Monday 12 October: Lockdowns are trashing the institutions that built a tolerant society

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/10/11/letterslockdowns-trashing-institutions-built-tolerant-society/

711 thoughts on “Monday 12 October: Lockdowns are trashing the institutions that built a tolerant society”

  2. Morning all, I hear it is going to kick off up North. Kim Jong Boris will make his announcement later today.

  3. Morning all

    SIR – When I moved to England, I joined the Campaign for Real Ale because I was so impressed by the English pub and all that it stood for.

    It was a social institution – a meeting place for families, friends, people of all ages and races, men, women and dogs of all shapes and sizes. It was an institution I wanted to support.

    It is heartbreaking to see our own government ministers trash this symbol of British freedom and tolerance. They are ripping apart this vital piece of our social fabric, simply to show that they are doing something to fight the virus.

    Yes, they are doing something all right, and I hope that they pay the price at the ballot box.

    Jim McGregor

    Nether Poppleton, North Yorkshire

    1. SIR – Professor Karol Sikora (Comment, October 8) is right to expose the “disgusting” tactics of the pro‑lockdown lobby.

      Anyone questioning the blind adherence to failing lockdown restrictions is, as Prof Sikora says, accused of wishing to let the virus rip and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths, or of not caring about “killing Granny”. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, is the scaremonger-in-chief.

      The irony of this is that it was Mr Hancock’s department that let the virus rip through care homes, where many, including my mother, swiftly contracted Covid-19. She survived, unlike many others.

      Having failed with Covid, however, Mr Hancock’s department finally managed to dispatch my mother by repeatedly withdrawing vital treatments for her other underlying conditions.

      If we do not regain a sense of perspective, many more grannies are going to be killed as a result of the NHS pursuing a cruel, cynical and unjustified strategy of ignoring all other illnesses.

      Ben Giesbrecht

      Swansea

    2. 324476+ up ticks,
      Morning Epi,
      Old Jim’s hopes will be dashed,we have suffered innocents being castigated, mass knifings/ acid attacks,
      mass paedophilia, mass uncontrolled immigration, and still the ovis return the same politico’s / party’s to power
      year on year.
      Sorry Jim.

  4. SIR – My wife and I have been in Greece for four weeks, staying in a coastal town with a population of about 30,000. We are both in our seventies and take medication prescribed by our British GP practice.

    As I felt unwell I decided to see a local physician. We walked to his surgery and his secretary offered me an appointment the next day. I was given a thorough examination and an ultrasound scan. He told me that two of the items I had been prescribed by our GP were aggravating my condition and advised me to stop taking one and reduce taking another. The consultation, examination and scan took 40 minutes and cost €20. It is worth noting that the medication I was advised to stop taking was prescribed over the phone by my GP.

    Regrettably, it is difficult or indeed impossible to get this level of primary care in Britain. Why is the Greek system so much better than ours?

    M J Saxton

    Nantwich, Cheshire

    1. Yes. As I’ve said before, next Spring there will be one helluva reckoning or a fudging of figures that will make track and trace seem a model of probity.
      Rather impressively, even before my first coffee, the word ‘iatrogenic’ sprang to mind.
      Morning, Epidermoid.

      1. I’m certainly impressed, Anne. Even after several cups of coffee, a full breakfast and a wee dram (to clear my mind), not only did the word iatrogenic not spring to mind, I had to look it up to find out what it meant.

        Respect (and good morning BTW)

          3. Ah well, there you have the advantage of me.

            It never cropped up in Army Basic training.
            :¬(

          4. When I was on a ward round as a student, I brought a particularly pompous physician to heel. There were about 6 students present. He posed a question relating to the patient; I gave the correct answer as ‘cervical’, pertaining to the neck region, I pronounced it cerVICKal. He quickly corrected me with a pounce, “You mean cerVYEcal!” Seeing my horrified look, he back-pedalled slightly, “OK, it depends where you learnt your anatomy” in a patronising way. “More to the point,” I rejoined, “it depends where you learnt your Latin!” The group collapsed with laughter as he went very red in the face.

          5. Isn’t that distinction down to the differences between classical Latin and Church Latin? At least that’s what my (Church) Latin master told us back in the day …

          6. Maybe, maybe not, but that doesn’t alter the fact that it was a killer move on my part. 😉

          7. When I did A Level Latin, the two of us pupils had two teachers to instruct us. One pronounced Latin the “classical”, ie traditional, way, the other made it sound more like Italian (on the grounds that it was the basis of Italian).

      2. Golly, thanks. I now have a word for it. I have slightly high blood pressure when I go to the doctor’s. I have not had an appointment for several years. They are supposed to take the BP of every patient at every consultation, as a matter of policy.

    2. I had a similar experience with a Doctor and Mater Dei hospital. Fast, efficient service. I put it down to population density. Plus they don’t have an enormous amount of office wallahs.

  6. SIR – If David Dimbleby thinks it’s the BBC’s job to be “a thorn in the side of government” (report, October 10), he has already disqualified himself from the chairmanship by reason of a total misreading of the BBC Charter, the Framework Agreement and the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, all of which require the corporation to commit itself to “achieving due impartiality in all its output”. (See also section 4 of the BBC’s editorial guidelines.)

    If this misunderstanding has been widespread among other senior figures, it explains a great deal.

    His Honour Peter Birts QC

    London SW6

  8. Good morning, all. A grey start to the day – and the weather doesn’t look much better.

    How does one join the British Resistance?

      1. 324476+ up ticks
        Morning Anne,

        That question would be best answered by the
        UKIP members who were in place when
        Gerard Batten was in the leadership seat.

      2. Or the ten thousand Irishmen who occupied the GPO in Dublin in 1916.
        I was hitch-hiking in Ireland in 1966. I got a lift from lorry driver who had lots of interesting stories. He said that those receiving a pension for their part in the Easter Rising would fill Croke Park. His lorry, he said, had been paid for with compensation received from being on the Princess Victoria ferry when it sank.

  9. The repeat failures of the state are why we’re locking down again. 12 October 2020.

    As Boris Johnson prepares to announce further lockdown measures, he faces censure from Right and Left. On the Right, for jeopardising our prosperity and disrespecting our freedom. On the Left, for failing to protect us from the virus and offering too little compensation for those stuck at home, unable to work.
    Yet it stretches credulity to imagine Britain would have coped very differently had another group of ministers sat around the Cabinet table, or another party been in power. Perhaps our first lockdown might have started earlier, or a little later. Perhaps the furlough scheme might have been more or less generous.

    These are details. The truth is, Britain would be in a similar predicament to the one in which it finds itself today, for the single reason that we have a highly ineffective, deeply complacent and arrogant state. The harshness of the protective measures deemed necessary by Boris Johnson and his ministers is a direct consequence of the total failure of the machinery of government.

    We were, international studies reported, among the countries best prepared for a pandemic. But all the effort that went into that preparedness focused on the wrong threat: we readied ourselves for influenza, not a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus, despite the recent emergence of Sars and Mers. While Asian countries had learnt from their experiences in confronting them, we had not.

    South Korea was among the first countries to be affected by Covid-19 but, unlike Britain, it was ready. The public was told to wear masks from the start. Travel on public transport without a mask was banned immediately. Anybody arriving in the country from overseas was placed in automatic quarantine. By the time similar restrictions were introduced in Britain – months later – the virus was already long out of control.

    With little fuss, Korea’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency had a contact-tracing programme up and running from the start. Using credit card records, mobile phone tracking and GPS location data, it could – from the earliest days of the virus – locate people who had been in the vicinity of infected patients. Allied with a mass testing programme, Korea’s contact tracing meant that the number of new cases was always kept in check. This allowed its government to place elderly and vulnerable patients in isolation dorms in hospitals and send health officials to check on asymptomatic patients twice a day without overwhelming its systems.

    British officialdom made pre emptive decisions – based on intellectual and philosophical biases that should be open to challenge even in normal times – that made the spread of the virus inevitable. Nobody thought it legitimate to ask whether we should allow hundreds of thousands of international visitors into Britain from virus hotspots like China and, later, Italy and Spain. Nobody even tried to argue that the importance of contact tracing to our collective health meant that, in this grave emergency, we should reconsider our assumptions about privacy and allow the state access to personal information as in South Korea.
    Nobody has yet explained why, as citizens in Asian countries donned masks, our public health experts were telling us not to do so. Perhaps they wanted to preserve scarce personal protective equipment for medics and other emergency workers. But that serves only to condemn the state’s ineptitude as it struggled to procure equipment the country needed. Suppliers and importers reported bureaucratic chaos as they tried to contract with the Government and provide the kit.

    The failure to establish a successful tracing programme reflects two recurring problems with Whitehall. First, the obsession with always designing its own – normally nation-shaming, not world-beating – complex technological solutions, rather than buying off-the-shelf from governments and companies with proven expertise. The NHS test-and-trace system has cost £10 billion – one third more than central government spends on policing every year – and yet has failed to trace many of those at risk from the virus.

    The second problem is Whitehall’s determination to manage everything from the centre. Test-and-trace systems run locally, like in Ceredigion in Wales and Cumbria in England, have outperformed the national system dramatically. In Cumbria, tracing teams reach 97.1 per cent of contacts, compared with 62.4 per cent for national teams. Even in the urban West Midlands, the region’s mayor, Andy Street, says tracing pilots have identified between 98 and 100 per cent of cases. Yet only now its own system has failed is Whitehall ready to hand over responsibility to local leaders.

    Everywhere we look, the state has failed in its basic responsibilities. While public health officials worried that schools could not reopen, they remained silent during the Black Lives Matter protests. While the police got tough with anti-lockdown protesters in Trafalgar Square, they ignored crowds gathering in larger numbers to watch street performers nearby. Pubs and restaurants are told to close their doors at ten, prompting crowds to squeeze onto public transport together at the same time. And we wonder why we have an enforcement problem.

    Inept and unaccountable quangos, from Public Health England to Ofqual, have proved hopelessly incapable of meeting their responsibilities. An optimism bias in the senior civil service – believing that if only we lock down a little longer, daily mass testing or a vaccine will come to our rescue – is driving a strategy that lacks a strategic objective. MPs demand the deployment of the military, with its undoubted logistical brilliance. But should not the rest of the state also have operational expertise?

    The Covid crisis will leave behind all manner of changes; in the structure of the economy, the nature of the labour market, and the way we think about community and society. But it must surely also bring about a reckoning for our hollow, haughty and hubristic model of government. Downing Street promises a hard rain will soon fall, but to blow away the culture of complacency and incompetence that benights our country, we will require a tornado.

    There seems little doubt that this analysis is correct! We have a State Bureaucracy and Political Class that are no longer fit for purpose!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/11/repeat-failures-state-locking/

    1. I fear that one outcome of this whole debacle will be that in future, every time something novel appears, we will be locked down immediately.
      “Just in case” …
      Thus ensuring that our economy and way of life never recover and that the State can exercise as much control as possible over us..

    2. Just how many Whitehall mandarins and those of the political class have their fingers in the track and trace pie stuffing their face?

    3. 324476+up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      May one ask are those that keep returning these political
      “not fit for purpose” party’s / politico’s, a large % of the electorate, any better ?
      A multitude using party first, nose gripping, best of the worst as a yardstick when in the polling booth.

  11. I’ve just enjoyed reading about the Stairheid Rammie that is the spat between Sturgeon and Salmond.
    I particularly enjoyed this BTL comment.

    “I wondered what I was going to do now that Game of Thrones has finished.

    Pass the popcorn.”

    1. If the opposition, Labour and Tory, were not so feeble, they could bring down the Scottish Government. They do not wish to, as they are all fully supportive of the “beyond the dreams of Draco” restrictions imposed against the dreaded Covid-19. Of course, if it all goes awry…

  12. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – I read with interest David Olusoga’s views on Charles Dickens (“Dickens was racist but I love reading him, says Olusoga”, October 11).

    I would urge him to read Chapter 17 of Martin Chuzzlewit (1842), where the hero, young Martin, during his visit to America, sees his servant Mark Tapley talking to a porter, and asks him who the man is. “‘Why, sir,’ said Mark, taking him aside and speaking confidentially in his ear, ‘he’s a man of colour, sir … A man and a brother, you know, sir,’ said Mr Tapley … ‘A slave!’ cried Martin, in a whisper”.

    Mark Tapley continues: “‘And now he’s a-saving up to treat himself, afore he dies, to one small purchase – it’s nothing to speak of, only his own daughter, that’s all!’ cried Mr Tapley, becoming excited. ‘Liberty forever! Hurrah! Hail, Columbia!’”

    Dickens knew that these words would alienate a great number of Americans, who had feted him when he arrived in their country, but he had the moral courage to take that risk.

    Dickens a racist? I think not.

    Dr Norman Russell
    Liverpool

    1. That Nigerian half-caste is a wanqueur de luxe. No one ever asks him about his tribal history in slave trading.

  15. ‘Morning again.

    Another fine soldier leaves us. The following paragraph appears at the top of his obituary:

    “His concept of an Army career was that of total commitment to those with whom he served and unflagging pursuit of his ideals.” Our grubby politicians should take note (fat chance).

    Colonel David Benest, who has died of heart disease aged 66, served with 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment (2 Para) during the Falklands conflict; in an adventurous career, the mental demands of living up to the very high standards that he set himself proved no less challenging than the physical ones.

    On April 2 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British Territory. At short notice, 2 Para was stood to and, on April 28, to the accompaniment of the band playing Don’t Cry for Me Argentina, the Battalion embarked in the MV Norland for the month-long voyage to the South Atlantic.

    Benest, nicknamed “Beamer” because of his wide grin, was the regimental signals officer. Based at Battalion Main HQ, the communications hub, he established radio links to Brigade HQ, Tactical HQ, the rifle companies, the support weapons company and “B” Echelon, commanded by the quartermaster.

    These nets were all run by the signals platoon commanded by Benest. Operating this network over long distances, in difficult terrain and with obsolescent equipment required considerable skill and first-rate organising ability.

    On May 28, 2 Para attacked and defeated a strong Argentine force on the Darwin-Goose Green peninsula. In heavy fighting, the commanding officer, Colonel “H” Jones, was mortally wounded attempting to take out a machine gun post. He was awarded a posthumous VC.

    Under the command of Lt Col David Chaundler, 2 Para secured Bluff Cove and Fitzroy and, on the night of June 13, they attacked and captured Wireless Ridge, another key objective. Forward elements of the Battalion entered Port Stanley on June 14 several hours before the official ceasefire.

    David Gareth Benest was born in north London on April 29 1954 and educated at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, where he played rugby for the first XV. In 1973, after Sandhurst, he was commissioned into the Parachute Regiment and posted to 2 Para in South Armagh.

    He commanded a platoon which, as he said later, was “shoved into the deep end” of the Cold War when it took part in a large parachute and marine landing in Turkey. On an exercise in north Germany, he and his men were dropped close to the Kiel Canal. The timing was misjudged, the canal was still in use and the pilots flying overhead in the darkness mistook the ships’ lights for those of the dropping zone. Benest just missed the canal but six TA soldiers were drowned.

    He returned to Sandhurst for six months after applying for a Regular Commission and then served as a company operations officer in a particularly dangerous republican area of Belfast during 1976 and 1977.

    For the next three years, he read for an in-service degree in International Relations at the University of Keele and graduated with First Class Honours. Part of each vacation was spent as a company second in command with 2 Para who were then operating in South Armagh and Fermanagh.

    In July 1981, he returned to 2 Para as regimental signals officer, a post he held during training in Kenya and the Falklands conflict. On a six-month tour in Belize, he managed communications between HQ, foot patrols and helicopter jungle patrols.

    After Staff College, he spent two years at the MoD where he played a key part in the provision of equipment and communication systems needed for the formation of a new Border Brigade in Northern Ireland.

    He enjoyed the stimulus of working with scientists on the application of technology in counter-terrorist operations and was appointed MBE at the end of his tour.

    He then commanded a company of 3 Para, operating mainly in West Belfast and South Down and was appointed second in command for the final six months. In 1991, he received the General Officer Commanding’s Commendation for outstanding service.

    In the absence of any guidance, he said later, and after his experience in Northern Ireland, he developed his own doctrine as regards ethics and military duty.

    He spoke to his platoons, his company and, in due course, his battalion, to press home the awesome responsibility of using military power and authority to apply lethal force. Where a life was endangered, a young soldier could, in effect, be witness, prosecutor, judge, jury – and executioner – in a split second.

    After another year at the MoD, in 1994 he assumed command of 2 Para. The three-year tour included six months in South Armagh where the Battalion had the advantage of towers established close to the border which provided a combination of radar, thermal and visual surveillance, the product of his time at the MoD. He was advanced to OBE.

    His parachuting days, however, were over. They were an ordeal, he said afterwards. There was always the fear, not of injury, but of panic and failure. This never happened but on various occasions he hanged himself by his parachute strap, knocked himself out, broke an ankle and regularly “ploughed in”.

    He was appointed Director Defence Studies (Army) and, in 2005, Director of Security Studies and Resilience within the Defence College of Management Technology. In 2008, he was posted to Afghanistan as the counter-insurgency adviser at the British Embassy, Kabul.

    Former comrades who have written tell of his unfailing kindness and support to the soldiers under his command who, in turn, respected him. There is no doubt that he felt things very deeply. Highly intelligent, widely read and sure of his facts, he was never afraid to speak his mind in forthright terms and challenge conventional wisdom.

    His concept of an Army career was that of total commitment to those with whom he served and unflagging pursuit of his ideals. Recurring strain led to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. There are suggestions that he was haunted by the loss of life in the Falklands battles and that the names and faces of those who died never left him.

    In 1982, he was tasked with writing up the battalion history of the Falklands campaign, which formed the basis of 2 Para – Falklands: The Battalion at War (1983) by Major General John Frost. Benest’s determination to pin down the truth led him to rework the original manuscript in recent years, with the support of his sister, Jacquetta, and to entrust it to the National Army Museum for safe-keeping.

    He retired from the Army in 2009 after 37 years’ service. In retirement in a village in Wiltshire, he was chairman of his local parish council for four years. He gave generous support to other military historians and did not hesitate to put forward his views to the national press, mainly on the subject of military ethics.

    As a younger man, he loved rock climbing and ski-mountaineering. Walking holidays with friends, listening to music and cooking were other enjoyable activities. Above all, however, he relished a lively debate over lunch with friends, neighbours or former comrades, whether about the Falklands, military history, his campaign for a British Army underpinned by unshakeable moral principles or his passion for social justice within the education system.

    David Benest married, in 1987, Genevieve (Gee) Clarke, who was a stalwart support to him throughout their married life.

    David Benest, born April 29 1954, died August 10 2020

    2. Morning all.

      I always read the obits for the quality of the writing. When they celebrate the life of a dedicated soldier like David Benest they are doubly worthwhile.

    3. One of the few.
      If only we had more of his wisdom in charge of our country now. He’d be telling the truth and this shambles would never have happened.
      R.I.P.

  16. Calls to end secrecy of body driving UK’s Covid lockdowns, 12 October 2020.

    The Government must lift the secrecy surrounding the “opaque” body guiding the local lockdowns enforced on millions of people across the country, senior MPs and scientists have said.

    Ministers have been urged to make public the advice given by the Joint Biosecurity Centre, a new body set up in May to lead the response to Covid-19.
    Led by a senior spy, the JBC has never published details of its deliberations or any list of its key personnel.

    It is led by Clare Gardiner, seconded from her role head of cyber resilience and strategy at the National Cyber Security Centre — a branch of signals intelligence agency GCHQ. She reports to Baroness Harding, while the entire JBC organisation falls under the control of the Department of Health, which answers to Mr Hancock.

    You have to wonder what a spook is doing leading a Public Health committee. Is it to stop them straying off the reservation and coming to unwelcome conclusions?.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/11/transparency-row-body-driving-uks-covid-lockdowns/

    1. Yes, it will certainly focus their minds and curtail their giving voice to any dissent. People with contacts in MI5 know how to have people killed. It is presumably also because spooks have skills in the art of tracking and surveillance. Wherever you are, we will find you.

      1. To be fair, its not one-way traffic if a failed Head of Ofcom can head up a (now-failing) department store…

    1. That eejit in Downing Street will end up with no friends across the pond.

      He’ll never win over Brit-hating Biden, and if Trump wins, he will never forget what he will see as a stab in the back.

      1. What happened to plain old fashioned diplomacy? We are not called perfidious for nothing.

      2. The Bumbling Bonking Buffoon is now concentrating on his bungling buffoonery rather than his bonking and giving Carrie a much appreciated rest!

          2. I doubt if he’d like the attention Elie.
            I’ve just been out with the dog and bumped into an old school chum and his wife they are Biden supporters, the old lefties.
            I don’t particularly like Trump as a person, but he will probably win if the Yanks have any common sense.

          3. You don’t need to like Trump as a person to see the damage the lefties could do. Sleepy Joe would be just a puppet.

      3. 324476+ up ticks,
        Morning DM,
        I still have a very strong feeling of politico’s scorned as in regarding the 24/6/2016 verdict plays a part in their current actions.

      1. 324476+ up ticks,
        Afternoon A,
        Very nice to know that there is a large overseas contingent that
        are cheering you on though.

    2. Keep infection to a minimum travel to Glasgow and back first class,…….. at taxpayers expense.

    3. Apparently, my maternal grandmother would often go to the foot of her stairs, and if things were particularly bad, she’d go to France.
      But they are like that in Hartlepool…

  22. As a lockdown sceptic, I now know what it must feel like to have been a Remainer. 11 October 2020.

    This position, mainstream among my friends, is seen as irresponsible by the country at large. A typical opinion poll this week revealed that, by 63 to 13 per cent, people wanted another two weeks of total lockdown as a “circuit breaker”. I wish I could say that it was just one survey but, in truth, the polls have been pitilessly consistent. By roughly two to one, people want the strictest possible prohibitions. It doesn’t much matter how you phrase the question: closing shops, closing schools, closing borders – we are, on this issue at least, alarmingly illiberal.

    And yet, like a metropolitan Europhile in 2016, I hardly ever meet anyone from the other side. I accept that my political and journalistic friends are likelier than most to be irreverent, libertarian and contrarian. But my non-political neighbours also feel, almost uniformly, that things have gone too far. I haven’t found anyone in my little Hampshire village who thinks that families should be prevented from meeting in groups of more than six at Christmas. Yet, according to YouGov, that view is backed by 49 to 36 per cent.

    Morning everyone. It is strange that the reason for these anomalies does not occur to Hannan. The polls are fixed!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/11/lockdown-sceptic-now-know-must-feel-like-have-remainer/

    1. Morning Minty and all.

      The Rule of Six has incurred fragmentation of family cohesion in our family.

      MOH is organisational and catering manager for family get togethers at our family home which up until now usually happen more or less spontaneously once every weekend. MOH provides catering for these get togethers which frequently number more than eight of us.

      MOH has always catered for our extended family meetings according to when they say they are coming.
      For the first time we are having to tell our children and grandchildren that there are times when they can’t return to the family home because they could possibly be facing prosecution.

    2. I have yet to meet anyone who has had Covid – other MB who possibly had it about last January.
      As I’ve said before, YouGov do not poll those of known or suspected conservative views about anything remotely political.

        1. No.
          It used to be run by a notorious “leftie”

          For some reason David Cameron used to give YouGov various tasks, and apparently believed the results.

          1. 324476+ up ticks,
            Morning J,
            Shakespeare along with nadhim zahawi formed Yougov, are they
            playing on this to give credence to their very,very iffey stance, may one ask?

          2. I don’t think that it was they who started YouGov, they certainly didn’t have the political influence to get the lucrative contracts from the Cameron government.

          3. 324476+ up ticks,
            J,
            My understanding is it was formed in 2000, before the wretch cameron, sharing office with leg over clegg 2010 was busy attending pig husbandry / treachery classes.

          4. President Peter Kellner, husband of the fragrant, unelected but incredibly well remunerated, Cathy Ashton, aka Baroness Ashton of Upholland, EU bigwig (High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy & Vice-President of the European Commission) and Labour peer.

    1. When is a white bass going to sing the role of Porgy?

      Indeed, where is the ALL WHITE production of Porgy and Bess?

        1. Yes, yes, I know that. All black productions are now commonplace. What I was asking is when we are going to see the same thing in reverse.

        3. Apparently they once staged a production of Othello where Othello was played by a white actor and all the other characters were played by black actors.

        1. Wayne Rooney first attempted to register a horse, with that name, at the Jockey Club but failed. The Yank who had that horse must have heard the story and tried it on, successfully, in Yankland.

          1. Weatherbys Mr Bear, not the Jockey Club. They are fairly sharp-eyed but the occasional cheeky one slips through.

    2. “A force de tout voir on finit par tout supporter… A force de tout supporter on finit par tout tolérer… A force de tout tolérer on finit par tout accepter… A force de tout accepter on finit par tout approuver !”

      [Saint Augustin d’Hippone – 354 A.D – 430 A.D]

          1. I admired Mary Seacole for years before the left tried to make a saint in their religion out of her. There was a plaque commemorating her in the public library in Kensal Green. The most pernicious lie that I’ve seen since then is the implication that she wasn’t selected to go with Florence Nightingale because of racism.

            Apparently on her way to the Crimea when she passed through Turkey she wrote that “the only industrious creatures here are the fleas!”

  28. Will this be the proposed new traffic light lockdown tier status interpretation?

    14-day cumulative. ———– Status
    number of COVID-19
    cases per 100 000

    Up to 100 ——————– Yellow
    100 to 200 ——————- Orange
    Over 200 ——————— Red

  30. One of the cycle of songs composed by Powick Community Choir’s Musical Director Tom Wells during the lockdown for his People’s Requiem:

    “There will come soft rain and the smell of ground,
    Swallows calling with their shimmering sound,
    And the frogs in the pools will sing at night,
    And wild plum trees in tremulous white.

    Robins will wear their feathery fire
    Whistling their whims on a low fence wire,
    Not one will know of the war,
    Not one will care when it is done.

    Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
    if mankind perished utterly.
    And Spring herself when she awoke at dawn
    Would scarcely know that we were gone.”

    Edit – the poem was written during WW1 by the American poet Sara Teasdale (1884-1933). It could have been written this Spring during the lockdown!

  31. Good morning all. Welcome to another week in Covid-land.

    As we await the latest decree from Overlord Johnson, I note that we might be seeing the first rumblings of discontent from ‘our friends in the North’ (I’m a soft Southerner myself).

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/11/northern-leaders-threaten-legal-action-covid-lockdown-plans/

    The focus of this, and similar campaigns to save events venues seems not to be challenging the strategy of lockdown, but simply to press for more government money. Restricting businesses ability to trade whilst giving them money to compensate is akin to throttling someone with one hand, whilst pressing an oxygen mask to their face with the other. Surely it would be better to allow these ‘Covid-secure’ venues to remain open and give customers the choice as to whether they wished to patronise them? Sadly, personal choice and individual responsibility are attributes which we are no longer allowed to have in Covid-land.

    2. Afternoon Plum

      I had a phone call a couple of hours ago from elder son who is at work in B’mouth.. ” Sorry mum, don’t go spare , but I have your car keys in my coat pocket”.. of course, I don’t have a spare key , but what a nuisance that the dog box is in the rear , whistle, boots etc and it is a wet day .

    3. Back in the day……When taking my parents back to north London after lunch with us in leafy Herts my mother always took out her front door key at least two miles before we arrived out side their ground flor flat.
      And when the lady does open the door the old boy will still be stuck he’s trans posed.

    1. Sorry, make it one hundred and I could believe that Biden received such limited support but zero?
      There will always be hangers on and celebrity hunters go to any event.

      1. Perhaps the media placed the comma in the wrong place and missed a nought off the end.
        We’ll ask Peddy 😉

  35. As most GP practices are not seeing patients, will their blanket per capita fees be reduced?
    Or can they happily play golf, go sailing, without worrying about paying rent or where their next meal is coming from?

    2. Take a wild guess.
      “In 1948 Bevan boasted that he was able to accomplish his goal “by stuffing the doctors’ mouths with gold.”

  36. MPs launch legal action against UK government over Covid contracts. 12 October 2020.

    A legal action has been launched over the government’s failure to disclose details of its spending on contracts related to the pandemic, as it emerged that it has failed to account for £3bn spent on private contracts since the start of lockdown.

    “And I have seen evidence that government is sometimes paying more to buy the same product from those with political connections. We don’t know what else there is to discover because the government is deliberately keeping the public in the dark.

    Well it looks like thieving to me. There is the real possibility that elements of the Civil Service are now so corrupt that they think themselves beyond the reach of the law and they may very well be correct. The difficulty of course is how to find out let alone apprehend them!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/oct/11/mps-launch-legal-action-against-uk-government-over-covid-contracts

    1. It is all in the paperwork. I carried out operational audits in the 80s and the paperwork, quotations, order forms, serial numbers, signatures, delivery notes, invoices, credit notes etc told the story. All documents had to be filed in serial number order. Missing documents were a serious failing that could lead to dismissal.

      1. Not in the public sector, and especially not at that level. Some poor grot will likely lose their job for a misfiling of the information but the bloke who ordered 1000 face masks for £250,000 will walk away and pocket the cash.

    1. I wonder if Nelson Mandela’s parents realised they were naming their boy after such an evil person?

      1. They didn’t name him Nelson at all.

        His given forename was Rolihlahla. His mother sent to him to a Methodist school and he was given the name Nelson by a teacher when he was baptised.

          1. Regardless of the original name the policy was invariably to give the child an acceptable “Christian” name.

          2. It wasn’t just biblical names that were used in preference to tribal names. At one I worked with lab technician named Computer and a work mate had a gardener named Durban July (after a premier horse race).

          3. Nelson isn’t a biblical name, but it was regarded as a Christian one.

            Since Mandela was baptised in the 1920s I doubt whether “Computer” would have been an option… 😉

            I met a Kenyan girl once whose parents had called her Perfect. They had met at a school for youngsters with severe disabilities (mainly caused by polio) and a child with four healthy limbs seemed, to them, like perfection. Fortunately they had given her the second name of Helen – after one of the teachers at the school – so she used that whilst studying in the UK.

  38. SIR — When I moved to England, I joined the Campaign for Real Ale because I was so impressed by the English pub and all that it stood for.It was a social institution – a meeting place for families, friends, people of all ages and races, men, women and dogs of all shapes and sizes. It was an institution I wanted to support.

    It is heartbreaking to see our own government ministers trash this symbol of British freedom and tolerance. They are ripping apart this vital piece of our social fabric, simply to show that they are doing something to fight the virus.

    Yes, they are doing something all right, and I hope that they pay the price at the ballot box.

    Jim Mcgregor

    Nether Poppleton, North Yorkshire

    I have to admit, Jim lad, that you had me rapt reading your letter. That is, until you spoilt it with the declaration that an English pub should welcome … “people of all ages”.

    Oh no it shouldn’t! Pubs are not places for children. No child under the age of 18 should be permitted on to licensed premises; and I care not a jot about the pleadings of their parents that their children are invariably “well-behaved”. Pubs should steadfastly remain a refuge from children for adults.

      1. ‘Morning, Harry.

        If I owned a pub I would not admit under-30s; also keg beer (and lager) would not be served. I would served a selection of decent cask-conditioned English ales and a vast array of single-malt Scotch whiskies.

        Then I woke up!

        2. The Crooked Billet in Stoke Row, near Henley-on-Thames, was truly an unspoiled country pub with uneven flag floors, wobbly chairs and beer brought up from the cellar by the snaggle-toothed licensee, Nobby. When he gave up the struggle, Brakspear’s gentrified it – it’s now a gastropub.

        3. I used to use such an establishment, The King’s Head at Prestwood, Bucks. No lager or keg, all beers drawn straight from the cask in a chilled room. The bar was devoid of anything except ashtrays. No machines of any sort and a wonderfully acerbic landlord. Sadly no more.

          2. Morning Grizz, I used to frequent a small ‘pub’ between Thetford and Ixworth, can’t remember the name, but it was the back room to someones house, just a bare wooden table and a couple of hard benches. It was a Greene King place – the beer was crap except for Draught Abbott

          4. Good morning Grizzly

            Did you ever visit the Adam and Eve pub in Norwich when you lived there? I left Norwich in 1969 but my friends and I used to visit for a quiet pint or two in the only pub we had ever been to without a bar and where the beer was brought up to the customers in jugs.

            My memories were confirmed when I looked it up on the Internet and found that:

            “Until 1971, the Adam and Eve served ale from wooden barrels, located in the pubs’ cellar. The ale would be poured into jugs and carried on trays upstairs to customers.

            After a bar was installed in 1971, excavations where carried out at the cellar, in which the remains of a medieval monk was discovered.

            Some time after that, the cellar would be converted into a second bar area.

            https://historyofnorfolk.com/norwich/adam-and-eve-history-norwich/

          5. Morning Richard, I used to take the kids to Backs Bar whilst wife went shopping. It used to be full of dads with their kids in a special room, it certainly made shopping tolerable.
            Nearly forgot the Grab-a-grannie nights at the Samson & Hercules

          6. Good afternoon, Rastus.

            Funnily enough, even though I know Norwich like the back of my hand and have spent countless hours exploring the majority of the dozens of decent pubs in that city (as well as a few not worth the bother!) I never ventured through the doors of the Adam & Eve.

            I think this is mainly because of its remote location — a good traipse on foot from the other hostelries in the city centre — coupled with the fact that I don’t drink-and-drive.

            The best real ale pub in Norwich is the Fat Cat, which serves at least 12–16 cask-conditioned ales each day. The owner named it as a tribute to the famous Fat Cat in Sheffield, a pub which was in the vanguard of the real ale revolution and a must-visit if you are ever in Sheffield.

          7. There’s a micropub in Whitstable, Kent, named The Handsome Sam: a tribute to the publican’s dear, departed cat.

            Another pub, in Paddlesworth, near Folkestone, goes by the delightful name of The Cat & Custard Pot. I’ve never been but it’s on my wish list.

          8. (Caroline has taken my computer to the computer clinic and so I am posting this on hers. Rastus)

            Another Norwich pub we used to go to was the Jolly Butchers which had a landlady called Black Anna who had an extraordinary gravelly voice and she sang rather risky jazz songs. Anna was, so rumour amongst the UEA students had it, a retired Spanish prostitute dressed in black and and with raven black dyed hair and with an extremely strong and terrifying personality. But in fact she was Italian rather than Spanish according to this link.

            https://lascarpettablog.wordpress.com/2018/12/02/the-story-of-black-anna-and-the-norwich-italians/

          11. Cratfield near Halesworth in Suffolk. It is a few years since I last visited.

            The Red Cow in our village (Ashen) was like that too but Greene King sold it for a private residence about thirty years ago and a house was built on the pub car park.

          14. I used to lodge in the Chequers at Streetley End near Haverhill. A lovely olde worlde pub (Greene King pish) but when I went back 20 years later it was a private house

        4. A local landlord and good friend (sadly passed away now), ran a very successful pub. Good bears, no jukebox, no slot machines, no pool table or darts board.

          One evening three twenty ish lads came in and ordered three pints of Stella, once poured the barmaid told them the cost. One responded with “F’k me, why is it so expensive?”

          The landlord sat a further down the bar on ‘his’ stool immediately piped up, “It’s to keep riff raff like you out of here.”

          The rest of the bar just erupted into laughter, the riff riff skulked into a corner, drank their Stella very quickly and left.

          2. Would those be Grizzly bears, or polar bears? I do hope there were dominoes and shove-ha’penny.

  39. Bone-crunching vulture makes pit stop on a Peterborough road
    Motorists left stunned when bird of prey landed in the middle of a busy route in Cambridgeshire on Saturday

    As reasons for being late go, a vulture causing a traffic jam would be right up there – but that’s exactly what happened in Peterborough, of all places.

    Vigo, a bone-eating bird with an 8ft wingspan, stunned motorists when it landed in the middle of a busy road in Cambridgeshire on Saturday.

    The bearded vulture, or lammergeier, is rarely seen in the UK. Normally found in Alpine regions, it is believed to have spent the summer roosting in the Peak District

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/11/bone-crunching-vulture-makes-pit-stop-peterborough-road/

    1. I have a question for the Nottler ornithologists.
      Yesterday I saw a bird of prey (beak/claws) sitting on a branch. The branch is dead one sticking far out from a tree and overhanging a field. The branch has been used frequently by buzzards as an observation post for spotting possible meals. This bird was doing the same. However, it was about the size of a pigeon and a brown colour, very reddish on the back. The lower chest was white. The tail feathers were white tipped forming a complete bar across the end of the fan-shaped tail.. It turned round a few times so I could see most of it, although it was around 200 yards away. I have a cheap pair of pocket binoculars.
      Eventually it flew off away from me and vanished into the trees. The wings were quite narrow, and rather pointed at the tips, and almost “double-jointed” in appearance. I’ve not seen one like it. My book of British birds has nothing like it. Does my description provide anyone with an idea of what it might be?

        1. Thanks for that, Maggie, but I don’t think the guide you provided is a particularly helpful one; especially since it is very brief in its advice and there is so much variety in plumage detail in all wild birds. A very basic guide, like that one, is more of a hindrance than a help.

          A top-quality guide, written by experienced top-notch ornithologists, is invaluable. Two I’d recommend are the Collins Bird Guide by Killian Mullarney, Lars Svensson, Dan Zetterström and Peter J Grant; and Birds of Europe (with North Africa and the Middle East) by Lars Jonsson.

        1. No. All regularly-appearing harrier species in the UK (Marsh, Hen, Montagu’s and Pallid) are twice the size (and more) of a wood pigeon.

          2. Good thought. There was only one stripe the end of the tail, though. Front and underneath were quite uniformly pale (it helpfully raised its tail to poop), so I am baffled.

          3. The females and young (both sexes) of the hen harrier Circus cyaneus are known (colloquially) as ‘ring-tails’, like the one shown in your picture.

            Male hen harriers are a uniform pale grey (nearly a ghostly white) with a plain tail and very prominent black wingtips. Both sexes have a distinctive white rump (the area between its back and its tail).

          4. I once saw a male hen harrier in the hills above Nice. I was higher up – and was able to see it fly for about a mile. Amazing sight.

          5. We have a resident pair in a field not more than a mile from here. The female flew through my garden once, at eye level, as I was looking out of the bathroom window.

          6. When I moved to Fulmodeston in 1984, I saw woodcock and snipe quite frequently.

            Haven’t seen either for years and years.

          7. Nor me. I used to get woodcock frequently in Sherwood Forest, usually in the late evening doing their ‘roding’ flight.

            Unfortunately, where I now live, all manner of wading birds are absent. I miss the North Norfolk coast, especially between Cley-Next-The-Sea and Titchwell Marshes, where I spent a lot of my time, watching waders, when I was an honorary Naarfulkian!

          8. Firstborn’s farm houses Golden Eagles and fish eagles, as well as crows, ravens, some kind of hawk that moves too fast to be identified… and the world’s stock of field mice.
            Beautiful to watch, so they are. Just in the treetop, or circling way up in the sky… Sigh

        2. Thanks. No visible spots at all. I’ve been through the bird book and looked at all the falcons and others, including juveniles and rare visitors, and the colours don’t match.

          1. Let’s try and brainstorm this one (I hate giving in!). Two other possibilities are: merlin Falco columbarius and red-backed shrike Lanius collurio.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ee1546ccafc17b29c7c0e8b0b5f9ccc6934abd79dc037148c56c243f5ca0d24d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8c4574c8ff368715c06287def182b9cf0bed1ee7ac2ef2908346f38502fb6faf.jpg The merlin is the smallest falcon and fits with some of your description. Even though it typically has a speckled chest, this is by no means always the case since it can display various morphs.

            Alternatively, although not a raptor, the ‘butcher bird’ (red-backed shrike) has a falcon-like bill and long sharp claws.

          3. Wrong colour for a crossbill (all four species: common, Scottish, parrot and two-barred). The males are red and the females are green.

        4. 16:44
          I’ve had look at my Second Ladybird Book of British Birds (price 2/6) and there is a painting that shows a kestrel with a white tipped fantail. The tail looks pretty much like the one I saw. This bears little resemblance to the photograph in my much more recent book, Complete British Birds Photoguide by Paul Sterry.
          So I think you may be right, although the bird that I saw was darker and with no prominent dark margins on the pale front. It may be a morph. I’ve seen kestrels many times, usually hovering over embankments, although I’ve never seen one around here.

          Thanks to Grizzly and all who had look and made suggestions.

        1. ‘Morning, vw, would you care to post the link, please so that we may share in the laughter?

  41. Phew! That’s better.
    I suppose having a bath at mid-day is a bit odd, but after spending 2½ hours mixing & pouring just short of a ton of concrete, I needed one to stop me seizing up!

    I managed to get it all done and most of the tidying up done before the rain started.
    Now to ignore it until Wednesday at the earliest when, weather permitting, I’ll get the shuttering removed & ready for the next lot of pouring.
    I can also get a start made on the block laying.

    1. A hard days work,
      4-2-1 Bob ?

      I remember a labourer who thought it meant four wheel barrows of ballast two of sand and one bag of cement.

      1. 5 of ballast, to one of cement, or as I loaded it into the mixer, 10 shovels of ballast & 2 of cement. and a bit less than 4 litres of water.

        I have enough concrete laid to get a start made on laying the concrete blocks for the wall, but I’ll need another ton of ballast for the next lot of concrete.

          1. I now need another ton of ballast for the next bit of the wall footings.
            The only problem being having to get it from road level up to the garden.

            My plan is to get a 1 ton builder’s bag of the stuff and shovel it into bags for carrying up.
            Why, I hear you ask, do I not just get it in small bags?
            Because the 25kg bags Salisbury & Wood provide are a tad too heavy and will need splitting down anyway!

  43. Morning all.

    SIR – Professor Karol Sikora (Comment, October 8) is right to expose the “disgusting” tactics of the pro‑lockdown lobby.
    Anyone questioning the blind adherence to failing lockdown restrictions is, as Prof Sikora says, accused of wishing to let the
    virus rip and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths, or of not caring about “killing Granny”. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, is the
    scaremonger-in-chief.

    The irony of this is that it was Mr Hancock’s department that let the virus rip through care homes, where many, including my mother, swiftly
    contracted Covid-19. She survived, unlike many others.

    Having failed with Covid, however, Mr Hancock’s department finally managed to dispatch my mother by repeatedly withdrawing vital treatments
    for her other underlying conditions.

    If we do not regain a sense of perspective, many more grannies are going to be killed as a result of the NHS pursuing a cruel, cynical and
    unjustified strategy of ignoring all other illnesses.

    Ben Giesbrecht
    Swansea

    Ben’s mother must have lived in England. The Welsh Parliament controls the NHS in Swansea. Hence many of its own c)ck ups …

  45. There is something more dangerous for the US, the UK and the rest of the world than the coronavirus, namely that this cadaverous socialist is elected to the most important position in the world.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e5d8b581d07bf68eb37fe55ccd0a0267a453b2641f6dbd902003a30c720e98b.jpg

    The photo was taken on Saturday at a ‘rally’ in Erie, Pennsylvania, attended by all of 20 people!

    Can you imagine that he would last for four years? No? Well then, we will have Harris as President with the equally cadaverous Pelosi as VP.

    3. KENT : Is this the promised end?

      EDGAR : Or image of that horror?

      [The apocalyptic moment in King Lear when the deranged old king comes on stage carrying the body of his dead daughter, Cordelia]

    4. He probably wont even have noticed how many people didn’t turn up and long forgotten by now.
      Well it’ll be good Bye den.

      1. 324476+ up ticks,
        O2O,
        Morning Og,
        Tell me who the bloody hell are they waving at ?
        the nearest peoples are surely in those far of apartments.

        1. The danger for the Dems is that their voters don’t bother turning out if they think it’s a foregone conclusion.

        2. 324476+ up ticks,
          Morning JN,
          Many find it more comforting in selectively believing the polls, then you have the truth / fact seekers, in the main those highlighted via castigation.

      3. To be fair, most of his supporters will be around the same age, and stone deaf. Going to a rally would be pointless they wouldn’t hear anything.

        1. 324476+ up ticks,
          Afternoon HP,
          In the nicest possibly way I must disagree on account today we have hearing appliances ie, EAR TRUMP ETS, I would agree if you had said stone daft.

    6. Although very unlikely, it would be amusing if control of the House passed to the Republicans before Biden vanishes.

      1. 324476+ up ticks,
        Morning JK,
        Year on year since “they” politically bumped off Mrs Thatcher the make believe tory party has been highly suss.
        Check my back post from the mayday placement ALL participants
        in collusion she was the follow on to the wretch cameron, the 9 month delay was to counteract the back foot they were caught on by the 24/6/2016 result.
        As I posted in a recent post they have surely burnt their bridges now even to the most hardened party first, nasal gripping, best of the worst supporter.
        My personal view.

          2. I can’t make my mind up what to have for my ‘English’ Christmas dinner this year. Loin of pork, rib of beef on the bone, or roast duck.

            The Christmas Eve fayre will be the usual Swedish julbord.

          4. Boned, rolled sirloin is good for that meal.*

            * Normally, I’d prefer my meat on the bone.

          5. I’ve always thought tha advertising, instead of “Aaah, Bisto” should be “Eeugh, Bisto”

    3. I asked my daughter what plans she had for her family on Christmas day.
      She said she would be expecting thirty for dinner but that that would be for a turkey funeral.

          1. By the time paralytic Uncle Gary has been dragged out of the garden shed and the grannies have been escorted to the loo and back at least three times, the bird will be cold anyway.

      1. I bought far too large portions of fresh turkey last year (crown and thigh) so froze some. We are all set for Christmas turkey already.

    1. Oh , come on! Get real, Adrian! (May I call you Adrian?). Tens of thousands of jobs have disappeared forever. In theatre, arts, and hospitality, jobs have changed or vanished. This is a result of ill-informed, autocratic, unthought decisions by a panicked Government. No end is in sight. Not only that but no markers have been set out was to what will allow the end of restrictions. Far from it. It seems to be the case that the numbers are made up, modified, adjusted, interpreted and re-interpreted and presented in such a way as to justify decisions in respect of ever increasing, albeit confusing, totalitarian restrictions.

      1. You may call him Adrian, or Archibishop Cranmer (Facebook) and Mrs Proudie of Barchester (Disqus).

        1. Badly injured person calls out to Passer-by :

          “I am dying. Call me an ambulance!”

          Passer-by:

          “All right then: You’re an ambulance!”

          [I agree that not all of the old ones are the best!]

    3. I looked up that government Careers website: it told me that I was suited to be a care home assistant or an embalmer. One could argue that these days they’re one and the same but I’m a bit worried about the way the government seems to view me 🙁

  51. Will this be the proposed new traffic light lockdown tier status interpretation?

    14-day cumulative. ———– Status
    number of COVID-19
    cases per 100 000

    Up to 100 ——————– Yellow (cases rising at a medium rate)
    100 to 200 ——————- Orange (cases rising at a high rate)
    Over 200 ——————— Red (cases rising at a very high rate)

    P.S. Case increase interpretation based on BBC Red button news today 12 October 2020.

    1. What’s a “medium rate”?
      What if the cases are 150, but decreasing?
      What utter rubbish.

  52. Snitch Britain.
    The meter reader has just visited Allan Towers.
    He donned a mask; I told him not to bother as he was merely re-infecting himself.
    He agreed; a few days earlier, he had visited to another house where the woman said the same as me. Unfortunately, she mentioned this to her husband and he (despite not even being in the house at the time) complained to the company.
    The meter reader now wears the mask to save hassle.

    1. Wow! Taking offence in absentia! He must be a joy to live with. Aren’t the general public very odd?
      Good job we’re perfect, eh?

  53. China, Russia and Saudi Arabia set to join UN human rights council. 12 October 2020.

    China, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are expected to be elected to the board of the UN human rights council on Tuesday, leaving human rights campaigners in the countries aghast and pleading with EU states to commit to withholding their support.

    Rights campaigners voice concerns as Cuba and Pakistan also expected to be elected.

    Lol!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/12/china-russia-saudi-arabia-set-join-un-human-rights-council

  54. An agreeable hour picking Bramleys. An enormous crop – the more amazing as, in February, all our fruit trees were properly pruned for the first time in 36 years, and I did not expect to get more than a handful of fruit. Most of the trees produced just one or two apples; Arthur Turner a couple of dozen – but yer Bramleys – wow! Ladder work, of course – but under the MR’s close supervision….

    Though there is no sun – there is no wind or rain, either – and it is very pleasant pottering outside.

    1. We had a big crop of plums earlier this summer. We gave away some to neighbours, and froze plenty more.

      2. Good damsons; amazing raspberries – and a lot of bullaces. And pears galore (William Pears – natch!!)

    1. This is a very scurrilous report – the video should not have been published and the article should have somehow hidden the ethnicity of the brawling nurses.

      1. They have been using prisoners. And that is just one of miles of beach and river estuary. To say nothing, of course about the dozens of destroyed houses and the hundreds of damaged ones.

  57. Apparently the BPAPM says you can go to the gym, but not with your family.

    So (© telly tart) it’s OK to mingle with strangers but not take five members of your family while doing physical jerks…

    Very sound…(sarc) Following the science, no doubt.

  58. 324476+ up ticks,
    Boris Faces Big Brexit Test: Clean Break, Deal, or Another Broken Deadline?

    He has only one way to go which should have been done 4 1/2 year ago
    to regain any credibility, total severance.

    But I will stand by my posting he is the nosecone of the three tier semi
    re-entry missile the wretch cameron & treacherous tereasa being the blast off & intermediate sections.

  60. 324476+ up ticks,
    You have got to hand it to them & their supporters whos continuing faith in them has allowed them to gain the upper hand in the destruction of a once decent society.

    Non submission equates to a £10000 fine or a head / truncheon connection
    When you think £10000 can cover a lot of hotel bills 2/3/4 of them a week
    covers exes at the Dover illegal entry bridgehead.

    Them there Chinese are devilishly clever, would not surprise me if a
    chinese / ersatz tory party connection was found.

  61. Black people will not be respected until our history is respected. 12 October 2020.

    Now I love history. It is fascinating, illuminating and stimulating, but I don’t want to live there. Black history is not perfect. We have had our dictators, our massacres, our warmongers and our evil-doers, and we should not shy away from that. But we have also had our pioneers, our universities, our inventors, great writers, great poets, scientists, cartographers, teachers and philosophers. The police who beat me up didn’t know that.

    They didn’t? I wonder why! The truth is there are no such people. If you look hard enough you can dig out some individual that has ridden on the back of previous knowledge but pretty much everything of worth has been invented, written or composed by Whites or one of their sub groupings in the last five hundred years. Even before that the Middle East invented civilisation itself. The only other group that can stand against this record is the Chinese. Blacks have produced nothing! Even in the present world where they have had ample opportunity to demonstrate their abilities it has led to “dictators, massacres and warmongers”!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/12/black-people-history-respected-teachers-police-benjamin-zephaniah

    1. Why did the police beat him up?

      No doubt there are many successful and worthy black people. I just don’t care that they’re black. I value them as individuals, not as a skin colour. I do object to people pointing to Maya Angelou as a great poet though.

      1. And as for that useless twat Benjamin Zephaniah. He’s bloody awful but he’s on the BBC because…(I’ll leave you to finish the sentence)

    2. There’s perhaps a tendency for Sub-Saharan Africans to claim North African achievements as their own, even though North Africans are Caucasoid and not Negroid.

    4. So far the ‘history lessons’ don’t seem to have included these descriptions of events.

      Burundian Civil War. The Burundian Civil War was a civil war in Burundi lasting from 1993 to 2005. The civil war was the result of long standing ethnic divisions between the Hutu and the Tutsi ethnic groups in Burundi. Thousands killed.

      Rwanda genocide of 1994, planned campaign of mass murder in Rwanda that occurred over the course of some 100 days in April–July 1994. The genocide was conceived by extremist elements of Rwanda’s majority Hutu population who planned to kill the minority Tutsi population and anyone who opposed those genocidal…

      Idi Amin Dada Oumee (/ ˈiːdi ɑːˈmiːn /; c. 1925 – 16 August 2003) was a Ugandan military officer who served as the President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Popularly known as the “Butcher of Uganda”, he is considered one of the cruellest despots in world history. Amin was born in Koboko to a Kakwa father and Lugbara mother.

      Gukurahundi – Wikipedia
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gukurahundi
      The Gukurahundi was a series of massacres of Ndebele civilians carried out by the Zimbabwe National Army from early 1983 to late 1987. It derives from a Shona language term which loosely translates to “the early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”

      Come on peeps keep up.

        2. I hadn’t forgotten, the list could be endless.
          Tribalism is still rife in Africa as you are probably aware of Ellie.

  62. I bumped into the Imam outside the local mosque today so I said

    “Morning Ahmed, I’ve been trying to understand Muslim culture better, I
    know Muslims don’t like pigs but I don’t understand why? Can you please
    explain why Muslims feel so strongly about this?”.

    “Of course” said Ahmed “They are disgusting, hairy, smelly animals that
    bathe in their own shit”.

    I said “I know they are but that doesn’t explain why they don’t like
    pigs”.

  63. We are no longer surprised..

    LAST CHANCE TO APPLY: FOODBANK’S £62,000 DIVERSITY DIRECTOR

    As a result of the pandemic crushing businesses many readers will be having to retrain. As a result Guido thought he would highlight this plum job going at food charity the Trussell Trust, the mission to stop UK hunger, apparently requires a “Director of Diversity and Inclusion”. This seems pretty straightforward, “treat everybody the same”, that will be £62,000 please. You can work from home, so you can probably just put the advice up as an email auto-response.

    According to the advert in The Guardian, candidates must be:

    “Highly expert in the discipline, and able to clearly articulate complex concepts such as power, privilege, bias and intersectional injustice, you will ensure that our organisational perspective on these issues reflects the most considered and comprehensive thinking. The ability to identify and realise shared ‘quick wins’ that capture and signpost our direction of travel will be a distinct advantage. …”

    How this woke nonsense helps people in need of food parcels, baffles Guido…

    2. They will teach the distributors how to tell poor white families that they are already too privileged to benefit, and to sod off.

    3. More like ” able to clearly articulate complete bllx” which us what intersectionality and critical race theory are.
      And what does that have to do with feeding people??

    6. Spaghetti packs only sent to Italians.
      Rice only for Indians and Chinese.
      Mars Bars with Instant Batter mix to the Scots.

      1. Sorry Anne. You’ve failed the Intersectional Injustice criterion.

        Jerk chicken needs rice and who gets all the bananas?

  64. Thought for the day.

    The battle against Covid has been turned into WW3 by the world’s leaders and their new model generals the scientific so-called experts.

    The difference is that roles have been reversed in that the front line troops doing the dying and being injured are the elderly and the infirm, while the young are trying to keep the home fires burning.

    It will be the young who end up trying to rebuild the devasted economies and shattered lives and I fear the process will last even longer than either of the previous conflicts and I suspect the winners will be the globalists and Chinese..

    1. Apparently Blighty finally settled her WWII bills in 2006.
      That means MB and I, plus most NOTTLers, spent their working lives paying off that debt.
      The same future faces our grandchildren.

      1. If only.
        Add a couple of greats to grandchildren I suspect unless they impose Draconian taxes on inheritances and property gains.

      2. The bloody French and Germans should have been made to pay. Instead they were let off and free to boss us around ever since.

        Edit: Whilst plundering our fish stocks, decimating our fishing fleet, stealing our money and charging us for the privilege.

  66. That’s me for this very successful day. Dead pleased about the apples.

    Tomorrow more booze arrives. Domaine du Grand Mayne – (as mentioned a day or so ago). I commend it.

    A demain. – two metres apart.

    1. An absolute bargain at a State pensioner’s weekly pension for a week’s supply, or in your case a couple of days.
      };-O

  67. Boris Gets His Revenge;
    He’s waited 16 years, but BJ has finally got his revenge for being made to crawl to Liverpool.
    He’s shut the place down.

    1. Yet another example of how stupid he is.

      If he really wanted revenge he’d have opened it up!

  69. B? What was A?

    Does Boris Johnson have a Plan B? The country has a right to know

    If tighter restrictions do not arrest the virus’s advance, it is perfectly valid to argue that a different approach is needed

    TELEGRAPH VIEW

    On March 23, the day Boris Johnson announced a national lockdown to counter the spread of coronavirus there were 3,500 people in hospital with the disease, just as there are now. The number of positive tests is growing at close to 20,000 a day. On Saturday, around 70 deaths attributed in whole or in part to Covid were recorded. Worse, whereas in March we were going into spring, now winter is coming and the respiratory diseases associated with the change of season will be exacerbated.

    Essentially, all the ingredients are place for another nationwide lockdown and Mr Johnson is under increasing pressure to order one. Ranks of scientists are lining up to tell us that the virus is “spiralling out of control” and we are “on the brink”. The Prime Minister will today set out what his Government proposes to do about this.

    Tougher controls in parts of the North and Midlands that have already been under lock and key for weeks are expected. Internal quarantines preventing people from travelling to other parts of the country are likely. Pubs and cafés that have desperately sought to make themselves Covid secure in order to survive may well be closed, pushing them over the edge.

    Mr Johnson wants to focus on local measures and avoid another national lockdown “at all costs”, but that would mean accepting that people are going to fall ill and some will die from a pandemic disease, especially in the winter. It would also mean continuing to treat the North more harshly than London and the South. Labour is already manoeuvring to exploit this divide to win back so-called Red Wall support lost last December. In addition to a public health crisis, Mr Johnson is now in a serious political quandary, one most easily resolved by treating everyone the same whatever the levels of infection.

    So far we have avoided the sort of controls seen earlier in the year, when schools closed, people stayed indoors and town centres emptied. But if the same metrics used to justify the spring lockdown are still being used, what is going to happen when colder weather brings an inevitable rise in Covid?

    If tighter restrictions do not arrest its advance, it is perfectly valid to argue that a different approach is needed because the damage of lockdowns, whether regional or national, is so great. Yet everything points to harsher and more illiberal measures for the foreseeable future.

    In March, the principal aim of government policy was to avoid the NHS becoming overwhelmed. Now the stated, official, strategy is to suppress the virus until a vaccine is available. Those two policies are not mutually exclusive: suppressing the virus would mean fewer hospitalised patients. But is it sensible to base a strategy almost entirely on the production of a vaccine that may never arrive and, even if it does, could be months or years away?

    Judging by the polls, the Government has managed to alarm enough people into supporting even tougher measures than those Mr Johnson is preparing to announce today. They have been persuaded that this is reasonable because a vaccine is around the corner.

    Ministers have allowed this perception to take hold, even though they know it is more hope than expectation. In addition, even if an inoculation were available soon, it could only be distributed to a small proportion of the population. The old and sick would get it first because they are hardest hit if they are infected by the virus. Young adults, who are mostly responsible for the current increase, would not be vaccinated, so would still get the virus, as now.

    This reinforces the case for consideration to be given to an alternative that involves shielding the vulnerable while letting everyone else carry on pretty much as normal, but observing some basic precautions.

    How is it rational to prevent students living cheek-by-jowl from getting a virus that affects the great majority of them only mildly, if at all? They are now more likely to become infected when they return home for Christmas and pass it on to older family members. Yet anyone suggesting a different approach is howled down as if uttering a heresy.

    If the current strategy does not “suppress the virus”, is Mr Johnson just going to continue tightening the screw or does he have a Plan B? The country has a right to know.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/10/12/does-boris-johnson-have-plan-b-country-has-right-know/

    1. My daughter is a sports coach at the University. The University has a Covid tracker. So far none of the 3,500 staff have succumbed to the virus. At the beginning of the new year there were a handful of student cases but that number has increased to 50 after 4 weeks. The student population is 18,000. I’ll keep you posted…

    3. Who wants to have half-tested vaccine that probably doesn’t work anyway? It’s better that people build up immunity.

      1. Not me thank you very much.

        The noose is tightening relentlessly and still he gets away with it Truly remarkable

    4. Deaths attributed in whole or in part to Covid. The latter will be people who died of an underlying illness/disease, but who had tested (correctly or otherwise) for Covid. In March, we weren’t testing for coronavirus. Now we are. Surprise, surprise, the number of positive tests is growing. While they were churning out their doom and gloom on the Beeb (I was at a friend’s house and they wanted to watch it), the banner on the screen stated that today there had been 50 deaths reported DOWN FROM 65 yesterday (my emphasis). Well, pardon me, but if there are fewer deaths today than yesterday, the trend is down, surely?

    2. No.

      He is incapable of “intent” (he probably doesn’t even understand what it means – since it’s a word of more than one syllable) – he can’t see beyond the end of the week.

      He may well be destroying the country and the economy – but only because he’s an incompetent nincompoop.

      1. In truth the western democracies are just obeying the directives of the WHO to a greater or lesser extreme.

          11. I made a very reasonable comment regarding the serial incompetence of the government. You posted something which you suggest is evidence of something else, but which is, in fact, simply evidence – as I already said – of serial (and potentially illegal) incompetence. Ergo it is irrelevant to the claim you made.

            From that you leap to “objectionable” and your head henchman posts two personally abusive comments of the sort which you say you don’t permit.

            That’s all very interesting, but not at all edifying.

          12. “How dare you” is personally abusive in your world?

            And “An entirely irrelevant comment, but not more than expected.” is absolutely fine?

            Words fail me.

          13. I’ll just add this. I doubt whether you had previously watched the video, and you rubbished my post within two minutes of my posting it. Had you bothered to watch it, around 22 minutes in, you would have heard a respected barrister opining that the World Economic Forum’s plan for “The Great Reset” is hardly a conspiracy theory. The thing with conspiracies is they’re secret. Klaus Schwab has written books on the subject, so it’s in the public domain – even if the MSM refuse to acknowledge it.

            But – I forgot. You already know everything.

          14. I’ve been following the Dolan campaign quite closely – so your doubts are misplaced. But the comment was still entirely irrelevant to the cock-up v. conspiracy argument. The WEF is an irrelevance too.

            But – I forgot – words fail you.

          15. Sigh!

            If only words would fail you …..

            EDIT: Good God! The cailleach has upvoted me. SInce it seems unlikely in the extreme that she would endorse my wish that words might fail her, I can only assume that in her angry mood, she quite forgot herself and clicked on the wrong arrow!

            As you were …. She’s realised her error. It’s gone again. Standing-by for incoming downvote …..
            :¬))

          16. If you’re trying to goad me into banning you, Jennifer, it won’t work. Many of your posts here are insightful, and appreciated by many, if not all. But it is possible to disagree with someone without being insufferably rude. Try it sometime. Goodnight.

          17. So to comment, on your comment, is insufferably rude.

            How dare you – isn’t insufferably rude
            silly moo – isn’t insufferably rude

            Accusations of bestiality, witchcraft and sleeping with clients aren’t insufferably rude.

            And there’s the serial abuser (witchcraft and bestiality amongst it) at it again – but that’s not insufferably rude either.

            No, I’m not trying to goad you into anything – except maybe opening your eyes, just a slit of vision would do it.

          19. What about calling someone ‘a silly moo’? Is that supposed to be an example we should follow?

          21. Like accusations of bestiality, witchcraft, sleeping with clients and being in denial – along with suggestions that I should shut up – this is all irony, but I’m insufficiently self-aware to know it.

          24. The global coordinated response is no accident.

            Nor the “Build Back Better” slogan they’re all using.

          26. What “global coordinated response” – you mean every country doing something completely different – because that’s what’s actually happening.

          28. Lockdowns……..restrictions……….quarantines…………economies trashed……….not much difference.

          29. Nonsense. But keep your eyes closed and don’t look at what most of the world is actually doing.

          31. New Zealand is not “closed” at all. Quarantine to get in, for sure but no restrictions at all once you’re through that. My niece sang in a concert to a packed hall a couple of weeks ago.

            Take a look and Japan, or South Korea, or even little Taiwan – every country doing something completely different. No coordinated global response – just none.

      2. Everyone in government, everywhere in the world, is an incompetent nincompoop.

        Tell me where we may find a competent compoop.

        1. I’m sure your guess would be as good as mine.

          But I rather think that the present bunch in the UK are worse than most.

        1. Everybody hates a “told you so smartass” so go ahead and hate me I am that smartass, for I knew what he was like before the last GE. As soon as he supported reselection of Conservative MPs who had worked tirelessly to overcome the Brexit result, I lost what little trust I had in him.
          My only surprise is just how quickly he has shown his agenda to us, embracing the green agenda crap, being led by charlatans such as Ferguson, I could go on but you know the story.

          1. Good evening ververyoldfella

            I think we were both reading from the same script. Why on earth did Farage stand down his Brexit Party candidates in seats where the Conservative was a remainer? And why, in God’s name, were so many remainers given honours after the election?

          2. Hi Rastus, why indeed. Not a MP in sight worthy of being PM to my mind. The much vaunted ERG has shown themselves to be just paper tigers, I fear for the country and what we are becoming.
            Now watch Johnson ignore his own deadline this week with the EU negotiations.

    3. I doubt he has the ability to plan for anything.
      This has happened because he was panicked into this nonsense and has surrounded himself with a load of nodding donkeys.

  73. Hindsight is a wonderful thing

    This article is more than 7 months old
    ‘Super-spreader’ brought coronavirus from Singapore to Sussex via France
    This article is more than 7 months old
    Businessman appears to have unwittingly passed bug to at least 11 Britons in three countries

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/10/super-spreader-brought-coronavirus-from-singapore-to-sussex-via-france

    Failures at Austrian ski resort ‘helped speed up spread’ of Covid-19 in Europe
    Commission report into Ischgl outbreak identifies ‘momentous miscalculations’ made by authorities

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/12/failures-at-austrian-ski-resort-helped-speed-up-spread-of-covid-19-in-europe?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1602525803

    Coronavirus – latest updates
    See all our coronavirus coverage

    1. I think it was here long before they “told” us – which is why so many people were ill last winter.

    1. Minty, are you sure that this is not false news purporting to come from Sweden. I can see no sign of Grizzly cooking his mushy peas in the underground train!

      :-))

    2. Are they Mad? Has no one told them there is a deadly virus on the loose? Are they still alive?

        1. Evening Minty. When I look at the Ministers purporting to be our government I ask myself how anyone can believe them?….

          1. 324476+ up ticks,
            Evening S,
            “Anyone” has been returning them to power decade after decade.

  75. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/10/are_covid_case_surges_more_fake_news.html
    “Are COVID Case Surges More Fake News?”

    Well, well, well. Isn’t this interesting. Exactly the same casedemic is being played out across the pond.

    COVID cases are on the rise, or so we are told daily by a hysterical media. Newspaper headlines scream panic as this recent USAToday article proclaimed, “COVID-19 cases rising in 39 states – 9 months into the pandemic: We are overwhelmed.”

    It’s the American people that are overwhelmed. Nine months into masks and lockdowns, with a presidential election just weeks away, facing a daily barrage of doom and gloom from the media. Are cases really on the rise or are these simply positive tests?

    The above article, one of many warns, “A startling nine states setting ominous, seven-day records for infections.” 39 states reported more cases in the last week than they had in the week before.

    If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was being coordinated….

    1. All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances … and their strings are being pulled by faceless puppeteers.

    3. This was posted earlier:

      Does this mean that we can now forget about COVID-19 cases and concentrate on defeating all pathogens that result in coughing with a high temperature and a blocked nose?

      Well it is a good reason to dump the track and trace initiative, give up publishing R (whatever that was) and support local authorities in Tier 3 instead.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/85c2713d3a5293cee4eda38d3181847e598daade5a4d8eaa1733feb1df7118b1.jpg

      1. and as was noted earlier, the flu and very reports being combined into a single report is not saying that only one number will be reported, that is just scaremongering.

        If you want absolute numbers, a report has just been published in the US.on absolute deaths from March to August. Apparently deaths have increased by about twenty percent compared to the same months in previous years.

        That’s over 200,000 deaths. No cause, no attempt to classify as with covid or of covid, just an raw count of those that snuffed it.

        1. But up until now the public has been able to see how effective the Government has been in specifically controlling the COVID-19 virus.

          i.e.

          R<1.0 (cases falling - ease lockdown measures)
          R=1.0 (cases stable - public in limbo)
          R>1.0 (cases rising – enforce more lockdown measures)

          Are you saying we should not discriminate against the COVID-19 virus and just base lockdown measures solely on the mortality rate for all causes and thereby just save the NHS in the UK?

    4. Whatever is going on, the case counts appear to be synchronized across all countries, no matter what measures are taken to stop people socialusing.

      Could it be that superbug has a life of its own,independent of the many conspiracy theories being spread around.

    5. Do you think they might be doing this to try to oust Trump?

      Surely not, an independent press using the USA’s constitutional freedom of speech and the press to fiddle figures to try to stifle freedom of speech, and not merely freedom of speech, the President’s freedom?

  77. Another spine-tingling piece, this one by a little-known Russian composer. One of my favourites, I can remember where I was when I first heard it (Gordano Services on the M5, but that kind of spoils the magic…)

    https://youtu.be/TVakXOkE2G4

  78. Apropos all the discussions we’ve been having about birds; a very noisy vee-shaped ‘skein’ of around 100 common cranes Grus grus has just flown over the house on their way south (to the Med) for the winter.

    1. None of “ours” have flown over yet.

      We are on a major migration path and each year, each way, we get thousands and thousands of them. Very impressive, particularly if a couple of large skeins combine overhead and then set off again with v-shapes sprouting off like a stag’s horns. One often hears them long before one sees them.

    2. How lovely , and what a wonderful sight.

      The other night I was in the garden with the dogs, about 2300 hrs and a flight of geese flew high virtually over head, I could hear them honking , and the sound of their wings was noticeable , I don’t know where they were going , came from South to North , may have been heading for the river or Poole harbour .

      We have a loving pair of wood pigeons billing and cooing and fornicating on my garden bench , and a woodie nesting in a tree in the garden !

      1. This is the time of year when they fly in from the north (Greenland, Russia and northern Scandinavia in particular). Norfolk is a good place to see around seven or eight different species, including: white-fronted, brent, barnacle, bean, pink-footed and the occasional red-breasted. These all come in to supplement the resident greylag and Canada populations.

        2. Every winter, when we lived in the sticks, a pair of Canada geese would arrive in January, commandeer the island in the middle of the pond and produce 4 goslings. They alway flew away during July.
          One year, Mr. Goose arrived with a Pink Footed doxy as well as the missus. PFD produced 2 goslings who were a blurred mixture of Canada and Pink Footed goose.
          PFD only appeared that one year; I assume Mrs. Canada put her webbed foot down.

      3. They may not be fornicating, Maggie – in these days they could have tied the knot and be indulging in their conjugal rights 🙂

  80. Evening, all. I see the pandemic will end in tiers. The whole of my postcode seems to have been shoe-horned into one of the categories, despite the wide variety of settlements it contains.

    2. I’d sooner eat chlorinated chicken than chlorinate myself in a municipal swimming pool!
      That’s why I swim in the SEA (in foreign climes) …

        1. Did my share of skinny-dipping in the local river many, many years ago. Water’s too cold nowadays 😉

          5. There is a tree at the lych-gate which has very soft bark and even if you punch it it doesn’t hurt your hand!

          7. We have a wonderful grove of Sequoia near here, planted in the nineteenth century and now under the management of the Royal Forestry Society – which means that is open to the public (unlike the rest of the estate which is barricaded and sign-posted against all “intruders”).

          8. There are several magnificent Sequoia beside Chatelherault near Hamilton.
            First time I had them pointed out to me was a school visit to Kyloe Woods when I was a lad.

          9. Chatelherault is about 15 miles from us and we have never been! We pass the sign on the M74 when we go to daughters farm in the Borders. Really must stop one of these days – it looks very impressive.

          10. In the summer, if you drop down to the path that passes under the Duke’s Bridge, you will come to a spot where I used to go swimming when my Track Inspection Shifts had us lodging in either Hamilton or Motherwell.

            A view of the Duke’s Bridge on my last trip to Hamilton:
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/16f66e88d016ac0bec892d9b755fe60297b86a7af14e21618e989c8b3077b95c.jpg

            A view up the Avonwater from beside the bridge after the trees had been cleared:-
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/65e07c9cc41efcd08031059d0ff74095642867132adfc5c70a9c89bf5fbdb317.jpg

            4 of the Sequoias beside Chatelherault.
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/44bc18d0381d65a22c1111975247fddda197cd17a423bbf280f5ba9a7b0c050b.jpg

            And this is where I went swimming:-
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/44aedf1e31477e08b78b4616c6a7e070928f7e28fa7916398f893665f949ff38.jpg

          11. It’s always the same with places on the way to places. One is aiming for the end of the journey – and time is never long enough.

            When I first came to live on the Welsh borders my nieces and nephew were quite small and my sister was very good at bringing them to visit regularly; which meant that I explored bits of Wales (and Shropshire) which I would probably never have got around to if I hadn’t had visitors.

            I’ve finally got to exploring bits of the border area now that my younger niece and her family live there.

            She’s on the opposite side, I turn off at Carlisle and go up the A7 nowadays instead of staying on one road all the way from Manchester to Glasgow en route to Aberdeenshire. There’s something rather daunting about the SatNav announcing “follow the course of the road for 200 miles” especially when you know that’s not even half the journey.

          12. Yes you’re right, Jennifer! Sometimes it’s good to be a tourist in your own back yard! Only a couple of years ago the old man and I went for a long weekend to Newcastle and Northumberland. I left there 40 years ago and it was a real voyage of discovery going back. We took in so much we hadn’t seen before!

          13. A friend and I went for a drive last Friday and we went to an old RAF bomber base, still used for flying (we intended to go to the cafe, but we missed it by about five minutes and they’d closed). She didn’t know it was there, despite having lived only a few miles away for several years and regularly visited an old lady who lived less than a mile away from the entrance!

          16. Well that’s very interesting, Bob!I first saw it when I was 6 and now 57 years later I finally find out what it is!

          17. Magnificent trees.
            They also need occasional brush fires, which their bark has evolved to resist, to be able to set seed.
            Unfortunately modern forestry allows an excessive amount of detritus to build up on the forest floor so when a fire does occur it often burns through the back and kills the tree.

          19. It was certainly big when I was very little! Thank you – it really looks like the tree! Where it had been punched over the years it was spongy and soft. Very odd!

          24. I used to hunt with the Curre near Chepstow…..frightfully knobby darling. Couldn’t quite get the hang of riding side saddle!
            The local farmer’s hunt was much more fun, we enjoyed the gallop and left the foxes alone….

          28. I remember hearing the College Valley Hunt Ball being described as “All-in, Freestyle Country Wrestling to Music”.

          29. Steady Bob. A friend of mine used to hunt with the College Valley – and that certainly doesn’t match with her stories.

          31. No.

            She was a university friend who came from that part of the world, her father was hunt secretary in the early 70s.

          32. In which case she probably knew VH!!

            VH was someone I knew who, at a time when I needed a bit of support, provided it.

          37. I also hunted with the farmers hunt near Caldbeck! I was thrilled to be there in the same area as John Peel, but I don’t remember catching anything!

          39. I hunted with the Wynnstay (Sir W W Wynn’s). I’m still a supporter, but I no longer ride to hounds. I’ve also hunted with the Easton Harriers (and on foot with the Cheshire Beagles and the Minkhounds).

          47. I had a half Connemara mare in my teens. She was a red roan and I loved her – even she could be the most stubborn creature on occasions.

    1. Good night, Peddy. I’ve just enjoyed another meal recommended by you on this site: Chicken Broccoli, washed down with a New Zealand Chardonnay Sauvignon Blanc.

  85. With the end of theatre going and the entertainment industries the government is advertising for people to go off and retrain,
    They can’t expect dancers to just waltz off like that can they.

    3. I thought the government was pouring money into the entertainment industry (because it had been destroyed hard hit by their policies). That money we have so much of we’re running a surplus and not having to borrow trillions.

    1. My advice to the citizens of Liverpool would be to comprehensively ignore Boris and his incompetent ministers and advisors, go out and enjoy yourselves.

      Boris and his crew care nothing for you (the cunt has a record on this) and will do anything to try to cover up his inadequacies in failing to deal with the novel coronavirus.

      I would offer the same advice to everyone in the country whose jobs and livelihood has been blighted by this silly Prime Minister and his wretched incompetent government.

    2. My advice to the citizens of Liverpool would be to comprehensively ignore Boris and his incompetent ministers and advisors, go out and enjoy yourselves.

      Boris and his crew care nothing for you (the cunt has a record on this) and will do anything to try to cover up his inadequacies in failing to deal with the novel coronavirus by explaining that the risk of death from it is minuscule in the under 80’s.

      I would offer the same advice to everyone in the country whose jobs and livelihood has been blighted by this silly Prime Minister and his wretched incompetent government.

      1. Any need for such strong language? First time I’ve ever given anyone a down vote.
        Can we keep to the Nottler code of mild expletives?

  87. Wow, the economy must be swimming in money , we can afford to do everything , include welcome illegals in, and dole out money in overseas aid , and prop up the country in a crisis.

    Oh and I forgot , award themselves each £10,000 for office equipment at home at the begining of the Covid crisis, oh yes and of course a £3,000 + payrise recently .

    I suppose the more deaths there are , the less the pension bill will be , but hey , they kidded us all about the austerity thing , but you should see the amount of yachts and motor cruisers there are on the South Coast, huge 4+4s, and second homes , yep , money money money.

    1. The Covid scam is designed to transfer wealth from us to the global elite, to kill us off with a combination of untested and dangerous vaccines (containing nano technology devices designed to track our every move) and to curtail our freedom to travel and much else besides.

      It is high time that people woke up to this global putsch.

      1. I always use Dunn & co for my tinfoil hats, I can recommend them for comfort and accuracy!

        };-))

        Their Bowlers are pretty good too.

          2. I hope not.

            It was tongue in cheek and I would think corrimobile knows my posts well enough to see it as such.

            Look up Dunn & Co.
            Very fine hatters.

          4. Pass.
            My Bowler came to me from my grandfather and it must be at least 75 years old and still lives in the original box.
            I’m prouder of my Opera hat, which must be over one hundred years old and still pops up as if it was a youngster. (or an oldie with Viagra)

            On both of them the fabric is looking its age, but they are fun to take out for fancy dress and the like.

    2. They clearly subscribe to the MMT: Modern Monetary Theory, otherwise known as the Magic Money Tree…

  88. Up here in Scotland thr Councils have warned that schoolchildren will have to wear extra warm clothing when they come to school. This is because all the windows will be open for ventilation because of Covid-19, and heating will be lowered.
    Nothing to do with Councils trying to claw back some costs at the expense of the kids’ health of course.

    1. You don’t understand, the heating will still be on full blast and the costs will rise. They just pretend it will be lowered.

      The children will still be cold but Scotland will be heating the universe.

    2. Weren’t there reports a couple of months back about the rapid spread of Covid in meat packing plants around the world thought to be due to the low temperatures maintained in said plants?

      1. Ah, yes, but that was back then. This Covid-19 stuff isa pretty slippery customer. Just as soon as you think you’ve got it all worked out, it evolves into something else.

    3. Oh, ffs.

      Children don’t get it and don’t pass it on. They don’t have the virus receptors to become infected. This is unscientific lunacy.

      Oh, and I’ve just seen a tv advert from the NHS saying that people should see their GPs if they have any worrisome lumps or signs of cancer. The NHS is here to treat people for cancer, it said. It hasn’t been there for people for months, and Hancock has threatened to withdraw services again if people don’t “behave themselves.”

  89. Completely and utterly off topic.

    This morning the weather report says all is well, no rain for 48 hours.

    We took delivery of three concrete mixers worth of concrete, to lay on the short slope up to château sosraboc.

    Concrete laid, and all is looking very good.

    Suddenly, out of clear blue skies, clouds form.

    And contrary to the forecast of just 12 hours ago we are now due rain. GRRR.

    Hopefully the top set will have cured suffciently to allow any rain to flow off. Given the cost I bluddy well hope so.
    {:-((

    1. After laying my bit this morning I covered it with plywood and a couple of plastic tarpaulins to keep the rain off.

      I’m now planning to ignore it until Wednesday at the earliest!

      1. Have you managed to exclude all the neighbourhood cats Bob? I don’t think we managed to lay a single piece of concrete on the farm without at least one set of kitten-prints decorating it (despite all our efforts at shutting them in somewhere safe).

        1. Having the plywood over the top, suitable supported clear of the concrete, and then covered in polly-tarps should avoid that problem.

        2. Some vandal prised a brick out of the path leading p to the practice entrance. I went shopping at lunch time & on my return found that the hole had been freshly filled with cement. I looked around, there was nobody about, so quick as a flash I slipped off my right Croc & left a perfect peddy-print before the mass set. None of the staff guessed who it was, despite my shoe size.

          1. When I was having the drains repaired, my dog left his paw prints in the wet concrete. They were going to smooth it over, but I said to leave it and wrote his name and the year beside them. When he is gone, there will be a permanent memorial.

      2. I asked whether anything was needed and they seemed confident that all would be fine.

        The rain has only just started, so we’ve had just under 4 hours since they finished off and 9 since they started at the top, so hopefully all will be well.

          1. Ho! ho!.

            Oddly enough, that is what is due to be top-coated tomorrow!

            And you’re damned right we are paying extra!
            {:-((

    2. A similar thing happened to me 45 years ago. Only one lorry load of concrete for a new driveway arrived at around 2:00pm – hard work shifting it into the shuttering. At 3:00pm the sky darkened considerably and we had a cloud burst overhead. Fortunately I had some polyprop tarpaulin which saved the day.

      1. We used professionals this time and having used them a few times before I have confidence in their work, but I must admit I’m still slightly worried. Rain here can go from Abbott to Lewis Hamilton in minutes.

        We had a storm, a while ago, that flushed out a mini-canyon in a couple of hours. The old drive was crushed limestone, great for the ease of laying but vulnerable to exceptional conditions when rainwater poured down the 150 metres of drive and then down the entrance slope, the overflows/circuit breakers could not cope and gave up the ghost

        Not covererd by insurance, (now there’s a surprise!) and we decided to go the whole hog with a total replacement

  92. Making the most of cooking for one
    Saturday roast the chook and make the gravy,hot open sandwich with chook and gravy + a leg to chew on
    Sunday strip the chook freeze a breast for a later curry roast ample spuds and an onion and steam the green veg for the roast dinner Mk 1 with delicious gravy (red wine may have been involved)
    Tonight,fry all the roasted and steamed veg left over in the bacon fat from breakfast,microwave the gravy and pour over the chook for roast Mk 2

    Burp………………..
    (yes I did make a litre of good stock from the remains)

      1. Funny old world with the moans of food poverty I just priced it all at Waitrose(with much veg left over) and it’s 8 quid all in
        Serve a family of four a generous roast dinner at 2 quid a head and the stock + a bit of leek and potato would make an easy meal for four for a few pence more

        1. We had old fashioned chicken (leg) and vegetable stew yesterday. The chick legs (drumstick and thigh) were £1.85 per kilo. Unbelievable good value. We used stock from the chicken carcass of a couple of weeks ago. Food poverty is a whinge from the feckless. We sometimes buy a £4 chicken from Waitrose, roast on a Sunday and enough meat to last another couple of days then make a good pint or so of stock.

      1. I have a CD of Rach 3 played by Cyril Smith. Rachmaninov reckoned it was the best performance he had heard in his lifetime. Unfortunately Cyril Smith lost the use of his left side following a cerebral thrombosis when on a tour of the Soviet Union.

        His career as a soloist ended but he continued playing with his wife, the concert pianist Phyllis Sellick, a favourite of Vaughan Williams, and several pieces for the ‘duet for three hands’ were transcribed and written by notable composers for the pair.

        1. For a moment I thought the Cyril being referred to was the obese player of the pink oboe …..

          2. The original Cyril Smith was one of the greatest pianists of his time.

            He was famous for his performances of Rachmaninov’s Preludes and Piano Concertos, Delibes and his interpretation of Dohnanyi’s ‘Variations on a nursery theme’.

            Just as Emil Gilels, alone among his Russian contemporaries, played Scarlatti on the piano so Cyril Smith played the music of unfashionable composers at the time. Rachmaninov, a great pianist as well as Romantic composer, was out of fashion in his own lifetime.

            Edit:

            I found this account online this instant:
            https://melaniespanswick.com/2020/05/31/pianists-from-the-past-cyril-smith/amp/

  94. London to be put under tier 2 restrictions ‘within days’. 12 October 2020.

    New restrictions on the capital seem likely by the end of the week as coronavirus cases continue to rise.

    As more than 7,700 cases in London are being recorded a week the city is expected to be put into tier two under the Government’s new three-tier system that could see a ban on households mixing and limiting travel to only essential trips.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fb96883b37e540be36e1ad0f710efdf1280b48f2f05ea50a592a37cea66952ad.png

    That’s less than 5 fatalities a day!

    https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/12/london-to-be-put-under-tier-2-restrictions-within-days-13407641/

    1. Fewer than five, Minty. (Peddy has gone to bed, so I’ve taken over as the resident NoTTLer pedant.)

      :-))

          2. But I could keep my hand in now, eh, bb?

            Reminds me of a guy who turned up for his first night shift with us, complete with sleeping bag and pillow; asked where his bed was and was devastated when we pointed out that we were busier at night than during the day and he would be working all night, not sleeping!

            He had come from somewhere rather quiet(er).

    4. The crunch time of the EU deal or no deal scenario is October 15th. What’s the betting there is a corona “spike” – cue horror stories of the “second wave”, the NHS being “overwhelmed” – which will be front page news everywhere on that date, while in the small print on page 113 we don’t actually walk away from the EU but give them yet another “extension”?

  96. I was sure I saw an image of a map of England with Cornwall shown as white whilst the rest of the country had a hue.
    If this was a Whitty Powerpoint slide then Metro have turned it into a confusing slide..
    I note that Metro have added the legend explaining that the Government has split England into three areas of COVID-19 severity of risk. However, Cornwall being white sets it apart from the rest of the country with Percentage increase in Infection Rates of possibly less than zero as a fourth level tier.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e57bcb79ed5456133fe1f9ecf651fd4b1cc8f1871f43728cfc27755b0ce97457.jpg

    https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/12/boris-to-close-pubs-and-ban-overnight-stays-in-england-today-in-strict-three-tier-system-13406524/

    1. The Cornish nationalists will be very happy to see a map of the UK with the Cornish boundary where it should be (since it was dishonestly erased by London in the 1880s, iirc), barely a generation after they abolished excise duty on imports from Cornwall to England!

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