Tuesday 6 October: Lives are being lost by GPs’ reluctance to give face-to-face consultations

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/2020/10/05/letters-lives-lost-gps-reluctance-give-face-to-face-consultations/

912 thoughts on “Tuesday 6 October: Lives are being lost by GPs’ reluctance to give face-to-face consultations”

  3. There are plenty of doctor members down my local sports club, none seem to be unduly worried about the virus or wearing masks.

  4. Trump coming under fire for doing his duty and his job and still he can’t do anything right by our MSM
    During the war George VI and Elizabeth stayed put at Buckingham Palace they refused to cower and hide, our MSM nowadays would call that reckless self promotion.

    1. The government suggested that the two princesses should be sent to Canada for safety. The queen said that they would never go without her, she would never go without the King, and he would never leave.

      In addition, when a bomb hit Buckingham Palace the Queen said that she was glad that they had been bombed because she could now look the people of the East End in the eye!

      1. If the same thing happened today, then the country would be in real peril if the first five in line were wiped out, and we were forced to be reigned from Malibu or Beverly Hills.

        1. I think the princesses (and probably the rest of the family apart from those actively serving in the armed forces) took sanctuary in the cellars at Windsor Castle.

  5. Morning all

    SIR – I came out of retirement to work full-time as a GP in mid-March. It soon became apparent to me that nearly all of my colleagues were very reluctant to do face-to-face consultations or visits, many not doing any at all.

    As a direct consequence, lives have been lost. This is a national disgrace.

    Dr Gregory Tanner

    Middlezoy, Somerset

    1. SIR – Anyone who thinks GPs’ surgeries are “open” is badly mistaken. I went today to drop in a prescription, as I do regularly for my partner. For the third time since lockdown I witnessed patients being forced to queue outside, two people in the cold and pouring rain. Last time there was an elderly gentleman using two sticks in a queue.

      The surgery is modern, large and airy. Waiting areas are huge. Why are sick people being treated in such a disgraceful way?

      Karen Gwynn

      Bromsgrove, Worcestershire

      SIR – You often publish letters from doctors saying that surgeries are “open”. In common with many people who are deaf or hearing impaired, I can’t use the phone. So phone consultations are not helpful to me.

      Many GP practices don’t acknowledge emails, so there is no way of contacting them other than visiting the surgery or writing a letter.

      This appears to be in breach of the Equality Act and the NHS Accessible Information Standard.

      Susan Bright

      Twickenham, Middlesex

      SIR – I was prepared for both my husband and myself to die from Covid. Pandemics take out the old; the young and vigorous should carry on.

      But I was not prepared for watching my husband suffer for months with no treatment. The NHS has wilfully neglected him and continues to do so.

      Elizabeth Bellamy

      Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire

      SIR – I am quarantined at present. Needing a new prescription I telephoned my GP surgery, and was abruptly told that they did not talk about prescriptions over the phone, and that I should contact 111. This I did, and, after a very long wait, was told that 111 only deals with emergency prescriptions. I was referred back to my surgery.

      Reluctantly, I contacted a friend, who called – breaking quarantine – and took my repeat prescription request in for me. It was ridiculous, but I offer no apologies.

      Jacqueline Davies

      Faversham, Kent

      1. The story in yesterday’s DT about a patient with ovarian cancer having her treatment put on hold is a disgrace. Her doctors have failed in their duty and should be considered unfit to practice.

        1. I think it’s yet another fine example of finding ways of not doing something. Never mind clapping the NHS; it is, quite simply, clapped out.

          ‘Morning, Epi.

        2. MOH has finally had a change of medication which was requested several months ago. The team of specialists who requested it were not happy that they had “nasty letters” from the GP about making the change.

      2. Karen Gwynn is lucky her surgery accepts paper prescriptions. Mine insists they are ordered on-line (forget telephoning a repeat request). Tough for those that don’t have (or don’t want) the Internet.

  6. SIR – If poor old Gladstone is to be labelled a slaver, should Lloyd George be identified as an adulterer?

    Julien Chilcott-Monk

    Winchester, Hampshire

    1. Ah, but adultery is OK, even beneficial, although not yet mandatory. Heterosexual marriages, with both parties completely faithful, are so out of date, unexciting, and really completely contrary to the zeitgeist.

  8. Morning again

    SIR – I took a sleeper train to London last week. The whole day there appalled me. Service, hospitality and kindness were all lacking, despite plenty of staff doing very little. In the name of Covid I saw people treated worse than if they were infectious.

    Covid should not mean that we lose our humanity, that an elderly couple with luggage must struggle alone. The economy needs customers, but they won’t return if the experience is poor.

    The redeemers of this day were black-cab drivers, who were working, friendly, courteous and helpful.

    Christine Dawson

    Ullapool, Ross and Cromarty

    SIR – Most patients are still denied any visitors when admitted to hospital. Feeling unwell recently, I spent eight hours in A&E. All family support was denied. I now face further frightening investigations and the possibility of serious surgery – again alone. Being denied family support at this time is utterly inhumane.

    I am a previously fit 74-year-old and feel that I and many others are being abandoned to suffer stress alone. Do we have a national health service or just a national Covid service?

    Elaine Emmerson

    Great Waltham, Essex

    2. The latter, Ms Emmerson, sadly. Not being able to be with your sick pet at the vet’s is a similar symptom of lack of humanity.

  9. To defeat a resurgent Labour, Boris must show the power of Tory values. 6 October 2020.

    So when Boris Johnson steps to the virtual rostrum on Tuesday afternoon, it is his challenge not merely to communicate his policies but to set them in the context of powerful Tory values. This is a more difficult task for an incumbent Prime Minister, beset with a serious global crisis and multitude of daily decisions, but it will become an essential part of explaining the Government’s actions through all the unexpected buffetings and crises of the next few years.

    Morning everyone. BoJo doesn’t have any Tory values. He’s a Liberal just like Keir Starmer and pretty well anyone of any importance in the political hierarchy of the UK.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/10/05/defeat-resurgent-labour-boris-must-show-power-tory-values/

    1. “This is a more difficult task for an incumbent Prime Minister, beset with a serious global crisis and multitude of daily decisions, who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow, nor whether it’s Wednesday or breakfast time”

      That’s better.

    2. 324297+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      Truth be told it is a political fantasy war & the peoples
      have proved in the past to be comfortable with that regardless of the fact that these political governance
      hierarchy are of the same ilk, also with the same aims.
      None of which bode well for the United Kingdom.

      The lab/lib/con are a coalition, political Q ships using a sanetime facia.

    3. My thought, too. Boris wouldn’t recognise a Tory value if it leapt up and bit him on the nether regions.

  10. Good morning, all. Another grey damp day in prospect.

    I see the omnishambles posing as a government is saying that everything will be run by wind power by 2031.

    They really are completely mad.

    2. Good morning all.

      I thought exactly the same thing when I read it just now. His illness has finally sent him off his rocker.

    3. Good morning all.

      I thought exactly the same thing when I read it just now. His illness has finally sent him off his rocker.

      1. Doesn’t work for me, Sue!

        Cabbage does, but that is more information than you need! 😉

        1. Never mind about face masks. What we need now is a rubber device for attaching to another orifice with a hole for a tube leading to a container device that can be carried on your back. You can offload a day’s supply to cook your beans at the end of the day.

          When are we getting the statutory instrument?

  12. I think Boris is really the last straw, people gave him the benefit of the doubt but he is proving to be as bad as any of our previous prime ministers since Thatcher, worse than May, worse then Brown even worse than Blair and Major, he is fully signed up to all the nation state destroying globalist insanity, will the electorate trust any of the Liblabcon parties in the future.

  13. Will anyone be out at 8pm on Thursday clapping and banging saucepans for Trumps medical team?

    1. Too early yet. Donald T is taking a big risk. I hope he stays well and gets back to his campaign.

  15. There was a storyline in the first series of the Channel 4 drama ‘Humans’ where a customer of one of the android companions got a compulsory upgrade.

    The old model was a bit flaky and had to be coaxed into life like a much-loved family banger, but was polite and did all that was asked of him and no more. The upgrade was primarily there to enforce compliance with regulations, for your safety and user experience of course, and made the user’s life wretched. Any failure to comply was reported back, and could expect a knock on the door from the relevant officer in due course.

    As a child, I came to dread the words “New Improved!”, which invariably meant cheaper ingredients, more stylish packaging, smaller portion sizes, and double the price. Likewise, am I being paranoid that whenever someone threatens an “upgrade”, I have a sense of doom and hope to God I can get stock in before something is discontinued?

  16. OTT –
    Just opened a new packet of “Marlboro” and this health warning caught my eye.

    Smoking increases the risk of impotence

    I’ve been married since the early ’60s, and for all those years, I’ve been blissfully unaware of this danger. Now it’s got me wondering if I should cut down, just to be on the safe side.
    :¬(

    2. Do they still have lurid graphic images, the sort they copied out of medical manuals?

      A copy of the Norwayless Scandinavia on the Euro coins should get the message across.

    4. I had a craving for a ciggy last night. There should be an impotency warning on our GE ballot papers.

      1. 324297+ up ticks,
        Morning M,
        As in a prior post, Health warning ,
        ” Supporting / voting lab/lib/con can & will KILL”

      2. Bugger! I’ve not had a craving for a ciggie since 9:30 a.m., Saturday, December 31, 1983. That was when I stamped on the remnants of my last one.

        1. The last ciggie I had was in the summer of 1980, after abseiling off a very spectacularly under graded rock climb in the south of France – I think that was the only one I actually felt I needed and I haven’t touched one since!

          1. I think I would have had a double whisky. In fact it would take a whisky or 2 to get me up there in the first place.

        2. 1973 was the last time i smoked. It had never been a habit, my first one of the day was often after the evening meal.
          I just threw a packet with around 15 in into the open fire. Job well Done.

        1. Judging by the fact the YouGov are not running a survey on vaccination and even the other people on the Twitter thread are asking where it is – the idiot who invented it and posted it on Twitter.

      2. YouGov poses/sponsors polls when they already know the answer they want – and will publish that answer.

        1. But presumably someone, eg a pharma company hires YouGov.

          My guess is that the sponsor tells YouGov the result they want and YouGov poses the appropriate questions and uses its database to target those most likely to give the answer sought.

          2. That is exactly the sort of question that YouGov does not send to known Conservative supporters.

          3. Actually it would, on close inspection, appear to be the sort of question that YouGov is accused of asking – although, in fact, it hasn’t been asked.

    2. No, but I would fully support knocking out the teeth (with a crowbar) of anyone attempting to give me any vaccine against my wishes.

      1. Exacto. A vaccination against one’s will is an assault. By that token, administering an injection to an unconscious patient (e.g. fainted at the prospect of the needle), except as a life-saving measure, is an assault.

    1. Amusing to say the very least.
      I heard the Dums wanted him impeached because he waved to his supporters from his seat in the back of his high security truck.

  20. Hullo again. Discurse is once more doing what it did the other day. Several links are not there – and so cannot be opened. I have tried the “hide media” gambit – which DOES show the links but invites one to view in a separate window.

    It looks as though most of the hidden ones are downloads from Twitter.

    Am I alone in this misery?

    2. So far this morning I’ve had 2 replies behind the red button (top RH corner) that have not appeared on the page

  21. Good morning my friends

    Caroline and I have both got colds but our senses of smell and taste are not impaired and we have no other Covid symptoms so we are not too worried.

    Somebody has a significant birthday tomorrow and we shall be sending our best wishes.

    Is there anybody who is not included on the list who would like to be – let me know below this post and I shall attend to the matter.

  22. Morning all.
    Talking of GP practices, my good lady and I had appointments booked for the ‘Flu Jab’ a few days before we went away for a week. We arrived at the surgery at the arranged time and the door was locked, the place was in darkness. We had to phone yesterday to find out what had happened. We were told they had run out of vaccine and had to close. I wondered how many other people had given the large pull handle a tug that afternoon. A notice along side all the other instructive paperwork stuck on the glass at the entrance would have stopped a lot of unnecessary physical contact. Good job we had the hand gel in the car.

    1. No doubt your GP gets upset by ‘no shows’ for consultations. It would have been courteous (and a good example) if they had let you know that they were unable to keep your flu jab appointments. It’s not as though they’ve got much else on.

      1. We get a lot of text messages from the surgery we are not allowed to contact by email.
        I did have a consultation re my arthritic knee with No less than, once retired Dr Ingram.
        I had the steroid jab but it hasn’t worked.
        If people don’t show it just means less of a work load, they try to keep appointments to a 10 minute time limit. Gaps will lessen the impact of the longer consultations. I often had to wait for more than 15 minutes after the arranged appointment.

        1. I’ve waited for 40 minutes sometimes. However, I prefer that to everybody being rushed through.

        2. 324297+ up ticks,
          Morning Ptv,
          I see it as a hard boiled question that needs an honest answer.

  23. Legal & General appear to be the latest firm to jump on the bandwagon, insisting FTSE firms appoint BAME directors, rather than someone best qualifired for the job. https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/landg-issues-bame-threat-to-ftse-100-companies/a1408552

    When you search on Google, it gives a little snippet of the article – sometimes with a wonderful outcome (read it carefully!)
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1c930b7f0eaed39518d4abcbb4d86a1747660e2abd8a6d2b9261d5a1f553aca9.jpg

    1. Blatant Racism and again only aimed in one direction ?
      Apart from what i suspect is indeed a typo.

    2. I understand the unfortunate typo (still instead of still don’t) but I never realised that being black, Asian of a minority ethnic was a qualification for board membership of a FTSE company.

      Perhaps that is starting to make a case for Minority Ethnic English people, as we are just about overrun.

      1. White people are already a minority with under ten percent of the worlds total population.

        1. People often say that the reason why Africa has never built up as the UK has because of space and need.

          Yet I’ll point to Australia. A bunch of convicts who gave us Neighbours, Dannii MInogue and her sister…

          It’s funny how that minority built so much, so quickly, from so little.

          1. From glimpses seen on TV, Australia seems to be prosperous and the people universally well off. The UK has many large towns and cities that are horrible, dirty, poor, and ugly. Where does the money go?

          2. Did you forget AC DC and the New Seekers ?
            I saw a railway programme the a couple of weeks ago day and the traveller was interviewing Aboriginals. Their homestead was an absolute tip, they were moaning about having no money. But they don’t want to work. I remember driving along the flat dead straight road towards Wilcannia late afternoon with the sun behind it was difficult to see because at the side of the road were so many broken bottles and pieces of broken glass reflecting the sun light. When i asked why all the glass rubbish was there i was told that ‘some of the locals’ just chucked their empties out of the car windows.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilcannia#:~:text=Wilcannia%20is%20a%20small%20town%20located%20within%20the,river%20boat%20era%20of%20the%20mid-19th%20century.%20%5B3%5D

      2. No, it’s not a typo. It’s the way Google generates the little snippet, by leaving out a bit of the text where the ellipsis is – in this case a very tiny bit. The original probably said something like “companies that still have no Asian…” The Beeb have now changed the text to “Legal & General has warned it will vote against companies that still have an all-white board…”

        1. Which really makes no sense. What they’re saying is they will enforce tokenism. That’s insulting. It screams the support and enforcement of racism.

          What about someone who gets a job but is overlooked by someone black? Why is that fair? Why is it fair on the black fellow, employed over someone else because of his sodding skin colour!

          Why can’t we completely ignore it and treat people as blasted, bloody damned well normal *people*! Dear lord alive, the Left will never, ever stop until everyone is just a list of labels and all individuality, all character destroyed. It won’t matter who you under under their new empire, only what you’re labelled as.

          I don’t want to live in that future. It makes us all racists. It forces us backward to misery, hate, spite and petty bigotry.

          1. It all makes me a racist. I never was before the bollox started.
            Perhaps that’s the intent? To generate hate where it didn’t exist before?

    4. That is the most bonkers thing I have read this year, and that’s saying something!
      Who wants to work on a team where one person has been appointed purely for their skin colour?

  24. Good morning. The Disqus site is not working right now. All I am getting is a blank page when clicking on the Comments on the Disqus listings on all sites. The only way in I’ve found is direct on the owner’s page. This has been noted in Discuss Disqus, but nobody is able to respond to comments there.

      1. Are you going through the Nttl page, or through Disqus? If the latter, what are you running it on?

        The Spectator’s main page has a paywall.

  26. Near to Tenby there is a family ‘amusement park’ Heatherton World Of Activities. Mainly for children but there were lots of adult activities as well.
    Archery and pistol shooting 18 holes of really crazy golf, a golf range, go karting laser clay pigeon shooting indoor bowls.
    I was proud to have been top of the range in both shooting and archery, something I have partaken in for may years. With six bullseyes all of my air pistol shots hit the 170mm x 170mm target at a ten metre range, a few hours of Good family fun. I dipped out of the go karting it had started raining again.

      1. 😎🤣
        I’m thinking of taking up archery i was surprisingly good at it, we have a club in our village.

      2. I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow:
        Two game wardens, seven hunters …… and a cow.

        [Tom Lehrer]

    3. You are a much better shot than I am or ever have been

      When I arrived at Blundell’s we were all taken to the CCF’s mini-range to see if we could shoot straight as the school always competed strongly in the Ashburton Shield.

      I was given a rifle, told to lie on my belly and fire six shots at will at the target on a piece of paper about 20m away. After I had fired four of my six shots the CSM said: “Tracey, you can start shooting now!”

      I had to admit that I had already fired four shots.

      And he said: “But you haven’t even hit the paper – let alone the target!”

      When our Christo went to Gresham’s – which has won the Ashburton Shield many times – he was asked to have a go at shooting. He proved to be as incompetent at it as his father.

      1. Your first mistake was using a pistol. Your second having the target that far away.

        Get a rocket launcher and do it properly.

        1. Rastus said that he was given a rifle…

          I was given a rifle, told to lie on my belly and fire six shots at will at the target on a piece of paper about 20m away.

      2. The one & only time I used a shotgun, I brought down a wood pigeon with the first shot, much to my host’s surprise.

        1. I can only hit things with an over and under. With a side by side, I couldn’t even hit the proverbial barn door!

      3. I first started shooting as a young boy with a .177 air rifle given to me. Only allowed to be used in our back garden. I could hit a polished penny at 30 yards.
        In JHB a lot of people had hand gun collections. On a few occasions we went to the range at a mine dump, it was great fun. I fired a smith and Wesson revolver a German luger, an old ww2 English Webley service revolver, a US 9mm automatic. The best by far was the Luger it had hardly any kick. I also did a lot of shooting in Oz, i owned a Finnish made Tikka triple 2 with a Leopold scope. We had many other rifles to hand English made Parker Hale, Remington’s and shot guns. With a few others we rode around vast sheep stations on dirt bikes shooting feral pigs (wild boar) they killed and ate new born lambs. Some one had to do it Richard. 😉

        1. Many moons ago, when we still had the freedom to own pistols and to use them on the range…The father of a friend of mine invited us to join him on the pistol range at Bisley, where he was a regular visitor. From his small arsenal he produced a .44 Magnum revolver and suggested I might like to try it. In my eagerness to ‘have a go’ I had forgotten that he manufactured all his own ammo, and always erred on the generous side with the charge. I squeezed the trigger and my world exploded, accompanied by much smoke, temporary deafness despite the ear defenders, and quite a lot of discomfort in my left wrist and arm. With the remaining 5 rounds I did manage to hit the target, but that was more by luck than judgement. No other weapon that I fired in 39 years of such activity ever came anywhere close to this one, neither private nor service. But I wouldn’t have missed it.

      4. It would be a pointless exercise without proper marksmanship coaching and a rifle zeroed (calibrated) to the individual.

          1. I, too, did some shooting with the Gun Club at school, but I was a member of staff by that time 🙂

    2. They don’t want to look silly.
      Bloody expensive way of keeping up appearances. (And not just financially expensive.)

      1. Must remember to tell my friend that the 3 weeks she spent wondering whether her fit, healthy, 55 year old husband (father of her 2 teenage sons) was going to live or die – was “keeping up appearances”…. or was it just “looking silly”?

        On the other hand, knowing what they actually went through, I think I’ll hold my tongue.

        I don’t agree with the measures taken – but this virus is a threat – and not only to the over 85s.

        1. “I think I’ll hold my tongue.”

          Hang on to that thought, Jennifer – it’s the best you’ve ever had.

          1. You had best hold your tongue if you talk to my friend whose partner suffered badly from this virus back in March. She is still suffering.

            Denial of the impact of the virus will get us as far as the herd panic that we see being encouraged from above.

          2. A few severe cases do not constitute a pandemic, nor do they justify this widespread hysteria.

            Since I don’t know your friend it seems unlikely that I’ll ever talk to him, but supposing I should – and he asked my honest opinion of the panic over this so-called “pandemic” – he would get it.

            He could either accept it ….. or not.

          3. In any case, part of the mishandling of the virus was the ignoring of cheap, easy solutions in favour of lockdown and vaccination.
            We now have a survival rate of 80% of people who enter intensive care in the UK, and it is known that darker skinned people should be on Vit D supplements, for example.
            Plus, we can no longer ignore the deaths due to other untreated conditions, or due to recession.
            While each individual death is a tragedy, it is shallow and dangerous to cite individual cv cases as the reason to keep the ruinous lockdown going.

        2. Of course, I have no intention of keeping my fingers from my keyboard regardless of the unwarranted abuse it frequently attracts from the writer below.

  28. SIR — I hope the next monarch will do away with curtsying and bowing.

    It is possible to have great respect for people without this outdated and very servile behaviour.

    Pamela Plumb
    London NW1

    I’m afraid you’re plumbing the depths with socialist opinions, such as that, Pam. Next you’ll want to stop us addressing others as ‘sir’ or ‘madam’. The routine universal use of first names will become de rigueur under your scheme; also proper manners, respect for the elderly, cleanliness, decency, deportment, etiquette and good grace will disappear.

    Oh, silly me. These human traits were kicked into touch a number of years ago in primary schools where children were encouraged to eat like pigs in a sty and speak with their mouths full. You just want to extend general boorishness to everyone and, in doing so, accelerate mankind’s decline back to the primordial swamp from whence it emerged.

    1. Addressing older people in the street who seem to need assistance of one sort or another I use ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’. I kid myself they might just think anyone with basic manners is not about to cosh them for their shopping.

    2. Good afternoon, iceannie. Your presence has been missed. Hope you’ll join in with some comments one day, like Sue MacFarlane has. 👍🏻😊

    3. It is not a requirement to curtsy or bow if people choose not to do so. Anyway, the correct ‘bow’ these days is a nod of the head.

      I hope that this left-wing Plumb woman never has the discourtesy to visit Japan.

    4. You must admit though that there is no such thing as an unphotogenic pig.

      When people address me as ‘sir’, far from considering it servile, I regard it as a form of contempt – they may as well be calling me “scum”. It is, like makeup on women, primarily there to keep a professional distance, and has little to do with decency. The correct response to such behaviour is to address professionals using their surnames or professional titles only. It is in racing circles that amateurs are distinguished by using the civil titles (such as Mr, Mrs, Miss or Master) whereas the professionals are called by their surnames only. This, like many things, has fallen out of practice in recent years.

      Should we bow to Prince William? I saw that documentary on nature he made last night, and he certainly seems to prefer a more informal and friendly approach. He is not the first royal to feel this way. Edward VIII had no time for royal protocol. George V, though a complete martinet when it came to protocol, also felt happier when his subjects could feel they were on the same planet as he was. Edward VII, with certain people, rather preferred they were in the same bed.

      My feeling is that, out of courtesy, we should make a distinction between one’s professional capacity and one’s personal capacity. Therefore, when relating to William on a personal level, one can dispense with all the bowing and scraping, even when he is visiting schools and playing with the worms. As Duke of Cambridge, and acting in his capacity as family regent, covering for his father and grandmother, then of course normal royal protocol applies.

      1. I normally address people as “sir” in what I consider a complimentary way, especially if I do not know their name. For example if someone holds a door for me, I’ll smile and say “thank you, sir”. I have noticed no adverse reaction or response. Were I to use the expression “you scum” I suppose that it might be different.

      2. I met, and spoke with, Prince William briefly on one occasion. When he was a student at St Andrew’s University I once assisted his arrival by scheduled airline from Edinburgh to Norwich by facilitating his pick-up directly from the aircraft, in a royal protection vehicle, and egressing the airfield via a side gate.

        As the vehicle drove through the gate he ordered the driver to stop, wound down the window, smiled and thanked me for my assistance. There was no bowing, nodding of heads or calling him “Your Royal Highness”. I simply called him “sir”, acknowledged his thanks, and exchanged smiles.

        When I called him “sir” I was not showing my contempt, nor was I bowing and scraping. I was simply being polite.

        1. Morning Grizzly

          The only time I have had anyone bowing to me was when I spotted a very small elderly Japanese gentleman waiting at our local station, looking absolutely lost and studying a map .

          Moh was driving the car , and I said , perhaps we should stop and ask if he needed help .. Moh reluctantly did so, the old fellow couldn’t speak English , but indicated on his map where he wanted to go… The Tank museum , a few miles up the road .

          We indicated that we would take him, opened the passenger door for him and he climbed in . With in a matter of ten minutes we arrived at the Tank Museum , and the old chap climbed out . He thanked us in Japanese , and walked backwards bowing so low , it was unbelievable , he did that several times , then made his way into the museum .

          I don’t know how he coped visiting Britain with out any knowledge of English , and it was a miracle how he found his way to Dorset to visit the tanks , I wondered whether he had been a Japanese Tankie during WW2?

          1. Morning, Maggie.

            Every Japanese passenger travelling through the airport, both men and women, routinely bowed. They also routinely smiled and were invariably pleasant.

          3. But he got there, didn’t he? One of my aunts was truly an innocent abroad. She took trips to Italy and arrived back safely. I never understood how. The complications of package holiday travel were beyond me, and my aunt was truth to tell, not outstandingly clever.

        2. ‘When I called him “sir” I was not showing my Contempt, nor was I bowing and scraping. I was simply being polite.’

          Unfortunately. Grizzly being polite is
          no longer considered a necessity,
          witness the rudeness of politicians
          and broadcasters!

          Good morning.

          1. Good morning, Garlands.

            Being polite may have gone out of general usage, but in my house it will steadfastly remain as the default setting.

    5. ‘Morning, George. Sentiment applauded; have another look at your second sentence.

      1. ‘Morning, John.

        Pesky things them little single inverted commas! I need a new magnifying glass.

        1. “The routine universal use of first names will become de rigueur under your scheme; as will proper manners, respect for the elderly, cleanliness, decency, deportment, etiquette and good grace.”

          No. What you have written states that those good things will be de rigueur – not be lost, as I’m sure you intended.

          1. Thanks, John. I’ve now re-read that sentence (now that I’m awake and have had a mug of tea) and I can see the ambiguity, which I have now edited.

            However, it was in my third sentence, not the ‘second’, hence my initial confusion.

      1. The English voters got rid of Enoch. Luckily he found a welcoming home with the Ulster Unionists, who put him back in the Commons and kept him there for a good few more years. Just saying.

    3. Problem is that while their theft is evident by even the slightest examination of the books, it’s all disguised and protected by a giant cabal who’re all at it for themselves.

      1. Oi oi! Which coward voted *For* EU corruption?!

        @jenniferSp I’m shocked! Surely you don’t support EU corruption and fraud?

    1. They don’t understand the irony in a wind up do they………

      Perhaps instead they need to visit a few of our famous sports and political people.
      I’m sure there are many hundreds of poor people born here who could do with ‘a lift’ in their lives.

      1. Is Lineker still ‘on the verge’ of taking a migrant in?
        If so, hasn’t this been the situation for the last many months?

        1. I think he’d taken one in – probably a woman.

          He should be subject to the same as we are – have to take them all, feed, clothe and be responsible for their crimes. But hey.

        2. You’ll only see how true he’s been to his word if it further promotes his now rather stained and tawdry image.

        3. He and the Balls/Cooper Combo are on the verge of setting up a How to Virtue Signal without actually taking in an Immigrant Society

        4. When he agrees to take the next illegal to climb out of a dinghy on the south coast, I’ll take him seriously.

  31. BBC Radio 4

    Professor Ferguson is talking about making COVID cases going down as if that is a measure of controlling the virus.
    If that is what he is modelling then I believe this is deceptive because what needs to be measured is incidences of the virus. Seeing is believing and we just can’t see the little devils without an electron microscope.

    The PCR test of cases with the virus is the best we’ve got and clearly that is not good enough to verify that we’re killing the COVIDs let alone controlling the number of them.

    1. The reports of the young British men locked in an Italian hotel since August because, after contracting and recovering from the disease, they need to have two negative tests before they can be allowed out, suggest that the RT PCR test is picking up dead or fragmentary RNA to give a false positive.

      1. Oops, a bit more underreadery. Yes, that is the case. (I comment above). There are other significant reasons for false positives and incorrect results. These were fully covered in articles posted here a couple of weeks ago. My guess is that what is happening is similar to divers finding sunken warships in Scapa Flow and the Government deciding that this is evidence that we must be at war with Germany today.

    3. Is this Toady’s latest attempt to rehabilitate the Bonking Boffin? I’m willing to bet that his previously idiotic predictions were not challenged during the interview.

      ‘Morning, AO.

      1. Morning HJ and all.
        I’m afraid I switched off R4 when Ferguson started talking about cases.
        The proof of a good model is that it predicts an outcome within certain tolrances.
        Ferguson did made reference to a cock up but didn’t exactly say to what he was referring.

    4. It detects dead cases. Anyone who ever had Covid-19 (or maybe just something similar) will return a positive result when tested. Current testing detects cases from April and May when the pandemic was approaching its height. These now constitute bulk of the the “second wave”.
      While this is an observation, or surmise, based on known facts, there has been nothing to refute it, especially in the light of false positives being ignored.

      1. Didn’t the Duchess of Cornwall recently come up with a much more efficient design that can detect Covid-19 in real time, costs no more than a tin of Chum to power up, and wags its tail at the same time?

      2. Just for a debating point, here’s an ultra tin hat conspiracy theory.

        How very convenient that the inventor of the test just happens to die very conveniently before they could refute what is happening and how their “invention” is being used to keep the planet enslaved when it is unsuitable?

        Extremely improbable, but nowaays I am told to believe several improbable things as facts, even before breakfast

  32. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Brief visit today, but I couldn’t resist Johnson’s latest load of old bolleaux. If this is yet more ‘distraction politics’ his choice of subject is in fantasy land;

    Wind power for every home within 10 years, Boris Johnson to pledge
    Plan is part of ‘green industrial revolution’ that Prime Minister believes could create millions of jobs over the next decade

    By
    Gordon Rayner,
    POLITICAL EDITOR
    5 October 2020 • 10:30pm

    Boris Johnson will say the Covid crisis can be a catalyst for change
    Every home in Britain will be powered by wind farms within a decade, Boris Johnson is to pledge on Tuesday.

    The Prime Minister will promise to make the UK the world leader in low cost clean power generation by harnessing the country’s “limitless resource” offshore.

    It will be part of a “green industrial revolution” that Mr Johnson believes could create millions of jobs over the next 10 years, replacing many of those lost because of the coronavirus pandemic.

    In his speech to the Conservative Party conference on Tuesday, he will say the Covid crisis can be a catalyst for change, providing an opportunity to reshape the economy for Britain’s future needs.

    Mr Johnson wants to show that his Government is planning for the UK’s future beyond coronavirus as he tries to shake off the image of being a Prime Minister trapped by events. Having spent months delivering bad news, he is desperate to strike a more optimistic note by announcing the sort of bold idea he has always championed.

    He will say: “I can today announce that the UK Government has decided to become the world leader in low cost clean power generation – cheaper than coal and gas – and we believe that in 10 years time offshore wind will be powering every home in the country.

    “You heard me right. Your kettle, your washing machine, your cooker, your heating, your plug-in electric vehicle – the whole lot of them will get their juice cleanly and without guilt from the breezes that blow around these islands.”

    On Monday, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, gave the strongest hint to date that he will have to break the Tories’ triple tax lock election pledge to pay for the economic cost of the pandemic.

    In his speech to the conference, Mr Sunak said it might be “tricky” to keep every manifesto promise – which included no increases to income tax, VAT and National Insurance – and warned there would have to be “hard choices” to balance the books once the crisis was over (watch his speech in the video below).

    Mr Johnson will end the conference on a more upbeat note, with a vision of Britain grasping the opportunity afforded by new technologies and post-Brexit trade deals.

    He will say: “We need to give people the chance to train for the new jobs that are being created every day, in new technologies and new ways of doing things. And there is one area where we are progressing quite literally with gale force speed and that is the green economy – the green industrial revolution that, in the next 10 years, will create hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of jobs.

    “Far out in the deepest waters we will harvest the gusts, and by upgrading infrastructure in places like Teesside and Humber and Scotland and Wales we will increase an offshore wind capacity that is already the biggest in the world.

    “As Saudi Arabia is to oil, the UK is to wind – a place of almost limitless resource, but in the case of wind without the carbon emissions and without the damage to the environment.”

    Mr Johnson’s sudden enthusiasm for wind energy marks a Damascene conversion for the Prime Minister, who had previously said wind farms “couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding”.

    He will poke fun at his previous scepticism in his speech, saying: “I remember how some people used to sneer at wind power, 20 years ago” – though he in fact made his rice pudding comment just seven years ago when arguing for the exploitation of shale gas.

    As well as quadrupling the UK’s offshore wind production from the current 10 gigawatts to 40, Mr Johnson will aim to build floating wind farms that can be anchored much further out to sea, in deeper water than fixed windmills.

    He first made the pledge to power every home using renewables before the 2019 election, but this will be the first time he has committed to the policy since winning the election in December.

    In recent weeks, Mr Johnson has faced accusations that he has over-promised on pronouncements about “world-beating” ways of tackling coronavirus, but his ambitious wind farms policy has been in the pipeline for much longer and represents part of a 10-point plan for a “green industrial revolution”.

    The policy will be backed by a £160 million investment in ports and factories to manufacture the next generation of turbines. By replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, Mr Johnson will also move a step closer to the UK’s target of net zero emissions by 2050.

    He will say that people who have dismissed wind energy in the past – himself included – “forgot the history of this country”, adding: “It was offshore wind that puffed the sails of Drake and Raleigh and Nelson, and propelled this country to commercial greatness.”

    The Conservative Party conference is being held online because of coronavirus restrictions.

    BTL comments are not exactly supportive:

    Alien One
    5 Oct 2020 11:02PM
    Is this really what we want to hear just now. I’m so sick of this shower. I had no idea that this was the type of government the tories were offering at the last election. It’s turned into a horror show. I despair.

    Ian Lloyd
    5 Oct 2020 11:05PM
    Was this in the election manifesto?

    I didn’t vote Green. I voted for the government to butt out of my life, not interfere with every aspect.

    Robert Thornton
    5 Oct 2020 10:50PM
    He’s completely lost the plot. They cost a fortune, are inefficient and the failure rate is phenomenal. Even if the wind was blowing constantly every day of the year every hill in the country would have to be covered with the damn things. If the government is determined to kill all fossil fuels then small scale nuclear is the only way to go.

    Neil McEvoy
    5 Oct 2020 10:53PM
    Great, let’s depend on unreliables and enjoy power cuts, just like California and South Australia. Utter moron.

    john radford
    5 Oct 2020 10:50PM
    What happens when the wind doesn’t blow , Boris ?

    A decent high pressure system over the UK : and that happens every year.( summer and winter ) , and where is the juice coming from ?

    Clearly Johnson is delusional : no chance he will be PM beyond Easter 2021.

    3. If man-made global warming produces the regular hurricanes and storms that we are promised, does it occur to him and his advisors that there might be too much wind to allow them to be running?

    4. The commenters don’t seem to get the bigger picture at all. The Cons are just following the globalist plan. Electricity will be rationed via smart meters.

        1. I suspect that, quite soon, SM refuseniks like us will be charged a lot more for their gas and electricity.

          But if i’s a globalist plot, why did Germany decide against smart meters?

          1. 324297+ up ticks,
            Morning BB2,
            Don’t say that,
            🎵
            You’ve got to accentuate the positive
            Eliminate the negative
            And latch on to the affirmative
            Don’t mess with the meter in-between

    5. How many people did the England of Drake and Raleigh and Nelson have to support?

      I don’t quite know why Boris has got it in for seabirds – if it wasn’t his liking for Boris Island roadkill, he now wants to make birdmunchers power the road traffic. Maybe he was pecked at by one as a child?

      I actually prefer the use of hamsters. I think we’d only need to cover the Earth’s land surface six foot thick with hamsters in order to power up our consumer demands – a small price, surely, and one that might actually save the hamster from extinction.

      The alternative is to have everyone at home in woolly hats not using energy at all, but how to persuade them all to do it, and what’s more clap to attention to keep warm?

    6. While there have been ongoing questions as to where the electricity for electric cars will come from, if there really is a change from petroleum products, that is the wrong question. (Electric cars will increase electricity demand by no more than 10%).
      However, if everyone is working from home, or merely confined to their homes, there will be a big increase in home heating. that energy comes from gas and oil as well as from electricity. Has anyone done the sums (not our PM, obviously)?

    7. 324297+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      The wretch cameron knocked the arse right out of tory pledges, vows & promises.
      The only wind power that can be counted on is from between the sheets from the johnsons squeeze.

    8. Our fishing fleet will be hampered with wind farms “far out in the deepest waters”.
      All or imports should be produced in factories with zero emissions and transported in ships driven by wind or nuclear power. Otherwise the UK cannot be called a zero emission country. The whole environmental business in the UK is a ridiculous sham

      1. 324297+ up ticks,
        Morning C,
        Our remaining “fishing fleet” I do NOT believe will be a problem come the revealing of the devious dodgy dealing, coming shortly.

      2. We’ll have to severely reduce the population while we’re at it; everybody breathes out CO2 (even plants at night).

  33. Ooops. I was happily bimbling around this morning when the phone rang; I’d forgotten my hair appt. It was the long one that includes highlighting.
    Had to rush off and leave Bill to do the washing up.
    Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.
    And, I can tell you, I now look absolutely gorgeous. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)

    2. And after the washing up earlier (oh how it plays havoc with my nails) now i’m being nagged at for having been sat around all morning.

      1. Good morning again RE

        I think you might get a bit of a nag from Peddy over your use of the word ‘sat’!

      1. No good at photos. It’s short and Sophie who does the colour work creates with red and blonde highlights. Yards of foil is involved, and then I get the chance for a good read while the stuff does its work.
        I always book my next appt. at the time. For two consecutive months it’s a quick trim and the third time is the works.
        I use a local lass who runs her salon a couple roads away from me.

        1. Bet it looks lovely .
          I have had some bad experiences here , the village could almost look like the village of the damned re hair styles and colour .

          Instead I wander back to where I used to live 21 years ago, like a rubber ball bouncing back each time and my hairdresser is always a little bit sarccy if I tamper with my hair .

  34. Hang on.

    Yesterday the headline was ‘GPs have worked through this crisis at risk to themselves’.

    Today it’s ‘lives are being lost due to GPs not giving face to face consultations.’

    Which is it?

    3. Many of them, it seems, are being paid to do what my mum would’ve called sweet Fanny Adams.

      1. I often thought that dentistry would be a wonderful occupation without the patients.

          1. That I can well believe, having spent the last 4 years teaching German to “advanced” pupils. I’ve just thrown in the towel & joined a Swedish revision class.

          2. It seems that everybody thinks he can teach – it’s a doddle and they’re full of theories – until they actually try it 🙂

  35. Navalny blames Russian intelligence for ‘poisoning’ attack. 6 October 2020.

    Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh had initially said she believed that tea Navalny drank at the airport was poisoned, but on September 17, his team said the nerve agent was detected on an empty water bottle from his hotel room in the Tomsk, suggesting he was poisoned there and not at the airport.

    Navalny said he was undergoing physical therapy, but that his health had improved significantly and doctors were surprised at the speed of his recovery.

    I’m not! I’m surprised he wasn’t in the London Marathon!

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/6/navalny-blames-russian-intelligence-for-poisoning

      1. Afternoon Sue. It used to be the World’s Deadliest Chemical Weapon until Mi6 got hold of it; now they gargle with it!

  37. Afternoon all. Just back from Waitrose, after dropping off Alf at the chiropodist, didn’t wear a mask (I was the only one without) and have to report a world shortage of canned pineapple. Completely empty shelf. Every other canned fruit available but not pineapple. Hope you’ve all got yours! Then on to the local tip to get rid of laurel hedge cuttings – tip manned by jobsworths with barriers in front of every other bay even though they’re already more than 2 metres apart. Talk about exasperating.

    Hope all are well.

    1. I can just see the announcement now

      Seeing how the 2020 flu season was so limited, we will be repeating the lockdown in future years as a proven way to reduce flu deaths.

      1. Probably best I don’t mention the tins of ‘Spam’, Fray Bento Corned Beef and Steak & Kidney Pies in our reserves cupboard. Behind the canned pineapple etc 🙁

        1. I have all those as well. Lasts for years. Anyone ex-military is likely to like Spam fritters.

          3. Can’t abide them, Phil but I still love corned dog sarnies a la the NAAFI wagon and make very good Corned Beef Hash (complete with Marmite).

        2. I bought two tinned Fray BentoS steak & kidney pies during the last lockdown – very disappointing, & I was warned.

          1. Fray Bento pastry & gravy pie.
            With enough roast potatoes and sprouts still an occasional favourite.

      2. It’s for our sweet and sour stir fries. Alf did make a pineapple upside down cake a few months ago, first one ever. We’re not really pud eaters. Now chocolate – that’s a whole other story! My downfall.

        1. Golly. That’s spooky. I made S&S last night with fresh pineapple*. I am about to make Pineapple upside-down pudding.

          *Small tins of pineapple are more convenient, when available.

    3. Our tip is manned (I use the word loosely, some of the may be female) by the most unhelpful, uncivil, uncooperative wanqueurs. I try to go there as little as possible – once a year is too often.

      1. OH thinks the pre-booking sytem for the tip is better than the old free-for-all queueing system. He prefers having a set time to get in and unload and get out.

      2. Most of our garden waste is taken away every fortnight but the hedge cuttings were far too much for the bin.

        1. In theory my garden waste is taken away every fortnight, but I always seem to have loads left over 🙂

          1. Perhaps your garden is much bigger than ours. Ours is about 90ft x 60ft, perhaps you’re a much keener gardener!

          2. Could be both; I have 102′ of garden at the back and about half that at the front. I also have herbacious borders, an orchard, two lawns, shrubberies as well as veg and soft fruit plots. It produces a lot of garden waste 🙂

          4. Fortunately, I like gardening – but it’s been far too wet over the last few days to get on and finish what I started. I could kick myself, too, for not having put ALL the folding garden furniture away when I made a start. I still have a large octagonal table and the chaise longue to stow. They are, of course, saturated now after three days of more or less solid rain 🙁

      3. Ours won’t help you because of social distancing. I suggested that I would stand well out of the way while they unloaded the bags on put the hedge cuttings in the container. vw said she would prefer to take me home with her rather than have me chucked into the container as well. Such a load of bollox going on all over the place with little people exercising their heaven made power.

        1. Ours didn’t help long before the Plague… Sat in their portacabin and shouted misleading advice about which (often unmarked) bin one was to put stuff in.

        2. ‘Morning, Alf, 01:41, good to know that my Best Beloved is not alone in avoiding my making a stink about jobsworths.

          2. I have tried growing dildos – no success they never came up…

            Trombetti are much more rewarding…

      5. Sorry to insert an up-beat note; the chaps and chapesses at our tip are very helpful.

      1. Hadn’t thought of that, you’re probably right. Must say I think that “house” programmes have taken over from cookery now. Sarah Beeney, Kirsty and Phil, Kevin, George plus all the A Place in the Sun etc. Etc., escape to the chateau.

        Anyone see Only Connect last night? Good fun as usual and the usual, for me, incomprehensible questions on University Challenge. I think I got 3 right. Doh!

      2. Doubt if it was the ‘Hairy Bikers’.
        Only TV cookery programmes worth following. In my humble opinion.

          2. I don’t tell. I assume so. It wasn’t.

            When I first heard about it I thought I would find it embarrassing and yet when we watched it, it was very entertaining.

          3. Masterchef is about the only thing i watch on the BBC. I enjoy seeing the progression where people gain confidence and then produce the most amazing dishes. Even though i have been involved in food/hospitality and catering my working life i still find inspiration in this program.

          4. I used to watch that, and also the Professionals one. I agree re the progression.

            It never ceased to surprise me how incompetent some of the pro’s were at the initial surprise test.

            There are now so many of these things that they have become very “samey” and I stopped watching.

    5. South Africans are using pineapple to make alcohol .. I heard that liquor stores etc were banned and closed , so lots of bods are making their own out of pineapple juice.

        1. It’s there alright but as to it’s prevalence, who knows? Bit like here – lots of smoke and (misleading) mirrors with a large dose of corruption thrown into the mix.

          The ban on fag sales was down to fears about increasing a patient’s inability to breathe properly and the booze ban was to try and limit hospital admissions due to drunken driving and cases of drunken assault, both of which are distressingly common there.

          1. Well, as we’re told that BAME people are more susceptible there should be huge numbers of deaths.

        2. A relative of someone I know died in hospital in SA this year, the cause was said to be corona.

    6. Waitrose were out of canned grapefruit for weeks and weeks over the winter last year – as was M&S. It seemed to be available in Tesco and Sainsbury but this involved a bit of a trek for us. I never found out why it suddenly went off the shelves.

      1. Must have ben a local issue. I’m sure I saw it in St Ives throughout the Winter,

        Btw, tinned grapefruit with just a couple of drops of Crème de Menthe in each bowl makes an excellent sweet after curry.

    7. Exasperating seems to be the default position with the Covid regs; I went into a shop with a one-way system yesterday and asked the assistant just inside the door if they had an item. No, we don’t have any, was the reply. Could I turn round and go out the door I was a few paces away from, even though there was nobody else around? Of course not; I had to wend my way through the entire shop where shortcuts to the exit had been blocked off to make it more difficult. If they were hoping I’d make an impulse buy they were sadly mistaken. I shan’t bother going in there again if I can find the item elsewhere – even if it costs more.

    8. I have seen fresh whole pineapples being sold for £1. I normally prepare/portion and freeze.

  40. 324297+ up ticks,
    All old school chums of the politico’s , fagging & …. each other, strange customs still continue post school.
    These types would put the Hudson Bay Co in the shade in dealing in hides.

    Lorsa wonga in illegal immigrants hides.

    REPORT: LAW FIRM WHICH STOPS DEPORTATIONS GOT £55M IN TAXPAYER LEGAL AID

    1. What does this month’s UKIP leader intend doing about it?

      ETA: “Hudson Bay Co” wasn’t that the outfit who brought the US and Britain to the verge of war over a dead pig?

          2. “… suggest you try UKiP.”

            Most of we Brits were never that gullible ogga. Unlike you Kippers who fell for his patter.
            You learnt, eventually, the hard way. You should have listened to we realists.

        1. Had to search “Jenkin’s Ear.”
          Seems we were upsetting the rest of Europe back then also.
          Spanish in the West Indies, Dutch and Portuguese in the East Indies.
          Happy days 🙂

          1. One of many wars; The Pragmatic Sanction, the Seven Years War, the Spanish Succession … no wonder I failed History A Level with all those dates 🙁

          2. Good evening, Conway.

            You failed, in which way?

            I think most people , because of their ignorance
            of Historical/Geographical events, fail completely
            to understand the connections!!

          3. I failed in the sense that I didn’t get enough marks to pass 🙂 There were just too many wars, treaties etc (all with dates attached) on the European History paper (which stretched from the end of the Hundred Years War to 1914). Given my problems with numbers, it was really a non-starter (but my protests were over-ruled and I had to study it because it fitted in with their timetable). The British History paper wasn’t much better, but at least it only spanned just over a century (and finished in 1911 with the Parliament Act).

          4. Nothing to be ashamed of; History was the only O-level which I failed. Didn’t stop me from becoming a dentist.

          5. I failed History O Level as well – which sad fact I pointed out when I protested at having to take History A Level! If I couldn’t muster enough marks to pass O Level, I had absolutely NO chance of redeeming myself at A Level! Even back then (in the sixties) common sense was sadly lacking 🙁

          6. I didn’t fail Physics O-level, but I only just scraped through. Nevertheless I had to go through A-level, which was OK for heat, light & sound, but mechanics & electricity remained a complete mystery to me as a non-mathematician. Failed it twice, but got into Bristol for dentistry on my good A-levels in Zoology & Chemistry.

          7. I was accepted unconditionally at Essex (yes, I know!) with my Latin, French and British Constitution (plus 2xUse of English and S Level French). I wasn’t stupid, just innumerate 🙂

          8. I had (post A levels) an unconditional offer from Durham. Didn’t go – felt too grey and cold to me from Devon. Probably should have gone. Actually, it was Grey college where I stayed for my visit.

          9. I was offered a place at Durham to study for my PGCE, but I decided to leave it a year. Ended going to Hell Hull, so probably a bad choice!

          10. I did all the calculations for electricity OK, but there were parts of it that I never really understood.

          11. I turned to my great uncle for help, who did electronics for the RAF, but even he could answer the question: what is flux?

          16. It came direct from the top – me standing on the carpet in the Head’s study, trying to make my case and being over-ruled, sadly.

        2. Like a lot of my generation (born 1944) I was privileged with a Grammar School Education but…

          …I elected at age 15½ to join the Royal Air Force as a Boy Entrant u/t (under training) as an Air Radar Mechanic. That subsequent education was far, far superior to any University Degree Education, inasmuch that it taught me an awful lot about the reality of life as it happens, about the value of camaraderie and particularly about self-discipline (the need, no matter how horrendous the job, to get it done).

          I was more interested in the threats posed by the Cuba crisis (October 1962) where we were confined to the Squadron for 72 hours and all 16 Fighter Jets (serviceable or not and including the trainer) were on the QRA slot (Quick Readiness Alert) on telescramble with armed Firestreak missiles. I subsequently found out that the Thor missiles – at North Pickering and elsewhere – were down to 2 minutes readiness with no recall facility.

          So previous skirmishes meant naught to me then, there was a job to be done (even though we would be a prime target – RAF West Raynham in North Norfolk) and we stood up to do it.

          What worries me today – at 76 years – is do we have the same balls to stand up for what we believe in? The UK as a sovereign country whose first duty is Defence of the Realm and who reserves the right to make our own mistakes in furtherance of those duties.

          End of rant. As Doddy would say, “By Jove, I needed that!”

          If it’s cogent, I may repeat this tomorrow, as we are fighting a 242 acre Solar Farm to be foisted on our little arable agriculture village by the stupid (greenie, virtue-signalling) Powers That Be.

          Sadly, I believe NOT.

          1. I know. Everything we have ever done is set at naught. There is nothing that we can do. My MSPs, Labour and Tory, sing off the same hymn sheet and do nothing to attack our totalitarian SNP Government.
            Our MP does very little except post silly tweats and get his picture in the local paper on trivial excuses, such as new shop opening. He has, it seems, no opinion and no stance on any matter other than to go along with the Government.

    2. As I remember the unfortunate PC was isolated and hacked to pieces by the mob. I can’t remember if anyone was convicted of this savage murder.

      1. Three people were convicted in 1987 on what later proved to be largely fabricated evidence and later acquitted. A fourth person was charged much later and acquitted at trial.

    3. His name was Blakelock (not “Blacklock”), Bob.

      However, if you were being deliberately ironic …

    4. Mr Lammy’s predecessor in the Tottenham bantustan, the much unlamented Bernie Grant, stood up in Parliament and said of the riots ‘We (sic) gave them (the police) a good hiding’. The Metropolitan Police later claimed Grant to be their ally in fighting crime; this was last century so they were already then being groomed to take the knee one might think. Some years later, the B.B.C. Radio Four broadcast programme about drugs and the international networks of suppliers operating in London which included a taped interview between U.S. investigators and a Jamaican drug courier who told his interrogators about ‘safe houses’ dotted about the western globe. He specifically mentioned Broadwater Farm, Tottenham, as a hub of operations.

      1. Like the general lawlessness and rampant robberies from Asian owned businesses in Brixton carried out by Caribbean gangs, that side of the causes of the riots is never talked about.

        1. Last century I saw an exhibition of film and photography student work. One was a series of photographs taken of a Sikh convenience shop business in a as suburb of a large Midlands city. It looked like a high security prison inside with high mesh screens around the counter. The texts accompanying the photographic display explained the shop was regularly raided and the owners threatened by thieves, many armed and allegedly, black. One of this students tutors accused him of being a racist.

          3. Back in the early noughties, as a student doing my Foundation Art Course, I took the p1$$ out of islam (Boris borrowed my letterbox analogy). I was severely reprimanded for “racism”.

  43. There is no need to worry about what will power industry, cars, houses etc in 2030, they will all be in China and powered by coal and oil

  44. While PresidentTrump has come in for some fierce criticism for his trip outside the hospital, it was the right thing to do. Had he remained in the hospital, incommunicado, while rumours of his imminent demise were spread that would have been worse. There can be little doubt that the Democratic machine was eager to view his illness in the worst possible light and to push for Pence to take over if there was even a glimmer of that possibility.

    1. 324297+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      Simple as that, ongoing since b liar lifted the latch of treachery.

    2. I reluctantly voted for the people who ‘promised’ they were going to get a grip in illegal immigration to the UK.

  46. 39 minutes since ogga’s post. Over on Breitbart, even the Americans are up-voting my comments when I have a go at them.
    Strange day here on the fora.

    1. “How close, for how long”? Is that a virological certainty, or did he make it up?

    1. … and another few? million £s in the pockets of Boris’ mates. Much like his Garden Bridge. Cheers Nige.

      1. Why do you keep whinging on about that bridge? The real world cost against the waste in the public sector is trivial.

        You never mention Khan’s stabbing policy – to encourage it, never mention the harm that verminous little rodent has done. You just go after Boris. Why?

        1. “Why do you keep whinging on about that bridge?”
          Now you really have lost me w.

          “You just go after Boris. Why?”
          Out here on the fringes, “When in Rome?”

        2. Khan is Londoners problem. They elected him w.
          What do you think of Boris’ GB – NI bridge?

    2. I feel for the bloke who made the mistake.

      Somewhere there’s a chap who made a blunder and is now shatting himself in terror.

      1. Well I don’t. I’m not a database expert, but even I know that Excel isn’t a suitable tool for storing the data of millions of people.

        The wally who made that mistake (let’s be charitable and assume it was a new graduate) had a project leader. Why didn’t that person ask for justification about why Excel was chosen, and raise concerns higher up (eg we need the budget for a proper tool).

        The project leader had a big boss, and so on right up to Dido Harding and NOT ONE of them had the gumption to ask for justification for the choice of software tools.

        This is complete and utter incompetence, and in the private sector their company would be losing money hand over fist.

        1. You are so right, bb. I’m an old fart but was using d/b tech on Tandem kit in the 80s. Enform was the SQL tool.

  49. That this should have been announced by a Quangocrat is a clear indication of who is really in charge now.

    …“it’s an adult-only vaccine, for people over 50, focusing on health
    workers and care home workers and the vulnerable”. Only 30 million of
    the 67 million people who live in Britain, she briefed, will get the
    vaccine….

    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/coronaviris-vaccine-political-bombshell-george-osborne-a4564456.html

    If Nottle is anything to go by (probably it isn’t) but that is the demographic who will be least trusting of the thing.

    1. “…a clear indication of who is really in charge now.”

      When did that start? Blair and Alistair Campbell?

      1. It’s probably been the case for many years, behind the scenes; Campbell was the ugliest and most public manifestation to date.

        1. Now we are supposed to feel sorry for Campbell because he has been struggling with mental health Ishoos.

          1. For that, he has my sympathy, for all those who also suffer from them as a result of his actions I curse him unreservedly.

          2. His mental health issues are of his own making. I hope he has sleepless nights, sweating and nightmares over Dr David Kelly.

            For the rest of his life.

          6. What goes around comes around. He was probably loony in the first place, which is partly why we’re in the mess we’re in.

          7. Seems like half our unemployed are claiming to suffer “mental health problems.”
            Like the older, more honest, “bad back” brigade, difficult to disprove.

    2. I shall be very happy to forego my vaccination and let someone more enthusiastic to take my place!

      1. #Me Too. The bloody jab didn’t work last year, so this year it’s even less likely to be useful!

      1. I find it strange that they all seem to accept the inevitability of a vaccine, particularly in such a short time, and also the fact the government are seemingly planning on giving the new vax simultaneously with the flu jab. They sure as eggs are eggs can not declare that this combination has been proved safe.

        1. If they do combine them and it turns out to be incompatable, and with bad/lethal side effects, I fear they will put back the cause of general vaccination by a generation.

        2. Why do we need a flu jab? If all the social distancing, masks etc etc are good enough to protect us from covid, then surely they are good enough to protect us from flu? Or, put another way, if the social distancing, masks etc etc don’t work for flu, why will they work for covid? 🙂

          1. It is definitely the other way. If air molecules are 3microns wide and viruses are 1 micron wide any material that blocks viruses will also block air. Mask wearers will cease to be able to breathe.

          2. Very good point. I am a total sceptic of this so called pandemic Ken in case you haven’t read previous posts. As far as I’m concerned it’s all a fantastic hype to control us and introduce goodness knows what restrictions if we decline a vaccination – when it eventually appears and will almost certainly not have been tested to standards of say polio and Tb etc.

        3. It’s a nasty mess to put one’s foot in. First, an MP would have to be completely sure of their facts, and even then, they might have the “anti-vaxxer” career-ending label put on them by the mainstream media. Easier just to keep quiet.

    4. This is the “Captain Cook Gambit”! When his crew refused to take their lemon juice he reserved it for officers only whereupon there was a sudden surge of enthusiasm for the former vile concoction!

        1. There was one story I heard of an RN Captain using sauerkraut as an antiscorbutic and restricting it to officers to stimulate a demand from the Lower Deck.

  50. Hooray!! Roger Penrose (he of the black holes) gets (half of) the Nobel Prize for Physics. About bloody time too.

    4. It’s worth remembering that Cambridge University alone has produced more Nobel winners than the whole of France…..Tee hee!

      1. You should look up black and muslim winners of Nobel prizes.

        Take out Literature, Peace and Economics, all of which are completely subjective and fixed, and you can probably count them all on your fingers.

  52. ‘Morning All

    “Wind power for all within 10 years”

    Hmm,fits neatly with UN Agenda 2030,but that’s just a coincidence I’m sure…………..

    Meanwhile Bozo and Rishi play Sci-Fi games

    “Take that Servalan!!”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f81429efe6b0c2d3299884ae15116b9f47c3f106000be1504fdde3e22cfe7735.jpg
    Fuckwits,fuckwits everywhere (especially at the top)
    Edit
    Forgot the awkward facts
    https://twitter.com/Grumpyxx1/status/1313391158375198726?s=20

    3. Morning, Rik.

      Fuckwits gain power by being voted into their positions by hordes of other fuckwits.

    4. Is there a climate change doom-monger who will predict that we are going to have a decade of no wind and no sun and that by the time it arrives we shall have discarded all the viable ways of making electricity including nuclear?

      But is there a cynic in government or even in parliament who is prepared to put his head above the parapet and raise the point that if we do not have enough electricity to run our homes heated by electricity rather than coal, oil or gas we shall not have enough electrickery to run cars and our whole way of life and doing business will be stuffed.

      ,

        1. There used to be a Crosse and Blackwell factory in Peterhead. The onion pickling was the most pungent of the aromas which hung over the town on the, fairly rare, days when the onshore breeze was insufficient to disperse it quickly.

          Some 60 miles to the west and a little further inland is the Baxter’s of Speyside plant. Modern, and clearly very well ventilated; there is seldom any detectable aroma in the surrounding air. One would certainly be very hard put to pinpoint exactly which soup was cooking on any given day.

          1. I used to travel into Euston from Bushey by train, and one could always smell the delicious aroma when the McVitie’s factory was “baking”.

            However, I didn’t like the smell when the Youngs brewery in Wandsworth was brewing, when I lived there. It stank for days.

          2. Lived just outside Burton on Trent for just over a year – so I can sympathise over brewery smells. Though at the time it wasn’t politic to mention it, as I was working on Lord Burton’s estate – and his great-grandfather was Mr Bass the brewer 😉

            Dean’s shortbread in Huntly makes nice smells – but I haven’t been up there for too long.

          4. When I was working on the post as a student, I used to deliver to the Ind Coope brewery – and the cooperage next door. I doubt they still exist.

          5. Baxters, you wouldn’t smell it because it was canned and then cooked. Something I found out on a visit there when we lived in Banff.

          6. It’s by no means all canned though. They do pickles and chutneys, jams, curds and relishes which are certainly not cooked in the jars and even the soup doesn’t all go into cans now as they have branched out (fairly recently I think) into microwaveable single portions suitable for office lunches, or single people who don’t want to open tins and use a saucepan – then they make vats of soup every day in an ordinary summer for the restaurant, and I remember being told that they soup in the restaurant is made to exactly the same recipes.

            I’ve no doubt that they’ve been pretty quiet on the “passing trade” front this year – but they can probably cope.

            I remember meeting Mrs Ena Baxter once at a WRI affair I took my mother too; she must have been about 75 or so, but still passionately interested in food. She and Mr Gordon are both gone now but the company (which now has an Australian branch) is still family run – and still a huge (in local terms) employer in an area where there isn’t much else.

          8. Sorry John. In Scotland we have the Women’s Rural Institute (invariably known as “the Rural”) – it’s basically just the WI, but having grown up with the colloquial term, I still tend to use all the initials.

          10. It is. The are all connected up through the Associated Country Women of the World. My sister-in-law’s mother is a member of the NZ WI – and they are also part of the same whole.

  53. An in depth analysis ( peer reviewed by SAGE) lasting all of two minutes reveals that – on my PC, in the “hide media, setting, Twitter links are neither shown nor, obvs, will open.

      1. PEBKAC. “Problem exists between keyboard and chair.” Been there. On the receiving end 🙂

    2. Maybe you should spend more time on YouTube watching “Flash mob” videos TB.
      Flash mob Paris – ‘Bolero’ is worth a look.
      Blacks currently around 4% of the UK population.

      1. Yep, but they are in our faces on the media , and in plays etc on the box, any one would think we are a minority here the way that we are represented and our history distorted .

        We don’t hear Indians or Chinese whinging and moaning and stamping their feet.. they are clever business people and blessed with brains and the need to get on with careers and their schooling .

        All we ever see and hear from blacks is their thin skinned attitude to perceived racial insults !

        1. They are even all over the new Literary Review which arrived today. Not a magazine that I thought would fall for wokery. Depressing.

        2. Sharon White. Head of Ofcom March 2015 – November 2019. That’s where it all started.
          Currently running John Lewis.

          2. Baby P? “Lessons will be learnt”?

            Belfast Telegraph…
            “Anger over the Baby P case was growing in Haringey last night with demands for the Northern Ireland woman at the centre of the controversy to be sacked.

            Sharon Shoesmith (55), originally from Co Antrim, is director of the council’s children’s services which is the subject of a number of investigations in the wake of the tragic case.

    3. AS we built it, own it and every bit of it is ours I don’t think the nebulous concept of credibility matters.

      If I point to something chances are there’s vastly more white in it than black.

      But again, that’s the whole problem. Why are we evven talking about colour? It’s irrelevant. Who we are is not defined by what we look like. Such is a superficial, irrelevant judgement.

  55. Sainsbury’s is ‘celebrating Black History Month’ on its website. I find this woke virtue-signalling quite divisive; there is another section of their website called ‘tell us what you think’. So I did, in very clear terms.

    Please feel free to follow suit……https://www.sainsburys.co.uk

    1. All this celebrating history come from? it has nothing to do with history to be fair.
      It is about gaslighting white people.

      1. I believe Chinese and Indian people have, not only interesting histories, but ones that are well documented.

    2. Thanks HK. I have taken up your suggestion and given them both barrels. I now await the rapid and violent demolition of my front door…

    3. Hmm. I think they don’t like hearing what we have to say. The page was linked as “Tell us what you think” but there was nowhere to express an opinion!

    1. That’s enough musicians of colour, thanks very much.

      Good though the chap is, we have seen plenty of him. Why not show a decent, white cellist?

      1. A good musician is a good musician whatever their colour.
        Admittedly, the Beeb tend to push the non-white musicians.
        Which is why the majority of we Brits gave up on the BBC long ago.

          1. You have the better of me there N.
            I gave up on the Beeb last year when they vandalised the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and Proms In The Park.

          2. OH is busy watching the tennis…….. apart from that we usually watch one programme per evening, usually animal- related. Then the gnooos.

          3. Tempted to post Peter Kay’s “Hedgehog Carnage” clip.
            Not often a hedgehog features in a good comedy scene these days 🙂

          5. The hedgehog waddled off into the undergrowth.
            The car-nage was unfolding on the peak-hour road behind it 🙂

          7. Have you been decrying Asda’s (or was it Aldi’s?) £9.99 Hedgehog house which can cause death and destruction to hedgehogs, allegedly?

          9. But he has a long way to go to match Casals.

            And he is only all over the meeja because of his colour (of which he never says anything). If he was white, he’d just be another BBC Young Musician.

          1. Hardly a fair comparison; Stephen has had more than 40 years’ experience compared with Sheku. I’d never heard of him; perhaps I should get out more.

  57. From the Spectator Covid update……

    ‘A 103-year-old woman in Michigan got her first tattoo to celebrate escaping from a nursing home after spending the summer locked in her room because of the pandemic. Dorothy Pollack then ticked another item off her bucket list when she rode off with the father of her tattooist on a Harley Davidson motorcycle after the inking.’

    Now that’s class!

    2. My brother is receiving treatment for cancer in hospital and by telephone consultation and has done so throughout the lockdown. He lives in South Lanarkshire and gets hospital treatment in North Lanarkshire . He had a CT scan last Friday in Wishaw University hospital. There is no neglect in Scotland if my 80 year old brother is a typical patient.

      3. 324297+ up ticks,
        Evening C,
        Good to hear there is no neglect in his treatment, he has my best wishes.

    3. There is method in their covid incompetence – they are clearing out the system in preparation for a new start: privatisation of the nhs.

          1. He brought it back into the sunlight after the Bolton fiasco , but the NEC ganged up and threw him out.

          2. Who voted for and elected Bolton?
            Apart from ogga, who voted for Anne Marie Waters and her re-branded BNP?
            Who voted for and elected UKIP’s NEC members?

          6. I started to help out remotely a while ago, but it was very clear that the ship had no helmsman, and everybody was doing whatever they wanted. No control, no discipline, no focus, no strategy, no planning. No wonder they are a waste of breath and go nowhere. Somehow, their failure to organise was always someone else’s fault.

          7. Back then, UKIP were given their chance and they blew it.
            More into in-fighting than developing their party.

          8. That was in the EU elections – in 2017 I held my nose and voted Tory. As I did last December. Didn’t expect them to be quite so incompetent as they have proved to be this year.

          9. Which credible centre-right pro-Brexit party should we have voted for?

            “Credible” being the keyword there.

          10. I started to help out remotely a while ago, but it was very clear that the ship had no helmsman, and everybody was doing whatever they wanted. No control, no discipline, no focus, no strategy, no planning. No wonder they are a waste of breath and go nowhere. Somehow, their failure to organise was always someone else’s fault.

          11. “…but it was very clear that the ship had no helmsman,…”

            What UKIP’s MEPs, councillors, MP, and members gave as their reason for quitting UKIP.

          14. Seemed to me that ego was the most important factor. That’s no good for me – or UKIP, for that matter, so I was outta there.

          15. Be fair, Oberst,

            Gerard Batten took UKIP
            from defeat to victory …..
            or he would have, had he
            not been shafted by his own
            Party members.

          17. Around the time UKIP offered Newport voters Neil Hamilton.
            66% of Newport voters stayed at home on polling day.

          18. Lancashire radio host ending a phone interview with newly elected UKIP leader Paul Nuttall …

            “That was UKIP’s new leader Paul Nuttall… at least he was when this phone interview started!”

            UKIP took a lot of stick after the Stephen Wolfe/Diane James farce.
            With Nuttall it was a case of ‘out of the frying pan into the fire.’

            Some still wonder why voters don’t take Nigel’s parties seriously.

    6. This is so wrong! There was some excuse at the start of the pandemic when we saw the results from northern Italy, but we now KNOW that that’s not typical! Plus we have several inexpensive drugs to use that save 80% of those in intensive care.
      There is utterly no excuse for postponing cancer or any other treatments.

      2. 324297+ up ticks,
        BB2,
        Test bed politics, pushing the envelope, re-set prep, IMO none of this is politico’s being inept it has been building for years orchestrated, political Fred Astaire’s , never put a foot wrong.
        Can the height of treachery achieved by may be bettered, I believe it can as we will shortly find out.

    7. Well Mr Hancock, if at some time in the future you should contract something nasty, I hope you refuse treatment, in memory of those who died because of your policies.

      Of course, I can be very confident that if you are still a minister or an MP that you will attempt to jump the queues.

      Bastard.

      1. I agree with the sentiment but we all know that this is simpleton is simply told what to say. He is not a scientist, not a virologist, not a statistician.

        He’s just a glove puppet.

          1. They shouldn’t – I didn’t say that, nor would I. What bothers me increasingly about this whole farce is how little true understanding of how the public sector, and especially goverment works.

    8. The statement is bonkers and shows how badly advised they are.

      It all screams that there’s something almost malicious in it. They *know* cancer is a vastly more dangerous disease compared to COVID.

        1. I read somewhere recently that the result of actions that seem random are often the intended outcome, just well camouflaged.
          Worth thinking on. Maybe they actually intend what is happening, as opposed to just being buffoons…

          1. Boris is taking instruction from his globalist masters so you may be sure that Hancock is sucking up to them too.

            Small men of no intellectual stature such as Johnson and Hancock, when confronted with good and bad choices, are almost guaranteed to do the wrong thing.

            They have no experience of business or science and remain wedded to the idea that their elevated positions give them carte blanche to dictate to the rest of us.

            These two should be out of office in the New Year if not before. No self respecting conservative could possibly tolerate more of their nonsense.

          3. You may be assured that our MPs are just as corrupt as the MEPs, probably more so on recent evidence.

            Our lot are taking the big bucks. How else did Blair become so wealthy from a standing start?

  59. Thought for the day:

    Convid vaccine.

    Let’s inject it into all MPs, members of the HoL, civil servants and anyone working for a Quango.

    If it works and it is safe we know that our masters have been our servants and if it doesn’t, we’ll have eliminated a lot of parasites.

    I believe it’s called a “win-win”

    1. He was incredibly funny, but not in a snide way.
      There was a generosity and kindness behind all his humour.
      A lovely man.

        2. Oh yes, that’s how he escaped being imprisoned.
          Did you know allegedly his daughter tried to commit suicide inside Downing street. It was suggested she caught him and Mandy ‘at it’ in the PMs office. Blair slapped a ‘D’ notice on it.

    1. If our media was to be believed most of us are.
      They don’t seem to be asking the rest of us 🙁

    2. The government is “making sure there are enough personnel to administer the vaccines” by amending the regulations to allow other than health care professionals to puncture your skin with a hypo containing a possible (unproven) Covid 19 and flu vaccination as soon as it becomes available.

      Something to look forward to, huh?

      1. If you mean that the army is being asked to help out with the vaccine, that surely refers to the logistics & not the administering of the vaccine.

        1. CHanges to Ensure that the UK has the available workforce to administer the COVID-19 vaccine and influenza vaccine.

          Vaccinators who are not registered healthcare professionals
          It will also be apparent in what we say about workforce expansion that someone other than a registered healthcare professional may actually be administering unlicensed vaccines – and as a basic issue of fairness, we think they should benefit from the same immunity from civil liability as a registered healthcare professional who is performing the same role, if the person who is not a healthcare professional is following one of the proposed new protocols.

          Extracts from Consultation Document : Changes to Human Medicine Regulations to support the rollout of Covid 19 vaccines.

          1. The Nuremberg defence (I was only following orders) will now be enshrined in law, it seems.

          5. When I went for my annual MOT 10 days ago, I cross-examined the nurse closely regarding her competence before allowing her to take a blood sample.

  65. BBC News at Six

    Shock news that COVID infections jump from doubling every week at lunchtime to rising a quarter every day by the evening.
    Basically this means that R would have risen from 1.1 to 1.25

    I ran this through my model after amending the appropriate Excel spreadsheet column:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9986f0429f4f0dbdec362faa1bd9d7bfc39b2e58f053c9a92f6762c01d3ca0e0.jpg

    As you can see, infection of the whole UK population would now occur in under three months (under half the time for R=1.1) and it you were as optimistic as Trump then the surviving population could well have acquired immunity.

    1. How do you have ,25 of an infection? Likewise, how do you have ,75 of a virus-free person?
      Infections per week is absolutely far too precise at 8? decimal places. Again, surely it’s a digital thing – you are. or are not infected.
      Your % immunity should be formatted as %
      Not sure whether this will affect your curve, though, but it does give folk ammunition to pick holes in your argument.

      You can goal-seek based on the today date infected to work out what the R value would have to be to achieve that number. For that, your R fields would all have to be =Rday0, and goal seek based on that.

      To try to be more precise, surely people’s behavoiur would change as more become infected – with antibac, isolations, distancing, sneezing into their elbow pit and so on?

      1. I agree with all your comments Obers.

        Unfortunately I am working with Google Sheets which is a free shareable spreadsheet (compatible with Microsoft Excel used by Track & Trace) and as such does not have the advanced number formatting options that I would normally use in Excel.

        Nevertheless it uses numbers with sufficient accuracy for the fundamental verification of viral propogation that would be lost if truncated cell values were used in the calculation.
        Doing it this way allows me to make rapid changes to the model of how infection propogation works in a population the size of the UK without using too many columns.

        The model can be evolved to take account of dependent variables like hospitalizatons, and deaths in different age groups and locations but I would have to establish the mechanisms by which COVID-19 influences these outomes as distinct from the normal ageing process.

      2. I suspect that the information is being posted direct from the SS (oops, spreadsheet) and there is no “rounding” built in.
        What AO’E is putting up daily is interesting, I suspect it’s not intended to advise Hancock!

  67. Apropos of nothing at all and just having made myself a ham sandwich can I observe that these zip-seal bags no longer seem to work! Is this due to Covidicity?

    1. Maybe. Or convexity. Is there a coefficient of elasticity marked on the bags in line with EU regulation 2932/37 para 5?

      1. ‘…EU regulation 2932/37 para 5.’

        You forgot clause 288.

        I thought The EU’s regs. were ridiculous
        until I nearly, fully understood UKIP’s
        Rules and Constitution… no, scrub that;
        no-one has ever understood UKIP’s
        Rules and Constitution.

    1. Let’s hope the American electoral system saves the West when the majority of Americans vote Democrat.
      Again.

      ETA: Seems some snowflake downvoted my comment. Did I get some fact wrong?

        1. POTUS Biden steps down, “for health reasons” and the Americans have another African Democrat in the White House. With eight years to finish what Obama started.

          1. Let’s hope the American electoral system saves the West when the majority of Americans vote Democrat.
            Again.

            And that saves the West, How?

          2. I think he’s referring to the fact that the Dems country wide got more of the ‘popular’ vote than the Republicans, but still lost.

          3. 2016 it stopped Mrs Clinton moving into the White House.
            Admittedly, this side of the pond we’re clutching at straws.
            If only the Americans had 400 million guns.

          4. I think he’s referring to the fact that the Dems country wide got more of the ‘popular’ vote than the Republicans, but still lost.

          7. So what? That’s the way the US system works, and it’s actually the US Electoral College who decide in December just who will be POTUS after the nation votes in November.

            Similarly, in the UK system it is not the voters who form the next Government, it is the Queen (once she is told which party has the most MPs) who calls the leader of that party and asks him or her to form the next Government. And that could mean that 351 constituencies elect an MP from Party A by a majority of a single vote, whilst Party B might win only 349 MPs but with a majority of 1,000 votes per constituency. In that case, Party B has the most votes but the leader of Party A is asked by the Queen to be her Her Prime Minister and form a Government.

            It’s like a male Olympic athlete complaining that since he ran faster than every female athlete over the same distance, he should have had a gold medal instead of a second placed silver. The rules state that men and women run in separate races. You may think that the rules should be changed. Well, tough! If you don’t like the rules then work at changing them.

          10. So what? That’s the way the US system works, and it’s actually the US Electoral College who decide in December just who will be POTUS after the nation votes in November.

            Similarly, in the UK system it is not the voters who form the next Government, it is the Queen (once she is told which party has the most MPs) who calls the leader of that party and asks him or her to form the next Government. And that could mean that 351 constituencies elect an MP from Party A by a majority of a single vote, whilst Party B might win only 349 MPs but with a majority of 1,000 votes per constituency. In that case, Party B has the most votes but the leader of Party A is asked by the Queen to be her Her Prime Minister and form a Government.

            It’s like a male Olympic athlete complaining that since he ran faster than every female athlete over the same distance, he should have had a gold medal instead of a second placed silver. The rules state that men and women run in separate races. You may think that the rules should be changed. Well, tough! If you don’t like the rules then work at changing them.

          12. Not necessarily, it would depend where the votes were. Ukip got nearly 4,000,000 votes I seem to recall for 1 MP, was it?

          13. True. In 2015 GE 3 million of those votes were former Lib Dem protest votes.
            They disappeared even quicker than they appeared.
            Green Party were the other main beneficiaries of that Lib Dem kickback.

          14. I was certainly not a Lib Dem protest voter when I voted Ukip in 2015. I think the majority of those votes was purely down to a desire to see the back of the EU.

          16. I read it EB.
            Major still holds the record for the most votes polled by a party in a UK GE.
            Make sense of that if you can.

          17. If you don’t like it, then change the rules. In many countries worldwide, voting is compulsory and not to vote has consequences – a stiff fine and/or a jail sentence. Had that been done 50 years ago and the total votes adjusted for the population increase from one election to the next then I suspect Mr Major’s “record vote” would quite possibly not have been been so impressive.

          20. He replaced Maggie as leader. That was enough to see former Conservative voters return to the fold EB.

          21. It’s certainly a flaw in their system, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the “founding fathers” foresaw exactly that kind of eventuality and put in the chescks and balances that could stop the likes of the Clintonwitch.

          1. The expression: “Go West young man” will take on an altogether different meaning as in “Gone west….”

  70. Part of an email from my friend in Bolton …. ” Have jjust seen 7 people go into a house nearby. Plus, of course, the 2 owners with about 3 kiddies already there. And so a houseful – not allowed — with no masks worn at all. They are incomers … “

      1. Trouble is, they’d say that they did not understand these unfamiliar ways – different cultural background etc etc – and be effing let off.

        1. I doubt they’d need to, Bill. The mere fact they are incomers would be enough for the polis to lose interest.

  71. BBC News at One

    New COVID infections doubling in a week.
    This rate of increase is consistent with my COVID model where R=1.1 which is amongst the lowest of R rates.
    At this rate and with no lockdown intervention my model predicts the pandemic would be over in six months by which time everyone would have been infected.

    My model was upgraded with column F to show the weekly doubling of new infections: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e549584e8683e6effb6d94043f5bbafc3a0a4ec687ee99217c8f2e4934e2002.jpg

    1. “BBC News at One”

      The Beeb will be thankful someone still takes note of what they’re putting out.

      1. But weren’t they hoping to make viewers alarmed by saying new COVID infections were doubling every week when in fact the infection rate R is only 1.1?

        1. “But weren’t they hoping to make viewers alarmed…”
          Wot viewers ?????
          Take a look at BBC audience figures and average age A O’E.

    1. Had the declaration not included this I would have signed it:

      “Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside” FFS let us choose how we live!

      1. I saw that but signed it anyway. I agreed with the rest of it.

        Yesterday I went to meet two ladies who are my third cousins, but we only recently got in touch. They are sisters, aged 86 and 85. We had lunch (indoors) and a great time talking about family matters and sharing photographs.

        Neither of them was the least bit bothered that i could be spreading the virus.

        1. This week the infants school my two granddaughters attend introduced different arrival times and different entrances for the various years to avoid ‘cross contamination’. I don’t suppose it ever occurred to those that devised this wondrous scheme thought for one moment about the fact that a significant number of parents arrive with two children who attend different years so that there is automatic in-built cross contamination across all the years! WTF happened to common sense?!

          3. Flew out the window when the great panic was instigated – although, to be fair, it hadn’t been around much before then.

          4. Hancock did away with common sense, following the directions of his sub-masters Whitty and Vallance, and those two numbskulls took their advice from their globalist masters led by Bill Gates, that supreme medically unqualified expert on vaccines.

          5. Common sense? It went tits up until someone realised that it ain’t that common and renamed it good sense.

      2. Well they are medical professionals, they can’t keep their noses completely out of other people’s business.

    2. So what if covid mutates like the flu with a new variant every few months? There goes their herd immunity effect. There again, that only increases the case for getting on with life.

      Ilford is going to be delivered and we are not supposed to meet anyone in our own homes, there is no need for anything more than a bedside somewhere. That will free up a lot of homes for new arrivals as we get shipped off to homes.

          2. Yes, my mistake. I hope that the US Gt Barrington is as pleasant as the Gloucestershire one.

          3. Ha – you’re right! Actually, I had no idea, but all the villages have similar names, so it sounded as though it fit. My father always took cross country routes through the Cotswolds, so all these names were very familiar to us as children.

  73. Letters. It is time to dispense with crude propaganda and stop demonising Vladimir Putin. 6 October 2020.

    Have we forgotten the heroic services of our merchant seamen in the Arctic convoys or Sputnik and the International Space Station or that Russia (and her Winters) saved Europe from both French domination under Napoleon and German under Hitler?

    Mr Putin has to govern a huge area of many differences of temperature and ethnic diversity. Please can we stop demonising him?

    Mary Rolls, Jedburgh.

    Another unbeliever. It is surprising considering the vast propaganda effort how widespread this view is. The Daily Mail has to rely on the 77 Brigade to offset Vlad’s supporters on their articles and there are usually no comments allowed on the rest of the MSM. Two recent books about the Salisbury Fiasco saw the sceptic’s version literally grind Luke Harding’s ludicrous book into the almost non-sellers list.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18771795.letters-time-dispense-crude-propaganda-stop-demonising-vladimir-putin/

    1. “…our merchant seamen in the Arctic convoys…”

      Surprisingly, Jeremy Clarkson of all people, fronted an excellent TV documentary on PQ17.

  74. Farmers with ‘Boer Lives Matter’ banners storm South African court and fire shots as they try to force their way into cells holding two men accused of torturing and murdering farm worker. 6 October 2020.

    Farmers with ‘Boer Lives Matter’ banners have stormed a South African court and fired shots as they tried to force their way into cells holding two murder suspects.

    Thousands of protesters thronged outside the Senekal Magistrate’s Court in the Free State today as Sekwetje Isaiah Mahlamba, 32, and Sekola Piet Matlaletsa, 44, appeared before a judge.

    The men are accused of torturing 21-year-old farm manager Brendin Horner, whose lifeless body was found covered in blood and tied to a post on remote farmland outside the town of Paul Roux on Friday.

    Good lads. String ‘em up!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8810807/Boer-Lives-Matter-farmers-storm-South-African-court-holding-two-men-accused-murdering-farmer.html

    1. The DM has suddenly started to cover white murders in South Africa, where previously they have ignored them for years. Wonder what’s going on.

    2. So true. Whenever we have a power cut everything is dead, phones, computers, heating and cooking down for as long as it takes to restore power to the network.

      We have several Thermos flasks on the ready but are often caught out. We also have, as a last resort, a wood burner which when up to speed will allow a kettle to boil on its top.

      1. We often had power cuts in Winter in rural Dorset. We had a back-up gas cooker in the utility room & an open fire in the living room.

    2. “Gingey and Whingey, please can we go back to the mansion as soon as we’ve finished virtue signalling?

      I hate having to sit through yet another photo opportunity.”

    3. I told her we had to spend time out of the USA… I cannot afford the giant tax bill, and father won’t foot the bill and granny says we have to eat cake!

    5. This Meghan is where the people with white privilege that serve their country in the armed forces usually end up.
      While our structurally racist government houses all the oppressed people that arrive here in dinghies.

      1. Following the photo-shoot, Mrs & Mr Markle headed back to their $14 million mansion. Allegedly.

        2. I disliked him intensely, he was forever telling the UK how to run every aspect of its affairs.

          If he has been outed as the complete fraud he is and stopped posting his garbage I would celebrate.

          1. I found him rather like a human penny-in-the-slot machine in that you could read through thousands of his posts of pure nonsense in the hope that you might one day win something vaguely resembling sanity.

          4. Wogan column?

            I generally chased him around the DT editorials.
            The bastard used to post several days after the editorial was published, I suspect hoping to be the last to post.

          5. Back in the days before Nottlers. Wogan wrote a column on a Saturday in the DT, & without fail, IJ was spouting his views on a Sunday morning in the comments section. There were about 3 of us who used to bait him & got labelled “Pedestrian Bloggers” in his little black book.

          7. I was a W-listed PB too. I wear my badge with pride!

            I was very glad to see the back of him, but I’m pleased to see that you’re still around, as well as several other familar names from that era.

          9. Following a long absence from the DT (apparently for “hospitalization”, the reason never stated but I think we can guess), he eventually resurfaced on Facebook spouting his usual nonsense about planes of consciousness and claiming that his manuscript was finished. He even named a publisher, but I don’t think it ever came to anything and I seriously doubt his “book” even existed.

            The last time I could be bothered to look, he was long gone from Facebook and twitter. Like others, I suspect he is no longer with us.

            I found his arrogance, delusion and plagiarism intensely annoying but in retrospect I suspect he was just a deeply troubled, sick and lonely old man. The problem was that he insisted upon inflicting his delusions upon the rest of us!

          10. Oddly enough I felt a little sorry for him even though I was possibly his most regular troll.

            One of his posts looked as if he had collapsed on the keyboard, possibly a stroke or heart attack, who knows?

            I was sufficiently concerned to hunt down one of his social media pages and write that someone who knew him should check up to see if he was alright.

          11. I remember that occasion. I was genuinely impressed by your concern.

            I seem to recall he had a habit of posting hastily and bizarrely typed comments and returning to edit them later. “Like a dog returning to its vomit” was one of your kinder comments!

            I have been following this group since the disqus days. My best wishes to you and your fellow Nottlers, who may have noticed the occasional upvote – and on one memorable occasion, a downvote – from me!

          13. Thank you! I concur with the vast majority of the comments and opinions expressed by the regulars here, who tend to express them rather more eloquently than I ever could. But, to an outsider, this group sometimes looks a bit like an exclusive club whose members resent any intrusion, though it’s probably just that people of our generation, life experience and outlook tend not to suffer fools gladly, and fools always seem to get their comeuppance here!

            If and when I feel I have something worthwhile to contribute, I’ll be very happy to join in.

          14. That’ll be worth looking forward to.

            You’ll find that they are a load of old softies really, even if they do have trenchant opinions.

            I’m sure some of them will remember you from DT days.

            Most, if not all, would welcome more participants.

            Sue MacFarlane watched from the side for ages, dipped a toe in and now joins in daily. Feargal the Cat is also a contributor now. I keep hoping iceannie and Cheshirelad will too.

          15. I also recall a character called Flatulentia Buttox (who can forget a name like that!) who used to wind IJ up something rotten with his/her “F- must try harder” type comments until being declared a W-listed PB and subsequently ignored.

            I wonder if he or she is already here under another name?

          16. Another I recall who got under his skin was “milkie” or something similar, who I think may have been a medic.

            There were a lot of people who thought he was mad and it was dependent on which type of article he was commenting on, who was likely to respond.

            Glad you’ve “come across” I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

          17. I’ve taken the liberty of making a comment today, quoting from your penultimate sentence.

          29. ‘Tis hard to resist. I’m becoming increasingly exercised by the misuse of “it’s”, but refraining from picking up our regular posters, including those who claim concern about language.

          34. I think it must be catching; a couple of times I’ve found myself using the wrong one! I think I’ve managed to spot the mistake before I posted, Phew!

          38. Going upstairs very soon. Although it has been a very exciting day, I’m not at all tired.

          40. I’m not sure whether I mentioned earlier that this morning I had my first experience of using Zoom (Swedish revision class). It was only last night that I had it installed, so I had no time to familiarise myself with it. Bit like a big dipper ride; very exciting, but some trepidation. I had 2 mugs of very strong coffee first thing & I’ve been on a high ever since.

          41. Fair enough. As a family, we did several Zoom events (for birthdays and such) early in the panic, but the novelty has worn off now.

          42. I also took the bull by the horns & formally resigned my leadership of the German translation group.

          44. I’ve been in the driving seat for 4 years & I decided it was time to give it a rest.

    8. That annoys me. There are people genuinely homeless on the streets in real need.

      Harry and Megan are just effluent and money wasted on them should really be spent on those people who are homeless and in need.

    10. “Cheer up Daddy, things aren’t that black – at least One isn’t that black!”

      1. Out celebrating the success of ‘Finding Freedom’ the best-selling book in the UK after 31,000 hardback copies were bought in the first five days…

    12. That smug grin would soon be wiped off his face if this was where he really found himself. Which is actually where they would be if they had to rely on him to provide for them!
      Harry is a fully paid up member of the I’m-rich-therefore-I’m-clever brigade – never fails to annoy!

  79. LATE LAST POST

    If you have the chance to see a three part series on PBS America called: “Shooting the War” – please do so.

    Home movies from the UK and Chermany. Apart from lack of sub-titles – just brilliant – and, for those of my age (very few, I know) SO evocative.

    A demain

    2. Not quite of your age, Bill but rapidly catching up – in 77th year. I have a special interest in both WWI and II as mon pere was involved in both – commissioned in the field, August 1915.

  80. I’ve looked up the number of cases in the Borders per the BBC information website. An average of 4 “new cases” per day. That means that it will take around 68 years for everyone to get it. If one assumes that if half get it there will be a general (herd) immunity, then that will only take 34 years. So the Scottish Borders can expect to be in lockdown for 34 years. Thank Heaven it’s no longer for the “foreseeable future”. That would have been really worrying.

    1. Thanks for the link. I usually avoid the Graun, but the visit was worth it just to see the comments. There is some terminal frothing in progress over there!

  83. Good night all.

    Pan-fried partridge breast, soft green beans & roast potatoes. Missy approved of the breast.

        1. I used to cook and eat a whole partridge – and I didn’t leave enough on the bones to feed a cat either.

          But I was young, doing lots of manual labour and almost permanently hungry in those days.

          1. When I was a student I roasted a whole duck, intending it to serve for 2 nights, But 1/2way through I forgot to stop eating & consumed the whole lot in one go.
            Partridges used to run up & down this road with their chicks until it was made up.

          2. Greys, or red-legs?

            I used to put away a teal easily, or a grouse (or a woodcock, but you don’t often get one of those). A snipe is no more than a couple of mouthfuls. I never ate a whole pheasant or mallard, but I could do a lot damage…

            Don’t get the same access to game nowadays; shame.

            When the job in Yorkshire died on me I was made redundant at Christmas. All the local keepers were friends and I spent at least 4 days a week during January either beating or picking up. Beaters always get “a bird”, but as I mostly wasn’t being paid (they had to pay their regulars) I’d be sent home with two or three as that was something they had and to spare. For most of Jan, Feb and March I only had to buy vegetables, which was just as well as I only had my dole money – but I lived like a king on game (almost exclusively pheasant and mallard) everyday – because I had to eat it all before I had to move out in early April.

          3. My last boss used to go in for shootin’ & fishin’. (He was too small to get on a horse & hunt ;-). He often gave me a trout or 2 & once he gave me a brace of teal, which were delicious.
            When I was a student I used to drive back to Bristol late on a Sunday night. I often used to pick up roadkill – one way of supplementing the student budget.

          4. We used to feed a couple of local duck ponds regularly and always had a few teal as well as the mallard.

            My first dog was a fox-red Labrador b1tch; she was terribly headstrong but she was very good at a duckpond because she would keep going into the water all night – and if something slipped out by the overflow she would go half-a-mile downstream after it.

            Duck-flighting happens at dusk, so by the time you are picking them up it’s black dark (a moonlit night’s no good) and you really have to rely on the dogs being persistent and finding everything. So headstrong is quite good in those circumstances. Not so much on an organised “pegged” shoot.

          6. To avoid any nationalistic fervour I always refer to partridges as greys and red-legs. I’m always astonished at the number of people who don’t know the difference.

          8. I know that, and you know that (and so do quite a lot of other interested people) but there are lots of people who don’t even realise that there are two, fairly, common varieties in this country.

            Sadly the greys don’t thrive as well without winter stubbles – and with most of the corn being winter sown nowadays their numbers have diminished. We have a few around here, but you have to keep your eyes peeled to see them. I used to love to listen to them chattering as they settled down for the night. On a calm night I could hear the nearest covey from my bedroom window – and if the weather got really hard in winter they would come right up to the house for tail-corn (which was always provided when necessary).

          10. Too big. I’d rather have partridges. Used to hear the occasional vixen screaming in January/February too – and we had both barn and tawny owls locally. I actually had a tawny which lived in the farm buildings for about 4 winters while I got on with my work around him.

          11. So would I. Hippos are bloody dangerous.

            I had a pair of blackbirds which nested on my balcony in Düsseldorf one year. I was away during the week, but at weekends we used to get along just fine. When it came to feeding the chicks, the parents used to sneak up to the nest behind my back & I would pretend not to notice.

          12. A few years after I came here we lifted the old lawn and it was just heaving with leatherjackets under the turf. There was a hen blackbird (alone) with a brood in the pyracantha at the side of the porch. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen young blackbirds stuffed into silence by 3 o’clock in the afternoon. She then proceeded to fill herself up at speed. It took about 3 days to lift all the turf and she became progressively bolder as she realised we had no interest in chasing her away. By the time we were planting up on days 4 and 5 she was practically perching on the trowel. There were 5 chicks and she fledged them all despite her single-mum status. I like to think we gave her a bit of a helping hand.

          13. I had a pair nesting here one year (a pair nest every year in the garden, but different pairs). The cock bird used to stop off for a man-to-man chat, despite having a beak full of grubs, until his wife came along & scolded him. I think after the brood had fledged she ‘divorced’ him, because she came back for a 2nd brood with a different mate.

          14. Too lazy, so she ditched him for a better model. Sensible girl. The rate at which chicks need to be fed you can’t afford a lazy partner.

            Must stop typing – I’m having a problem with my right thumb and it’s starting to hurt again – and go to bed.

            Schlaf gut.

      1. W/rose has partridge breasts & whole partridges wrapped in bacon @ a reasonable price. Also pheasants.

          1. Guineafowl is good too. Tastes like how roast chicken used to taste. Sainsbury and Waitrose.

          2. OT – Sorry to be absent tomorrow, it’s not worth 2 weeks of quarantine. Next time, I hope. Have a great lunch and please send my best wishes and apologies to the gathering.

  84. Prevening, all. Rain has been torrential today – no gardening and the flood outside my studio (getting the drain fixed is the next thing to do) was ankle deep. MOH insisted on going out for a hot chocolate despite the weather and the flood and would not take no for an answer – oh the joys of dementia! The dog, thankfully, has perked up a bit today and was able to go for a gentle stroll down the dirt track leading to the house. Fingers crossed he continues to improve. Meanwhile, I am still drying out (before I hit the bottle when I cook myself something later).

    2. Absolutely chucking it down here. Like a hurricane but, thank goodness, not the high winds.
      I hope the weeds are washed out of the garden.

      1. Your weeds or mine? 🙂 Actually, apart from the ground elder, I have relatively few weeds and I’m working on the ground elder.

        1. I managed to eliminate ground elder from the lawn by prowling around with a pair of scissors one entire summer, chopping off any bit that showed its head. At least I hope it’s eliminated – haven’t seen any signs of it this year. Now to tackle the couch grass…

          1. I keep cutting off the leaves and hoping for the best. It controls it, but it doesn’t seem to have eradicated it yet.

        2. Blame the bloody Romans for ground elder; they introduced it as a salad vegetable.
          Forget the viaducts, wine etc….. as you fork around trying to catch that last half inch of root that will smother the bed next summer.

          1. Half inch? It doesn’t need that much! Every time I’m grubbing in the bed trying to root out the blasted stuff, I curse the Romans!

    3. It’s been mostly sunny here, just a couple of light showers late afternoon. Good job you’ve not lost your sense of humour…… it must be hard to cope.

      1. A sense of humour is vital for survival. I am still a bit worried about my dog (only not as much so as yesterday). This morning MOH asked where the dog was and I said “in bed”. “Are you sure he’s still alive?” (gee, thanks for that!). “Well, it seems likely – he’s snoring his head off” 🙂

        1. They know (the dogs, that is) when the weather is bad without checking it through the window. Our dog keeps her head down and lies in a cosy contented heap on our bed until turned 11.00 am (rain before seven, fine before eleven…)

          1. Mine has been under the weather for the last two days – normally, he doesn’t bother whether it’s rain or shine; he just wants to go for a walk. Thankfully, there are signs this evening, that he’s more like his usual self. Long may it continue!

  85. This site is becoming seriously boring with bloody recipes and boastful supposed culinary excellence, unproven if you are simply feeding your own fat face. Signing off.

      1. That response is precisely the arrogant self interested and self indulgent remark I have come to expect from you. I am going nowhere. I merely remark on your crass remarks and self advertisement of your supposed language skills and consistent pedantry.

        Oh, and you can fuck off too.

      2. That response is precisely the arrogant self interested and self indulgent remark I have come to expect from you. I am going nowhere. I merely remark on your crass remarks and self advertisement of your supposed language skills and consistent pedantry.

        Oh, and you can fuck off too.

          2. What’s the matter then? Have you just heard that one of your buildings has developed cracks?

          3. You call me spiteful. You are a hypocrite and I see that your principal correspondent has already downvoted me. Nobody else can be bothered with her so you might as well make your bed with her and sleep in it.

            I have no great desire to engage with you simply because you are too full of yourself, criticising others for minor errors in language, advertising your openly perceived excellence in all languages and to be frank giving me cause for nausea.

            You are my own definition of a silly little man.

          4. You must feel very threatened by my posts to attack the way you do; do they resonate with some string of inadequacy which runs all the way through your being?

            Anyway, having got all that off your chest, there’s no point in your repeating it in future, is there?

          5. I think he sometimes gets depressed and having had a drop too much, will lash out. Best not to engage.

          6. “If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?”
            Turn the other cheek, you say. I’ll turn my arse to him, I say. 😉

      3. Hey you guys, back off, this is NOT in the spirit of NoTTLers and I’m more than a trifle ashamed of the pair of you.

          1. Interesting to see that no warnings have been issued on Wednesday’s page. Funny that – or maybe not.

          3. I do wonder whether you may be right…

            Take a look at today’s page – about an hour ago.

            I’d have liked to add a smiley symbol to that first line. But somehow none of it makes me want to smile.

          4. Mind you, I wouldn’t want to join a clique that would have me (or sos) as a member!

    2. Best to engage with them then before they have eaten.

      Lions and tigers are always at their least boring when hungry.

    4. I think a bit of light relief in present circumstances is appreciated by many on here. Sorry you’re not one of them. You don’t have to read every post, I certainly don’t.

    5. Hey steady on – peddy’s meal descriptions are the closest I get to cordon bleu these days, as I throw together some salad and a cheese sandwich for yet another meal at my desk, and then fast through to breakfast. I enjoy them vicariously.
      The only things I can’t stand are trollishly and immaturely contradicting everything other people say, self-righteousness and knowallitis – and peddy is guilty of none of those things.

  86. Well, to be my usual boring self, I have just watched the local news from Nice. On top of everything else – villages, cut off, houses roads and bridges destroyed, people dead and dozens missing – the poor sods have had a bloody earthquake. Houses not only ruined but buried.

    And this is a snap of the Var river as it passes west Nice and is a mile from the sea. Where do you start?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/22c72c02f4a456dc5d319c87a0170c9e52f6eae5efb6f81093178345bb8baf17.jpg

    And, the presenter asked on very pertinent question about Toy Boy’s visit tomorrow. “Isn’t that a waste of helicopters that could be helping the homeless?”

    I am rarely moved to tears – but this is a disaster. On tiny flicker of hope. In one of the worst hit villages – the primary school re-opened this morning.

    And on that note, I’ll leave you for another day.

    1. As you know, I have two small shacks that I thought were perched on a hillside near Menton, but are probably down in the valley by now. At least they were derelict before the storm.

    2. There’s so little one can say except that it puts the minor problems of life in perspective. Prayers for all those poor souls affected and afflicted.

      3. Apparently Perthshire has also suffered tremors – it’s the San Andreas of Scotland, it seems.

    4. And how many African, Caribbean, Asian and even Western countries will be sending aid?
      None?
      Well, there’s a surprise.

    5. Toy Boy?

      Given the waste in the public sector, inflated salaries, obscene pensions, ridiculous, endless expenses at every level you start to realise that if half of it were disbanded nothing would be lost. Start at the top – quangos, troughers, councillors ‘executives’ and all such effluent.

      Then our money can spent on things the people expect and, more importantly need – such as disaster relief, the homeless and security.

  87. 7th October 2020

    CONGRATULATIONS TO BOB 3

    60 Years old today

    We wish you a very enjoyable birthday

    and

    Very Many Happy returns

    Rastus and Caroline.

    2. Congrats to one of our juniors – egad, Bob3, I wish I was just 60 today, enjoy it while you may, Best Wishes, Tom & Judy.

      6. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday Bob! I hope you have a brilliant day! 🎂🍾🎉

    1. I particularly like the old fisherman, very evocative of a bygone era.

      (yes pedants, Jsp etc etc, I know this still happens, but less so now.)

      2. I like the metal heels on the shoes. I have a pair of (Lancashire rather than Dutch) clogs that have similar.

    2. Just flagged a WHO post full of lies on Facebook as “false news”. Won’t get me anywhere of course but I couldn’t resist.

    3. Someone over on ZH suggests Donald should short Twitter Stocks just before he announces he’s quitting Twitter over censorship and moving to Parler!

      1. Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference?
        Soros, Gates, Blair, CIA, media heads etc.
        The parrot might know more about them.

  93. Lots of good stuff on here, Gentlefolks but tempus fugit and all that. I have to get up in the morning, go for a blood test and then digest how best to take a document with 17 concerns and distil it into a cogent response to a planned 242 acre takeover of our village for a solar farm. God, please help us.

    2. Could be worse. Could be a cemetery for a certain cult, or sold to people who nick lead off roofs to park their vehicles.

    3. Every farmer seems to be loaning their land for solar farms , we have them here, they look like giant lakes when the sun glints on them.

      1. A black mugging a white is more likely than a black hugging a white. Then again a black stabbing a black is more likely than a black stabbing a white. It is very unlikely that a white will stab a black.

Comments are closed.