. They have no right of entry unless there is a warrant issued by a Magistrate. A lot of people just own up.
        Not sure of the law in Scotland.

          2. They guilt-trip people though, by the shame of being dragged through the courts. Difficult to see what they would do about a mass action by the over 80s, say. Try to paint them all as Nazis?

          3. But you would call the police and it would be them who were in court. Even a policeman who is not arresting you can be told to leave your premises and if he doesn’t he’s committing trespass.

      2. I was told by someone who got caught ( a few weeks after moving, not having got round to registering), that they need visual evidence. Their little listeners with which they detect that you have the TV on aren’t good enough to present in court. So when they ring the bell and you answer, they push past you and photograph your tv before you have gathered your wits together to stop them.
        This may explain why more women than men get taken to court. They probably wouldn’t try that on with a 6′ 4″ beefy guy answering the door.
        Of course, they would not be able to push past a chain on the door either.

        1. They don’t have listening equipment. If they push past you then they re breaking the law. They have no more legal authority than a double glazing salesman.

          1. I’m not saying what is legal or not, just what they do. As I said, this is probably why more women than men end up being fined because they don’t try it on with men.

      3. They use only one technique, which is to get a member of the household to sign a form confirming that live tv was being watched and give it to the doorstep salesman.

      4. When I phoned to say I didn’t need a licence, I was asked if I watched of I watched live TV on any device – even foreign TV. What’s that to do with the price of fish? Anyone know??

        1. That’s how they get you – any device that is capable of receiving live telly.
          My mother used to get bombarded with their junk mail and she never had a telly in her life.

          1. Thanks! I received official confirmation of my licencelessness just after posting that, and it stated that. To think that just tuning in to watch friends on TV in other countries via my laptop, a few times a year, would require a licence – utterly bizarre! I presume I’m allowed to watch them on catch-up on foreign TV, so I’ll do that, but still think this unfair.

          2. Oddly enough, receiving live TV on a device with its own internal batteries does not require a TV licence. It appears to be a hangover from the far off days when people using battery-powered portables away from home would be presumed to have a licence at home.

          3. That’s fascinating; thank you. I’ll have to go back to the letter they sent; I seem to recall it mentioned watching live TV on any device. More research looms!

    5. The nub of all this is that the BBC want more cash to continue building their empire. They could ask the Government to raise the licence fee, but they decided it would be easier to milk the over 75s.
      The BBC’s statement that it is ‘paying‘ for the over 75s’ licences is sheer doubletalk.
      See you in clink, OLT.

      1. I thought that the BBC have just increased the licence fee anyway? A month or two back.

  43. Daily Betrayal…………….

    Let’s now go back to my cryptic question

    above, if there’s something more sinister going on, given the scant

    reports on the break-up of those Trade Negotiations. In his newsletter

    to members of the Free Speech Union

    – of course I’ve joined, what did you expect! – Toby Young refers to

    cases where journalists were ‘reprimanded’ when reporting on CV-19. He

    reports that these reprimands were based on ‘guidance’ issued by Ofcom:

    “[Ofcom] published

    its first guidance note on 23rd March, the same day the government

    imposed the full lockdown, and then issued further “confidential”

    guidance on 27th March, advising its licensees to exercise extreme

    caution when broadcasting “statements that seek to question or undermine

    the advice of public health bodies on the coronavirus, or otherwise

    undermine people’s trust in the advice of mainstream sources of

    information”. (quoted from the FSU Newsletter to members)

    Toby Young speaks for all of us when he comments:

    “Have you been

    puzzling over why it’s so one-sided? Why almost no-one challenges the

    official Covid narrative or the absolute necessity of the lockdown?

    Well, now you know.“ (quoted from the FSU Newsletter to members)

    Just so! The FSU has now applied

    to the High Court for permission for a judicial review, to force Ofcom

    to withdraw their guidance. However, I wonder if a similar ‘guidance’

    has now been issued in regard to the EU Trade negotiations. I wonder if

    that is why nothing except that one Barnier tweet has been reported in

    ‘Our MSM’. I wonder if the ancient ‘D-Notice’ has been superseded by

    ‘confidential Ofcom guidance’.

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-betrayal-friday-10th-july-2020-day-6-of-semi-lockdown-britain/

    Day by day this becomes more true………………..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9ef77dbd7d20d1763c134cd96b313218ef5b1c6bf938704ef6916d8dd5405fc3.jpg

    1. Not true though.
      “get married” has been replaced by “fk your brains out and have taxpayer funded children/ pay taxes to keep other people’s children”
      The lefty liblabcons don’t like strong families.
      They stand up to strong governments.

    2. 321160+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      Abide by this program via continuing to support the lab/lib/con coalition party, as witnessed, the coalition of change, you the electorate deserve it.

  44. Just to make you feel less cynical about your lot.Trudeau (Yes PM dressup) has been caught out again.

    Last week he announced a $900 million plus program to pay(?) youth volunteers was being awarded to a charity called We. Although he has been a strong supporter of the charity, he denied that anything underhand took place in awarding the sole source contract. Absolutely no money changed hands he said, we have never paid Trudeau said the charity.

    This week, it was found that a subsidiary charity has paid big money to the Trudeau family for speaking appearances. The Auditor General is said to be recruiting permanent employees to work on Trudeau conflictnof interest investigations.

    At least leaders in other countries cover their tracks.

    2. Speaking appearances eh? I suppose the amount of money couldn’t really pass through a nail bar or a laundrette.

    1. More people should know just who is behind this organisation. And who let her out on his last day of office.

      1. Long ago (and more than once) we were forced to watch an American training video called “Brown eyes, blue eyes” which showed how tribally people react in different groups.

      2. Long ago (and more than once) we were forced to watch an American training video called “Brown eyes, blue eyes” which showed how tribally people react in different groups.

    1. Morning all just a quickie,……have any of us ever considered that the government aka the British Civil Service, instruct the BBC to carry out their constant stream of propaganda ?
      Hi Ho,……….. i’m off to work again.

      1. Of course they do, and not just the BBC either.
        In the US the authorities have admitted that they plant stories. In the UK, it’s clear they do.
        Every time a contentious piece of legislation is coming up, all over the media will be little “news items” designed to make you support it.
        eg euthanasia and the last marriage-wrecking bill are two particularly blatant examples that spring to mind. Watch out for more!

    3. Since Linifaker’s wage (I could not say earnings) has become public knowledge,
      I have not bought anything from Walkers, the crispmen

    2. Is he some sort of bank clerk? Why has he got his hands in the air, I suppose it’s a stickup at his branch.

  52. Given the number of elderly in this country, plus the increase in ‘eye strain’ type jobs, I’m surprised that Boots Opticians are in trouble. I’ve never used them; maybe NOTTLers have some experiences that might explain the problem.
    I certainly noticed that when I went to Boots for a make-up blitz, they did seem rather badly stocked in that department.

    1. Boots opticians managed to fit me up with glasses where the lenses were reversed; then one was upside down….. Never again.

      As for the chemists shop – many of their standard OB items are out of stock. Service is unhelpful and unwelcoming (well, it is in Fakenham branch, anyway).

      1. The same can be said for the Boot’s branches in Huntingdon, St Ives & Cambridge (Galleria).

    2. A few years back, staying in the Crewe Travelodge on Macon Way on the same night as the Boot’s Opticians Company Awards, I had a right up & downer with a senior exec of theirs.
      Several doors along the corridor were a couple of girls who gave me the impression of being the Corporate Entertainment and the noise of footsteps up & down the corridor, doors slamming & raised voices from a drunken guest were bloody ridiculous!

    4. Boots have had it.

      It now employs about 56,000 people in the UK. Mr Pessina led the buyout of Boots
      by the US private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in 2007, before
      eventually merging the company with Walgreens in 2012. Since being taken private for £11bn in 2007, its various owners have taken out more than £10bn in dividends.6 Nov 2019

    5. A friend who phoned OH for some optical advice the other week, went to Boots Opticians and was impressed with their service. Since he retired, I firsr went to our n-d-n who subsequently proved to be a very unkind man to his wife who still lives there, and now I go to Specsavers who seem ok.

  53. Should white people be compensated for the upset caused by the mainstream media and the hard left for the structural bias shown against them over slavery?
    Since the new normal kicked in all white people have been under undue moral coercive pressure to kneel and grovel for something that happened two hundred years ago.

    1. And don’t forget one of the leading supporters of BLM who receives millions of pounds each year from a German company which used Jewish slave labour memory IN LIVING MEMORY rather than 200 year ago.

          1. I’m not certain it was supposed to be anyone.

            It was an observation that May’s old deal with “tweaks” was likely to be recycled as the foundation for Britain’s future relationship with the EU after the Brexit negotiations were complete, and not really a new deal as we were being informed at the ime..

          2. It is Hunt. The date is in the period between her resignation and Johnson’s appointment and just a few days after Gove had made a big announcement on waste recycling. Hunt was, of course, also a contender.

  55. Genocide denial gains ground 25 years after Srebrenica massacre. Fri 10 Jul 2020 14.35 BST.

    At the genocide memorial centre outside Srebrenica, thousands of simple white gravestones stretch across the gently inclined hillside for as far as the eye can see.

    Nearby, over a number of days in July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces systematically murdered around 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys. It was the worst crime of the Bosnian war, and remains the only massacre on European soil since the second world war to be ruled a genocide.

    This is what a multicultural society looks like when the Idealists have gone home and the Central Power is overthrown or dissolves.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/10/genocide-denial-gains-ground-25-years-after-srebrenica-massacre

    1. The Serbs were cruelly treated under Ottoman rule for centuries. Looking at the events of 1995 divorced from historical context creates a very distorted picture.

      1. All multicultural societies are blood baths waiting to happen! If you have the misfortune to belong to one you must always keep a revolver under the pillow and a fast car in the drive!

        2. When my mother went to stay with her sister-in-law – my Aunt Vera – in Nairobi she was given a revolver to keep under her pillow when she went to bed. My mother did not take it even though she had lived in the Sudan for many years with my father who was in the British Sudan administration and when the Sudan was well run and safe..

          My mother died in England at the age of 97 – but my Aunt Vera was murdered in her bed in Kenya in her 70’s.

          1. We’ve both been reading all the books by George and Joy Adamson. Both were murdered in Kenya.

        1. I think it shows that multiculturalism breeds resentment and people prefer their own kind.

        2. Historic enmities can run very deep.

          That was a very dirty civil war from all sides, the main victims were Muslims, but atrocities were commited in numerous locations.
          It’s no excuse, but 600 years under an Ottoman Caliphate will have resulted in long held tales of subjugation and ill-treatment of non-Muslims.

          I would be wary of the link, but it does give an inkling of what was done.

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

  56. Notice that the Guardian website states ‘Millions are flocking to the Guardian for quality news every day.’ Are they sure about this? People I know visit it purely for amusement value.

    2. I tend only to read the links put up by Minty and others. It’s hardly my ‘go to’ news source.

    3. It is a misprint (as you would expect from the Grauniad):

      ‘Millions are flocking to from the Guardian for quality news every day.’

    4. 321160+ up ticks,
      Afternoon VOM,
      Our budgie quit reading it long ago, I’m thankful
      because he reads out loud,most annoying.

  57. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2020/07/10/TELEMMGLPICT000234794729_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQfy2dmClwgbjjulYfPTELibA.jpeg?imwidth=1260
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2020/07/10/TELEMMGLPICT000234791763_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQfyf2A9a6I9YchsjMeADBa08.jpeg?imwidth=1260
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2020/07/10/TELEMMGLPICT000234790528_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqNJjoeBT78QIaYdkJdEY4CnGTJFJS74MYhNY6w3GNbO8.jpeg?imwidth=1260

    1. A little old lady doesn’t occupy much coffin, does she?
      Glad to see she had a good send-off.

    2. Ditchling then Brighton Crem. The projection on the White Cliffs of Dover was a nice touch.

    3. It is encouraging that, despite the woke folk and the slammers and the bames and the knee benders and the lunatic, foam-flecked leftards – we can STILL put on a decent funeral in a small village.

      1. Yes but…the Torybabble still had to bugger things up by inserting a caption under the third photograph “A Spitfire & a Hurricane soar over Ditchling…”

        1. Pity, then, it was two Spitfires – an early one (green & brown camo) – a mark 2 or 3, and a late one.

        2. I expect the teenager scribblers imagine those aircraft were used in Vietnam. They will know nothing of the Second World War (except that Churchill attacked a defenceless Germany) – nor of the crucial events therein; of which the B of B was a very close run thing indeed, despite what the millions of words written about it.

        3. I believe the original plan was for a Spitfire and Hurricane to perform the fly-past. In the event, two Spitfires turned up. The ‘journalist’ who wrote the captions obviously doesn’t know the difference between the two aeroplanes, so just stuck to the original story.

          1. Oh thank you for that. I saw the caption and could not sort one from t’other. Now I know why.

          2. At least they didn’t describe them as jets and say pilots would eject if in trouble!

  58. 321160+up ticks,
    Tell me if the UKs unies want to take the road to peking should they receive any funding via the tax payer / governance?
    Only we seem to be funding via welfare etc, etc, a great many enemas of the UK
    nation.
    Surely when entering a polling booth one
    must ask oneself is ones party, ie lab/lib/con financially backing terrorism then ones must vote accordingly, unless of course one agrees.

    1. I think the UK Universities are handsomely paid for selling their intellectual property to the Chinese.

  59. Tommy Robinson jokes about having bacon burger in multifaith room as police stop him. 8 July 2020,

    In the footage, police ask him where he’s working and he tells them he’s a journalist.

    They ask him why he’s travelling and why he hasn’t driven by himself.

    He tells them he’s lazy and that he has 18 points on his licence.

    Mr Robinson questions police as to why his group has been stopped since ‘they’re not suspected of a crime’.

    A police officer says she’s just trying to understand if their travel is essential.

    “We want to know why you’ve got a van full of people,” she says.

    Tommy being harassed! The questions are simply cover for it!

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tommy-robinson-jokes-having-bacon-22317569

      1. Foam-flecked, far-right, militant, racist extremists You can just tell from the way they stand there, “peacefully” (oh yeah?)

  62. Deep breaths please.

    BBC Music magazine columnist calls for ‘crudely jingoistic’ songs Rule, Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory to be scrapped from Last Night of the Proms because they are ‘insensitive’ in wake of BLM movement
    Richard Morrison said a full overhaul of music from the concert is needed
    Songs such as Rule, Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory should be dropped
    He described the jingoistic traditional songs as ‘toe-curlingly embarrassing’
    He said such songs are ‘insensitive’ to the Black Lives Matters movement

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8509685/Calls-Rule-Britannia-banned-Night-Proms.html

    1. When is somebody, who has the brains and the balls, going to stand up and tell these twats to PISS OFF once and for all?

      1. Dunno, Grizz. It makes my head hurt, how pathetic the “leaders” (Hah!) are. Utterly contemptible.

    3. ‘Toe-curlingly embarrassing’? Well, the audience singing them don’t seem to be in the least embarrassed. They join in with great gusto. And what has the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement got to do with any of this? This just seems to be an excuse to scrap anything which is traditionally British. It would seem that any other culture is to be celebrated and promoted, but if it’s British, it’s racist and must be eliminated.

      1. 321160+up ticks,
        Afternoon A,
        Heard tell the Blm want the statue of Albert Hall introduced to the smelter.

        1. I never knew Prince Albert’s surname was ‘Hall’. I had a vague idea it was ‘Ring’.

    4. They won’t care this year as there won’t be any ticket sales for an audience in the RAH anyway but at some point Get Woke Go Broke must kick in? Pandering to a minority who don’t pay the bills.

    5. 321160+ up ticks,
      Afternoon TB,
      Obviously has not heard
      YET the F of movement in loud rhetoric.

    6. Assuming that it actually takes place, I hope that the promenaders make their feelings known very strongly.

      1. I seem to recall that they dropped all the ‘jingoistic’ items once some years ago and there were enough complaints to make them return to normal the next year.

      1. The problem with this forum is that so much frippery is posted that it can sometime take an age to trawl back through all the posts just to check for duplication.

        3. I only frip on Mondays and Tuesdays. Plus Wednesdays and Thursdays. Oh, and Fridays and Saturdays. And on Sundays i frip all day long. Though i don’t identify as a fripper.

        4. Bearing in mind the average age of posters here, Grizz, they likely forgot the first time of posting already.
          ;-))

    9. Yet more Bbc I shan’t watch (not that I have for years – all those bl00dy EU flags got my goat).

  63. Recently back from a pleasant afternoon tea in Rose’s garden with a delicious Victoria sponge and fresh cream filing! Thanks Rose. I’m glad I went as Rose has been in isolation these past few months.

      1. Yet they are still going to withdraw the free licence from over 75s unless they are in receipt of pension credit. They have no idea. They remind me of the Bourbons in 1789.

        1. They clearly feel bomb-proof – one can only assume that this is because they know what they have got away with in the past.

          2. I would love to see the BBC made subscription only, and watch its viewer base plummet to the same size as the Guardian’s readership (minus the licence payer funded BBC subscriptions, of course).

    2. Not sure about ‘mostly diasgree’, Morrison absolutely slaughtered in the first 30 or so I read. Quite right too.

          2. That Immanuel Kant idiot? He pops up regularly spouting textbook left wing drivel. He’s so predictable it’s comic.

    3. The BBC Proms Director says “This year it is not going to be the Proms as we know them, but the Proms as we need them”. Who is “we” – not the mass of licence-paying citizens, I bet?

        1. My point was not that the Proms are not needed but the arrogance of the Proms Director in assuming that everyone was in favour of his proposals.

        2. My point was not that the Proms are not needed but the arrogance of the Proms Director in assuming that everyone was in favour of his proposals.

          1. Never fear, Enri – there will be a bame bint singing lots of songs that appeal to bames on the Last Night – no National Anthem, of course; No Rule Britannia – nothing that the vast majority of ordinary, white native born English people like.

          4. Perhaps she’ll be in full PPE, or surrounded by a plexiglass screen. That’s pretty much the only way singing is permitted in church at present…

    4. White, male and stale. Surprised he hasn’t handed in his resignation with a cheque to go towards reparations.

      1. Any fat, gormless, pinko bitch calling me “stale, pale and male” will be replied to with me telling her: “quail, regale, bewail and impale, you wholesale fail female whale.”

    1. We could have done with a contingent of these chappies a few weeks back in London. It doesn’t look like they need riot gear.

      1. Big, proud and fierce lads, yer Polynesians. You don’t mess with them.

        A nightclub, in Chesterfield back in the 1970s, had two huge (but amiable) Tongan brothers as doormen. They never had any trouble from the punters.

  67. “Boris Johnson urges Britons to ‘go back into work if they can’ saying the country must try to ‘live more normally’ in dramatic shift from government’s ‘work from home’ edict” (Wail)

    Reading this, anyone would think that the people brought the country to a grinding standstill all on their own – and against the wishes of the government.

    Johnson really is getting stupider by the day.

      1. I’m retired and have been enjoying the rest. Does that mean I have to start chairing all those meetings that were cancelled again?

    4. Choices, choices.

      Do I stay on furlough at 80% of pay and 70% of expenses while I’m job hunting; or do I go back to work and promptly be made redundant and try to live on JSA while job hunting?

    5. I think they must have a team of comedy script writers making up these rules/guidelines/laws. Probably Galton & Simpson (?) or Barry Cryer etc.

  69. Beards vs brows row: Leading Tory MP threatens to challenge ‘serious gender divide’ in lockdown easing

    Women and Equalities Chair Caroline NWokes wants ministers to address the
    disparity in facial grooming practices for men and women

    The Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee Caroline NWokes said:
    “We’ve seen barbers trimming eyebrows, we’ve seen them trimming beards
    and we still have a range of facial practices that can’t be done on
    women.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/07/10/beards-vs-brows-row-leading-tory-mp-threatens-challenge-serious/

      1. I’m going to have to eat some humble pie here. I wasn’t aware how many ladies suffer from unwanted facial hair when I wrote the comment above.
        I was rather insensitive.
        SWMBO suffers from unwanted facial hair – she really doesn’t like my beard at all!
        :-((

        1. My ex grew a beard a year or so before we parted. i hated it – but his girlfriend (and my ex-friend) liked it and bought him a beard-trimmer. Didn’t go down too well.

      2. She’s a politician, Paul. A sub-species of humans, Homo sapiens inferioricus.

    3. Some women – and fortunately I’m not one of them – do suffer from unwanted facial hair. After so many months I should think they’re not keen to be seen.

          1. Indeed.

            When I was a child, I used to visit my aunt in Newton Abbot. Down the road into town, on the right, was a dairy – and I would be sent there to buy cream. There were large pans of it.

            The lady who served, while charming, was most alarming, because she had a substantial beard. I was scared stiff!

  70. Just received this:

    Church Bulletins – church ladies with typewriters.

    These sentences actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced at church services:

    ————————–

    The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.

    ————————-

    Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled

    Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

    ————————

    The sermon this morning: Jesus Walks on the Water.

    The sermon tonight: ‘Searching for Jesus.’

    ————————–

    Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house.

    Bring your husbands.

    ———————–

    Don’t let worry kill you off – let the Church help.

    ————————–

    Miss Charlene Mason sang, ‘I will not pass this way again,’ giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

    ————————–

    For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

    ————————

    Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir.

    They need all the help they can get.

    ————————–

    Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church.

    So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

    ————————–

    A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall.

    Music will follow.

    ———————–

    At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be ‘What Is Hell?’

    Come early and listen to our choir practice.

    ————————–

    Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

    ————————–

    Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

    ————————–

    The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.

    ————————–

    Pot-luck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM – prayer and medication to follow.

    ———————-

    The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind.

    They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

    ————————–

    This evening at 7 pm there will be a hymn singing in the park across

    from the Church

    Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

    ————————–

    The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

    ————————–

    Low Self-Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM.

    Please use the back door.

    ————————–

    The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Church

    basement Friday at 7 PM.

    The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

    ————————-

    Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church.

    Please use large double door at the side entrance.

    ————————–

    The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new campaign slogan last Sunday:

    ‘I Upped My Pledge – Up Yours.’

    1. From the Telegraph’s Peterborough column (back in the mists of time):

      In His Wake
      Notice in St. Edmund’s church in Southwold, Suffolk:
      “The guest preacher will be the Reverend Graham House on What Happens When I Die (refreshments served afterwards).”

      Pass Up The Plate
      From the Churchdown Parish Magazine:
      “Would the congregration please note that the bowl at the back of the church labelled ‘For The Sick’ is for monetary donations only.”

      Idol Hands
      From the Merseyside, North Cheshire & North Wales Quids-in free-ads paper:
      “Craft workers – sell your gods at Charing Cross Methodist Church fair, Oct. 28th”

      Bridal Train
      From a church wedding sheet:
      “From Earth’s wide bounds,
      From ocean’s farthest coast,
      Through gates of pearl,
      Steams in the countless host…”

      Left Foot Forward
      From the order of service for a wedding at the church of St John the Evangelist, Woodley, Berkshire:
      “The first hymn was ‘Praise my sole the the King of Heaven’, and the bridal party left to ‘Wedding March’ by Mandelson.”

      Dying A Death
      From the newsletter of St.Andrews Parish Church, Chesterton, Cambridge:
      “Sat. Apr. 29th – evening theatre trip to bury St.Edmunds.”

      Holy Orders

      From a Transvaal parish magazine:
      “I shall be away for seven days. Preachers will be found pinned to the notice board. All births, marriages and deaths must be postponed until I return.”

      Service sheet for morning service at Heswall Methodist Church, Wirral: “Hymn 98 – Jesus Lives! Thy Terrors Now (children go to their departments).”

      From the newsletter of St. John’s, Alresford: “The week ahead. Monday; Rector returns to work. Wednesday; Rector’s day off.”

  71. That’s me for this dreary day. Hope tomorrow is brighter, warmer and sunnier as elder son and DiL are here for the weekend. Well, when I say “here” – they are, very wisely, staying at a B&B three miles away. Shows that they are feeling their age! – Both mid-50s. Prefer comfort to being forced to be jolly chez the Old Folk from first thing!

    Lots of things for them to do – ladder work, fence removal, pruning….Dan is practical (never let him anywhere near a strimmer!) and Di has green fingers.

    They will bring bread and what Dan calls “Treats” – and it will be tremendous fun to see them. We haven’t met in person since last summer. Just had wekly skypes.

    So I will be patchy over the next few days. Enjoy the weekend. Bend the knee every hour on the hour!

    A bientôt.

    2. They are staying away because they don’t want to put you both to the trouble of cleaning, washing ironing etc!

      We did the same, once the aged parents hit 80.

  72. Evening, all. Sunak would have to be a proper conservative to move the economy in a new direction. At the moment, it seems to be headed in the same old spend, spend, spend, tax and spend again, magic money tree direction we’ve seen for the last thirty-odd years. It would be nice to see some slimming down and simplification of the tax system, ditching VAT in favour of a tax which goes 100% to the Treasury rather than partly to Brussels (can’t see them changing that when we’ve finally left, somehow) and putting the state, particularly the nanny part of it, on a drastic diet.

    1. I guess Sunak is advised by the same folk as advised Broon, Osborne (spit!) and all the other nohopers there have been.
      The government need fresh blood as advisers and calculators, not the Civil Service.

  73. Just had anniversary dinner, with SWMBO (obviously), and the two lads. 39 years… wow.
    Cannot believe how lucky I have been to have such a wife, and two magic lads who don’t take shit from anyone and can think for themselves! That’s got to be an unfair share of luck to one person.
    :-D)
    Making a special point of it, as I’m mindful of Korky, whose loss just recently cannot be measured. Live for the day, you don’t know what tomorrow will bring – and count your blessings.

    2. Lucky man/family.
      Make the most of it.

      Odd year for us. The baby of the family hit 40 this year.

      1. We’re all one year away from a round celebration: 60 x 2 next year, 30 x 1, 20 x 1 and 40 years wedding anniversary (DV).

        3. Our daughter 30 years this year and son 20 years later this month. We’re on 52. All wedding anniversaries.

          1. We are 45 on the 31st August……..i did forget once……it didn’t happen again 😏

    4. Congratulations to you both. You’re obviously a positive family because positive things happen to positive people.

      Here’s to many more anniversaries.

    5. Not sure what SWMBO is ?
      Interesting Obs my younger sister and hubby married 50 years ago today and when i look at the photos they looked very young indeed. Mind you she did have a large bouquet. The evening before the wedding i was being taught to play golf by and old school chum, knocking a few balls on the then Finchley driving range. I stood too close behind him and wallop he accidently hit me on the head with his driver follow through. 6 stiches and a partly shaved scalp didn’t look too good in the wedding photos. I’ve still got a slight bump.
      Congrats to all and keep up the good work 😍

        1. It was, What was worse i met him there having ridden my Motor bike from home. I had a lot of trouble with my helmet after the hospital……….. 🏍……….go on then 😏

    7. Congratulations Mr and Mrs Oberst! Hope you have many more happy years together and enjoy your family life! 🎉🍾👏

  75. Just watched the Pluto documentary on iPlayer. What the BBC used to do to make its licence fee acceptable.

  76. It’s Friday afternoon and time for some lunacy…

    ABBOTT: “EXTRAORDINARY” CHINA CRITICISED OVER HONG KONG

    https://youtu.be/yJlNHP8YmuU

    Freed from the shackles of Shadow Cabinet scrutiny, Diane Abbott has been able to go completely off the rails. In a Zoom chat last week entitled “Trump’s War on China”, Abbott joined former MP Emma Dent Coad among others to attack Trump and defend China. Abbott claimed that the PM’s Hong Kong citizenship offer is driven by Anti-Chinese views rather than a will to defend Hong Kong; and China can’t be criticised for crushing freedom because Hongkongers couldn’t vote under the British Empire. Forgetting their 1997 rights of independent courts, burgeoning democracy and extensive protections of civil liberties…

    Abbott’s assertions weren’t challenged by any of her fellow Chinese Communist Party appeasing comrades, one of whom – Labour NEC member Rachel Garnham – later called for a statue to be erected of the former Shadow Home Secretary. Chairman Abbott laughed along, approving of the cultural revolution. 破四旧.

    1. The government has two main tasks; protect the borders and ensure law and order within them….
      A country that has lost the plot as much as the UK has can’t carry on for much longer. We’re just coasting right now.

        1. 321160+up ticks,
          The real danger is when they link up with their sponsors
          in parliament.

      2. 321160+ up ticks,
        Evening BB2,
        I would be more inclined to say
        sinking, the whole issue has been coasting for years GE / GE the vote & whinge acceptable to ALL participants.
        Now lethargy shown with taking no firm action over the years is showing results.
        Any current sentencing by these governance parties is really showing the felon
        encouragement not punishment.

      1. 321160+ up ticks,
        Evening TB,
        Instead of firm action they are trying pcism & appeasement, the opposition do not respect that.

      1. 3211160+ up ticks,
        Evening RE,
        The governing parties like to keep ALL their foreign hair shirts
        in-house.

        1. And later as soon as the left wing welcome documents have been translated all the rest of their bloody families.

  79. Oh well almost dusk, after another busy DIY day I’m turning in. Night all.

  81. This is getting bloody ridiculous – after 3 months of not being required…”Making face coverings mandatory in shops in England is being considered by the government to slow the spread of coronavirus, senior sources have said”

    WWB!

    1. I don’t like shopping at the best of times, but this will make it a truly horrendous experience.

      1. We have just beaten oyu to mandatory masks, the rule came into effect today and you are right shopping is even less pleasant than before.

        Stupud bloody rule, mandatory masks but exceptions for those with medical conditions that prevent mask wearing (such as?). Then just in case that is not wimpish enough, shop owners cannot ask why someone is not wearing a mask because of health data security issues.

        1. I think I will claim that wearing a mask provokes a panic attack. Who are they to say otherwise?

    2. Time for a GOV.UK petition?

      My MP has just had an e-mail from me.

      Is there anyone in government or even on the backbenches with the sense to pin Johnson against a wall and tell him enough is enough?

  82. A social distancing BLM poem:

    Mary had a little lamb
    Its fleece was black as soot
    And everywhere that Mary went
    It kept behind – six foot!

      1. Thanks sweetie ….full cream… excellent over ice..
        I’ll give the Coop a whirl.
        Old Westminster Reserve Cream 1L online at Iceland now £6 up from a fiver!

    2. Hmmm… If you were receiving furlough money, is that what you’d be spending it on?

  84. A Spekkie article:

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-s-the-true-cost-of-lockdown-

    What’s the true cost of lockdown?

    Dr Waqar Rashid

    Mental health has always been the pauper when it came to medical provision and its sufferers long stigmatised. Some well-meaning campaigns have been undertaken in recent years to break taboos and stereotypes and help alleviate the suffering of those with mental health conditions. But the fallout from coronavirus and the climate of fear which continues to trouble so many people has almost certainly undone much of this work.

    Many people are – whether they are at a high risk of falling seriously ill from coronavirus or not – still terrified. People are afraid of venturing back into the outside world. Those who do keep their distance from others. Masks are everywhere, and are compulsory on public transport. The result is a reminder that this ‘new normal’ is utterly unlike what we are used to. Even to those who don’t suffer from mental health problems it’s a depressing and dispiriting sight. And I fear this ongoing state of stress and anxiety is doing profound damage to people’s psychological wellbeing.

    In the distant past (pre-March) we could escape life’s trials with once-pleasurable activities. Retail therapy anyone? Shopping has now taken on all the fun of a visit to an outpatient department in hospital. A trip to the pub or barbers with no small talk allowed? No thanks. Totally silent and forgotten, an increasing number of people are simply dropping out of life as we once knew it. When, or will, they return?

    Even the British Medical Association are sounding warning bells. This week they called for a massive increase in funding in an attempt to deal with the growing mental health crisis. I have had many virtual consultations with people whose neurological conditions have not deteriorated significantly. Yet when you ask about quality of life, what is there to say? Plenty of patients tell me that they are ‘existing’ but not much more than that.

    It was widely acknowledged before the pandemic struck that mental health problems were not only increasing in number but also being seen more frequently in younger people. As a neurologist, the people I see are especially at risk from suffering from mental health problems. It’s a sad fact that in my line of work, we can cure very little. But we can try to control and mitigate the illnesses we seek to treat. Much of this relies on the patient remaining hopeful and optimistic about their prospects. But now, surrounded as we are by this ‘invisible enemy’, all too often hope has been substituted for fear, even terror.

    Lockdown and all the other restrictions placed upon us during these extraordinary times were meant ultimately to save lives, but at what cost to so many people? Why are more people not reflecting on the importance of quality of life and whether measures in place now, when the virus appears to be on the retreat, are still justified?

    There is a school of thought that to promote compliance with lockdown measures, it was necessary to make people feel worried. It clearly worked: the degree of compliance that followed surprised those in power. But what now? Some are returning to their normal lives but too many people are – and will – not.

    In the discussion about coronavirus, we still hear precious little about mental health. Experts have been given plenty of airtime on television to extoll the dubious value of face coverings in preventing infection. All too often, we don’t hear about the broader impact of face masks and the message they send: that it is unsafe to go outside (it isn’t) and that by not wearing a mask you could infect someone and cause them harm (highly unlikely, unless you are symptomatic).

    Of course, this isn’t to say masks are always unnecessary. Properly-fitted medical masks for people with an infection or whose immune system is compromised and who need to enter specific areas of risk, such as hospitals, is vital. But is it really necessary for healthy people to wear loosely-fitted masks in the open air? I’m not convinced.

    In this time of coronavirus, I fear that too many of us have lost the ability to proportionally weigh up risks and consider the value of something basic but fundamental: our quality of life. And I fear that when this pandemic eventually recedes, we’ll be left with a dreadful psychological toll for many years to come

    1. Racial sensitivity training turned me into a confused racist

      This appears to be a total non sequiter, what’s that about?.

      As to the rest of the article, spot on.

      1. It’s a link to another article which Anne has somehow managed to cut and paste into the text.

        1. I suspected so, but nowadays who knows what irelevant mea culpas will appear in any article…

        1. I suspected it might have been, but the world is so woke that little surprises me nowadays.

    2. Have just come across a charity entitled Veterans With Dogs, using assistance dogs to help with PTSD. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t qualify (my problems are not service related), but it seems an interesting project.

    3. “This week they called for a massive increase in funding” – there’s a surprise. Massive increase in funding, eh? Who’d a thunk it… does nothing involve an increase in hard f*****g work, not more taxpayers moolah?

  87. Have any NoTTlers been soooo incapacitated they had to rely on friends and neighbours
    during Lockdown to shop for groceries, daily paper and to collect the odd prescription…
    So far kind friends have offered to help me as I’m nursing an Achilles tendon…what do you mean you didn’t know!
    So far ….
    I received an enormous bunch of bananas enough to last me a year……Jeez I’m not a gorilla?
    Smoked bacon…….unsmoked bought !!!. thankfully it’s a small pack.
    Blue top milk 4 pints £2.30…………..WTF.. it’s £1 in Poundland!
    Asked for KIngsmill Super Seeded sliced………. received Warburtons Wholemeal Bread
    Andrews Liver salt….£6… WOT!
    Orange juice …4 large packs all dated 20th July….
    Cheddar cheese extra strong….. received medium strength..

    Thanks everyone for your kindness ……………..but I can’t wait to do my own shopping…!!!

    2. It’s difficult to criticise when people try to be well-meaning, but…. AARGH!

    6. We could never get any slots for deliveries in our area but persevered with Waitrose in WGC. No problems. Obviously a few frustrations.
      But fit and active people in our road are always posting of excesses for free on FB. And I just bet as snowflakes do they have been chucking a lot of stuff away two days out of use by.
      Tendinitis can be very painful indeed PT. I tore mine once playing squash.

      1. I was using Ocado on a weekly basis before lockdown. Then it became impossible to get a delivery slot. I’ve managed to get occasional slots from Tesco, Asda, Waitrose (though not for some time), and only recently have had some success with Ocado again. I’ve filled the gaps with the milkman, and, latterly, Iceland, who seem very keen to do business with me. Some of their stuff is utter crap, but they’re worth considering.

        Today I had to pick up my repeat prescription in the next village. Decided not to walk the three miles to the Pharmacy; booked a taxi, then a bus to Guildford, a quick shop at Waitrose then an Uber home. No queue at WR, or one-way system. Pretty much like the old normal. Worst thing was wearing the obligatory muzzle / face nappy on the bus and in the Uber.

    9. Yo, Plum.
      For what it’s worth:
      If you can keep a bunch of bananas edible for a year, go for it. I can’t manage a week.
      I prefer smoked bacon. My local brewery is now selling/delivering excellent meat packs from a local butcher. Great value, excellent quality, but the bacon is unsmoked. Just cook it for a bit longer. You won’t know the difference…
      Milk – I have a milkman, three days a week. 1 pint, in glass, is £0.85. I’m doing my bit for the environment.
      Bread – I can’t comment on the relative merits of Kingsmill vs Warburtons, except to say it’s all shite. Get a breadmaker.
      Andrew’s Liver Salts. Sick squid is a rip off, but Amazon are offering it for £19.39. Go figure…
      You have ten days to drink your orange juice. Go for it…
      Cheddar cheese is apparently going to be subject to a 50% tariff from 1st January, according to today’s Telegraph. Buy English. Problem solved.

      I’m not being critical: it’s best to be in control of such things. I took a taxi to the next village today to collect a repeat prescription, then a bus ride to Guildford, for a few things at Waitrose, then an Uber home. By far, the worst thing was the compulsory muzzle / face nappy. The town seemed busier than last time – the 2m distancing markers were largely redundant. There were no queues. Nevertheless, I hate the ‘new effing normal’ and I want the old normal back. ASAP…

          1. Apart from paying a lot of money for a licence, they probably utter some mumbo jumbo over it.

    10. I’ve been bought taco boats instead of taco soft wraps – rubbish.
      Every week I ask for 2L goat’s milk & 2L buttermilk. I consume 1L of one or other for breakfast. If buttermilk is unavailable, I receive just 2L goat’s milk, so now I make a point of adding “0r any combination”.

      1. What is the point of a taco boat? Bite into it, cut into it, and it shatters, dropping the food onto the plate (if you’re lucky) or onto your trousers. Surely a soft taco is the most practical?

        1. it’s a knack. I had my first in Hong Kong and it didn’t crack or spill much. Maybe it was the way it was filled…(and no it was NOT with nothing, Oberst!)

    11. I did a LOT of shopping in the beginning. People have wildly different tolerances for substitutions; I learned to ask very carefully about them.

      Were it me, I should have been as frustrated as you. I hope you get to do your own shopping soon!

Comments are closed.