Saturday 11 July: They might as well have put up barbed wire round the GP’s surgery

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/10/letters-might-have-put-barbed-wire-round-gps-surgery/

690 thoughts on “Saturday 11 July: They might as well have put up barbed wire round the GP’s surgery”

  1. Aha ! The Saxon Queen with Long bow and newly cleaned Axe is first .

    Good morning

    A chilly morning but bright with a blue sky and some fluffy clouds
    all is calm and bright.

          2. But he’s very good and doesn’t advantage of that
            situation for a spot of cheating. Even when the
            following days post is put up in the middle of the
            night, hmmm .

    2. All is calm, all is bright? Er, have I slept through to December?

      Oh no, now I realise what has happened. You have finished putting on the sprouts and brought them up to simmer and are now practising your carol singing ready for when you are allowed to re-join the Church choir! :-)) (Manners, Elsie! Good morning, all.)

      1. Good morning to you 🙂
        That did sound a bit Christmassy I must admit, oh dear.. winter 🙂

      2. Yo Elsie

        Year 2025 sprouts I hope (in the pressure cooker of course)

        A very Merry Good Morning to you

        PS Ta Muchly for looking after Eddy

        1. Well, OLT, I have upvoted your post, but I regret that I have no idea what your PS means. Is Eddy your cat?

      3. Yo Elsie

        Year 2025 sprouts I hope (in the pressure cooker of course)

        A very Merry Good Morning to you

        PS Ta Muchly for looking after Eddy

    2. 321205+ up ticks,
      Morning GG,
      Only if you swear on the koran to play ode to joy at the start of every service.

    2. Good morning everyone. Blue sky here, too, which is a huge relief as yesterday was appalling. Grey skies, torrential downpours, thunder for hours.

      1. Forgive me, but I’ve never understood the ‘rain bad, molten burning light good’.

        I love thunder. I love rain, the more the better.

        1. I mostly love storms, too*. However some weather just floors me – dizziness, vicious headaches, spots in front of my eyes – docs say I’m just weather-sensitive. And yesterday was bad.

          ” Good ones always make me want to dance around naked in them.

    3. And all it can dream about is flights of fancy…….

      Good morning Michael et al

  4. SIR – I have checked the TV licence web page to find out who will go to jail for non-payment in a house of two over-75s, but I could not find the answer. Do my wife and I both go?

    Ralph Barnes
    Christchurch, Dorset

    Yes. And you both get free TV in jail.

    1. As soon as government said ‘we’re not paying for it’ it was obvious the BBC would simply slap the over 75s with the bill. The BBC isn’t a TV channel. It sees itself as a government department – the propaganda department. It’s simply minitrue.

  5. SIR – I am concerned. Where is the R number? On holiday? Self-isolating? No longer with us? We need to know.

    Stuart Brodkin
    Edgware, Middlesex

    It’s been Rogered.

      1. One person in every 1,521 people in the UK has died, ostensibly, from Covid-19. That is 0·066% of the population.

        So far, today (11/07/20) in just 13·5 hours, already 126,000 more people have added to the world’s rapidly rising population.

        In total there has been a worldwide increase of 42,870,000 people from the start of this year. That is nearly another UK-ful!

  6. SIR – I would like to thank my husband (Letters, July 9). He is a key worker. He is a forklift truck driver for a large supermarket chain.

    We both would like to thank his lucky stars he has a job.

    Pauline Turner
    Knutsford, Cheshire

    2. From today’s News Thump (newsthump.com)

      Chris Grayling accidentally locks himself in broom cupboard on first day as Chairman of Intelligence Committee

      Boris Johnson has appointed Chris Grayling as the new Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, who has wasted no time in putting his own unique spin on the role.

      Many have criticised the move, insisting that replacing Dominic Grieve with Chris Grayling is like replacing Sir Stephen Hawking with Danny Dyer.

      As Grayling excitedly arrived for his first day of meetings to discuss the release of the Russian interference intelligence report, he waved at everyone in the building before walking straight into a storage cupboard marked ‘cleaning supplies’ before slowly realising there was no handle on the inside.

      At the time of writing, Grayling was still inside the cupboard and after being alone for ninety minutes was seriously considering eating his briefcase.

      A government spokesperson told us, “We were hoping that putting Chris Grayling in charge of the committee who will decide when to release the report into Russian interference in our democracy would conveniently lead to him losing it, or maybe having his dog eat it.

      “He has a track record of being very helpful when you need someone to make a really big and costly mistake.

      “But disappearing into a disused cupboard for months on end is a close second, I suppose.

      “Yes, there is a small risk that by merely reading the Russia report he will somehow accidentally tweet it to the entire planet, but it’s probably a risk worth taking.

      “Don’t worry though, it’s only the intelligence and security committee with oversight of our entire intelligence infrastructure. What damage could a man who gave a multi-million-pound shipping contract to a firm with no ships actually do?”
      On 10/07/2020 07:35, Mary Kenfield wrote:
      In INTELLIIIGENCE???
      —

  8. For anyone who missed this yesterday…

    The best Battle of Britain film? It’s not what you’d expect

    Angels One Five was made 12 years after the Battle of Britain, and with a cast and crew who knew their subject matter all too well

    SIMON HEFFER – 10 July 2020 • 10:11am

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/films/2020/07/09/TELEMMGLPICT000234580954_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqN2xEdhJkGkU0RkeQQwUrXzX4fUPp0VQ53bYGHM3PsRw.jpeg?imwidth=680
    The soaring heroes of Angels One Five (1952) CREDIT: Alamy

    On the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, it is surprising to note that there are hardly any films about it….
    *
    *
    *
    *
    *********************************************************************************************

    BTL:

    Darren Leicestershire
    10 Jul 2020 2:57PM

    The BBC have produced a new Battle of Britain film, in this exciting new version a female pilot from Barbados leads a heroic team of EU pilots against the racists, who are led by an evil Englishman called Nigel Barrage.

    Our brave heroine battles white privilege with the support of her lesbian partner. The brave EU forces fight against the odds as all the English male pilots are cowards and refuse to fly, but ultimately triumph over evil and in doing so create the single market.

    My favourite part is where Barrage, the villain, looks like he’s going to win the day, but is shot down by a female, disabled, single-parent, transexual, muslim pilot who shouts “death to the enemies of the EU” at the film’s peak.

    It’s BBC production at it’s finest.

    2. 321205+up ticks,
      Morning C,
      One bit in the new version, did not the “hero” go awol for a spell
      to get his wife back or something if I remember right.

    3. This comment only had to be slightly less tongue-in-cheek to have been believable!

    4. Lol! Thanks Citroen, first guffaw of the day (but such a storyline cannot be far off).

    5. Wouldn’t it be great if a production team actually made a 30 minute comedy using that spoof script. They’d probably never work again, and go to prison, but what heroes they would be.

    6. There are hardly any films about it because a) the British won – it was their finest hour, after all – and b) there were next to no coloured fighter pilots or ground crew. In the light of this, it is no surprise at all that films are not abundant these days. The 1969 version The Battle of Britain was good (I have seen it several times and have the DVD), although there were some howlers and they blew up a lot of Duxford.

    1. Shame that the last man left standing was Teresa May.
      These last few weeks have made Gove’s actions during the leadership election ever more understandable.
      Whether it’s the lasting effects of C19 or the influence of the woke fiancée, Boris is a profound disappointment.
      Looking through the massed ranks of pygmies, I can understand a how a Man of Steel/Great Leader/Man of Destiny obtains power.
      Morning, B3.

    2. Whether we need him or not where is Edgar Alan Poe, the author of The Masque of the Red Death?

  11. Médecins Sans Frontières ‘institutionally racist’, say 1,000 insiders. 11 July 2020.

    Médecins Sans Frontières, the medical NGO, is riddled with institutional racism and bolsters colonialism in its humanitarian work, according to an internal statement signed by 1,000 current and former members of staff.

    Signatories include Javid Abdelmoneim, chair of the board of MSF UK, Agnes Musonda, president of the board in southern Africa, and Florian Westphal, managing director of MSF Germany.

    Morning everyone. It is not as far as I know compulsory to join MSF. Perhaps these people could have joined an African Aid Organisation… Oh wait a minute.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/10/medecins-sans-frontieres-institutionally-racist-say-1000-insiders/

    1. So, what did those senior signatories do about it? Fark-all, I suspect, just whinged.

    2. It was an organisation that I had enormous respect for until a few years ago, when it became much more political.
      When they became involved with the people trafficking across the Med I ceased to donate.

      Their people were willing to go almost anywhere where there was a need and in my view were one of the very best of such charitable NGOs.

    3. Any white person who tries to help Africans in Africa will receive abuse and accusations of racism.

      Perhaps the white man should never have gone to Africa in the first place but had just let the indigenous population get on with it by themselves. By the same token, perhaps the black man should never have come to Europe if he now finds the place such a racist hell?

      Should we heading for global apartheid?

    4. Any white person who tries to help Africans in Africa will receive abuse and accusations of racism.

      Perhaps the white man should never have gone to Africa in the first place but had just let the indigenous population get on with it by themselves. By the same token, perhaps the black man should never have come to Europe if he now finds the place such a racist hell?

      Should we heading for global apartheid?

  12. Had my first beers out of the house last night down a local club,
    Had to follow ridiculous rules, enter via one door, follow a one way system outside and then realised that despite it being mid-summer it was too cold to be out without a jumper or even a coat for any length of time.

    1. Morning B3. That reminds me of a filthy joke, set in a brothel. Always a choice of two doors. Finally ” hard/soft ” … ends up back outside!
      ,

  13. Queen of the Europhiles: Nationwide Clap for Scottish Leader Planned for 50th Birthday

    https://media.breitbart.com/media/2020/07/kim-statue-640×480.png

    A Scotland-wide ‘Clap for Nicola’ event is being organised for Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister and the leader of the left-separatist Scottish National Party (SNP).

    The nationwide clap is currently set to take place on July 19th to coincide with Sturgeon’s 50th birthday. She leads the Scottish Government — a devolved executive roughly equivalent to a state government in the United States — and the Scottish National Party (SNP)…..

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/07/10/queen-of-the-europhiles-nationwide-clap-scottish-leader-planned-50th-birthday/

      1. I first read it as ‘crap for Nicola’
        Morning Grizz
        To be fair she’s done a better job than Boris

      1. Let’s face it; just about anything is believable in C21 Blighty.
        The lunatics are well and truly in charge of the asylum.

        Good Moaning, MM.

  14. Morning all

    SIR – I was reading the letter by Professor Martin Marshall, the chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, regarding the role of GPs during the pandemic, until I reached his remark: “It has been business as usual in general practice throughout the pandemic.” I nearly fell off my chair.

    Short of putting up a barbed-wire fence round our local GP surgery, they have done just about everything else to dissuade patients from contacting them.

    I have been bombarded with SMS messages, telling me what they weren’t prepared to do, which for most of the time was just about everything.

    “Stay away,” was the clear message coming out, even if the surgery was actually open at times.

    How can supermarket employees on a minimum wage continue to serve us, face to face, throughout this crisis, yet handsomely rewarded GPs seemed to use every excuse to avoid it?

    Ron Richardson

    Lancing, West Sussex

    1. SIR – My experience is that it has most certainly not been business as usual. I suffer from debilitating arthritis in my thumbs. I have had steroid injections in the past, administered by my GP, which help significantly. But my GP surgery has told me I cannot have this done at the moment, and they have no idea when the treatment might be reinstated.

      They gave no explanation except to say that the Royal College of General Practitioners had advised GPs not to. They made no offer of a video consultation, but suggested that I should “call back every couple of weeks or so to see whether anything has changed”. So much for “business as usual”.

      Advertisement

      How is it logical or desirable that I can visit the dentist, have my hair cut, go to the pub, sit next to someone on a plane and take my car for a service but not see my GP to have basic treatment?

      Is anything being done to fix this scandalous situation that is condemning thousands of people to unnecessary misery?

      Charlie Barrass

      King’s Lynn, Norfolk

      SIR – Professor Marshall says that it has been “business as usual in general practice throughout the pandemic”. He clearly hasn’t tried to see his GP recently. What used to be difficult has become an impossibility.

      Aled Jones

      Rhuddlan, Denbighshire

        1. You can down here, albeit a somewhat limited service.
          I don’t think the PTB have a clue as to the problems they are storing up for the future.
          I can remember the state of many people’s teeth – and the knock on health effects – of the pre-1948 generation that was short of money before NHS dental care came in.
          Mind you, that circle does seem to be closing again, as NHS dental treatment is once again pretty basic.

  15. SIR – I am always prepared to pay top dollar for any product whose quality matches the price. Unfortunately, the BBC’s current output doesn’t fit this criterion. The daily programmes are repeats and puerile game shows.

    John Roberts

    Wokingham, Berkshire

    SIR – During lockdown, I paid for a Netflix subscription. I’ve just cancelled it; the content is mainly dross.

    The BBC may have the most misguided senior management, but it can still make good programmes.

    Mark Hodson

    Langford, Somerset

    SIR – How did pensioners feel before 2000, when Gordon Brown introduced this perk as a bribe for the grey vote? They paid without complaint, I imagine.

    I don’t mind paying £3.03 a week.

    Mary Ross

    Penketh Cheshire

    1. “I don’t mind paying £3.03 a week” I do. Why pay the BBC when you only use your tv to watch commercial channels? A sub to the Spectator is much better value.

    2. Fair enough. You keep paying it.

      What if you don’t shop in Tesco. Would you still pay them £3 a week just so you can go to Waitrose?

    3. “I don’t mind paying £3.03 a week” I do. Why pay the BBC when you only use your tv to watch commercial channels? A sub to the Spectator is much better value.

  16. Morning again

    SIR – I was sorry to read of Gordon Casely’s treatment by a private parking contractor (Letters, July 8).

    Generally speaking, to enforce penalty charges, a private parking firm will need to obtain a court order. To achieve this, it would need to prove that the motorist has breached the contract which they are deemed to have entered into by parking on the land in question.

    Although the terms of the contract should be clearly stated on signs close to the parking spot, it is not at all unusual for these to be ambiguous, confusing, absent or defaced – in which case, the contract is likely to be unenforceable.

    Where a charge has been imposed because of a technicality, a court might take a dim view of an action brought by a parking company for whom no loss was involved. In any event, private parking companies do not usually want to incur the cost or trouble of court action.

    Anyone in receipt of a private ticket should therefore carefully examine nearby parking signs and photograph any that might be damaged or illegible or otherwise contain discrepancies. Letters from the parking companies should be carefully read as they are often designed to appear intimidating but actually contain empty threats.

    If in doubt, the motorist would be wise not to pay a private parking ticket or to waste their time with an industry appeals process that does not enjoy much public confidence.

    If the quantity or nature of correspondence becomes a problem, a pre-emptive county court claim for damages for harassment often results in a satisfactory settlement.

    Gary Shaw

    London NW11

    1. Gary is correct.

      Don’t allow the parking nazis to bamboozle and bully you, they have no power. Stand up to them (as you should with all bullies) and they will flinch first.

      To paraphrase John Lennon: “No outsourced bastard’s gonna get no golden apples outta me.”

  18. Further to yesterday’s allegations about Justin Trudeau, Rebel News have sent the following, which wonders about possible involvement by Mr T and others in this further matter:

    ‘One hour ago, Amazon deleted my book, China Virus. They banned it.

    I’m stunned. You can see their terse e-mail to us, by clicking:

    https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/therebel/pages/47578/attachments/original/1594420687/Amazon_letter_to_Rebel_News_-_China_Virus.pdf?1594420687

    They say my book contradicts “official sources” of information about the virus. But my book does not give medical advice — it’s purely a discussion of Canada-China politics, as the very title makes clear.

    Amazon originally refused to upload the book, fighting with us for two months. But then they relented. And the book became an instant bestseller, reaching no. 1 on Kindle in Canada and no. 2 as a paperback. It was a huge bestseller. And now it’s been deleted from Amazon.

    This is nuts.
    It’s China-style censorship.
    Who did this?

    Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s owner, who would do anything to ingratiate himself with China, to get access to their huge market?

    Justin Trudeau, whose connections to Communist China I expose in this book?

    The United Nations and the World Health Organization, whose corruption I expose?

    Or maybe all of them?

    This is an outrage. But this Chinese-style censorship will not stop us. We’ve already found another printer to publish soft-cover copies of the book. We hope to have those printed next week, and shipped soon after.

    And we’ve done something that I know will drive the Chinese Communists and Justin Trudeau crazy: we’re literally giving away the e-book version of China Virus right now, for any price, on our website. (We recommend a donation — the e-book sold for $7.50 on Amazon. So maybe you can chip in that amount. But right now, it’s about showing Amazon, the UN, Trudeau and China that they can’t censor us.

    Just click here, or visit http://www.ChinaVirusBook.com.

    I’m furious with this censorship — of a no. 1 best-selling book. Amazon sells Mao’s Little Red Book. They sell Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf. But they ban my book — that’s outrageous. Well, fight back by clicking here. Get your free e-book. And sign up for our printed version, ready very soon.

    Thanks my friends — we’re going to beat these censors. We just have to.

    Yours truly,

    Ezra Levant’

    1. Ezra squashed the toes of the billionaire globalists, Watson.

      This has important ramifications for my investigation into corrupt UK politicians on behalf of Lord Lockemup in Pentonville. Trudeau is one of their club.

      1. Good morning, Ethel.

        Just been out to the car & it was OK, but everything on that side of the house lies in the sun atm.

        1. It’s a cool spot here surrounded by trees so very shady,
          the wooden floors in the house doesn’t created warmth too,
          there are rugs down stairs but it’s not the same as carpets.
          The sun is also unusually weak for this time of year too.

          8. OH doesn’t like hobnobs – too gritty I think. But he gets through lots of digestives – plain, milk or dark.

          9. 1. Maryland Chocolate chip cookies biscuits.
            2. Jaffa cakes biscuits.
            3. McVitie’s Ginger nuts biscuits.
            4. Grey-Dunn Caramel wafers.
            5. Nice biscuits.
            6. Lotus caramel biscuits.
            7. Custard creams.

            There was a company (can’t remember the name) that use to make the most delicious hybrid of a chocolate chip and ginger biscuit that was utterly divine.

            Like you, I cannot stand hobnobs. I also hate garibaldis, bourbons and Jammie dodgers.

            [Anyone ‘dunking’ any biscuit into a hot liquid (prior to sucking the resultant goo) should be placed in a pillory for their own safety.]

          10. I haven’t seen Garibaldi biscuits for years. I’m going to make a point of buying some.

            I always feel people who dunk biscuits should be given the stale ones.

            I forgot to give ‘Biscuits brown’ and ‘Biscuits AB’ a mention. V important biscuits those, set off nicely with some ‘Cheese posessed’.

          11. If you’re talking cheese then I love Ritz crackers with Primula cheese spread and a pickled onion, or Carr’s water biscuits with a decent cheddar.

          12. Carr’s – ditto
            Ritz – with Philadelphia cheese, a segment of a slice of tomato and sprinkled with cracked black pepper
            Pagan’s Krisprolls are good with Cheddar but you cant eat them while watching TV as you cant hear anything else as you crunch them.
            Dr Korg’s Emmental and Pumpkin Seed crisp breads also v crunchy.

            I like Primula cheese on toast with a dab of Marmite.

          13. How about slices of cheese possessed, the smoked variety if my memory serves me correctly, spread with compo strawberry jam and youfed down as a snack?

          15. Hobnobs are the, admittedly rather inadequate, closest thing I’ve found to the old Compo Ration “Oatmeal Blocks”.

    1. ‘Morning, Belle.

      I thought you were going to say ‘create so many beautiful lakes’.

  21. On topic, we’ll sort off. I think the whole health service is having a crisis. This week I spoke to a relative who is 79 years young. She showed me a message she had on her mobile phone from a consultant in a London hospital. It was an invitation for a video consultation presumably using her not so smart phone.
    With the greatest respect to her, she is not very IT minded, and for a hospital consultant to consider this is an acceptable way to carry out his medical duties, it beggars belief.
    Of course when I saw this, the time slot had well passed, so I advised her to take the matter to her GP as a starting point.

    1. …. ‘take the matter to her GP’ …..
      And then you woke up.
      Morning, VVOF.

      1. Good afternoon, I’m told her GP is one the better ones, we will see.

    2. I just have a basic mobile phone as i prefer the brain in my head not in my hand.

      1. Hmm… I like my very clever telephone as I regularly get lost. Thus knowing how to get home is jolly handy. I am also absent minded, so having reminders and a calendar with me is always useful.

        It hasn’t so much replaced my brain as is another tool to use.

    3. I’ve had my check up appointment following my knee operation in January converted from a visit to the hospital to a telephone call. Quite how he’s going to examine my knee is a mystery.

      1. A few days ago someone I know told me he had been due to have an appointment at the hospital, less than a mile from his home, for a serious, ongoing, eye problem. His appointment there had been changed to a video call on his laptop. He assumes they don’t care if he goes blind, but do care about all those who get instantly seen for having arrived at Dover in a BF boat.

        1. Morning Walter – several “rescued today from the channel, now being treated for severe hypothermia.

          1. Says it all – meanwhile the item on BB shows a French 85yr old being attacked in his own home, robbed and the having the robber defecate on him. Yes the robber is . . .

            got to turn off now for a bit – it really is getting me down.

        2. An 80 year old friend of mine with an ongoing eye problem had regular appointments all last year at the local hospital. His appointment last February was cancelled and he’s heard nothing since.

        3. If we made all those demanding immigrants come here not only pay for their room and board but also responsible for the crimes those people commit they’d soon drop their wishes. As always, it’s not about the gimmigrant. Lefties don’t care about them. No, it’s about hurting those the Left hate.

          And that’s sad.

    4. Snap….literarally!
      I had a letter from the pain clinic inviting me to a video consultation….I do not have a
      smart phone and clueless how to set video online…I’m in my 70’s maybe they just want us to FOAD……….

      1. Hi Plum, sorry for the delay in responding, busy installing lead flashing. Yes it is ridiculous, I am disgusted with such an expectation.
        On a similar theme, my youngest granddaughter had an invite to meet her tutor at her next school in September via “Microsoft Teams”. Something else for her parents to learn about and download. By my reckoning that’s Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Messaging, and What’s App video call I have seen her use!

      2. Hi Plum, sorry for the delay in responding, busy installing lead flashing. Yes it is ridiculous, I am disgusted with such an expectation.
        On a similar theme, my youngest granddaughter had an invite to meet her tutor at her next school in September via “Microsoft Teams”. Something else for her parents to learn about and download. By my reckoning that’s Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Messaging, and What’s App video call I have seen her use!

  22. Just heard that footballer Jack Charlton has died aged 85.

    I met him decades ago.. He used to shoot with the farmer we rented a cottage from when Moh started his flying training in Yorkshire .

    He was so nice and natural . RIP

    1. I watched Jack at Elland Road many a time in the years 63-66 when I was a student at Leeds (also Norman Hunter who died earlier this year).

    2. That’s sad. One of the few footballers I had time for. Talented men, him & his brother.

        2. The “establishment” who run English football would never stand for that. You have to be a good ol’ boy who toes the line, regardless of having no talent. How else do you equate a knighthood for Trevor Brooking: a journeyman player who was part of the useless crew who consistently failed to qualify for the World Cup between 1970 and 1982. Brooking was an FA establishment man, through and through, so he got knighted.

          Charlton, Clough and other talented mavericks only made the FA mandarins harrumph into their vintage port!

          1. Hello G
            I might have guessed .
            Thanks for your clear answer .
            Moh often wondered why , he should have worked that out really.

            He was so friendly , nice and well , just an alright chap. Long and lanky , and a grand sight with his outdoor shooting kit on , and he tipped his cap to me , now that was really memorable .

            My nine month year old son was sitting in his pram just outside the cottage we were renting, baby and I were just off for a pram walk down the lane , and Jerry threw his toy baa lamb out of the pram , Jack picked the cuddly toy up and popped it back in the pram and patted son on the head , and said ” You’ve got a bonny lad there , Missus”.. and we chatted about the day, and hoped the weather would stay clear for his day out in the fields and woods (it was late Autumn).

            Turned out he eventually did have a good day out , shooting for the pot , so to speak.

          2. Yes, Maggie.

            My favourite (true) Jack Charlton story comes from the evening when he had managed the team that just clinched promotion, sometime in the late 1970s. It was hours after the match and Jack, the team, and all the staff were locked inside Hillsborough celebrating the promotion.

            A small group of around two dozen die-hard fans were still standing outside the stadium chanting his name. Jack opened the door, let them in, and ordered half a dozen buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken to be shared amongst those fans. He has never been forgotten.

          3. Brilliant story .

            Isn’t it lovely to know there were some really nice sportsmen , and to hear kind things spoken about them .

  23. Just seen 3 Red Admirals & a few Small Tortoiseshells on the front-of-house Buddleias. So they are about.

    2. Our buddleias in the back garden has just started flowering, it’s very tall with the
      stems and branches nearly reaching up to the bedroom window ( very tall for
      A Buddleia ) Almost like a tree and very busy. It becomes full of butterflies and
      bees during late summer. The Wild rose bush around the pond is in full bloom
      too. But the honeysuckle bushes have died back. Seen a few butterflies about when out
      walking but not in the garden yet.

      1. One of my self-sown Buddleias on the NE corner is as tall as the house, as is Pink Delight in the rear garden.

        If you want to see Buddleias like trees, visit Helmingham Hall gardens. Well worth a visit, just off the A14.

  24. How busy has the NHS actually been? What was the capacity in our hospitals, and how full did they get?

    1. Empty. It has been one of the largest scams in history. Now they just want us all to mask up to prove to themselves they can make us do anything.

    3. According to my granddaughter who is a paediatric nurse at Great Ormond Street, not very. Picking up slightly now, I gather.

    4. One other patient was waiting when I saw Dr.Stupid. for my app,
      I had to wait 40 mins.
      Lots of staff walking around doing bu**er all.

  25. Good morning, everyone. Had the first lie-in for months as a friend is walking the Springer.

  26. Just read that the hamster has been put on the Red List of critically endangered species, and may well become extinct shortly. Anyone seen a hamster lately?

    2. I saw that too.
      I was surprised to discover that they were very common in mainland Europe at one point.

    3. Funny little things hamsters, not seen one in years may be that’s the reason .

        1. Morning
          Now that not very nice Mr Silverback Ape, don’t eat the
          little things, they’re not even as big as a Chicken drumstick anyway .
          Poor things.

          1. 321205+ up ticks,
            A,
            You are correct, you do need a few to make a decent size pie…….
            so I’ve heard.
            Warning,
            inhale deeply
            narrow post.

          3. This insulted my intelligence even in the 1960s when I was a sprog. Making out that you could find pet albino rats and hamsters living along a British riverbank was simply too much for me.

            I much preferred the realism of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows which showed animals in their proper environment: e.g. a mole doing the housework and a toad living in a hall and driving a veteran motor car. :•)

    4. As they originated in Syria perhaps the government is using chemical weapons on them.

      1. When the Saxon Queen was small, her hamster originated from
        the pet shop, not potential Syrian WMD, just saying 🙂

    5. 321205+ up ticks,
      JM,
      Any hamsters with brains will steer well clear of current society
      there again maybe these government wallies have deported them.

    6. The last Hamster I saw was during a TV documentary about a small family run hotel in Torquay. It’s owner, the Waiter named it Basil…..

    7. We should start a hamster breeding programme; £1 billion from the government taxpayer to kickstart it?
      After all, we’re going to need an awful lot wheels to keep turning so the lights don’t go out when the weather’s cloudy and/or still.

      1. Good wheeze. I see hey eat chips (see below) just like the latest power stations.

      2. The males have enormous testicles you know. Many vets make a good living from owners coming in worried about the growths on their beloved pet’s rear.

      3. 321205+ up ticks,
        Morning Anne,
        Tread warily otherwise you leave yourself open to accusations of
        denying white slaves work within the wheels of industry.
        Warning,
        Pull your shoulders in when reading this post.

  27. There is a book soon to be available via Amazon
    ” Love Letters to the NHS ”
    According to ClassicFM a few moments ago.
    This is unbelievable, they are the health providers, it’s there job,
    it’ll never be reformed now, a sacred cow for all eternity.
    And as for GP appts, it’s all via phone or computer, nothing matters
    except the Chinese flu . An utter shambles.

    1. It was obvious the NHS didn’t understand when it posted all those dancing videos.

      The very fact we were all locked up at home because of it’s incompetence is lost on them.

      When Public Health England is disbanded then it will be an improvement. After that, hack and strim from the top down. When it gets uppity, turn the blade rotation up and keep cutting.

    2. The French equivalent of the NHS is infinitely better than the NHS. But it is probably as great a heresy to say this as to suggest that Britain is the most racially tolerant country in Europe.

  28. Now our China illusion is ending, can the West revive its love of freedom?

    The CCP’s propaganda is wearing increasingly thin in Britain, but that will not solve our larger problems

    CHARLES MOORE – 10 July 2020 • 9:30pm

    There they were on Thursday, the three Huawei senior executives in a Zoom-talk with MPs. Greg Clark, chairman of the Commons Science and Technology Committee, asked them whether, in their positions, they were free to express their views. “Very much so,” replied Jeremy Thompson, vice-chairman of Huawei UK, brightly.

    So what did he think of the new Hong Kong security law imposed by Beijing, asked Mr Clark, sweetly. Mr Thompson coloured slightly: “I don’t think [saying anything] would be consistent with my role with Huawei in this forum,” he answered. His two colleagues claimed the same freedom, but, like him, declined to exercise it.

    It was a comical encapsulation of the problem of British engagement with all organisations ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – which is to say, all important organisations in China. What can those who are thus engaged say in public? If they admit the truth, they will wreck their standing with an audience which believes in liberal democratic values.

    Universities have as much trouble as businesses. Since April, this column has been trying to find out from Jesus College, Cambridge, about the character and finances of its China Centre and its China/UK Global Issues Dialogue Centre. The China Centre website extravagantly praised Xi Jinping’s “national rejuvenation”, until this column pointed it out. The wording was then hastily replaced by talk of “using the past to serve the present (gu wei jin yong)” and “harmonious global governance”. Many Chinese will recognise the phrase about the past serving the present as a favourite of the late, unlamented Chairman Mao.

    The Dialogue Centre published in February a supposedly independent report about telecommunications reforms. It praised Huawei, advancing ideas on the subject beneficial to Chinese interests. Most unusually, the report carried a laudatory foreword from the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, Stephen Toope.

    On Thursday, however, menaced by Freedom of Information requests, Jesus College admitted it had accepted £200,000 for the Dialogue Centre from a branch of the Chinese State Council, £55,000 from another branch for the China Centre and £150,000 from Huawei for the digital report which Prof Toope liked so much. Until then, not even the Fellows of Jesus College – the governing body – had been informed.

    In a gabbling late-night email rushed out on Thursday to Fellows and alumni, the master of Jesus, Sonita Alleyne, revealed some of the above – though not, important to note, the money from the Chinese State Council. She protested that the China Centre encourages “a wide array of views”. May we look forward, then, to a China Centre seminar on the treatment of dissidents in Hong Kong, addressed by some of them? Many fingers are being painfully trapped in the hinge of history.

    Earlier in the Covid story, Prof Kerry Brown, head of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, London, tweeted: “It’s a line I hear a lot – loving Chinese people, hating the Communist Party. But … on almost every level it makes no sense.”

    He seemed to deplore criticism of the CCP. That was in April. This week, however, Prof Brown admitted a fear in academic circles of writing critically about China because of social media attacks by an “army of wumao activists”. (“Wumao” is slang meaning the trolls on Beijing’s payroll.) He writes of the danger of “self-censorship”. Is he, perhaps, thinking of his recent self?

    In academia, business and politics, it is dawning on Prof Brown and his equivalents that all that Anglo-Chinese “Golden Era” stuff convinces fewer people each day. Covid-19 and the crackdown in Hong Kong have seen to that. Trust is draining away. Soon, the Chinese money will start drying up. The more hardline CCP-backers, such as Prof Peter Nolan, who directs the Jesus China Centre, evade the problem by simply saying nothing.

    There is a still a long way to go, however, in working out how best to think about China’s rise in the world, and where our own interests lie.

    Those who praise modern China tend to argue as follows: China was the world’s greatest economic power until the British Industrial Revolution roughly 200 years ago, a wonderful civilisation. Unlike the Western powers, it was not imperialist. It was the victim of Western imperialism. Also unlike the West, it followed a “harmonious” approach (note the use of that word on Jesus’s website), whereas the West preferred “conflict”. China favours the common good over individualism. It sees the world as a “community of common destiny” (a phrase it insists on writing into all UN human rights documents). A new order of international institutions needs to be constructed round that community, instead of serving Western interests.

    In such a view, the CCP advances this common destiny. Yes, the Chairman Mao period was a bit of an aberration. The Great Leap Forward (more than 30 million dead) and Cultural Revolution (perhaps a mere two million) were definitely mistakes. But, nowadays, all is pretty good. As Kishore Mahbubani, the Singaporean guru of the decline of the West and the rise of the East, puts it, China’s modern achievement is “the most glorious ever in its 3,000-year history”, and Xi Jinping is “exceptionally honest and competent”.

    Some of these claims are questionable, to put it very mildly indeed. Take that anti-imperial point. Surely the Chinese rulers were called “Emperors” for a reason. If you Google “The Chinese Empire”, a clever map flashes different images across the surface of the Far East, representing the different areas China has ruled at different times. In some eras, the space is twice the size of others – pictures, in other words, of empire-building and -breaking. Supposedly peace-loving China has fought numerous wars, even in the latter half of the 20th century, invading South Korea, Tibet, India, the Soviet Union and Vietnam (where 150,000 people died).

    But critics of the West – often Westerners themselves – are right that China’s success since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms does indeed challenge us. It may mean – though I tend to doubt it – that China is certain to become the world’s greatest power.

    It does mean that a way of doing things quite unlike ours (though learning a great deal from us) has outpaced us in important respects. Those interested in global order and prosperity have to work out the best way of living with this.

    This is immensely hard for the West to do in its current state of flux – the weakness of the EU, America’s divided politics, the clashes of Brexit, financial anxiety. An excellent new strategy document by Charles Parton from the Policy Institute at King’s College, London, (quite separate from Prof Brown’s outfit) struggles to find much positive in our current relations on which to build. Instead, it argues for the basics which we have so neglected: a much deeper study of China, an end to Chinese participation in our critical national infrastructure, a clearer sense of our long-term national interests, a consequent building of alliances not only with our “Five Eyes” Anglosphere friends, but also with the Asian powers which fear China most of all – South Korea, India, Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan.

    In his latest work, Has the West Lost it?, Mahbubani says that “we may be on the verge of utopia”. It is striking that, so far as I can see, the word “freedom” does not occur in his book. That unfreedom is central to the CCP’s Eastern promise to the world. It seems worth resisting.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/10/now-china-illusion-ending-canthe-west-revive-love-freedom/

    1. Now our China illusion…

      I wasn’t aware that I had any China illusions! I certainly didn’t approve of the Invasion of Tibet, the Cultural Revolution or the sending of western companies and jobs to China either!

      1. And I hadn’t realised that Jesus had a website! (It’s a joke, no offence to practising Christians on this site.)

        :-))

      2. Jobs moved there because our own governments and unions made us too expensive to compete with them.

        If we want to, radical change is needed. I do not believe our officials have any interest in making those changes.

        1. Yes, all the social costs of employing people have gone from basic humanity to ‘nice to haves’.

    2. Now our China illusion…

      I wasn’t aware that I had any China illusions! I certainly didn’t approve of the Invasion of Tibet, the Cultural Revolution or the sending of western companies and jobs to China either!

    5. 321205+ up ticks,
      C1,
      What is the strength of the strength of the CCp
      influence within the
      lab/lib/con coalition party
      it must surely have a high % at this moment in time.

      1. Read last weekend’s Sunday Times.

        It reveals how very close Blair, Heseltine and Mandelson were/are to the Chinese Communist Party.

    6. Freedom, high-day, high-day, freedom, freedom, high-day, freedom!

      [Caliban in The Tempest]

    7. Thank you. I was debating whether to put up the entire article.
      The first two paragraphs say it all.

  30. Oh well off for more DIY today……….am I really beginning to wish they hadn’t move so close to us ?……..😅

  31. It’s clearer than ever that black history is everyone’s history. 11 July 2020.

    This is not about creating a separate history; it is about adding to the history we are already familiar with. A story which shows that, from the Romans onwards, Africa’s story has been intertwined with Europe’s and others around the world. It’s a story well worth knowing.

    Of course, they discovered penicillin, invented powered flight and constructed Stonehenge!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/10/black-history-is-everyones-history-slavery-windrush

    1. Microprocessors, electricity, dna, tungsten, automobiles, written language…

        2. 321205+ up ticks,
          Morning AS,
          I do believe that the dark continent beat us to it, the
          trouble being their’s had four equal sides.

          2. 321205+ up ticks,
            Morning HP,
            I refuse to carry out the demeaning knee job but will agree to a small bow acknowledging your better judgement.

    2. They also built the Cape to Cairo Railway, so they could get to Europe more easily.

    3. The Romans only conquered the peoples of North Africa, who were genetically Caucasian. They didn’t believe Sub-Saharan Africa was worth the effort. The Negroid Africans in the empire arrived there via the Arab slave markets. Sure, that should be taught.

  33. TV Licence…

    Free licences were given to the over-75s as part of a Labour government programme to reduce pensioner poverty. Fifteen years later that government funding was cut by the Conservatives. Ever since then, the BBC has been pondering if it can afford to take on the bill.
    Well it can’t…we’re going to have to cough up Oldies.

    Should the Labour government bring it back as a bribe in their manifesto….?

    Seeing as we haven’t had a Tory government since Maggie it would win my vote….

    1. 321205+ up ticks,
      Afternoon PT,
      rotherham, rochdale etc,etc, set up & covered up by the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration coalition party ( ongoing),
      Lest we forget.

    2. This the same Labour government that destroyed pensions? The destroyed savings interest rate returns? That crashed the stock market? That introduced an insurance tax? That doubled the cost of heating a home due to lies about climate change? That doubled council tax?

      That Labour government?

      The only thing they were bothered about was pouring cash into the state and seeing the infestation of big state spread five fold to create non jobs and troughers while promoting welfare as a lifestyle.

        1. Contro-fricken-versial?

          Effing half wits. It was a monumental, obvious, idiotic thing done by a stupid man wedded to debt for his own egotism.

          For some reason, Brown read how to grow an economy and did the precise opposite. He was warned, repeatedly of how his policies would ruin the economy and the wretched, gormless fool carried on with fanatical verve.

          He was wrong in everything he did. For politically motivated reasons he savaged the economy, impoverished the worker, sent unemployment soaring – despite trying to hide the facts and just poured cash into a useless public sector that’s fat on tax payers cash.

          1. He also told everyone he was going to sell our gold about 6 months beforehand! Absolute dimwit.

          2. Deliberate – to get the lowest price possible for the government coffers, to ensure uk plc would not benefit.

          3. The only thing he got right (and that was by accident) was keeping us out of the euro.

        2. I think his remit was to break the economy. To lull us into a false sense of security for a few years, and then he went for it. Just as immigration is being used as a weapon to break us – nothing destabilises a population more quickly than having a foreign peoples implanted amongst it. And just as covid-2019 (and govt reaction to it) has been sent along to further the process.

      3. As I understand it the BBC agreed to fund these licences for the over 75s in return for certain changes to their charter [review 2015] which allowed them to, among other things, increase the fee in line with inflation. Lord Hall described the agreement as “a good deal for the BBC”! It seems the BBC feel that, having got what they wanted, they can now ignore their part of the “deal” – it also seems as though they will get away with it!

    3. I would rather see the BBC cut down on its profligate spending. Just look at the credits for even the simplest of programmes – a veritable army of people including sometimes four or more producers. Too many programmes that rely on old B-celebs jetting off to exotic locations, flying out hordes of blue-chip reporters whenever something unusual happens in the world instead of using the local ones already in place, sending huge teams of employees that are larger that the whole National team to overseas sporting events – it doesn’t take much effort to find where economies could be made.

    4. They could afford to fund the licence fees, they’d just need to reduce the exorbitant salaries paid to the luvvies (oh, and while they’re about it, sack Linaker).

      1. 321205+ up ticks,
        Afternoon W,
        It and other like issues are in play covered by the submissive pcism & appeasement
        unwritten rulings tools of the lab/lib/con coalition party & supporters.

    3. Is that the new BBC TV test card? I prefere the one with the real little girly in the picture.

  35. Just about to have some scrambled egg and mushrooms .
    Slightly apprehensive as something not nice was in the last egg I cracked
    from this box 5 days ago. I cracked the egg, it felt firm and didn’t crack easily,
    then what resembled an embryo surrounded in jelly popped out, it was
    unpleasant.

    Edited.. apologies if anyone is eating .

    2. Try frying tinned Spam the one with bacon . Its very good. We had it this morning with fried tomatoes with bread and spanish marmalade to follow.

      2. So you don’t eat eggs as well as not drinking milk
        ( powdered for guests ) is it a dairy thing ?
        don’t you eat cheese either ? .

        1. You make wrong assumptions. You should ask before you tell. We eat eggs most days mostly boiled for breakfast. We buy all our cheese from Paxton and Whitfiels and local makers.You cannot find a proper cheese from supermarkts who I also never buy wine from. But you are right about liquid milk we never drink it. If milk is needed we make it from dried.For both us and guests ( as you call them)

          1. I do know that Mr Viking. But eggs, milk, butter and cheese
            are all together in dairy sections of shops.

          1. Monday Lunch. Spam, boiled potatoes and diced beetroot.
            The new potatoes were even worse than the boiled main crop.

          2. We got Spam, chips and tinned tomatoes as a vegetable. The chips were nice.
            I first came across beetroot at school, could not understand why anyone would eat anything so vile. Never touched it since.

          3. School put me off swede well into adulthood.
            Now I cook and enjoy both vegetables.

          4. Good evening, Anne.

            School put me off meat, fish, tea, hot
            chocolate and coffee until I dared risk them
            in my twenties.
            In the Autumn we would often have, for tea,
            boiled chestnuts with bread and marge…….
            after of course we had collected the main
            ingredient…….as part of our ‘out side studies.’

    3. I always crack my eggs one at a time into a small receptacle before adding to a mixture or frying pan

    5. it’s a delicacy in the Philippines, known as ‘balut’. Street vendors sell them everywhere. Particularly prized is crunchy balut, with fully formed chick inside. It’s supposed to be an aphrodisiac and improve fertility.

      It’s the standard test to distinguish the natives from the outsiders. I do not know of any non-Pinoy/Pinay who has willingly eaten balut.

      The Scandinavians have a similar test involving rotting fish.

      1. Then… they’re dumb as rocks. It’s just a tiny chicken. Eating it will do nothing for you whatsoever.

        1. “Eating it will do nothing for you whatsoever.”

          Except, of course, to make you throw up!

      2. I passed the surströmming test in Sweden. Didn’t make me any more fertile though. An even greater challenge is lutfisk – I couldn’t get that down.

        https://www.google.co.uk/search?sxsrf=ALeKk02GNMO5ougxAWl4fusrLWHYDNb_jg%3A1594371708544&source=hp&ei=fC4IX9eEH9uDjLsP2LqouAY&q=surstr%C3%B6mming+challenge&oq=syrstroming&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQARgDMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANMgQIABANUKsdWKsdYKpeaABwAHgAgAFfiAFfkgEBMZgBAKABAqABAaoBB2d3cy13aXo&sclient=psy-ab

      3. MB had a shock when he was visiting Vietnam. He chose what he thought was a hard boiled egg from the hotel breakfast buffet.
        That experience is seared into his memory.

          1. I think he did the usual bashing the shell; remember it was breakfast when he still feeling fragile – before the event!

      4. Surströmming is fermented herring (not rotten). It stinks to high heaven when you open the can (preferably under water) and its stink attracts clouds of flies. Strangely, though, its flavour is not unpleasant and is quite bland. I’ve eaten it once, but not again. This is not really a surprise since I have never been fond of fresh herring. Kippers are OK though.

        Far worse, to my mind, is the habit [sorry: “tradition”] on the Færoe Islands of burying a puffin underground for a year then exhuming it and eating its putrid flesh!

        1. “Kippers are OK though.” Well they were when I was a member, Grizzly, but no longer as their disastrous court case yesterday proved.

      1. The real fanatics are white.
        The blacks tag along for the ride. (And laugh up their sleeves.)

  37. One person in every 1,521 people in the UK has died, ostensibly, from Covid-19. That is 0·066% of the population.

    Worldwide, out of a population of 7,797,310,400 people, 560,000 have succumbed so far. That is 0·00718% of the world’s population.

    So far, today (11/07/20) in just 13·5 hours, already 126,000 more people have been added to the world’s rapidly rising population.

    In just one weekend, that whole number of worldwide Covid-19 deaths will have been replaced.

    In total there has been a worldwide increase of 42,870,000 people from the start of this year. That is nearly another UK-ful!

    And still everyone is in a blind panic!

      1. That’s three months of being couch potatoes at home watching Netflix on the telly when we could have been Swedes in bar taking selfies of ourselves drinking schnapps.

    2. Thanks for the numbers, Grizz.
      I live in a block of flats just 4 miles from the centre of London, with around 500 people and we’re very multiculti multiethnic. It’s a private block and staffed 24 hours a day. The management tell me we’ve had not one single case, much less a death – and they’d know. It would be reported. Medical personnel would have to gain access.

      1. You’re welcome, Sue.

        It’s the same where I live in the very south (i.e. the most heavily-populated part) of Sweden. No one that I know, in the area, knows of anyone who has contracted the disease.

      2. Not a single case since May in the hospital district where we live (apparently 7,154.41 square kilometres), now we have mandatory mask usage.

      3. Afternoon Sue. I’ve enquired around here and no one knows anyone who has even contracted CV let alone died of it!

        1. Good afternoon, Minty.

          The village I live in has, unfortunately, had two
          deaths:
          A School Master at the ‘big school.’
          A thirty something Lady.
          The village has had other deaths but none of them
          were attributed to Covid19.

          1. With or without underlying conditions, that would make it deadlier, as far as you are aware?

          2. Good afternoon, Sos.

            The Teacher had no other illness, he
            died in the early days of the ‘shut down’.
            The Lady had underlying conditions but
            I do not know what they were, she died
            about Easter time.
            As such we were all in ‘lock down’ and
            additional isolating would not have been
            noticed….since at that time we were all,
            except key workers, isolating.
            [Looking back it was a most strange time,
            until we found ways to follow ‘the rules’
            but remain part of Village life! ]
            Their deaths were reported briefly on the
            village SM, I don’t know of anyone else who
            caught it.

          3. If you have read my frequent posts on this subject, as you can probably tell, I am extremely sceptical of all the statistics we are being presented with.

            When I had my stay in ICU, I tested negative, yet ALL my symptoms apart from pnuemonia only affecting one lung met the criteria for a Covid diagnosis. If I had died in the UK, I would undoubtedly have been put down to Covid. I strongly suspect that virtually all cases of ‘flu in the UK have been registered as Covid; it will be interesting to see what the statistics look like when comapred with “normal” years in 18 months time.

            There have been numerous negatives coming out as positive later, and I was in the early wave in France, so perhaps I’ve had it.

          4. I reckon I had it in February. I ticked all the covid symptom boxes and had to take to my bed for five days (unheard of, normally). MOH didn’t get it. Several of my friends reported a similar lurgy around Christmas time.

          5. I wonder how many people had the same, and of those who died, had it put down as Covid rather than ‘flu.

        2. A doctor, Indian, across the road from us had it early on, was in hospital but now fully recovered and back at work.

      4. Hi Sue. My friend in Devon was here over Christmas, then away on an HF holiday over New Year, and ended up with a bad dose of what she thought to be ‘flu. I stayed at her place from 6 to 9 Jan, building shedloads of Ikea furniture. She said I was certain to get whatever it was she was recovering from. Late Jan / early Feb, I had a couple of weeks where my nose was neither blocked nor running – just moist, rather like a healthy dog. Early one morning (three-ish), I woke with a tight feeling in the chest, and shortness of breath. I got up, made a cup of tea, posted the new NoTTL page, and it went away. For one day, everything tasted ‘wrong’. I mentioned these symptoms to a neighbour, and she had experienced exactly the same. If it was Kung Flu, I doubt whether I had it bad enough to produce antibodies. I may be in my 60’s, diabetic, a bit overweight and on ACE inhibitors, but I’ve had fewer colds since the diabetes diagnosis, so I don’t think my immune system is compromised. So I may have had it almost asymptomatically, but I’ll never know. I’m unaware of any local cases, especially deaths. This has been the longest period without funerals, ever. The oldest member of one of my choirs died two weeks ago, on her ninety-first birthday, but it wasn’t due to Covid-19. Nor was the death of the husband of the oldest member of my other choir, last weekend. Sadly, neither of them will get the send-off they deserve.

    3. 64,900 new cases reported in the US yesterday, maybe they have something to worry about.

      1. To two decimal places that is ~0.02% of the population.

        And perhaps, just perhaps, they are doing lots and lots of testing and thus finding more cases?

        1. So cases increasing at the rate they have been is OK?

          Maybe the spread of the disease is under control, just like Trump said yesterday.

          1. And just what “rate” is that?

            How can you tell if the USA is genuinely any better or worse at finding, treating and reporting cases.

            It seems to me that every country does it differently but anything at all to do with Trump just HAS to be criticised.

      1. 321205+ up ticks,
        Morning RE,
        Yes and b liar the treason laws then major, the wretch cameron
        & may added the treachery element to the poisonous mix
        proving totally successful in taking the country down.

    2. The entire judicial system is back to front.

      Consider a separated couple with a child. They’ve both signed up to an agreement on access. When the mother ignores it, nothing happens. The social workers are given evidence and do nothing. If the father flickers they immediately lose access.

      Even at our bumpiest junior came first.

  40. Afternoon All

    Ahem…………..

    It’s just a mask.
    It’s just two weeks.
    It’s just so we don’t overwhelm hospitals.
    It’s just non-essential businesses.
    It’s just until the cases go down.
    It’s just until we get a vaccine.
    It’s just to minimise side effects.
    It’s just an app.
    It’s just to let others know who you’ve been around.
    It’s just a video.
    It’s just an email account.
    It’s just a credit card company, you can use cash.
    It’s just a few places that won’t take cash.
    It’s just a little chip.
    It’s just for medical information and paying for things.
    It’s just for travel.
    It’s just so you can get your driver’s license.
    It’s just so you can vote.
    It’s just a few more years.
    It’s just a statue.
    It’s just a building.
    It’s just a piece of paper.
    It’s just a flag.
    It’s just a blood test.
    It’s just a scan.
    It’s just a clump of cells.
    It’s just the bad people.
    It’s just the undesirables.
    It’s just the Jews.
    It’s just the Christians.

    It’s just the people who don’t think like us……………………………..

    2. Pretty worrying considering that we’re currently at “just the bad people”

  41. It was Piña Colada day yesterday, apparently stretches into the
    weekend . South American party time in lockdown, hmm .

    1. We have the mother in law down walking with junior and Mongo. Every so often she sways to the side and the ever dutiful dog props her up with a nudge at the waist. It’d be funny if the war queen were not so embarrassed that her mother is sloshed at midday.

        1. Last Saturday I had 4 Piña Coladas before dinner, so I’m giving them a rest for a while.

  42. Trump demands extradition of former MI6 officer Christopher Steele over Russia dossier. Indy 11 July 2020.

    Donald Trump has demanded the extradition of Christopher Steele, the British former MI6 officer who wrote an infamous report into the US president’s connections with Russia.

    In a Saturday morning tweet the president said: “This man should be extradited, tried, and thrown into jail. A sick lier [sic] who was paid by Crooked Hillary & the DNC!”

    BELOW THE LINE

    MorganedeBroceliande.

    Ooppsss! Trump might say to Johnson : you give me Steele or no trade deal! Then what? pass me the popcorn!

    It might just come up!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-twitter-russia-report-christopher-steele-mi6-a9613711.html

    1. Doesn’t give up does he. Never cross the orange man, he can be as vindictive as the flintstones.

  43. Black History, 12 July 2020. Author and creative director Gaverne Bennett.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f8121bfb4d4a96c4b77848717dab9e57f75d31cf4f12ffa4f78c60976b3a9ab4.png

    Numerus Maurorum Aurelianorum. (Aurelian moors ) could not have served C100 – 400 AD. The clue is in the name, they were raised by Aurelian (270 – 275 AD) They were African only in a geographical sense since they originally came from Mauretania. They were not black

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3af4bae834c6a86b9bfa591c14535ba7692b92c0602f9de4114e33a9d84284a7.png

    America had not even been discovered in 1350 let alone having a slave trade.

    I gave up here! This is idiocy!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/jul/11/black-history-timeline

    2. Very badly written article. I think the Hadrian’s Wall reference is to the Roman army as a whole serving between 100-400AD, not the African auxiliary unit. Likewise the Kongo reference – it would seem that 1350 is when the kingdom was established, rather than the misleading claim about the slave trade, which must be very much later.

      1. The slaves were sold by Arabs and Africans – the Europeans were just the customers.

      1. According to GK Chesterton, and I paraphrase, “the one man in the village who is crazy”.

      2. Caesar first came to England in the early 50s BC, he and his generals certainly didn’t have enough men or women with them to build all the roads and forts, Vilas towns and of course the wall. They would have “needed a bigger boat” in the first place.

        1. “Veni, vidi, vici” – but he didn’t stay long at that time. When they eventually got round to colonising us, they probably used local slave labour, as well as soldiers.

          1. And ‘He’ probably walked across the area which is now our road. He was here in 54 BC, we must have been out at the time 😉

          4. Well Anne I’ve certainly dug over a few spots in our garden in case he actually hid something.

          5. They left as the solar cycle resulted in the UK becoming a cold wet miserable place. No more vinyards. It’s happening again…

          6. It was warmer in Britannia when Boadicea’s chariot ponies were allowed to fart.

          8. Was it France? Asterix and Obelix saw them off.
            (The advantages of having a Latin ‘O’ level!)

    4. They’ve clearly never read the authoritative guide to the Roman occupation of Britain – the Ladybird Book of Roman Britain.

  46. Just been to the Post Office. An official sign saying “Please keep a safe distance between others” has appeared.

    No-one else could see any problem with it! Argh.

  47. There are those below making unkind remarks about hamsters
    * Hamster Lives Matter *. Poor little things.

    About to make Sardines on Toast for lunch.
    We were intending to eat Hummus with Greek olives, Feta cheese and pitta bread for lunch
    but it’s far too chilly for the summery lunch, so it’s fish on toast instead.

    1. I am sticking to my diet. One apple or today, because it’s Saturday, a nectarine, and one M&S breakfast biscuit. I’m now back below 12stone, so it seems to be having some effect. But I think mainly it’s weaning myself off kettle crisps that’s helping.

      1. That doesn’t sound like much food at all but if it works
        for you. Must admit being very fond of kettle chips
        should cut down with them really as probably not much
        more healthier then other crisps.

      3. Ah, I thought I heard a rumble of thunder last night but saw no lightning. It must have been your stomach, js.

    2. 321205+ up ticks,
      A,
      You are being very selective regarding the wee creatures,currently
      there will be somebody who is going steady with a sardine or even being Saturday marrying one, but you have a different sort of toast in mind, and that AIN’T nice.

    3. Hi Aethelfled.
      Would you like to start a Cordon Bleu cookery thread ?

      NoTTlers not interested in the contents of one’s stomach could give it a miss!

      1. Just made chicken liver pate. I cleared out the butcher yesterday.
        Six and a half nice little pots waiting to be eaten or frozen.

        1. Wonderful stuff, especially spread on melba toast.

          Do you put a splash of cognac in yours?

          1. Either brandy or port.
            There was port to hand, so a couple of generous sloshes went in.

          3. Raymond Blanc uses Madeira, Port and Cognac.

            He also soaks the liver in milk and salted water for six hours.

          4. I just remove the stringy bits. Weigh and add equals amount of butter. Cook in the oven. Add herbs, seasoning booze and then liquidise with my stick blender.
            Chill, set and, if necessary, brush top with melted butter.

  48. 321205+ up ticks,
    If only, famous last words, if only we the indigenous could ID the parties that have wrought so much damage wilfully to these Isles then we could surely take action, this odious state of the nation cannot be down to the
    indigenous because many have their children to consider, & their legacy.
    Who can point the finger at the destructive force at work within
    this Country ?
    Here is a by product of the political demolition crew,
    breitbart,
    Britain Concretes over Almost 835,000 Acres as Mass Migration Drives Housing Demand

  52. Off topic.
    Am I right to be very annoyed?

    Our cottage guests are due in today. We’ve requested an approximate time of arrival twice, with no reply.
    It’s 7:30 now and still no sign of them. No text, email or ‘phone.

    They live less than 7 hours drive away from here, under 6 on a good day.
    We’re on standby to meet and greet, so have deferred our evening meal and not taken our evening swims.

    I hope they have not had an accident, but I am getting crosser by the minute.

    1. You are justified in being annoyed. If they wouldn’t give an approximate ETA after being asked twice, I wouldn’t defer supper & I would have that swim.

          4. If you’re worried about first impressions, you could try being like Ursula Andress in Dr No.

    4. Chill.
      Pour a large drink and keep calm. I’m sure there is a reason for
      miscommunication. Of course they could be French…not known for good manners!

    5. I’m glad I wrote this, they arrived within two minutes.

      The power of Nottle!

        1. Touring on the way down.
          Fair enough, they’re on holiday, but they might have let us have an eta.

          1. I use the plastic flask/cocktail shaker, £4 in w/rose, atm £3, top up with vodka, chill in fridge, add the ice in the glass.

  54. Just had a deliciously tender braised lamb shank in a thick vegetable and tomato red wine sauce. Served with a Hasselback potato, runner beans and sautéed chestnut mushrooms. All washed down with a pint of regulation tapoline. Fresh raspberries and strawberries for pudding.

    1. That sounds more photogenic than your recent breakfast, Griz …

      ‘Tapoline’ finds trampoline – or tarpaulin – on Google ?

      1. Day! Is a day is a day is a day is a day is a day is a day ee oh oh!

        Daylight come an’ me wan’ go oh home!

  57. ‘Allahu Akbar’ Man Robs Pensioner and Defecates on Him. 11 Jul 2020

    A 53-year-old man in the French commune of Le Crosic has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after robbing an 85-year-old, beating him, and defecating on him.

    This has become standard practice in France though usually urinary than defecation. Oddly enough neither the article nor the original tells us the offenders name or his origins.

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/07/11/allahu-akbar-man-robs-pensioner-and-defecates-on-him/

    1. Just 18 months!!! What would one have to do to get a long sentence? Genocide???

      3. 321205+ up ticks,
        Afternoon SB,
        Currently, continue to tell the truth & that can also incur capital punishment.

    2. Just 18 months!!! What would one have to do to get a long sentence? Genocide???

    3. 321205+ up ticks,
      Afternoon AS,
      A daily part of a very long sentence MUST include a great deal of bacon.
      Justice and bacon MUST be seen to be served.
      Treat like with like.

      1. 321205+ up ticks,
        O2O
        You mean sort of legally abuse the abusers
        Og ? yes, do the completely unexpected for once, guaranteed success.
        If the poofballs in parliament won’t condone it
        then vote them out get someone in who will,
        WHAT, you mean, we could vote them out,
        really ? you will be telling me next Og that the world ain’t flat.

      2. Assign the villain their very own pig to be consumed in its entirety before they will be considered for release.

        Naturally the pigskin will be used to make clothing for the prisoner.

        1. 321205+ up ticks,
          Afternoon R,
          Submissive pcism & appeasement will never work and gives the wrong message.

  59. You cannot be serious BBC

    .https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76635a18ab1678c8fdc2f3b4dbc110565c2f0227731feb03cf18a361b1a0ae58.jpg

    As I’m forced to sit with my legs up to take pressure off my ankle ( Achilles tendonitis as if you didn’t know!) I was looking forward to BBC vintage tennis this afternoon.
    It’s boring women again – Serena v. Sharipova…
    However Sharipova apart from possessing a killer serve has grace and elegance on court and a charming smile…. I could almost hate her!

    Looking forward to tomorrow, hopefully vintage McEnroe/Connors …tennis at it’s best.

      2. Virginia Wade v. Betty Stove………………aarrgghh..

        Didn’t Cameron congratulate Andy Murray on being the first to win a Wimbledon singles final and deserved a knighthood forgetting Virginia Wade won in 1977……she was a woman and received an OBE!

        Major faux pas by Cameron ….amatuer tennis player and politician.

        1. Cameron had form for getting it wrong; he didn’t know the Urals were in Russia nor was he aware the Americans didn’t enter the war in 1940.

          1. Cameron had form for generally thinking he was rather more clever than he actually is. He comment that he wanted to be PM “because I thought I’d be rather good at it” sums him up completely. Wrong, wrong and wrong.

        2. Anyone who heads home after leaving a child in a pub, is a DH.
          After that AH Murray put on an Argentinian shirt when England were playing them he lost my vote.

          1. Murray seems to be a “I back anyone except England to win” kind of Scot. I knew someone like that once – she thought it was funny. I just thought it rather silly, especially as she was getting the benefits of having married an Englishman and living in England.

          2. A tribalist T. 😏
            I was in a bar in JHB with some work colleagues and we were talking about football. I mentioned Glasgow and rangers and a very aggressive scot shouted waddayanay aboot scits fitbell ??? There are some nasty people about.
            Did you know that there are more people around the world who strongly associate with Scotland living out of Scotland, than scots people living in Scotland.
            I knew a few at Mid Herts Golf Club they never missed and opportunity to remind people where they came from.

    3. I put on the vintage tennis the other day, just my luck, the tennis was rained off.

  60. If you have any mental strength left to read another piece on the subject…

    There’s a lively debate below with the usual accusations of irresponsible journalism by a scientific ignoramus. It’s just like that other subject that’s gone rather quiet recently, the one in which the science is settled.

    When we have herd immunity Boris will face a reckoning on this pointless and damaging lockdown

    TOBY YOUNG

    At the beginning of March, a lively debate took place about whether Britain should pursue a strategy of “herd immunity” – allowing coronavirus to spread until so many people had developed antibodies that it no longer posed a threat to public health – or place the entire country under lockdown. As is well-known, Boris Johnson initially embraced the former, saying the public needed to take the virus “on the chin”, then performed a U-turn and imposed a full lockdown on March 23.

    But recent data coming out of New York reveals that this was a false dichotomy. Sixty-eight per cent of people who took antibody tests at a clinic in the corona neighbourhood of Queens received positive results, suggesting that, in this area at least, the population is already close to achieving “herd immunity”. This is in spite of the fact that New York imposed one of the strictest lockdowns in the United States.

    This fits with other data showing that the life cycle of the epidemic in each region or country where there’s been a viral outbreak follows a very similar pattern, regardless of whether or not a lockdown was imposed or how severe it was. For instance, if you plot the rise and fall in the number of new cases in Sweden on a graph, and then compare it to the same data in the UK, the two lines are almost identical, in spite of the fact that Sweden never imposed a lockdown. The same is true if you compare the trajectory of the virus in the 43 US states that locked down with the seven that didn’t.

    In one respect, this is good news: it means a “second wave” of Covid-19 is unlikely and we can dispense with pointless social distancing measures, such as mandatory masks on public transport. The reason the number of new cases dwindles away to almost nothing after a fixed period of time – literally nothing in some regions – is probably because the majority of the population has been exposed to it, not because transmission has been interrupted by imprisoning people in their homes.

    This isn’t immediately obvious because most people who catch the virus are asymptomatic, but that appears to be what’s happening. Some will have developed antibodies without knowing they had the disease, while others will have a natural immunity because they’ve already successfully fought off other coronaviruses, such as the common cold. People in that latter category will be immune even though they won’t test positive for Covid-19 antibodies. That means that the population of London is probably approaching herd immunity, even though only 17 per cent tested positive in the most recent seroprevalence survey.

    But the bad news – at least from the Government’s point of view – is that this means the lockdown was unnecessary. So the loss of life that will result from suspending cancer screening programmes and postponing operations will turn out to have been avoidable, as will the catastrophic economic damage.

    As it becomes clearer that the British population will soon achieve herd immunity, just as the population of Corona has, and the lockdown has done nothing to mitigate the impact of the virus, people will begin to ask tough questions of the Government. And Boris won’t be able to say we only know this now with the benefit of hindsight because he recognised the wisdom of the “herd immunity” strategy back in March. Whatever his excuse is, it will have to be better than that if the Conservatives are going to survive the reckoning.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/11/have-herd-immunity-boris-will-face-reckoning-pointless-damaging/

    2. AND if Sweden had protected their care homes, their results would have been miles better than ours.

  61. If you have any mental strength left to read another piece on the subject…

    There’s a lively debate below with the usual accusations of irresponsible journalism by a scientific ignoramus. It’s just like that other subject that’s gone rather quiet recently, the one in which the science is settled.

    When we have herd immunity Boris will face a reckoning on this pointless and damaging lockdown

    TOBY YOUNG

    At the beginning of March, a lively debate took place about whether Britain should pursue a strategy of “herd immunity” – allowing coronavirus to spread until so many people had developed antibodies that it no longer posed a threat to public health – or place the entire country under lockdown. As is well-known, Boris Johnson initially embraced the former, saying the public needed to take the virus “on the chin”, then performed a U-turn and imposed a full lockdown on March 23.

    But recent data coming out of New York reveals that this was a false dichotomy. Sixty-eight per cent of people who took antibody tests at a clinic in the corona neighbourhood of Queens received positive results, suggesting that, in this area at least, the population is already close to achieving “herd immunity”. This is in spite of the fact that New York imposed one of the strictest lockdowns in the United States.

    This fits with other data showing that the life cycle of the epidemic in each region or country where there’s been a viral outbreak follows a very similar pattern, regardless of whether or not a lockdown was imposed or how severe it was. For instance, if you plot the rise and fall in the number of new cases in Sweden on a graph, and then compare it to the same data in the UK, the two lines are almost identical, in spite of the fact that Sweden never imposed a lockdown. The same is true if you compare the trajectory of the virus in the 43 US states that locked down with the seven that didn’t.

    In one respect, this is good news: it means a “second wave” of Covid-19 is unlikely and we can dispense with pointless social distancing measures, such as mandatory masks on public transport. The reason the number of new cases dwindles away to almost nothing after a fixed period of time – literally nothing in some regions – is probably because the majority of the population has been exposed to it, not because transmission has been interrupted by imprisoning people in their homes.

    This isn’t immediately obvious because most people who catch the virus are asymptomatic, but that appears to be what’s happening. Some will have developed antibodies without knowing they had the disease, while others will have a natural immunity because they’ve already successfully fought off other coronaviruses, such as the common cold. People in that latter category will be immune even though they won’t test positive for Covid-19 antibodies. That means that the population of London is probably approaching herd immunity, even though only 17 per cent tested positive in the most recent seroprevalence survey.

    But the bad news – at least from the Government’s point of view – is that this means the lockdown was unnecessary. So the loss of life that will result from suspending cancer screening programmes and postponing operations will turn out to have been avoidable, as will the catastrophic economic damage.

    As it becomes clearer that the British population will soon achieve herd immunity, just as the population of Corona has, and the lockdown has done nothing to mitigate the impact of the virus, people will begin to ask tough questions of the Government. And Boris won’t be able to say we only know this now with the benefit of hindsight because he recognised the wisdom of the “herd immunity” strategy back in March. Whatever his excuse is, it will have to be better than that if the Conservatives are going to survive the reckoning.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/11/have-herd-immunity-boris-will-face-reckoning-pointless-damaging/

  62. We walked into town this afternoon. I reckon no more that 1 in one hundred people was wearing a mask.
    Later we had an early evening meal in a wine bar seated ‘outside’ under canopies. We asked to move tables as a woman sat at an adjoing table lit up and then proceeded to chain smoke – 10 minutes after we moved tables a new party of four arrived and promptly lit up – yuk!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/206277b22e51a394b24dd09aa6363ce8f8a0d4431d9bb9e6b6b272b66dcfe51b.jpg

    1. What you need is:

      “Oxyspray.”

      Send a blast of pure oxygen at the nearest smoker and watch with de-light as the entire cancer stick ignites and lips are burnt.

      “Oxyspray,”

      You know it makes more laughs than a Helium balloon.

      1. I applaud the fact that so many like me were not wearing masks. As for the smoking:
        As the sign in the Consultant Surgeon’s Medical Secretary’s office said:
        “You enjoying smoking the by-product of which is smoke which gets in my eyes and hair and makes my clothes stink.
        I enjoy beer the by-product of which is urine. How would you like it if I peed over your head.”

        1. Dont go to Germany. lived their over 2 years and had to get used to it. Nothing has changed, They past a no smoking ban like we did to great fanfair then changed it so it did not include small local business operations so nothing changed.

        2. PS as a non smoker I do think smokers should be catered for with places to have a smoke. Like a ” Smoke Room” in a pub.

          1. What, like the smoking carriage, which was always half-empty on an otherwise overcrowded train? No thanks. If they want to smoke they can get off the premises altogether (NOT make the garden in Summer a no-go for non-smokers because of their stink).

          2. I find your attitude very dissapointing that we cannoot accomodate a minority in some way better than we do now. Its just not English. We have been a country of consent on and off since Saxon times.

          3. What’s wrong with asking smokers to go outside onto the pavement? Or away from the seating areas in a pub garden?

            I agree with accommodating a smoking minority, but not at the expense of inconveniencing (or worse) the non-smoking majority. I, for one, do not consent to having to stay indoors in a pub on a warm Summer day, simply because if I go out into a small garden I am surrounded by smoke.

          4. Then give them a room indoors as the only place they can smoke. You want it all ways. we should not become so intollerent of othr people but make accomodation for them.where we can.

          5. I am not generally intolerant, but with a mother who died from symptoms including lung cancer, and with my own lungs having been affected my the perpetual fug from her continuous smoking, IMO smokers have no right to inflict their smelly, and often dangerous, smoke on others, in any way.

          6. Many places (especially small pubs) do not have a spare room.Fine, if there is a room for them – how about the health of the bar staff who have to clean and remove glasses from that room?Plus chances are that you will have to pass such a room to get to the loo. Anyway, smoking inside a public building is against the law.

          7. Always why not never can do. I solve problems you make them. There are ways round most things like this.

          8. You are being rather personal with “I solve problems, you make them” comment, aren’t you.

            I will take the more polite route and simply say that we shall have to agree to differ,

          9. I appologise if that is how it sounded to you. I think we just have leave it with a difference of opinion.

          10. That’s much more like the JN I know from NoTTL! Apologies from me too if I was being a bit sensitive.

    3. Hey, hey, Stephen, I am an ex-smoker (supposedly the worst) but I now use an e-cigarette with nicotine that satisfies my brain’s craving.

      Is your dislike purely that, as an ex-smoker, you do not wish to be tempted back to the weed? Or do you just universally hate any form of mankind that smokes, while you cannot?

  63. HAPPY HOUR – I have a dream…
    Dreaming big will help us towards our goal and finally achieve our dreams!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/22b3b31c38f75e1d471adc81ff3e4706b5e6428ea8ec5f08cf253f4a5d62bf57.jpg
    After yesterday’s tongue in cheek rant regarding kind friends offering to shop for me…my aim in life is to walk without pain to the corner Co-op. Not a co-op fan but hey…. beggars can’t be choosers.
    My mum disliked the Co-op…something to do with watering down the milk during the war therefore Co-opers were beneath contempt.

    NoTTlers….do you have a dream…?

      2. I can’t be sure if Rita Moreno’s real singing voice was used in this film but I do know that Marni Nixon provided the singing voices for both her and Natalie Wood in West Side Story.

    3. Went into local Co-op couple of days ago and had to skirt round ‘Big Issue’ seller who had reappeared outside. Checked with staff if he was allowed to be there. They seemed affronted that I’d dared to ask.

    4. Moh’s parents had a funeral plan with the Coop . His father died in 1998, and his mum four years ago.

      I have to say they organised and sorted everything out beautifully for us .. His Mum had to be transported back miles to where her husband was buried , everything was so sensitively approached . They were a kind and thoughtful group to deal with .

      I had had no dealings with the Coop before, but was pleasantly surprised.

      2. Hi Mags. When my Mum shuffled off, I used the Co-op for the necessary stuff. They were OK, ish. But they lost the deeds for my Dad’s grave, and managed to mis-spell Mum’s name on the headstone. Was quickly sorted, but it added unnecessary stress to the whole process. I’ve had dealings with all sorts of FD’s. The Co-op are fair to middling.

        1. All mine is with the Co-op. At least they sorted things out for you. But by then i’ll be past caring.

          My brother arranged the order of service to be printed for our Father. He did it over the phone and they spelt his name wrong. Oh, how we laughed………..at the idiot brother.

          This in an age when they could have sent him a proof to check by email….twat.

          1. #metoo. We offer printed orders of service. The current Rector doesn’t seem to agree, but in the past, we’ve managed to get everything right. Some of the sh1t that turns up is enbarrassing.

          2. Mmmmmm……It doesn’t take much to get it right just a bit of care. To have a typo on a headstone is not good.

            I am dedicating the new deck as the Quarterdeck in honour of my recently deceased Uncle who served on Ark Royal. Having the brass plaque made by Timpsons.

            We are going to have a ceremony with my Navy neighbours in full rig. Swishy curtains and all. I think his surviving sisters would like that. They are all very Clarissa Dickson rightish.

          3. When I worked at Raleigh Cycles in Nottingham, the Duchess of Kent was invited to open a new part of the factory after refurbishment. The company commissioned a brass plaque to be made by a local sign-making firm and installed prior to her Grace’s arrival.

            The sign arrived in the morning which proclaimed “Dutchess of Kent” on it. A telephone call to the company by the MD’s secretary (not to be messed with) told them what the consequences would be if a properly spelt sign wasn’t brought to the company within the hour.

            It came.

          5. Indeed it was. The writer of the book, Alan Sillitoe, actually worked there for a while. One scene, in the 1960 film, has the workers rushing out, after their shift, down Faraday Road and you can see the office where I used to sit.

          7. When one of my buildings for the Crown Estate Commissioners was opened the dedication stone arrived but with the i’s not dotted and the t’s not crossed. The First Commissioner whose dedication was written was Lord Thomson of Monifieth.

            My boss, the late Sir William Whitfield CBE spotted this and asked me to invite the mason fixer to correct it. The bastard then made a crude pencil mark of the supposed correction which I queried.

            The mason fixer them held up his chisel and hammer inviting me to execute the correction. The arrogant twat messed up the otherwise beautifully carved stone and I had him removed from the project as a result.

          9. I was Project QS on a new Littlewoods store in Dumfries. Rather than a traditional topping-out ceremony, it was decided that one of Littlewood’s directors, a Mr Arthur Henn, would lay a paving slab on the roof, suitably engraved.

            The monumental masons did their job, and a 600 x 600 mm sandstone slab was duly delivered. “This stone was laid by A Henn”… Cue quick change of plan. And, inexplicably, said slab was rent in two shortly thereafter…

        2. Hello Geoff,

          I am glad we didn’t have to shop around , everything was sorted and saved for by R’s late parents , very organised .

          I guess you are right , in the grand scheme of things they are fair to middling . I am pleased to say we dont’ have much experience of that sort of thing, being so few of us in the family .

    5. Moh’s parents had a funeral plan with the Coop . His father died in 1998, and his mum four years ago.

      I have to say they organised and sorted everything out beautifully for us .. His Mum had to be transported back miles to where her husband was buried , everything was so sensitively approached . They were a kind and thoughtful group to deal with .

      I had had no dealings with the Coop before, but was pleasantly surprised.

    6. Good luck. I’m not a huge fan of the Co-op. I don’t think their prices are close to the major supermarkets. Though, the Nisa supermarket in the next village now stocks quite a lot of Co-op stuff, and the prices seem reasonable.

      In my formative years, the Co-op had something resembling a department store in Carlisle. Long gone, now.

      1. My local Co-op is very good.

        For my sins i used to collect the greenshield stamps my mother carelessly chucked into the kitchen drawer. Fill a book and buy 20 cigarettes……… :o(

          2. That was silly! Like taking your Co-op divi book to the airport instead of your passport.

        2. The last thing I got on Greenshield stamps was a Black and Decker Workmate. It cost me one book of stamps and I’ve still got the Workmate!

      3. There used to be a big Co-op in Gloucester – sold most things, had a food hall, and a cafe. Used to be the place to meett my Mum for lunch.

          1. Many years later!

            First Cote meal I had was 2011 I think, when I was staying with my late schoolfriend in Islington.

          2. Mine was about 2013 in Cambridge. A bewitching Polish waitress who is still there part time (pre-lockdown) although she now has 2 young children.

          3. Ah! So that’s the attrction, rather than the food. Not sure when they started spreaading around the country but our nearest are in Gloucester and Cirencester. Have been to both with friends, last time being in January to the Cirencester one.

    7. I dream that all the woke will be woken in the same manner as South African white farmers.

      I don’t wish them physical harm just the extreme flow of adrenalin that will course down their legs and into their beds.

    8. Went into local Co-op couple of days ago and had to skirt round ‘Big Issue’ seller who had reappeared outside. Checked with staff if he was allowed to be there. They seemed affronted that I’d dared to ask.

  64. Evening, all. Getting to see a doctor since lockdown (I haven’t managed it yet) is like getting out of Colditz.

      1. Nothing drastic. As I mentioned yesterday and a couple of days ago, I’ve been trying to make an appointment (requested by the MO in February to be made for July) for MOH. Jumping through hoops doesn’t even come close! With any luck, by the time I’ve rung Shrewsbury to make an appointment at phlebotomy in the local hospital, got the blood test done, rung to check the results are in – probably on more than one occasion because they are likely to take forever – we may be allocated an appointment (or not, as the case may be) in a few weeks’ time.

        1. Just say request a confirming letter that your GP is unavailable and say

          ‘Medical negligence’ lawyers

          1. It’s something to bear in mind if we get fobbed off. It isn’t as though MOH doesn’t have lots of health problems.

          2. Yo Conway

            I am ridiculously ‘healthy for my age, (75) no tablets, just (major) operations (three of them ) to keep me alive and mobile

            (as I have said on here before, GPs treat symptoms, Enginee fix Faults)

            If I go to a doctor I need it.

          3. I’m pretty healthy for my age, too (I’m slightly younger than you), although I do have to take tablets for reflux and I have arthritis. I can still run up hills, though, and riding keeps me fairly fit (I suffered during lockdown as my fitness levels dropped with only walking exercise). I don’t visit the doctor unless I absolutely have to.

    1. Yo Peddy

      If you can find it, try Smoked Pimento as ‘dry spice’, is fantastic in lotsa recipes

      2. I’ve just discovered smoked salt, it’s got me thinking about where it would work.

    2. THAT’S ENOUGH! I have endured endless bombardment with views on Brexit, Harry & Meghan, Corona Virus, Black Lives Matter, etc, etc. But now that everyone is posting on here what they had for supper I can’t take it any more! Please stop making me drool with envy after I have had a simple Spag. Bol. followed by a dollop of ice-cream or a banana. I just can’t live with the shame of being a school-dinners-type epicure.

      :-))

      Goodnight all, btw.

      1. None of the recipes which I follow are difficult Elsie; I can’t be bothered to fiddle about in the kitchen like 10 years ago.

        1. These days I aspire to meals which are a little more adventurous than ones I cooked in the past Peddy but – like you – I now look for recipes which only take around 30 minutes to make. So far I am making progress.

      2. Nothing wrong with SpagBol, Elsie. Or ice cream. But you can keep your bananas.

        1. We always have Spag Bol on the first night our students are with us and they love it. Caroline also makes a very good chicken in cider sauce and a macaroni cheese with ham which is to die for and her curry dishes are excellent.

          For lunch I make my Salad Richardais which contains lettuce, chopped shallots, cucumeber, apple, tomato, avocado and sliced boiled eggs. The Richardais sauce is a mixture of mayonaisse, olive oil and lemon vinegar with ground pepper, curry powder, mustard and a small squirt of ketchup.

          Many of our students come back for a second French course with us. It is obviously because of Caroline’s teaching and cooking for dinner when we are not dining out but I like to think that the lunchtime Salad Richardais plays its part too.

        2. Spag Bol is a misnomer; it should be Tagliatelle Bol. Makes all the difference with the take-up of the sauce.

          1. No! One is Spag Bol and the other is Tag Bol. Different dishes, different names. No misnomer!

          3. Fine, authenticity isn’t in question. Spag Bol isn’t a misnomer, it perfectly describes the dish regardless of authenticity, origin or pedigree.

          7. Sorry Mate

            But it is what YOU like that counts

            If it is Chicken + Chips or the best bit of steak in the world, it is what you like

          8. Bolognese sauce
            Description
            DescriptionBolognese sauce is a meat-based sauce in Italian cuisine, typical of the city of Bologna. It is customarily used to dress tagliatelle al ragù and to prepare lasagne alla bolognese. In the absence of tagliatelle, it can also be used with other broad, flat pasta shapes, such as pappardelle or fettuccine. Wikipedia

        3. How dare you HK?!?!? (Oh, sorry, I thought you wrote “you’re bananas”.)

      3. But does their posh food match a nice rhubarb crumble that has Ben made with loving care

      4. Remember Elsie, some people live to eat, others eat to live.
        Being one or the other is perfectly acceptable if you are comfortable with what you are.
        Personally I love a bag of crisps and a pickled egg, but not every day. 🥚

          1. I find it best not to leave them too long otherwise they are over pickled.
            Timing is key.

          2. I’d better get scoffing then. :•)

            The other week I made a scotch egg with a pickled egg and tomato-flavoured pork sausage meat. It was lovely.

        2. Very true, vvof. My own weakness is a packet of jelly babies. I try to eat a couple of jb’s daily, but the entire packet seems to disappear within the hour, thus ruining my appetite for my evening meal.

      5. Here you go, Elsie, enough for 5 boxes to freeze tonight:

        Easy Fish Stew

        Ingredients

        50 grams butter
        2 tbsp cornflour
        1¾ pints (1 litre) fish stock
        ½ lb (500 gram) peeled, diced potatoes (reds or waxy)
        1 large onion chopped fine
        2 tbsp thick cream
        850 grams firm white fish such as cod, huss or monkfish, filleted and skinned
        200 grams scallops
        200 grams peeled king prawns
        200 grams cooked mussels out of the shell (optional)
        1 tin lobster bisque (if you prefer a thick soup)

        Method

        1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan on a medium to hot hob. Add the cornflour and stir to a paste.

        2. Gradually add the fish stock, stirring all the time, until you have all the liquid in the pan with no lumps.

        3. Add the potatoes and onions, stir well and bring it to the boil; turn down the heat to a gentle simmer and leave it for 10 – 15 minutes.

        4. Add the cream, fish, scallops, prawns and mussels, stir well and cook for a further 5 minutes.

        5. If you want a good thick soup instead of a stew, add a tin of lobster bisque.

        Go, girl, it’s delicious!

        1. Thanks for the recipe, Stellen. Will make a note of it and try it out after shopping day (presently no sign of cornflour, fish stock, thick cream, firm white fish, scallops, king prawns, mussels nor tins of lobster bisque in the pantry/fridge.)

          On second thoughts, maybe a trip to the local fish’n’chips shop might be easier. :-))

    3. Peddy, spotted this and recalled your weakness for Côte lobster.

      https://cdn.exponea.com/cote-restaurants1/e/.eJwlzUEKAjEMQNG7dC3SNEmbeBlpk4YZcBAcXYl3d8T94_93stf-vG_zcV09XRK7RQ9nLhm8qRiEgE5JpzT_ILLpwBilEs7eoEIxQ_yBra-369L35XCCYpzDu0kR9TLZAHsZhDCc0Gan1qooD4rmmUixOk9rWc1y5KP33NMFWKlWqMrnQseSP18XAjFb.d7aKf1gRl9hBdYFq4YdfQ0KULcg?iitt=VuU9RM4lhMPshFWAbML1afe7Rf89VueAtu8sE1TT&utm_source=exponea&utm_campaign=CAH_JulyNews4_%28Lobster%29_2020&utm_medium=email

      1. Thanks, Harry.

        I received the same email direct from Côte this afternoon. A year ago I was eating 2 lobsters a week in July & I would be tempted to order by post, but I don’t have the right utensils.

  67. The pub was pleasant and not busy. Left early as early doors fishing charter. What a tough life. G’night all.

    1. An imaginary story

      If Isaac Newton tried to explain his ‘Theory of Gravity: now. as we would have been in lockdown

      the ‘Controllers’ took charge and convinced us ir was untrue

      We believe what we are told, certainly about Covid

    2. Yo T_B

      Iread the book in the late ’50’s when the sexual content in it wa outrageous

    2. Enclosures – caused a lot of aggro when the villagers lost their commons. We’re lucky to still have our common land here, even if the National Trust owns it now. We still have catlle, though not geese, grazing on the common each summer.

    1. Goodnight C

      There are a few moths around this evening , first I have seen for a while.
      Clear night here , dogs have had their last visit to the garden for the evening!

  72. Why do so many supermarket packets of fruit and vegetables say on the packet”Wash Before Use”?*. Washing strawberries and raspberries reduces them to goo. There is no sensible way to dry them, even if you could wash them. Do they need to be scrubbed to remove the grit?
    As for green beans flown in from Zambia or Nicaragua, I’m going to boil them anyway. That should take care of any dangers from them having been pee’d on by sloths, monkeys, lions, giraffes or native employees.

    *Leaving aside jokes about repeatedly getting in and out of the shower when preparing a meal.

    2. I think what it really means is “These berries were harvested by migrants who were paid a pittance for every box they filled. Therefore, they could not afford to take any time off working to visit the lavatory. Enjoy your berries!”

      1. Close.
        The owners say:
        “Please piss on the fruit so that the weight goes up, we’re paid by the kilo.”

  73. “one of the very few things in life of which I’m certain is that we are – all of us – being fed a large lump of horse dung wrapped in bullshit and neatly tied up by a bow fashioned from scrotally infected bollocks.

    Some of us see it. Others smell it. And a frightening proportion of human beings are convinced by it. Mind you, tasting it wouldn’t be a great idea….but there will always be the Emma Walmsley*s of this world ready to remind you that, if it tastes awful, the medication must be doing you good.”
    * CEO GSK

    https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2020/07/11/opinion-access-to-the-truth-is-being-closed-off-while-fear-is-being-openly-inflated/

      1. Given the massive NHS waiting list backlog, when the Private Hospitals are re-opened for business they will be going like an absolute fairground ££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££!

    2. I always told my German patients, regarding prescriptions, etc., Was nicht schmeckt, tut nicht gut.

    3. That fits with Boros Johnson giving control of the UK’s C-19 treatment R and D to Bill Gates.

      Surprisingly, Bill Gates’ Oxford trials of repurposed drugs is incredibly slow with some results not expected until December…. while vaccine research races onwards with projections that ”the entire country could be vaccinated by Christmas” !

      For some reason, Gates loves vaccines… for other people… in the same way that normal people love travel, sport, music or literature etc… and that does look more than odd….

  74. Ummmm…. and the implications are what I wonder… ?

    ”In May 2017 the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) granted Cameron’s appointment as a Director of U2 Frontman Bono’s One Foundation which is also supported by Bill Gates and George Soros’s Open Society”

    Oh… multi billionaires at the heart of government buying the policies and laws they want… and Dave gets his reward when he retires… maybe that’s it ?

  75. Article in the DT from Michael Gove, I notice he mentions building strong borders, does that mean no more uninvited guests being offloaded from Border Farce ships? Anyway here is his article.

    Outside the EU, a bright future awaits Britain

    Four years since we made the decision to leave the EU, the reasons for leaving are stronger than ever

    Michael Gove11 July 2020 • 9:30pm

    Leaving the European Union is, I’ve often argued, a bit like moving house. Instead of being lodgers under someone else’s roof we are choosing a new place in the world where we’re in control. Four years after we made the decision to leave the EU, the reasons for moving are stronger than ever. Taking back control of our economy means we can put in place the right measures for our Covid recovery.

    Taking back control of the money we send to Brussels means we can spend it on our priorities: investing in the NHS, spreading opportunity more equally across the UK and strengthening our Union. We can build a trading relationship with our European neighbours that serves all our interests and develop new economic partnerships across the world.

    The deal the Prime Minister struck last year, and which the country backed in the general election, ensured we left the EU in January and means we can look forward with confidence to the end of the transition period on December 31. But, just like a house move, we need to make sure all the practical arrangements for our new future are in place.

    Everyone has their part to play, starting with the government.

    That’s why on Sunday we’re investing £705 million to make sure our borders are ready for full independence. We’re investing in new infrastructure, more jobs and better technology to help goods move smoothly, make our country more secure and our citizens safer. The money will ensure that Great Britain’s new borders will be ready when the UK takes back control on January 1 2021, and will also lay the foundations for us to build the world’s most effective border by 2025.

    Modernising our border means we can introduce a migration policy that ensures we’re open to the world’s best talent. A new points-based immigration system will ensure we can attract the scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs who can power future economic growth. It will also help us ensure our NHS has the very best professionals from across the world working in our hospitals. And the new technology we’re introducing will allow us to monitor with far greater precision exactly who, and what, is coming in and out of the country, enabling us to deal more effectively with organised crime and other security threats.

    Alongside the investment we are making in infrastructure we’re also launching a major new public information campaign, “The UK’s new start: let’s get going” to give everyone the facts we need to be ready for January 1 2021. Whether you’re the managing director of a multinational conglomerate or a family business; a UK citizen resident in the EU or planning to work abroad, the new campaign will clearly set out the steps that will help this big change go as smoothly as possible.

    A straightforward checker tool at gov.uk/transition will quickly identify the specific steps any business or individual needs to take to be ready, and will allow companies and citizens to sign up for bespoke updates. Taking these steps will equip everyone for this new chapter in our country’s story.

    Helping businesses adjust to life outside the EU Customs Union will enable them to more easily access the new opportunities being an independent trading nation will bring, such as those presented by trade deals with the Japan, Australia, New Zealand and other growing Pacific economies as well as deeper ties with North America and the developing world.

    We’re negotiating hard, of course, to get the best possible trading relationship with our neighbours in the EU but we won’t back down on the essential principles the country voted for when we chose to leave. We won’t accept control of our laws by the EU or allow our new-found independence to be compromised. Whatever the nature of our trading relationship with the EU we’ll be outside the single market and the customs union – and that means the preparations for new export arrangements and new border processes will be needed whatever the negotiations bring.

    These have been challenging times for our country, but, as the Chancellor reminded us this week, Government can help lay the foundations for recovery and future growth. That’s what we’re doing this week as we prepare for our new life fully outside the EU. We’re building the border that allows us to take back control. Let’s get going.

    Michael Gove is Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/11/outside-eu-bright-future-awaits-britain/

      1. Talking of borders, this country’s been taking in a helluva lot of free boarders in recent weeks and, if truth were told, all the way back to 1997 at a minimum.

      2. There’s a lady who needs to get her arse into gear and deliver to the population of the UK what we voted her (and others) in for.

        To make this United Kingdom a land in which to make a tolerable living.

        What’s happening?

    2. It’s all garbage and designed to keep Leavers happy until it’s too late.

  76. Amusing how Theresa May gets approx £120,000 for a one hour speech, even if she doesn’t do it.

    So is the £120,000 about the speech.. or is it about something else ?

    1. Hope you have a good catch.

      I’m literally just back from a walk. Attempted to spot the comet that is supposed to be visible, but failed.

    2. Hope you have a good catch.

      I’m literally just back from a walk. Attempted to spot the comet that is supposed to be visible, but failed.

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