Saturday 1 August: What do further lockdowns achieve beyond encouraging more hysteria?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/31/letters-do-lockdowns-achieve-beyond-encouraging-hysteria/

793 thoughts on “Saturday 1 August: What do further lockdowns achieve beyond encouraging more hysteria?”

    2. I agree with most of that, but I’ll be in the queue if a vaccine is developed and properly tested.

    3. Thanks for posting, B3. It would make the (alleged) spikes easier to judge if we could see the daily tests data, but as far as I know there seems to be a reluctance to publish it. Hmmm…wonder why?

        1. The early tests were very inaccurate, because some of those conducting them were not pushing the swab in far enough. This shortcoming was identified some weeks into the lockdown and apparently addressed, so should have become more accurate some time ago. I believe that their accuracy is now said to be around 97%.

          1. Well, the tests in Florida are being called inaccurate. My brother-in-law has just had a long awaited operation to correct the previous attempt which they had bungled. He was tested for Covid-19 with a swab pushed into his throat. Apparently it went so far in it came out the other end.

        2. Depends from whose point of view.
          The more positives they produce, the happier the government.
          Reliability has nothing to do with it in the Great Scare Wars.

    4. “The MSM have a lot to answer for” but “they know that fear sells”. Amen to that.

  3. ‘Morning All

    Funny Old World

    Follow the science they say………………..

    While twitter and farcebook play whack-a-mole taking down doctor’s accounts of treatment and lives saved with HCQ I understand.

    Pah,ordinary doctors treating real patients,what do they know??

    This is the point I’m saddened Maxie has departed I would love to see him try and refute a professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health,one of the most prestigious in the world…………

    “As professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, I have

    authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and currently hold senior

    positions on the editorial boards of several leading journals. I am

    usually accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of

    medicine, so have been flummoxed to find that, in the midst of a crisis,

    I am fighting for a treatment that the data fully support but which,

    for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the

    science, has been pushed to the sidelines. As a result, tens of

    thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily.

    Fortunately, the situation can be reversed easily and quickly.

    I am referring, of course, to the medication hydroxychloroquine. When this

    inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of

    illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it

    has shown to be highly effective, especially when given in combination

    with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional

    supplement zinc.

    On May 27, I published an article in the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE)

    entitled, “Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk

    COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the

    Pandemic Crisis.” That article, published in the world’s leading

    epidemiology journal, analyzed five studies, demonstrating clear-cut and

    significant benefits to treated patients, plus other very large studies

    that showed the medication safety.”

    https://www.newsweek.com/key-defeating-covid-19-already-exists-we-need-start-using-it-opinion-1519535
    Shove your vaccine where the sun don’t shine Bill,oh and by the way who’s been treated with all the HCQ the UK government bought up??

    1. Great link, but please don’t routinely knock one of the most successful, generous and intelligent people in the entire world.
      I am in favour of herd immunity, but there are plenty of human beings on this forum who will have age-related underlying conditions; some of the medications that are being ‘trialled’ for treatment would not prove suitable for the old and the sick, as they could provoke adverse reactions. Therefore a vaccine is a logical step, although it may be years away.
      At the same time, there are of course almost 8 thousand million individual units of pollution on Earth, a matter that bubbles away in the background.

  4. CNN airs ‘nah’ graphic rejecting Trump’s claim that he’s tough on Russia. 1 August 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/21919e97b2726d5b1ddd48e487998b76ca92a4feb2e7562a59a3b69f0936f73e.jpg

    Some of CNN’s anchors have become known for their hostility toward President Trump — and those sentiments have also been reflected in the network’s on-air graphics.

    On Friday, CNN anchor Brianna Keilar slammed the president’s repeated claim that he is tough on Russia, and her report was accompanied by a chyron at the bottom of the screen reading “Trump says he’s been tough on Russia. Nah.”

    Just put this up (I assume you all know CNN is anti-Trump) to acquaint you with the word chyron which is one of those labels across the bottom of the screen. Fascinating. Eh?

    https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-graphic-rejecting-trumps-tough-russia-nah

  5. What is the true story behind Nigel Farage’s claim that ‘illegal’ immigrants are staying in hotels? Indy 1 August 2020.

    While many of the claims Mr Farage makes in his video are a difficult blend of muddled figures and statistics used to defend his points of view, his assertion that the hotel is populated by illegal immigrants appears to be among the easiest to debunk.

    The Britannia-owned Bromsgrove Hotel and Spa is, like a number of hotels across the country, being used to temporarily house asylum seekers – according to the government and the site’s operators, Serco.

    Yes we’ve thoroughly debunked that. This hotel that Mr Farage says is full of illegal immigrants is actually full of “asylum seekers”, a vital difference. Lol!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nigel-farage-illegal-immigrants-hotels-worcestershire-a9648746.html

    1. They are illegals when they land, then say the magic word “Asylum” and instantly become wonderful bringers of Diversity and Multiculturalism to our island.

    2. “Illegal immigrants”, “Asylum seekers”, “Terrorists”, “Organised Criminals”, “Hardworking Socially-mobile Aspirationals”…

      Call them what you like, according to what you are trying to spin.

      The problem I have with the word “legal” is that it has been so perverted by the professionals. Any connection between the law and justice is tenuous at best.

        1. Hush Bill. You are among friends. We all know it was just a cover for your clandestine trips into the Soviet hinterland for your pal M. at Mi6.

        1. “on the Indie Open Comment section“- I bet it doesn’t stay there for long!

        3. Once, Robert, an honest press would have made clear distinction between the handful of genuine asylum seekers and the tens of thousands of illegals.

          It suits the woke, libtard lefties t call each and every one an asylum seeker – though it is a great big LIE.

        4. “on the Indie Open Comment section“- I bet it doesn’t stay there for long!

    3. This is not new. A couple of years ago I read a review on Trip Advisor of a hotel in Northern England. Some poor soul had booked a hotel and when he turned he discovered that the place was crammed with immigrants. Very unpleasant. This was not mentioned on the hotel website.
      Or try the Park Inn, Glasgow. This hotel was open for business even as the residents were being hacked with machetes, kind of thing, and again there was no mention of being crammed with immigrants. Imagine booking and turning up there with your family for a weekend in Glasgow just as the police gunned down a fellow resident!
      https://www.radissonhotels.com/en-us/hotels/park-inn-glasgow-city-centre#

      1. My mother reports the new residents of the Britannia Hotel in Primrose Hill raiding the gardens of neighbouring properties, leaving litter and scaring the foxes. Locksmiths are doing great business as we all become our self-appointed gaolers.

        1. We put up extra security and the govt collects the VAT on what we have bought. Great gpvt scam.

      2. “…a weekend in Glasgow…”

        Hmm…Glasgie would not be my first choice exactly, though I see your point.

        ‘Morning, HP.

        1. I would defend Glasgow against any criticism apart from the destruction of McIntosh’s Glasgow School of Art; once was misfortune, twice was sheer carelessness.

        2. Actually, if one ignores the residents there a few things in Glasgow that are worth looking at.
          Kelvingrove Museum, The Art Lovers House, and some of the architecture is wonderful including some Greek Thomson gems. The Salvador Dali painting Christ of St John of the Cross is astonishing. It alone is worth the trip. Forget your Monarchs of the Glen, your ice-skating clergymen and your singing butlers. This is Scotland’s favourite painting.
          (Actually the native residents are mostly OK. I was in our van on the way to a meeting and stopped in a residential side street to review notes and wait for time to pass. There was a chap* on the window. I lowered the window and the chap** asked me if I had his mobile phone. On seeking clarification I learned that he was awaiting delivery of his new mobile phone. I apologised that I was not indeed the awaited courier. However, I offered him a deal on my own phone – not a smartphone and quite old – but he could not be persuaded.)

          *Scots for “knock”, ** English for “man”.

    4. A marvellous morning to you, Minty

      Is there a difference between an illegal asylum seeker and an illegal immigrant posing as an asylum seeker?

      A pose by any other name would stink as rank.

      2. Off topic, Rastus, but yesterday I conveyed your (and Caroline’s) best wishes to Korky, along with those of virtually all other NoTTLers. He was most grateful to hear that.

    5. A good selection of pinko bedwetters among those commenting at the “Independent” [there’s an oxymoron] , but I’m glad to see a few truths got through!

  6. A propos nothing much, I wonder if the UK Government will tackle the issue of taxation of multinationals after Brexit? Because multi-nationals use transfer pricing as a method of dodging tax I wonder how this might be addressed? One route might be to tax turnover of non-UK companies. Or maybe determine a notional profit and tax accordingly. Bear in mind that Amazon is a platform, an electronic catalogue of products made by other businesses. (The Amazon film operations are different.). If such taxation put Amazon retail business out of business, the companies concerned with supplying the goods Amazon advertises, would have to deal direct. Probably not much change to them, or to us as customers.
    Transfer pricing can be beneficial. Peugeot owns its own retail sales branches in the UK. It can therefore choose to make profit on manufacturing, in France, or on retail sales in the UK, or on both. There can be circumstances in which the company can reduce prices in the UK making their vehicles cheaper to buy.

    1. Whenever I buy something on Amazon, I pay VAT at 20% – a lot more, I suspect, than their gross margin, and certainly many times more than any taxable profit that they might seek to transfer away from HMRC.

      1. What did foreign big tech ever do for us?
        Apart from all those jobs which have amazingly flexible hours, ideal for people with or without young families.
        And all the NI contributions, PAYE tax and business rates paid according to govt requirements.
        And all the increases in productivity achieved by people who order online instead of driving to a Local shop to be told that there is no call for widgets these days, or that it will be in stock next week.

    2. “I wonder if the UK Government will tackle the issue of taxation of multinationals after Brexit?”

      It ought to, as you describe (“determine a notional profit and tax accordingly”) for novel operators such as Amazon. Some conventional international operators will look to the UK for lower rates when the EU eventually fixes corporation taxes across Europe (and probably at a high level).

      Also, EU rules on freedom of movement of capital worked against countries trying to protect their own businesses. The Factortame case in 1990 demonstrated this. A UK government can now define what constitutes a British business and force it to pay taxes here.

  7. Good morning, all. A sticky, clammy night – still and sunny right now. As we were going to bed it looked stormy outside – but it cleared without any rain.

    Have to go to Martins Farm (see my last post yesterday) because I lef my damned glasses there!

    No news today, I see.

    1. We had the rain up here! Massive storm, complete with thunder and lightning. Fabulous! Today the sun is shining as though butter wouldn’t melt in its mouth . . .

      Good morning.

      1. We had a brief 45 minute torrent with thunder & lightening about 6ish here yesterday evening.
        After the rain stopped we could still here the thunder rumbling in the distance.

    2. ‘Morning, Bill. Very similar conditions here, and a poor night’s sleep thanks to heat and high humidity. Better tonight I hope.

      You seem to have Nottld quite well without the specs. Did you also drive home without them? If the answer is in the affirmative, do you really need them? Just askin’…

      1. I find a cold bath before bed helps.
        With the water left in for a repeat in the small hours if necessary.

      2. Good day, Hugh. I have a paid for long-distance – which I usually wear when driving. Not otherwise; and a pair for reading without which I am almost blind!

        I took the driving ones off yesterday to do the arithmetic at the farm shop – and drove off. The MR rang at 8 pm and they said they were on the top shelf. And they were!

    3. Good morning.
      I had a cold bath before bed and just had one before sitting down here.
      I feel lovely & cool!

    1. Good morning and a healthy August to you all.
      As schoolchildren we subscribed to the hares & rabbits doctrine. Still trying to perfect it.

        1. Bumped my holding up by an extra £5,000 this month that was sat the building society earning an interest rate equivalent to the cubed root of F-all.
          At least ERNIE’s providing an equivalent to1.25% over the past year.

          2. I’ve enough in the BS for emergencies and will slowly build it back up with any space change I have.

  9. Morning all. More mask madness and mass hysteria.

    SIR – I have completely lost the thread of the Government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

    Originally we were told that lockdown was imposed to protect the NHS, but now that the NHS has survived we learn that any cluster of more than a few people being infected must result in an immediate clampdown in order to control the spread of the disease.

    The virus is not going away. Nicola Sturgeon talks of eliminating it, but this is a fanciful notion. The mini-lockdowns, such as those in the north of England (report, July 31), simply delay the spread of the disease, while increasing the already prevalent hysteria. Meanwhile, incalculable economic damage is being done.

    As a reasonably active 70-year-old, I am all in favour of following Lord Sumption’s advice (Comment, July 28). Let’s just get on with life. If you are frightened, do what you have to do, but leave the rest of us alone.

    John Griffiths

    Bromley, Kent

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    SIR – Frederick Forsyth (Letters, July 30) rightly claims that our level-headed nation is being driven into “headless-chicken” panic. It is the fault of the Government’s seemingly random approach to limiting risk.

    Why do we have to wear masks in shops and on public transport when there’s far more risk when not wearing one in a pub or restaurant? Then there’s the inclusion of the Balearic and Canary Islands in quarantine measures for mainland Spain. This is nonsensical, as there is more risk of contracting the disease in Britain. We all thought that the main reason for the relaxing of lockdown was to get people back to work. How many hours of productivity have been lost as a result of these latest measures?

    The Government is trying to incorporate too many conflicting opinions into its policy, resulting in a shambolic mess. Poor leadership is usually the primary cause of this happening.

    Trevor Anderson

    Ticehurst, East Sussex

    SIR – I note the annual excess-death figures for England for the first months of the pandemic were the highest in Europe (report, July 31).

    How much of this has been caused not by Covid-19 so much as the closing down of hospitals for critical treatment of other ailments, and late diagnosis of fatal conditions, brought about by the hysteria to which the population has been driven?

    Brian Crookes

    Poole, Dorset

    SIR – Covid-19 has not been beaten. It has not gone away. All we have today is a tenuous hold over the level of infection in the community.

    The only likely way out of this crisis is to develop a vaccine, and that will probably take months. The people who demand to be able to do whatever they want in these circumstances are the people who will prolong the pandemic. It’s disturbing that they cannot see this.

    Brian Tolson

    Boat of Garten, Inverness-shire

    1. One wonders if any mothers and babies have suffered more than usual recently when giving birth / being born in a hospital where there is a staff shortage due to the Chinese virus?
      I hear a few horror stories, but have no statistics.

    1. There’s no ‘may’ about it. (apart from the Maybot who cancelled a vital ID scheme).
      Emily Jones in Bolton, allegedly. Three happy young men in Reading allegedly.
      Some woke policeman in Glasgow. All allegedly injured or killed by Bame migrants.

    2. This probably explains why Dover and Ashford are the two “hotspots” in Kent for Covid-19

  11. Awkward……..

    As Asian-American scholar Dinesh D’Souza points out in his massively

    documented 700-page critique of politically correct multiculturalism, The End of Racism,

    ‘slavery was widespread in Africa from antiquity’ and also existed

    among the native Indian tribes of North America, many of whom also owned

    black slaves.

    ‘The three powerful medieval kingdoms of Ghana, Songhai and Mali all

    relied on slave labour. Nor were these slaves exclusively black Africans

    . . . the Ashanti of West Africa customarily enslaved all foreigners.’

    African complicity in the slave trade, states D’Souza,was ‘epitomised

    in the proposition advanced to Europeans by an African chief in the

    early 19th century: “We want three things: powder, ball and brandy; and

    we have three things to sell: men, women and children”.’

    Perhaps the most poignant comment on African participation in the

    slave trade are these words of Zora Neale Hurston, the great American

    black feminist writer of the Harlem Renaissance in the early 20th

    century: ‘The white people held my people in slavery here in America.

    They had bought us, it is true, and exploited us.

    ‘But the inescapable fact that stuck in my craw was: My people had

    sold me . . . my own people had exterminated whole nations and torn

    families apart for a profit before the strangers got their chance at

    a cut.’

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/for-blm-protesters-a-few-inconvenient-truths-about-africa-race-and-slavery/

    2. Yes of course. The Slave Trade was a Black Industry. They mined the raw material and turned it into product for the Europeans who sold it on to the Americas . You can’t say this of course. It’s the Truth. Morning Rik.

      1. The romans of course used slaves, who else built al their roads walls and other fine buildings.
        Slaves were also the ‘favourite sport’ of muslims in the 9th to 11th century during their occupation of Spain.
        The moors use to sail around the fringes of our shores and Ireland and steal blonde haired blue eyed children boys and girls and install them as ‘concubines’ for the use of. Those who didn’t fit the CV were fed to pet lions.
        For those who didn’t see the programmes on BBC4, Simon Sebag Montefiore had a short but very interesting series about a month ago.

        Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain with Simon Sebag Montefiore Simon Sebag Montefiore embarks on a fascinating journey to unlock 2,000 years of Spain’s history. On iPlayer
        Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain with Simon Sebag …

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06rwgdf

          1. One of the vile Mullahs had thousands of young children locked up and fed any one he didn’t like to his caged pet lions.

    3. The proposition of the African chief underlines that the Africans of 200 years ago were somewhere between the Stone Age and the Bronze Age. They bought knives and spear blades, and cooking pots, from traders.

    4. Yo Rik

      So my theory that the Routemaster bus was invented purely for Demon Whitey drive en masse into the African Hinterland
      to collect slaves is wrong.

      In that case I will leave the invention of the bus to the 20th Century

  12. For the last two days I cannot access a tweet by clicking on ‘view’. If the address is posted as well, I can see the tweet by clicking on that. Any ideas folks?

    2. I’m still suspended on Twitter – since April. I can look but nothing else, except as Help a Hedgehog.

  13. For the very small band of us who think Halfcock is a useless wazzock – there are two nice piss-takes – one by Deacon in the DT today;the other by (the often irritating and smug) Hugo Rifkind in today’s Grimes.

    1. They’ve all been useless with the possible exception of Rishi who has done some good then he undoes all the good the next time he opens his mouth. It seems unfair to single out Hancock when the entire government team has been awful.

      1. Agreed – but Halfcock is the one always pontificating, finger-wagging and threatening.

        2. Hancock must know more than the PM I think.

          Finger wagging at BAMES is good news..

          BAMES live in an enclosed world . Allah will protect them.

          1. And our judiciary and the BBC TB.
            Some of them were on there moaning about the self inflicted lockdown this morning……… again.

          2. Morning RE

            Yep I heard that, it is in our faces, and the damned BBC dragging a M/BAME in to talk about Christmas being cancelled and show veiled threats is just too much to bear.

            I have NO respect for the shuffling pyjama’d bods who throng around chanting stuff!

          5. Yes, go ahead. The edict will be withdrawn & reinstated a confusing number of times until then & you could be stranded with stone-hard sprouts.

    2. Good morning, Bill

      And then upon the peace of me ducks and me geese
      He rudely did intrude
      With glazed eyes and open mouths
      They bore it all with fortitude ….
      And a little bit of gratitude!


      I don’t know about half-cocks and wazzcocks but I do like Jake’s bantam:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hQhi4oyH6k

  14. Morning all.
    I despair at least once every day over all the sucking up to Bame carried out by our stupid political classes, the civil service, the border farce and the police farce. What are they trying to achieve by all this pandering, the compromise has reached fever pitch. These people are still a minority, god only knows what this country will be like in 30 years. Absolutely unbearable.

    From todays online news.
    A curfew and other restrictions have been imposed on demonstrations planned in south London to stop people blocking main roads or planning illegal music events, Scotland Yard has said.

    Numerous groups are planning to gather in Brixton, south London, on Saturday for Afrikan Emancipation Day — including Extinction Rebellion — primarily to enjoy a family-friendly, socially distanced day of activities and learning, police said.

    But Extinction Rebellion has said that groups will block the A23 Brixton Road from Max Roach Park to Windrush Square and occupy the area for the day.

    It said that it was joining a coalition of groups, including the Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign, Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee, and Rhodes Must Fall Oxford.

    The event aims to promote the necessity of stopping the genocide and ecocide of African people and their environments, it added.

    But the Metropolitan Police on Friday said that blocking the road will cause “serious disruption” to Brixton and the surrounding area because it is used by hundreds of bus routes and thousands of motorists.

    It said that it is imposing a number of conditions on the demonstrations within areas such as Windrush Square, Max Roach Park and outside Brixton Police Station. They must not spill into nearby roads and they must finish by 8pm.

      2. As i have been saying for many years let them put their own houses in order. BL didn’t M when Mugabe was on his murdering spree. Nor when the tribalist were murdering each other in the Congo and Rwanda.

          2. But whatever they do to each other – it’s all the fault of “white privilege”.

    2. Hope the cops don’t forget to bring their riot gear for the evening when it all kicks off.

    3. Hope Plod remembers to wear knee pads. We don’t want Dijk spending her Sunday darning worn out trouserings.

      1. I’m sick to death of all this ridiculous shite, perhaps that’s the general idea.
        I don’t think there has been a day in the last 40 years i have regretted leaving Oz to come back here.
        I caught a glimpse of that silly old dyke Margolis on TV last night, trying to stir emotions in and around Oz. The Daft old faggot.

        1. She is utterly vile.

          I like your comment ‘Daft old faggot’

          That’s her alright. She only says these outrageous things to get attention the rug munching old dyke.

        2. Yes, we saw that.
          I find her obnoxious.
          The previous week she was trying to instil in a wonderfully stoic Australian boy, the fatalism and nihilism of Climate Change.

          1. Even the most emphatically heterosexual man would turn homosexual if she was the only other option.

          2. Did you see her in the programmes about the elderly ‘zedlebs’ going to stay India she was an absolute PITA . She kept talking about farting !
            Narration was her forté, best never seen again.

        3. It’s starting to get a grip even in Oz. Margolis is the tip of one of many icebergs.

  15. Thought I’d try Amazon’s new Prime Fresh service. Order arrived today, including a couple of bottles of wine. The (masked) courier insisted on production of valid ID to prove I was over 18, saying he would lose his job, otherwise. Has every last vestige of common sense evaporated from this planet?

    1. When I applied for an OAP railcard – I dutifully took my passport to prove age – the lady behind the glass said, “Don’t bother, dear, you are obviously well over the age…”

      1. When I was in my fifties, B&Q introduced a special pensioners’ card for shopping on Tuesday (?).
        The checkout laydee asked me if I had the card. I remarked that I knew I’d had a hard day, but didn’t think it was THAT bad. Cue one very red faced till-person.

          2. You could be right. I remember decrepit, gibbering parents being wheeled round (‘would you like to go out today, Mother?’) so middle aged off-spring could take advantage of a 10% reduction on bathroom tiles.

    3. It might have been far worse Geoff as was my recent delivery from amazon.
      I ordered some Rentokil fly and wasp killer and two one l kilo bags of Icing sugar turned up.
      The very antithesis of what was required. 😄

      1. Take heart. The icing sugar was obviously ground bait for the wasps. Now it’s up to you to swat them.

        1. The icing sugar has been dealt with, It came from a ladies clothing out let in Willesden !! And yes we wondered if it really was icing sugar. Our eldest son ordered the wasp killer for me on Prime. I applied a lot of the second batch in powder form last night after dark and haven’t seen many this morning. They’ll get another dose later when it’s dark.

    4. When I took delivery of my bottle of Dubonnet the other day, the driver took a note of my d.o.b., but didn’t want to see proof. As I’m exactly 4 x 18, we had a good laugh.

    6. This I sort of understand. Despite the grey and obvious age the woman who dropped off the Bailey’s supply said ‘I’m sorry, I know, but we have to ask by law.’

    7. Do you need to ask? Of course it has. We can’t have people thinking for themselves and making rational decisions, can we?

  16. PM wants more police on streets to enforce face masks. 31 July 2020.

    Boris Johnson has ordered more police officers onto the streets to enforce the wearing of face coverings which will become compulsory by law in most indoor settings from August 8.

    The Prime Minister said the plans to extend face coverings to venues like museums, cinemas and places of worship would require a “greater police presence” to enforce the rules and levy £100 fines on those who refused.

    Mr Johnson voiced his concerns about the apparent failings in enforcement yesterday when he revealed he had asked Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, “to work with the police and others to ensure the rules which are already in place are properly enforced.”

    Morning everyone. Didn’t ask her to stop the Home Office Cross Channel Ferry then? Too difficult?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/07/31/boris-johnson-wants-police-streets-enforce-wider-compulsory/

    3. Well Parliament is closed, so that’s a couple of unarmed constables who could be re-assigned. Ditto VIPs who don’t really need their germ carrying close protection officers, who aren’t much use if they have to respect socialist distancing and stay 2 miles away (2m).

    4. More police out of doors to enforce the wearing of masks indoors? Hmmm. I’m not quite getting the logic.

      1. You beat me to it by 3 hours, Horace. Sorry, but I had a lie-in today, then discovered that film director Alan Parker died yesterday so have been surfing the net and viewing his website most of this morning. I was House Manager when his film MIDNIGHT EXPRESS opened there in 1978. A lovely man and a great film-maker. RIP Sir Alan.

          3. …and:

            Eva:
            Did you hear that? They called me a whore! They actually called me a whore!

            Italian Admiral:
            But, Señora Perón, it’s an easy mistake. I’m still called an admiral, though I gave up the sea long ago.

          4. Indeed he did. When it was announced that Madonna would play the title role, many people said that she had no real talent and would spoil the film. Knowing that Alan Parker was to direct it I knew that he would get a first class performance out of her. And he did.

        2. It’s been a sad day, Elsie. Stan Mellor (first jump jockey to ride 1,000 winners) has died, too. He was 83.

    5. “To enforce the… compulsory [wearing of face masks] by law in most indoor settings” he “has ordered more police officers onto the streets” Eh?!?!?

  17. 321956+up ticks,
    I truly fear it is all over for old Blighty seemingly a multitude of the peoples
    gave succour to a cuddle tiger pup in the mid 70s & continuing feeding it
    all the while watching it morph into a decency,self respect, man killing dictatorship as is the lab/lib/con coalition party,
    Maybe one who supports this Nation destroying fraternity will answer me one question, you have a firm grip on the tail, whats your next move ?

    https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1289478382044852230

    1. If that’s public land they can’t hold religious ceremonies there.

      Oh! hang on. The last person to ask the police to enforce the law was arrested and charged. No, I don’t understand either. Asking the police to enforce the law – to do their jobs – has that person – who has broken no law but been witness to the police aiding and abetting a crime – arrested.

      Clucking Futz!

  18. Is the NHS fit for pupose….
    I looked on line to see if I could book an appointment for a Health Check.

    Apparently…
    You can have an NHS Health Check if you’re aged 40 to 74 and you have not had a stroke, or do not already have a pre-existing health condition.

    If this applies to you, you can expect to receive a letter from a GP surgery or local authority inviting you for an NHS Health Check every 5 years.ENDS

    So if you are over 74 are we expected to drop dead…..at their convenience of course!

      2. They finish at 70, Belle (breast and bowel cancer checks) but you can request a check after that age if you wish by contacting directly the department involved.

        1. Currently there’s a trial to examine the effectiveness of offering some women 1 extra screen between the ages of 47 and 49, and 1 between the ages of 71 and 73.

        2. I was sent a bowel cancer testing kit just before lockdown without asking for it.

          1. I regularly get the bowel cancer test kit every couple of years without asking for it, Peddy.

            PS – The Master (Mr Lime) has asked me to notify every female NoTTLer that he is happy to perform a breast check without charge as a public service “in these difficult times”. Just as long as they don’t give the clap on Thursdays.

            :-))

        3. I don’t think bowel cancer checks end at 70. I’ve had one recently and I’ve passed that landmark.

    3. The last time I had a “well woman” check was nearly 30 years ago. I guess they expect the over 74s to be frequent attendees at the surgery for other things anyway.

    4. I turned 74 a month ago. Like many of my friends here, in biblical terms I am over three score and ten and it would be churlish for me to expect anything

  19. 321956+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    The way I see it is that where we have a positive we have a negative as in
    covid 19 is a positive virus / political tool whereas the Dover invasion is a
    negative action being taken introducing safety hazards & in NO WAY beneficial to the indigenous peoples of these Isles.
    The political firth column in westminster is overseeing this campaign in
    conjunction with the fear ( virus) campaign as a cover.

    These illegal incomers they are giving their obvious consent to enter hold more potential danger to our peoples than this virus.

    As for the hotel accommodation that via a selfie within a luxury backdrop
    posted to place of origin with message get your @rse on the illegal ferry asap most likely governance supplied cards stating “We have arrived safely”

    In my book they are illegal in as far as they are leaving a safe
    nation for what reason ?

    1. They are destined for a shadowy new organisation attached to the govt. As they come from France, they will be known as ‘Tontons Macoutes’.

      1. 321956+ up ticks,
        Morning T,
        Seems like the political lib/lab/con coalition hierarchy are forming a rear guard @rse covering
        group for when flight calls, if ever.

  20. RAF fighter jets intercepted trio of Russian military operating over Baltic Sea. 31 July 2020

    Royal Air Force fighter jets intercepted a trio of Russian military operating in the skies and sea over Northern Europe as MPs warned the formation showed a “clear escalation” in Russia’s aggressive behaviour.

    This intercept follows an earlier interception at the start of the week when the Typhoons were again airborne to monitor Russian SU-27 Flankers as they transited through Lithuanian controlled international airspace.

    This would be the “Northern Europe” in the middle of the Baltic Sea and right next door to the UK heartland of Lithuaniashire.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/31/raf-fighter-jets-intercepted-trio-russian-military-operating/

    1. Typhoons were again airborne to monitor Russian SU-27 Flankers as they transited through Lithuanian controlled international airspace.
      Nothing to see and nothing happened. ( When the Russians violate Swedish territory the Swedes attack them, e.g depth charge their submarines.)

      1. Morning Horace. The “Ghost” submarine. They haven’t floated that story in ages! I used to like how the tourists on the ferry could see it but the Swedish Navy could never find it. Lol!

  21. SIR – Our governing elite has no idea how difficult it is to run a small business. The main enemy is regulation, which is now suffocating.

    Largely because of this, I have recently closed a family company that had been in business for 49 years. Our bank borrowing was secured by personal guarantee, meaning my house. Given that 50 per cent of small businesses fail within five years, many people end up losing their homes.

    We were not allowed any help under recent schemes, but the local croquet club was offered money without asking for it. This situation cannot continue. The country faces a calamity unless the Government cuts back on public-sector tyranny.

    John Kirby

    Holbeton, Devon

    SIR – I took a voluntary vow of (relative) poverty when HMRC made online payment of VAT mandatory, limiting my turnover and deregistering for VAT.

    I received no financial support these past three months, but did get a clumsily worded tax demand in July. I was then told that all future correspondence and payment will be digital, rendering my financial affairs vulnerable to cyber attack. All this from people paid by my taxes, working for a Conservative Government.

    So I have decided, at the age of 61, to down tools and stop contributing to a system that seems hell-bent on penalising my enterprise and industry.

    Michael Heaton

    Warminster, Wiltshire

    1. So I have decided, at the age of 61, to down tools and stop contributing to a system that seems hell-bent on penalising my enterprise and industry.

      Can’t fault you there Mr Heaton.

    2. As I have argued before there should be a mandatory rule imposed on all prospective Conservative MPs – they should all have spent some time in self-employment running their own businesses.

  22. SIR – His Honour Richard Seymour (Letters, July 22) refers to the high cost to the NHS of medical negligence claims. For over 20 years, I prepared reports for the court in medical-negligence and personal-injury cases.

    My area of expertise is nursing and, when preparing reports on the standard of care delivered to a claimant, the opinion of the expert is based on whether or not the care delivered was “of the standard expected of a reasonably competent practitioner”. The number of times I was asked to report on complaints in which the same mistake had been made, over and over again, in hospitals across Britain, was shocking. Hospital managers, when interviewed in the media, always claim that lessons will be learnt, but they rarely are.

    I admire and respect the nurses, midwives and doctors who deliver excellent care. However, there are far too many incidents of medical injury and negligence, demonstrated by the compensation paid out by the NHS each year – compensation that is never paid without considerable investigation into each case.

    It’s time to stop deifying the NHS and to have an inquiry into top-heavy, non-medical, non-nursing management and staff training, to ensure that patients get the competent care they have a right to expect.

    Maureen Hamilton

    Redcar, North Yorkshire

  23. SIR – If face masks did indeed reduce the risk of infection to surgical patients, as suggested by Malcolm H Wheeler (Letters, July 28), all surgeons would wear them. However, in our practices, we discarded masks more than 20 years ago, after a series of controlled trials showed that using them either had no effect on, or sometimes actually increased, the risk of post-operative infection.

    Simply observing that Covid-19 infection rates are lower in some countries where mask use is the norm does not prove cause and effect, which explains why bodies advising ministers were so cautious in recommending face covering. We are told that the present requirement to wear masks in shops is meant to give the public confidence. How insisting on a measure shown to be useless or worse in not dissimilar circumstances will achieve this mystifies us.

    John Black FRCS

    Malvern, Worcestershire

    Antony Narula FRCS

    Wargrave, Berkshire

    1. Masks were thoroughly deprived of any legitimacy at the beginning of the Crisis but then rowed back into consideration. Best just to ignore the whole thing except where it might make personal difficulties!

      1. Compulsory everywhere in parts of France from Monday. Not today – – safe without one; from Monday death if you fail to wear one.

    2. Meanwhile, it’s had the opposite effect for me – I am not going shopping until it is absolutely necessary, so they won’t be getting the VAT revenues.

      1. Same here, Con. We are ordering online where we can and the pretty one visits the Village Shop for the basics – she’s happy to wear a mask, and has made a lot for others too.

        1. I have had the opportunity to buy masks in my racing colours – I turned it down. I just do NOT want to wear a mask. I find it uncomfortable and seeing everybody masked up is intimidating, I find. Maybe it’s a hang up from the day I went under the knife to have my tonsils out, aged six. I still remember the anaesthetist looming over me and reading my name off the band round my wrist 🙁

      2. Tut, tut. In the revised version, the huzzies are wearing a lighter shade of dark.

  26. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Mrs HJ has just reminded me that the antics of the BLM thugs seem to have disappeared. No more statues vandalised, no more fine reputations destroyed. Why so? Could it be thanks to the action of the Mayor of Bristol taking a stand? Full marks to him if so, although the return of such thuggery cannot be ruled out of course. Better things to do now that the pubs are open again?

    1. Morning Hugh. They are putting on a much better show in the States but even there the accusations of it being a cover for a Marxist takeover has had an effect and they have throttled back until after the election.

    2. Morning Hugh. They are putting on a much better show in the States but even there the accusations of it being a cover for a Marxist takeover has had an effect and they have throttled back until after the election.

    3. Morning Hugh. They are putting on a much better show in the States but even there the accusations of it being a cover for a Marxist takeover has had an effect and they have throttled back until after the election.

  27. Good morning, my friends

    The time has surely come when no new members of the House of Lords should be admitted unless, for every new appointment at least 50 are removed until such times as there are no more than 200 peers in total? There are almost 800 ‘lords’ a-sleeping – and the ones that are awake are even more unnecessary.

    While I am very happy for the splendid woman, Kate Hoey, to be ennobled, making the likes of Johnson’s brother and the odious Ken Clarke lords – both of whom did their best to thwart Brexit – shows us just how absurd and venal the whole system has become.

    2. Morning Rastus – ex MP Lord Fowler was on BBC Radio 4 this morning on the subject of the number of Lords and Dames. He said the Lords themselves thought their numbers were too great and he suggested that 600 was a number to aim for. Like you, I consider 200 would be a more realistic number. Lord Fowler said there were many Lords who were just not pulling their weight and would not be missed. He said Ken Clark was an excellent choice – I disagree. The reduction in the numbers in the HoL should go hand in hand with a reduction in the number of MPs and constituencies. Our political system is a burden on the taxpayer and this needs to be dealt with ASAP. [edited to change HoC to HoL in penultimate sentence.}

      1. Hear, hear Clyde. We have an absurdly large legislature and urgent reductions are required. Fat chance, when those who should be responsible for making substantial cuts are also appointing their chums at a rapid rate.

        If Fowlpest and his chums think 600 peers is about right, nothing will change.

      2. Two for newly defined ‘regions’ but no more than 200-225. Retire at 75. Non attendance requires resignation. Voting records – are these known? If not they should be.

    3. 321956+ up ticks,
      Morning R,
      Please keep in mind your place, as in, yours is not to reason why.
      Also remember, the lab/lib/con vote MUST be maintained
      ………….. FOREVER.

  28. Prof Chris Whitty’s ‘trade-offs’ warning could mean pubs closing so schools can open

    Chief medical officer says ‘we have probably reached near the limits, or

    the limits, of what we can do in terms of opening up society’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/31/prof-chris-whittys-trade-offs-warning-could-mean-pubs-closing/

    Don’t remember your name on any ballot,now about your dodgy connections to Gates……………

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/398afbbee8695f2cd81bc6c46764f77b5d8f80ed8e462c9ac66715092c73c336.png
    What a dangerous farce this all is

    1. He did work in Africa for Gates in 2008 and probably delivered his report personally.

  29. More testing means more infections detected, means more lockdowns, means masks, means Bill Gates’ billion dollar vaccinations, which is what Boros Johnson’s plan has been about since the beginning.

      1. To my surprise – during our kitten search – the RSPCA have lots of young ferrets on offer.

  31. Good morning all

    A Tory MP was accused of racism yesterday after claiming the ‘vast majority’ breaking lockdown restrictions were from black and minority ethnic communities.

    Craig Whittaker, who represents Calder Valley in West Yorkshire, said there were ‘sections of our community that are just not taking the pandemic seriously’.

    He made the comments during an interview with LBC Radio after local lockdown measures were imposed on large parts of the North including his constituency.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8581949/Tory-MP-sparks-racism-row-claiming-vast-majority-lockdown-breakers-BAME.html

    Hang on there , don’t hound the poor man, most of us know he is correct, don’t we.

      1. Good afternoon, Anne

        Enobarbus put it very well.

        (You are more than welcome to borrow my stock quotations!)

      2. 321956+ up ticks,
        Morning Anne,
        Tony & Cleo,
        What would old Shaky made of,
        “The truth should be made to be silent”
        Current lab/lib/cons coalitions politico’s view.

        1. Tudor and Jacobean England were police states. Billy knew how to get round these things.
          His least successful play is Henry VIII; too close for comfort.

  32. So now we know Tony Blair and Gordon Brown sold 650 government buildings to George Soros in 2001.. which on resale apparently gave George Soros a profit of up to $500,000,000 !

    Did Tony and Gordon get a cut ?

    Was it a quid quo pro for campaign funds perhaps promised at their New York meeting in 1996 ?

    1. This is a country that is unnutterably corrupt in every conceivable way and any estimate of it will almost certainly be well below the reality!

    2. This is a country that is unnutterably corrupt in every conceivable way and any estimate of it will almost certainly be well below the reality!

      1. It fits in with Peter Schweizer’s revelation that Obama let Soros into the US Treasury in 2009 for apparent insider trading reasons connected to the fiscal expansion.

        What about the ERM ? ! !

    1. Here’s some answers from Canada to what may as well be a rhetorical question. Overall cases in Canada – 115,000 cases and 8,900 deaths up to the end of July..

      At the end of May, the following were reported by two major chains:

      Loblaws Inc, which has almost 200,000 employees said 204 of them have tested positive for COVID-19.

      Walmart Canada reports that 73 of its associates have contracted the virus and one has died

      Not many is it?

    2. 321956+ up ticks.
      O2O,
      Gerard, what with your moths & the farage back stabbing actions a decent woolie garment does not have a great life span.

  35. So have Britain’s agonies since 1997 been due to massive corruption between Blair and Soros ?

    Looking that way !

    1. Spreading its covid particles wherever it goes. The NHS is NOT praiseworthy, like PHE, it’s a disaster.

    2. Spreading its covid particles wherever it goes. The NHS is NOT praiseworthy, like PHE, it’s a disaster.

    3. Thanks Belle, and good morning.

      For aviation buffs this is the aircraft involved:

      https://www.aircraftrestorationcompany.com/spitfire-pl983

      Note the mention of Martin Sargeant, and thereby hangs a tale…

      Just outside the Kent village of Goudhurst there is a grass airstrip and a farm building that looks suspiciously like a hangar. My work meant that I used the road alongside it quite frequently, and I often wondered what was kept there. One day in 2001 as I was passing the hangar doors were open, and standing outside was a Spitfire. Having stopped and turned around I pulled up outside the gate. Seeing me taking a close interest Martin Sargeant, the operator and pilot of the aircraft, invited me in for a closer look. It turned out to be a PRXI being prepared for its annual CAA certification. What a magnificent machine! Having filled my boots for about 20 minutes, during which he was chatty and very patient, I went on my way.

      Three weeks later Martin Sargeant was killed whilst displaying the aircraft at Rouen. From the subsequent investigation he reported a loss of oil pressure, requiring him to land immediately. He wasn’t in a position to put it down on the main runway so headed for the emergency strip. Unfortunately this was occupied – by a French family having a picnic. In abandoning his attempt to land there the aircraft suffered a wing stall and it went straight down.

      I still have the newspaper that reported the crash. I was under the impression that the Spitfire was totally destroyed in the accident, but it is good to know that it was eventually restored.

      As far as I know the Sargeant family still operate a couple of garages in the village, and vintage cars can be seen outside, in various stages of restoration. His son (or sons?) still fly other aircraft from the strip.

    4. I suspect the nurses would rather a bloody payrise as they’ve had wages held down now for a decade. They don’t want clapping, they don’t care about 80 year old planes, they want to pay their bills and have a bit of a life.

      1. Trump met Epstein and presumably Maxwell several times and that is what the MSM will focus on.
        I certainly hope there is no evidence of Trump having been on the “Lolita Express” nor of his visiting Epstein’s Island.
        The release of the legal papers etc. will give a better idea of what may come out.

        My money is still on an unfortunate “accident” killing her.

        3. Didn’t Trump kick him out of one of his hotels for unacceptable behaviour?

    1. I remember years go, we went to Devon for a family holiday my father had his dark blue blazer proudly displaying his RAF badge on the breast pocket.
      As we walked out of the station at Torquay, a low flying sea gull flew over and left a splattering right across his shoulder and half way down his back.
      No chips involved. Possibly other peoples.

    1. With the elevation of Clarke, Johnson and Hammond to the HOL the suggestion is that the only way of getting our economy working again is to rejoin the EU.

      Let’s have a referendum.

    2. With the elevation of Clarke, Johnson and Hammond to the HOL the suggestion is that the only way of getting our economy working again is to rejoin the EU.

      Let’s have a referendum.

      1. 321956+ up ticks,
        afternoon JH,
        Check my back post the three tier semi re-entry rocket, the wretch cameron blast off, the mayday
        intermediate stage until burn out the johnson semi re-entry nose cone,game set & match.
        The only credible opposition UKIP under Battens leadership treacherously taken out first.
        The brexit party well meaning but the leadership has proved himself NOT to be trusted.
        It is very hard to better any governance party politicos at treachery.

  41. Good Moaning.
    I now know how people within the Soviet bloc coped.
    Just switch off from the political shenanigans. Concentrate on your immediate circle and the little things of life.
    Assume you’re being lied to and avoid as much contact with public ‘servants’ as possible.
    The arbitrary actions of this government are beyond satire.

    1. Morning Anne

      It is as if we have speed walked to the future . No wonder I am having nightmares.

      Why are the politicians kow towing to BLM and are now so apologetic to the Muslims community .
      What power have the Muslims got over our politicians . Is it an oil issue, or fear of more terrorism?

      I know we have covered all of that in previous discussions on here, but everytime the radio is switched or the TV , Moh and I feel overwhelmed by
      the BBC / ITV range of diversity .. it is as if the country has been taken over by BAME, far too much exposure.

      After you told us all you were taking up needlepoint , I bought a magazine on Crochet with some free hooks.. All I need to do now is find some wool!

      May focus my mind on lighter things!

      1. Moh and I feel overwhelmed by the BBC / ITV range of diversity

        You shouldn’t watch them Belle. I don’t!

      3. Hi Belle,
        I took up needlepoint some years ago, a difficult and anxious time for me. Needlepoint kept me sane … the gentle rhythmn of the stitching was very therapeutic. I thoroughly recommend it.
        Beware…… I have more needlepoint cushions than I know what to do with…..!

        Elizabeth Bradley kits rec…. harmonious colours and lots of flowers/dogs designs .. Ehrman also excellent.
        E-bay good hunting ground for kits and unfinished items!

        1. Have you tried Quilting PT, good lady has spent many hours making some fantastic items for our grand children using her recently learnt skills.

          1. Forgotten about quilting. I remember a needlework teacher who used to paint her designs on to cotton or silk and then quilt them. They were absolutely stunning.

          2. Some years ago when i was visiting my sister my niece was rather gloomy. I asked her why and she told me she hadn’t finished her needlework project which needed handing in the following day.

            The lazy minx had only sewn three hexagons together. I sat up all night and finished it for her.

            Did i get a thank you? No.

          6. The lady who taught the class has now retried. But i heard that her quilts have been on display in various the world.

        1. I have been listening to more music of late. There is nothing worth watching on TV (apart from the racing and even that has woke commentators).

          1. I’ve spent even more time online (here) or on other forums. Also reading on kindle and actual books.

          2. I’ve read a lot of books, too. Just finished a biog of Eleanor of Aquitaine a friend gave me. Am currently reading Aspects of Aristocracy by David Carradine.

          6. I’ll keep an eye out for it when I venture back into charity shops (once the mask-wearing restrictions are lifted).

  42. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/31/herd-immunity-long-term-solution-covid-19-has-become-taboo-says/

    It is notable that the only sensible approach is advocated by an emeritus professor, ie now retired.

    ”

    Herd immunity is the only long-term solution to Covid-19 but the idea has wrongly become “taboo”, a leading scientist has said.
    The concept currently “provokes hostility and controversy” but it
    must be revisited, according to Raj Bhopal, emeritus professor of public
    health at Edinburgh University”

  43. Michael Deacon can be variable, but, this is pretty spot-on:

    Crystal clear

    Exclusive to this column: Matt Hancock’s list of clear, simple and easy-to-follow local lockdown rules for the coming week.

    1. Residents of Gateshead will be permitted to meet up with friends inside a laundrette, sauna or hot-air balloon, but not a squash club, fishmonger’s or municipal bandstand.

    2. Anyone in Somerset wishing to visit a petting zoo will need a permission slip signed by two witnesses, unless it’s a Thursday or their surname begins with N.

    3. Families in Great Yarmouth will be permitted to meet their grandmothers for a game of Jenga, but not Buckaroo. Guidance on Boggle will be announced via Snapchat at midnight.

    4. Residents of Melton Mowbray will be allowed outdoors to walk their dogs, but only in a counter-clockwise direction.

    5. Bowling alleys will be permitted to reopen throughout Northamptonshire, but only on Wednesdays between the hours of 2.00 and 5.00am. All players are required by law to wear swimming goggles, a miner’s helmet and a pair of brand-new gardening gloves (latex not cotton).

    1. “Guidance on Boggle will be announced via Snapchat at midnight.”

      Yes, I noticed in my missive to the government ‘financial ombudsman’ department that if you have a problem they invite you to contact them via Facebook or Twitter! What a ridiculous situation though down in the small print I eventually found an email and, wonder of wonders, a postal address to send the complaints form to.

  45. In relation to Tony Blair giving George Soros a profit of up to $500,000,000 on the sale of government buildings in 2001………..

    ”Is there anything else to which you wish to draw my attention, Mr Holmes ?”

    ”To the curious incident of the dog, Conservative, Inspector Gregory”.

    ”The dog, Conservative, did nothing, Mr Holmes”.

    ”That, Inspector Gregory, is the curious incident”.

  46. A weekend in which I hope Lewis (‘I speak for under-privileged multi-millionaires’) Hamilton loses.

    Also harbour tiny hope that some of the footballers today will have the courage / commonsense not to show their submission to Marxism.

    1. I think most of them are too stupid to realise they’ve been taken for fools, stooges and “useful idiots”. The BLM organisers know this full well, but some of their followers think it’s all aboutl inequality and wrongs done to black people.

    2. Don’t hold your breath. I noticed the cricketers in the England v Ireland ODI on Thursday were ‘taking the knee’. I had hoped all this nonsense would have been over after the Test series against The West Indies, but it looks as though it’s going to carry on all Summer.

        2. At least one – name of Singh. You’ll have to refer to Major Gowen of Fawlty Towers as to what type of BAME he is.

    3. Yo VOM

      The true indication of ‘equality’ would be if all BAME wendyballers refused to bend to a Communist Cabal

    1. Hold back Tom,……… who’s gonna feed yer ??
      And of course you might have a nut allergy.

  48. Bloody scammers, do they ever give up, the latest one is telling me my TV licence will be suspended.

    That’s good, I haven’t had one for well over ten years.

  49. Economic crisis fuels exodus of Tunisian migrants – and their pets. 1 August 2020 • 1:13pm.

    “These are uncontrolled migration flows which are creating serious problems relating to health security,” said Ms Lamorgese, the interior minister.

    “Managing these flows in normal times is hard enough but now, with the problems associated with Covid-19, the situation is really very complex.”

    Those who do remain in the reception centres are likely to be sent back to Tunisia under a repatriation agreement between Tunis and Rome.

    The Italian interior ministry wants to step up the number of flights that take Tunisians back to their home country.

    I think it is safe to assume that these are as much lies as those issued by the UK Government. Anyway there must eventually come a point where the situation gets out of control and they become useless. That is when things will get dangerous. Governments will collapse and pretty much anything might happen. How long will it be? Not long I would have thought. The whole system is breaking down in front of our eyes!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/01/economic-crisis-fuels-exodus-tunisian-migrants-pets/

    1. Feeling a bit down today, I wondered just how bad it would get before I popped my clogs 🙁

        1. Thanks, John. Just occasionally a morbid thought slips in before I shake myself and get on with life.

          1. Having suffered with low-level depression throughout my life (plus several more serious bouts), I do understand, my friend.

          2. Thanks, John. It’s a silent, hidden illness in many cases. Unless people have experienced it, they don’t really appreciate.

  50. Russia preparing mass vaccination against coronavirus for October. AUGUST 1, 2020 / 9:11 AM

    Russia’s health minister is preparing a mass vaccination campaign against the novel coronavirus for October, local news agencies reported on Saturday, after a vaccine completed clinical trials.

    Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said the Gamaleya Institute, a state research facility in Moscow, had completed clinical trials of the vaccine and paperwork is being prepared to register it, Interfax news agency reported.

    Hmmm. Vlad’s on the ball! I might put my name down! Aramintsov Mintyskaya.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-russia-vaccine/russia-plans-mass-vaccination-against-coronavirus-from-october-ria-reports-idUSKBN24X3KO

        2. The summer term was a dead loss as far as sport was concerned. I didn’t like tennis; ditto rounders. And then there was bloody Sports Day.
          At least during the winter I could chop someone down with a hockey ball or trip them up with the stick.

          1. I hated sports at school. Swimming was the worst. My mother got tired of writing the excuse letters.

          2. Aaarrgghh ….. the Garrison swimming pool. Bloody cold and noisy and by the time you’d been bussed over there and changed, the whole expedition was a waste of time. Nanoseconds to dry yourself, get dressed and spend the rest of the day feeling clammy and chilled.

          3. I loathed football and rugby. Still do. I could be found hiding in the library. I enjoyed orienteering which meant extended fag break and a trip to the beach for an ice cream.

            I was good at trampolining and gym.

          4. I loved all sports at school, especially cricket, but my enthusiasm for them didn’t always match my skill levels.

            When I moved back to my old village (38 years ago … sheesh!) my milk-woman was the aunt of an old school mate. When she told him that I was a new customer he replied, “Oh, Grizz. I remember him. He was usually the last to be picked when we were choosing teams for football!”

            That could be my epitaph!

          5. Like cross country running. Hide behind the hedges, let the games mistress canter past while making encouraging yipping noises, and then stroll back; making sure to arrive after the keen runners so as not to arouse suspicion.
            I’ve thought of that as I’ve walked a succession of dogs over those very same paths.

          6. I liked cross country running, especially in Winter. One circuit of Poole Park lake (1.25 miles), shower, change, go home early while the other poor buggers shivered on the rugby & football pitches.

          7. When it was cross-country time, me and my fellow reprobates would hang up our blazers in the changing room and casually saunter out of the school gate and make our way to a nearby field, where there was some kind of animal shelter. We’d spark up the Bachelors, generally arse around, and stroll back to base just in time to see our classmates returning from their efforts breathless and covered in sweat.

            Th PE teacher was neither blind nor stupid. He was only too glad to get the likes of me out from under the feet of the sporting types.

          8. We did lacrosse amongst other sports. When I started, I was put in the school team – which meant staying after school or even Saturdays, if we were playing inter-school matches. Horrors! I loathed school, and soon learnt to spend the whole game chatting with my opposite player so as never to be picked again. I never was.

          9. I liked tennis and swimming, but I was useless at gym exercises and couldn’t run a yard. I was excused field sports after I nearly broke someone’s arm when the discus slipped out of my fingers – oops!

          11. One year I genuinely hurt my ankle when getting tangled up with a hurdle.
            Another year, I was involved in a serious art project for Speech Day.
            Most years, I merely lost in the heats, so never made the Big Day.

          12. Winter training to be a Pushy Nurse?

            (Dons winter woollies and retreats to the garden).

    1. Missy waits patiently for the watering can to fill from one of the rain butts, then she pounces & drinks from the can.

      1. Odd the way some animals prefer filthy water to nice fresh clean tapwater. Perhaps they don’t like the scent of chlorine.

        1. I fill her indoor water bowl with cold water from the hot tap, so some of the chlorine should have boiled off. Nevertheless she hardly imbibes.

          1. If you have a traditional HW cylinder, fed from a CW tank in the loft, what comes out of the hot tap can in no way be described as potable water. Just saying…

          4. I often fill my saucepans from the hot tap, particularly if I’m steaming something, to give them a head start.

          5. Combi boilers are OK. I wouldn’t want to drink anything that originated in my CW storage tank. My induction hob is pretty quick, but I have been known to half fill the pan, and add the rest from the kettle.

          7. Wouldn’t dream of using water from a hot tap for anything other than washing up!

        2. I have to fill Dolly’s bowl from the bathroom sink tap. It’s at the front of the bungalow. The kitchen tap at the back is the old lead pipe and she won’t drink it.

  56. In the great days of the British Empire, a new commanding officer was sent to a South African bush outpost to relieve the retiring Colonel.

    After welcoming his replacement and showing the usual courtesies (gin and tonic, cucumber sandwiches, etc.) which protocol decrees, the retiring Colonel said, “You must meet my Adjutant, Captain Smithers, he’s my right-hand man and is really the strength of this office. His talent is simply boundless.”
    Smithers was summoned and introduced to the new CO, who was surprised to meet a hunchback, one eyed, toothless, hairless, scabbed and pockmarked specimen of humanity, a particularly unattractive man less than three feet tall.
    “Smithers, old man, tell your new CO about yourself.”
    “Well, sir, I played cricket for England, graduated with honours from Sandhurst, won the Military Cross and Bar after three expeditions behind enemy lines. I’ve represented Great Britain in equestrian events and won a Silver Medal in the middleweight boxing division of the Olympics. I have researched the history of…”
    At that point, the Colonel interrupted. “Yes, yes, never mind all that, Smithers, he can find all that in your file. Tell him about the day you told the Witch Doctor to f*ck off.”

    1. Having assisted with the funeral of a retired Lt Col, and had multiple dealings with his son, a Lt Gen in the last fortnight, I would love to share that with the latter. But I’ll prolly pass…

        1. Having spent rather longer than I would, playing at a normal funeral, searching for, downloading, processing and burning all the music to CD, twice, I’ll wait to see whether my usual fee is paid. Then I’ll share it… :-))

          1. Do you find reluctance on some people’s part to pay up?

            A couple of years back we almost had a stand up brawl when the organist gently asked for his fee after a wedding.

          2. No. Generally, couples/FD’s are told what the scale of fees includes, and they pay up. Some years ago in the county of the South Folk, I had an argument with the churchwarden of one of the parishes in the United Benefice, since he reckoned that – should he be sufficiently gifted to be able to play the organ, he would happily do it for nothing. Despite ending up as Chapel Clerk at King’s, he referred to the period between incumbents as an interrectum, so could be safely ignored.

          3. The “brawl” that I mentioned involved a couple whose parents had paid £2,000 for the bride’s frock – and £10,000 for the reception….

          4. Well they were skint by then.

            Maybe the lurgy will bring some fiscal sense back to the wedding and funeral business.

          8. £40 an hour to play the organ? I’ve very experienced devops engineers not on that.

          12. Thanks, Bill. Those rates are generally rather higher than is my experience, but – given the free house – , I’m not about to argue at present. Besides, for 4 months, I’ve done none of it, and have no idea when it’s likely to be reinstated.

          13. 1 Timothy 5.18

            France may differ, but here in Blighty, the labourer/organist is worthy of his/her hire.

            The Royal School of Church Music used to publish salary scales, but no longer, for some EU related reason.

            I’ve had bugger-all since lockdown, but, for what it’s worth, our fees are as follows:

            Playing for a normal Sunday service, without previously attending a choir practice: £25

            Weddings, allowing for the possibility/probability that someone will video the performance: £140

            Funerals (less so): £95

          14. I’ve never seen a scale here in France. I know some organists who charge for weddings – particularly the ones who make their living out of music, such as teachers. Charging for funerals is generally seen as “not done”, particularly in one’s own parish. Ditto for Sunday services. About once a year on average, usually after a wedding but sometimes after a funeral, a member of the family slips me an envelope with 20€ in it. On one occasion a widow actually came to the house a few days after the funeral with a lovely great bunch of flowers, which was really lovely.

            To be fair, I’d be a bit shy of asking for dosh as I don’t actually play that well – I do my best, and I enjoy it, but that’s about as far as it goes. I believe that in the UK they call people like me “reluctant organists” – a bit mean, as we’re all probably quite keen really but just not very good! But needs must. If I’m not there, they have to sing a capella more often than not.

          15. I’ve never seen a scale here in France. I know some organists who charge for weddings – particularly the ones who make their living out of music, such as teachers. Charging for funerals is generally seen as “not done”, particularly in one’s own parish. Ditto for Sunday services. About once a year on average, usually after a wedding but sometimes after a funeral, a member of the family slips me an envelope with 20€ in it. On one occasion a widow actually came to the house a few days after the funeral with a lovely great bunch of flowers, which was really lovely.

            To be fair, I’d be a bit shy of asking for dosh as I don’t actually play that well – I do my best, and I enjoy it, but that’s about as far as it goes. I believe that in the UK they call people like me “reluctant organists” – a bit mean, as we’re all probably quite keen really but just not very good! But needs must. If I’m not there, they have to sing a capella more often than not.

    3. There didn’t appear to be any surges in infection rates after those earlier scrambles to the beach or protests.

      1. Could that be because the people were white anglo-saxons and so less liable to be infected. As opposed to the bames and slammers who are?

        1. Maybe – but there were surely a few Bames among them – especially at the BLM demos.

          3. True! But in yer sarf of France, they are often on the beaches….some even swim.

          5. No – mostly Africans – integrated, often with their white pals.

            On one single occasion a young slammer couple with child came to the beach. The bloke in swimming costume cavorted in the sea with his son; the woman – completely in a bin bag stayed on the beach and looked at her mobile phone.

            Pathetic.

          7. Why is it sad? They choose to exist in the dark ages so that is the price they pay.

            The real unhappiness is that those controlling the hegemony are supported wholesale by the very same groups who supposedly fight for the opposite here.

            It’s demented. The ferocious doublethink is staggering – and they are oblivious to it!

          8. It’s sad because, despite their ferid and revolting beliefs, they are still human.

          10. I saw a Black couple stretched out in the sun on the beach on the News yes’day. They do go darker, y’know.

    1. It took me some time to work out what the things on springs were – initially I thought they were perlice; then slammer women….

          5. I know you’ve had them in your veg patch. One has just appeared in mine and the traps are useless because the soil is fine and they are too deep to get at.

            At least in the “lawns” one can set traps in tunnels with some hope that the tunnel won’t immediately cave in allowing the mole to push soil into any trap and clogging it.

      2. About a week ago I received a letter from “3”, provider of the SIM for my mobile phone. They asked if I would like a “hot dog leg snap”. I had to go to the local “3” shop in town to try and find out what the heck that meant, suggesting that if the company wanted to keep my custom it should try writing to me in English and not in Yoof-speak. I still have no idea what the letter meant.

        1. A hot dog leg snap is a picture of your naked legs taken from the chest area. They are popular with young girls who like to show off their legs in bikinis against a beach backdrop.
          Perhaps it has another meaning, let’s hope so 🙂

          3. All I was told is that “snap” is short for “snapchat” so I suspect your explanation is misguided. And how did you know that I use my mobile phone when I wear my bikini?

        2. Good afternoon, Else.

          I cannot send you the daily usual (in another place) since all attempts to do so are returned to me with a message:

          “Mr Lime’s inbox (at a secret location on the backs streets of Old Vienna) is FULL and will no longer receive any more secret messages.”

          A spot of housekeeping might be in order, if not just to keep Holly Martins from the doorstep!🤔 👍🏻

          1. I’ve been aware of this from around 9am, Grizzly, but my efforts to sort it out have been – so far – unsuccessful, so I have moved from my laptop to my iMac and have enjoyed watching THE CLOUDED YELLOW (1950) on YouTube. Highly recommended to all NoTTLers.

            Thanks, though, for flagging this up. Perhaps I will have a go at thinning out my laptop inbox and see if this does the trick. The message which appeared on the laptop mentioned nothing about a full INBOX, but rather suggested that I needed to change my PASSWORD. Naturally, there is nothing on the Help site of my internet provider to help me – all it does is ask for my password before it will do so! Aaaargh!

          2. Grizzly, I thinned out Mr Lime’s inbox by dozens and dozens and dozens of emails, but no joy. I will try to contact a human being tomorrow to see if they can help solve the problem.

    1. Right, I’m taking bets that the Royal Navy will prevent them doing this if in English waters and if in French they’ll probably be pushed away.

      Odds are…

      Flip. Won’t make any money on a sure thing.

      1. 321956+ up ticks,
        Evening W,
        Methinks you miss a major point, there is very little
        if any, bad publicity.

    2. Good for you.
      You’d better have your rubber boat ready in case you are rammed. But you might not have the proper qualifications to return to the UK.

      1. 321956+ up ticks,
        Evening RE,
        If it were but me, I would honestly have a flotilla
        of small boats, a reverse Dunkirk not so much as damaging the invaders more to show this
        ersatz governance group their treacherous actions are totally unacceptable.
        It could quite easily become a reality because
        I do believe there are like minded peoples now as there were in 1940.

  60. The saga of my suspended fund continues. After I formally raised a complaint with the company, pointing out I had a letter from them confirming that they had paid the proceeds to me, dated 22nd July, today I have a new letter. My address but referring to a name of which I have no knowledge, confirming the fund is suspended. They are clearly in a state of full incompetence!
    I’ll give it a couple of weeks and then raise it with the external body now known as the Financial Conduct Authority!

    1. If you are thinking you may have to go the Finacial Services Ombudsman, do so sooner rather than later.

      I had a company string me along for months until they refused to reply. I went to the FSO and was informed that because the company had sent a standard letter with options that included going to the FSA at the outset, my time limit to apply had expired. The standard letter did not refer to my complaint, if I recall correctly it was an attachment to the initial response regarding my complaint and the “real” letter, as far as I was concerned stated that they would look into my complaint and get back to me.

      When I eventually spoke to a representative of the FSO he said he was sorry, and that I had a valid complaint, but rules woz rules guv, sorreee.

      1. I had dealings with the tax ombudsman some years ago Sos and was left with the impression that its real purpose was to put the seal of approval on whatever the Inland Revenue had decided.

          1. The letters I was sent always hinted that I was the one at fault and were always oriented toward some form of reconciliation or apology. The killer was the third one I think, were the Ombudsman (actually a woman) referred to the Inland Revenue officer I was dealing with by her Christian name and assuring me that she had meant no harm! Needless to say I gave up at this point!

          3. I did some research afterwards and discovered that the Ombudsman was a former Director at the Inland Revenue! She and the woman I was complaining about were former colleagues!

          4. I did some research afterwards and discovered that the Ombudsman was a former Director at the Inland Revenue! She and the woman I was complaining about were former colleagues!

          5. I did some research afterwards and discovered that the Ombudsman was a former Director at the Inland Revenue! She and the woman I was complaining about were former colleagues!

    2. Give them one chance only, then no Mr Nice Guy. Bring up the big guns ASAP. Burn down their offices and slaughter their firstborn.

      1. I have taken it that the letter today is their final response. So I’ve filled in and sent off the Financial Ombudsman form. Why do these outfits keep changing their name I wonder, FSA, then FCA and now Ombudsman…You’d think they were trying to put you off…

  61. Estimated 11,000 Migrants Arrived in Italy in a Single Week. 1 August 2020.

    Italy has seen a surge in migrant arrivals in recent weeks, with as many as 11,000 arriving last week, half of them coming from Tunisia.
    The Italian Interior Ministry released a statement this week saying: “Autonomous landings on the Italian coast have more than multiplied in a very short period of time.”

    Of the 11,000 migrants to arrive in Italy last week, many came by small boat. Around half of them came from Tunisia, most of them Tunisian citizens.

    There does seem to be sudden rush! Is the complaint about Eid al-Adha being cancelled because it was intended to be the Muslim St Bartholomew’s Day?

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/08/01/estimated-11000-migrants-arrive-italy-single-week/

        1. Unfortunately the beer is not as exciting as its name would suggest. Never mind, I’ll struggle through it.

  63. I had naively assumed that the Border Force was meant to protect our borders from illegal entries. No wonder many people call it the Border Farce.

    However, since the BFs at the BF seem to welcome the entry of illegals with open arms, I suggest that they emulate the police and call themselves the Border Service.

    5. What part of “The UK has signed the UN Migration Pact” do people not understand?
      The Migration Pact expresses the government’s intention to legalise all migration, from anywhere in the world, for any reason.
      BLM is backing this policy up by labelling Francis Drake and Winston Churchill as criminals.
      Letting them in IS the policy.

  64. 760 km of traffic queues in yer France as the lemmings head for their holidays. Plus the “canicule” = temps at 30º plus…

    Makes me quite pleased to be in Narfurk.

      1. You young flatterer, you. I’ll send you my phone number…. THEN you’ll be disappointed.

    2. poppiesdad: you and me both, Bill. (And me, as well, actually – south Cambridgeshire to be precise.)

    3. You should se the Canadian lemmings queued up at the entrance to the day use Provincial park near us. Never mind that they have closed the park because of overcrowding, many are stil sitting there waiting for heavenly intervention.

      Frustrated tourists now cruising the wineries and breweries and becoming increasingly belligerent as they find that the watering holes are also restricting access.

      Imagine getting up at dawn for a two hour drive from Toronto during which they will have passed a number of road signs telling them that the park is closed only to find that indeed, the park is closed. Looks good on them.

        2. She is not out of her depth.
          IT IS GOVERNMENT POLICY.
          They have signed the UN Migration Pact.

          1. 321956+ up ticks,
            Evening BB2,
            None are out of their depth they are ALL fully steeped in treachery.
            If any are to be considered out of their depth they are to be found within the electorate, by the thousands.

        3. Acsherly Bill.
          I don’t think she is out of her depth,
          I believe that as each day unfolds Priti becomes
          more aware of the duplicitinous of HMG………..

          .FBs… the lot of them!!

    2. 321956+ up ticks,
      Evening WS,
      Until the indigenous move on or unless there is an almighty radical change in the voting pattern.

          6. Buffalo Currant smells strongly of cloves.

            https://www.google.co.uk/search?sxsrf=ALeKk03_E7Ebivp-uxC6OvfWt-0ORZYHDg%3A1595784478694&source=hp&ei=Hr0dX_zzJ5K-UtispKAE&q=buffalo+currant&oq=buffalo+currant&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQAzIFCC4QkwIyAggAOgcIIxDqAhAnOg0ILhDHARCjAhDqAhAnOgcILhDqAhAnOggIABCxAxCDAToLCC4QsQMQxwEQowI6BQgAELEDOg0ILhDHARCvARAnEJMCOgQIIxAnOgUIABCRAjoECC4QQzoECAAQQzoKCC4QxwEQowIQQzoHCC4QsQMQQzoKCC4QsQMQQxCTAjoNCC4QsQMQxwEQowIQQzoICC4QxwEQrwE6BwgAELEDEEM6BQguELEDOgIILjoECAAQClDAvzBYyuowYNTvMGgBcAB4AIABiQGIAaAKkgEEMTEuNJgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXqwAQo&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwj8-vO3uOvqAhUSnxQKHVgWCUQQ4dUDCAk&uact=5

        2. It’s like olives, you have to work at it. I remember the first time I tasted an olive, I thought it was a joke. Now I love them.

          10. I prefer black ones to greens…….I know what you mean. I acquired the taste for gin when I was 18, at my cousin’s wedding.

  67. I cancelled my subscription to the DT weeks ago, but the fact that I haven’t cleared my cookies means I’m occasionally drawn to the increasing drivel, as a moth to a flame. I’ve just been reading Judith Wood’s piece about being forced to holiday in a tent in Norfolk instead of a cottage in France (cue tiny violins), in which she describes her “gazebo (blowing) away in a South Downs twister” and “(finding her)self in an East Sussex field, battling with the elements.”

    Some wind…

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/plan-b-holiday-instead-cottage-france-got-wet-tent-norfolk/

  68. The twinned injustices of race and class lie at the heart of the Grenfell tragedy. 1 August 2020.

    After a coronavirus-imposed break, the Grenfell inquiry reopened this month, and members of the Grenfell Next of Kin group wasted no time in addressing what has seemingly remained unsaid at the official level. They requested that an addition be made to the eight parts of the inquiry to look into how race and class contributed to the tragedy. They wrote that “systemic racism goes deep to the heart of the problem that caused the catastrophe. Questions around race and social class are at the heart of this truth-seeking and we would be grateful if you can revisit it and add it as an extra module”.

    We do not know yet if the inquiry chairman, Martin Moore-Bick, will accede to their request, but the group is right to recognise that without acknowledging the twinned injustices of race and class, and the sinister way they operate, the inquiry will be missing a core component.

    It was a racist fridge? Actually we see here the sheer lunacy of Cultural Marxism where Acts of God become symbols of hidden forces within Society. It is not unlike the world our ancestors inhabited where everything was at the mercy of malignant supernatural beings who had to be pacified and assuaged with offerings and sacrifices. Such have we become!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/01/the-twinned-injustices-of-race-and-class-lie-at-the-heart-of-the-grenfell-tragedy

          1. Nooooo… My FF opens to the left. What should I do?

            (other than take the knee, which is problematic, since it’s difficult to get up again)…

          7. How insulting! ;@)

            ” rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated.”

        5. It’s very inflammatory.
          Not only has the ozone creating safe refrigerant had to be replaced by highly volatile explosive alternative⚠️ but once an explosion has occurred 🎆 in a confined space the inflammable insulating material ⚠️keeps an ongoing inferno dangerously out of control🔥🙆🔥🗣️🔥🙏🔥🌡…🚨🚒🚨🚒🚨🚒.

          3. 🙄😏😣😥😮🤐😯😪😫😌😛😛😜😝🤤😒😓😔😕🙃🤑😲😷💉 Ah that’s better!😵

    2. Would the Fire Service have acted any differently if they had known the inhabitants of the block of flats were white? How would they have known? Sounds to me like a re-stating of the Victim mentality.

      1. I’d imagine their first response would have been abject surprise that therre were any white people in London and concluded the report a nonsense and the building empty.

    3. “The twinned injustices of race and class”
      Well that’s one way of describing flats paid for by British taxpayers, let at subsidised rent to foreigners, some of whom may have illegally sublet them to people without papers.

      1. Perhaps the grauniad means the taxpayers should have been fleeced more by the blatantly fraudulent, and complaining about our money, earned through our labour being spent on feckless wasters is somehow unfair?

        Who know what the guardian thinks. It’s full of idiots who write tosh to earn their £1000 articles selling to an audience of less than 100K who do the same.

        One thing I would do immediately when I am emperor is require the guardian to publish on every page of website and ghastly print edition that it is funded from deliberate and intentional tax avoidance from an offshore trust itself funded by investing in [insert everything Lefties hate].

        It won’t stop them, but it’ll force them to admit their hypocrisy and self righteous arrogance.

        1. We might not be blessed with so many of them if that were the case, and the Guardian readers at the BBC would have to pay more for their maids, nannies, gardeners and odd job men.

    4. Please stop posting from the guardian. It’s combination of insanity and doublethink hurt my meagre intellectual facilities.

      Truly, they are morons. Race had nothing to do with it. Those who ‘lived’ there (or more accurately sub let) could have lived anywhere else but they lived on welfare because they were not educated enough to earn more.

      Class is an invention of the Left – especially comical as they’re all usually upper class snobs who’ve never actually carried out manual labour in their lives. Thus they create something to label people.

  69. 321965+ up ticks,
    Not long now to kick off time,everyone will be wearing a mask, NOT on account of a virus but on account of CCTV, protecting ones self, family & homeland.

    Breitbart London
    @BreitbartLondonLondon: ‘Hostile’ Crowd Attacks Police, 22 Officers Injured During What Media Called a ‘Street Party’

    This is the direct consequence of tiger by the tail / party first voting pattern.

  70. Afternoon all.

    A couple of points from today’s anti-UK bbcR4 broadcast:-

    Did the government announce the restrictions to attack today’s eid ?

    Would they make a similar announcement on Christmas Eve?

    Well chaps, if you do not like/accept this is the UK of Great Britain … then I suggest that you eff oRf back to whatever ‘stan your family came from.

    1. Would they make a similar announcement on Christmas Eve?

      You bet they would. Upsetting Christians would not bother the government one bit. They know there would not be the same level of outcry as from Muslims.

      1. We weren’t allowed to celebrate Easter, either in church or with our families.

          1. Agreed. Last service I attended(/played for) was Mothering Sunday. We had the first service since then on Tuesday. A funeral, limited to 30 attendees, and I wasn’t allowed to play the organ – all music had to be recorded. I’m not entirely sure whether this was an out of character bedwetter tendency on behalf of the Rector, or the fact that the mourners had all heard me play before, and plumped for YouTube downloads…

          2. I’d blame the Rector.

            We have had the organ here in Fulmodeston. Lots of other churches – where the priest is less abject – have, too.

            Find another church, Geoff. Advertise your willingness to play. “Expert seeks church organ to play…distance no object.”

          3. Ours is a Brexiteer, couldn’t be less PC, but in the final analysis, has sworn an oath of obedience to his Bishop, who is a woke imbecile.This appointment provides a free house. Until they sell it, which is imminent. I’ve had a decent offer, where they’ll cover my rent for five years, within three miles of the Parish. We’re in one of the most comfortable areas of the UK, but no-one is prepared to dip their hands into their pocket. Proportionately, I give a half-tithe of my miserable income, except my PIP, which I regard as being there for a purpose, and therefore ringfenced. Actually, it’s nearer a full tithe, since I’ve lost the organist / director of music / parish clerk salary during lockdown. Voluntarily. In addition, HMRC are beginning to take an interest in “grace and favour” properties.

            If everyone on the parish Electoral Roll gave the same amount, we’d have no problem. If they gave the same proportion of their incomes, we’d be building a new Church, a Visitor Centre, a restaurant, and installing a new four-manual organ in a new West Gallery (OK – realistically, we’d be buying drum kits and guitars)…

            But the cheapest accommodation within three miles of the Parish is a single room in a HMO in Aldershot, for £500 pcm. Going back to my roots in Carlisle, that would secure a modern three-bed semi, with attached garage. I’ve applied for, and will be interviewed for, a retirement bungalow just beyond the Northern boundary of the parish. It’s a bit remote, although just across the road from a railway station, with services to Aldershot and Guildford. It has the advantage of being cheap. Approx £55/wk. I like living in Surrey, but I see no future for (especially village) church organists. So, if I’m not successful with the bungalow (which ticks some, but not all, of the boxes), I’ll be heading North,fully retired.

            Besides, singing in church is likely to be banned for the foreseeable future. I’ve just lost two members of one of my choirs. One died on her 91st birthday, purely from old age, and will be missed. Ditto, all the men, when I took over a few years ago. The 91YO had been in the choir for over 80 years. The other was more problematic. A natural contralto, she insisted on singing soprano, loudly, and flat, to ‘keep the choir going’. Frankly, despite battling breast cancer for some years, she’s been a PITA, my bête noir, and a block on any progress, but now I feel that there’s no challenge left anymore.

          4. Sorry if I put my foot in it (as it were).

            Carolyn and I were married by a retired Canon who lived three houses away. When I told him that we were each divorced twice and that the then (useless) bishop of narridge was very anti divorcees marrying, The Rev John said (he was from oop North) “Booger the bishop, I’ll marry you.” And he did. 25 and a quarter years ago!

    2. Delaying restrictions would be like imposing restrictions on church attendance until Boxing day.

      Maybe it would be more convenient to the masses but if you believed that there was a risk from going to church, they need to be shut down on Christmas eve and Christmas day.

    3. I had the self-same thought this afternoon. I, as a Christian, missed Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Easter and Pentecost.

      1. I dunno – no social distancing; no masks – what do these animals think about? Are they completely bovine??

    3. Lovely, Stephen!

      Thank you for posting………We have so much to be thankful for!!.

      1. The second one was technically very difficult It was an over the shoulder iPhone shot moving away from the boat. What you can’t see is the two dozen kids on floats and paddle-boards in the middle of the shallow river with little or no inclination to move out of the way of 13 tons of boat heading towards them!

  72. That’s me for this Sunday (see NoTTL yesterday, passim)

    I just opened tomorrow’s packet of tablets – in one of those thick foil packs – and bloody cut my finger. Thanks NHS – another triumph.

    A demain (Sausage casserole for dins.)

    2. When I was at Bristol Uni I was one of 3 European members of the Chinese society. I was always made welcome. At the same time I learnt the Chinese numerals 1 – 100. Made quite an impression when ordering in Chinese restaurants.

  75. Last night i thought i would enjoy a music based programme on BBC 4, it was ostensibly about George Gershwin and his music.
    All through it featured the tune and various versions of the song Summer Time. From the fabulous Ella Fitzgerald to The Zombies.
    Well it became mainly a racist rant against white people and their falsely perceived expectations of others. Bonnie Greer was ‘outstanding’ in pointing out all the relevant or not racist parts burned into her mind. And believe me, a whole pyre of the stuff. Would you like some sugar with all that Bonnie ? Oh whoops sugar, i would be caned for that. You bet yer cotton pickin’ lives.
    Perhaps the chips were stacked far too high on the shoulders of her and the rest of the participants of the investigation.
    But of course poor old George (who died before he was 50) was a very talented eastern European Jewish chap.
    If only he’d written and the corn is high.
    WTF is wrong with these bame people ?
    We’re the minority, when do we get a go to pick fault ? Oh whoops there’s that word again Pick ! From major to minor 🎹🎸🎺🎷
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP-8dzS1_rM

    2. Why do so many folk hate themselves, and by transference, anyone else with the same skin colour?
      Sure, we have advantage in the great game of life, but it’s not so old and it’s based on an awful lot of hard work and suffering, including in living memory (Mercedes’ slaves, anybody??), so why should we hasten our downfall for otehrs who cannot be bothered to put in the effort to take it all on and piss it down the toilet? Hell’s teeth, we give the useless bastards enough of a leg-up as it is, and all they do is whine and stab us in the shoulder. Well, fuck them. Let them suffer their own stupidities. Sympathy is exhausted.

      1. Spot on Obs and i can’t ever remember a single word of overall thanks for all the help given to get them out of the often self inflicted mire.

        1. We don’t give to charities advertising on TV for poor little black kids in Africa, with fly-blown eyes or no water. Why? How much has been given already to these charities, for huge executive pay, and from governments for new water systems, and yet they still haven’t got any. I’m damned if I’m giving more money to something that government millions was stolen from, I tell you now. If the local government actually duid something useful ad were genuinely short of money – not that their Gulfstream needs a new tyre – then I’ll contribute, but when they use all the noney for themselves personally, spend it at Mercedes and Gulfstream or send it to Switzerland, then they can fuck right off, get in their Mercedes and fuck off some more.

          1. African women spend a fortune on skin whiteners and hair straighteners , bling and fashion.

            I think African men probably have kinky thoughts about whitened black woman , African men spend a fortune on flash wristwatches , shoes and very expensive cars , yeah!

          2. Yes – because in many BAME socities the darker you are the lower you are. Talk about prejudice !

    3. If white people had never bought any of their records, never attended their gigs and switched off the radio when they appeared, I wonder where any of them would be now.

      2. I have never had anything against people of another race, but i do have a distinct dislike to obviously dangerous fanatical religions.
        But my word sos, i’m getting very fed up indeed with being bashed over the head by and having to step around the piles of meaningless self pity chips falling to the ground.

        1. Twenty years ago, I had no problems, now all I hear is shi’ite from all directions.

          If the anti-racism crew wanted to create racists I can’t think of many better ways of going about it than their current approach; and I don’t just mean white racists, they are deliberate putting every race at each other’s throats

          1. They do want! It breeds distrust and discord. From discord arises conflict. From conflict, a new order can be created, with “them” in charge (so they think).
            So, like BLM is nothing to do with disadvantaged blacks, anti-racism is nothing to do with racism, it’s all about a New Order – to your disadvantage.

          3. They will turn people into racists, they want conflict then the left moves in to grab power.

        2. I think that racism today is different ..

          Now that our attention has been focused on the gripes and supposed grievances of BAMES, we are becoming very irritated , and in particular now that is being shoved in our faces every day by the media and the government .

          Everyone is fed up with them . We got on with our lives and they got on with theirs, it is not our fault that they huddle and congregate together to murder each other , and do appalling things , but I object to them turning on us by objecting to our culture and history .

          Ungrateful so and so’s.

          They should all have been left to their own devices in their own countries , doing their murder and mayhem thing.

    4. Bonnie Greer has a long record of race-baiting. Unlike the bone-headed dolt Lammy, she is much more subtle. Where Lammy has you reaching for the 12-bore, Greer requires the finest of stilettos. She has made a few appearances on Question Time, adopting that lofty, aloof and slightly distracted manner of someone affecting to be bored with the proceedings but going along with it all in order to humour the moral and mental inferiors that surround her. Her slow and deliberate diction confirms in her mind her superiority as she lectures the audience on the inherent racism of everyone and everything that is British.

      She has lived here since 1986.

    1. Wonderful.

      The acoustics of the setting certainly helps.

      My middle boy was practising for a solo to be sung at evensong in Canterbury while the tourists were milling about, his voice filled the place and people stopped to look around to see where it was coming from.

      One very, very proud father, I can tell you.

      1. How absolutely magical, Sos. Lovely!
        Practice seems to me to often be better than the actual performance. I recall, burned into my mind, the organist practising Ave Maria in Lewes Cathedral about 26 or so years ago – stops & starts, then the whole thing… still fixed in my mind, it is, so real and romantic, and heartfelt.

        1. There’s no pressure when you’re rehearsing. Just you and the music. Performance is a different beast.

    2. Splendid.
      Talking of which……
      Glenda Jackson was being home interviewed on the TV this morning. She’s 84 now and has just won some sort of prize for her recent part in a production. I missed the actual purpose of the interview, but my word she looks her age. Oh i’m such a biatch.

          3. We went to a local music evening near here, and a huge very male looking bloke stood to sing,.

            He sounded the same.

            Talk about a fall off your chair moment!

    1. They say that getting to really know someone is like peeling the various layers off an onion. (At least, the Germans say that.)

      1. The sky has holes
        where the rain gets in
        The holes are small
        That’s why rain is thin.

      1. Hmm. She once chose a haiku by me to win a competition, so I can’t say anything against her 🙂

        1. I like this one.

          Last Post
          ‘In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
          He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.’
          ​
          If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
          that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud…
          but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
          run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
          see lines and lines of British boys rewind
          back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home-
          mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
          not entering the story now
          to die and die and die.
          Dulce- No- Decorum- No- Pro patria mori.
          You walk away.
          ​
          You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
          like all your mates do too-
          Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert-
          and light a cigarette.
          There’s coffee in the square,
          warm French bread
          and all those thousands dead
          are shaking dried mud from their hair
          and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
          a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
          from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
          ​
          You lean against a wall,
          your several million lives still possible
          and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
          You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
          If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
          then it would.
          ​
          ​
          by Carol Ann Duffy
          ​

          1. She just seems achingly on point. Her words don’t stir me at all. Poetry is so subjective.

          2. I studied the Enclosure Acts (and Inclosure Acts) which reorganised the countryside, allowing landowners to lay claim to formerly common lands and to evict land small holders in order to farm great estates. The small holders either became tenant farmers, relinquishing any rights to their land or else fled to the cities which perversely enabled the Industrial Revolution.

            I mention my favourite poet John Clare who was deeply affected by the changes which really took effect following many earlier Acts of Parliament in the early 1800s. He was a nature poet (I dare not use the word naturist which has been purloined by folk who wish to walk around and congregate naked). His subjects were all to do with his love of wildlife and the countryside as he knew it.

            One of his poems was set to music in a cycle composed by Benjamin Britten viz. Five Flower Songs. The fourth of these is my favourite, a poem by John Clare entitled The Evening Primrose.

            https:// m.youtube.com/watch?v=L_E-oTzhKis

    5. Not a red rose or a satin heart.

      I give you an onion.
      It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
      It promises light
      like the careful undressing of love.

      Here.
      It will blind you with tears
      like a lover.
      It will make your reflection
      a wobbling photo of grief.

      I am trying to be truthful.

      Not a cute card or a kissogram.

      I give you an onion.
      Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
      possessive and faithful
      as we are,
      for as long as we are.

      Take it.
      Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
      if you like.

      Lethal.
      Its scent will cling to your fingers,
      cling to your knife.

      Valentine
      by Carol Ann Duffy

    1. Dear God, London is being lost ,

      Some one do something.. it will end up like any out of control 3rd world city .. or somewhere in America.

      2. 321956+ up ticks,
        TB,
        Lost long ago, casualty of the submissive pcism & appeasement rulings others are well on the way
        in following.

    3. The parents of this mob rioted in 1981. My wife was mugged and robbed by blacks in Clapham Common in 1982. We moved to Cambridge and commuted to London in 1983.

      In the ten years or so we lived in Clapham Common, our Mark 1 Ford Escort was stolen on two occasions by blacks. On the second occasion the blacks stole the battery, cut the fuel line to steal the fuel, stole the radio and music tapes and left it parked on the pavement outside Brixton Police Station.

      In the intervening years successive governments have poured billions into the area. The more we donate and then acquiesce in our good works, the more the blacks despise and hate us.

      1. Lets have some nitpicking!

        The plaque there says: RAF Bradwell Bay 1942-45″ Thus by RAF reckoning it’s nothing to do with the BoB (1940). And by Luftwaffe reckoning it’s still nothing to do with the BoB (1940-41).

        Wiki says that the representation of the Mosquito is used as many units based there flew the plane.

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

        The Mosquito didn’t become operational until late1941, and not as a fighter, long after the end of the BoB by either British or German definitions.

        This site gives the game away:

        https://www.worldwariiheritage.com/en/page/9069/189/Bradwell-Bay-Airfield

        The strategic coastal position led to a pre-war landing ground being developed into Bradwell Bay airfield, with runway construction commencing in February 1941.

        In other words, it was not a fully operational base until after the end of the BoB, merely a landing strip.

        It really would seem the claim that it’s a specific BoB memorial is fictional, though of course it is a memorial to RAF aircrew.

        1. Interesting, very interesting.
          Bradwell is where I was born back in the days before Bradwell A was operational. How little we knew about the airfield back then.

          Our primary school class went on a tour of the construction site and we were taken onto the floor of the reactor area. I remember being told that once construction was complete, no one would ever walk on that spot again.

          Naturally we misbehaved on the airfield, there were many abandoned buildings close by which were ideal as a young boys playground. Although the article states that the land was returned to agricultural use in 1946, I remember watching servicemen playing baseball and that could not have been before the early fifties.

    2. 3rd from right “Remember lads, you’re all fourteen years old and don’t know what country you were born in”

    3. Chalky walking down the Beach at Dover

      Spot Whitie and I will give you £20/00/00

      The immigrants did larf

  89. Evening, all. Project fear is ramping up again, it seems. As if they haven’t already done enough to wreck the economy!

  90. Mail to a Conservative MP…………….

    Surely it is vitally important to establish exactly what has happened in the UK in relation to George Soros and Open Society, and quickly ?

    The latest discovery in relation to the sale of 650 government buildings by Tony Blair to billionaire Soros in 2001 at a low price looks absolutely terrible on the face of it… would you not agree ?

    If it’s all as bad as it looks, and I have little doubt it is, surely it has a direct bearing on what is happening today in the UK, and the policies being announced today by Prime Minister Johnson ?

    For example, apparently planning controls are to be, in effect, virtually abolished so that estates of houses can be built almost anywhere. This has been caused by the ”no upper limit” migration policy which was followed by Tony Blair and others, very likely because George Soros and Open Society wanted it.

    So unless someone exposes and reverses what looks like a very serious conspiracy, the situation can only get worse.

    Next up… Net Zero and Build Back Better. Because George Soros and Open Society want it.

    Is that what you want ?

    Polly

    2. Take some good quality sausage meat,add salt,white and black pepper,sage and a little mace,make a round and fry in a dry pan,top with shavings of double gloucester to melt, fry an egg in the sausage drippings serve in a good wholemeal roll
      What a sausage egg mcmuffin aspires to and fails at
      Now to sort the hash browns………………..
      (sometimes I eat breakfast twice a day)

    3. Chilli goes well with fishy. Not a good combo with vanilla ice cream, though…

      1. With a bit of restraint, I could imagine that as a good combo. After all, we have salted caramel ice cream.

        1. The chilli and ice cream wasn’t a good combo. Maybe we did something wrong – I’m up for all sorts of flavours, but it wasn’t right.

  92. 00:49

    If you’re still awake and the sky is clear, Jupiter looks down upon the Moon and Saturn watches from nearby.

    1. I get the impression that 40% of the budget was just the initial payment for things to come.

    2. 321956+ up ticks,
      I take it we as a nation have a receipt to PROVE
      PAYMENTS in full.
      Not purchasing slaves as such, but purchasing slaves freedom.

  94. Just back from the night market, good fun with food, drink, music and limited dancing.

    Some degree of social distancing, masks in evidence, but in a minority, and only when ordering food and drink.

    Lots of people smoking, several tables/rows from us, possibly as many as twenty yards away. I could smell the smoke quite strongly.

    Now I may be wrong here, but I’m guessing that cigarette smoke travel distance must be a reasonable estimate for Covid’s range.

    Why, in God’s name, are we doing what we are in respect of precautions? If smoke is representative we’re completely wasting our time.

      1. At the time I noticed it we weren’t even downwind; it was a relatively calm evening.

        We could smell the food stalls from two or three times the distance when the breeze such as it was, blew the odours of the food around.

      2. 321956+ up ticks,
        Evening PTV,
        How is it then I wonder, that the rank odour of treachery especially over the last 25 years has not been noticed & reflected in the ballot booth ?

        1. Because no other parties managed to mount a successful bid to rid us of the scum so people had no one for whom to vote..

          1. 321956+ up ticks,
            Evening R,
            Won’t wash, even at it’s height of success UKIP
            was being tagged as a one trick pony party by a great many peoples who were hell bent on voting into power, in a party before Country manner, the same proven treachery parties lab/lib/con, we are
            currently suffering the results of that voting pattern.
            Many witnessed how a party should be run successfully via Gerard Batten but chose the route
            to Countrywide failure.
            People must learn once again to stand on their own two feet and help build a party and NOT bloody well continue to vote & whinge.

          2. 322025+ up ticks,
            Morning R CT,
            My answer to your post last night there have always been other parties out there what has been lacking is the peoples will to support them and MAKE them work to successfully benefit the Country.
            Do this with the same intensity that has been done by continuing to support the lab/lib/con coalition
            in the Countries destruction campaign and we will be on a winner FOR ONCE.

    2. Perhaps you can drop a note to the newest NWO pimp Boros, he and his insane colleagues are on the cusp of banning alcohol, meat, especially pork products, having fun, living more than 80 years, smoking and even vaping could be included. And other human dereliction’s.

  97. I’m Orff,…………. good night all, i enjoyed this evening.
    Night cap now and try and try to make up for the loss of sleep last night.

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