Tuesday 1 September: Commuters have seen a better life outside the office and won’t come back

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/31/letters-commuters-have-seen-better-life-outside-office-wont/

712 thoughts on “Tuesday 1 September: Commuters have seen a better life outside the office and won’t come back”

  1. I wanted to join protesters who tore down Colston statue. Tue 1 Sep 2020.

    One of Britain’s most prominent historians, David Olusoga, has admitted he “desperately” wanted to join the protesters who tore down the statue of the slave owner Edward Colston in his home town of Bristol.

    In an interview with the Radio Times, Olusoga spoke of his own torment in not taking part in pulling down a statue that had “loomed over us” in Bristol.

    He said: “I fought enormously against the urge to jump on my bike and cycle down there – my home is only 10 minutes away.” He said he did not because he had promised his family he would be “careful” during the pandemic.

    He added: “It was very difficult. Though, before I could be tortured by not being able to go, Colston’s statue toppled. It was a hugely emotional moment.”

    Morning everyone. Surely some excuse; Lumbago, his bike had a flat tyre; athlete’s foot prevented him pedalling or even better a frank admission of spinelessness would be better than this snivelling apology for cowardice.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/01/david-olusoga-i-wanted-to-join-protesters-who-tore-down-colston-statue

      1. You know you can trust the academic judgement of the Radio Times. They’ll be giving out doctorates next, based on teacher assessments, duly weighted by algorithm.

    4. Clearly he was scared of being arrested, but still wants to parade his virtue.
      These standards are high enough for the Guardian.

    5. It would have been such a shame if this virtue-signalling bedwetter had fallen under a No9 bus on his way to a riot. National mourning would have been in full swing within minutes of his demise…

      ‘Morning, Minty.

    8. ‘One of Britain’s most prominent historians, David Olusoga, …’

      Well, partly correct.

    1. 323176+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Me thinking it was the pakistani version of
      🎵
      Do you wanna dance to a rock & role tune
      Og.

  5. SIR – Like many experienced medical academics who are not members of bureaucratic government committees, I despair at the clear evidence from the precipitate falls in hospital admissions and death rates that the Covid epidemic is drawing to a natural conclusion, and that lockdown has had little, if any influence. It has, however, had profound effects on morbidity and deaths from non-Covid causes, quite apart from trashing our economy.

    We desperately need better “expert” advice, proper public discussion and above all decisive political leadership.

    If the way out of this mess is not handled better than the way in, particularly the economic consequences, we face terminal decline. However, suggestions of major tax rises from a nominally Tory government do not bode well. On the face of it, would anything have been different had Jeremy Corbyn been successful at the December election?

    Professor R A Risdon
    London SW13

    The prof wants “…better expert advice…” AND “…decisive political leadership…”? Dream on, matey; where have you been these past few years? Yer Ukay is in terminal decline, the glory days are gone, never to return.

    And on that happy and comforting note I bid a cheery Good Morning’ to the Nottl Peeps, and a happy first day of September to boot.

  8. A little pipe dream I introduced a few weeks back as to what our money would be like if we reverted to our old money system, and based on one pound being equivalent to the value of a pound of sterling silver.

    Here are the currency tokens, with their monetary value in today’s debased pound:

    Bronze coins:
    1/4d farthing (25p)
    1/2d ha’penny (50p)
    1d penny (£1)

    Silver coins:
    3d threepence (£3)
    6d tanner (£6)
    1/- shilling (£12)
    2/- florin (£24)

    I’d probably go into notes at this point:
    2/6 half crown (£30)
    5/- five bob (£60)
    10/- ten bob (£120)

    For everyday transactions, it would be in shillings and pence, and anything involving pounds would be using cheques, bank drafts or card, so there would be no need for the £1 (£240) or £5 (£1200) notes.

      1. Indeed. It might change everyone’s conception of money. At the moment £100 billion, bandied about as small change when explaining Government policy, would instead become about £412 million, a slightly more reachable number. Houses would be either side of £1000.

        1. It might be bad from an inflationary point of view when any price movement is a minimum of the equivalent of 25p.

          Rather like the UK post decimalisation or, more strikingly Greece, post Euro.

          1. I thought of that, when we lost the old farthing in 1956, the old halfpenny in 1969, and the old penny in 1971 went up to the new halfpenny, worth 1.2d.

            I think this was inflationary because the changes were small enough for people to put up their prices without raising too many questions. A big leap like this would make people question the value of their money more, and challenge inflationary price hikes. An equivalent was when the French Franc was revised to 100 times what it was worth before. A similar thing was done with the Polish zloty. Also when Australia made the 5c the smallest unit of currency. There, shopkeepers informally round up or down and nobody bothers too much.

            The Greek drachma was always grossly undervalued, in order to attract foreign tourists. When they adopted the Euro, they also adopted German/French prices.

          2. Australia has a good approach.

            Things in shops are still priced to the cent and when the whole purchase is paid for it gets rounded, so at best/worst you gain/lose 2 cents.

          4. It’s the same in the Netherlands. I lived there for over two years and was grateful for not having tiny coins of low value in my pocket, bearing in mind that the exchange rate was about 3.20 Guilders to the Pound.

  9. SIR – In your report on how payment of the licence fee is enforced, a government source said that, of those taken to court, “a lot of them are vulnerable over 75-year-old widows”. As over-75s have been receiving free TV licences it would be remarkable if this had happened – but it hasn’t.

    People could still go to prison under a civil licence fee system. Hundreds of people have been sent to jail for council tax evasion in the last decade.

    Clare Sumner
    BBC Director of Policy
    London W1

    Do I detect an element of disappointment in her letter?

    1. Most people taken to court for not paying the TV licence are women though, and the reason for that is because in order to get the proof, they need to push their way into people’s houses.
      Clearly, they are not going to try that on if there is a large man standing in the doorway.

    2. Surely, it’s a very clear threat. Pay up or go to jail, even if you are so old you can’t even remember your birthday.
      Subscription-only for BBC.

    3. “People could still go to prison under a civil licence fee system. Hundreds of people have been sent to jail for council tax evasion in the last decade.”

      Under a Civil system, the BBC would still have to prove that a debt existed, as happens with council tax evasion. I haven’t had a TV Licence since 2005 but I have done so legally. I am not at all concerned about decriminalising evasion.

      It is grossly misleading of Clare Sumner to compare the TV licensing system with council tax evasion, so I agree, Hugh – she’s not just disappointed but desperate.

    2. Good morning Bill

      I am shocked by their cultural kidnap or what ever word is more appropriate , Google is showing the world that London is a black city .

      1. So? I did too – but I am not on the front page of google… But I might be if I were bleck…..

    4. This reminds me of the Honest Hardworking Worker I used to see on posters in Poland and Czechoslovakia back in the 1970s. All three are smiling benignly, whereas in reality we cannot see the scowl behind the balaclava, except when rapping on the Proms.

  13. Australian man shocked after massive serpents crash through kitchen ceiling. 1 September 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0156c87036889c78aea14953ef4bf719d32d782efe49fac325d40d0c2ab0e781.jpg

    It’s every Australian’s worst nightmare – well, probably everyone’s worst: making a cup of tea in the kitchen, only to have two massive snakes fall through your kitchen ceiling.

    The third snake has still not been located, sparking fears it was still somewhere in the house. The other two snakes were relocated to a state forest close by.

    What a wonderfully cheering thought! I can still remember having to sit on the loo in Queensland with a couple of Cane Toads perched on the cistern.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/01/snakes-on-a-plate-australian-man-shocked-after-massive-serpents-crash-through-kitchen-ceiling

    1. The third snake?
      Is it a rule in Australia that there is always a third snake?
      Anyway, that’s what he gets for living in Australia!

    3. I remember looking into the dunny in the outback and seeing several pairs of eyes looking back at me. I suddenly decided I didn’t need to go at all! 🙂

  14. Very heavy dew this morning – and down to 9º in the greenhouse overnight. Gorgeous sunshine, though, now.

  15. SIR – There is a PhD for anyone who discovers why duvet covers turn inside-out in the wash, and collect all the socks in the process.

    Stuart Geddes

    If it vexes you that much Mr G, gather the open end together and tie a piece of cord or put an elastic band around it.

    1. Stuart Geddes has the power and facility to grant a valid Doctor of Philosophy degree?

      That’s it then, I’m enrolling in his school. I never realised graduation could be so easy.

        2. Huh.
          Shows how little you know.
          Mine took 2 years of more than full-time work to get done and written, including hours and hours of sticking A5.5 graphs onto A4 paper, adding captions and drawing diagrams by hand. Plus, making 3-D photos from three 1-D photos, 3-off for each 3D, one by f*cking one – and there were LOTS!
          Work typically went from 09:00 to 01:00 six days a week, for 6 months flat, no time off at all.
          Hand in was 2 hours before the deadline of 12:00… it was that close!

      2. Only for duvet covers. Would you really want a PhD in duvet covers? Think of your reputation!

  16. SIR – There is a PhD for anyone who discovers why duvet covers turn inside-out in the wash, and collect all the socks in the process.

    Stuart Geddes

    If it vexes you that much Mr G, gather the open end together and tie a piece of cord or put an elastic band around it.

      1. Ever wondered why Merkel was SO insistent on Free Movement ( into the UK ) of the people SHE invited into Europe?

    3. But normal schools in France only go back today – so if this was filmed yesterday then it must have been done so in a special school for delinquent children which went back last week.

      2. 323176+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        You are in a better position to judge than I on the french side but I do beg to differ on special schools
        for delinquent children, I am assuming that a school, is a school is a school where ever the location & I would bet money on the fact that
        carrying a knife in a UK school is not a rarity and could be found from uni’s to sec / mod currently,
        and they with no “special” tag.

    4. Which one is the future doctor/scientist/surgeon that we are told Calais is full of? . . . Or which is the drug dealer/Car thief/ mugger?

      1. 323176+ up ticks,
        Afternoon W,
        I am the last one you should ask W, try one of the hardcore lab/lib/con coalition member/supporter / voters they must surely know having voted for more of the same time & time again for decades.

  19. I seem to be not receiving email notifications this morning. Anybody experiencing the same?

  20. Henceforth I will now be entitled to use Dr in my title:

    From the DT Letters:

    SIR – There is a PhD for anyone who discovers why duvet covers turn inside-out in the wash, and collect all the socks in the process.

    Stuart Geddes
    Tregagle, Monmouthshire

    Many years ago I discovered that if the buttons on the Duvet Cover are done up before being placed in the washing machine it is impossible for the cover to turn itself inside out and collect socks. For anyone who can’t be ar5ed, doing up every other button works to stop the cover turning inside out but will mean the occasional sock gets through..

    Morning All.
    Dr.Stephenroi.

      1. Only if it is Emeritus – I am retired you know there are only so many duvet cover problems one can solve in a lifetime!

        Good morning Mr. Janus

    3. I put the duvet cover in to wash all on it’s own. No socks, pillow cases or VW Beetles, just all alone. Sorted.

  21. SIR – Like many experienced medical academics who are not members of bureaucratic government committees, I despair at the clear evidence from the precipitate falls in hospital admissions and death rates that the Covid epidemic is drawing to a natural conclusion, and that lockdown has had little, if any influence. It has, however, had profound effects on morbidity and deaths from non-Covid causes, quite apart from trashing our economy.

    We desperately need better “expert” advice, proper public discussion and above all decisive political leadership.

    If the way out of this mess is not handled better than the way in, particularly the economic consequences, we face terminal decline. However, suggestions of major tax rises from a nominally Tory government do not bode well. On the face of it, would anything have been different had Jeremy Corbyn been successful at the December election?

    Professor R A Risdon
    London SW13

    The prof wants “…better expert advice…” AND “…decisive political leadership…”? Dream on, matey; where have you been these past few years? Yer Ukay is in terminal decline, the glory days are gone, never to return.

    And on that happy and comforting note I bid a cheery Good Morning’ to the Nottl Peeps, and a happy first day of September to boot.

  23. Never mind the accent…his original appointment, and his continued presence, as a Sec of State is the real mystery here. Mr Blobby would have been a far superior choice:

    SIR – I would be most grateful if some Professor Higgins could explain which dialect Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, uses when interviewed. I love most regional accents but his is a complete mystery.

    Lee Freeman
    Manchester

    1. Same principle as Theresa May used – they gather mediocrities and nonentities around them, to make themselves look better.

    2. 323176+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      Lee,
      Taught in the main in most uni’s nationwide & mainly used in the political field tis called
      twaterpatter.
      Used to a great extent in truth concealment.

  24. SIR – It is a common mistake (Letters, August 28) to imagine the next war will again see massed battles on broad fronts against a like-for-like enemy, with ground-attack aircraft picking off armoured units at will.

    It is far more likely that we will be sucked into yet another humanitarian crisis caused by fanaticism, sending in troops to drive out people whose primary weapon is targeted atrocity.

    Tanks have been indispensable in recent conflicts long after the main shooting stopped. During the attempts to make Al Amarah in Iraq safe for its population in 2004, Challenger 2s were needed to advance ahead of lightly armoured or soft-skinned relief convoys to clear and hold urban intersections against gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades. Without the tanks, such moves would have been costly or impossible.

    This may be directly contrasted with President Bill Clinton’s refusal (against advice) to send heavy armour to Mogadishu in 1993, which led to many more American soldiers coming home in body bags (and, perhaps, many more Somalis dead) than need have been the case. Again, the rocket-propelled grenade in an urban environment was at the root of their trouble, making American dominance in the air useless.

    Drones and aircraft cannot escort convoys, hold ground, bandage wounds, feed the starving, stop the enslavers and beheaders, or drive out the terrorists who use hospitals as cover. Only squaddies backed up by heavy metal can do this.

    Victor Launert
    Matlock Bath, Derbyshire

    Good letter, considering that it appears to have come from a chap dressed as a chicken at a prestigous sporting event in Bonsal…does our BoB know him?

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.matlockmercury.co.uk/news/pictures-world-hen-racing-championship-bonsal-2138964%3famp

    1. I wrote a similar letter to DT a few days ago, but got no response.
      Fully in agreement. If you read “Soldier 1”, the essential role of panzers in the fighting is apparent, and no amount of e-warfare will stop an enemy with a RPG and mobile phone from shooting the RPG at you. Until they can be picked off from space individually by ray gun, well-protected units will be essential to get up close and aggressive to such attacks.
      I’m sure Bugsy can elaborate on this.

    2. When the traitors have banned all forms of heating and transport that are not dependent upon the electricity grid, war will be very simple. Just a cyber attack on our electricity generating capacity will be needed.
      I am deadly serious.
      The electricity grid is already recognised as essential to national security, but having worked in this industry in the past, I do not believe there will ever be any way to make it completely safe, or even reasonably safe. You can wave certificates and inspections til the cows come home, but when you’ve still got meetings to discuss security where only one person present actually understands how encryption works, it will never be secure.
      Never.

      The folly of making ourselves so dependent upon electricity cannot be overstated.

      1. Dead right! Just a quick gander into the 1970 Miners’ Strike will show what happens when we limit ourselves to one energy source. Margaret Thatcher defeated the miners in 1984, when Heath, Wilson and Callaghan failed, because by then she had the good fortune of an alternative energy source coming on stream, so she could call the miners’ bluff.

        When my boiler failed during the hard winter of 2010, I could not get any professional to come out to fix it. “You need a new one, mate, and then replace it every six years as soon as it comes out of warranty if you want me to come out and service it”. In the end, I had to repair it myself (and the same boiler is still running today), and what would have taken a fitter an hour (or three, when it came to making out the bill) took me three weeks, while taking an online crash course on boiler maintenance, and waiting for parts to turn up. I was jolly glad of the woodburner and my stock of firewood gathered over the years when trimming the hedges and thinning the trees.

      2. Strange that out of all the MSM only an expert commentator on the Keiser Report has mentioned this.

        1. It’s one of those elephants in the room that must not be mentioned because it contradicts the green agenda.
          Of course, the idiots are unable to see in whose interests the green agenda might be!

      1. If he wins the election then how long will he reamin inoffice before the heavy brigade get rid of him and take over?

        I guess he would not last as long as six months. Any other guesses?

        1. Morning Richard. They could form a Kitchen Cabinet and bypass him completely! He wouldn’t know!

          1. Or so Trump claims in his electioneering where he is demonizing every opponent.

            I doubt that Biden is as advertised although why .anyone that age would want to be president, God knows. If he wins he will probably be a completely ineffective president, just like Jummy Carter – nice, likeable but ineffective.

          2. He is by all accounts a deeply unpleasant person in the flesh, much given to bullying and confrontation!

        2. Three years, nine months. The other three months will be legal battles by the hero to reverse the election result.

          Not that Biden is a good choice, anything but.

          1. Do you know something?

            That sounds exactly the same as Clinton and the Democrats have been trying to do for the whole of Trump’s Presidency and campaigning, except that they’ve added riots as well as lawfare and MSM lying.

            If America elect Trump they know what they are getting, if they elect Biden they will soon find out that they are not getting what they thought they voted for.

          2. Yes, exactly the same as the real lefties have done for almost four years now. All of those silly Not My President protesters doing their best to reject an election result did nothing but harm democracy.

          3. And when they get what they want, they will realise one should be very careful what one wishes for.

  26. 323176+ up ticks,
    There were those that said “make boris PM he makes us laugh”

    https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1300722483423784960

    🎵
    And they’re coming to take me away ha-haaa
    They’re coming to take me away ho-ho hee-hee ha-haaa
    To the funny farm
    Where life is beautiful all the time
    And I’ll be happy to see those nice young men
    In their clean white coats
    And they’re coming to take me away ha-haaa

    There are many, party before Country brigade, that will go willingly, for the benefit of the party.

    2. Ogga I agree with some of what you say but … what can Joe public do about any of this? All we can do is write to our MPs, which Alf and I do regularly, but other than that … we’re stuffed!

      1. 323176+ up ticks,
        Afternoon VW,
        It was the very same peoples ” joe public” that for decades have never altered the very same voting pattern that `brought us to this odious pretty pass.

        Check my past post going back to the day of victory, I was forever calling for a membership build on UKIP as a pro English / GB party nearly every post finished with “join UKIP” having witnessed the wretch camerons deceit & lies.
        What did “joe public” do, promptly returned to supporting the lab/lib/con coalition party AKA eu
        rubber stamping assets.

        The current lab/lib/con coalition political fraternity
        as long as they have a hole in their rear exits and a following that puts party before Country are never going to be winners.

        “we are stuffed” AKA submission, maybe many are in the right party for them then because the political hierarchy of the lab/lib/con coalition are willing purveyors of submissive pcism & appeasement.

        1. “We are stuffed” is not submission Ogga, not on my part anyway. I know your allegiance very well. But UKIP has frequently shot itself in the foot over the recent past. They are in a similar mess as the Cons are (please note the abbreviation) but maybe for different reasons. I enjoy the Gerard Batten tweets you post and agree with very nearly all of them. But I, and you, can’t actAlly do anything to change things.

          1. 323176+ up ticks,
            VW,
            Where we differ is I do not have an MP, the area does but not with my consent.
            Real UKIP had faults but the UKIP I supported unlike the lab/lib.con coalition never ever showed treachery towards the nation.

            The lab/lib/con coalition for decades has never ever stopped doing just that.

            The real UKIP showed the way with two winning issues the eu elections prior to the last and the design & triggering of the referendum.
            The lab/lib/con coalition could never match them two decisive wins.

            UKIP under the Batten leadership was returning to being a party of major credibility and that was NOT to be tolerated hence it’s demise was orchestrated
            with, may I add, a farage input.
            Change can be achieved via people power, it did it
            to get us to where we are currently, so it can also do it to benefit the Country.

  27. Morning

    SIR – There is a supposition that commuters are still wary of the virus, and are too comfortable at home. A deeper consideration is that people have had an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of their lives, and concluded that it can be improved.

    Why would London commuters want to pay inflated rail fares to be crowded on to unsanitary trains, with timetables at the mercy of belligerent rail union staff? Why would they want to buy expensive sandwiches just to keep Pret A Manger branches open, or pay sky-high prices to live close to the capital? The answer is they don’t.

    They have glimpsed a better life available, and have no wish to return to the former existence. This is the new reality which the Government will have to come to terms with, as many major London-based employers have already done.

    The capital will become mainly a tourist filled environment, with office workers commuting infrequently.

    George Kelly

    Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire

    Advertisement

    SIR – As someone who has tried to contact large organisations for help and information in recent months, I have found that the information or help is often unavailable.

    Home workers do not have full access to their employers’ computers, and suggest either emails or more phone calls. I include civil servants.

    There can be no excuse for this second-rate service. When will this Government tell the Civil Service that working at home is not acceptable and a disciplinary offence?

    His Honour Lord Parmoor

    High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – Those of us working in the information technology sector have known for some time that “work” is something you do, not a location.

    Cloud technology, coupled with secure networking and ubiquitous Wi-Fi mean that a lot of tasks can be performed anywhere. Cities will never return to pre-Covid levels of activity.

    Alan Budd

    Flitwick, Bedfordshire

    SIR – I agree with Kate Andrews (Comment, August 29) about the unforeseen pitfalls of working from home permanently, but there is another aspect that seems to have been overlooked.

    Advertisement

    As winter comes, the extra costs of having lights and heating on all day, every day will make fuel bills rocket. While people may save on travelling costs, I think they may be very unpleasantly surprised when their gas and electricity bills arrive.

    Frances Youel

    Kiltyclogher, Co Leitrim, Ireland

    SIR – On the Today programme yesterday, a government minister said, categorically, twice: “It is safe to return to work.”

    He then said that the Government was working with firms on how to make it safe. Which means it isn’t. Yet. Or it may be. In certain circumstances. They’re not sure.

    So that’s all clear, then.

    Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

    Northwood, Middlesex

    1. Alan Budd is right. PC-based work can be done anywhere as long as you have an internet connection – dining room, holiday cottage, the beach in the Seychelles…

        2. Which is why so very many organisations are so keen on extending WFH, they are getting their recruitment methods from low cost countries established

    2. The problem is that commuting into London is so unpleasant, and accommodation in London so expensive.

    3. Does Cynthia two-names not get out much? Or read newspapers? Oh no, she listens to Today! That explains her utter confusion!
      Good morning all.

  28. 323176+ up ticks,
    ” Commuters have seen a better life outside the office and won’t come back”
    May one suggest that they had better have a rethink and get their collective @rses in gear, the Dover entry campaign dictates that, even if the majority are useless the labour market is flooded.

    This ain’t no game of monopoly this is real life facts,the governance main concern currently is “bags for life” when it should be “wheelbarrows” of wonga to the supermarket groceries on return making bags obsolete.

  30. Bloody ladder work finished for the year – I hope and pray…..

    Time for a sit down with the crossword.

  31. ‘Morning again.

    Dear God, words have just about failed me this time, and my breakfast is showing signs of defying gravity:

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/08/31/uk-sexual-acts-dice-game/

    Leading BTL:

    “Sexual acts dice game designed for ages 13+.

    Six year olds forced to write “gay love letters”.

    Drag queens in the primary and pre-primary schools, spreading their filth into tiny impressionable brains.

    Remember when we said the perverts were coming for the children? I do. I also remember how that too earned us the labels of “homophobic/bigoted/far-right/alt-right fascists”.

    But once again we read it correctly.”

    1. This is one reason why we chose to educate our children abroad. That dice game is pure filth for the entertainment of paedophiles – it has no educational worth whatsoever.
      The real scandal is that these LBGT groups get so much public funding, and are automatically consulted and their input taken seriously. This needs to stop.
      You can’t just expect to say you’re “anti-bullying” and then get money to inflict “educational” material like that on schools.

    2. This is one reason why we chose to educate our children abroad. That dice game is pure filth for the entertainment of paedophiles – it has no educational worth whatsoever.
      The real scandal is that these LBGT groups get so much public funding, and are automatically consulted and their input taken seriously. This needs to stop.
      You can’t just expect to say you’re “anti-bullying” and then get money to inflict “educational” material like that on schools.

      1. As the former Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey & Wood Green (now in the House of Lords) once said “you will get this whether you like it or not”. This is what passes for democratic debate in London, it seems.

    4. It would appear that the PIE supporters of the 1970s extreme Left have completed their Long March Through The Institutions.

      1. I’m not sure it’s PIE veterans that are behind this. More like the Gay Liberation Front, who are of course officially supported, rather than kept down.

        1. The 1970s campaigns for Homosexual Equality were effectively taken over by PAL & PIE and were given a huge amount of support by The Left to do so.

  32. SIR – “First £10,000 fines issued and equipment seized” (report, August 31). What happened to the issuing of a summons and the involvement of experienced and wise magistrates?

    What has happened to Magna Carta, the Human Rights Act and the separation of powers?

    Peter R Douglas-Jones

    Swansea

    2. 323176+ up ticks,
      “What happened” Peter the lab/lib/con coalition party political hierarchy disagreed tis what happened.
      And a slavish type following seemingly agreed with them, again & again.

    1. The black radical activist then led a chant with her supporters, shouting “Power, power… by any means necessary.”

      Real democracy is such a drag.

      1. Will support be higher than the ‘Million People March’, which was 999,700 short of its target?

  34. Headline in the Wail:

    “‘I’m SCARED and so are the students’: Teacher on his first day tells of fear at ‘no PPE’ in school where ‘social-distancing is impossible’ – as millions of pupils in England and Wales return to classes today”

    Diddums.

    3. What about all the supermarket workers who have been at work right through – in contact with millions of people?

        1. That will have been done, reams and reams of it, full of soft unquantifiable PPE bullshit so that the decision maker cannot be held accountable.

  36. SIR – Preparing for an Admiralty interview board some years ago, I was advised, when offered a hot drink, to opt for a cup and saucer. Opting for a mug would suggest incompatibility with a commission.

    Neil Salter

    Weymouth, Dorset

          1. A ship crewed by lots of chirpy Cockneys with the odd Comedy Celt thrown in for good measure.

        1. Can’t help but feel, from pictures published, his lifestyle aged him somewhat towards the end .

    2. The very epitome of the unreconstructed scofflaw!

      Conveniently, ‘scofflaw’ is today’s ‘word-of-the-day’ on Dictionary.com

    3. This man is bigger than Jesus. Not even John Lennon managed to get milliionaire sportspeople and corporate oligarchs to kneel down in homage.

  40. Good morning, all. Pinch and a punch and all that malarkey.

    None dead in London protests? Shame. No lootin’ ‘n drurgs, either – apparently.

  42. Delingpole: ‘Unconscious Bias’ Training for MPs Is Dangerous and Wrong. I September 2020.

    But maybe the most damning thing of all is that “unconscious bias” training simply does not work. Indeed, it may even be counterproductive: how many office workers have you heard grumbling about having to do these courses? Possibly you’ve been on one yourself and sat there simmering and resentful: did it fill you with warm thoughts towards the “diversity” industry?

    Delingpole is wrong here. It does work. Not in the sense that it removes “unconscious bias”, whatever that is, but that it creates a community of common beliefs that all those wishing to remain within must ascribe too! It’s like being a member of the Jesuits or a Jehovah’s Witness. It creates a Fortress Mentality highly resistant to conversion. You are one of the elect. Those outside are heretics.

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/08/31/unconscious-bias-training-for-mps-is-dangerous-and-wrong/

    1. I saw this coming with the “Safeguarding” training for anyone working with children that was pushed on us from America in the 1990s.

      I walked out of church in 2018 because of this, and am now effectively excommunicated.

      1. It’s a chip off the old block Sue! Unconscious Bias is just a rewording of False Consciousness, the old Marxist explanation for the lack of enthusiastic peasants!

        1. Being “inside the tent” and all that must give them a feeling of smugness/ righteousness!

    3. Not only that, but it is anti-democratic to try and alter the opinions of elected representatives in this way.

  43. Having had four teenagers in the house, I thought I had seen it all.
    However, this summer I discovered a new rule.
    “Never leave your young adult children to look after the house while you go away for longer than the life cycle of the house fly”

    We’ve killed well over a hundred flies in the house in the last few days since my return. As I have pointed out many times to my children, this has NEVER happened before!!!

    1. You’ll need to find the uneaten half a pizza under the bed where the maggots are, waiting to sprout wings.

      1. You raise a good point. They are the size and shape of house flies, but their bodies are green. Not bluebottles, too small. We’ve never had an invasion like this before.
        The six I dealt with this morning are the last ones I have seen…so I am hoping the whole hatching has now been dispatched out of the house.

      1. I don’t know! I did empty the compost, which clearly hadn’t been done the whole time I was away, and took the rubbish out. But still they keep appearing. Just got rid of 6 more.

        1. Good morning blackbox2

          Are you living in the countryside .
          Local villages in this area have a fly problem , could be muck spreading on the fields , or dirty toilet habits from campers and people having picnics.

          Is there a dead body in your garden , or in your loft?

          1. These flies are definitely coming from inside the house somewhere; we’ve never had more than the odd fly before (small town, surrounded by mixed farms).
            Are you suggesting that my children might have murdered someone while I turned my back? Hmm, perhaps I ought to check the roof spaces 🙂

          2. Could be a dead rat, or a squirrel in your roof space.

            There are so many rats around , huge things, I have seen them squashed by cars on the roads.

          4. You can always rely on the posters of this website to bring some perspective to any situation…

          5. I once stayed in a hotel in Germany, I think it was on the Mosel where the stair & corridor carpet had a unique pattern – mid-blue background with individual beige & gold roses, but if you squinted at them, they looked like squashed hamsters.
            Hence the expression: tulips from hamsterjam.

          9. Ha! Du meinst eine Meise! 😉

            Kennst Du den Ausdruck tVidT? Es ist etwas altmodisch und hat eine ganz andere Bedeutung.

          11. ‘Er hat einen toten Vogel in der Tasche’ bedeutet ‘er hat gerade gefurzt’. Der Ausdruck ist uralt und man hört ihn nur selten heutzutage.

            Ungefähr 2 Jahre seit meiner Ankunft in Deutschland saß ich einmal bei meinem Steuerberater. Er began zu kichern und ich fragte ihn, was wäre dann so lustig? Er sagte, “Peter, du sprichst ein ausgewähltes Deutsch, aber manche deiner Ausdrücke sind veraltet und man hört die nicht mehr.”

          12. ha that is funny, but I guess it’s not the kind of thing that one would hear at work anyway!

          13. You spoke German like your grand-dad might have done? I was told off many years ago for speaking Norwegian like a granny, but could retort that I had just had exactly the same use of language from the teenager in the gas station as I filled up on the way to language class – so Mnuh!
            (This was saying “four-and-twenty, rather than twenty four. (I recall my parents used to use the 4 & 20 approach, when I was young.)

          16. It’s even weirder in Sweden where it would be “fem över halv åtta” (“five over half eight”) since they don’t do half past the hour but half to the next hour.

          18. I always have to stop and work out what anyone means when I hear that – same in Norwegian, Grizz. Even more confusing “Fem på halv syv” = six twenty five

          19. I always have to stop and work out what anyone means when I hear that – same in Norwegian, Grizz. Even more confusing “Fem på halv syv” = six twenty five

          20. I speak Swedish with a German accent & I make the mistakes which Germans make, since my intensive course was in Kiel & 2 of the tutors were German. The grammar is almost identical to English.

          21. My French friends tell me I make the sort of mistakes that French children make! I don’t know if that’s good or not 🙂

          2. Buenos dias, Elsie.

            About as effective as Fungirola Conchita for attracting flies, I should think.

          4. Common or garden supermarket basil is a magnet for fruit flies, I’ve noticed in the past. Still, I’d swap fruit flies for the current invasion!

    4. Has a bird fallen down the chimney and flapped away to die somewhere, for instance the top of a wardrobe? This happened to us many years ago. Its body released clusters of juicy flies for several weeks.

      Good morning bb2.

      1. 323176+m up ticks,
        Morning PM,
        The same happened with Robin Hood when he requested to be
        interned where his last arrow fell, as luck would have it,you got it, on top of the wardrobe.

        1. Thank you for that very comforting thought Ogga.
          I suppose I must thank my lucky stars that Robin Hood is not dead on my wardrobe….

          1. 323176+ up ticks,
            Morning BB2,
            So there, every cloud has a silver lining, except
            appertaining to UK governance party’s.

          5. In France – years ago, I discovered hundreds of fly larvae on the spare bed. I removed them before they hatched. A couple of hours later – same again….and again.

            Turned out there was a large dead bird on the roof, slowly eviscerating…….. Hence the larvae….

      2. What a terrible thing to happen! Bird in the chimney is a possibility, but I can’t smell anything. The sweep is due any day now.
        The chimney outlets are in my son’s bedroom, which is fly free, and the bathroom, which is not. The flies seem to be congregating in the kitchen, sitting room and bathroom – but these are also the rooms that have the lights on in the evening, so that could be what’s attracting them.

        I thought perhaps they had bred in the compost, and then the maggots crawled out to make cocoons in various dark corners.

        1. Venus Fly traps are a good ecological, unsmelly way of removing unwanted flying creatures. Surprisingly effective, top up with water daily.
          And you can gloat over the fly trapped in a trap, get some, you bstard!

        2. We have a problem with flies in the loft each year, as does our next door neighbour. They are attracted to the front of the house which faces south, and they sun themselves on the warming brickwork. Not only do they enter by wriggling through the maze of tiny joins in the tiles, I am sure they enter via the airbricks at the base of the house walls – I have watched them occasionally haul themselves into the room through the join where the fitted carpet meets the wall. Arm yourself with one of these battery operated raquets, we find them invaluable. You can’t really whack the fly with it, you have to creep up on your victim and slowly lower the raquet on to it. The dog loves watching this, she gets very excited, urging one on! We use sticky fly paper in the loft and for a very temporary solution elsewhere.

          1. Firstborn’s house had the problem of sunbathing flies, until we painted it. Washing off the old sticky ukk meant the flies couldn’t get an easy grip, and the new shiny paint makes it twice as difficult. Now – no flies. Result!

      3. I had that happen, except it was still trapped in the chimney. The flies made their way through gaps between the grate and the wall. Horrible!

    6. Children often grow up to be the opposite of their parents. My mother – the harridan – is an absolute tyrant. She would regularly intrude into my space to ‘clear up’ and she did untold damage in the doing. She invaded my privacy monstrously and continually because she wanted to.

      Kids go through that phase of living how they want to, then, one day it’s *their* mess and unacceptable so they fix it of their own wish.

  44. Good morning all

    ITV Good morning has had Andrew Neill chatting about this that and the other.

    He says that the BBC are catering for a younger metropolitan elite, but are forgetting the rest of the country, they are left wing like other broadcasters in other countries!

    This fact we know , but it was reassuring to hear his wisdom.

    1. ‘He says that the BBC are catering for a younger metropolitan elite, but are forgetting the rest of the country,…’

      Better late than never. Many have been saying and commenting on that fact for years.

    2. The BBC are catering for nobody but their political cultural Marxists dogma and globalist masters while trying to shape the country and the world towards world communism without nation states and democracy, nothing more, nothing less.
      Just like our government and everyone else in positions of influence.

      1. I wish people would stop calling it “Marxist”. What we are getting now is a form of fascism that is much darker and more sinister than merely finance redistribution. More like what the ideals of Marx became when it got into the hands of zealots.

        1. Shakespeare’s mad old King Lear became a communist lefty in his ravings when he is out in the storm:

          Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are,
          That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
          How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
          Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
          From seasons such as these? Oh, I have ta’en
          Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp.
          Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
          That thou mayst shake the superflux to them
          And show the heavens more just.

        2. Marx has no pure ideals. It is crystal clear right from the start that there will be people who disagree with marxism, and that they must be dealt with violently in order that his ideas can be imposed.

          Marxism is just another form of totalitarian government, no better than any other kind.

          1. Please see above re: Marxism. I think there’s a misunderstanding of what his ideas were.

            Remember on his deathbed Marx himself said ‘I am not a Marxist’.

        3. Marx is always a poor character as he is ‘of his time’. his was an era where the very wealthy owned everything, including their workers. They were another machine in the factory.

          I think Marx would look at what we have now and realise how successful his ideas have been, but following a completely opposite path. He advocated control to the worker, not worker emancipation and mobility. He suggested ownership rather than co-operation with the sharing of risk.

          Market capitalism was the only rational route upwards to a more equal partnership – heck, today we ask for flexible working as part of the package.

          What Marxists – the modern sort – think is that other people should put in all the risk and they, the Marxist get the reward. They don’t want to work for it, they expect to take over what someone ele has built. That is not Marxism. As others have said it’s a form of oppression. It’s a command economy where one group tells another what it can do. The ‘Marxists’ have copied the EU in that respect. Comically, they’ve not learned that such an approach simply doesn’t work.

      2. 323176+ up ticks
        Morning B3,
        Join the dots nationwide positions of power mayors, councillors etc,etc, ALL put in place by kissing a lab/lib/con candidate X in the polling booth, every little helps in taking down the UK.

        1. He was ‘interviewed’ by Piers Morgan, Suzanna Reid and Dr. Hilary Jones about his beliefs on Covid-19 (a non-existent hoax), the need for lockdowns and mask-wearing (none) and the use of vaccines (unnecessary and another hoax). He was comprehensively taken apart by all 3 of them and, apart from his ridiculous and dangerous beliefs, it made highly entertaining television.

          And less of the ‘old’.

  45. Why Navalny may not be a friend of the West. 31 August 2020, 10:10am.

    At first glance, Alexei Navalny seems like exactly the sort of man the West would want to sit in the Kremlin. He’s anti-corruption, anti-oligarchy, anti-ballot rigging and – most importantly – anti-Putin. Many in the West believe his election would result in a seismic shift in Russian foreign policy – and perhaps even lead to historically unprecedented positive relations with Moscow.

    The Western media have certainly reinforced this idea, as they’ve reported on Navalny’s attempts to break Putin’s stranglehold on Russia and the many moves to silence him with a series of arrests, assaults, and poisonings – the most recent of which led to his hospitalisation last week. Perhaps influenced by the fact that many of those targeted by the Kremlin in the past (such as Boris Berezovsky, Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Skripal, Sergei Magnitsky, and Alexander Litvinenko) have had pro-Western sympathies, the media have been keen to portray Navalny in a similar light. But while the coverage of Navalny as an anti-corruption and pro-democratic crusader is generally accurate, its implication that Putin’s worst enemy would become the West’s new best friend is definitely not.

    This is the purest twaddle. Navalny is not a rival to Putin. He is not going to become President of Russia. He commands less than 2% of the vote; 50% of Russians have never heard of him. He is like all of these people who have supposedly been shot, poisoned, defenestrated, novichokked ,or whatever in the mythical plot by the GRU to prevent criticism of Putin: a political nonentity whose passing no one but the western MSM would notice. He is at present suffering from a dose of self- administered weed killer in an attempt to boost both his profile and his finances.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-navalny-may-not-be-a-friend-of-the-west

      1. Cain and Abel
        Jacob and Esau
        Romulus and Remus
        Piers and Jeremy….

        They often choose the wrong brother.

        2. Of course he’s deranged, he’s a Lefty. All Lefties are deranged. He’s still my favourite sort of deranged Lefty.

          There’s a touch of Dr. Magnus Pyke, Dr. David Bellamy and Prof. Heinz Wolff (all harmless eccentrics) about him.

          1. I understand the sentiment but the harmless eccentrics you mention are in a different league. Corbyn (and his brother) will object to anything, almost for its own sake. On the subject of Covid-19 he isn’t harmless, he’s dangerous.

        3. He suffers from making a comment that cannot be proven to be correct and then gets leapt on by all comers because of it. They ignored or shouted over him at every opportunity about other valid points he was making..

          PM made a great point of 25 Million people worldwide having tested +ve for Covid that’s a mere 0.03% of the world population. Another comment was regarding people who died, relatively few of whom were actually killed BY Covid. Roughly 150,000 people die every day in the world. Thus even at a careful estimate more people die of other natural causes (and ignoring conspiracy theories Covid is as natural as they come) total Covid deaths are exceeded every week.

          Malaria kills one child every 30 seconds, about 3000 children every day. Over one million people die from malaria each year, mostly children under five years of age, with 90 per cent of malaria cases occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 300-600 million people suffer from malaria each year.

          The only approved vaccine as of 2015 was RTS,S, known by the trade name Mosquirix. It requires four injections, and has a relatively low efficacy.

          He’s right about aspects of modern vaccines and the severity of a virus we actually know sod-all about in reality, no matter what “acceptable expert” talking heads may claim.

          1. With a population of 7,8 billion and an average life expectancy of 70, there’s about 305, 200 deaths every day.
            Just saying.
            I’ll get me shroud…

  47. Just looked in the mirror with a mask on
    They clearly weren’t designed for someone with a big nose and big ears

  49. SIR – “First £10,000 fines issued and equipment seized” (report, August 31). What happened to the issuing of a summons and the involvement of experienced and wise magistrates?

    What has happened to Magna Carta, the Human Rights Act and the separation of powers?

    Peter R Douglas-Jones
    Swansea

    Yes, what did happen to Magna Carta? “Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain? Brave Hungarian peasant girl who forced King John to sign the pledge at Runnymede and close the boozers at half past ten! Is all this to be forgotten?”

    1. The bit I found interesting was the massive police presence, the control and corralling of those protesting.

      Where was this for the black looting mob?

          1. 323176+ up ticks,
            G,
            I beg to differ most strongly Z cars, to modern, Dixon had a bike.
            Surely the name fancy smith should have been looked into even with two Fs in smith and especially with “fancy” as a forename begs for questions to be asked maybe by George.

            Evenin all, accompanied by a quick down /up 3 times knee flexing exercise.

          2. You would need to ask scriptwriter Troy Kennedy Martin about the name “Fancy” Smith but you can’t, he’s dead.

          3. 323176+ up ticks,
            G,
            Coppers in pandas took away the personal touch & made for fat policemen, in many respects they must be retrained and that is inclusive of learning to walk…… a beat.

            Now Jack Regan…….

  51. Terror threat in France still extremely high, minister warns ahead of Paris attacks trial. 1 September 2020.

    France to relive Charlie Hebdo massacre in trial opening Wednesday as ex-president François Hollande says terrorists failed to split nation.

    Well they didn’t intend to split the nation. They wanted to terrorise the politicians and prevent any criticism of Islam either by them or the MSM. They have succeeded in this beyond their wildest dreams!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/31/terror-threat-france-still-extremely-high-minister-warns-ahead/

    1. Good morning, Minty

      As usual – no comments allowed.

      What is the point of the DT Comments facility under articles such as these? Why is the DT so afraid of the views of its readers?

    3. And stop any cartoonist from breaking their rules in the future.
      I thought all newspapers would react with cartoons about Mohammed the following day.
      None of them did, including Matt. If they had all stood together, they would have been safe, but they all chickened out.

    4. No wonder the French are eager to ship them to a gullible offshore nation of rosbifs, who’s put them up in hotels while they are planning their next bit of BLM/Jihadi activism.

    5. But they did split the nation – Marine Le Pen (close second in Presidency vote) and her folowers were specifically EXcluded from the Je Suis Charlie march. They were not excluded from buying teddy bears.

    1. There were 3 boats doing the “SAR – [search and rescue]” missions this morning – the Hunter, Seeker & Speedwell were all doing the taxi service, zig-zagging up and down the channel, looking for passengers back to Dover

        1. I don’t care what she wears. It’s entirely up to her.

          I don’t know her, so make no judgement on her character.

          Anyone who does is a nasty bigot. Take note, Lefties!

        2. “Cultural appropriation”? What a load of utter, artificially-invented, bollocks.

          I can accurately mimic the accents and dialects of most people on this planet. Anyone attempting to tell me that I cannot will be given short shrift!*

          [*That means I shall tell them to fuck off in a variety of different accents.]

          2. Hello Grizzly ,

            I can be very unladylike, my 2 sisters are usually polite , but because they live on a different Continent.. they taught me this … Voetsek … rude way of telling someone to go away!

  54. 323176+up ticks,
    One bloke on vine saying how kids are stressed out and how this is going to effect their future, some of these “kids” don’t
    leave the education system until they are 18 plus.
    Then I got to thinking how old was the youngest spitfire pilot
    bearing in mind Gibson was only 24 these very people to whom we owe our freedom, and their future life expectancy,
    a month plus ?

    1. One of our school nurses was the widow of a BofB Spitfire pilot – he was 19. She had been an aircraft delivery pilot – that’s how they met. As you say, Gibson was 24, Leonard Cheshire, Gibson’s successor at 617, was a Group Captain at 25 and took a “demotion” to take over the squadron.

      1. And folk complain about young people. Look at what the under-25s achieved, in deeds, rank, and leadership, when the chips were down.

        1. Do you really believe that the majority of the current crop of young people under 25 would even bother?

          1. I really struggle to see that, but I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt. The trouble is, they have been so indoctrinated and not taught to think for themselves.

          2. I would too, but when they can’t begin to see the enemy within their midst how will they be galvanised to tackle an enemy without?

        2. Ah, but that was then, this is now. History is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

  55. If you type ‘Daily Maul’ or ‘Daily Fail’ into a search engine it still comes up with the right web page. Uncanny that!

  56. Ed Sheeran and his wife Cherry Seaborn have announced the birth of their daughter Lyra Antarctica Seaborn Sheeran.

    The name Lyra is a girl’s name of Greek origin meaning “lyre”.

    Lyra is a constellation name taken from the lyre of Orpheus. It contains the star Vega and thus could make a melodic choice for a parent interested in music, astronomy, or mythology.

    Lyra Belacqua is the heroine of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, seen in the movie The Golden Compass.

      1. A former colleague named her dog Bronwen because the dog had a large white patch on her chest and Bronwen is Welsh for white breast. Very logical.

        For some reason, Susan means Lily in ancient Hebrew and Rose in modern Hebrew.

    4. That’s an odd pace to conceive a child given that celebs seem to name their brats after the location.

      2. Seaborn are an excellent cruise line Kaypea.

        We fully recommend conceiving whilst cruising………..it’s so relaxing!

        2. To be a pedant, it’s Seaborne. We had a very nice, but too short cruise on the Legend, which they have since sold. Small ship, just 100 suites. “It “starred” in the film Speed II, by the way.

    5. Antarctica? I suppose you have to give a child an idiotic name when you are famous: it’s in the contract!

  57. Case to be head of Civil Service. Head Case? I hope his head is screwed on better than Silly Sedwill his useless predecessor.

    1. The Catholic Church is riven with power play politics. I suspect that Tone deaf Blair wouldn’t have any trouble receiving Holy Communion even though he is personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

          2. I think by the time you are in the socially distanced queue to see St Peter it is too late. Times Up !

      2. I always thought he only converted because he could be “forgiven” his sins.

        I wonder what his confessor could (but won’t) say about Tony the Phoney.

        1. There is more than one way to ‘skin a cat’ as the saying goes and the more ways that are used the more likely one is to be successful, and the true motive to be undetected. White depopulation seems to have been very successful in the UK and Europe.

  63. Afternoon, all. Have spent the day wrestling with the “authorities” – the bank, the memory service (and by extension, social services, etc). Am absolutely worn out and have achieved nothing. To cap it all, when I did put on brave pants and go shopping, the effing supermarket had moved everything round over the bank holiday, I couldn’t find anything and came away without most of the things on the list. Such days are sent to try me, obviously. Good job I’d stocked up on wine 🙂

    2. Was there nobody you could ask where things were? I had an assistant running round searching for soffritto for me this afternoon in W/rose.

      1. Exacto (copyright you) what he should have done. Play the Infirm card in Waitrose and they will do the whole shop. I have a fake plaster cast for just such purposes. 🙂

          1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c577fa0210a32f3ecbed593a8801eb6631ededa21f3f7a84418881a89c3bd992.jpg
            There isn’t a Waitrose within 1,000 miles of me. I do though, sometimes wish I had one (or a Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s or Marks & Sparks).

            Today I shopped at a Coop in Simrishamn. One of my purchases was a cellophane-wrapped celery. Upon getting home I found it not to be just rotten but the heart had been deliberately cut away at some stage and it then continued to rot! Someone decided that it was still saleable even though the must have known it was rotten (why cut the heart out and then put it back in the bag?).

            Tomorrow I will take it back, get an apology, a full refund, plus my expenses for the unnecessary round trip back and inconvenience. They may quibble but I always get my way.

          2. I looked at buying celery today, but I decided it wasn’t fresh enough. Ditto various types of lettuce until I found some I thought was acceptable. I am very French in my attitude to shopping for fresh produce 🙂

          3. I don’t know whether there is one near you, Conwy, but we have been impressed by the freshness of the veg on sale in Morrisons.

          6. The road to get there is one of the most dangerous in the country, even for car drivers! On a horse I’d be lucky to make a quarter of a mile. 🙁

          12. Urgh. Yukk. We used to get stuff like that here, but then a proper greengrocer opened (Turkish), and took all the business. Now the supermarkets have sharpened up and sell good, but dull, produce.

          13. Tomorrow they will have it back. I shall have a refund for what I paid for it. They will also pay me in full whatever it cost me in time and petrol and inconvenience in returning it.

          14. “We have no recollection of selling such a celery, Cur. You must have bought it elsewhere and are trying to cheat us. Please leave now or I will call sekuriddy.”

          15. If they ever tried that line with me they would soon realise who they were dealing with and start to sing a different tune.

      2. I have found, in the past, that asking people to find me things is a waste of time. They either take me to somewhere that doesn’t have what I actually want, or they say they don’t have it (when I know damn well that they do). Mind you, these were foreigners (in Sainsbury’s). It has rather put me off bothering.

    3. I complain to the manager if they move things around. I know why they do it but it’s infuriating and, in a sense, insulting.

      1. Even the staff weren’t happy. The bloke on the checkout said that he arrived at about 06.00 and then had to find where they had put everything to re-stock the shelves (which didn’t happen in the case of the eggs!).

      2. So do I. I also complain vehemently if ‘reduced’ stickers are plastered over the name of the product or list of ingredients.

      1. Watching the start of the video – my first thought – imagine the damned birdshit everywhere. Have you ever had a bird loose – and panicking – in your house? A nightmare.

        2. Yes, I had a jackdaw come down the chimney and get into the drawing room a few months ago. It was horrendous; sh1t everywhere, pictures askew, a lamp base broken … I have, fortunately, now got a wire in the chimney pot, so hopefully we should not have a repeat performance. That is something I definitely can do without.

          2. He (or it may have been she) had been there some time. It isn’t a room I use very often. When I discovered it I did entice it into the conservatory and thence out the door. In the meantime it had wreaked havoc. Something definitely to put on the “avoid at all costs” list. It wasn’t the only one to have got in; a predecessor was discovered sooner, but still caused mayhem, not least because the dog was younger and chased it around!

          3. I had a similar scenario, about 20 years ago, with a couple of young starlings. It is unimaginable how much damage they can do!

    2. The prospect of Mr Abbott joining the Board of Trade has sparked a backlash, with Labour’s international trade spokesman Emily Thornberry describing him as an ‘offensive, aggressive, leering, gaffe-prone misogynist’.

      SIGN HIM UP NOW!!!

      2. “/…’offensive, aggressive, leering, gaffe-prone misogynist’…”

        Takes one to known one, Lady Nugee….

          3. You will hear them in France, we first heard them in the Cévennes and then further south. Often heard in trees over streams and swiftly flowing shallow rivers. We used to eat our evening meals accompanied by the song of a nightingale (and also by mozzies). During the day we would hear them on our dog walk. On one occasion an osprey came and perched on top of a nearby apricot tree in the orchard, I couldn’t believe its size (we were only a stone’s throw from the étangs).

          4. That’s life over here.

            I am constantly astounded by what passes through the garden.

            We’re very lucky being in the middle of forest, hills, agricultural land, river valley etc.

        3. Nor me. However, I get the similar Thrush nightingale over here every spring. I can hear them from the garden. Wonderful songsters on a sunny spring evening. They sometimes have to compete with a frog chorus!

    4. 323176+ up ticks,
      Evening PT,
      Every morning I whistle & up turns pinky & perk early doors, 11 o’clock the same, then 5 o’clock.

      Meal-worms, he will share with sparrows no way will she, & she chases him so it has to be a his / her pile 2 m apart of course.
      Sometimes waiting at the door early on.

      1. Evening ogga
        A blackbird used to sing regularly in early morning from a camellia tree outside the bedroom window. He often woke me up and I missed his early song when he disappeared. Alhtough I spoiled him with nuts, fruit, meal worms and the odd piece of cheese he never returned ….

        1. We have many blackbirds here, but trés sauvage.

          I have tried everything I know to get them to feed close to the house, no joy.

          In the UK I could get them to feed from my hand and if “their” bit of the garden wasn’t sufficiently well stocked they would come into the kitchen to complain.

        2. Unfortunately they don’t live for ever. A few years ago I had one who sang a line from “Teddybears’ Picnic”, but he is long gone.

  68. Just watching the ITV Evening News. Westminster – the twat in the hat is back with his placards.

  69. I am off. Cook is doing curry.

    A very satisfactory day today. Two hours ladder work. A long walk. Jolly goats. A bit of wood-gathering for tonight’s stove (the sun is already low and it is getting chilly). And a nice glass of medicine in hand.

    Have a jolly evening explaining why you won’t be sending your children to school for the next ten years; or until it is “safe” – whichever is the later.

    A demain.

    2. I won’t be sending my children to school ‘cos they are all in their thirties. Will I be fined?

      2. I don’t have any children to send to school. I’ll be safe until they need to make up the shortfall … oh dear!

  70. So it begins,Niece’s husband made redundant today,been furloughed on and off now firm’s gone pop,her job at risk end of September
    Not hi-flyers just a normal decent family with a couple of children just about making it,getting by
    Now it looks like their life may be torn apart,everything at risk,on the line
    They’ll survive,they’re grafters,whatever shite job whatever hours they need to put in they will if there’s any work at all
    Thanks Boris,thanks soooooooo much you cnut

    1. I wish them all the very best.

      On a slightly more positive note, they might be lucky going in the first wave, before the tidal wave hits, and they may find alternative employment.

        2. I must raise a conflict of interest here.

          I was working as a money-broker at the time of the 87 crash. I survived the first sackings but not the second.
          The fact that I had survived stood me in good stead for a completely different job.

          Banks were looking for people who understood what had gone wrong and I ended up as an auditor.

    3. I’m sorry to say, but I believe that there is a tsunami of redundancies on its way with the furlough support petering out and winter on its way. I lost my job a year ago but was close enough to retirement to take an early bath, but many of my compatriots who went out and won new jobs are now mostly unemployed again. We are in a calm before the storm and I consider myself lucky to be in receipt of a pension.

  71. Today’s neologism:

    Coondemnation
    noun: coondemnation; plural noun: coondemnations

    The expression of very strong disapproval; censure, when a white policeman points out that you are breaking the law.

  72. Liz Jolly really is dangerously insane. ‘State of emergency’?

    Lower the top rate of tax for more gain and less pain

    The only point of increasing tax on the rich is to raise more revenue. Everything else is sadism or class war

    CHARLES MOORE

    The only point of increasing taxes on the rich is to raise more revenue. Everything else is sadism or class war. “Those with the broadest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden.” That is why the rich pay much higher income tax rates than normal earners, with the top rate being more than double the standard rate. There is no point in increasing that burden, however, if it then yields less.

    Because of its Covid-related spending splurge, the Treasury is hinting at tax rises for the better off – on corporation tax, on income tax and by cutting pension tax relief. Behind these moves lies the assumption that if the rates rise the amount of money taxed stays the same or grows, so a higher rate brings in more.

    What if that is false? In the era of lower top rates of income tax which Margaret Thatcher inaugurated in 1979, whenever the top rate fell, the revenue rose. When Labour put up the top rate to 50 pence in 2010, the share of the income tax take coming from the top one per cent got stuck at just over 25 per cent. The total soon ceased to rise.

    When George Osborne cut the rate to 45 per cent in 2013, that share climbed steadily, reaching 29.6 per cent in the latest financial year. The total revenue also rose sharply. Less pain, more gain.

    Duty to the public must come first

    The chief librarian of the British Library, Liz Jolly, has told colleagues that “racism is the creation of white people”, so they must help purge it. Two hundred staff reportedly signed a letter declaring a racial “state of emergency” in the library. An internal report has complained of “Eurocentric” maps in the collections and demanded the founders’ statues be removed.

    In the House of Commons, senior white staff have put out abject confessions of their feebleness about racism. One seeks a “reverse mentor” and hopes, she says, to learn from the BAME friends of her teenage children and “bring their learning” about “discussing Black Lives Matter … in to the workplace”. “I am guilty of expecting that black colleagues will explain everything … I am sorry,” says another.

    At Worcester College, Oxford, the interim provost, Prof Kate Tunstall, writes in her annual report: “The racist murder of George Floyd in late May and the global movement of Black Lives Matter shed a glaring light on the intolerable fact that being safe and well is all too often a privilege. In Oxford, many of us joined the socially distanced protests in support of Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall …and the governing body, expressing its support for the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes, also recognised that though it might not have a statue it could agree to take down, it was not outside the legacies of colonialism.”

    That body, Prof Tunstall continued, has “now established an Equity and Inclusion Action Group. It is tasked with putting in place anti-racist training for all members of the college community”.

    Now, the new provost of Worcester has been announced. He is David Isaac, the chair of the equality and human rights commission. The college informs us: “In his capacity as chair of Stonewall, he advocated for and successfully brought about significant legal and social change in the UK, including the right to civil partnerships and marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

    “As chair of the equality and human rights commission, David promoted the rights of people with disabilities, advised the Lammy Review, and set up the inquiry into the effects on black and minority ethnic communities of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

    The above furnish three current examples of institutions with public duties – the care and study of rare books and documents; the expediting of the work of elected MPs; and the higher education of students. Could one suggest that the staff of these institutions are not entitled to neglect these duties because of their obsession with racism? That is not what they are paid for.

    If they are white, and if they feel that white people are the cause of racism, they should follow their own logic, and step down.

    Tony Hall’s jiggery-wokery

    I was amused by Lord Hall’s interview with this newspaper on Saturday to mark his retirement from the BBC. The soon-to-be ex-director-general said the idea of the BBC as “the woke corporation” was “not a description I recognise at all”. His tone was characteristic: whenever he spots troubled waters, he pours oil on them.

    Tony Hall is always attentive to his audience. Since he was addressing Telegraph readers, he emphasised how much he enjoyed joining in the singing of the traditional Last Night of the Proms.

    I noticed, however, his artistic – and artful – choice of pose for the accompanying photograph. He was standing beside a painting of St Catherine of Alexandria by Artemisia Gentileschi, a picture which is also the artist’s self-portrait. In doing so, he achieved two things. The first was silently to advertise the National Gallery’s forthcoming Artemisia exhibition – he has just become the gallery’s chairman. The second was to choose the picture with the maximum jiggery-wokery opportunities, since the artist, having been a feisty woman in the overwhelmingly man’s world of 17th-century Italy, is now a poster girl for feminism.

    No one should object to this: Artemisia is a front-rank artist and the National Gallery has a show to sell. It is just typical Tony.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/01/lower-top-rate-tax-gain-less-pain/

    BTL:

    Gary Lafferty 1 Sep 2020 7:45AM

    The staff of public bodies confessing their privilege and unconscious racism while seeking out a BAME mentor to educated them in the manner of their ‘thought crimes’ and racist behaviour has a precedent. It was a feature of communist regimes, particularly China, to get public officials (usually academics) to confess their bourgeois values and life style. The self-flagellating displays were demanded by the despotic regimes to terrorise the people and thwart any counter-revolution.

    There are further echoes of communist terror in the way that public figures who dare to voice opinions not in keeping with woke orthodoxy are hounded, abused, threatened and have their jobs or livelihoods removed. In communist China they had ‘struggle sessions’ were non-conforming targets were forced to. admit various crimes before a crowd of people who would verbally and physically abuse the victim until he or she confessed.

    It is a sign of the success of the Left’s campaign of woke intimidation that almost no on speaks out against this terrorising of the staff of our public bodies to confess their racism.

    j l johnson 1 Sep 2020 7:49AM

    It just needs enough of them not to do it, and it would have to stop. Instead they carry on handing power to 3-4% of the population, some of whom apparently hate white people with a raging passion.

    White people’s collusion in their own downfall implies some profound masochism, or perhaps just a desire to succumb to their inevitable racial obliteration. It is very mysterious, and extremely sad.

    2. All this because a tiny proportion of 3% of the population kicks up a fuss. Our culture is doomed because of the actions of the left who are in control regardless of whom is in Government.

      1. Are they really only 3% of the population? To look at almost anything on the BBC, or ads on ITV you would think they were more like 20%. Or even more.

        1. I watch infrequently at friends house – I cancelled my involuntary tax account a long time ago (so should you). The percentage of non-white presenters and contributors recently has been around 40-45 percent overall and at times 90 per cent.

          1. Even racing isn’t immune. I can’t see what Persad adds to the content (other than ticking a box).

        3. 14% Bames, but it is a few of the 3% blacks that are causing the trouble. However, most of the demonstrators seem to be whites, albeit members of the great unwashed looking a bit brown.

    4. ‘White people’s collusion in their own downfall implies some profound masochism, …’

      As Douglas Murray says from time to time with a grim smile on his face “Wait until they meet a real sadist’

    5. ‘White people’s collusion in their own downfall implies some profound masochism, …’

      As Douglas Murray says from time to time with a grim smile on his face “Wait until they meet a real sadist’

    6. I saw in my local rag that “experts” are advocating tax rises to pay off the spending spree Sunak the Spendthrift has been on. Some experts they! Any fool kno that there is a point at which more people will avoid tax by any legal means they can, than will be paying it. That’s what caused the seventies brain drain, FFS! Do they never read anything older than yesterday’s Grauniad?

  74. Richard (not Robert) and I had a lovely surprise this afternoon .. Thank you dear Nottlers for your kindness and sympathy at a time when there is no cricket nor a parrot to fill the empty vacuum at the moment .

    We think we are strong , but it catches you out . Happy took with him all the dogs names he learned over the past 36 years , my son’s names, tunes , I am the one who whistles , and he learned part of the New World Symphony , and Beethovens no 6 Pastoral , Take 5 , gosh and so many tunes , remember Happy talk from the King and I , and his expressions were in my voice . Apparently he was me, but goodness how he could bite .. me , and drew blood, yet my son could handle him so well. I will never ever have another wolf whistle ever again ;0)

    How on earth do parrots memorise everything ?

    Lovely orange roses and delicious chocolates , really so perfect .

    The mystery gift sender , please reveal yourself , bless you, thank you a million times.

    2. I’m sorry for your loss, Belle. That’s hard, repeatedly finding an empty space where before a loved one lived.

    3. The keeper of your family’s memories that were released at random to catch you on the hop and make you smile. So greatly missed. I was touched by your photo where he was wrapped in a little blanket. I could see that he was a much loved family member and very much a part of your family.

      On another note I would love to contribute to the gifts that are sent to Nottlers in times of distress (or delight). Does anyone have any ideas how this might be achieved? I am sure I am not the only one.

    4. My lips are sealed – but I did wonder whether the fairy godmother had the right ‘R’…

      ‘To Maggie and Wannafight’ would have been more accurate :-))

          1. What a lovely chap you are Geoff! Many thanks for doing what a lot of us would like to have done!

  75. Slightly off topic

    Even HG is getting pissed off with bamery.

    This evening’s “One Show” had her complaining about how it’s going, where almost all of it was tinted.

    If we had a whole day without a Bame, and there was no comment in the MSM, I wonder who would notice, and how many complaints they would get.

    2. SWMBO, the most tolerant person that ever existed (evidence: She married me nearly 40 years ago…), is at the spitting tacks stage as regards bamery and all this other shite.

    3. I’ve been watching the TdF over the past few days. Hideously white but no BLMers evident; aren’t yer Bames interested in cycling?

      2. Oddly enough, it’s very much an endurance sport, where power to weight ratio is enormously important.
        Logically, one might think there would be Kenyans who would excel at it.

        1. Where are the big muscular blacks in skiing?
          Maybe a common problem for both – little interest allied with little opportunity.

      1. Spock to Captain Kirk. Jim…We are going to need more safe spaces.

        Kirk to Spock. How many?

        Spock to Kirk. I don’t know Jim. It’s not life as we know it.

        1. If your local would also replace the mince-gunk with a medium-rare, rib-eye steak, I could be tempted, AtG …

    2. Needless to say, the DT headline suggests that it will be compulsory for all diabetics. Which is nonsense. After I had my legs trimmed, in Post-op, I was given several ‘protein’ shakes. My blood glucose went through the roof. They became quite concerned. I did a quick Google, and saw the carb content (which wasn’t on the bottle). Protein, my arse. ‘Twas full of carbs…

    3. This little piggy went to market
      This little piggy had a gastric band
      This little piggy exploded.
      This piggy ate the other little piggies.

    4. My observation. from afar, is that burgers seem to tower higher & higher. Hence the need for pins to secure them.

    5. Giving people free stuff doesn’t work! People only value stuff that they have to make an effort to get – it’s basic human psychology.
      Plus if you’re addicted to over-eating, you have to want to stop of your own accord.

      This is just more of that stupid post-war mindset that thinks the middle classes can fix the poor by giving them a middle class standard of living – at our expense, naturally!
      Grrrrrrr!

  79. Good night all. It has been a good day, although I haven’t got everything done, but now I’m going to settle down with a Anthony Horowitz murder mystery.

    A simple supper of peppers & chili quiche, followed by baked nectarines, washed down with a white Rioja.

  80. The BBC despises people who pay for it – and the feeling is mutual

    I’m sick of being told my Middle England, centre-Right views are “unacceptable”, writes Allison Pearson to the BBC’s new Director General

    ALLISON PEARSON

    Dear Tim Davie,

    Congratulations – or perhaps it should be commiserations – on becoming Director General of the BBC. As you take control of the bridge, the iceberg is already amidships and the band has struck up Abide With Me. Not that anyone at the Beeb would countenance the singing of such a dreadful, old-fashioned and almost certainly white-supremacist hymn. Not when there are inclusive and excitingly diverse Ndebele folk songs still to be inflicted on the licence payer.

    You think I’m joking. I wish I was. That distaste for the indigenous, the reflex sense that anything non-British or, better still, anti-British, is what the audience needs has contributed to the perilous situation in which a once-cherished national institution now finds itself. The BBC despises the people who pay for it and, increasingly, the feeling is mutual.

    I have no doubt that the furious backlash over changes to the Last Night of the Proms was swiftly dismissed by your staff as the grumblings of a few Colonel Blimps who still eat red meat and don’t even read The Guardian. Actually, as a YouGov survey discovered, 55 per cent of the public opposed the decision to remove the lyrics of Land of Hope and Glory and Rule, Britannia!, with only 16 per cent thinking the instrumental compromise was the best solution and a minuscule 5 per cent saying the songs should not be performed at all.

    The majority of BBC staff are in that 5 per cent. You should be very worried about that. If the ability to embody the mood and concerns of a nation is the job description of a public service broadcaster, then your present workforce is spectacularly ill-equipped for the task. Clearly, the Last Night festivities are not to everyone’s taste. Some people find all that flag-waving a bit silly, even nationalistic, but they wouldn’t presume to censor other people’s pleasure as the BBC did.

    Liam Halligan, my co-presenter on the Planet Normal podcast (do have a listen, Tim, you might be interested to hear what people beyond the metropolitan elite are thinking) points out that three of his friends absolutely adore the Proms. They are, respectively, Jewish-British, Asian-British and black-British, with the British part of their identity finding full, joyous expression in the Royal Albert Hall.

    When did the BBC broadcast something that suggested that many people from an immigrant background love this country? I can’t remember the last time I heard anything other than grievance, grudge and daily griping about racism (which afflicts the UK far less than comparable countries, not that you’d know it).

    Let me give you one example. Back in June, when Isa Guha joined the Test Match Special team, Radio 4’s Today programme invited her to share how “resentful” she had felt as an Asian woman in a white, male-dominated industry. That’s Isa who played cricket for England and landed a plum broadcasting job by the age of 35. On merit. Not too much evidence of institutional racism or sexism there, you might think – but the BBC had to find fault. I switched off in disgust. [Isa Guha had a few listeners reaching for their knobs during a recent Test match.]

    Sorry, Tim, but I’m always reaching for the off switch these days or hurling things at the telly. Along with millions of others, I’m sick of being told that my Middle England, centre-Right views are “unacceptable”. Sick of something I tweeted being savaged by Nish Kumar on the astoundingly unfunny Mash Report. I’m so tired of programmes on Radio 4 in which Yusef laments the fact that being one-legged and 19 stone cruelly disqualifies him from being a ballet dancer, which is evidence of “discrimination”, apparently. How very hard it is to satirise the BBC woe-fest of woke. It’s already beyond parody.

    Too often even the best BBC content is filtered through a lens which makes the lazy assumption that everyone shares the politics of BBC staff living in the leafier London postcodes. Who can forget Emily Maitlis’s stricken face on June 23, 2016, when David Dimbleby announced that the UK was leaving the European Union? Oh, the horror! Hull and Huddersfield had rudely intruded on the de haut en bas habitants of Holland Park.

    After the referendum, the BBC made what may yet prove to be the fatal error of becoming Remainer Central. It cast aside all pretence of impartiality as reporters combed the streets of Brexit areas looking for anyone who could be persuaded to repent their evil Leave vote.

    That same Leftist corporate bias led to BBC viewers being given the strong impression back in December that Jeremy Corbyn could well become prime minister. An excitable BBC World reporter insisted that the result was “on a knife edge” just hours before the Conservatives won a historic landslide victory. No wonder trust in BBC News has plummeted 20 percentage points in the past two years, and so many have angrily cancelled their licences and joined the Defund the BBC campaign.

    I should say, Tim, that I am writing to you as a former TV critic who has always loved the BBC but increasingly feels like she is in a relationship with an abusive partner. From dawn till dusk, your output gaslights viewers like me, treating us with thinly-veiled contempt. Knowing my country as I do, I refused to believe that the British people would ever elect a dangerous old Trot like Corbyn, but daily BBC propaganda had me doubting myself.

    How many people does the BBC employ who really know, let alone love, this conservative-with-a-small-“c” country, Tim? How many went to a bog-standard comp or come from communities that backed Brexit? How many vote Conservative? Your predecessor Sir Tony Hall admitted at the weekend that the BBC needs wider diversity of opinion. It should, he suggested, move the majority of its staff outside London “to better reflect the views of the people who fund it”.

    It wouldn’t help. You can take BBC executives out of Islington but you can’t take Islington out of BBC executives. (Ciabatta? No, she makes her own sourdough.) Moving a chunk of the corporation to Salford in 2011 has not seen much Mancunian attitude enter its bloodstream. If you’re serious about better representing licence payers, Tim, you could stop the BBC spending £139,000 a year on copies of The Guardian and start advertising jobs in The Telegraph.

    Personally, I’m delighted to hear that you were a Croydon scholarship boy and the first in your family to go to university, after which you joined Proctor & Gamble as a trainee. Like most of us on Planet Normal, you have had to make your own way in life without money, connections or a hereditary superiority complex. Better still, you were deputy chairman of Hammersmith & Fulham Conservative Party in the 1990s. For heaven’s sake, don’t tell anyone in Broadcasting House!

    You have already threatened to tackle the outrageous Left-wing bias of BBC comedy shows. I hope you’re serious. A return to joke not woke is long overdue.

    Presenters like Gary Lineker will be forbidden to share their political opinions on social media which has done so much to undermine the belief that the BBC belongs to everyone. Good. But it is now almost certain that the Government will punish your organisation for its political prejudice and for going back on its pledge not to charge over-75s for the licence fee. Non-payment of the fee will soon be decriminalised, potentially costing the corporation a billion pounds a year.

    This week you will give your first major speech as DG. Your task is an unenviable one. For many licence fee-payers, any reforms will come too late. The arrogant, self-satisfied pursuit of “inclusiveness” – deliberately excluding older white people who are the corporation’s main consumers – has drained the deep reservoir of affection for the BBC. A reservoir that was filled up over decades by Morecambe and Wise and Kenneth Kendall and Angela Rippon and Saint Attenborough and Moira Stewart and Terry Wogan and Victoria Wood, all blissful unifiers of this nation.

    How to restore our bruised and battered faith in the BBC? Well, you could always use your speech to announce that, by popular demand, Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory will be sung at the Last Night of the Proms and subtitles provided so people can join in at home. It would be a welcome sign that, under you, the BBC will no longer be disdainful of the people it was created to serve.

    Good luck, may your God go with you (as Dave Allen used to say at the end of every show) – and bring back Poldark.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/bbc-despises-people-pay-feeling-mutual/

    1. I see [courtesy of a BBC spoke in the Radio Times] that the BBC [having been caught out trying to blame the conductor] now claim that they never intended to drop the singing of LoHaG etc, and it will be back to normal next year – this year they have had to stop the singing due to COVID-19 precautions, which means fewer people on stage to sing!!

      2. Much as I detest the BBC, there could be some truth in this. I read the row from the first articles in the Daily Mail, and I had the distinct feeling that the DM were stirring the pot. I think they anticipated something that the BBC would like to do, and whipped up a giant row out of it.
        The result is not too bad, seeing that the BBC have been forced to declare that they won’t drop these songs. If the BBC had waited a bit longer and then dropped them in their own time, they might have got away with it.

    1. Thanks for posting, that was interesting. If the BBC wasn’t such a cess-pit, people like him might be presenting on it.

      1. He needs to slow down a bit though – gabble gabble gabble – he was in a breathless rush to gallop though all those topics, when each one could have been much more interesting at a slower pace.

  82. Night All

    A few that have built up during the day

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c1d17840f4b5b55a5e200764aa64e04561366a2617c139024305da09c293299d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f6f0205a3ca28d0ed27fee341e0a495e2791426b05af41318eeb95f1428855e5.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d0203b89e04df91d375ea9a9e68cde1a8e7577d1de7ad78cc78e6907f5256a6d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2db21be8eeae29f79f9e500338030aa2a7513037729028818f4fac9ffe521bbf.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c31787bee0fd8e8fe72238869b6cdcbcedea5b00a24cf3494bb377cbd5b67ee1.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/923d7a0f7934cff960e6ba25c146a8831d322f0f159d145d0359942d18b887ed.jpg

  83. The NHS looks like a heartless behemoth which is deaf to the people’s suffering

    Patients with life-threatening conditions are still not being seen – it’s moving beyond mere neglect into the realms of manslaughter

    ALLISON PEARSON

    How long do you reckon it will be before we are allowed to use “our” NHS? You know, that rather extensive health system we pay £134 billion a year for? After the eminent surgeon, Jai Chitnavis, told me last week about his huge backlog of patients and Covid-free hospitals still operating alarmingly below capacity, I was inundated with the most awful stories from readers.

    Linda Price said that she had two. Her husband’s annual appointment with his consultant at the Diabetic Clinic has been cancelled due to “government advice”. He was told that someone would telephone him instead. However, this means no proper examination and, if anything is awry, it is less likely be spotted. The Diabetic Centre is a separate building in the hospital grounds, so the Prices simply can’t understand why appointments aren’t happening.

    Linda’s second story is just devastating. I’ll let her tell it. “My brother in his early sixties had an appointment in March for a heart procedure, which was cancelled. He collapsed three weeks ago and the hospital discovered a tumour, but they sent him home saying they would contact him, but they never did. He died suddenly last week, whether due to heart or tumour we have yet to discover. So the NHS is definitely not open as stated by our Government.”

    I sent Linda my condolences, and she replied: “I fear that many others must be suffering the consequences of what is happening in our GP surgeries and hospitals. I have said that Covid didn’t kill my brother, but he died because of it.” In the next few years, there will be tens of thousands of neglected people whose epitaph that could be.

    A tsunami of grief is coming. The NHS looks like a heartless behemoth which is deaf to the people’s suffering. One podiatrist says that he normally refers diabetics to a consultant if their circulation has deteriorated. He is desperately worried that many will need amputations when – if – hospitals finally agree to see patients again.

    Why in the name of God is there not a greater sense of urgency about this unfolding national tragedy? Why is the Prime Minister not telling hospitals and surgeries that they have a “moral duty” to fully open as he did to schools?

    A letter from NHS Chief Executive, Sir Simon Stevens, sent to all NHS trusts, GPs and Primary Care Networks, adopts a leisurely, almost languid tone: “Over the next six weeks and beyond, we have the opportunity to begin to release and redeploy some of the treatment capacity that could have been needed while the number of Covid-19 patients was rising so sharply.”

    Could have been needed? Seriously, Sir Simon. Was needed, I think you’ll find – and desperately so.

    Honestly, you’d swear managers had all the time in the world to get the service up and running, not nearly 300,000 men and women waiting in pain for crucial hip and knee operations. Or, as the Telegraph reported this week, patients with life-threatening conditions being told that they must wait until 2022 for a phone conversation with a specialist. That is moving beyond mere neglect into the realms of manslaughter. [I might quibble at that.]

    There is a hint in Sir Simon’s letter as to what is really going on. “We should,” he says, “also take this opportunity to ‘lock in’ beneficial changes that arose during the lockdown.”

    Beneficial for whom, exactly? I guess moving from face-to-face appointments to video calls is “beneficial” for GPs who want to save time and money. Not so beneficial for sick people who value seeing their doctor in person when hidden ailments can quietly reveal themselves.

    Front-line NHS staff rightly earned all our gratitude at the height of the pandemic. They were marvellous. The same cannot be said for their bosses who seem to have forgotten what public service means.

    It is our NHS, not theirs, and we expect normal service to be resumed. The choice is stark: scrub up or kill people. Failure to do so means graveyards full of headstones with the same inscription: “Died not with Covid, but because of it”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/nhs-looks-like-heartless-behemoth-deaf-peoples-suffering/

    1. Nationalising healthcare was a monumentally stupid mistake. All they needed to do was issue rules for affordable public health insurances, which would then be taken up by private companies, and make it compulsory for everyone living in the country to have one.

      This is the logical outcome of having a nationalised mammoth – it can’t adapt to change, and it exists for its own benefit.

    1. We have already lost if they cave in without a fight.
      Actually, we are losing on the food front, as manufacturers increasingly label their products “Free of porcine products” or have the halal certification hidden away on their websites (they know that advertising it on the packaging would lead to loss of sales).

  87. Now the Hurricane has passed, I bet this was NOT in Classic FM’s top 100 Film Music songs:

    youtube.com/watch?v=b-QtnIaG0xE

  88. ALLison Pearson captures the essential BBC problem. A problem which means (sorry Rex) that it has to be put down rather than neutered.

    Dear Tim Davie,

    Congratulations – or perhaps it should be commiserations – on becoming Director General of the BBC. As you take control of the bridge, the iceberg is already amidships and the band has struck up Abide With Me. Not that anyone at the Beeb would countenance the singing of such a dreadful, old-fashioned and almost certainly white-supremacist hymn. Not when there are inclusive and excitingly diverse Ndebele folk songs still to be inflicted on the licence payer.

    You think I’m joking. I wish I was. That distaste for the indigenous, the reflex sense that anything non-British or, better still, anti-British, is what the audience needs has contributed to the perilous situation in which a once-cherished national institution now finds itself. The BBC despises the people who pay for it and, increasingly, the feeling is mutual.

    I have no doubt that the furious backlash over changes to the Last Night of the Proms was swiftly dismissed by your staff as the grumblings of a few Colonel Blimps who still eat red meat and don’t even read The Guardian. Actually, as a YouGov survey discovered, 55 per cent of the public opposed the decision to remove the lyrics of Land of Hope and Glory and Rule, Britannia!, with only 16 per cent thinking the instrumental compromise was the best solution and a minuscule 5 per cent saying the songs should not be performed at all.

    The majority of BBC staff are in that 5 per cent. You should be very worried about that. If the ability to embody the mood and concerns of a nation is the job description of a public service broadcaster, then your present workforce is spectacularly ill-equipped for the task. Clearly, the Last Night festivities are not to everyone’s taste. Some people find all that flag-waving a bit silly, even nationalistic, but they wouldn’t presume to censor other people’s pleasure as the BBC did.

    Liam Halligan, my co-presenter on the Planet Normal podcast (do have a listen, Tim, you might be interested to hear what people beyond the metropolitan elite are thinking) points out that three of his friends absolutely adore the Proms. They are, respectively, Jewish-British, Asian-British and black-British, with the British part of their identity finding full, joyous expression in the Royal Albert Hall.

    When did the BBC broadcast something that suggested that many people from an immigrant background love this country? I can’t remember the last time I heard anything other than grievance, grudge and daily griping about racism (which afflicts the UK far less than comparable countries, not that you’d know it).

    Let me give you one example. Back in June, when Isa Guha joined the Test Match Special team, Radio 4’s Today programme invited her to share how “resentful” she had felt as an Asian woman in a white, male-dominated industry. That’s Isa who played cricket for England and landed a plum broadcasting job by the age of 35. On merit. Not too much evidence of institutional racism or sexism there, you might think – but the BBC had to find fault. I switched off in disgust.

    Sorry, Tim, but I’m always reaching for the off switch these days or hurling things at the telly. Along with millions of others, I’m sick of being told that my Middle England, centre-Right views are “unacceptable”. Sick of something I tweeted being savaged by Nish Kumar on the astoundingly unfunny Mash Report. I’m so tired of programmes on Radio 4 in which Yusef laments the fact that being one-legged and 19 stone cruelly disqualifies him from being a ballet dancer, which is evidence of “discrimination”, apparently. How very hard it is to satirise the BBC woe-fest of woke. It’s already beyond parody.

    Too often even the best BBC content is filtered through a lens which makes the lazy assumption that everyone shares the politics of BBC staff living in the leafier London postcodes. Who can forget Emily Maitlis’s stricken face on June 23, 2016, when David Dimbleby announced that the UK was leaving the European Union? Oh, the horror! Hull and Huddersfield had rudely intruded on the de-haut-en-bas habitants of Holland Park.

    After the referendum, the BBC made what may yet prove to be the fatal error of becoming Remainer Central. It cast aside all pretence of impartiality as reporters combed the streets of Brexit areas looking for anyone who could be persuaded to repent their evil Leave vote.

    That same Leftist corporate bias led to BBC viewers being given the strong impression back in December that Jeremy Corbyn could well become prime minister. An excitable BBC World reporter insisted that the result was “on a knife edge” just hours before the Conservatives won a historic landslide victory. No wonder trust in BBC News has plummeted 20 percentage points in the past two years, and so many have angrily cancelled their licences and joined the Defund the BBC campaign.

    I should say, Tim, that I am writing to you as a former TV critic who has always loved the BBC but increasingly feels like she is in a relationship with an abusive partner. From dawn till dusk, your output gaslights viewers like me, treating us with thinly-veiled contempt. Knowing my country as I do, I refused to believe that the British people would ever elect a dangerous old Trot like Corbyn, but daily BBC propaganda had me doubting myself.

    How many people does the BBC employ who really know, let alone love, this conservative-with-a-small-“c” country, Tim? How many went to a bog-standard comp or come from communities that backed Brexit? How many vote Conservative? Your predecessor Sir Tony Hall admitted at the weekend that the BBC needs wider diversity of opinion. It should, he suggested, move the majority of its staff outside London “to better reflect the views of the people who fund it”.

    It wouldn’t help. You can take BBC executives out of Islington but you can’t take Islington out of BBC executives. (Ciabatta? No, she makes her own sourdough.) Moving a chunk of the corporation to Salford in 2011 has not seen much Mancunian attitude enter its bloodstream. If you’re serious about better representing licence payers, Tim, you could stop the BBC spending £139,000 a year on copies of The Guardian and start advertising jobs in The Telegraph.

    Personally, I’m delighted to hear that you were a Croydon scholarship boy and the first in your family to go to university, after which you joined Proctor & Gamble as a trainee. Like most of us on Planet Normal, you have had to make your own way in life without money, connections or a hereditary superiority complex. Better still, you were deputy chairman of Hammersmith & Fulham Conservative Party in the 1990s. For heaven’s sake, don’t tell anyone in Broadcasting House!

    You have already threatened to tackle the outrageous Left-wing bias of BBC comedy shows. I hope you’re serious. A return to joke not woke is long overdue.

    Presenters like Gary Lineker will be forbidden to share their political opinions on social media which has done so much to undermine the belief that the BBC belongs to everyone. Good. But it is now almost certain that the Government will punish your organisation for its political prejudice and for going back on its pledge not to charge over-75s for the licence fee. Non-payment of the fee will soon be decriminalised, potentially costing the corporation a billion pounds a year.

    This week you will give your first major speech as DG. Your task is an unenviable one. For many licence fee-payers, any reforms will come too late. The arrogant, self-satisfied pursuit of “inclusiveness” – deliberately excluding older white people who are the corporation’s main consumers – has drained the deep reservoir of affection for the BBC. A reservoir that was filled up over decades by Morecambe and Wise and Kenneth Kendall and Angela Rippon and Saint Attenborough and Moira Stewart and Terry Wogan and Victoria Wood, all blissful unifiers of this nation.

    How to restore our bruised and battered faith in the BBC? Well, you could always use your speech to announce that, by popular demand, Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory will be sung at the Last Night of the Proms and subtitles provided so people can join in at home. It would be a welcome sign that, under you, the BBC will no longer be disdainful of the people it was created to serve.

    Good luck, may your God go with you (as Dave Allen used to say at the end of every show) – and bring back Poldark.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/bbc-despises-people-pay-feeling-mutual/

  89. I have just watched a Channel 4 police documentary in which a van containing 29 Vietnamese was stopped after a member of the public alerted the police. These Vietnamese had spent a year being trafficked across Europe and had not eaten for 5 days. A police officer involved in the discovery said that the illegals were destined to work in car washes, nail salons and brothels as slaves. The outcry and anger about this and other similar cases from BLM and their fellow-travellers has been, well, non-existent. If BLM etc spent a tenth of the energy they expend in complaining about injustices two or more centuries ago to combatting modern slavery, we could wipe it out.

      1. Their sentences were not mentioned. What struck me was what a bunch of half-witted, dirty, scruffy and literally ugly men they all were. They all looked like the product of 50,000 years of inverse evolution.

    2. Vietnamese illegal immigrants seem to be brought in in industrial quantities. What happens to them all after they have spent a stint in a nail salon etc? I’m not seeing thousands of Vietnamese in the country (you only ever see them in the nail salons), and there isn’t any noise from Vietnam about missing relatives, so are they shipped back out again?

  91. Utterly off topic.
    We have a full moon rising (cue Creedence Clearwater Revival) at the moment.

    The sky/cloud/angle mean that it is orange.
    Quite extraordinary.

        2. I can remember when Proud Mary was released. Every pub rock band in the district had it in their repertoire. I got sick of hearing pastiche versions of it after a while.

  92. Another neologism (thank you anneallan)

    Blamery

    The mindset where everything bad that happens to a bame is the fault of dem damned white folk.

  93. I just read that the government are worried that the epidemiological genius Whitty might resign to scuttle off to the Gates funded World Health Organisation. There is a surprise, Not. Good riddance to the cretin. He has managed to scare a nation and deprive a nation of its long fought for civil freedoms.

    I always thought that Whitty and Vallance looked oleaginous and shifty. When Hancock produced Cameron’s chum Dido Harris (of the Talk Talk hacking debacle) to take charge of the controversial Track and Trace ‘world beating’ App, I realised that the government know so little and care even less about the lives of their constituents.

Comments are closed.