Wednesday 12 August: From canvases of Trafalgar to images of Channel migrants’ dinghies

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/11/letters-canvases-trafalgar-images-channel-migrants-dinghies/

815 thoughts on “Wednesday 12 August: From canvases of Trafalgar to images of Channel migrants’ dinghies”

    1. If only it could be as thorough as this!

      ‘Morning, C1. It was 24°C here at 06:00. Another blowtorchio day, but relief tomorrow seems to be on the cards.

    3. If the clear skies persist until tonight, pop ouTSide from about 11pm onwards, stretch out on a sun lounger and look up and towards the NE towards Perseus. Tonight marks the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. You can see them anywhere in the sky but they’ll appear to radiate from the constellation of Perseus which is found by looking below the noticeable W asterism of 5 brightish stars that makes up Cassiopeia. The later you observe, the more frequent the meteors will be – 3am is the best time 🙂 I observed from 11pm for about half an hour last night and saw nearly a dozen.

  4. Reports are coming in that there wont be very many masterminds leaving school in Scotland this year.

    Far too many passes.

  5. SIR – In 1963, aged 13, Simon Cadell, the future Hi-De-Hi! star, played the great detective (Letters, August 10) in my school production of A Study in Sherlock. By general consent, his performance was reckoned definitive. He blew smoke rings from his pipe as the curtain fell. I can still hear the audience cheering.

    Gyles Brandreth
    London SW13

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/03/14/article-2293419-1897E8A7000005DC-59_306x423.jpg
    Brandreth and Cadell were close friends from their days at Bedales. [cue a NoTTLer]

  6. SIR – My wife has dementia and has been in a care home for over a year. 
I used to see her twice a day and we would listen to music. I hold her power of attorney, so also have an obligation to be able to visit her.

    I have been unable to do so since mid March, but have brought flowers and small gifts each week. I ring up every other day and am told that she is happy and eating well.

    If I visited in the way described by Hilary Lovelock (Letters, August 11) – the only way now allowed – I fear my wife would either not know what was going on or, if she recognised me behind a mask, would become distressed that I could not cuddle her.

    So I have decided it is better not to visit until I can do so normally, which might be never. To cap it all, I’m told that relatives now can’t bring flowers. How cruel is that?

    N J S Ellis
    Heighington, Co Durham

    1. I feel for Mr Ellis. That’s tough, that is.
      My mother, who lives at home, doesn’t know who I am when I phone – no visiting possible, yet. She is polite, as a 92-year old would be, but still… She tells me that her parents went out this morning to visit my Great-Aunt Hilda and haven’t come back yet – I tell her that it must be the traffic holding them up, it’s quite a drive. How, when I’m not there, do I tell her that all these people are dead, and have been for a very long time? She will be terribly upset, and there’s nobody to comfort her. So I lie, because it’s easier for her – I think. Then, I might have to tell her again the next time I call, and repeat the experience.

      1. Oh dear, how heartbreaking. I think your “go along with her conversation” is exactly right and telling her her parents are dead would be far too upsetting for her now. You just have to go with the flow as it were.

      2. Totally agree. Absolutely nothing is achieved by being truthful. For a while, they will be upset, then it’s forgotten and the same remarks will be repeated ad infinitum.
        We had a battle to get a friend to accept that he did nothing helpful by arguing with his mother when she muddled the days of the week or got the weather wrong.
        All he did was confirm to her – however fleetingly – that there was something wrong and there was nothing she could do about it. Her main lasting impression was that this red faced man was angry with her.

      3. I agree with Anne below. They go through a bereavement all over again, until they forget again. Dementia is awful, heartbreaking. My mother would start a sentence, then completely forget by the end of it what she had started out to say at the beginning, not only that she would forget her words, too. Towards the end she forgot her grandsons and my husband. In her last week she had a major stroke and said and ate nothing, except for a brief few moments when she enquired, perfectly lucidly, after our little family (I am an only) mentioning each by name.

        It is always best to give the least upsetting explanation. I found the non-truth difficult, as this does not come easily to me, and I would feel as if I were living a chapter in Alice in Wonderland.

        Edit: I changed lie for non-truth as ‘lie’ did not sit easily with me in this context.

  7. SIR – The modern German health service appears strikingly close to that envisaged by the Beveridge report, published in 1942 under the auspices of the then coalition government.

    Unfortunately Beveridge’s vision was substantially distorted by the intervention of Aneurin Bevan during the Attlee government, before the NHS was finally brought into being in 1946.

    Robert Thomas
    London SW10

    Labour are forever claiming that the NHS was their creation. The truth is that they ruined an otherwise viable system.

    1. I loved the story that Bevan was told that an Aneurysm was named for him.

      He rushed to a medical dictionary to look it up. It defined as, “A bloody clot that ought to be removed immediately”

  8. It says on the News that the Democrats have a black woman standing to be vice-president, I must say I thought my tv was playing up, she doesn’t look like a black woman to me, will black Americans be fooled?

    1. I don’t know why they can’t just say mixed race. What do they think is wrong with mixed race?

      1. I’ve asked several times why someone of mixed race will refer to themselves as being black, totally disdaining their white heritage. Obama and Hamilton being prime examples.

    2. The DT, this morning, coyly reports her as being a “woman of colour”.

      And what f*cking colour would that be? The photograph of her in this morning’s paper shows her to be of indistinguishable hue; hardly any different from Biden.

  9. SIR – From a relatively brief career as a naval officer, I recall grand paintings on the walls of wardrooms. Scenes from Trafalgar, Taranto and the Arctic convoys spoke of a tradition of bravery. The fighting spirit of the Royal Navy is built on inspiration from its history, and we were expected to live up to our forebears.

    It is unlikely anyone will commit to canvas the current tasking of the Royal Navy in the Channel. Will future naval officers see grand paintings of warships “defending” this island against rubber dinghies filled with some of the poorest and most desperate people on the planet?

    It is utterly shameful. Such a misuse of our Armed Forces diminishes us all.

    Andy Lake
    Orpington, Kent

    “…the poorest and most desperate people…” BOLLOCKS
    https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/dk-image-liferaft.jpg

    2. I wonder if that one in the middle has a good reason to have his face pixellated….

      1. He’s the coxswain and will be returning shortly with another load of nuclear physicists.

    3. Tow the boat back to within sight of France’s shore.

      Slice the boat with a knife. Job done. Send them back.

  10. Bath
    England’s Anthony Watson does not want players forced to take knee

    Premiership teams have discussed anti-racism message
    Some players are reluctant to take the knee for political reasons

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ca82e55c9e1d3f1ab2c29a0839c2d01f7e9878e6/0_79_2399_1439/master/2399.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=65359d3e363594cad53f101875b515a5
    Anthony Watson, pictured training for Bath, said: ‘You have to give people a choice, because as soon as it is forced on anyone to have to do anything it becomes pointless.’

    1. Dear life in trousers!

      Well he’s done for. The Left don’t like being told that forced control isn’t a good method for changing behaviour.

  11. BBC Radio 4 reporting this morning that HMRC has given out too much Covid -19 money to some people and to people who weren’t eligible for the payments. The HMRC is reported as not seeking the return of the £millions wrongly paid out. “Easy come.easy go” seems to be the Chancellors attitude to taxpayers money.

    1. ‘Morning, Clyde. The BBC is also creaming itself this morning with the announcement that Biden’s running-mate is black and female. The World Service was all over this like a rash. But nothing that I have heard so far tells us what she actually stands for – not that I give a flying fart about about this particular topic.

      1. I thought he made it clear that it would be a black woman weeks ago. The person seems not to be important, merely the fact that she is a black woman.

        1. Exactly. She doesn’t even look blik, either. Should I arrange an urgent visit to Specsavers?

  12. Morning all

    SIR – Some years ago, I trained as a state-registered nurse at the Royal Free Hospital in London, joining approximately 30 other student nurses.

    There were three new cohorts a year. As first-year students we worked on various wards, did full shifts and were part of the ward team. We were paid a salary, and once a year we were taken off the wards for four weeks to attend the School of Nursing. We qualified at the end of three years. We were then free to choose the department or ward on which we wanted to work – and we were not above performing such basic duties as giving out bedpans.

    When this training method ceased, would-be nurses went to university. That is when the country lost the main workhorses in its hospitals.

    Margaret Partridge Keane

    Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire

    1. My wife was one of them. She tells me that it wasn’t a case of not being above dishing out bedpans, there was no one else to do it. Ward Sister too.

      1. I can hand out bedpans. Wiping arses afterwards – not so much, and when the bedpan was missed… ugh.

          1. My father was put off semolina, tapioca & co., when he had to spend some time in a chest injury ward during the war & the bloke in the bed opposite used to fill his pot with bloody sputum, & pudding was invariably one of those with a dollop of red ersatz jam.

    1. She insists the driver was black, even though he looks very pale in the video clip she filmed.

  14. Good morning all.

    Sun peeping through. Just finishing the chilled vichyssoise for brekkers.

  15. Good morning all.
    I will be having a 2nd attempt at getting into Derby this morning after yesterday’s debacle.

    We had a spectacular hour & a half long thunderstorm last night. continual flashes and rumblings from before 01:00 to after 02:00.
    Main centre did not pass over us, but seems to have gone from Ashbourne to Bakewell.

      1. Lots of sawing wood?
        Morning, Peddy. Cat defeated last night by closed door. Sleep uninterrupted.

        1. ‘Morning, Herr Oberst. I read that as “…cat defecated…”. Perhaps the fact that a neighbour’s cat has been using one of my raised beds as a personal bog is getting to me. That, and yet another visit today by Betty Swollox. I trust that she will be sent packing tomorrow.

        2. ‘Morning, Paul.

          I used to snore a lot, but there’s been no-one around to tell me for quite a while. (I’m glad to say.)

      2. 08:10 and I’m sat downstairs sweating my gonads off!
        About to have a cold bath & get dressed.

  16. Good morning all. Another sultry day. Very hot night – most uncomfortable.

    Now I must go and find a black person to worship.

    1. Off to a good start. I heard something about a refund on a fla’ (flat), but what he said was a refund on a fligh’ (flight). Don’t think I’ll be watching.

          1. Never watched that. We usually watch something for an hour from 9pm , then fall asleep over the 10pm Propaganda.

          2. 10 pm is usually my deadline. It’s when I switch off, last look at Nottlers & go to bed.

          3. We like to see what the Beeb is palming off as news. Most of it is sheer propaganda. Last night we had David Shuckman back on climate change. Must be getting back to normal.

    2. Yes, it was a nasty night. Baking heat, uncomfortable, achingly hot.

      Who is Grumpy, and do they mind?

    3. The state of complete and permanent Madness is more infectious and seems to have become far worse than the 6 months of virus.

    1. Colour me cynical but the Carl Beech affair has pretty much buggered (pun intended) any sex crime investigations into the great and the good
      Looking at “witness” statements and claims in the latest Epstein/Maxwell affair are the same tactics being deployed??

  20. https://independencedaily.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/6564569607_b55787577b_Mystic-Meg.jpg

    Daily Betrayal

    “Flu and pneumonia

    are killing five times as many people as coronavirus at present, with

    Covid deaths at their lowest since the end of March, […] There were 193

    deaths reported in the week ending July 31 that had coronavirus

    mentioned on the death certificate, […] It is the lowest figure since

    103 died in the week ending March 20, on the eve of lockdown. By

    contrast, 928 people died of flu or pneumonia in the last week of July,

    slightly fewer than previous years. This was the seventh consecutive

    week in which more people had died of flu or pneumonia than

    coronavirus.” (link, paywalled)

    For seven weeks more people have died of flu and pneumonia

    – but “we” must still be frightened about rising ‘CV-19 case numbers’?

    Why is nobody in government, local and national, making a song and dance

    about flu deaths, nor about this:

    “While fewer than

    usual died in care homes and hospitals, 676 more died at home than in

    the average week. Experts fear that this is a consequence of people

    staying away from the NHS out of fear.” (link, paywalled)

    Does anyone, in ‘Our NHS’, in ‘Our MSM’, in government,

    actually care that more people died at home, that more people died of

    flu and pneumonia despite semi-lockdown and muzzle-wearing? There is a

    clue though why local politicians, especially Labour ones, are so keen

    on keeping the CV-19 fear going: money.

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-betrayal-wednesday-12th-august-2020-day-37-of-semi-lockdown-britain/
    Awkward…………………………

  21. David Paton
    The mysterious fall of the teenage pregnancy
    12 August 2020, 7:13am

    Blah, blah, blah

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

    Top comments BTL:

    Malcolm Knott • 3 hours ago
    The fall in teenage pregnancies also correlates with the decision to build bus shelters out of clear perspex.

    Captain Detterling • 3 hours ago
    I suspect it is because teenagers are all so terribly unattractive these days.

  22. We are officially now in the worst ever UK recession. That’s all right then. The UK government created this recession. They implemented rules, regulations and laws that inevitably, ineluctably, brought about the recession. Spurious, unproven and confused excuses were used to attempt to justify the laws. The recession has been maintained by those rules, regulations and laws even though the supposed reason for them has receded to the point of invisibility.
    But why?

    1. 322455+ up ticks,
      morning HP,
      We have had, especially since Margret received the knife
      in the back, treachery mounting on a daily basis, these governance bodies govern by consent, the electorate give
      these politico’s via the ballot booth the breath of life.

      The electorate KNEW the pedigree of these politico’s and
      have been forewarned year on year repeatedly so,
      Year on year on year of treachery and odious deceit and still the electorate look for more.

      Ultimately, who is it to blame for the continual rundown of these Isles, now coming to an end, demolition near complete.

    2. Rishi,ex GoldmanSachs,parachuted into the third safest con seat and 5 years later he’s chancellor,how very,er very fortunate…………
      There is no doubt in my mind there are supranational forces at work here,but cui bono and to what eventual end escapes me Horace,it seems to go beyond a mere desire for money and power

      1. Seems to me government wants complete control of us all. Muzzle us, tell us we can’t go here or there if we don’t all have the forthcoming vaccination (untested) certificate with the producing companies immune from prosecution for adverse effects) and a wealth tax in some form or another. Crush the middle classes once and for all and the MSM/soshul meeja are doing the censoring for them.

  23. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Leading letter:

    SIR – From a relatively brief career as a naval officer, I recall grand paintings on the walls of wardrooms. Scenes from Trafalgar, Taranto and the Arctic convoys spoke of a tradition of bravery. The fighting spirit of the Royal Navy is built on inspiration from its history, and we were expected to live up to our forebears.

    It is unlikely anyone will commit to canvas the current tasking of the Royal Navy in the Channel. Will future naval officers see grand paintings of warships “defending” this island against rubber dinghies filled with some of the poorest and most desperate people on the planet?

    It is utterly shameful. Such a misuse of our Armed Forces diminishes us all.

    Andy Lake
    Orpington, Kent

    Good letter, apart from the inference in his penultimate paragraph that our invaders are genuine asylum seekers.
    The whole ghastly spectacle of a Britannia who once ruled the waves now being unable to prevent rubber dinghies from landing illegals on our shores is a national humiliation.

    Edit: Precisely, Tim Dorsett. No one in the MSM is prepared to ‘tell it like it is’:

    SIR – Why do reporters constantly refer to migrants trying to cross the Channel as desperate when they are already in a First World country?

    Tim Dorsett
    Quainton, Buckinghamshire

      1. I thought I knew everyone in my old village but I don’t know Mr Dorsett. Must be a newcomer.

    2. Well, Andy, take a look at the ‘poorest and most desperate people on the planet’ in those dinghies and notice that well over 90% of them are young men who appear to be very well-fed and wealthy enough to be able to afford several thousand pounds to pay the people smugglers. Ask yourself if they are all coming here for peaceful purposes.

      I wonder if, looking out from Pevensey Bay in 1066, you would have said “Oh look, refugees coming from Normandy. Let’s welcome them”.

      1. I’m delighted that Andy Lake only had “a brief career as a naval officer” – he doesn’t seem to be the sort of person that the Navy needs! These are not “the poorest and most desperate” they are at best illegal immigrants who want to sponge off the British taxpayer, and at worst supporters of a violent and dangerous ideology who wish us harm

      2. As someone said in a btl comment at the DT, if these ‘poorest and most desperate people on the planet’ can afford to give some chancer five grand to put them in a dinghy over to the UK they can, instead, afford a much lower sum and just rock up at the local airport and fly into Heathrow and do it all properly.

        That’s assuming they have some entitlement to be in the UK in the first place, of course.

    3. “some of the poorest and most desperate people on the planet?”

      Why are they poor? By our standards they are. By theirs, no. They all have clothes and telephones, after all.

      Desperate? Perhaps. However they’re not desperate enough to improve their own lot. Instead they choose to spend a lot of money – borrowed and given to modern slavers (Take note black looters are mindless: your own countrymen are selling other citizens into slavery – nothing’s changed there – blacks selling blacks.). What they’re desperate for is to abuse other people’s wealth and effort for their own gain.

      The solution is simple. These people are illegal immigrants. They have no right to be here, let alone be processed here. Send them back. If they refuse, use force.

  24. 322455+ up ticks,
    In the commons you can see the instruction manual between the dispatch boxes and scan the canteen menu for conformation as to what route the
    lab/lib/con coalition are taking so when the sharia law is made legal and in a party manifesto will the current party members go for it ?

    Of course, without doubt,bring it on, Anything regardless of consequence,
    always party first.

    https://twitter.com/Rob_Kimbell/status/1293473571893907461

    1. I read this morning that recently a group of French tourist have been brutally murdered in Nigeria. It read as if they were deliberately targeted. for the slaughters.
      Edit Niger.

        1. I couldn’t find the article again, probably pulled because it might be difficult to squeeze into the our MSM agenda.
          A long time ago and old guy i played golf with who was by strange coincidence, brother of an old friend of ours. His daughter and her friend were brutally murdered on a beach north of Durban just for being there. No action was ever taken to find the culprits.

          2. I wonder if ‘Toy Boy’ will be popping in to sort it out.

            The current French operation has been running since 2014, co-ordinating security with Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad.

            They are fighting a complex web of jihadist groups that Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou has described as having become “professionals in the art of war”.

            An attack by jihadists on an army base earlier in December led to the deaths of more than 70 soldiers in Niger.

            In November, 13 French troops died in a helicopter collision during an operation against jihadists in Mali, the biggest single loss of life for the

            French military since the 1980s.

            Regional leaders have called for more international support to tackle the militants but there has also been rising anti-French sentiment and protests in some cities in the region.

            A complex web of militant groups
            The Sahel, the vast semi-desert region that stretches across West Africa, is home to numerous al-Qaeda and Islamic State-aligned groups.

            There are also ethnically-based local militias operating, some fighting against and others alongside French and national forces.

            Counter-terrorism efforts have had some success, removing jihadist commanders and stifling some militant operations.

            But the situation does appear to be becoming increasingly unstable.

          3. Toy Boy has pledged his support to the families and will do whatever it takes to trace the attackers and “bring them to justice”.

            So that’s OK.

          5. I don’t think they bother to follow up murders in South Africa, especially of white people. They are superflous.

          6. I hate to say this, but i have a niece living there and they have three teenage daughters.
            I have often thought of the danger they might be in.

            My wife and 5 year old grandson loved the elephants at Whipsnade zoo last Thursday. They only have Asian elephants but one of the young ones was a comedian splashing water around and throwing a long piece of plastic pipe across the pond.
            It’s all gone down hill more than a tad since i last visited, probably 20-25 years ago when our boys were much younger.
            Quite a few empty enclosures.
            But my highlight was when a huge tiger ran from left to right in front of me only 6 ft away.
            Too quick to photograph.

          7. I haven’t been to a zoo since the ’80s. I don’t like to see animals in cages, but Whipsnade was one of the better ones. Went there in ’67 I think, on the back of a motorbike.

          8. a) AFRICA FOR THE BLACKS – KICK OUT ALL THE WHITES

            BUT ONLY IF

            b) EUROPE FOR THE WHITES – KICK OUT ALL THE BLACKS

            I have a feeling that a) is not racist but b) is!

      2. 322455+ up ticks,
        Afternoon RE,
        I would like to take a group of dogooders around
        downtown Lagos for a week, they would never be the same.

        1. I’ve been saying the same thing for years ogga, people who think they are important in the UK wouldn’t last a week in Africa.

        2. I’ve been saying the same thing for years ogga, people who think they are important in the UK wouldn’t last a week in Africa.

        3. When you take ‘a stroll around’ African towns on google earth the filth and rubbish piled up and gutter litter is appalling to see. How long would it take for them to clear it up and dispose of it correctly ?
          There’s is plenty of cheap labour.

          1. They just don’t bother. On our last evening in Nairobi in March we went to the modern shopping centre near our overnight hotel. We bought some tea and coffee to bring home – it was a modern supermarket. Walking back to the hotel we had to watch our steps as the pavement was broken up and the gutters were filthy.

          2. I’ve pointed out many times on Nottlers the website The Death of JHB, the place where i worked and enjoyed very much, is now an absolute filthy tip.

          4. I wouldn’t want to go to South Africa again – their record on human rights is abysmal, and treatment of animals even worse. It’s a beautiful country and badly misgoverned,

          5. There as some stunning parts, we drove from JHB to the cape twice and back along the coast through East London to PE up to Durban and back inland to JHB. North we travelled through Bulawayo Victoria falls as far as Zambia along the Zambesi to Kariba crossed boarder at Chirrundo and back through Salisbury, Beit bridge over the Limpopo and back to Joeys. Went to live and work in PE for 6 months i’d had enough by then, i came home. The college mate i went out there with, stayed for over 35 years.

          6. I enjoyed PE – lived in Humewood in late 70s. Jo’burg OTOH (my home for nearly 30 years) is a dreadful city. Cape Town was always pleasant. Generally speaking (in my opinion), SA improved the further south you went.

          7. What a small world eh 😉
            I lived in Humewood as well, late 60s my address was 303 El Bon Windemere Road Humewood.
            My niece actually knew the daughter of the Mr Noble who was the owner of the block of flats.
            My first address in JHB was 59 Hunter Street Judith Paarl .
            Our current neighbour who spends most of her time living in rural France actually lived less than a mile from where i was.
            I agree the further south the better. We actually took a drive to the absolute tip to see the penguins, and stand on the rocks. Our car broke down and had to be towed back to Cape town.

          8. Looking at Hunter Street, I don’t think it’s a place you’d choose to live these days – it looks like downtown Lagos now.

          9. As you say, a small world and smaller than you think – I lived in Granten Heights, 33 Windermere Road in 1978/9. You were 51 Windermere Rd.

          11. Misgoverned? But, but, but, surely it was only misgoverned when those nasty European colonialists were in charge!

          13. 322455+ up ticks,
            Afternoon RE,
            I have worked ( construction) N,E,E,W, never S,met a lot of good locals seen kids underneath overhead lights standing in storm drains, book on a cross over slab, studying, ( Uganda) kids up the Ivory Coast are dressed as the pride of the family their dads ( cane cutters) have more hole than shirt when that go to work.
            Corruption at the top accounts for what is happening at the base.
            I’m English, worked offshore for the Dutch, come home look down side streets in hometown no comparison to the Dutch street cleanliness is their
            by word.
            We also suffer corruption / treachery at the top.

    1. LOL! In the 2nd clip those guys swarmed out of that door like ants defending their nest.

      1. Not surprising,I think that’s antifa trying to secure the building at the back while it was being firebombed at the front
        Attempted mass murder………….
        ‘Morning Peddy

  26. ‘Morning again.

    Calvin Robinson on Butler’s so-called ‘racial profiling’…

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/08/11/robinson-labours-dawn-butler-is-stoking-up-racial-tensions-for-political-gain/

    She is particularly good at pulling out the race card, and getting the media to go along with it. So she does have some skill, despite what we might think was a Shadow Secretary of State job that my dog could have made a significantly better fist of.

      1. Pensioners can now save money and revert to a B&W TV and license without noticing any difference.

      2. ‘Morning, Belle. Yes, an observation that has been raised many times in Janus Towers. I think they are trying to turn us all into racists.

        1. As some one commented , the younger generation are being conditioned and groomed into thinking mixed relationships are the new normal .

          One could take advantage of that sort of exposure by inventing a product that would be welcomed and enjoyed by the black and coloured community .. Chicken has been done, flash cars done, hair straighteners done , expensive trainers done , bling , done .. I am thinking hard , what could be a money winner?

          1. So, what they are saying is – a white person marrying a white person is racist? I think I must have been teleported to a parallel universe.

          2. ‘Morning, Belle.

            You’ve forgotten that cheap furniture, especially sofas, has been done.

      4. Saving us a fortune. It’s obvious that companies don’t want the money from nasty old whitey.

  27. Good morning all!
    Well, that was some night! Sheet lightning all round from about 10.30pm then the thunder and torrential rain kicked off about 3 am! It rumbled and crashed for about an hour and the lightning made it as bright as day! Apparently a house nearby was hit and set on fire, but everyone is safe!
    Now it’s as warm and sticky as it was before the storm!

    2. Sheet Lightening is only where you do not see the lightening bolt because it’s either too far away, clouds are too dense or you’re looking in the wrong direction.
      The DT & myself were sat in bed with the curtains open and saw more than a few streaks across the bit of sky we could see.

      2. Yes it obviously moved closer and closer in the intervening hours until it was right over us! Then it was was like a tropical storm! The noise was amazing!

    3. Absolutely booger all here. Vague predictions for tomorrow. We will see.
      Good moaning, Sue.

      1. Good moaning Anne! Predictions eh? Good Latin word but then you knew that, didn’t you?

  28. I’m not happy with my 1965 ‘A’ level results so I’m going to squeam and squeam until they make them betterer.

    1. Exactly; my Latin ‘O’ level fail was the work of the evil patriarchal society.
      But I showed ’em!!! They didn’t dare fail me a second time.

      1. Why not complain about your failure in Maffs, Annie? With a bit of luck, you might become Rishi’s successor. (Good morning to you and all NoTTLers, btw.)

    2. My life was ruined by my 1966 A level results! Ruined I say! All the fault of the evil examiners.

          8. You must have been a clever-clogs like my elder son – he moved up a school year at the age of six, so was the youngest at his grammar school at 10. He came unstuck in the first year at Swansea University where he went at 17, to do a maths degree. He switched to computer science and did the first year again.

          9. No, I’ve just realised I had it all wrong.

            Entered 6th Form Sept ’64. Passed my driving test (first go) Oct ’64.
            Mock A-levels Summer ’65 – didn’t do a stroke of work & had teachers & parents worried.
            Sat A-levels Summer ’66.
            Resat Physics Spring ’67 – failed again
            Easter ’67 escaped.
            Oct. ’67 started Uni.

          13. Not everyone sat them early. It was to get them out of the way. Unfortunately it meant starting A-level Maths the following year, although I had no intention of doing it in the 6th Form

      2. I took my A levels in ’66, too, but I missed out on the Fifth year and went straight into the Sixth. Hence I am slightly younger than you and peddy 🙂

    3. All the comments below demonstrate that I’m real oldie. I’d done my A and S levels etc. by June 62 and was off, after the summer, to what is now known as ‘uni’.

    4. My former husband’s whole class failed A Level physics – because the teacher had taught them from the wrong syllabus!

      They all had to resit the year. The teacher was merely sent back to attend some college course (How To Teach the Correct Syllabus, perhaps?)

  29. ‘Morning All

    Some days you just have to love Snopes

    Is Kamala Harris descended from slaveowners on Jamaica??

    UNPROVEN they thunder and list the Far Right websites that have posted this claim implying it’s all a filthy plot

    Much deeper in the article the source for this claim emerges

    “All of them were based on an account written by Donald Harris, a retired Stanford University economics professor”

    Who is this foul racist Donald Harris that makes this claim???

    Oh,that would be Kamala’s father………………………..

    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kamala-harris-ancestor-slaves/
    Edit
    Black you say??
    https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=kamala+harris&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=QYh8uSZpie2TtM%252Cai9Ex_Zi7VE02M%252C%252Fm%252F08sry2&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kTF_ak05p0PaNkVYF-upiCVmSCemA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjHkPmxj5XrAhXwUBUIHWe3BYsQ_B16BAgbEBA&biw=1366&bih=616#imgrc=QYh8uSZpie2TtM

        1. The Beeb in raptures about Harris being a woman and Afro American. Odd, because in current thinking, we should not define a person by their colour but by their by qualities. It also crossed my mind that the woman is really not ‘Afro’ at all. Someone must have also noticed in Beeb Towers and it was corrected in later bulletins to Indo American.

          5. A rumour spread about by the less endowed, much like ‘size doesn’t matter, it’s what you do with it’.

          10. The lady in M&S who measures is a Shakespear scholar. She assesses all the ladies as 32B, or not

          11. A lady living on the next street to me where I grew up owned a Ford Cortina, reg. no. BRA 38B, which was always parked outside her house. We young schoolboys dared each other to ask her if it was true, but we all failed the courage test!

        3. Very few women of matronly age and proportions go t*ts up.

          Age and gravity see to that! 🤣

          4. Well, I’m saying nothing about me but I do know that a lot of the chaps on this forum have this for a mantra:

            My nookie days are over,
            My pilot light is out,
            What used to be my sex appeal,
            Is now my water spout.

            Time was when, on its own accord,
            From my trousers it would spring,
            But now I’ve got a full-time job,
            To find the blasted thing.

            It used to be embarrassing,
            The way it would behave,
            For every single morning,
            It would stand and watch me shave.

            Now as old age approaches,
            It sure gives me the blues,
            To see it hang its little head,
            And watch me tie my shoes!

    1. 322455+ up ticks,
      Afternoon TB,
      You know full well zero will be the H/S count for the simple ALL are down now as covid fatalities.

    2. I’ve seen reports of supermarkets admitting to dealing with muzzled shoppers passing out in the heat.

    4. I’m not a fan of this heat 😎

      In full sun the Max Min thermometer in my green house was off the top scale (50 plus) not long ago.

      1. I agree

        Moh loves it. He is playing golf today .. he left after 7am for a competion , not back yet . I am sitting quietly , the fan is humming away , dogs by my side enjoying the cool !

        Feels hotter than yesterday, not a cloud in the sky.

        1. I’m sitting next to one of my fans TB.
          I can’t imaging playing a full round in this weather.
          Our Lab spends a lot of time leaving her surplus fur all over the ground floor. And laying on the cooler kitchen floor tiles.
          Can you imagine having to wear a black fur coat.

          2. We had a cocker retriever cross when i was a youngster. Skipper, he was lovely. Great fun.

    5. I’ve wondered about that.
      Was it about five years ago that thousands of French crumblies succumbed to high summer temperatures.

  32. I am certain sure the misery of the job loss apocalypse with lost futures, pensions and houses that is rushing down upon us will be equally and fairly shared between the public and private sectors
    Snigger
    I’m such a card,pity the festival’s cancelled,that one would have been a winner

    4. Police have launched a murder investigation after a man was shot dead near flats in west London.

      Armed police and an ambulance crew were called to Hansel Road, Kilburn just before 12.30am on Wednesday morning, but the victim, aged in his 20s, was pronounced dead at the scene.

      There have been no arrests and enquiries by homicide detectives from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command are ongoing.

      A crime scene remains in place.

      Chief superintendent Roy Smith, the Metropolitan Police’s borough commander for the area, said officers will be on patrol in the local area over the coming days.

      Now how does this square with Dawn ‘icon of high moral excellence’,…… ‘effing know it all, Holier than everyone else Butler ?
      If the Met stop cars and search for a suspect in this murder case who’s side is she on,………..the victim or the killer ?

      1. Corrupt plants (let us not forget that is precisely what she is) like Butler are on the side of herself and no one else.

        When I invade the UK, and take over as a benevolent despot dictator, I shall ensure that Butler, and ALL her ilk, are parachuted post haste into Mali.

        1. Get in the queue Grizz 😉

          A guy i use to play golf with, around 20 odd years ago, was top man at an east London nick. Lovely guy great sense of humour.
          He told me he couldn’t wait to retire as ‘things had gone down hill’ so rapidly.
          One day with out his knowledge a memo had been passed around and posted that it was no longer seen appropriate to call the desk sergeant whose name was White, ‘Chalky’ not because in any way he objected to the banter ……basically it was because he was actually a black man.

          2. We had a Nobby Clarke teaching in my primary school. He claimed he serviced Spitfires. I have no idea if it was true, but if he did, well done!

          3. Or Miller and Dusty.
            All this nonsense started getting out of hand just after Blair took office.

    5. No way Dock of the yard will let the true story out. Apart from DB saying the driver was black, I believed that she somehow reversed the video for it to show her on the driver’s side of the car.

  35. 322455+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    The golden years started for many politico’s mid 70s when the dismantling
    of Great Britain commenced gathering pace steadily chipping away at the footings of a very decent Nation.
    Things went into overdrive, no holds barred,post M Thatcher every politico
    who obtained the top shout regarding the party tried to outdo their predecessor in doing brussels bidding & treachery.
    ALL receiving the peoples backing and given carte blanche in the continuing odious, Country destroying battle ” the party comes before
    ALL ELSE regardless of consequences.

    Mind, you have to give the political dismantling team & their supporters credit for a successfully run campaign to date, little thought given to
    children’s welfare past or future ( think rotherham plus) also many other issues falling foul of the three monkey mode of voting in view of ” The party comes first before ALL else.
    Roll up,roll up,
    How to abuse & lose a Nation is now showing.

  37. Aberdeen train derailment due to landslides. One carriage overturned. Sky News reporting that driver may have died in the accident. Train was held up by a landslide and ordered back to Aberdeen but struck a new landslide on the way back.

          1. Due to four hours sleep and generally being miserable – the first person who suggests this is down to cli-mutt change gets sat on.

            That’s a lack of drainage. It’s hard ground baked solid, a lot of rain quickly, a valley and flooding.

            That angry man rant done, I hope those injured recover soon.

          2. Try the other side of the bed tomorrow! Better check Gretas not lurking there either. I woke up, as usual in the middle of the night, and turned on the World Service. Cripes, it was not our lot going on about wokery, it was a kraut ruminating about a brick elephant in Dortmund and how best it could be decontaminated as a symbol of German colonialisation. Don’t people have real worries in the world these days like war and hunger or just those that the government drums up like plague and discrimination.

          3. Don’t forget to add that it is England dependent Scotland, too – and serve them right.

          4. Read a better article about it off mainstream – people killed, including the driver and that’s bally awful.

          5. You’re a class act, Wibbs, you surely are.

            You’ve just put a big smile on my face. 😂

    4. Labour leader says thoughts are with everyone involved

      Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour party, said: “My thoughts are with everyone involved in the serious incident in Aberdeenshire.

      “Thank you to all the emergency services.”

      What a creepy opportunist thing to say, I suppose he thinks he’s alone in those sentiments………..

    2. It’s a pity that manager stopped too soon before he had rendered the twat unconscious.

  39. From further down Belle’s Talk Radio link below…

    “Tory MP Lee Anderson’s message to Gary Lineker: “If he emails me details of the accommodation he resides in, I’ll make sure it’s available for the next boat of illegal immigrants – bed and breakfast of course.” “

    2. I suspect the whole coach load will be saying more often than not on the journey to St Lineker’s “ARE WE KNEELY THERE YET” ?

  40. Is it just me??Scotland hasn’t been hit by a Tornado or a Hurricane,nor a “Once in a lifetime” rainstorm,it’s Scotland for heavens sake,it rains quite heavily quite a lot yet we have multiple embankments failing……….
    Where is the preventative observation and maintenance??
    I look forward to Bof B’s observations to see if I’m being unreasonable

    1. Cats usually don’t like draughts.

      Missy is lying on the carpet near my feet in our cool (25C) living room.

          1. I suppose I am selling sand to the A-rabs
            but here goes:

            Equipment required:

            Block of ice….or some ice cubes in a high sided bowl
            Electric fan.
            Electricity!

            Method:

            Confirm safe electricity supply.
            Do not allow in-experienced people to switch on the
            ‘leccy’ supply.
            After garnering signatures for acceptance of MS regs.
            check the risk assessment requirements.

            IF, by this time there is anyone still alive in this stiffling
            heat…….put the ice [in its container] in front of the fan
            and turn on the electrical supply which will activate the fan
            [this explanation has been included to aid those who chose
            to be obtuse!]

          2. Went out to lunch today at Reggies Italiano. I’ll take you there the next time you are down.

            Devon crab and Pornstar Martini’s.

            Joe (guiseppe) the maitre D apologised for not having the AC on because of dicktat. I suggested the ice in front of the fan to him but apparently those are banned too.

      2. Mine is parked at my feet under the desk wrapped around a lot of heat-generating electronics – weird. If my foot strays too near to her, it is clasped gently between her front paws and licked – very ticklish.

        1. My hound is flat out by my side; thankfully he’s gone deaf or I’d be typing this with him sitting on my shoulder, as it’s thundering regularly outside.

  42. Oh no! Radio 3 is just subjecting to us to a woke choir singing “Why do people love their guns”. You can’t win – on Classic FM it’s Mike the brainwashed delivery driver telling you how he is going to save world from Covid every half hour.

    1. I have R3 on in the car, but otherwise I prefer silence and never have the radio on indoors. I can’t stand classic FM – far too bright & breezy and all the ads.

        1. Many years ago I used to listen to our friend the Legal Beagle – funny how life comes full circle, isn’t it!

          3. The stand in? Never! I got that bugger the job – and he then did me down (behind the scenes) for twenty years.

      2. I used to have R3 on all day at one time, but I find there are longer and longer blocks of silence these days. Must remember to turn back on for composer of the week at 1pm.

          2. They have Beethoven all year every alternate week – this is one of the weeks. I haven’t managed to catch all the Beethoven since January but what I have heard has been most informative.

      3. I have my sat nav lady who talks to me a lot. Particularly if you give her a destination you don’t want to go to, and then the poor confused lass has to keep working out where you are actually going, and trying, fruitlessly, to correct you.

          1. Having taken a friend to the theatre in MK, I pressed the ‘home, James’ button as usual on getting back into the car, but of course I had to skirt Huntingdon to take her home to St Ives. That upset the satnav no end.

          2. Where’s the fun doing that though. It’s the one time we chaps can get the upper hand over talkative womenkind.

        2. “Recalculating ….. recalculating ….”
          MB and I do it deliberately when driving around our area just to set her off.

    1. A shame it wasn’t Biden and Clinton, that would have really taken your conspiracy to new heights.

      It would also have been the final main in the Dems platform, same old same old.

      2. Corruption ! This is where some of the money came from which Soros spent in London ”leveraging” the UK government to do what he wants. Soros and his co-investors made $3.4 billion profit on the sale of OneWest Bank which was formed out of the bankrupt IndyMac Bank with approx $14 billion in federal funding and a sweetheart deal with Obama. They simply could not lose, and the regulators were paid off to look the other way.

        As The Washington Examiner tells us………….

        ”Soros might also be responsible for Harris’ biggest weakness as a candidate. When Harris served as California’s Attorney General, state prosecutors found that OneWest Bank may have violated foreclosure law 1,000 times. Harris declined to prosecute anyone at OneWest Bank, despite compelling evidence. OneWest was partially owned by George Soros at the time. Soros donated to Harris’ “California Criminal Policy Initiative” while she was supposed to be deciding whether or not to prosecute.

        Harris never brought charges against OneWest Bank. Soros and his business partner sold the company the next year, to the tune of $3.4 billion. The year after that, Harris ran for Senate with Soros’ financial backing. OneWest’s CEO at the time was none other than Steve Mnuchin, the current Secretary of the Treasury. After Harris declined to prosecute, he also donated to her.

        https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/red-alert-politics/sen-kamala-harris-unofficial-2020-presidential-campaign-already-begun

        1. Sounds as good a state prosecutor as Keir Starmer was. Are there any politicians and lawyers who aren’t corrupt?

      1. 322455+ up ticks+ up ticks,
        Afternoon SSA,I
        Immigration enforcement is really appertaining to
        accommodation where they have three offers in housing then they are enforced to take one.

    2. Ha! an Immigration Enforcement van, empty, with the invaders on a luxury coach. You couldn’t make it up.

      1. 322455+ up ticks,
        Afternoon KP,
        But we must “make things up now” with some urgency because the odious,treacherous reality
        if fully realised by the ovid could be a cause of mass serious injuries among the lab/lib/con coalition politico’s.
        Even sheep can turn very nasty especially the black ones.

      2. Good afternoon, Kaypea.

        You have no need to make it up!
        HMG and MSM do that for us!! :-))

  45. I see that several people have already commented on Biden’s appointment of Kamala Harris as his light-brown running mate.

    I have scanned the press of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the UAE as I do every day. Her appointment has been reported in the same way as in the west. Therefore I have no idea what the Arab reaction is to her stance on Middle East issues. I suspect that they are rather confused!

    Harris is very pro-Israel, which is unusual for a Democrat, (she is married to a Jew) but she is also pro-Iran. I wonder what she thinks of Iran’s poodle, Hezbollah, which wants to destroy Israel!

    On a more general note, if Biden wins, the far-left and communists who founded BLM will be rubbing their hands with glee while the US goes further down the drain. BLM has little to do with Black Lives except in the minds of a few deluded teenagers, the wokes of this world and readers of the Guardian!

    1. Harris is very pro-Israel, which is unusual for a Democrat, (she is married to a Jew) but she is also pro-Iran. I wonder what she thinks of Iran’s poodle, Hezbollah, which wants to destroy Israel!
      As we already know, all politicians have their price.

    2. Harris appears to be as black as Warren is Cherokee. How far back is the supposed mixed blood?

          2. We have a dear friend who surprised us all one day when she told a group at a BBQ that her great grand father was a black Caribbean.
            She only has black but straight hair.

        2. Morning Bill!

          Her father looks mulatto? Mind, my first boss when I left art school and went to work in the rag trade was a white Jamaican. She was born and raised there and had the accent but was otherwise 100% European.

          1. I can’t take all these racist comments…{:¬))

            Good morning, Our Susan – wash your mouth out with soap and water.

          2. I always find white Jamaicans speaking in the local dialect very discombobulating.
            Like the black crim in Porridge who spoke Weegie.

          3. Jan Molby, a Dane, played football for Liverpool in the 1980s.

            When he was interviewed on the telly he spoke a perfect Scouse, including all the erm, erm, erms.

          4. Andrea Azeni, an Italian jockey based over here, speaks English so well you’d hardly realise he was a foreigner – unlike Frankie Dettori. No one would ever take him for anything but an Italian speaker!

          6. I had 2 British dental colleagues who spoke German with Newcastle & Blackpool accents.

          8. The white friends from schooldays, whom I visited in Jamaica, switched between the local accent & RP, depending on whom they were speaking to.
            Likewise my first spouse, of British Raj stock, spoke RP but switched back to ‘Bombay’ when we visited her mother. She also spoke fluent Hindi & a couple of other dialects.

          15. We are up to 46 at the end of the month.
            Years together of course,……… not marriages.

          17. Thanks and you………
            Coincidently we drove to Cornwall in my MGB GT for our Honeymoon and are heading that way towards the end of September. I don’t think we would get into one of those little cars now, let alone get out again 😆

          18. I drove to Herefordshire in my MG Midget (trailing cans at first, and with “Just Married” painted on the bonnet in Windolene).

          19. I had a sun roof on my GT, we were about to depart the reception and one of my brother-in-law’s put his hand in and opened it. Confetti rained down on us. it had black upholstery and carpets, some of it was still in evidence when i sold it 3 years later.

          23. Our youngest sons’ lady is of Sikh stock, very down to earth family all bothers and sister have white partners.
            But as much as I try I can’t for the life of me do that wide eyed funny little head wiggle.

          24. “But as much as I try I can’t for the life of me do that wide eyed funny little head wiggle.”

            Theresa May did a very good version of the head-wobble in her Ramadan-a-ding-dong video. Anyone who ever had any doubts about her being not just out of her depth but completely mad and dangerous had those doubts removed at that moment.

    1. That reminds me of something really unpleasant when I was at school.

      In the fifties we had ink wells in our desks , i was only about 10 years old , and I was jabbed in the leg with a knib of a pen by a very spiteful girl . It was a deep small wound , but I stll have the scar .

      School instruments including geometry sets were dangerous weapons , if used maliciously.

      3. So were eating irons. I once rammed my fork on to the back of the hand of another boy who was trying to steal food from my plate.

          1. Yes, two different groups, on an island, fighting for survival and supremacy – sounds like the one we are on.

          2. Golding was prescient, like Orwell. But modern politicians treat them as training manuals, not as a cautionary tale.

          3. There are many cautionary tales for politicians, but not one has taken any notice .

            Soon this wonderful country will be as poor as poor can be . The rich will have gobbled everything up , we are asset stripped to the bone , yet the so called migrants who keep swopping from one European country to another then want to come to pre Brexit Britain, how do they imagine their new lives to be.

            Funny how no one blames Mrs Merkel for this mess , when she issued an open invite to the rest of the world Europe is open , what was she thinking, has anyone asked her . She has wrought disaster on every country in Europe .

            Look at what the blacks are doing in Eire , causing utter havoc, why did Ireland invite them over?

            We are being dragged down by the aspirations of a few meddlesome idiot politicians and do gooders .

          5. I blame Merkel – what right did she have to invite the rest of the world into the whole of Europe? None.

          6. Saw a marvellous production of that at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. I sat in the front row & nearly had a body on my feet.

          7. I remember reading it when I was at school and thinking all-girls’ schools were not much different.

        2. Good heavens Peddy, that reminds me of an incident years ago in a restaurant . Moh and I were having a meal in a nice eaterie , first course , (Seventies food) nice pate and toast and a few trimmings , and a man walked past our table and took a slice of my toast .. We were shocked .. and clueless as to how to protest!

          1. I have a friend who lived up to his Irish heritage and certainly had the gift of the gab.
            In a restaurant, while we were exchanging pleasantries and examining the menu, it was not unknown for him to wander off round the restaurant with fork in hand and chat to other diners. When it came to ordering he was ready because he had always been able to persuade others to give him a sample of their meal.

          2. I scrolled all the way down, but no-one quoted the best restaurant line “I’ll have what she’s having”. (Estelle Reiner)

      4. Girls can be far more vicious than boys. It was getting worse each year when I was a Court Usher.

        OT. That was also the case of Drink Driving. Middle age + women drivers invariably had higher readings than men.

  47. From yesterday’s Spectator email:

    “New Zealand has recorded
    its first community transmission of Covid-19 in more than 102 days
    after four members of the same family tested positive for the virus in
    Auckland, with the source of infection unknown. Auckland will be placed
    under a restrictive phase of lockdown for three days, while the whole
    country must work from home where possible and avoid large gatherings.”

    One family! And the whole city is shut down! In a country which recorded 29 deaths from this virus – they’ve all caught the fear bug even more than they have here – whatever happened to freedom?

    2. I read that one of the workers was employed in a cold store .. and the PM thinks that the virus was brought into the country in a consignment of imported goods .

      Heaven forfend if that is true.

        1. That will highlight just how unable we are to service the huge and increasing population.

    3. Its a socialist utopia, dont you know. You will do what you are told. Nice scenery apparently.

    5. What should really be of concern is that they don’t know where the infection came from.

      Does that suggest it could be blown in on the wind from Australia, or possibly able to lie dormant for months at a time or that all four were carriers but only got tested when they caught a cold or similar.

      Covid-Mary’s the lot of them.

      Happy days…

    6. That’s because they have an idiotic PM who locked down the country during its summer (March) and has now opened it up during its winter (August).

      A country has the leaders it deserves.

    7. One of my friends gave me a bag of books this morning; one of them was the novel “Lockdown” by Peter May. It was written during the Bird Flu panic, but only published this year. It’s a murder mystery, but the lockdown is eerily similar.

      1. Earlier on in the summer I read Daniel Defoe’s account of the Plague Year – a free download for kindle. A bit repetitive and needed proof-reading, but the way people were forced to shut away in their houses, those who could afford to escaped to the countryside, and the general way in which the crisis was managed, was very similar to today.

  48. What magnificent skills will the new illegals reward us with as they re colonise us .

    Every century since our history began, there have been foreign influences.

    What will our investment in the new comers bring , seeing as though we are tax payers and fair minded people , I am really curious to know what the government know, that we don’t.

    1. 322455+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      “What will our investment in the new comers bring ”
      A bountiful return duly earned by submissive mugs
      guaranteed.
      “Governance knows that we don’t”
      Tomorrows parliamentary canteen menu, and that should tell people all they need to know.

    2. You know the answer to that, Belle – they’ll bring us all the enrichment of diversity.
      More of the same we’ve had the last 30 years or so.

      1. I was hoping that they would kick their old habits into touch , and use some of their intelligence ( if they are Iranians, Syrians and Iraqis) to good use . We need good civil engineers , scientists , designers , specialists in all sorts of areas of life and people who are superior to the black inhabitants of some of the sink estates . My dentist is from that region, I respect him.
        One of my consultants was also from that ME region , very knowledgeable and capable.

        I just don’t appreciate the garbed next to useless Mosque wanderers and the devout primitives .. I cannot bear that. But I do appreciate Middle Eastern intelligence .. they can be a bit more sophisticated than other bods of the Islamic persuasion.

        Do you see what I mean?

        1. Sadly, I think the well-educated and sophisticated Middle Eastern engineers and doctors are unlikely to be the ones resorting to Calais people-traffickers. Those are people who have been sadly misled by the promise of the delights of the UK benefit system.

          2. But they have all escaped from war-torn areas, travelled on foot through many countries, encountering barbed wire, fierce dogs and many other terrible problems, but steadfast in their aim of a better life at our expense.

    2. Afternoon Citr0en – I haven’t seen a Newman cartoon for years. I have an original of his.

  51. “UK crashes into recession”. “Hard times ahead,” says Hindoo chancellor.

    Well, matey, who deliberately created the chaos that has led to this?

    1. And while a couple of million more are predicted to lose their jobs and possibly their homes – The govt waves in more from abroad, mostly non-English speaking, uneducated and unemployable, with families to follow – for us to pay for. They will demand their culture, laws and rules be given precedence – and their aim to take this country continues – with our govt’s help.

      1. Don’t get me started on the illegals – and Priti Awful….

        There s a page on it in The Grimes today – very sympathetic towards the “poor frightened” people.

        They even quote – with approval – one comment by a benefit grabber: “We can’t stay in France – they don’t give you anything.”

        2. “We can’t stay in France – they don’t give you anything.” a tactic we should adopt here.

          Not just for the illegals but a minimum amount for all those not working, on production of a NINO issued more than 5 years ago.

          Just watch the mass emigration.

          1. The problem is that a minimum amount is still more than a workshy layabout would receive in some of those far off lands.

            It still needs some form of the Australian approach, ship them to some offshore island (Eirope?) and bare minimum upkeep until they can prove their origin and need for asylum. Whilst they are at it equip customs / border patrol with tugboats for pushing the invaders back.

          2. Hence the reason for a NINO over 5 years old – it means that they must support themselves for at least 5 years.

          3. You know NINOs are issued to babies when the mother claims Child Benefit? Including children who don’t even live in this country.

          4. Then they shouldn’t be, maybe a NHS number but the National Insurance number was originally only issued after notification by your first employer.

          6. New numbers are issued to immigrants but the vast majority are issued at birth to babies when the mother claims ChB..

      2. I heard last week that I am to be made redundant around the beginning of next year. At 64, I think it’ll be well nigh impossible to find work again in my field of IT. I think I might opt for any old job I can find that’s local and with reasonable hours, if only to keep myself sane. Failing that, early (and not so pecunious) retirement beckons. Fortunately SWMBO’s consultancy is still going, at least for the time being so we’re not facing the prospect of the Poor House.

          3. I have done, frequently! What with being secretary of two table tennis clubs and minutes sec for the league, all the hedgehog work, and various other stuff, I certainly wouldn’t have time for a paid job – but this year, most of those activities have ground to a halt, and it will be hard to gt going again, eventually, if we ever do.

        2. Bummer for you, Sean. Sorry about that – can you add to SWMBOs business with IT consulting?

          1. Hers is an IT consultancy but my skills belong the Jurassic – Cobol, CICS, DB2 whereas hers are modern – SAP. There’s not a lot I could bring to her party. Besides, I’ve always wanted to improve my golf game and pick up from where I left off when I stopped playing after my school days.

          3. I have thought about that. I never had the opportunity to go to varsity when I left school – parents couldn’t afford it and no state subsidies. I once started a UNISA BSc (like Open University) but work and family intruded so I had to let that slide. U3A sounds like a good idea.

          4. I belong to Cambridge U3A, where I teach German. There is a very large & varied programme. You’re not restricted to your nearest “branch”.

          5. There may be specialised work needed with those older systems – we were at an IT company today, who specialise in taking heritage data and making it available for use – and that suggests data from programs like COBOL.
            You could maybe drop them a line – when they need help, just call, kind of thing?

      1. According to the Yorkshire Airways website, it’s Welsh for “Eee bah gum lad” {:^))

  53. Stonehaven crash update

    “Three people have died including a train driver and a fourth is feared missing after a ScotRail passenger service derailed and crashed down an embankment near Aberdeen in an area hit by major flooding today. The train came off the tracks on the line at 9.40am today close to the old Carmont railway station, near Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, with 30 emergency vehicles and an air ambulance sent to the scene. The Class 43 Inter7City train is said to have had six crew members and six passengers on board what was the 6.38am departure from Aberdeen to Glasgow Queen Street, which called at Stonehaven at 6.53am. The condition of the eight people not dead or missing has not yet been revealed, but First Minister Nicola Sturgeon earlier referred to ‘reports of serious injuries’. The train is believed to have stopped south of Carmont having seen a landslip. It is then believed to have returned north, initially on the southbound line, before crossing over to the northbound line at Carmont – and then hit a second landslip and derailed. It comes after severe flooding in the area overnight which led to flash flooding in Aberdeen and widespread disruption across ScotRail following thunderstorms. Network Rail tweeted a video filmed in the same area minutes after the incident at 9.49am, showing flooding on the line and saying that trains could not run.”

    Six crew members and six passengers?

    2. Latest theory is that the driver got permission to cross over to the adjacent line and continue towards Glasgow. “A one line track” which is permissible. The expert giving this opinion on BBC radio 4 at 5pm thought by the pictures of the accident, the driver was going too fast in the conditions at the time. Usually in such severe conditions the train moves forward at a slow cautionary pace.

    3. “Six crew members and six passengers?”

      Driver, conductor, drinks dispenser and three plague police?

      I raised an eyebrow at a 4-car HST set – 4,500hp to move six vehicles is a bit extravagant.

      2. More motive power than necessary, but it’s all down to redeploying the HST sets. Probably had to cut the length to fit the platforms.

        1. Some quick calculations: 300 tons, 4,500 hp…well you can work out the power to weight ratio. I was a bit surprised to see that the ghastly Meridian units that we have on the Midland come out at more than that. BR’s first-generation suburban diesel units scraped in at 5-6.

        2. Some quick calculations: 300 tons, 4,500 hp…well you can work out the power to weight ratio. I was a bit surprised to see that the ghastly Meridian units that we have on the Midland come out at more than that. BR’s first-generation suburban diesel units scraped in at 5-6.

    5. Citroen;

      Should we not have a little compassion for those
      and their relatives/friends who died?

  54. The Independent reporting that the government is looking into deaths of hundreds of front line health and care home workers. I seem to remember that the government agreed to pay £6000 to the families of front line workers who died as a result of treating Covid 19 patients. Perhaps the claims are pouring in now.

    1. They need to save the cash – – to pay for the hotel bills of our new “English”. Priorities are clear . . VERY clear.

  55. “You can have open borders or a welfare state,you can’t have both they’re mutually exclusive”
    “Which do you want”
    Leftard Fuckwits
    “Both,it must be both”
    “It’s only fair”
    At this point I want to break into their (no doubt unlocked,hah) houses and steal half of everything they own and redistribute it………………
    That’s “only fair” surely………………………..
    What was the education budget again………………….and I thought the E in PPE stood for economics………….

    1. As someone once said

      If you took all the economists in the world and laid them end to end you still wouldn’t reach a conclusion.

    2. “Which do you want”
      Leftard Fuckwits
      “Both,it must be both”
      “It’s only fair”

      In the words of the Eagles song Lying Eyes,………. They “You set it so well so carefully”.
      Starmer and others including ex MP’s wives have made a lot of money out of what is basically ‘people trafficking’.

  58. Man fined £2,000 after buying bottle of water when he should have been self-isolating

    Chef Sanjeev Kumar had broken the two week isolation rule after his arrival into Guernsey into Southampton.

    By Max Stephens 12 August 2020 • 4:22pm

    A man was fined £2,000 for buying a bottle of water after he visited a newsagent when he should have been self-isolating.

    Chef Sanjeev Kumar, 31, had agreed to isolate for two weeks after arriving in Guernsey Airport from Southampton.

    During the 10 minute walk from the airport to hotel La Rue des Croisee, where he had been working for the past two years, Mr Kumar had stopped off at a nearby shop to buy the drink.

    However, the hotel’s housekeeper recognised Mr Kumar inside Forrest Stores newsagents and informed authorities.

    Police officers later found him in a chalet at the hotel where Mr Kumar admitted he had indeed been in the shop.

    Judge Graeme McKerrell, at Guernsey Magistrate’s Court, ordered Mr Kumar to pay a fine of £2,000, saying that a clear message needed to be sent out that any breach of the regulations will not be tolerated.

    The judge said that he did not understand why Kumar could not have waited another five minutes, since that was all it would have taken to walk down the hill to the New Manor hotel.

    “’You did an extraordinarily foolish thing, given that you were only a short distance away from the hotel,” the judge told Mr Kumar.

    Mr Kumar had attempted to buy water at Southampton Airport, but all the shops were closed, as was the Guernsey Airport shop, the court heard.

    However, there was a fresh water drinking fountain at the airport which Mr Kumar could have used, said prosecuting advocate Jenny McVeigh.

    After completing his two week isolation period, Kumar had gone to police headquarters where he was charged.

    Defending Mr Kumar, advocate Domaill said his client was very apologetic and very much regretted this grave error of judgement.

    Judge McKerrell gave Mr Kumar credit for his guilty plea and being of previous good character, and also for volunteering that he had been to the shop when questioned by police.

    The judge told the court he was prepared to impose a reduced fine of £2,000 or 100 days in prison.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/12/man-fined-2000-buying-bottle-water-should-have-self-isolating/

    They never left
    https://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48209000/jpg/_48209743_germans2.jpg

          1. Where i grew up there was a huge filed at the back of our house and several horse lived in the field. A huge horse we called Snowy use to put his head over the fence for a carrot or an apple or two.
            I use to climb over the fence now and again to gather the proceeds in a sack for my dads vegetable garden and roses. What goes around eh.

          2. In the village in which I grew up, it used to be a fight to see who could be first to get to the coalman’s horse with a bucket and shovel if he dropped a deposit 🙂

          3. Our Milkie had a horse as well, as little boys we invented a game.
            When the horse stopped out side our house there was a slope in the road and a drain at the junction behind. He often had a peed there and we use to put stones on the kerb to try and guess how far it would run down the slope before stopping.
            And it was a race with the bucket and spade when he did one.

  65. 322455+ up ticks,
    If not taken up voluntary then it will no doubt be made mandatory as in
    You will take three one of each gender.

    BRISTOL MAYOR CALLS ON LOCALS TO HOST MIGRANTS IN THEIR HOMES

      1. 322455+ up ticks,
        Evening RE,
        I(f the same voting pattern that has got us & kept us in deep sh!te for decades is not radically changed, then if it is in the next coalition parties manifesto’s it has every chance of being made law.

        1. Excuse me, but if the Brexit Party hadn’t withdrawn most of its candidates. then the “voting pattern” might have been very different. In our constituency we had neither UKIP nor Brexit Party to vote for.

          So would you please stop dissing the voters all the time.

          1. I’m not so sure he isn’t correct. Eddisbury had a UKIP candidate, the only leaver on the platform and she lost her deposit.

          2. But it was The Brexit Party that stood the best chance generally, in that election. UKIP was unfortunately floundering about by that time.

          3. There was no Brexit Party candidate in Eddisbury. The point was, they had a good candidate who was the only leaver on the ticket and they voted for the big three. The previous incumbent had been nominally a Conservative, a remainer who said she’d support Brexit and then did everything she could to stop it. Then she stood for the Limp Dims in the election. The voters elected a Conservative remainer who had lost his seat in another constituency the last time. They deserve everything they get, in my view, particularly as the candidate was told on more than one occasion “I agree with everything you say [in the election leaflet], but I’m not going to vote for you”.

          4. 322455+ up ticks,
            Evening HL,
            You mean it seems, to allow the lab/lib/con coalition support & vote to go unhindered ?

            I see it as the Brexit group was set up to split votes
            and to be an advantage to what passes as the tory party.
            A ll the time you have a section of the electorate
            supporting and voting for proven failure as in lab/lib/con coalition you will always find opposition the day you don’t you / Country will be in very deep irreversible trouble

            By the by ask yourself why did “I want my life back nige” stand down half of the brexit group?

          5. Your last sentence is actually what I was getting at.

            He has been excused as “not being perfect” but IMO one is far, far, far short of even mediocre in one’s judgement to do what he did.

            But he is still all we have.

    2. Be interesting to see how that goes. Bristol, I gather, is a ‘Refugees Welcome’ area so wonder how many will actually ‘put money where mouth is’ to show their willingness? We’ve seen elsewhere a lot of lip service by famous worthies, but no obvious action where their own home is involved.

      Also wonder how much the host family will have to adapt to their guests’ requirements as ‘haram’ list (which seems non-negotiable) is quite long. No pork, alcohol and non-halal meat for example. There may also be objections to clothing worn by host females and perhaps demands for prayer room?

      1. What about that ridiculous bint Lily Allen? Has she done anything constructive at all?

        Thought not.

    3. Bristol has become a receptacle for drug addicts, drug sellers and BAME trash for years. It is more than two hundred and fifty years since Bristol was the Second City, after London.

      God help us.

      1. 322455+ up ticks,
        Evening C,
        R worked on the drawing offices for the Concord
        at Filton, Bristol wasn’t bad then.

    4. I hope the locals who take someone in like getting the prayers 5 times a day.
      I remember a report of one lady who tool a young “refugee/AS” in – who was supposed to be a teen ager. All he did was look at porn using HER broadband, demand that things change to HIS ways etc. Eventually it came out that he was actually married, wife and kids back home, just lied to live here on OUR taxes.

      1. Remember the one who detonated a bomb on a train a year or so ago? He was taken in by a kindly couple who were duped. Anyone thinking of doing the same needs their head examined.

        1. It won’t be long before it is compulsory. Shades of the USSR and East Germany – these ideologies go around the world like a Mexican wave.

      1. Don’t forget to look out for the anachronisms – a Land Rover and Morris Minor on the streets of Alexandria. Just how long were they in the desert?!

        1. I must look out for them when I view the film again. I thought that starting handles were essential and I was anti the decision to use modern starting methods but I have never missed them since.

          1. When I was a nipper my dad had an early model Mini Traveler (the plain one, not half-timbered), certainly old enough not to have a year suffix letter. I feel it may have had a starting handle? Never knew dad to use it though. I shall have to ask him as this may be a classic false memory. About a classic.

            Now I come to think of it, I’m picturing a hole in the front grille, which can’t be correct for a transverse engine. I must be imagining things!

            The car spent some years off the road before being sold. We should have kept it. 🙁

          3. Difficult but not impossible. I’ve been looking into it, what with my false memory.

            http://www.bmh-ltd.com/wheelnut/wheelnut_16.asp

            Galloping to the rescue of Minis with feeble batteries came Oselli Accessories. For about a fiver, (in the mid-1960s) they offered a complete kit of handle, crankshaft dog, guide plates, and a support arm. You had to cut a hole in the wing valance, fit the crankshaft dog in place of the standard crank bolt, and bolt into place the support arm inside the wheelarch. To use the starting handle, you put the wheels on full left lock, and poked the handle through the support arm hole and the hole in the valance, engaged the dog and wound your engine into life – you hoped. No, I’ve never tried one, or even seen one, but what a collector’s item this must be…

            And here is the handle, going in sideways:

            http://www.bmh-ltd.com/wheelnut/CrankWeb.jpg

    1. Err, that car. Any chance we could put those monkeys in Westminster? Let’s be honest. It’s not going to make things any worse.

    2. The police might have been correct in their actions. Its not exactly unknown for our elected elite to indulge in criminal behaviour.

  68. That’s me for yet another horribly hot, sticky day. Can’t see much prospect of useful rain. Well has added 10 inches since Saturday. Which is about twenty watering cans…

    Have a jolly evening refreshing yourselves regularly.

    A demain.

  70. Sudden chill breeze – I think the storm’s coming our way. We might not be eating outside after all this evening.

    1. Lucky you, Ndovu. I am – like Uncle Bill – just melting like butter in a microwave.

        1. Weather forecast for the next three days in Colchester suggests almost non-stop thunder and lightning; however “low chance of precipitation’ (rain). AAARGHH!

  74. Masks you say….

    At the local music/barbeque evening today, masks were conspicuous by their absence.

    I wore my recommended multi-ply nose & mouther, and felt that the peer-pressure was the opposite of what I see reported in the UK, i.e. masks were for the Frit…

    Pinched at the bridge of the nose, sealed as well as it could be, I could smell the food cooking, the “gaz” and the barbeque wood burning. Please don’t try to tell me that the masks are effective.

    1. Surgical masks are to trap breathed-out bits, not breathed-in. Unless you wear it inside-out, of course.
      Masks made of old pillowcases might trap food particles & sneezed yukk.

      2. Thats the message we are given nowadays. Masks are to prevent you infecting others, so feel guilty if you don’t mask up.

  76. Went out at 3,20 – temperature on car face 35.5. Returned at 4.30 mid thunderstorm and temperature 22.5. What a drop,in an hour.

    2. My hi-lo thermometer registered 41c in the shade in my back garden. Dolly Dog has been chewing ice cubes.

  77. Evening, all. Mixed day; started off badly at home, then the Connemara excelled himself in Prelim 19 (of which more later) followed by thunderstorms, rain and high winds. The Connemara, who I thought would struggle with the required “tempo, consistency, balance, straightness, regularity” actually put up the best performance I’ve ever known from him. He was not 100% consistent, but he showed some nice paces in trot, free walk and canter (always a problem for him as he’s very stiff). He did some nice transitions (up and down), didn’t rush (probably his worst failing) and did a nice stretch in trot as required in the last 20m circle at V. I was so pleased for him (and proud of him as well – he definitely earned his Polo!). He has improved so much from the lunatic that frightened the life out of me (he didn’t appear to have any brakes whatsoever!) when I first rode him. Prelim 19 is nearly Novice level so quite an achievement.

    1. Claimimng novice level looked strange , at first sight that is beginner. It’s not though is it? Sounds like a whole tube of polo mints were in order.

      1. No, prelim are the easier tests, but the higher the number, the more difficult they are. Then you move up to Novice, Advanced, Prix St Georges and the big time!

  78. God I hate the BBC! Tonight I wanted to watch the Portillo programme about a rail journey through Germany – it was changed to a programme about hotels – why?

    Later on was a programme I really wanted to see on BBC 4 about the war in Burma – instead the cretins decided to continue the coverage of the interminable snooker [which has already consumed huge chunks of today’s scheduling] – no apology, no indication of when the programme might start. Defund the BBC, I say! I have made a complaint to them but I bet it’s ignored!!

    1. I thought they might have pulled the Portillo rail journey programme because of the train crash in Scotland, in case anyone was offended. I know they have done something similar in the past.

      1. That would be typical of the BBC – but has something awful happened in Burma today!??

          1. They could have done what they often do – stick to the schedule and run the sport on the red button/online – this seems to me to be a total disregard of the viewers who don’t want yet more snooker – for heaven’s sake it’s been on BBC1, 2 and 4 already!

          5. I used to love watching show jumping on tv but it seems to’ve disappeared completely. Do the tournaments still happen?

          6. Not since covid, unfortunately. They used to – at Hickstead, Horse of the Year Show, Olympia. Same with eventing; Badminton, Burleigh, Blenheim, Gatcombe (all cancelled this year, but normally taking place without terrestrial TV).

          7. We always enjoyed it. With proper comentators like Rraymond Brooks – Ward & Dorian Williams.then Hickstead with The Jumping Derby.

    2. I too was annoyed at the rescheduling of the Portillo programme as it was to have been a journey through Germany.

      But the replacement about a hotel in Chile was for me a great joy as it was situated in the Vilarica-Pucon area, which was my first playground in Chile in 2010. It brought back many happy memories. The scenery & wildlife are spectacular. Could have done with less of the Mapuche issue, however.

    3. You might as well complain to my cat. In the eyes of those running it, the BBC can do no wrong and any criticism is simply brushed aside. Arseholes.

        1. We have just had the first demand for the TV tax. It has been put to one side to await events.

    4. Thanks for the warning, SB. DVD recorder turned off, now registering a complaint with the B’stard Broadcasting Corpn. (I thought programme recorders only started when the correct code was transmitted?)

      1. Well, possibly – part 1 should have started at 2100 according to both published and online schedules!

          3. They’ve just updated the online programme guide – as it stands at present the guide suggests that the snooker goes on to 2200, when they will show Burma part 2, followed at 2300 by Burma part 1!! Mind you, we once showed a film at sea and mixed up the reels so that it ran as reel 1,3, 2 and very few people noticed!

          5. or just the experts discussing the program and how it should be refocused to reflect todays values.

    6. The schedulers are a law unto themselves. I get irritated when they put me to the trouble of clearing copyrights for programmes that are pulled at last minute.

    7. Would a program on the war in Burma be anything but misrepresented?

      I can see it now – all of those indigenous ones being upset by the marauding Brits who set the scene for independence from the war mongering imperialists.

      2. I was hoping that this one would be quite good – it was about Joe Simpson [he of “Touching the Void” fame] in search of the area where his father fought as a Chindit. Oh well, maybe it will appear again – hopefully with some warning!

    1. Page 121-213 weather strips & seals……..709 adjustable wenches. Reciprocating saws page 863 >>>
      Push fit compression joints are also available. Fans 371. Lubricants 577……

  80. Our ‘stay safe’ society treats grown adults like accident-prone children

    From hot weather to the coronavirus, officialdom’s endless exhortations to ‘take care’ only feed fear

    PHILIP JOHNSTON

    “Phew, what a scorcher!” used to be the tongue-in-cheek tabloid headline of choice to mark a hot day. Now they are more likely to reflect official warnings of heat stroke, sunburn, skin cancer and death.

    Indeed, I am not sure how I survived yesterday after ignoring all the advice proffered me by weather forecasters and sundry health experts. I did not carry a bottle of water, did not stay out of the sun, did not apply factor 50 lotion, did not wear a wide-brimmed hat and left the curtains open on my way out. I had been given a clear amber warning. What was I thinking?

    Actually, I was thinking: who began this nonsense? How did mankind persevere for millennia without colour-coded heat-health and UV warnings? When did the Met Office take it upon itself to become the national nag, telling us that direct exposure to the sun can burn and hot weather is uncomfortable at night “so sleep under a sheet”?

    It is not that these observations are untrue; but we already know them to be true and do not need to be constantly reminded by a bunch of semi-official, self-appointed fusspots.

    We are now being assailed by the latest addition to this litany of weather warnings: thunder and lightning. Alerts are already rumbling across the land as the storms often associated with a breakdown in hot weather in Britain make their presence felt. Who knew? Well, George III did since he described the British summer as three hot days and a thunderstorm. In fact, most of us know all of this and do not need our hands held.

    The Met Office website informs us that their full list of warnings comprises rain, thunderstorms, wind, snow, lightning, ice and fog. “We can also now issue dual warnings, such as rain and wind, if the impacts are likely to be from two weather types”. Double amber! I can’t wait.

    While many people find this irritating (well I certainly do) officialdom in whatever guise feels it necessary to exhort us everywhere, and especially at railway stations where at some point it was decided that we should not only receive basic passenger information but a lecture on how to stay alive.

    I heard my all-time favourite on a station platform one October Sunday after the clocks went back. “Here is an announcement. The hour has changed this weekend which means that it may be darker than usual when you return home at your normal time. Please take care.”

    “Take care” has become an inescapable verbal tic in the lexicon of modern life, along with “stay safe”, two phrases I hardly ever heard growing up. It is not that people in the past did not want to stay safe or take care but our entire world did not revolve around these notions.

    The gradual infantilisation of society that is exemplified by weather warnings helps explain the over-reaction to the coronavirus. Public policy is driven by a concept known as the precautionary principle whereby everything is done to avert an immediate risk while medium to long-term threats are ignored.

    Governments in thrall to this nefarious doctrine persuade people that risk can be eradicated when it can’t be. Confusion and fear is understandable when those in power suggest they can “defeat” Covid if certain activities are banned only to allow them – even encourage them – when the virus is still extant.

    Such is the dilemma the Government faces in trying to reopen schools. The country has been so spooked that even scientific studies showing that children and schools play a “minor role” in spreading the virus are not trusted sufficiently to ease concerns.

    Those who insist on “following the science”, like teachers’ unions, are still determined to thwart the return of children to the classrooms even though Prof Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and a member of Sage, the government advisory group, said “there is very little evidence that the virus is transmitted in schools.” He added: “The risks to children from Covid are very low and the risks of school closures we know are very serious.”

    If truth be told, safety can never be guaranteed because a child can always pick up an illness that will cause greater harm than coronavirus, such as meningitis, sepsis or even flu.

    Mercifully, and unlike past plagues, Covid leaves children pretty much alone though you would not know it from the paranoid debate surrounding the reopening of schools. I can see that teachers may be worried about their own health but they can take the same precautions everyone else who has to interact with others is already taking.

    Parents, however, are a different matter. Many want their children to go back for the benefit of their education but also so they can return to work. But some, maybe quite a few, will be reluctant to do so for as long as the virus is in circulation – notwithstanding the fact that it poses less of a risk to their children than many other aspects of life.

    If there is an infection spike it is more likely to be caused by large gatherings of parents at school gates as they drop off their children, a relatively recent trend that is itself emblematic of the “stay safe” society. Children are no more at risk of abduction or being hit by a car than when I was young yet we always made our own way, even to primary school, either walking or by public transport. Nowadays, most are driven. Just when we want children to be fitter and thinner, walking should be encouraged.

    But the main reason they are driven, sometimes just a few hundred yards, is because parents are unreasonably anxious about their children walking to school, just as many will be about sending them back in the midst of a pandemic, however small the demonstrable risk.

    The ONS figures for excess deaths published yesterday show that fewer people are dying than is usual at this time of year and more are succumbing to flu and pneumonia than to Covid. Yet governments across the globe have managed to make this virus uniquely resistant to rational thought and decision-making.

    Perhaps in a world in which every weather phenomenon comes with a warning attached and winter gales are given a name, this neurosis is hardly surprising. Stay safe.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/11/stay-safe-society-treats-grown-adults-like-accident-prone-children/

    This is a rather ordinary piece by Johnston, even if the broad thrust of the article is correct (though I disagree with his forecast of a school-gate spike in infections).

    Nevertheless, improvements in attitudes to H&S are not all bad. In the video below, look out for the Virginia Water station master casually crossing the track (third rail electric) and the shunters cheerfully hanging on their brake poles in the hump shunt yard (12m and 13m 40s respectively). There’s plenty more in there.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyUkKbw3tKk

  81. Sweden’s success shows the true cost of our arrogant, failed establishment

    Shocking incompetence has unnecessarily wiped billions of pounds from the UK economy

    ALLISTER HEATH

    So now we know: Sweden got it largely right, and the British establishment catastrophically wrong. Anders Tegnell, Stockholm’s epidemiologist-king, has pulled off a remarkable triple whammy: far fewer deaths per capita than Britain, a maintenance of basic freedoms and opportunities, including schooling, and, most strikingly, a recession less than half as severe as our own.

    Our arrogant quangocrats and state “experts” should hang their heads in shame: their reaction to coronavirus was one of the greatest public policy blunders in modern history, more severe even than Iraq, Afghanistan, the financial crisis, Suez or the ERM fiasco. Millions will lose their jobs when furlough ends; tens of thousands of small businesses are failing; schooling is in chaos, with A-level grades all over the place; vast numbers are likely to die from untreated or undetected illnesses; and we have seen the first exodus of foreigners in years, with the labour market survey suggesting a decline in non-UK born adults. [Really?]

    Pandemics always come with large economic and social costs, for reasons of altruism as well as of self-interest. The only way to contain the spread of a deadly, contagious disease, in the absence of a cure or vaccine, is to social distance; fear and panic inevitably kick in, as the public desperately seeks to avoid catching the virus. A “voluntary” recession is almost guaranteed.

    But if a drop in GDP is unavoidable, governments can influence its size and scale. Politicians can react in one of three ways to a pandemic. They can do nothing, and allow the disease to rip until herd immunity is reached. Quite rightly, no government has pursued this policy, out of fear of mass deaths and total social and economic collapse.

    The second approach involves imposing proportionate restrictions to facilitate social distancing, banning certain sorts of gatherings while encouraging and informing the public. The Swedes pursued a version of this centrist strategy: there was a fair bit of compulsion, but also a focus on retaining normal life and keeping schools open. The virus was taken very seriously, but there was no formal lockdown. Tegnell is one of the few genuine heroes of this crisis: he identified the correct trade-offs.

    The third option is the full-on statist approach, which imposes a legally binding lockdown and shuts down society. Such a blunderbuss approach may be right under certain circumstances – if a vaccine is imminent – or for some viruses – for example, if we are ever hit with one that targets children and comes with a much higher fatality rate – but the latest economic and mortality statistics suggest this wasn’t so for Covid-19.

    Almost all economists thought that Sweden’s economy would suffer hugely from its idiosyncratic strategy. They were wrong. Sweden’s GDP fell by just 8.6 per cent in the first half of the year, all in the second quarter, and its excess deaths jumped 24 per cent. A big part of Sweden’s recession was caused by a slump in demand for its exports from its fully locked-down neighbours. One could speculate that had all countries pursued a Swedish-style strategy, the economic hit could have been worth no more than 3-4 per cent of GDP. That could be seen as the core cost of the virus under a sensible policy reaction.

    By contrast, Britain’s economy slumped by 22.2 per cent in the first half of the year, a performance almost three times as bad as Sweden’s, and its excess deaths shot up by 45 per cent. Spain’s national income slumped even more (22.7 per cent), and France’s (down 18.9 per cent) and Italy’s (down 17.1 per cent) slightly less, but all three also suffered far greater per capita excess deaths than Sweden. The Swedes allowed the virus to spread in care homes, so if that major failure had been fixed, their death rate could have been a lot lower still.

    My guess is that only half of our first-half collapse in GDP would have happened under a variant of the Swedish model. This means that the other half – some £250 billion – was an unnecessary cost caused directly by the lockdown itself. The decision to shut everything down, rather than to impose and promulgate extensive social distancing, hygiene measures, ubiquitous PPE and testing, means that we have wasted a quarter of a trillion pounds worth of GDP, as well as needlessly ruined the education of millions of children and cancelled the health care of hundreds of thousands of adults. I suspect that this immense, unbearable additional cost saved very few additional lives, and that almost all of the gains came from social distancing, not the lockdown.

    Some of the lost GDP will be recovered; the intangible costs of lockdown – the cancelled weddings and sporting events, the failed IVF cycles, the time not spent with family – will remain with us forever.

    This is a catastrophically high price tag for the British state’s systemic incompetence, the uselessness of Public Health England, the deep, structural failings of the NHS, the influence of modelers rather than proper scientists, the complacency, the delusion, the refusal to acknowledge that the quality of the British state and bureaucracy are abysmally poor.

    Even more depressingly, a Swedish approach was always unrealistic in Britain. Panic and hysteria were the only possible outcome when the failure of the system became apparent. I’m not seeking to absolve Boris Johnson of blame, but he would have found himself in an impossible situation had he sought to ignore the official advice, and he inherited few, if any, working levers to pull.

    So what now? How should Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, reboot the economy? Sweden, once again, is a role model. After decades of socialist decline from the early Seventies, the Swedes slashed the size of their state (though it remains too big), liberalised their economy, reformed their schools along market principles and scrapped their counter-productive wealth tax.

    They learnt that the state cannot drive prosperity: only the private sector can do that. The Tories used to understand this: Sunak needs to take inspiration from Tegnell, and push for a Swedish, liberal approach to saving our economy, trusting individual initiative, not resorting to a top down, Whitehall-knows-best attitude. HS2 and green projects are not the answer. The Conservatives will only survive their handling of Covid if they don’t also botch the recovery.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/12/swedens-success-shows-true-cost-arrogant-failed-establishment/

  83. Apologies if the killing of Cannon Hinnant has been mentioned previously – 5 year-old white child shot dead at point-blank range by a black neighbour, supposedly for straying onto the neigbour’s garden when riding his bike. Presumably if the races had been reversed then we would be looking at worldwide protests and riots. No BBC mention of this as far as I can see and only rates as inside page news elsewhere.

    Edit: Oops, now see there was discussion of it here not so long ago.

    1. What is so constantly offensive about the way these stories are retailed, or, more likely not at all, is the way the routine savagery of certain vibrant demographics is dismissed as an ‘isolated incident’ which can tell us no wider lesson. But when a white person does something bad then it’s an indictment of white people collectively. We need to address our privilege, we need to educate ourselves etc.

      If any doubt check out video hosting places like World Star Hip Hop or Hoodsite. I won’t link to them, they can easily be found. What you won’t find is any serious video of evil white racists. But endless numbers of black/brown people doing vile, unspeakable things. Because black lives matter. Yeah right.

      1. Something I’ve pointed out on these types of videos and I think deserves more attention (and not just because I said it) is there really is a difference.

        Blacks committing violence is often met with laughing and cheering from other blacks.

        Example: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JsdFoq0WMCk

        But there’s many more examples. Videos of whites committing violence are quite rare but even when you find them they don’t have other whites cheering or laughing.

        1. Exactly.

          That was a despicable act to our white eyes. What kind of man (and I use the term very loosely) hits a woman with a skateboard? Its not even as if she was in his face, giving him grief. A totally pointless, unprovoked act of violence, even potentially killing her. And it’s just a joke to his homie scum.

          Imagine that scene being depicted in a fictional setting on TV? You would have to, because it would never happen. Unless of course he was depicted as white while she remained black. Then, yes, maybe it could happen. Of course no one has ever seen such a video with a white perp and black female victim like that.

          Generally when you find whites doing nasty stuff they are outliers, weirdos, loners. With blacks and some other groups this kind of thing is almost mainstream, it’s socially sanctioned, at least in their own circles. See also: Mestizo/cartel types, Pakistani rapists.

  84. I liken the debate about Covid-D to the debate about supposed climate change.

    Both are outrageous hoaxes designed by wealth merchants and their bankers in order to enrich the few and deprive the masses.

    Our politicians have failed us, hopelessly, and are in the pay of the globalists, led by Soros, but with many other supposed ‘elites’ feeding from the same internationalist trough.

    Nobody but a fool would offer any other explanation for our current state of affairs.

    2. This is because if we all got uppity when a black man killed someone we’d never stop. I’m sorry. It’s an awful tragedy but black looters are mindless has no interest in racism -except its own. It wasn’t even about black people. It was just a mindless ranting rentamob.

      The Left don’t care about causes. Those require effort and risk. They only care about making themselves feel better.

          1. Kann sein aber das ist ein Fehler leicht gemacht. Wir kennen uns nämlich privat.

    1. What a blinding dishonest piece of writing by the BBC (but what does one expect?)

      Having scared much of the public witless by doom-mongering, the BBC now has the gall to say that because some of the public are still distancing etc. we are more likely to have a second wave of C19. The article defies logic, and is a disgusting piece of tosh.

      1. Good evening HL

        You are spot on , and i see that the BBC would rather consult with the shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds, who looks like a little alien!

        3. Sorry, I wrote good MORNING on my reply but couldn’t edit it! Bad night last night – hope today is better.

          1. Oh dear, poor you ,

            This weather and other things are like an unearthly visitation to test us all.

            Try to relax and stay cool and if you are in pain , pain free!

        4. Good Morning, Belle.

          I am so sick and utterly fed up with limitations caused by the Covid-Excuse.

          Our supermarkets have been open all through the last few months. We are now allowed in normally, except for being told to wear masks. Our central Library is now open – but you are only allowed to stay there for 15 minutes! 15 minutes to look at books, maybe have a mini-read, decide and leave. We are allowed longer in our supermarkets, surrounded by more people.

          I am so angry that I am thinking of suggesting to the librarian that I only pay a 15 minute equivalent proportion of my Council Tax that is otherwise allocated to the libraries – as that is all I’m getting.

          Why is that so-called facilities that are already paid for in full by the public/taxpayer is always the one that is cut back – without any reduction for lack of provision of said facility. Of course – because local authority/government etc. are paid in full whether they work or not. They’ve already got their (OUR) money.

          Covid has become no more than a bad excuse for laziness and malingering.

          1. Morning HL

            Covid has become an excuse for burying bad news .

            I assumed we had a strong economy and a capable government , and WERE strong enough NOT to be threatened by sub cultures .

            Then I opened my eyes !

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