Saturday 17 June: Boris Johnson and his allies must stop derailing the business of government

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549 thoughts on “Saturday 17 June: Boris Johnson and his allies must stop derailing the business of government

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s disgusting story

    Mistaken Identity

    Joe and John were identical twins. Joe owned an old dilapidated boat and kept pretty much to himself.

    One day he rented out his boat to a group of Townies who sank it.

    Joe spent all day trying to salvage as much stuff as he could and was out of touch all that day and most of the evening.

    Unbeknownst to him, his brother John’s wife died suddenly. When he got back on shore, he went into town to pick up a few things at the grocery.

    A kind old neighbour woman mistook him for John and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss. You must feel terrible.”

    Joe, thinking she was talking about his boat said, “Hell no! Fact is I’m sort of glad to be rid of her. She was a rotten old thing from the beginning.

    Her bottom was all shrivelled up and she smelled like old dead fish.

    She was always holding water.

    She had a bad crack in the back and a pretty big hole in the front too.

    Every time I used her, her hole got bigger and she leaked like crazy.

    I guess what finally finished her off was when I rented her to those four guys looking for a good time. I warned them that she wasn’t very good and smelled bad.

    But they wanted her anyway. The darn fools tried to get in her all at one time and she split right up the middle!”

    The old woman fainted.

  2. Boris Johnson and his allies must stop derailing the business of government

    Anything that slows down the globalist nation state self harm program is a good thing, isn’t it?

  3. Boris Johnson compares himself to Julius Caesar. 17 June 2023.

    The article used quotes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar about the Roman Emperor’s relationship with Cassius, in an allusion to his acrimonious relationship with Tory colleagues including Rishi Sunak.

    He suggested that cabinet colleagues slimming had convinced him he would be ousted, writing: “As it turned out, Caesar was right to be worried about Cassius. Then I noticed another colleague whose silhouette was shrinking visibly; and another. By this time my spider senses were jangling.

    Fortunately Johnson is being facetious here since he bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Great Roman. Not so fortunate for the rest of us however. We could do with someone of Caesar’s ability. One of the more astonishing and depressing facts of the present political situation is that there is literally no one of any true capability on the scene. The only Real Man in the European political theatre who adheres to its traditional policies and beliefs is Vladimir Putin. The rest are epicene caricatures sunk in decadence and depravity. With any luck Vlad might bring this obscene pantomime to an end though it may well be the end of us all.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/06/16/boris-johnson-julius-caesar-comparison-daily-mail-column/

    1. 373450+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,

      I can see only two things these tory (ino) political top rankers hold in common with Romans and they are fiddles, and toga lifters.

        1. 373460+ up ticks,

          Morning Anne,

          As in ” E ad a nice little fiddle going there”

          Sad to say, fiddles have been with us since actions in the garden decided it would be so.

        2. Surely they had a parliament or some sort of government – so fiddles must have been invented

          1. Not as in ‘violins’.
            Plenty of fiddles – how else did the bigwigs pay for the gladiators?

    2. Good morning Araminta and everyone.
      President Putin is not squeaky clean, but when a bunch of Africans turn up to demand an end to the violence and some peace talks, the rulers of the West should cast around for a looking glass. (allusion to Snow White)

  4. Boris Johnson compares himself to Julius Caesar. 17 June 2023.

    The article used quotes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar about the Roman Emperor’s relationship with Cassius, in an allusion to his acrimonious relationship with Tory colleagues including Rishi Sunak.

    He suggested that cabinet colleagues slimming had convinced him he would be ousted, writing: “As it turned out, Caesar was right to be worried about Cassius. Then I noticed another colleague whose silhouette was shrinking visibly; and another. By this time my spider senses were jangling.

    Fortunately Johnson is being facetious here since he bears no resemblance whatsoever to the great Roman. Not so fortunate for the rest of us however. We could do with someone of Caesar’s ability. One of the more astonishing and depressing facts of the present political situation is that there is literally no one of any true capability on the scene. The only Real Man in the European political theatre who adheres to its traditional policies and beliefs is Vladimir Putin. The rest are epicene caricatures sunk in decadence and depravity. With any luck Vlad might bring this obscene pantomime to an end though it may well be the end of us all.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/06/16/boris-johnson-julius-caesar-comparison-daily-mail-column/

  5. 373460+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Saturday 17 June: Boris Johnson and his allies must stop derailing the business of government

    In regards to the tory (ino) party inclusive of johnson, a great many of us have been saying just that for a great many years

    This “government” on the political death of Mrs Thatcher was seamlessly hijacked by the WEF/ NWO whos mission ongoing
    is, via the lab/lib/con coalition party to deceive, depress,
    dismantle the unity of the indigenous peoples and with the regular input through the polling booths the majority voter is undoubtedly an WEF / NWO ally.

    Fact,
    RESET via the polling booths and the majority voters input is proving to be a successful construct.

  6. Just had a 40min power cut. UK Power Networks very good with their communication.

    1. You can’t actually communicate when land line phones move to VOIP technology.
      Even the new Government smart phone emergency can’t be guaranteed.
      Makes a nonsense of Power to the People. 🤔

  7. Christian school worker ‘wrongly sacked for her transgender beliefs’. 17 June 2023.

    In one post, she shared an article on the rise of transgender ideology in children’s books in American schools and commented: “This is happening in our primary schools now.”

    She said she made the comments after discovering that the Church of England school attended by her child planned to introduce books on “confusing and harmful gender identity”, including one titled My Princess Boy.

    One of her posts referred to “brainwashing our children” and added: “Children will be taught that all relationships are equally valid and ‘normal’, so that same-sex marriage is exactly the same as traditional marriage, and gender is a matter of choice, not biology, so that it’s up to them what sex they are.

    We say again this is a vicious form of totalitarianism aimed at suppressing Christianity and removing it from the public arena.”

    Yes. Obviously.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/16/kristie-higgs-sacked-transgender-views-farmors-school-glos/

  8. Good morning all.
    A light overcast at the moment with a tad over 10°C outside.

    I wonder if Google Chrome will behave it’s self with Disqus today?

  9. Morning, all Y’all.
    Sunny. Somebody using a circular saw outside masking that oh-so-annoying sound of small birds tweeting…

  10. Good morning, all, Nice sunny day – we shall walk along the coastal path to Monaco….hoping to see a cormorant.

    Firework display last night at 10 pm. Went on far too long.

  11. Could a generous (and wealthy) NoTTLer possibly scan (so that it fits an A4 sheet) today’s Telegraph prize crossword?

    if that person has my e-mail – please send it there. No rush. Lunchtime is quite soo enough.

    1. 373460+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      But the regular voting pattern Og is crying out for more of the same.

  12. Morning, Peeps. Another warm and sticky night, but if the forecast is correct then relief may appear tomorrow with thunderstorms and heavy showers due for some of us. Bring it on!

    Meanwhile, I am delighted to see that the teacher sacked for her ‘trans’ views and comments has finally won her tribunal appeal. The article is here:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/16/kristie-higgs-sacked-transgender-views-farmors-school-glos/

    I dread to think what she has been through to finally win the day over something that would seem to the rest of us to be a mixture of free speech and basic common sense. And all of the nightmare that she has experienced from a C of E school! I look forward to an abject apology from our woke and cowardly Archbishop. I think I’m going to be disappointed on that score.

    A BTL comment worthy of wider reading:

    Aelfwynn Erin
    11 HRS AGO
    She is absolutely correct in her views, and they are shared by the vast majority of the public irrespective of their religion.
    Gender ideology is harmful and is based on regressive, sexist and homophobic stereotypes that belong in 1950s America.
    Issues of adult sexuality have no place in primary schools. This relentless left-wing obsession with sexualising ever younger children has got to stop.
    The safeguarding of children comes before the demands of any minority group or the woke obsession with “inclusion”.
    And that includes safeguarding childhood itself, and allowing children to just be children.
    I am very glad Mrs Higgs won her case and hope that there will be many more successful cases like it.

    * * *

    Very well said, and there are other comments along similar lines. Enough of this now, my blood pressure is bad enough as it is…

    1. The CoE has the situation under control.
      The aptly named Rachel Mann has reached high(ish) office.

      “Church of England appoints Rachel Mann as first transgender Archdeacon

      The novelist, poet and vicar has been appointed to the senior position in a move described by LGBT+ campaigners as a ‘beacon of hope'”

      1. I tried to post the headline last night but my computer was hors de combat so I have reposted above.

        As I remark above it would be stranger to hear of promotion in the CofE of well bred, well-educated Christian men than the promotion of Mr, Mrs, Ms, It Mann.

      1. Ffs. Once more. Facts can’t be “beliefs”. Facts are facts. Men cannot “become” women, and women cannot “become” men.

  13. Good morning all,

    Cloudy at McPhee powers with the chance of a heavy shower, wind East going South by the end of the day, 15℃ with a cooler day in prospect, 21℃ being the forecast.

    I was listening to some Leonard Cohen last night for the first time in a while. Say what you like about ‘Laughing Lenny’, he had a good handle on the way of the World in his oeuvre, one of the best being this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VAxwimExn0

    Give me back my broken night
    My mirrored room, my secret life
    It’s lonely here
    There’s no one left to torture

    Give me absolute control
    Over every living soul
    And lie beside me, baby
    That’s an order

    Give me crack and anal sex
    Take the only tree that’s left
    Stuff it up the hole
    In your culture

    Give me back the Berlin wall
    Give me Stalin and St. Paul
    I’ve seen the future, brother
    It is murder

    Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
    Won’t be nothing
    Nothing you can measure anymore
    The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
    Has crossed the threshold and it has overturned the order of the soul

    When they said repent repent
    I wonder what they meant
    When they said repent repent
    I wonder what they meant
    When they said repent repent
    I wonder what they meant

    You don’t know me from the wind
    You never will, you never did
    I’m the little Jew
    Who wrote the Bible
    I’ve seen the nations rise and fall
    I’ve heard their stories, heard them all
    But love’s the only engine of survival

    Your servant here, he has been told
    To say it clear, to say it cold
    It’s over, it ain’t going
    Any further
    And now the wheels of heaven stop
    You feel the devil’s riding crop
    Get ready for the future
    It is murder

    There’ll be the breaking of the ancient
    Western code
    Your private life will suddenly explode
    There’ll be phantoms
    There’ll be fires on the road
    And the white man dancing

    You’ll see a woman
    Hanging upside down
    Her features covered by her fallen gown
    And all the lousy little poets
    Coming round
    Tryin’ to sound like Charlie Manson
    Yeah, the white man dancin’

    Give me back the Berlin wall
    Give me Stalin and St. Paul
    Give me Christ
    Or give me Hiroshima
    Destroy another fetus now
    We don’t like children anyhow
    I’ve seen the future, baby
    It is murder

    Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
    Won’t be nothing
    Nothing you can measure anymore
    The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
    Has crossed the threshold and it has overturned the order of the soul

    When they said repent repent
    I wonder what they meant
    When they said repent repent
    I wonder what they meant
    When they said repent repent
    I wonder what they meant

    1. Oh well. On that cheerful note, I will buck myself up by going through the summerhouse paperwork again.

      1. I don’t wish to intrude on private grief – but what is the problem? A legal isshoo?

        1. No. A bodged delivery by an incompetent driver.
          We were not warned – as we should have been – of the delivery date and time.
          He turned up while I was still in the bath. Muddled two deliveries and buggered off leaving a ghastly hodge podge of two different buildings. (I do wonder what the other customer thought and did.).
          I checked through the component parts; little resemblance to delivery note or (when I printed it off) the assembly manual. Some items had no reference number and neither MB nor I have the knowledge to sort them out – and, as the customers, we should not be expected to do so.
          Ideally, we should have refused delivery at the time, but we were blind sided by the unexpected. I have been sending very factual and (for me) polite snottograms.
          Stuff being collected today and new delivery to be announced; I have made it very clear that we expect to be informed and that we will refuse to accept goods unless we are given due notice.
          Sonny Boy has also promised to be present; a 6’3″ middle aged chap with an eye for detail is a necessity.
          Aren’t you glad you asked!

          1. I’m cross with myself for not refusing the delivery at the time.
            By the time I’d dried and dressed, I could only stand in the front garden with dripping hair and watch the pile of wooden components build up.
            Bloody angry with my feebleness; it won’t happen again.

    2. I was not a fan though I tried to like his dirges when I was a student at the then trendy new university UEA. However I never went so far as to get tea and oranges that came all the way from China even though I had a lovely girlfriend called Suzy (rather than Suzanne) at the time though I never had a girlfriend called Marianne to whom to say: “so long!”!

      1. He did a very interesting single in the late 70’s, I think it was, entitled “Don’t go home with your hard on”.

  14. Good morning all,

    Cloudy at McPhee powers with the chance of a heavy shower, wind East going South by the end of the day, 15℃ with a cooler day in prospect, 21℃ being the forecast.

    I was listening to some Leonard Cohen last night for the first time in a while. Say what you like about ‘Laughing Lenny’, he had a good handle on the way of the World in his oeuvre, one of the best being this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VAxwimExn0

    Give me back my broken night
    My mirrored room, my secret life
    It’s lonely here
    There’s no one left to torture

    Give me absolute control
    Over every living soul
    And lie beside me, baby
    That’s an order

    Give me crack and anal sex
    Take the only tree that’s left
    Stuff it up the hole
    In your culture

    Give me back the Berlin wall
    Give me Stalin and St. Paul
    I’ve seen the future, brother
    It is murder

    Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
    Won’t be nothing
    Nothing you can measure anymore
    The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
    Has crossed the threshold and it has overturned the order of the soul

    When they said repent repent
    I wonder what they meant
    When they said repent repent
    I wonder what they meant
    When they said repent repent
    I wonder what they meant

    Give me back the Berlin wall
    Give me Stalin and St. Paul
    Give me Christ
    Or give me Hiroshima

    Destroy another fetus now
    We don’t like children anyhow
    I’ve seen the future, baby
    It is murder

    Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
    Won’t be nothing
    Nothing you can measure anymore
    The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
    Has crossed the threshold and it has overturned the order of the soul

    When they said repent repent
    I wonder what they meant
    When they said repent repent
    I wonder what they meant
    When they said repent repent
    I wonder what they meant

  15. Good Moaning.
    Psyching ourselves up for the collection of bodged summerhouse delivery to be removed from Dower House garden.
    (Don’t ask! Let’s just say that negotiating our way to the back door for the past 10 days has been challenging.)
    Currently breathing deeply and reminding myself not to be rude to innocent truck driver.

    1. Lovely. Beaulieu-sur-Mer? Villefranche was our favourite spot. One day again.

      1. The very same. We lived in this block of flats for two years – 2009-2011. It was a hard life….

    2. I was best man to a friend of mine who married a lovely French girl at Villefrance in 1976 and had the reception at Beaulieu-sur-Mer. He is now the godfather of our second son, Henry.

    1. Apparently a quote from a film. Maybe older yanks might understand the reference.

    2. How can one of the most powerful and influential countries on the planet have such a POS AH in charge of anything at all. He’s not fit to clean out drainage.

    1. The only tins I buy or use are the occasional ones of tomatoes but I do rinse them out or they smell and make a bit of a mess.

      1. I keep a cupboard full. Beans, Toms, Sardines, Artichokes, Soups, Veg, Stewed steak, Tuna, Fray Bentos, Corned beef, Fruit and some lucky dip where the labels have come off.

        1. Put at least one tin of corned beef in the fridge, it makes it easier to get out of the tin in one piece and easier to slice.

          1. Yep I do that and if I use it I replace it with one of the 35 I have in the cupboard

        2. I have an ancient Fray Bentos pie and some even older compo soup but it’s just archaeology and I don’t use them.

    2. No, not daft.
      If you are going to recycle used food packaging, including tins, then it is necessary to wash them out to stop them stinking up the recycling bin.

      1. Rinse the tins in the washing up water when you’ve done the dishes. My water consumption is 73 litres a day, a little more than half the average.

      2. … and you can use the old washing-up water, or the boiled-vegetables water. Very effective, too.
        edit: Strike-out because Joseph got there first!

  16. 373460+ up ticks,

    “I’ll be back” not as president you won’t arnie,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    15h
    So the man who said “fuck your freedoms” during the covid con lockdowns thinks he could be elected President in 2024.

    Sadly, he could be right – but only if Trump isn’t running.

    Arnold Schwarzenegger says he could win the race for US president in 2024: ‘It’s a no-brainer’ – The Independent,

      1. At this point, the lizard elites are so desperate to have their candidate in that I wouldn’t rule any rule changes out!
        A “crisis” that calls for an experienced hand at the helm, namely an official third term for Obama, would not surprise me in the least.

      2. 373460+ up ticks,

        A,
        He was born ? I always believed he was constructed,
        flat pack.

  17. Just heard an interview with a bleeding heart wanting the EU to open safe pathways for migrants.

    Why does nobody ever ask these bastards just how many people should be accepted: 5 million, 500 million, 5 billion?
    Because there will almost certainly be that number who would happily swap their homes and wealth for his.

    1. I heard a brief clip of what was probably the same interview on R4 this morning in which a leading member of a left-wing party in Greece accused the country/government of having ‘given up on humanity’.

      We must keep asking the same question: how many?

      It’s the sanctimony that makes me bristle.

    2. “bleeding heart”: that reminds me that the person charged with the murder of 2 students is an immigrant, along with his parents and siblings.

        1. She referred to her own fanny as her “ginger growler” and boasted she’d deliberately flashed it at Boris to distract him.

    1. I made a tw@tter comment about her flashing Boris, and have been excluded for life.
      Ah, me. What a pity

    1. Same old story, They can’t handle the Truth. Which is spread by public opinion.

  18. Morning all 🙂😊
    Today is the first I’ve heard of the terrible storms in the US. Many people have lost their lives and more have had their homes destroyed. I can hardly complain that it’s partly cloudy here today.
    I’m not sure Johnson is guilty of what he’s currently being accused of, the government and Whitehall are hardly running the country with any reference to ingrained public opinion.
    They are still hell bent on wrecking our social structure and culture.
    Let the migrant invaders be encouraged to put their own houses in order. They all come from countries with far larger land masses than the UK and in the long run this will be beneficial for all. Not just those people in boats coming from already safe countries, who seem to have developed the collective idea their lives will be better for scrounging. They have nothing to offer others who live in 21st century countries.
    And we simply cannot afford this continuous drain on our economy. Why are we being subjected to all this ?

      1. janetjH, I think that the importation of tens of thousands of third world young fighting men is a bit more insidious than retribution for Brexit. IMHO these men are the foot-soldiers the government will need when sufficient people wake up to what the government is doing/planning for this Country. This invasion isn’t humanitarian in nature, it’s an attempt at an insurance policy.

      2. Punishment from the Brussels mafia who nobody on this planet earth has ever voted for. Except of course their own kind.

    1. 373460+ up ticks,

      Morning RE,

      Simples Eddy , because via the polling booth
      we condone it, again,again & again.

  19. Off out today to our Swiftie friends in Bristol for their Open Garden day.

    #Bristol Swifts

  20. Derailing the business of government?
    What would that be then, Sunak nodding along to a clearly insane and feeble US President?
    Whatever this bunch of idiots is up to, it’s not “the business of government.”

        1. I did that once, with a slurry tanker (as in, met the stream in the middle – not by choice, you understand). The result wasn’t pleasant.

  21. Avon police chief says it is a racist institution

    Sarah Crew claims finding is based on four criteria but angry officers accuse her of harmful ‘virtue signalling’

    AVON and Somerset’s chief constable has become the first in England and Wales to say her force is institutionally racist.

    Sarah Crew faced a backlash from rank-and-file officers after she posted on the force’s website her statement that the constabulary was by definition

    “institutionally racist” – and probably also institutionally misogynistic, homophobic and ableist [in discriminating against the disabled].

    Ms Crew, who has spent nearly 30 years on the force, said she made the judgment based on four criteria set out by Baroness Casey in her review of the Metropolitan Police. The peer deemed the Met to be institutionally racist, a charge that the force commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, refused to accept.

    The four tests state that a force is institutionally racist if there are racists and people with racist attitudes within an organisation; ethnic minority staff experience racism at work which is routinely ignored or dismissed; that bias is reinforced within the force’s systems; and a force under-protects and over-polices people of black heritage.

    “I must accept that definition fits. I think it’s likely to be true for misogyny, homophobia and disability as well, though gaps in the data don’t give us the sense of scale, impact or certainty that we have for race,” said Ms Crew.

    “I am not talking about what is in the hearts and minds of most people who work for Avon and Somerset police. This is about recognising the structural and institutional barriers that exist and which put people at a disadvantage in the way they interact with policing because of their race.

    “Not being racist is no longer good enough, not for me and not for any of us. It is no longer OK to be a bystander and do nothing.

    “As for the few who do demonstrate attitudes and behaviours which are racist or discriminatory, we remain on a mission to root them out – we don’t want them here,” she added.

    The only other chief constable to have made such a statement is Sir Iain Livingstone, the retiring head of Police Scotland. Both Sir Iain and Ms Crew have faced a backlash from their police federation, which represents rank-andfile officers.

    Mark Loker, chairman of the Avon and Somerset police federation, said it would create a “false narrative and actually drive a divide between our officers and the communities”. While he believed the police should be anti-racist, he said the absence of data supporting taking such a position meant it was nothing more than “virtue signalling”.

    “If this is really about the institution, then we have to recognise that people write processes, people adhere to processes and when we put processes before people, we are feeding a false narrative,” he said.

    “If accusations of institutional racism are levelled against institutions these should – like any other serious accusation – be subject to robust assessment and evidence and show that an institution has treated an ethnic group differently to other groups because of their ethnic identity.

    “The commission warned that there are consequences to the misapplication of the term and it can give a false perception or narrative.”

    All 43 forces in England and Wales signed up to a race action plan in May 2022 that included mandatory training, oversight of stop-and-search, reviewing disciplinary procedures, better communication with black communities and a national standard for recruitment.

    They stopped short of saying forces were institutionally racist, a term first raised over the police by Sir William Macpherson’s 1999 inquiry report on the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

    These political placement pseudo-chiefs need to be weeded out and got rid of. Does this Lefty, idiot, Common Purpose bitch have neither the brains nor the common sense to realise that she has completely destroyed the morale of the members of her force?

    1. If I were working in any organisation where the “leader” dumped everyone else in the sh*t like that, I would leave immediately!

    2. This woman is not a leader she is a follower.
      Not fit to lead a brownie pack, with apologies to the brownies as no offence Intended.

      1. Resignation is not a sensible tactic for those wanting a good pension. Requests for transfer to other forces is a far better stratagem.

    3. Not only that, she has invited every miscreant to shout racist/misogynist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist and whatever other lefty description you can think of.

    4. Bring back General Tufton-Bufton (Rtd) as Chief Constable.
      The feminisation of society is not going well; the tough old biddies of our youth are being replaced by over-promoted human resources inadequates.

    1. More truisms, No. 4. I often wondered just where all those viruses came from that suddenly arrived on our islands. It seems that there might have actually been a linkage.

    2. Ferguson’s mathematical logic is painfully simplistic. If one in a million is affected by something and you have three hundred million people, he assumes that three hundred will be affected, regardless of the difference in their circumstances.

      1. His errors have changed my vocabulary; mathematical errors could be out by a factor, his monumental mistakes are out by a Ferguson.

    3. Neil Ferguson’s statistics about cross-species infection is somewhat disingenuous. How many goats actually died as a result of People Flu?

    4. Ferguson is a fraud and mountebank. He should have been exposed and gaoled long before Covid!

      1. Agreed. Do the number of deaths include the farmers who committed suicide following the destruction of their pedigree herds, all on the whim of Ferguson’s farcical models?

    1. 373460+up ticks,

      Morning Rik,

      Nation security, wots that then, a new department ?

      1. That’d be a way to ensure nothing in them is ever released – especially the truth.

    2. Ah, but Sunak didn’t got to a party. He went to an important ‘work gathering’. Therefore when he said he didn’t go to any parties, he was telling the truth.

      You see, words mean whatever we want them to mean.

  22. Water companies are now starting to tell us not to use too much water.
    I hope this sentiment is getting through to the 100 plus thousand invaders who used water to get here, …… to use water.
    Perhaps some new reservoirs need to be arranged and defy the Brussels mafiosi once and for all.
    Brussels is a making a major contribution to worsening our problems. And all of our problems.

    1. Why should they save water?

      They are living in all expenses paid hotels.

      Many of them come from primitive societies where a shower is a great luxury. They probably enjoy two or three a day.

      The Government doesn’t want to deny them the luxury of frequent showers, why should you?

      1. Don’t tell any of them there may be a shortage, they might be tempted to make it worse for the indigenous.

    2. Why should they save water?

      They are living in all expenses paid hotels.

      Many of them come from primitive societies where a shower is a great luxury. They probably enjoy two or three a day.

      The Government doesn’t want to deny them the luxury of frequent showers, why should you?

    3. The trouble is we are feeble and always give in to the EU even when there is no obligation for us to do so. Sunak certainly has not got the testicular strength to tell Ursula Fonda Lying to go and urinate elsewhere.

    4. Building reservoirs is forbidden by the EU. DEFRA persistently reject water company requests because, to them, it is just a matter of time before we are forced back in to the hated EU.

      1. The Brussels mafia should not be allowed to control what we need. They stopped dredging as well that will silt up rivers and cause flooding.

        1. Yep. This is what remoaners refuse to understand: the EU is a dangerous, idiotic entity forcing a one size fits all arrogance on every country it chains to it and that simply does not work.

      1. I would rather an expensive proclamation of patriotism, dignity and nation than one second of wasted time or money on the bitter stupidity of ‘poof month’.

      1. I’ve never heard of ‘Trooping The Colour’ referred to as the Monarch’s Official Birthday.

        Although HM Queen Elizabeth’ s real birthday was, I believe April 22nd and her ‘Official Birthday’ was 2nd June, the date of her coronation.

        King Charles’ real Birthday is 14th November under those rules his Official Birthday should be 6th May – it’s obviously a moveable feast.

          1. Thank you, Connors. I knew it wasn’t quite St George’s day, just wished it was.

          1. you are making a fool of yourself just google kings b’day parade ans see for yourself.

    1. New series of Black Mirror has started.

      Watched or rather tried to watch the Christmas special from the first series. Hiding behind the sofa now with my fingers in my ears going LALALALALALAH.

    1. For goodness sake, don’t tell the race baiting grifters! Truth and fact are terrifying to Lefties! It’s like bleach in the toilet bowl of their minds.

    1. We kept Mianda in Marmaris Marina for some time and it used to have a very well stocked library to which yotties contributed once they had finished reading a book.

      At one time there were no fewer than12 different copies of The Da Vinci Code on the shelves of the English section and there were probably several in translation on the French, German, Dutch, Italian and Swedish shelves as well.

      1. I wonder how long it will be before one can go to a second hand booksale and not see the blasted Da Vinci Code! At least half a century, I should think!

      2. Most campsites have a bookstore, too. Donated books for sale for charity. If you leave a book you can donate half the suggested amount. I have yet to find a book I should like to read!

    2. I often got people coming into the library to donate sets of books, of all kinds. I had to ask the dates of publication as usually they were so out of date they’d be of little use. Plus, I didn’t have room. Same with Nat. Geo. which was delivered and then archived.
      Also, by then, most reference books were on CDs.

      1. It tears my soul apart to offload books.
        The most traumatic event of the past year was donating lots of my childhood books to the local hospice.
        I hate having to be realistic.
        But enough of my whingeing. How are you getting on?

        1. Not all that well and neither is husband. Shops soonish as hospitals loom large this coming week. We have both had enough.

          1. I am sorry to hear that.
            The heat doesn’t help matters.
            MB is definitely out of sorts.

      2. Every year at the curling club yard sale, we’re receive almost complete sets of national geographic magazine. It seems that everyone’s granny has been collecting the magazine for years and when granny goes to a home, the magazines become homeless.

        Just try getting rid of books nowadays, no one wants them. You cannot even recycle them.

        1. Heartbreaking innit? When you think that books used to be chained to desks as they were so rare and valuable.

    3. I often got people coming into the library to donate sets of books, of all kinds. I had to ask the dates of publication as usually they were so out of date they’d be of little use. Plus, I didn’t have room. Same with Nat. Geo. which was delivered and then archived.
      Also, by then, most reference books were on CDs.

      1. I occasionally throw away books, when they are particularly offensive, and I cannot even bother to take them to a second hand shop.

    4. It may be possible, but to me it looks more like a bookshop.
      The covers look too new and there are too many that appear to be the same pointing face out rather than spine out as is the case in most libraries.

  23. One for Bill…

    Surveys show that the inhabitants of Norfolk enjoy a better sex life than the rest of the UK.

    But I suppose it’s all relative.

    1. Things will improve once the internal combustion engine arrives.
      Then they can travel and meet people.

      1. There was talk of him being the next great liberal leader but I thought that he had been given a nice sinecure at the UN.

        A nice WEF believer.

    1. I’m not sure what anyone expected of a fervent remoaner with massive shares in the tax scam that is climate change.

      He reinforces the deceit of the Left and annoys the rest of us with his lies – that go unchallenged and unanswered because the state refuses to tell the truth and undermine one of it’s own.

  24. We had a power cut today. Power came on about an hour later, but because all the wifi stuff is powered by a device that was off, nothing came on. Of course, because the thing that gives out addresses to the wifi was on a VM and that VM was off….

    Long story short? It took over an hour of fiddling to get everything working again.

    1. The joys of home automation! 🙂 Have you already considered a small UPS to protect you key systems? Apologies if this is an egg sucking Granny comment…

  25. Advice needed.
    I am revamping a mirror, and I need to draw an outline on the wooden frame to highlight the gilt edge.
    I think a ‘paint pen’ would be the best way to produce the fine line I need.
    Has anyone experience of using them and, if so, which would you advise?

    1. Advice seems to be in short supply, Anne? I’m afraid I’ve only grappled with masking tape and acrylic paint on a fine brush.

      1. That is my other option.
        Since I like things done yesterday, I was hoping for a quicker solution.

  26. Well, unless there is more on the way, it looks like the forecast rain has bin & gone!
    A 10 minute desultory splattering of large drops that barely wet the concrete in the yard and made no impression at all up the “garden”.
    Got about half of the rough digging out done for the next bit of Bob’s Folly. The 2nd half has a lot more soil in it though and, quite likely, more rocks.

  27. Many thanks for the crossword help. All set for an afternoon at leisure in resort…!!

  28. Fears Russia is mapping out vital undersea infrastructure. June 17 2023.

    NATO has launched a new center to help protect vulnerable undersea pipelines and cables following the still-unsolved apparent attack on the Nord Stream pipelines.

    It comes amid concern Russia is mapping vital Western infrastructure for energy and the internet in waters around Europe.

    “The threat is developing,” Lt Gen Hans-Werner Wiermann, who heads a special cell focused on the challenge, said after NATO defense ministers gave the green light for the new center, located in Northwood, northwest London.

    “Russian ships have actively mapped our critical undersea infrastructure. There are heightened concerns that Russia may target undersea cables and other critical infrastructure in an effort to disrupt Western life,” he told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

    This is like saying someone is mapping out the Motorways! There is absolutely no mystery where they are. The only undersea installation that has been attacked so far was NordStream and that was the Americans. It’s possible of course that all this is simply preparation for a False Flag attack. We shall have to wait and see.

    https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-russia-war-latest-putin-speech-counteroffensive-kyiv-african-leaders-12541713

    1. I would be highly surprised if the Russians didn’t already have the maps. As, I hope, would the British governm ……… I think my brain has just blown a fuse.

      1. They did have one, but a civil servant lost it while attending a Pride march.

    2. Utter bollocks. You can buy industry maps, you don’t have to sneak around hunting for the infrastructure. Pipelines, cables, platforms, wrecks all marked. We have them in the office.

    3. Ronald Bernard (whistleblower for criminal high finance) did say that at the top level, they all work together.

      The Russians issued a warning the other day that undersea cables were legitimate targets.

      Don’t you get the feeling that we are being prepared for an internet outage?
      This scenario scares me – it’s the armageddon, SHTF one where the food imports stop.

  29. We told you so and we were not wrong, were we?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/87befc1afa8a93150ff6166fa8e6a6e2df1fd120eeb1dd79e28020de98ac5f91.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    BTL

    For many years most people of my generation (I am 76) have argued that a stable property market is dependent upon stable mortgage conditions. We thought that the following rules needed to be applied:

    * Maximum mortgage advance – 3 times income (or 2 times joint income for married couples).
    * Minimum Deposit – 10 % purchase price.
    * Mortgage interest rate fixed at 5% throughout the term of a mortgage – so no nasty surprises when BoE rates rise.

    1. The other side of the coin is that those who did not have mortgages or had paid their mortgages off had to pay for the less prudent by receiving virtually no interest on their bank deposit savings.

      And for as long as inflation is higher than the rate a bank is giving you then you will continue to lose.

      And to add insult to the injury and rub salt in the wound the government will charge income tax on your loss!

      1. The Building Societies Association used to run the show, and they ran it rather well. Then someone came along and ruined it all, in the name of liberalisation.

      1. And then pull hard on it until he choked.
        I like real women.
        Or do you mean her neckline if she looked that awful.

  30. I found this a curious but interesting piece of diplomacy.

    🎙 Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s answer to a question from Rossiya 1 television channel (June 15, 2023)

    ❓Question: French President Emmanuel Macron is very unhappy about Russia’s involvement in Africa, in particular, your actions. He spoke at length about our country preying on anti-French sentiments and stirring them up. Unlike Russia, Paris is offering a “strategy of love.” Which strategy will we offer the African countries?

    💬 Sergey Lavrov: We are offering the strategy of equality. Paris has a lot of work to do to get there. I was surprised by numerous statements by President Macron and other French officials regarding what you have mentioned. These statements are unbecoming of leaders of the democratic world.

    ☝️ Democracy is not only for domestic consumption. The West believes it has the right to impose its domestic democratic rules on others. The principle of the UN Charter – the sovereign equality of states – applies in the international arena. The West has a long way to go to fulfil its obligation under the UN Charter.

  31. Apparently BoJo failed to inform the Watchdog committee of his employment by the Daily Mail as a columnist.

    I wonder idly if Fishy Rishi registered his interest in Moderna?

  32. Just made KFC style chicken in the Airfryer. Coated it in a sweet and sour sauce. Can’t stop licking my lips.

    Went down nice with a strawberry Daiquiri.

    1. I hope you’re not using any poisonous seed-based ‘vegetable’ oils in that air-fryer!

    2. This was a popular song by Jimmy Buffett which I added to my repertoire when I sailed around the Windward and Leeward Islands in Raua in 1985

      The weather is here – I wish you were beautiful
      The beer is too cool the daiquiri’s too fruitiful

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZH-QtdQ71k

  33. Destroying Boris doesn’t alter reality: the deluded Remainers’ EU dream is over

    Rejoiners accuse Brexiteers of lying, while spreading their own mistruths. But slowly and quietly, Britain is turning towards the future

    ROBERT TOMBS • 16 June 2023 • 8:00pm

    Seven years after we voted Leave, Remainers finally got rid of the man they and their EU allies blame personally for Brexit. There rises a great cry … Of what? Of triumph? No, more a vindictive gloat. Whatever Boris Johnson’s manifold faults – and I find it hard to forgive his waste of a historic political opportunity – the language of his opponents tells us much about what has been going on over those seven years and these last weeks.

    The arguments some of them are coming up with are more revealing than they perhaps intend. Matthew Syed in The Sunday Times diagnosed “the psychological state of the UK” as “doublethink” (“to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies”) – then, with a comical lack of self-awareness, blames a whole list of things on Brexit which he must know have no connection with it. Martin Kettle in The Guardian lets slip that the tarring and feathering of Johnson by the Committee on Privileges is “fundamentally about Brexit”. Oh, so it’s not just about whether he misled Parliament, then. It’s about reversing Brexit, says Kettle. Isn’t that what Johnson and his supporters claim?

    To explain Brexit as all down to Boris Johnson (Syed thinks he “cast a spell” over the electorate) shows an amazingly superficial understanding of the politics of the last seven and more years. Do they comprehend nothing of the deep causes, both domestic and international, of the 2016 vote? Nothing about falling support for the EU right across Europe, which led to No votes in referendums in France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden and Greece?

    I’m reminded of a rather grand Remainer in Cambridge who assured me that she at last understood Brexit because her gardener and cleaning lady had explained it. Perhaps the anti-Brexit pundits might try asking theirs.

    There is a psychological process at work when vocal Remainers accuse their political opponents of precisely what they themselves are guilty of – “doublethink” and untruthfulness. It’s an ego-defence mechanism called “projection”; or in common language, the Kettle calling the pot black. There have indeed been plenty of what Remainers love to call “lies”, but they have been almost entirely on the Remainer/Rejoiner side. On the Leave side, the example they come up with time and time again is the famous Vote Leave bus. Compare that with the torrent of false assertions that have been made over seven years by Remainers, and which are still being made.

    I don’t like throwing around accusations of lying. Let us just say that prominent Remainers are not merely economical with the truth: they show a Scrooge-like parsimoniousness with it. It began with “Project Fear”: threatening an immediate recession, mass unemployment, an emergency budget, and huge tax increases. There followed years of cherry-picked pessimism spiced with whoppers so huge that, if they were not deliberate untruths, they prove a breathtaking degree of ignorance both by those uttering them and those believing them.

    My favourite is the reported statement by the Remainer ex-MP Heidi Allen (remember her?) who claimed that eight million people – a quarter of the total workforce! – would lose their jobs. In fact, employment increased by over a million. Later came the statement by the former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, that Brexit had shrunk the economy by a considerable margin in comparison with the German one. But, in truth, Britain had been growing faster than Germany, and still is. The Tory MP Tobias Ellwood has been repeating for at least a year, despite being corrected, that Brexit has caused a 4 per cent hit to the economy.

    On BBC Question Time on June 1, Lord Patten, chancellor of Oxford and hence a man whom one would expect to weigh his words, produced a string of inaccuracies: for example, that due to Brexit the UK is now poorer than Lithuania, and the poorest in Britain are poorer than their equivalent in Poland. Even cursory research would have disproved these statements. Per capita GDP in Lithuania is around half that of the UK when measured in dollars, and the poorest in Poland are around 20 per cent worse off than their British equivalent.

    Those making such statements – and these are but a small sample – are evidently not idiotic people. But they are at best culpably ignorant. Remainers/Rejoiners are reckless with the truth. They pour vitriol over Johnson for misleading the Commons over partygate, but they grossly mislead the country over the greatest political issue of our time, and they do so apparently with a light heart.

    How can one explain this “doublethink”? I am not sure that I can. But I would suggest some possible components. One is intellectual and social arrogance. Another is that the real issue for them is not the advantages and disadvantages of EU membership, of trade relationships, diplomacy and the rest. It is a struggle for political and cultural power, and (as Kettle actually put it in his article in The Guardian) to “take back control”.

    From whom? From the people, of course. So facts are secondary, certainly facts about the EU, about which enthusiastic Rejoiners seem to know and care little. As the philosopher John Gray put it, “they think of themselves as embodiments of reason, facing down the ignorant passions of the unwashed rabble”, and to do so they create “a dangerous myth, in which the EU is a semi-sacred institution”. Hence, capable of miracles and immune to criticism.

    Why worship at this tarnished shrine? We should not underestimate personal interest, vanity, the weight of routine, and even convenience (not wanting to queue en route to the mas in Aquitaine). The economist Sir Paul Collier suggests too that “Europeanism” is a way for the relatively privileged to shrug off their responsibilities to poorer citizens.

    More broadly, it is taking a huge effort – more than we Leavers realised – to turn what one analyst categorises as a “member state” (where the political class derives power and legitimacy from its counterparts in the other states) back into a “nation state” (where power and legitimacy come from the citizens). Rejoiners do not want, or are afraid, to become a nation state again. But they are incapable of making a rational case for EU membership, so they resort to mistruths and accuse their opponents of lying – that ego-defence of projection.

    Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, there are still a few politicians trying to make Brexit work in practical matters, and a few experts (not the sort dismissed by Michael Gove) supporting them. They have to wade against a tide of “progressive” opinion, the inertia of much of the Civil Service and the groupthink of academe, and of course the understandable strategy of the EU to make it as hard as possible – a strategy that influential Rejoiners have all along abetted, as Michel Barnier’s published diaries reveal.

    Nevertheless, there is some progress, political and economic. Long before Brexit, our trade was moving steadily away from Europe, and hence our political and security focus too. Aukus is a post-Brexit recognition of a new alignment. So are the recent favourable trade treaty with Australia and the announced accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). We are starting to unravel EU law.

    However slow it seems, there is coherence here and a turn towards the future. It makes a retrograde policy, pining for a European vision that had faded long before Brexit, ever more chimerical. Destroying Boris won’t change reality.

    Robert Tombs is the author most recently of ‘This Sovereign Isle: Britain In and Out of Europe’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/16/destroying-boris-johnson-doesnt-alter-reality/

    1. The state will never, ever let us leave. It never intended to. Every single action since the vote has been to bring about the carnage they so frenziedly warned about – because they dind’t happen, they’re forcing them to happen and then, then they’ll blame Brexit.

    2. “To explain Brexit as all down to Boris Johnson (Syed thinks he “cast a spell” over the electorate) shows an amazingly superficial understanding of the politics of the last seven and more years.” It also shows a complete lack of contact with the ordinary man (or woman) in the street and a complete failure to understand the way they think.

    3. “To explain Brexit as all down to Boris Johnson (Syed thinks he “cast a spell” over the electorate) shows an amazingly superficial understanding of the politics of the last seven and more years.” It also shows a complete lack of contact with the ordinary man (or woman) in the street and a complete failure to understand the way they think.

      1. I suspect that the Idiot King put his name up himself – he is certainly stupid enough to meddle in politics.

  34. 373460+ up ticks,

    U.S., BRITAIN, DENMARK, AND THE NETHERLANDS RUSH FRESH AIR-DEFENCE AID TO UKRAINE,

    A/C units certainly come in handy in the front line.

    By the same token this chap could have done with a warm air blower, RAF airman who served as the late Queen’s personal footman and carried the coffin of Diana, Princess of Wales, died from hypothermia while homeless after a mix-up meant that he was not provided with an emergency bed.

    NO beds all round for ex vets, if truth be told.

  35. On our walk to Monaco this morning we saw a charming sight. There was a young, brown spaniel rushing up and down the path. His owner – a shapely young woman – was talking to some other dog people. Spaniel continued rushing hither and yon – but obviously trying to tell owner something. She ended her chat – and the dog rushed away then down some steps to a tiny beach (about 10 yards wide) and tore straight into the sea. Owner slowly undressed — ahhhh!! – and then joined dog in sea. He went bananas with pleasure. It was just great to see a very happy dog having fun.

    1. My neighbour Brian has been training Gun Dogs for over 50 years. His Springer Spaniel is a Champion Field dog (retriever?). He has recently acquired a 10 week old brown Springer puppy. Talking to Brian this morning he told me the older dog has already trained the puppy to fetch and obey a variety of commands. Whilst talking to Brian the puppy wandered away but two short quietish blasts on Brian’s dog whistle brought the puppy scampering back to sit at Brian’s feet. (Without the need for any treats!). Brian is regretting not having younger dogs earlier to be trained by the old hands!

        1. Brian tells me the ‘sister ‘of the older Spaniel was trained as a search and rescue dog. Spaniel’s apparently have a fantastic sense of smell that’s why they are used as sniffer dogs. To be certified as suitable for search and rescue. The dog had to find the location of a piece of pork placed in a steel container and then dropped into water 30 feet deep. The dog passed the test. (No I didn’t ask him if the dog had to dive 30’ down)

      1. My elder son’s two labs have been trained like that. Just one word of gesture = instant obedience.

      2. I’m not sure if it’s Kadi who’s leading Oscar astray or the other way round 🙂

  36. Spot the Grizzly word, clue, it’s near the end:

    “After forcing their way in, they discovered the bodies of a man and
    woman in their 30s and the two children. No one else is being sought in
    connection with the incident.

    All four are thought to be related, although police are now formally identifying the bodies and informing their next of kin.

    The investigation is being led by homicide detectives.”

    1. What is a ‘Grizzly word’, Timothy?

      I haven’t a clue which word you mean … or why!

      1. Nor me, George, but answer came there none.

        I can only home in on the American word, homicide, now widely and wrongly used here – they mean murder (I think)

        1. I don’t know if it is an American word. The lesser charge of taking a life known in England and Wales as Manslaughter, is called Culpable Homicide in Scotland.

        2. Homicide is actually an English word, Tom. It is the technical term for ‘the killing of a human being by a human being’. Murder is the accepted word for the crime of homicide.

  37. Russia’s transformation into a wholly-owned subsidiary of China is now complete. 17 June 2023.

    And yet far behind the front-lines, there is also an economic war under way. And it is defeating Putin, regardless of what happens on the battlefield.

    We learned recently that the Kremlin has signed a secret order that will allow officials to seize the assets of “naughty” Western companies at cut price rates and is considering fully nationalising some of them as well.

    The remaining European and American companies that stayed on in Russia after the war – such as the tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris, Unilever, or the brewer Heineken – may soon be in for a huge shock.

    Their assets may be vulnerable to being taken into state control, or shared out among the same group of cronies that have always been the core beneficiaries of Putin’s gangster state.

    In this scenario, factories, warehouses and distribution networks would all be completely lost. And, as if that were not bad enough, those businesses that escape expropriation face potentially huge tax rises as the government also starts planning a raid on the corporate sector.

    Secret Order! Lol! Since the beginning of this affair the West has stolen everything it can get its hands on. Not only Russia’s Foreign Assets but the Private Property of Russian Citizens.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/17/putin-russia-ukraine-china-dependence/

  38. 373460+ up ticks,

    Welcome to Transhumanist Hell: Scientists Create ‘Synthetic Human Embryo’

    Scientists at the California Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge in Britain have used stem cells to create what they call a “synthetic human embryo.” The scientists involved promise they will use the technology for research purposes and not to produce transhuman nightmares beyond our comprehension.

    You can see it all coming th pass, one will get out the window
    and kick of a killing spree inclusive of mass paedophilia, mass murder, etc,etc that will put any lab/lib/con coalition foreign
    import to shame.

    Just the unnatural continuation of the covid campaign on;ly more sinister.

    1. And if humans can do it, what is to stop AI doing the same in this brave new world that they are creating? After all, the research is certain to be published and presumably AI will have access.

    2. If I could rid Junior of my blood condition, if I could get rid of the asthma? You bet I’d leap at it.

    1. ‘Afternoon, Maggie. No ‘of’ in Trooping The Colour.

      Sorry for being pedantic.

  39. Prince Louis charms the crowds (again!) Little royal gives adorable salute as he appears on Buckingham Palace balcony for his grandfather King Charles’ official birthday celebration
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12205451/Trooping-Colour-King-Charles-monarch-30-years-horseback.html

    I am sure that when I was Prince Louis’s age given half a chance I would have behaved as he does. However I was deterred by the thought that if I behaved like a spoilt brat, gurned and drew attention to myself I would have been given a smacked bottom and sent to bed without supper.

    Telling the little monster how ‘cute’ and ‘adorable‘ he is is a sure way of making sure he grows up like his Uncle Harry.

      1. The youngest in the family.
        Solemn older brother who already appears to be aware of his future responsibilities.
        Sister who seems to be channelling her inner Great Aunt Anne (a v.v. good thing).
        Possibly he is indulged as he has no clear role within the family, other than winsome clown.
        But he is only 5, and at that age I’m not sure we would have comported ourselves too gravely in the presence of grand parades and a huge audience.

        1. I think that in reality pictures of Louis are selected to make it look like he is a rouge rogue already. 99% of the time his expressions are unremarkable, most likely the same as all of us.

          1. He doesn’t look particularly red to me. Maybe a likeable rogue already but not red – yet.

          2. Noted! I’ll get me make up remover. Painted men are in fashion apparently. Dont forget its pride month/year

          3. Poor wee lad, who would wish being a Royal on anybody except you worst enemy?

        1. There is too much unpleasantness on this page towards the Royal family. I, for one, do not like it nor support it.

          1. Tourists come to this country for the pageantry and to see the history etc. I doubt it would be the same if there was an elected head of state- and just imagine some of those possibilities!

          2. Problem is, the contrast with the late Queen, advised by Prince Phillip. It’ll take a while to settle down. Nobody likes change.

          3. Not necessarily unpleasantness, just a wish that they could have learned from their parents and tradition, Ann

        2. I was agreeing with Richard and referring to Louis, I must also ask why does the child have a French name?

          1. So does the King. Harry likely as well. It’s likely a family tradition – ours is to have an Alexander in every generation

          2. I was going down the wrong track from Harry to Harold rather than Henry, so I aborted.

          3. Ah.
            No worries… was afraid that was a well-timed aborted insult.
            But to be insulted by you, Tom, would be an honour!
            😉
            Is it warm in Moffat? Air temp here is +30C, they promose deluge of rain, but nothing yet. Long-haired cats (and sons) flaked out – Iceland is about 10C just now, to both boys looking forward to what Firstborn calls “Tee-shirt weather” there.

          4. Blimey.
            Melting here. Off to Reykjavik Monday, family looking forward to coolth, about 20C less than Oslo.
            Me, I like warm, but I’m outvoted. Suggested Bahrein for Easter, nice & warm there, and not alcohol-free.

          5. Maybe, Sos but the the thought of a potential King Louis , ruling England, gives me shudders.

          6. Likely has several names already.
            Anyhow, give the wee lad a chance to grow up and develop a bit – how old is he? 5?

          7. Ah, but would he? I shan’t be around to cringe, when his woke education catches up with him, and he chooses Tracy.

          8. Recent history suggests he could, in the very unlikely event he became King.
            Victoria, Edward VII, and George VI did.
            If he was as woke as Charlie he would choose Tracey, after Emin.

          9. He comes after George and Charlotte and George will likely have children so like Uncle Harry, Louis is only “the spare”?

          10. Since William the Bastard would have been 7th Duke of Normandy, What is the Normandy status of the present Woke Joke?

          11. Although the British surrendered claims to mainland Normandy, France, and other French possessions in 1801, the monarch of the United Kingdom retains the title Duke of Normandy in respect to the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands (except for Chausey) remain Crown Dependencies of the British Crown in the present era.

          12. Are you able to answer the question, Stephen. How sits the Dukedom of Normandy with Charles III?

          13. These are interesting historical facts, of which I have no knowledge. I shall explore further. Any links may be useful, Connors.

          14. I’m afraid I found out the old-fashioned way; I read biographies of Charles II.

      1. He’s five, Rastus. He probably hates all that shit – I know I would, and I’m 62. Cut the poor lad some slack.
        Just be pleased that he shows some spirit – maybe he’s a great option for King in 40+ years time, maybe he can think for himself?

    1. I think they ought to do something about George’s permanent sneer.
      I think it is just a lop-sided smile, but it looks terrible. He is old enough to train himself not to do it in public.

  40. Some bursts of thunder from the south, but weather still sunny.
    My phone IR camera shows the (black) cladding of the house at 70C. No wonder houses are going on fire.

        1. In May 2021, Parris called for the removal of ethnic minority status from Gypsy, Roma and Travellers, describing them “not a race, but a doomed mindset” and called for “a gradual but relentless squeeze on anyone who tries without permission to park their home on public property or the property of others”.[26] The anti-racism group Hope not Hate responded to Parris saying “The Times have published an article advocating for eradicating the way of life of an entire ethnic minority. Absolutely shameful. Solidarity with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people who have to endure this racism, and this mindset.”[27]

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

    1. Another little shit who needs to shut up and get back in his box.

      Full of themselves these tired immature children.

  41. I am in no mood to be messed with today as a young oik found out while I was waiting for my cab home. He observed the two bottle bags in my cart and said, “You ‘avin’ a party?”
    I drew myself up to my full height- all 5’4″ of it and turned and said, in best schoolmarm voice, “Is it your business?”
    Shut the little bugger up. The old bat has still got it;-)

  42. Par Four today.

    Wordle 728 4/6
    🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Another par 4 here

        Wordle 728 4/6

        🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
        ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
        ⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Birdie here.

      Wordle 728 3/6

      🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
      🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Five for me.

      Wordle 728 5/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
      ⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  43. Just read this: Air accident of the day. Were the crew drunk, or just totally incompetent?
    https://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19890617-2

    Date: Saturday 17 June 1989
    Time: 06:28
    Ilyushin Il-62M
    Operator: Interflug
    Registration: DDR-SEW
    MSN: 2850324
    First flight: 1988
    Total airframe hrs: 1939
    Cycles: 546
    Engines: 4 Soloviev D-30KU
    Crew: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 10
    Passengers: Fatalities: 21 / Occupants: 103
    Total: Fatalities: 21 / Occupants: 113
    Aircraft damage: Destroyed
    Aircraft fate: Written off (damaged beyond repair)
    Location: Berlin-Schönefeld Airport (SXF) ( Germany)
    Crash site elevation: 48 m (157 feet) amsl
    Phase: Takeoff (TOF)
    Nature: International Scheduled Passenger
    Departure airport: Berlin-Schönefeld Airport (SXF/EDDB), Germany
    Destination airport: Moskva-Sheremetyevo Airport (SVO/UUEE), Russia
    Flightnumber: IF102
    Narrative:
    Interflug flight 102, an Ilyuhsin Il-62M, was destroyed following a runway excursion accident on takeoff from Berlin-Schönefeld Airport, East Germany. Of the 113 occupants, 21 were killed.
    At 06:20 hours local time the engines were started. Immediately thereafter, the flight control surfaces were unlocked, a process which, according to the cockpit voice recorder, was not completed.
    The crew did not carry out the necessary check of the warning panel on the condition of the elevator. While taxiing for departure, the captain checked for the second time the movement of the elevators but failed to notice they were locked.
    The aircraft was cleared for takeoff from runway 25L and the engines were adjusted to rated power due to the low take-off mass of 113 tons. At 06:28:05 the aircraft reached VR.
    The captain pulled the control column during VR, but the aircraft did not respond. Four seconds later he called out to abort the takeoff. At this time the aircraft had attained a speed of 293 km/h. Instead of using reverse thrust, the flight engineer shut down all four engines. The speed at this time was 303 km/h and the remaining distance to the end of the runway was about 940 meters.
    The aircraft rolled over the end of the runway at a speed of 262 km/h and slightly to the left of the center line. During the emergency braking five tires of the main landing gear had been destroyed. The aircaft crossed an excavation pit of 40 cm deep, causing the right main landing gear to collapse. It then collided with a water tank, concrete piles of the airport fence, a road embankment and six trees. At 06:28:37 the aircraft came to rest and burst into flames.
    Within two minutes, 82 passengers could be rescued alive from the fuselage, which had been broken into three parts. All ten crew members survived.

      1. So much error that they ight well have been drunk. How can you get it so wrong that the “full & free” movement of the control surfaces can be OK even with the control locks on?

      1. I like the Aviation Safety site. And air crash investigations. Typically, the investigation gets to the root cause, and it’s published openly for the rest of us to learn from.
        I occasionally clip from it and send to my colleagues in maintenance, when it’s relevant.

        1. I was lead on an Inquiry into the loss of a Tornado in the early 90s. The bits were recovered from 50m down in the Moray Firth whilst I was down at Boscome Down with the crash recorder. I returned to Lossie expecting to see a duffed up aircraft but as entered the hangar I got the shock of my life, it was in about a million bits, I just wondered who was going to stick it together. The clever chap from AAIB actually found the bits from the relevant fire damaged area and rebuilt a section so we got an impression of what happened. The crew ejected safely. photo below

          1. Some years ago, we came over to North Shields by ferry for the Pickering Steam Festival.
            As we were driving towards Pickering, there was a traffic holdup. Turned out some poor bastard had put his tornado into a field by the road. Small area of wreckage, and that terrible (sweet) smell of kerosene and broken earth. Believe the crew both shot out and were OK.

          2. I’ve picked up bits in quite a few accident scenes and they weren’t all metal 🤢 🤮

    1. June 1989 was an interesting month. Just after Tianemen. A few months before 9/11 i.e. 9th November 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall. I was doing my finals. I did history and my countries were Germany, South Africa, Ireland.

      If I had written then that Germany would ever be reunited, or that Apartheid would be abolished in South Africa, or that there would ever be peace in Northern Ireland, I would have been awarded a big fat zero. And yet 6 months later it was all in train.

  44. The reactions to this week’s events in Nottingham demonstrated once again what I can only describe as the nationalising of grief (you may have a better term for it). The sight of the parents of the two murdered students parading through massed crowds made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. Vigils, concerts, marches and more so often follow some very public deaths (although in some cases people burn their neighbourhoods to the ground as a tribute).

    I’m a graduate of Nottingham University and I’m on the alumni mailing list. This week I received this e-mail:

    Following the tragic events in the city of Nottingham on Tuesday morning, I am writing to share my condolences, my sympathies and my support for everyone in our University community.

    It is hard to find the words to express the shock and grief felt across our institution at the senseless loss of two first year students, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barney Webber, who have had their bright futures brutally curtailed by a seemingly random act of violence.

    Grace was a medical student, thriving in her first year of study and inspired to a career in medicine by work placements in a GP surgery and her volunteering for the nationwide vaccination programme during the Covid-19 pandemic. She was a talented sportswoman, playing International Hockey for both the U16 and U18 England Hockey Team and Essex U15 Women’s Cricket. She was held in the highest regard by her tutors and team mates alike.

    Barney was a History student, with a particular personal interest in geopolitics of both the USA and China. His tutors recall his energy as a student and as fun, friendly, and full of life in his seminars. He too was a sporting talent, playing hockey, rugby and cricket for his school and local clubs and excelling at sports at Nottingham. His role in the Combined Cadet Forces also saw him exhibit his volunteering and leadership skills.

    The University is supporting Grace and Barney’s families at this immensely difficult time, and I have met them to express my deep condolences and offer every support at our disposal – although I recognise that nothing will compensate for the loss of a cherished daughter and son.

    You may have also seen or even attended our campus vigil on Wednesday, joining thousands of our staff and student community to remember our fellow students and show our support for their families.

    Books of condolence have also been opened, which you can sign in-person in the Chapel Lounge on the A floor of Portland Building on University Park, and online.

    Against this backdrop of deep sadness and loss, I hope we can draw some comfort from the public reaction locally, nationally, and indeed globally to this dreadful crime. Nottingham is a wonderful and distinctive city, and our University and civic communities are united both in our grief and in our knowledge that this terrible act is not what our city is about.

    With my deepest condolences,

    Professor Shearer West
    Vice Chancellor
    University of Nottingham

    I simply don’t think I should have received this. Does that make me unfeeling?

    1. No. That is sheer coercion; as you say, the nationalising of grief.
      Ever since the Princess Di farrago, it has become compulsory to weep and wail over people with whom you have no connection. And the parading of families in front of the camera and practically forcing them to utter trite comments about not feeling hate is all too reminiscent of Mao’s China.

      1. It has been suggested on Twitter that the families were crisis actors, to behave in ways in accordance with the Nudge Unit to manipulate the public in the direction govt wants it to go ‘don’t look back in anger’. Nothing would surprise me today.

    2. The Di Spencer, Telly Woman(forgotten her name) syndrome. Overwhelming grief shown by total strangers.

  45. The reactions to this week’s events in Nottingham demonstrated once again what I can only describe as the nationalising of grief (you may have a better term for it). The sight of the parents of the two murdered students parading through massed crowds made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. Vigils, concerts, marches and more so often follow some very public deaths (although in some cases people burn their neighbourhoods to the ground as a tribute).

    I’m a graduate of Nottingham University and I’m on the alumni mailing list. This week I received this e-mail:

    Following the tragic events in the city of Nottingham on Tuesday morning, I am writing to share my condolences, my sympathies and my support for everyone in our University community.

    It is hard to find the words to express the shock and grief felt across our institution at the senseless loss of two first year students, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barney Webber, who have had their bright futures brutally curtailed by a seemingly random act of violence.

    Grace was a medical student, thriving in her first year of study and inspired to a career in medicine by work placements in a GP surgery and her volunteering for the nationwide vaccination programme during the Covid-19 pandemic. She was a talented sportswoman, playing International Hockey for both the U16 and U18 England Hockey Team and Essex U15 Women’s Cricket. She was held in the highest regard by her tutors and team mates alike.

    Barney was a History student, with a particular personal interest in geopolitics of both the USA and China. His tutors recall his energy as a student and as fun, friendly, and full of life in his seminars. He too was a sporting talent, playing hockey, rugby and cricket for his school and local clubs and excelling at sports at Nottingham. His role in the Combined Cadet Forces also saw him exhibit his volunteering and leadership skills.

    The University is supporting Grace and Barney’s families at this immensely difficult time, and I have met them to express my deep condolences and offer every support at our disposal – although I recognise that nothing will compensate for the loss of a cherished daughter and son.

    You may have also seen or even attended our campus vigil on Wednesday, joining thousands of our staff and student community to remember our fellow students and show our support for their families.

    Books of condolence have also been opened, which you can sign in-person in the Chapel Lounge on the A floor of Portland Building on University Park, and online.

    Against this backdrop of deep sadness and loss, I hope we can draw some comfort from the public reaction locally, nationally, and indeed globally to this dreadful crime. Nottingham is a wonderful and distinctive city, and our University and civic communities are united both in our grief and in our knowledge that this terrible act is not what our city is about.

    With my deepest condolences,

    Professor Shearer West
    Vice Chancellor
    University of Nottingham

    I simply don’t think I should have received this. Does that make me unfeeling?

  46. Just back from swim. Now done 1540 steps in total. Tonight’s climb up the cliff was – if not easier, then less exhausting. By the end of next week I’ll be dashing up…!

    Tomorrow we attend a village event to commemorate the broadcast 83 years ago from London by de Gaulle. His rallying call. Given that France had completely collapsed a few days before, it still seems remarkable that he really believed that he (and lots of others) could one day liberate France.

    Of course it is also the208th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. My lips will be sealed! The event ends with a very agreeable apero.

    TTFN

    1. I think he’s wrong about Harari.
      When I read Harari’s books I read a Cassandra figure, who is treated as evil but is actually saying beware what is being foisted upon you by the likes of the NWO.

        1. Harari points out that Hitler and Stalin could not enslave mankind but that, thanks to the technology he proposes, corporations and wealthy individuals can now do so. It could hardly be a plainer statement of intent.

          If that isn’t a warning; I don’t know what is.

          1. Indeed and from the earlier part of your post:

            “Humans are now hackable animals. You know that the whole idea that humans have, you know, this they have this soul or spirit, and they have free will and nobody knows what’s happening inside me, so whatever I choose whether in the election or whether in the supermarket this is my free will, that’s over. ”

            I’ve always read his books as saying “XYZ”, unless YOUas humans do something to stop the likes of Schwab and Gates before it’s too late.

            You saw it over Covid.
            Classic Cassandra. Dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed.

        1. I really do wonder at times whether you have actually listened to any of his talks from start to finish, let alone read any of his books cover to cover.

          And that presupposes that you have even bothered to think beyond the obvious about what he’s trying to say.

          1. I’ve listened to quite a lot of his stuff. Not read his books. Sorry, I just don’t buy it. It’s a common tactic from WEF adherents to warn about bad things that might happen, as though they care about us – while simultaneously making those bad things happen. Harari is a pseudo-intellectual whose role is to get educated people on board.

    2. Bluntly? They’re scared. The statists hate AI because it replaces them. Imagine a thinking super computer with unlimited capacity. What use has it for government deceit, lies and cheating? It can’t be corrupted, doesn’t need money, won’t take bribes, can’t be corrupted by an after office job.

      AI sweeps away every single civil servant and politician at a stroke. All those lies government spins out to ensure it’s growth and continuance? Gone. Climate change? Abandoned as the lie it is. So many things would change by simply removing the political class – no wonder they’re terrified of AI.

  47. The political class is fiddling with Partygate while Britain burns

    One has to wonder: have these self-indulgent, snowflake MPs completely lost their minds?

    CAMILLA TOMINEY, Associate Editor • 17 June 2023 • 10:00am

    Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner talks to the media on College Green, Could there be a better example of fiddling while Rome burns than the Privileges Committee now apparently planning to go after Tory MPs who criticised its report “on the conduct of the Rt Hon Boris Johnson”?

    There is growing talk of Boris-backers, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, also being pursued for daring to suggest that Harriet Harman might not have been the best person to chair an inquiry into whether the former prime minister misled Parliament after she had tweeted: “What’s with those who say PM ‘knowingly lied” but don’t think he should quit? Are our standards so low?”

    Many will think that she should have recused herself from the committee as soon as this comment came to light, courtesy of the Telegraph’s own Christopher Hope, and it certainly shouldn’t be an offence to say so.

    Yet according to paragraph 14 of its report, the committee is now planning a second “special” report, “separately to the House”, to deal with what it describes as “a sustained attempt, seemingly co-ordinated, to undermine the committee’s credibility, and more worryingly, that of those members serving on it”.

    Have these self-indulgent, snowflake MPs completely lost their minds? The whole point of politicians is that they criticise each other and scrutinise the decisions they make: it’s called democracy. This sort of inward-looking nonsense is the last thing anyone is calling for on the doorstep and if the Prime Minister had any sense, he’d try to put a stop to it.

    Just as Mr Johnson is best advised to move on, so too are the likes of Harman and Bernard Jenkin – not least when the latter is now embroiled in his own partygate fiasco.

    A much bigger problem for Rishi Sunak and the Government than whether “Big Dog’s” departure from the backbenches will spark more deselections, however, is the sorry state of Conservatism in this country.

    It’s not just that the public doesn’t believe in the Conservatives any more – it’s that the Conservative Party appears to have given up on Conservatism altogether.

    The Tories have given Thatcherism a bad name – possibly for a generation. That will have much more serious long-term ramifications for the party than recent events.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/17/political-class-fiddling-with-partygate-while-britain-burns

    BTL:
    David Blakeman
    I can’t believe it but I could never vote conservative again. It’s not just Boris witch hunt, look at what happened to Truss. Anyone barely economically literate will recognize by now she and Kwasi were spot on with their Thatcherite agenda. So many missed opportunities happening because one nation social democratic hold the real power in the Conservative Party. Their sustained attempts over the decades for a policy of managed decline is coming into its own under Hunt and Sunak.

    A Bywater
    The Tories will lose their majority at the next election and implode with the electorate putting power in Labour hands. Sometime in the next parliament the voters of ALL ages will realise that socialism holds no answers and Labour will implode. Who will fill the massive gap for millions of voters with no political home is the big question and the outcome could be quite nasty!

    1. Someone on here put me on to the podcast Jerm Warfare. More often than not, I disagree with it, but it’s nevertheless interesting. I finally managed to listen to this episode yesterday on my way to Stansted.

      https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/jerm-warfare/id1475255493?i=1000614857597

      I nearly stopped listening quite a few times but persevered. He’s a Canadian and his theory (?) is that the deep state is out to get us – he goes back to the American Civil War and says it was fomented by the British state and has a lot to say about the politics of Empire, Rhodes scholars and how they have been trained to implement one world Govt. I don’t agree with a lot of it but the nagging doubt remains – what if he is correct? It was a fascinating listen and if he is correct about what “they” have in store for us, it’s very worrying.

      1. Harman was simply out to ‘Get Boris Done’. She’s a leading member of an anti-Brexit group – its name escapes me now but it was in a DT article featured on here earlier this week. Enough’s been written about it – it was simple vindictiveness from the evil witch who gave us the racial, sexual and cultural monitoring programme that is the 2010 Equality Act.

        If it had been anyone but Johnson, it would have ended where the Met left it i.e. a fine, as it was with Mr Half-Mast Of The Giant Box Of Yorkshire Tea.

      2. You may be at the first stage of awakening. Everything you thought you knew and understood about how the world really works may on the point of being turned on its head. Happened to me 3 years ago when I realised COVID was planned.

        1. No, i’m full on in on the conspiracy theories i am just trying to work out what actually is happening and how it is being perpetuated

          1. I have found that, for all practical purposes and for our times, the roots lie with the Rockefeller/Carnegie/JP Morgan business empires in the early 20th Century but may actually lie with earlier elitist organisations such as the Freemasons and the Illuminati. The one man who probably did most to create the organisations which are implementing the Great Reset is David Rockefeller. His influence was everywhere: The UN, Bilderburg, Club of Rome, WEF, Trilateral Commision. He and two of his brothers, Nelson (former US Vice-President)and John D Rockefeller III, grandsons of the original John D Rockefeller, got the climate scam going. The grandfather was in business cahoots with both the Bolsheviks and the Nazis.

            Useful reading is the work of Professor Anthony C Sutton and Patrick M Wood. Sutton’s books are available as free .pdf downloads – Wall Street and The Bolshevik Revolution, Wall Street and The Rise of Hitler, Wall Street and FDR, National Suicide – Military Aid to The Soviet Union. Patrick Wood’s books are available on Amazon:
            https://www.amazon.co.uk/Technocracy-Rising-Trojan-Global-Transformation/dp/0986373907/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1O2JIK43N3CXW&keywords=patrick+wood+technocracy&qid=1687071421&sprefix=patrick+wood+technocracy%2Caps%2C291&sr=8-1
            https://www.amazon.co.uk/Technocracy-Hard-Road-World-Order-ebook/dp/B07KMP239C/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1O2JIK43N3CXW&keywords=patrick+wood+technocracy&qid=1687071421&sprefix=patrick+wood+technocracy%2Caps%2C291&sr=8-3
            His website is:
            https://www.technocracy.news

            HTH.

            BTW, Jerm Warfare is generally a good podcast. I listen/watch on Odysee.

          2. You’re most welcome. Another interesting line of research I’ve just come across is that Rothschilds financed Rockefellers in the creation of Standard Oil in the 19th Century. Whodathoughtit?

  48. 373460+ up ticks,

    May one ask benny boy,

    UNN
    @UnityNewsNet
    ·
    Jun 13
    🚨BREAKING🚨

    Ben Wallace has just announced a further £250 MILLION to the ‘International Fund for Ukraine’.

    This on top of Sunak’s £150 MILLION to house Ukrainians here.

    £400 MILLION in one bloody day!

    If this chap and his ilk, in his case ,lived another day or two would he have been eligible to go on a housing waiting list and at least, whilst waiting get another blanket.

    RAF airman who served as the late Queen’s personal footman and carried the coffin of Diana, Princess of Wales, died from hypothermia while homeless after a mix-up meant that he was not provided with an emergency bed.

    1. 373460+ up ticks

      O2O,

      Watch benny boy Og, he is walking, building up to a trot then into a canter, ready for the full
      gallop all in 15 seconds, some questions “trigger” funny responses.

    2. Meanwhile they are doubling the number of gimmigrants to be foisted on Shrewsbury.

  49. ‘Trying to find a maths or science teacher is like looking for a unicorn’: inside English schools’ recruitment crisis

    Headteachers say there is now a vanishingly small list of subjects that won’t keep them awake at night if a teacher hands in their notice. And with one in four teachers leaving the profession by their third year, according to the Department for Education’s latest workforce census, this matters. PE and history are generally agreed to be the only job ads where you can be confident you will receive replies.

    Schools fear the situation will get worse in the next few years. The National Foundation for Educational Research is forecasting that teacher-training courses will recruit less than half of the secondary teachers that schools need this year, based on applications so far.

    There isn’t enough money in the Bank of England to get me teaching!

    https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/17/trying-to-find-a-maths-or-science-teacher-is-like-looking-for-a-unicorn-inside-english-schools-recruitment-crisis

    1. I love teaching and guiding young folk. But, I’d never do that in school, just the young engineers in my company. Youngsters are great, they often ask so many perceptive questions. It can be a real challenge – I plan, after Iceland, to talk to our two young engineers about bidding for contracts. I hope they will challenge me.

      1. I miss teaching but would not put up with the BS that goes on now. So, glad to be out of it!

        1. Hi Lotl, How is the pain today? I do hope it is improving for you.
          I had the letter today from this week’s consultant referring me to a colleague who carries out Mohs surgery. Seeing it in B&W that I have ‘at least 3’ facial BCCs requiring Mohs surgery and others (face & elsewhere) to be dealt with by unspecified methods, really hit me today.
          Numerous lesions that are, hopefully, nothing worse than actinic keratoses. (Though I think these have the potential to develop into SCCs.
          And a possible Bowens lesion.
          Joy.

          1. Get them to double check the Bowens- I had 2 wrong diagnoses last year saying it was that.
            Pain is constant and the pills haven’t shown up, as expected. I am so very sorry that you also are going through this, it’s bloody awful and I sincerely hope you get better care than I.
            Let’s keep in touch because it does help when someone else is experiencing similar symptoms and anxiety!

          2. The team of Ann and Mum looks indomitable!
            Looking forward to a positive result for the both of you ladies – and soon!

          3. I am so sorry you are still suffering. Continual pain is so horrible, no escape.
            Blasted (it’s better than the rude word!) incompetent and couldn’t-care-less medics.
            Thank you for the hint. I presume they decide on Bowens from biopsies?
            I’m already panicking about the local anaesthetic being jabbed into my nose and forehead, both bony places .. and I don’t even have the appointment yet.
            Yes, we should keep each other updated.
            Goodnight Lotl.

          4. Man… what’s BCC and SCC? I know those TLAs fro crystallography, but not in a medical context.

          5. I think the BCC is basal cell carcinoma and SCC is squamous cell carcinoma.

          6. How can she do that without it showing up here? I’m sure there must be some clever focus pocus method 😁.

      2. I used to like that as well, Paul, Teaching young, not so young and even elderly, how to use an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system and why it was important that they understood the how and the why across the business they worked in.

        My greatest joy, was when you saw the light go on and you knew that, regardless of age, they’d got it.

    2. I love teaching and guiding young folk. But, I’d never do that in school, just the young engineers in my company. Youngsters are great, they often ask so many perceptive questions. It can be a real challenge – I plan, after Iceland, to talk to our two young engineers about bidding for contracts. I hope they will challenge me.

      1. And the admin (“individual lesson plans for all”) and the Ofsted inspections. No support from the parents and being thrown under a bus by cowardly “Principals” lol. No thanks.

      2. And get sacked if they don’t pander to teenagers’ whims about which “gender” they feel like today!

        1. I loved teaching “A” level English. I was not a great scholar but I loved my books.

          When we moved to France and set up our own business teaching Sixth Formers French we could not have been happier and indeed we are still doing it and our courses have recovered from the Covid tyranny and we are still running them and are again fully booked. As long as there are young people wanting to come to us we shall go on.

    3. My greatest regret is that I followed my head and the money instead of my heart.
      I hated my jobs and am almost certain that my true metier would have been as a primary school teacher.

      1. Difficult, isn’t it?
        Maybe after becoming a mature adult, primary teaching was the thing, but early on, might have been a mistake.

      2. My cousin’s husband was a primary school teacher – a headmaster. When he was 50 they got rid of him for a 30 year old BAME woman. I’m sure she is very good. But without the experience of my cousin’s husband. And primary school kids need male role models too.

        1. Fortunately, I’m so old that all that crap hadn’t happened by the time I would have reached retirement.
          I’m not sure I would have wished to be a head teacher.

          1. Can you imagine the shit I would have been in either way in my library? Media Services would have wanted all these gender type books on the shelves; I and most of the staff and parents would not have wanted them.
            I guess the solution would have been to accept them, process them and keep them on a shelf in my office.
            How stupid it has all become.

          2. It would have been my doom.

            I’m a little too inclined to describe things as I see them, not a good route for success nowadays.

          3. All I can say is that I was out of it before all this crap started up. And I do miss teaching.

          4. Silly little things, such as using a longcase clock winding mechanism, to show how something works, where a child can see, feel, experience and understand how a small mechanical advantage can move something as if they were Bob of Bonsall. The delight they get when playing games and you show them how “counting what has gone” can work to their advantage, showing how to do something mundane, such as sharpening equipment can make things so easy…

          5. On Dr. Suess’s birthday, I read the little guys Hop on Pop. Afterwards, we hopped and popped on the bubble wrap which I’d been saving.
            Great fun and teaching doesn’t always have to be dull.

      3. My neighbour, and good friend, retired 8 years ago after 43 years teaching primary kids, ending up as deputy head in a Plymouth school. He really was made to teach, even wrote, and had published, several children’s story books (not famous). Not long ago, after quite a few beers, he admitted how appalled he had become with how the system had changed to an agenda based curriculum. He also believes that that the huge increase in ‘special needs’ kids and Asperger’s kids is down to the huge amount of vaccinations.
        He’s a lovely bloke but has been working in an inherently left wing system, of which is only now waking up to.

        He admits that if you bucked the system you were pretty much out in the cold.

  50. Further to my earlier post about Nottingham…

    Shipston crash – thousands raised by “selfless” teenagers

    TEENAGERS raising tens of thousands for charity after their friends died in a fatal crash have been praised by charities and residents.

    https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/23483028.shipston-crash—thousands-raised-selfless-teenagers/

    I don’t remember this being reported on the news. Did the national media descend upon Chipping Campden?

    I came across this because I was (unsuccessfully) looking for a report on a car crash some years ago in which some Nottingham students died. They were on a ‘Rag Raid’, part of the Karnival charity fundraising week (self-drive trips were subsequently banned by the university).

    I don’t remember a national outpouring of grief then. Of course, this week’s deaths were murders, which makes them particularly newsworthy. Car crashes are commonplace but no less tragic for the parents when the dead are so young. What does it say about all of thus that we treat such incidents so differently? We know what it says about the media…

  51. 373460+ up ticks,

    Flying homo’s, some future,

    Post
    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    3h
    Ha, ha, ha, its always fun when lefties come a cropper of their own making.

    Surprise surprise a Muslim council doesn’t want the celebration of homosexuality. Not all muslim politicians are as cynical as London Mayor Khan.

    Muslims actually believe in something & don’t compromise. Their doctrine says sex with little girls is ok as old Mo’ did it, but he didn’t do sex with men so that’s a big no no.

    In the years to come the big clash of cultures will be between the Alphabet People & Islam. My money is on Islam.

    https://gettr.com/post/p2jwnwdce66

    1. To the LGBTQWERTYUIOP people vis à vis the growing number of Muslims in the UK (and the West) – “Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet”.

  52. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk. I know it’s early but I’m exhausted, having done sweet FA all day. Sleep well.

      1. I’m already thinking that if I awake at 02:00 or 03:00, I shall go down, miles to the other end of the house, and do my washing, free of charge.

          1. Blast bor, I’m a Norfolk Dumpling born and bred but I still know how to ‘Carpe Diem’.

          2. Nah. Chianti (boxed). But, it’s warm & sunny – summer solstice next week, so no darkness, and we’re off towards Reykjavik tomorrow for the first real holiday in years. So, one is a tad cheerful. But I’ll be over it soon.
            BTW, it’s bluddy expensive over there.

          3. Good thought! Maybe there’s some downstairs. Have The Eagles on at the moment, so I’ll search!

          4. Just had a vision of you in a winged helmet- eagles on;-) Sorry, being silly and a bit pissed because I need to sleep.

          5. Kraa! Kraa! Be silly – we need it, too much serious crap these days.
            No cider, but stupid falling-down ginger beer. Maybe I could hug & kiss you before slurping it down? After, I migh be a bit dribbly…
            Hic!
            Have a peaceful zed, Ann. Firstborn has the Viking helmet… and suitable sword (handmade by himself). Big lad, he is, and with the chainmail, very scary!

          6. Don’t try too hard; just relax and let sleep drift over you, whilst thinking happy & peaceful thoughts – if you have to think at all. Don’t think hot, cross thoughts. Just relax, decouple,… and sleep.
            Or, indulge in wild, hugely energetic sex, have a cold shower, and follow the suggestion above.
            😉

  53. Evening, all. I rather think it’s Boris’ enemies that are derailing the business of government. We need to do a Belgium, frankly and get rid of the whole lot to let the country recover.

    1. I sang that up the pub a couple of times, when we still went. Got some applause but no cash;-) Steele Eye version.

        1. I bet they hoped I’d just shut up!

          Done more editing lately- paracetamol, pain and plonk.

    1. Our song is We Have All the Time in the World. Sung by Louis. I only hope we do….

    2. Sometimes we do need reminding of that!! Loved Louis and his music, especially singing with Ella.

      1. After Firstborn was born (a bit traumatic), I went home and played this loudly on the stereo and cried like a baby.
        32 years later, I still tear up when I hear it. The power of music, from a musician without compare. I wish I could have listened to him live, or even better, met him in person.

  54. Phew!
    A last hour put into digging out the next section of base for the Folly, got about half of the soil shifted now and it more a case of adjusting the lines I want and the depth of the base.

    After the desultory spattering of raindrops just before mid-day, we had a 2nd, even more desultory spattering, then as the afternoon wore on, the overcast cleared to a beautiful evening!

    Now off for a cold bath!

    1. Have you thought of a name for your folly? If you haven’t may I suggest:

      Folly Bu@@eres

      1. I named it as the Great Wall of Bonsall. But if the builder wants to call it Bob’s Folly- then so be it.

      2. Can’t agree, Stephen, I doubt there will be many nubile young ladies in frilly knickers, but I’m sure BoB will inform us.

        I tend to think of it as the Great Wall of Derbyshire.

    2. Have you thought of a name for your folly? If you haven’t may I suggest:

      Folly Bu@@eres

  55. Boris Johnson has been handed a betrayal narrative he doesn’t deserve

    Parliament has no interest in uncovering lockdown’s real sins, so we’re stuck in a poisonous cycle of reprisals

    FRASER NELSON • 15th June 2023 • 8:09pm

    Of all the sins for which Boris Johnson deserved to lose his job as prime minister, his public mutterings about office parties would not even make the top 20. It’s easy to forget that he was forced out of No10 not by a technicality or witch hunt, but because he ran a court of chaos under which his own MPs were ultimately unwilling to serve. Harriet Harman’s absurd overreaction to his Partygate excuses has now given him what he doesn’t really deserve: the ability to say he was framed.

    The Privileges Committee report she presided over finds him guilty of “deliberately” misleading Parliament in his false denials – but nowhere in that 108-page document is there any hard evidence of this. We do see an appalling culture in which No 10 was (in the words of one staffer) an “oasis” in the lockdown regime imposed on the rest of us. But did Johnson himself know about those “wine-time Fridays”? He says not, and I’m afraid to say I believe him – knowing, as I do, a bit about how he operates.

    He lives in a world of plausible deniability, using a combination of his intelligence and his clownishness to play dumb when it suits him. He can sense when things are going on that he’d best not know about. He knows not to ask and those around him know not to tell. The culture under Dominic Cummings, then his chief adviser, was one of seeing him as a “wonky shopping trolley” that was supposed to go in whatever direction they pushed it but sometimes didn’t. His hands-off style worked when he did my job editing The Spectator and when he was London mayor. But not in No 10.

    That’s why he failed as prime minister. His aloofness doesn’t diminish his culpability; in many ways, it makes things worse. His lack of grip meant his government descended into a disgraceful shambles that squandered his historic election victory. Those of us who spoke brightly about his potential as prime minister have had to feast on humble pie. But there is not a shred of evidence proving that he knowingly misled MPs. So making him the first prime minister in history to be denied a pass to enter Parliament will look to many like a deranged overreaction.

    The use of legal technicalities to destroy political opponents is, overall, a deplorable trend. The ministerial code, which is now held up as the golden rule book, prohibits (for example) government announcements being made outside Parliament or telling anyone what is said in Cabinet. So ministers can preside over policy calamities and keep getting promoted – but send a message from the wrong email account, violating Section 2.14 of the code, and you’re out on your ear. It’s a sign of a deeply dysfunctional system.

    Parliament is not much better, as the Privileges Committee’s report proves. No one can fault the MPs for the rigour or energy with which they investigate and attack each other – but where was this energy when the lockdown rules were being designed? Where was our forensic democratic apparatus when it was needed the most? Our MPs abandoned their posts, signing emergency Covid powers long after the emergency ended. It was almost as if they were relieved to ditch the responsibility. Parliament is intended to protect against an over-mighty government. Where, during lockdowns, was that protection?

    And where, for that matter, is the 30,000-word report into the unexplained surge in excess deaths, or why the rate of sickness benefit claims has doubled since the lockdowns? Why doesn’t the Health and Social Care Committee ask whether lockdowns actually worked? The official Covid inquiry looks set to avoid this awkward question, so Parliament can step in. But all parties backed lockdowns, so it suits none of them to ask such difficult questions. Far easier to fire bullets into Johnson’s political corpse.

    Our MPs summon television executives to give evidence about the Phillip Schofield drama – as if this is in any way their concern – but they do not ask social media firms how and why they censor voices critical of lockdown policy. Nor have they summoned Whitehall officials to explain why the “counter-disinformation unit” was targeting critical academics, as this newspaper recently revealed. The desire to seal each other’s political graves – with expulsion or police investigations – sucks up energy that should be directed at unresolved scandals.

    This furious report into Johnson’s behaviour would be fine if it was one of many investigations, or if there was a long committee report into why Sage forecasts were so wrong, with such fateful consequences. But politics in general seems to be stuck in a cycle of reprisals, with MPs blowing poison darts at each other – or indulging in hissy-fit resignations, forcing constituents into a by-election just because they get bored. Or a better job offer. Or, as with Nadine Dorries, that they did not get a better job offer.

    In his defence, Johnson claimed that leaving drinks are a vital work function as they allow a team to cohere. But how many of the 119,000 fined by police under his needless laws were given the chance to make a similar defence? His rules saw a beggar fined £434 for having his cap out at King’s Cross station; au pairs fined for dropping off a birthday card for the children they cared for; police swooping on children’s birthday parties. All such criminalisation, it now seems, was unnecessary. Where’s the anger about that?

    As one of the most successful campaign winners in British political history, Johnson has done himself no favours by resigning in a huff rather than staying to face his constituents. He should, at the very least, have let them decide his fate. The three by-elections will portray the Tories as the party of petulance, full of MPs who see their constituents as pawns in a game of vengeance. A party for which the sense of duty comes some way behind its own feuds.

    On Monday, the Commons will vote on whether to take away Johnson’s House pass – to close down the threat of using his status as a former MP to return for a G&T in Strangers’ Bar. When his drama finally ends, both parties might reflect on whether it might be time to lift the focus away from each other, and back to the constituents they’re supposed to represent.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/15/boris-johnson-handed-betrayal-narrative-he-doesnt-deserve/

    BTL:
    Annabel Partridge
    Fraser has spotted that there is no hard evidence in the Privileges Committee report of BJ having “deliberately” misled Parliament. Unsurprising, as evidence of “deliberate” intent is hard to pin down, to say the least. That’s why this word doesn’t appear in criminal legislation – doh – and why, for hundreds of years, it was never in the parliamentary privilege rules – doh again. The simple sin of “misleading Parliament” was deemed enough by previous parliamentarians by itself to trigger resignation and censure (and, sure enough, that’s how BJ fell from being PM), without quibbling over whether it was inadvertent or deliberate. Normal people don’t care: if it’s inadvertent, the PM is incompetent and if deliberate, then he’s dishonest but, either way he’s not fit to be PM. Job done, move along, hello new PM.

    But then, in 2022, the committee suddenly decided to add “deliberately” to the definition. Jurisprudentially pointless and unwise, the only possible purpose of this move was to enable the committee to state definitively that BJ is a liar, in the frustratingly obstinate absence of any other concrete evidence since 2016. Now, his opponents could say at last, if the committee concludes he’s a liar, then Lo! He really is one! We were right all along! and no-one can dispute it (at last!). That’s a kangaroo court, if ever I saw one.

    That there is no actual hard evidence behind the committee’s conclusion simply reveals its kangaroo-y nature. This is not unlike the proroguing of Parliament case, Miller No. 2, in which Baroness Hale jumped (sorry) with zero discernible grounds to the conclusion that the PM’s use of the proroguing prerogative was unlawful, despite the fact that it was the PM’s, er, prerogative to prorogue.
    These are political decisions and we all know it.

    1. Harridan Harperson is the most unlikely person to chair a committee into another’s misdemeanours, she is an out and out hypocrite who reaches a decision long before she’s heard arguments before and/or against.

      A pure-bred lefty hypocrite of the first water. She needs exposing as the bigot she is and always has been.

  56. Goodnight, all. Early night for me tonight (early start for church tomorrow morning).

      1. Keep that for winter half year, especislly at Firstborn’s – no light pollution.

          1. Reminds me of the marvellous Terry Wogan who plugged it with great gusto and thought it had something to do with human spray!

          2. Glad to see you know your film stars, molamola, and – unlike me – know how to spell his surname. (Or is it just that, like me, you enjoyed Terry Wogan’s morning radio show? Lol). And, looking at your post, I HAVE only just realised that he was a major character in CASABLANCA.

  57. I am going to bed, perchance to sleep- Please Mumisbusy keep in touch- we are fellow warriors.
    Sleep well Y’all and I wish you all the best.

      1. No, no pain or discomfort. Just dentist bills coming up, I think. I hope nothing serious.

  58. Night night all .

    No rain here , so I watered the garden again, one hour it took or more , has been a hot day .

    Son ran in the 5k Weymouth Park run this morning .. did it in under 20mts .. He has gone from couch potato to a lean athlete in a year , gave up booze , the lot and plenty of gym work, as well as a hard days slog at work earning .. 54 years , a mid life crisis !

    Moh made a delicious prawn stir fry , easy really, He watched the Ashes , then this evening Golf , the US open , in between snoozing etc .

    More music for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYNDoRDuQ-Q

    1. The Ashes are looking interesting. I was prepping pollack (caught on Thursday) in a herby tomato sauce with cheese topping as I watched it.

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