Friday 10 September: Smoke and mirrors cannot conceal the need still to sell your house in order to pay for care

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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653 thoughts on “Friday 10 September: Smoke and mirrors cannot conceal the need still to sell your house in order to pay for care”

  3. I used to defend the BBC. Now I’m switching off. 10 September 2021.

    But my patience has now come to an end. The Today programme, in particular, has completely crossed the boundary from which it could previously have been regarded as a plausibly authoritative, if biased, guide to the national discourse to a place where it seems to have given up all pretence to an objective point of view.

    Morning everyone. Well done Mr Howard. You can join Nottl next!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/09/used-defend-bbc-now-switching/

    1. The core problem with the NHS is not lack of money. It’s the NHS itself. This failing monster — kept going through the dedication and heroism of the vast majority of its doctors, nurses and front-line support staff — is deemed an untouchable sacred cow by every government because of the vast affection it engenders in the British public, for whom it remains just about the last collective institution to engender a sense of collective purpose and national pride.

      Amen to that Melanie.

    1. Any proof or is it just reported to cause her pain.She would have remained neutral that people mistake for support.

      1. Indeed, and the article doesn’t actually say she supports BLM, just taht she works to pull society together. Quite a different point.

    2. The report of the Queen supporting BLM was by a ‘person of colour’. Perhaps he was over-egging the pudding?

    3. Sir Ken Olisa, the first black Lord-Lieutenant for London, told Channel 4
      the Queen and the royal family are supporters of BLM and ‘care about
      making Britain bound by the same values’

    4. As the Black Lives Matter is a divisive anti-capitalist movement I don’t understand why anyone would claim that the Queen supported it.

      The actual quote is :

      “They [the royals] care passionately about making this one nation bound by the same values.”

      Hardly a divisive anti-capitalism statement!

  10. In the middle of this article, there is a paragraph that explains why MPs abstained, rather than voted against the NI increase; i can see the reason behind it. Johnson and his gang are building up a lot of resentment.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/09/new-tory-awkward-squad-forming-can-save-conservatism/

    “A new Tory awkward squad is forming. Can it save Conservatism?

    Red Wall MPs are worrying that Boris has rejected the message that won them their seats

    9 September 2021 • 9:30pm

    For years, Boris Johnson will have dreamed of wielding the kind of power he holds today. He enjoys strong popularity, a stonking majority and – thanks to the emergency Covid powers – minimal parliamentary scrutiny. His Cabinet will rubber-stamp whatever he brings them and, in Sir Keir Starmer, he has a gofer rather than an opponent. Rarely has a Prime Minister had a better opportunity to shape politics and the national debate.

    This makes it all the more baffling to see him re-enacting the Blairite agenda he was lambasting 20 years ago, on these pages and in The Spectator. He held NHS-worship up to ridicule and pilloried Tony Blair for raising taxes when he had promised not to. He argued, quite persuasively, that the most vulnerable in society are badly let down by a naive assumption that every problem can be solved by throwing money at it. His words, read today, lose none of their force.

    Where, he asked, is the evidence that “taxes, if taken and spent exclusively by the Government, will deliver a better health service?” Countries who have a far better record of health care provision, he said, spend less and deliver more because they “do not rely exclusively on a top-down monopolistic health service.” It is all very well to treat the NHS as a religion, he said “but it is legitimate for some of us to point out that, insofar as it is a religion, it is letting down its adherents very badly.”

    This is precisely the point troubling his party right now. Breaking their manifesto pledge on tax is just about survivable if the cash genuinely “fixes” the NHS backlog and care home crisis. But as things stand, it will be swallowed up by the same top-down NHS system. Any debate about this system – or the insurance schemes used in other countries – is heresy to a religion in which Tories pose as the high priests. As the Prime Minister now puts it: “This is the party of the NHS.”

    Over the last few days, I’ve spoken to a number of Tory MPs who have been stunned by the recent events. As befits the regal nature of Johnson’s No10, even his Cabinet were not given advance warning of his plan – yet all MPs were asked to vote on it the day after the announcement. The evening before, a few dozen of them gathered in the private room of a Westminster pub, ordered pies and compared notes.

    The mood was one of bewilderment and disorientation. Important questions were raised: what about the experience of Catalonia and Canada in care homes? Both have used new technology to look after the elderly in their own homes, in a way that’s doable here – and would make private insurance more viable. What about exploring such reforms in Britain, rather than expanding the old NHS model? What about asking the wealthy to insure against the costs of their own care, rather than tax the working poor?

    They weren’t going to vote against. There was no time to organise (No10 had seen to that) nor was it clear what they’d be rebelling against given how vague the Government’s plans were. They knew the politics: blame the pandemic and talk about the NHS backlog, even though the real aim of the tax rise was to further nationalise social care. They also knew the internal politics: Conservative whipping has improved and those who defy the government can expect an indelible black mark against their name.

    But it was interesting to see who abstained. Jake Berry, chair of the Northern Research Group of MPs, Lee Anderson (Ashfield), Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) – all from Red Wall constituencies. Dehenna Davison, perhaps the best-known of the new northern MPs, listed her concerns: why should the wealthiest qualify for an £86,000 cap on care costs? Why raise tax via National Insurance, when there are fairer ways of doing it? You might see, in this, the beginnings of a new awkward squad – who have a vested interest in keeping Toryism alive.

    One of the new MPs there spoke about his problem: he’d been elected after selling conservatism to his constituents. He told them about the power to choose, the right to own and the moral case for low taxation: strengthening communities by letting people keep more of the money they earn.

    As Sebastian Payne argues in his forthcoming book on the north, the Red Wall turned Tory largely because of rising prosperity. Labour’s message of grievance and victimhood was out of date. Towns like Consett, near Durham, might be famous for steel closures but are now as affluent as many in Surrey or Buckinghamshire.

    For such voters, Brexit might have marked the end of the old tribal allegiance with Labour but they have for some time been ripe for the traditional, low-tax, pro-growth conservative message.

    This a point that Boris Johnson makes with some passion. The North, he tells allies, was won by Thatcher not lost by Corbyn. This is why he rejects the idea of North-vs-South split in his party: Tory voters from all over Britain, he says, have bought into the classic one-nation conservative mission.

    But how to square all this message with his decision to increase taxes to the highest level in British peacetime history? This is what worries his new MPs: that they end up looking like frauds, having sold a Conservatism that they were unable to deliver and even their Prime Minister did not really believe in. Five years might go by without a palpable Tory difference. But we now have odd Tory quirks, such as upping tax on care home workers to safeguard the assets of millionaires who might one day need personal care.

    Demolishing Labour’s Red Wall is Johnson’s proudest achievement, so he ought to take the discomfort of his northern MPs seriously. If they are to become a new awkward squad, they might have more power and influence than the usual Tory suspects – and if they can’t back his new agenda, he has a more serious problem.

    They stand a better chance than perhaps anyone else of reminding him of his critique of tax-and-spend Blairism – and persuade him that he really was right the first time.”

    1. ‘Morning, Anne. No cabinet discussion beforehand, eh? Perhaps its members need to grow a spine and tell him to stick it until there is. I see the Fishwife pulled a similar stunt yesterday by announcing the vote on vaccination passports just hours before it took place. No doubt both are pleased with their handiwork.

      1. MS Sturgeon has bypassed the need for an “Enabling Act” by bringing the Greens under her control. In every other respect her seizure of power compares closely to that followed by the late ReichsChancellor. The opposition, completely ineffective before, may now be ignored and has been. Ms Sturgeon has introduced “Vaccine Passports” without defining where they are to be required e.g. “nightclubs” – what is a a “nightclub”?

    2. 338698+ up ticks,
      Morning Anne,
      They are as one, the NI vote clearly shows that, they have been peacemeal building this type infrastructure these last 30 plus years, the last 5 years quite openly.

      Personally as long term member of UKIP I always finished a post with join UKIP,and went into overdrive post referendum especially on hearing ” WE” won leave it to the tories, no need on UKIP now.

      I wanted to see a credible opposition party and one was building under the Batten leadership, hence stronger forces & covert assets could see the threat looming and successful treacherous action was taken.

      The electorate have a political treacherous tiger by the tail and prefer that in lieu of people power used wisely.

  11. SIR – When Sajid Javid replaced Matt Hancock as Health Secretary I thought: “At last, someone who understands economics and can help Rishi Sunak in his solitary rearguard action against the stupidity that prevails in No 10.” How wrong I was! It took a week before the “Blob” had absorbed Javid.

    The NHS will soak up this extra money like a sponge, and there will be nothing to show for it.

    Derek Thornton
    Bracknell, Berkshire

    1. SIR – You report (September 9) that the NHS is recruiting 42 senior executives at salaries of up to £270,000.

      Such management excesses are common in the 217 NHS trusts in England. A trust in Derbyshire is advertising for an Assistant Director, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, at £73,000 a year, whose woke job description reads like a parody of management excess.

      Sajid Javid now presides over this bureaucracy. Has he any credible plans to direct taxpayer money to the clinicians and nursing staff who actually interact with the patient?

      Michael Staples
      Seaford, East Sussex

  12. A COP26 Issue

    The UK is dithering over the need to use its own coal rather than import foreign coal to keep powering its remaining coal fired power stations that are required to augment the electricity necessary to retain ongoing essential industry and domestic demands.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/09/09/cumbrian-coal-mine-careless-diplomacy-economic-idiocy/

    China, Russia and India in particular appreciate that the use of fossil fuels and rare earths are key factors in the progressive industrial development of their countries just as the UK discovered in its own industrial revolution.

    The abandonment of Afghanistan by the US and its allies has left an administrative vacuum that presents opportunities for the earth’s mineral resources to be garnered for the industrial benefit of China, Russia and India.

    What they have to contend with however is an Islamic State that is incapable of managing its own affairs and abiding by negotiated diplomatic agreements by virtue of its doggeness in sticking to the Sharia Law as interpreted by the Taliban.

    This is a state that will happily resort to violence if intruders attempt to challenge the will of Allah. Unfortunately the pen is not mightier than the sword in their Islamic culture.

    https://youtu.be/MRYQBo4P-ow

    1. In their dreams!!
      The West,having been chased out of Afghanistan,would like nothing better than to see these other countries get embroiled in a similar mess.It won’t happen.
      What i can see is China upping their mining activities(for which they already have an agreement) and the US/UK/NATO deciding they need to practice their killing skills a bit more.This is when it will get interesting .
      China have the means to fire back at any aircraft which threaten their operations.
      I read yesterday that China are now considering a tit-for-tat operation where they will place some of their warships off the US coast .

      1. The Russians lost 40,000 men in Afghanistan. They won’t be going back. They won’t be sending the Kremlin cook’s doorkeeper’s dog back either. A Russian chef who worked for me had done his national service in the army. The cohort ahead of his had been sent to Afghanistan. None of them came back. He was quite pleased that Russia had withdrawn before he was sent there.

    2. The Chinks will soon be forcing us to buy opium sourced from Afghanistan. Revenge is a long term affair in Chinese minds.

        1. Correct.
          I find it amazing how people are unable to recognise the words “Electrical and Mechanical” between the “Royal” and “Engineers” and so assume they are the same as the Royal Engineers.
          Admirable as REME are, they most certainly are not the REs, for a start, they are pretty useless at building bridges!

          2. REME
            Rough Engineering Made Easy
            Motto
            If it won’t move ‘it it wiv an ‘ammer.
            It it still won’t move, get a bigger ‘ammer.

          4. RAF Engine fitters tool kit:

            Hammer
            GS (General Service screwdriver)
            Scrubbing brush

            Fix it, fuck it or scrub round it.

          5. Or , as they say in the Orficers Mess

            If it won’t move ‘it it wiv

            An iir cooled hand and arm operated percussion tool, which when used properly, is capable of
            applying a force.both with power and direction to an inananimate object.

            Otherwise, it is a Brummigum Screwdriver

          6. or blowing them up. My son was in the cadets at the then home of 39 regmt Royal Engineers, Waterbeach.They showed him how to blow up a bridge at camp.( and what to drink.)

  14. Good Morning All. A whole 13° after a damp night. Overcast, muggy & dull at the moment but not raining.

  16. This week, on BBC Radio 4 I think,, the French said that the reason their boats shepherded the invaders’ boats across to and often into British waters was to guide them safely through the busy shipping lanes of the English Channel. In my opinion this makes them party to the people smuggling gangs and open to prosecution for their illegal acts.

  17. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, should be asking her French counterparts one very simple question: if Border Force, the RNLI and journalists can see boatloads of illegal migrants in the English Channel, why can’t the French see them?

    The answer is simple: the French are getting rid of their unwanted migrants by allowing them to come to Britain while being paid £54  million to do next to nothing to stop the problem.

    They are running rings round Priti Patel and Boris Johnson.

    Stefan Reszczynski
    Margate, Kent

    Quite so, Mr R. Whoda thunkit?? I hear also that Priti Useless wanted French police beach patrols accompanied by a British plod in every case. Dream on! That would mean that we can check the French ‘prevention stats’ at source, which are probably plucked out of the air at best.

    1. Wasn’t it around 2001 that we started paying the French to clear the Sangatte camp? How much Danegeld have we paid the French over the last twenty years, which they happily pocket and then continue to wave their migrant dross through to our welcoming shores?

      1. Morning Kuffar. The money has almost certainly gone into the Swiss Bank Accounts of the Officials concerned!

    2. 338698+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      As I posted yesterday, seen as a business venture the french are on a continuing winner with every boatload OUT on saved welfare alone, without considering civil
      problems.

  19. Delingpole: Creepy Australian Officials Start Using ‘New World Order’ as a Talking Point

    Two senior medical officers have, shockingly, said out loud what a lot of ordinary people already noticed: Australia is sliding inexorably towards a ‘New World Order.’

    New South Wales (NSW) Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant (pictured) used the sinister phrase during a Thursday press conference, in response to a question about reopening after the interminable lockdowns imposed by various Australian states.

    Chant replied:

    We will be looking at what contact tracing looks like in the New World Order and yes, it will be in pubs and clubs and other things…

    https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1435880844716019715?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1435880844716019715%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Feurope%2F2021%2F09%2F09%2Fdelingpole-creepy-australian-officials-start-using-new-world-order-as-a-talking-point%2F
    *
    *
    *
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/09/09/delingpole-creepy-australian-officials-start-using-new-world-order-as-a-talking-point/

    1. My Aussie mate was utterly shocked when I said that I don’t trust governments. When he asked why, I said because their motives are unclear, often against my interests, and they can force me to comply against my wishes, by killing me if they wish (police drew a gun on a protester in NSW a week or so ago, for example). This instance here is just more evidence why I do not trust governments.

    2. To be fair, at least they are being open and honest about their intentions, unlike Boris who will bring this all in surreptitiously

  22. Morning Each,
    May one ask,
    Are smoke and mirrors going to be a shipping hazard in the English
    channel ?

    Friday 10 September: Smoke and mirrors cannot conceal the need still to sell your house in order to pay for care

    3. It is one thing showing compassion to a sloth; but would he still be so magnanimous with avarice, envy, gluttony, lust, pride and wrath?

      1. Don’t worry T-B – you have the Lady’s final Us Open Tennis to watch at the weekend. Two bonny teenagers in the match. I will be suffering after another Newcastle loss in the football premiership.

  26. The first day of the final test has been cancelled as the Indian team refuses to play on laughable grounds, patently so they can win the series and return early to play in the lucrative IPL.

    Suffer the poor spectators, fans and cricket organisations relying on the gate and media money. It brings shame on the Indian team, captain and authorities.

    Edit: At the time of starting to write this only the first day had been cancelled, now the whole test has been cancelled. B@stards.

    Funny that they carried on playing the 4th test when they were winning and the back room positive results came out. B@stards.

    And this all started when they broke the Covid bubble rules. Shameless b@statds.

    The Indians should cough up the ECB’s £20m loss, compensate ticket holders, compensate traders such as food stands and forfeit the test.

      2. They’re claiming force majeure due to Covid, leaving them winning the series if they’re allowed to get away with it.

    2. The groundsmen cannot be happy either. They put in a lot of work to keep the pitch in excellent condition, I’m sure. They won’t like it being laughed at.

  27. On Wednesday I went for a walk up the road to the cemetery. It is quiet. I sat on the one memorial bench and enjoyed the sunshine. Why has a slatted wooden bench become the ongoing model? They are uncomfortable. On the way back I looked out over the fields. The farm workers were collecting the big round bales of hay and stacking them on a trailer to be borne away to wherever bales of hay go. (Bales are carried in all directions. Travelling to Hawick one is held up by slow moving tractors pulling trailers of hay South. Coming the other way are tractors pulling trailers of hay North.)
    As I leaned on the fence watching them work in the distance I thought, maybe, just maybe, all is not yet lost.

    1. Tracator drivers all seem to know which route I will be taking and they always ensure that there is slow-moving tracator infront of the car.

      Just as it is about to turn into a field, side road etc, Tracatorman tells his mate in the next field, by mobile phone, it is essential for him to pull out onto the road

      I am not paranoid……………am I?

      1. It’s the same organisation that predicts my route and sends out workmen to dig up the road before I can get there!

      2. It’s the same organisation that predicts my route and sends out workmen to dig up the road before I can get there!

      3. No, not at all. That is exactly how it works. If one could consider it credible that tractor drivers went to school, one might think that they were trained to do this.
        Around here the trailers have a flashing light in the middle of the rear end. This discourages overtaking as it is hard to discern whether the blinkers are on or off.

    2. Good morning Horace.

      I am glad you have raised that question about bale laden lorries .
      We have the same here , many many articulated lorries full of bales and large swissroll hay travel from our flat lands here in South and North Dorset to the hillier regions of Devon and Cornwall where they don’t grow grain crops .

      The bales are fodder and bedding for their grazing animals

      Here we grow barley and wheat and other grains and plenty of grass for hay .

      The maize hasn’t been gathered in yet, and some of that is also used for fodder but also for this new additive to fuel , Ethanol.

      1. Bales are also used in fuelling farmers’ generators and I have seen them used to block gates to prevent fly tippers.

  28. We enjoyed watching the athletics last night on the box, and there were so many wonderful competitors of all colours , and some amazing races and events .

    None of the knee taking nonsense and BLM rubbish that you witness in football .

    Why is it that the whining whinging overpaid footballers continue to moan about boos from the fee paying spectators , why do these footballers continue to irritate fee paying fans by taking the knee , why are these spoilt so and sos so different from our very talented dedicated athletes ?

    I just don’t understand why footballers contine to complain , why are they so different from everyone else ?

  30. Morning all,

    I screwed up. Didn’t realise I had to register the pcr test online as well as well as completing and returning it. Thought my details were already attached to it, as it was sent to me in the first place.

    So there won’t be a result but, my GP is happy that I’m OK and 10 days are nearly up anyway as the “symptoms” (sore throat) began last Friday. Ho hum. So I’ve not added to their case numbers.

    The doctor at the GP practice got back to me me very promptly when I made contact yesterday and he shrugged off the possibility of Covid with well, it might or it might not be but you’re on the mend now anyway.

    1. That’s good.

      The PTB seem to have forgotten that normal illness, infection etc has been carrying on throughout the plague.

      1. I’d have to go out and buy it, Grizz. Mind, if I leave my phone behind and use cash, who’s to know?

  31. Your house/home for your Later Life Care

    Put your house in a Trust Fund, you do not then own it

    1. Unless challenged by the council as a wilful deprivation of assets to avoid self-funding care in which case they can override the trust.

      2. Good Morning T. I’m pleased to see you back. Your analysis of tax and similar financial stuff is always interesting and incisive.

        1. I still look in most days but I haven’t had much time for much else lately. I’m not planning on leaving but if I do i’ll give notice so that Phil and John can throw a party.

  32. 338698+ up ticks,
    It is really past time the electorate starting formally exploring their voting pattern that is the cause of our present plight / sh!te.

    UK Govt Formally Exploring ‘Jabs for Jobs’ Vax Requirement for Health Workers

    1. Hi Ogga! It’s way past time but electorate or not, nothing will be done about it because the “Conservatives” have no reason to and Labour is so hopeless that I doubt if it will get anywhere for at least a decade. A new party is needed but where that is going to come from I have no idea. All the small parties could do something but they all seem to be more interested in promoting their own particular ideologies rather than band together and actually do some good for the country. And, as you well know, we can expect nothing at all from Farage.

      1. 338698+ up ticks,
        Morning JR,
        The nige is tory,his past actions show that quite clearly,
        I am all for Anne Marie Waters she faces up to what is proving to be a major problem as in islamic ideology.
        Once her membership is seen to rise it WILL take off rapid, there are a great many peoples politically at loose ends especially after the Batten real UKIP take down.

  33. A New Take On Life

    In their 70’s, Homer and Ethel still pounded their mattress every night. Then came the day Homer’s doctor diagnosed a heart condition that demanded abstinence.

    “One more time, Homer, and you’re a dead man,” the doctor warned, adding, “I’d suggest you and Ethel take separate rooms to avoid temptation.”

    Homer unhappily moved to the guestroom downstairs and Ethel stayed in their love-nest upstairs, equally pissed with the new arrangement.

    On the second night, Homer could no longer ignore his raging erection. Slipping out of his room, he made his way up the dark stairs.

    Half way up he bumped into Ethel.
    “Homer, where are you going?” Ethel asked.

    “I’m coming up to commit suicide,” Homer said, stroking himself. “Where were you going?”

    Ethel grabbed his crotch. “I was coming down to kill you.”

  34. Had a wonderful day out, yesterday, at Falsterbo (Sweden’s most south-westerly point and an internationally important bird migration route), which is just 50 miles to the west of here. The weather was hot and sunny but tempered by a welcome sea breeze. Among the migrant species I saw at close quarters were: (raptors) sparrowhawks, kestrels, hobby, peregrine falcon, osprey, common buzzards, honey buzzards, red kites, black kites, hen harrier and marsh harrier; (waders) greenshank, redshank, ringed plover, little stint, dunlin, snipe and avocet; as well as countless duck and grebes. There were also numerous dragonflies buzzing about including a very obliging ruddy darter which posed for a snapshot. Photographing the birds was challenging as the light was intense; following them in flight was a tester, and the water birds on the lagoon were all backlit by a bright sun. Still, I enjoyed the practice.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e604a162ba6d7291d9e2451d4a32f558f856f7efcae3be1c6285ceb2182bb6e6.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/330234923ce69bb0dbb54817fdff15a09b3f90d68efe4b5d079d93f4221533dd.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/51bc8f2fe3faefda6147e0266dbeeab99d2cfc3c175709e3c402646e306872e6.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/15adda5f4dd3b115e75f44577c918a13d63adcfd45cdb0b4007dbc78641d9450.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/387a96d854176306b71a5eb13b253638bcbf94bad9354f2b39e52070cdf8b018.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ebf91970a40842b922684fd1bdc43855142c4c44285c9167a23fe8210d78c2c3.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99385c5af007bfd971cbfe194a78698dc4c3b3f3b0fb6e61f216b8643d42691a.jpg

          2. These are superb, Grizz – especially (IMO) those against that perfect blue sky to give contrast.

          3. That’s where the cheating (artistic licence) comes in, Paul. I shoot the photos on manual a setting, whereby I choose the aperture, shutter speed and ISO number. However, to ensure a modicum of success I always bracket the exposures, which means that every snap is taken three times in quick succession: the first on the exposure that I choose, the second one full stop under exposed, and the third one full stop over exposed. The results always depend upon the prevailing light conditions. For example, yesterday was very bright and sunlit; as a consequence those that were underexposed gave the best results and the deepest blue skies.

          4. SWMBO has a fully electric SLR camera, and shoots endless pictures, deleting 99% as poor quality. Result – excellent pictures, and no wasted film.

      1. Thanks. I was knackered when I got home after lugging all my kit for miles around lagoons and sand dunes.

    6. 1. Sparrowhawk
      2. Black kite?
      3. Kestrel (easy)
      4. ?
      5. Marsh harrier
      6. Ringed plovers facing camera and others (sandpiper far left?)
      7. Greenshank

        1. Thanks.

          The kite didn’t look very red until I enlarged it. We have a pair here in W’boro and they’re a bright brick red with the sun on them.

          1. They are in the sky here, all day, every day. They are the emblem bird of Skåne and it was from here that the eggs that kick-started the English population were taken around 30 years ago.

          2. They spread rapidly up through the midlands. “How hardy they must be,” we said, “if they can survive in Corby.”

            Their spread coincided with that of the buzzard. I had never seen one before the late 90s. Now they’re everywhere. One autumn evening a few years ago I was driving along the country back roads and they were lined up in the hedges and on gate posts, like sentinels every 300 yards or so.

          3. It is the habit of common buzzards to sit on gate posts and fences that gave rise to their nickname in Scotland. There they call them “tourist eagles” due to the high number of visitors (mainly from England) who see one at the side of the road and go and tell all and sundry that they’ve “seen an eagle”. As all birders (and Scotsmen) know, eagles don’t sit on gates and fences at the side of the road.

            I had never seen a common buzzard in England outside of the south-west or Wales until the late 90s. Before I left Norfolk for Skåne in 2011 they had become fairly common in that county.

          4. The first I saw was in the Cotswolds, on the high fields with their boundaries of broken stone walls and spindly, wind-shaped ash and sycamore saplings. It was hunched in one of these and was such a startling sight that I jammed on the brakes, causing it to fly off.

            After that I saw more and more but never so many and at such regular intervals as that autumn evening.

  35. Important story about Alzheimer’s in the Telegraph today. But I’ve forgotten what it was about 😊

  36. I telephoned my dentist to confirm my app. and asked
    the price of a check up . NHS £20 – private £50

    It appears NHS dentists also take on private patients.
    Wonder why NHS dentists are in short supply….go figure!

    1. War immer so.

      The NHS check up can include small xrays and scaling for the all-in price of £20.

  37. Sky news reporting that a dinghy which transported invaders to England was traced to the Netherlands. Why our MI5 and MI6 cannot do such tracing – they might find the instigators of all this illegal trafficking. Follow the money in both directions.

    1. No tracing is ever done, maybe. If it is the results are not made public. Our security chaps did not trace the source of the 4×4 trucks that ISIS used throughout the Middle East in order to stop the supply. Our security chaps have never found out who pays the smartphone bills of the destitute “refugees/asylum seekers” who arrive in their thousands, legally and illegally, in order to find out who is funding the invasion.
      Why?

        1. Yes. I’d expect to find that the 4x4s were routed from the factories in Japan via Qatar and Saudi Arabia. I suspect that the phone bills are paid via foundations and charities by Soros and chums.

      1. It might well be true, but a woke professor would far rather keep the world’s population growing without hindrance than allow whitey to be well.

        Examine your privilege Still Bleau

    2. Wasn’t it a similar story that caused so many people’s arms to be bared and jabbed? Resulting in abject failure: surely one for the, “Once/twice jabbed three times shy,” treatment. Sadly I know a few people who will be rushing to the jab centre and baring their arms as soon as possible ‘cos it’s covid, innit.
      Strong rumours coming out of Israel that not only are the first and second jabs failing but the third will not be sufficient and the fourth is being lined up to be in the arms of the people. Isn’t there a quote about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result being a sign of insanity?

    3. Antibodies apparently are expensive for the body to maintain – so they disappear a few months afrer infection or vaccination. It’s the B cells and T cells that provide long-term protection.

    4. Antibodies apparently are expensive for the body to maintain – so they disappear a few months afrer infection or vaccination. It’s the B cells and T cells that provide long-term protection.

  39. MI5 foiled 31 ‘late-stage’ terror attack plots against the UK in past four years and six during pandemic. 10 September 2021.

    With the 20th anniversary of 9/11 on Saturday, Ken McCallum said the threat of terrorism in the UK remains “a real and enduring thing”.

    “We do face a consistent global struggle to defeat extremism and to guard against terrorism – this is a real problem,” he told the BBC’s Today programme.

    “In the last four years, working with the police, my organisation has disrupted 31 late-stage attack plots in Great Britain.

    I assume that includes UKIP and the English Defence League but oddly not the BNP or Britain First?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/10/mi5-foiled-31-late-stage-terror-attack-plots-against-uk-past/

    1. Do you think they’re investigating this government for all the terror tactics they’ve used over the past 18 months?

  40. The final sections of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline have now been welded into place, Moscow’s state energy giant Gazprom has revealed, bringing construction of the underwater link between Russia and Germany to an end.
    In a statement issued on Friday, Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Saint Petersburg-based energy giant, said that “at 8.45am this morning Moscow time, work on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline has been completed.”

    Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed that the laying of pipes under the Baltic Sea would be “completed in a few days and (it) will begin working.” Bloomberg reports that gas is expected to begin flowing through its network from the start of next month, and that final testing and preparations are underway.

  41. New poll puts Labour in front following Boris’s tax gamble. 10 September 2021.

    Boris Johnson’s health and social care levy may have won the support of his MPs but that doesn’t mean it’s a hit with the public. Overnight a new YouGov poll for the Times has been released which suggests that Tory support has fallen to its lowest level since the election. The poll puts Labour ahead of the Tories at 35 per cent, with the Conservatives on 33 per cent.

    The comfort of Crocodiles!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/new-poll-puts-labour-in-front-following-boris-s-tax-gamble

  42. Take a deep breath before reading this.

    Priti Patel is willing for a price to be paid over migrant boats in the Channel – just not by her

    Human rights are universal, and there are no “deserving” or “undeserving”” refugees. Whether they helped us in Afghanistan, or have come from places like Somalia or Mali, all deserve equal respect and treatment, because they all have a right to claim asylum and a right to life. Indeed, everyone has the right to seek a better life†.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/patel-boats-migrants-channel-immigration-b1917111.html

    † Translation: “Everyone has a right to break into somebody’s property.”

    1. We’re committed to pay France £54M to prevent migrants crossing the Channel.
      Can we not have a system where we deduct £20,000 for every migrant who reaches our shores….?

        1. It is. Although it might end up with us sending the French a big bill at the endow the year, which they would not pay.

          1. Although it might end up with us sending the French a big bill at the endow the year, which they would not pay.

            Of course they wouldn’t because they would regard it as an endowment.

          2. Ah, yes. I see it now. I wonder how my posts would come out if I did not type them at all but left them all to predicated toasting?

          3. Always useful to proof-read, Horace, before posting, though I understand that self-proof-reading can lead to overlooking the same mistake until posted.

      2. Getting money back from France ????????
        Did they ever pay the EU fine when they took it upon themselves to ban British beef after the all clear from the BSE outbreak ?

        1. I don’t know why we’re paying them at all.
          It’s their problem. We should be protecting our borders not picking them up for a free lift…

      3. Once they are on UK soil – they will do ANYTHING to ensure they stay here. Even killing someone. Our jails are better than where they are from. Killing also ensures they can claim they’ll be able to claim they’ll be persecuted if sent back – – one dead person here means a massive rise in living standards for the killer who gets to stay here – THINK OF THINGS FROM THEIR POINT OF VIEW. Because they don’t give a s*** about ours. Who would employ a murderer? Arrive – give fake details – we haven’t a clue who they are – or what they’ve done. And our govt let them free to go anywhere. after putting them in hotels of course. MILLIONS are coming – – MILLIONS. All expect housing, NHS, education, translators, etc – ALL FREE.

        1. Straight from pick-up to an internment camp on a remote (and cold) Scottish island.

          If we leave EHRC and repeal the Human Rights Act, those who cannot claim ‘asylum’ are deported immediately.

          If no documents then, “Tell me your nationality or visit a Somali beach at midnight.” is the answer.

    2. The right to claim asylum is in the first safe country the refugee reaches. How many countries do these migrants (not refugees) pass through before they land (illegally) in the UK?

      1. Why is Priti Patel incapable of shouting this loud and clear?

        Could the answer be that she truly supports the government in wanting as many illegal immigrants to come to Britain as possible?

    4. What all this ridiculous nonsense ‘migrant’ emphasises so much is how little fore sight the people we elect to parliament have, they never get anything right do they ? We live on a small group of islands haven’t they noticed that yet ?

  43. A new Tory awkward squad is forming. Can it save Conservatism?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/09/new-tory-awkward-squad-forming-can-save-conservatism/

    But not awkward enough or they would have voted against the National Insurance tax rise rather than just abstaining.

    The reason is that the ‘not very awkward squad‘ have worked out that if they allow Johnson and Symonds to continue to rule the roost they will continue to be lavishly paid for three more years; if they force another election now they will lose their jobs and money straight away.

    Getting rid of the monstrous buffoon for the good of the country is the last thing on their minds. Their top priority is looking after themselves and squeezing the teats of the milch cow for as long as they can.

    [Remember Shirley WIlliams who was infallibly wrong about everything? She said that the only way to get better people into politics was to improve their pay and expenses! She was the P.M.’s style mentor. Boris Johnson has cultivated the unkempt and scruffy look hoping that the shambolic look would make him more attractive to the electorate.]

  44. What a contemptible little **** is Peter Wishart.

    Calls for Conservative MPs to wear masks in chamber after ‘cavalier’ accusation

    The SNP’s shadow Commons leader Pete Wishart warned there was an ‘increased risk’ from Covid in the chamber.

    Conservatives are being “cavalier” with the health of other parliamentarians because they have stopped wearing face masks in the House of Commons opposition MPs have said.

    The SNP’s shadow Commons leader Pete Wishart warned there was an “increased risk” from Covid in the chamber, and called for all MPs to continue to wear masks to protect one another.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/jacob-reesmogg-mps-conservatives-conservative-commons-b954528.html

    1. Perhaps pre-sprayed with some sort of strong toxin.
      Who will rid us of this turbulent ‘Beast’. Known as the house of commons.

    2. At the WI talk we did last night, a few ladies were wearing theirs as they entered the hall and sat down. None wore them while seated, but a few put them on when moving about. They obviously think it makes them feel safeer…….

  45. Swedish couple are banned from naming their son Vladimir Putin. 10 September 2021.

    A Swedish couple have been banned from naming their son Vladimir Putin by the tax authorities.

    The new parents submitted their request to name the boy after the Russian president to the tax agency, as is required by Swedish law.

    Names can be barred if they are offensive or if they could cause ‘discomfort for the bearer,’ however the agency’s reasoning has not been revealed in this case.

    There are obvious reasons for banning Joe which would leave your child exposed to a lifetime of ridicule as a babbling idiot though I’ll bet they wouldn’t have any problem with Chaka or Adolf. Vlad would seem to me to be a salubrious cognomen. Sagacious, and smart. Patriotic and able. Unequalled on the World Stage. One suspects envy rather than hostility!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9976963/Swedish-couple-banned-naming-son-Vladimir-Putin.html

    1. When they were both enjoying double house-owning perks as MPs Ed and Yvette Balls thought about naming their daughter Ophelia until Yvette said the full name out loud and fellow Labour members in earshot did not know if it was a threat or a promise.

  46. Michel Barnier backs ‘Frexit’: EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator is branded a ‘hypocrite’ after saying he wants France to quit European courts of justice and human rights

    Mr Barnier, who is now considering a run at the French presidency next year, yesterday said the role of the ECJ in France should be limited.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9975575/Michel-Barnier-wants-limit-role-ECJ-France.html

    This is generally seen as a move to help support the fanatically pro-EU Macron and damage Marine Le Pen by taking the wind out of her sails.

    1. Probably as suggested, just a way to attempt to undermine the growing opposition RT. The French surely are not crazy enough the vote him as president. Mind you he’s been quite instrumental in the demise of the UK since and during Brexit. That’s enough to encourage many staunch Froglés.
      At the moment they must be revelling in the transportations of the invaders to the English shores.

  47. Morning all, such a busy weekend ahead, tomorrow old friends Golden wedding anniversary celebration from lunch until late. Sunday another little family do at home, from midday until who ever is left. I invited our lovely friends In Upper Ferntree Gully Vic, but they are locked down again. Bruce rang me yesterday he’s not happy. But in all honesty they would have been able to make it. It’s just our daft sense of Humour.
    One draw back is, our dish washer has an electrical fault so i have put my hand up to fill in the gap. As it were.

    1. Du bist gespannt (excited) wegen des Wochendes.

      Du wirst gespannt (electrocuted)von der Spülmaschine.

      German pun.

      1. Ek het die fuse uit die skottel verwyder, dit werk nie meer nie. Ek sal opwas. Die bediende het die naweek af. Yanny Van De Merwer

  48. First in EU, Denmark FULLY lifts Covid restrictions almost 550 days after lockdown was introduced

    All remaining anti-coronavirus rules, including an obligatory Covid pass, were officially cancelled in Denmark on Friday, making it the first state in the EU to wholly get back to pre-pandemic daily life.
    Starting from midnight on September 10, the deadly virus is no longer classified as a “socially critical disease” by the Danish government, meaning no special measures will be applied to deal with Covid-19 in the European country. All restrictions previously enforced by authorities, including ‘coronapass’ requirements to enter night clubs and other venues, a ban on mass gatherings and obligatory mask-wearing, have been lifted, 548 days after Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen initially declared a lockdown in his country, local media reports. In March 2020, Denmark was among the first nations to enforce harsh measures to fight coronavirus.

  49. Well, I splashed out and asked an oven cleaning company in to clean my double Neff oven .

    They arrived yesterday morning , my oven is 18 years old , but a wonderful asset , so I was rather embarassed by the state of it , well used has been cleaned by us many times , but as Moh always said , oh that will do .. because the innards and stainless steel wire things were stained and difficult to clean .

    Dare I gush all over you all when I say .. they cleaned my 2 ovens superbly .. My dear Neff looked brand new , husband came home and nearly fainted with shock , and son came home from work and said why on earth have you bought a new set of ovens when you are as poor as church mice ?

    I was so amazed and delighted that I tipped them . No chemical smells either.

    The van the guys came in had trays of acid stuff so the innards/ stained bits were removed and soaked in the van , and the floors of the ovens were scrubbed with I don’t know what , but all the burnt bits came off , and the grill pan is now looking brand new .

    If anyone here wants their link , please say, because they have bods in different parts of the country , they also do hobs , extractor units , dish washers etc , all that works in a kitchen , the real works .

    My clean up cost not alot considering the mess they had to address.

    I daren’t use the ovens now , will have to be salads and microwave etc!!!

    2. Coat the inside with baking soda and vinegar paste. Leave, scrub, wipe. Folk call it a miracle. It isn’t, it’s an arse, but it will if oven is clean, keep it clean.

      Put the trays in a vinegar – or lemon juice, or cola bath. Wipe. Junior doesn’t like coke now as he’s seen me pour it down the loo.

      1. Every so often take a dishwasher tablet put it into a small baking tray with water, shove it in the oven and turn the oven on.

    3. Amazing, Belle! I have a Neff double oven, about 5 years old, which my old man insisted we buy when our Stoves oven gave up the ghost after 28 years! I hate it with a passion and we call it the Naff! It’s got to be the tinniest, flimsiest piece of tat ever and I wish it would explode! The only good thing is that the seals on the doors are magnetic and so are removable for cleaning!

      1. Sue , ours is 18 years old and probably built with a dismanteled battleship , it is the best set of ovens I have ever owned , all my appliances are Neff, dishwasher, 5 hob and extractor .

        We waited 3 years after we had moved in here , old kitchen was a 1980s shock , so we had a new kitchen and kit .

        I have taken on board what you have said about the modern Neffs, and that is shockingly sad .

        1. Anne suggested it may be made in China! Seems most cr*p stuff is nowadays!!
          Anyway, I’m pleased yours looks and cooks like new!

        1. I never thought to check! My second cousin had her kitchen done up and was very excited to get a Neff double oven! Her joy lasted about as long as mine!

    4. Afternoon, Maggie. That “acid stuff” is dilute (35%) hydrochloric acid usually sold under the name “Spirits of Salt”. I discovered, a few years ago, that it is the cleaning industry’s secret weapon when dealing with soiled porcelain in lavatories, kitchens and bathrooms. I bought some from the hardware department of a large shop in Holt (Larner’s) and I used it to clean my Belfast sink. It was miraculous, but you need to ensure adequate ventilation since the fumes its gives off can be quite distasteful.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/637f46fdf76edeab49740d65e22d21b645d81747b45b13fc640e04ae6f7f71ed.png

      1. The Kilrock product range is excellent, some of the best we have used.

        Follow the instructions carefully, because the cleaning liquid can burn skin, damage certain surfaces and would be very bad news in the eyes if a splash-back occurred.
        The results are outstanding.

        1. I can get their kitchen appliance de-scaler here in Sweden, but I don’t think the nanny state will permit the public to get hold of a dilute HCl product. I would if I could.

          1. It appears that the spirits of salt is no longer available to the general public, judging by the website.
            https://www.kilrock.co.uk/shop/?product-page=1
            Rather like the 5 litre bidons of 34.9% hydrogen peroxide I used to get for the pool, the new non-trade one is only 12 and nowhere near as good, not even a quarter as effective.

            It’s probably banned because of its other potential uses.

        2. I’ve been using the Kilrock descaler on the kettle and coffee machine, and then found they do a shower spray which is excellent!

      2. Great stuff, you can buy on ebay. However a warning from personal experience, move house plants that are close to where you are using the stuff, spirits of salt will damage them.

        2. Basic chemistry tells us that when an acid is mixed with an alkaline a salt results. Mix Sodium (an alkali) with Chlorine (an acid) and you get a salt, in this case table salt.

          Hydrochloric Acid (an acid) is mixed with water to make “spirits of salt”. Although no ‘salt’, per se, is produced, the name goes way back into antiquity and so perpetuates.

          1. It is easy to confuse 2 separate & entirely different reactions.
            Basic chemistry tells us that when an acid is mixed with an alkaline a salt & water result.

            Base (Sodium hydroxide) + acid (hydrogen chloride) = salt (sodium chloride) + water.
            Another e.g. Calcium hydroxide (base) + sulphuric acid (acid) = calcium sulphate + water.
            These reactions are spontaneous, i.e. there is no catalyst or energy input involved.
            Note that in these reactions water is always produced

            The reaction between sodium & chlorine is entirely different. There is neither acid nor alkali involved, the reaction occurs only at high temperatures, & no water is produced.

    5. Our electric oven has a pyrolysis function which we use about twice a year and the oven stays very clean. Of course the more greasy the joints that are roasted the more often one needs more than wine or gin to get pyrolytic.

          5. Have you ever tried making it Plum it’s quite easy and takes only minute.
            Bring some milk up to the boil. let it cool pop it in a a vacuum flask with a desert spoon of natural yogurt screw the lid on and next morning you have a pint or more of the real stuff.
            We are traveling to Carbis on the 1st for a week, we found a modern ground floor apartment and the car park is 50 yards from the local bus stop, OAP Bus passes out……… St Ives here we come. And onwards.

          6. I can’t be @rsed….
            The less time I spend in the kitchen the better.
            The days of slaving over a hot stove feeding a hungry family are thankfully over….

        3. It will be fine. Perhaps a little watery on the top, just stir it in. After a month you might be pushing your luck.

    2. Depends on the yoghurt. Most these days will go off but that process is reverting to a ‘cheese’ – solid fungoid – state.

    3. Green tentacles pushing up the lid is a clear sign. If it looks slightly pink, or green, in places when opened then throw out. If it is the expected colour, eg white then carry out a taste rest.

    5. It will be edible, and then you will have gazz on your stummick (anyone get the literary reference?)
      That is my experience anyway.

  51. Very late to the party here:

    But this letter annoyed me: SIR – The medically exempt are no different from any other unvaccinated NHS staff; they should not be allowed to continue working in the NHS. Any unvaccinated staff pose a serious and continuing risk to patients.

    The NHS’s primary responsibility is to protect and treat patients, not to provide employment.

    Michael Bird
    Lancaster

    Now, Mr Bird – a vaccine only protects the person vaccinated. It makes no difference to other people. Why shouldn’t the unvaccinated be sacked because you’re an ignorant troglodyte?

    1. Talking about vaccinations, Sky News stated that a third booster is available for the elderly.

      When I ‘phoned our local GP surgery they told me that they knew nothing about this.

      Has anybody managed to get a booking for a booster jab?

        1. Snap. MB and I have done our bit. (In fact, given his myocardial infarction a fortnight afterwards – possibly more than his bit.)

      1. No way, AA, should I have to go into hospital, I would, if conscious, instruct them tha Covid Vaccination id OFF the agenda and I would also ask Best Beloved (who thinks I’m mad) to ensure that my wishes are carried out.

        1. In that case, would you prefer to be treated by vaccinated staff or unvaccinated ones, bearing in mind that both can carry and transmit the virus?

          1. No difference to me. If I get it, I get it and I will fight it or…

            At 77, I can afford to be stoical.

        2. nanny, I dread the thought of having to go into hospital. I’m (shock, horror!), unjabbed and am determined not to be so jabbed with an experimental gene therapy.

          And Wibbling’s comment “A vaccine only protects the person vaccinated” is, in any case, incorrect in the case of coronavirusbcovsars2/Covid19. These jabs do not confer immunity. As long as I still have my marbles I am not having the jabs.

          1. It does lessen the symptoms, apparently. Most proper vaccines do confer immunity, which is why I consider this just a jab.

  52. UK would be prepared to launch Afghanistan drone strikes, says Wallace. 10 September 2021.

    Britain could be prepared to undertake lethal drone strikes in Afghanistan if the Taliban fail to prevent international terrorism taking hold in the country, the defence secretary said on Tuesday.

    Ben Wallace was speaking as he showcased a £16m prototype of the remotely piloted Protector in Lincolnshire, making one of the first ever flights by a large drone capable of bearing missiles in the UK.

    When asked if he was prepared to consider launching drone strikes in Afghanistan, Wallace said: “I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect citizens’ lives and our interests and our allies, when we’re called upon to do so, wherever that may be.”

    You have to wonder at the mentality of the people that are in power in the UK! They have a naivete that borders on the infantile. Does it not occur to Wallace that until only three weeks ago we were nose to nose with these “terrorists” for almost twenty years and could do almost nothing about them! A lack that has led to the greatest strategic defeat for the West since WWII. What one would like to ask does he think has changed in that three weeks? Similarly with Priti Patel, who advocates their use against a cross channel traffic that could be dealt with by a couple of launches and a half a dozen Nottlers. It is will that is lacking not capability.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/09/uk-would-be-prepared-to-launch-afghanistan-drone-strikes-says-wallace

    1. I have lots to do so Slayders folks.
      But wouldn’t that be more than a little silly given the amount of people this idiot government has let into the country and nobody really knows who or what they are. Every day there is something in the press about the public being harassed or attacked even worse, women and girls raped What have these political morons done to our once safe and sane country. I despair. I really do.

      1. ” What have these political morons done to our once safe and sane country.”

        Sent troops and bombed civilians in Muslim countries?

      2. The rapes are to ensure whitey is removed – the aim of the Barcelona Agreement. Signed in 1995. To let the countries surrounding Europe, ( and including N Africa ) INCLUDING Islamic countries – into Europe – and to racially interbreed to wipe out WHITE people.
        With the ( MIXED JABS ) Covid Boosters now being forced onto people it makes me wonder if the so-called mixed will be a trigger to shove this WoW program into force quicker.

    2. As i said earlier…this is not about the Taliban.This is about disrupting the Chinese mining companies.

    3. Not only that, but £16m for what is a big radio controlled model aeroplane? These dummies always overload specifications requiring so many capabilities that the things can’t do any properly, but the cost is multiplied up. Then they change the specs during development so the project runs way over the planned time scale. Please see TSR2 for further example.

    4. Actually “lethal drone strikes” should be aimed at Bagram Airbase. It needs to be reduced to rubble, complete inoperability so the Chinese cannot take it over, which is their intent. The aim, to encircle and threaten India.

      1. I hope that would not set off any of the abandoned nukes. Thing is, that would be an act of war. The Afghans might ask their Chinese allies for help, while the Russians would stay out of it. I wonder how that would play out, or, any seats going on the next ship to Mars?

          1. No, of course not. (Official Statement US Dept of Defense). If the US thinks it is a good idea to continue to build a ring of steel around Russia why would they not take the opportunity? A lot easier and closer than Diego Garcia.

          2. They would not take the opportunity because it was a far to insecure base for such things. That is why they are in Diego Garcia. However if there are any there the USA is not admitting to it.

          3. I may have carried this joke too far…and yet, the US would not admit it. Like the Palomares thing. “Say, nice landing Chuck. By the way the bomb doors are open. Not lost anything have you?

    7. How about drone strikes on Bradford, Leeds, Tower Hamlets, Brum and other places too numerous to mention?

  55. How about this for an idea . . ?
    The RNLI and other rescue services are busy picking these illegal immigrants from mid-channel . .

    Why not go the whole hog . . Pick them up from the French beaches, only a few extra miles, and the charge them the same as they would have paid to the traffickers . . .

    Funding crises for the services ..? solved . . .!!

  58. Grief-stricken Putin bids farewell at the open coffin of minister – and former personal bodyguard.

    A grief-stricken Vladimir Putin appeared devastated as he bade farewell today to his emergencies minister – and former personal bodyguard – who died on Tuesday ‘trying to save a man’.

    The Russian leader twice rested his head on the open coffin of Yevgeny Zinichev, 55, which was draped in the country’s flag.

    Putin then sat with the minister’s widow Natalya and son Denis at the funeral ceremony. He twice approached the open coffin, bowing his head, and as he walked away appeared distraught.

    Vlad was clearly deeply affected by the loss of this man. The comments from 77 Brigade are worth a look!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7629d38aab7705b7a512f5194f4e623e86c782e65e33e0ac7ab2da94105c2655.png

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9977131/Grief-stricken-Putin-bids-farewell-open-coffin-minister-killed-Arctic-military-exercise.html

  59. #CovidClownWorld

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d7edca99b2c0ad117e94e7d2d0bfe27ed0b80dff7fce202e37b6082be000d754.gif

    https://twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/1435633309736964107?s=20

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b1b4d564bfa36bc2084cf9d394dd343a2abd36887178d01815dd3dac64a302a9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e1fbaef8072a62f4a763ca2366ce53698680d92e6f5b01bd5620b05e45878876.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e86c54c2ce335ce36c6dd9a0d0d4df6e433b0c51a469da9fcbffa90a490f9123.jpg

      1. “The tree of liberty needs to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots. It is its natural manure.” That time is fast approaching. We have been complacent for too many years, thinking it would never happen here.

        1. We have a whole generation of people who have never known what it is to fight for their freedom. They have been cocooned from reality and never been encouraged to think for themselves.

          1. That’s why Poland, Hungary and similar places are so difficult about Islamic immigration – they know from recent memory what it’s like to be an occupied land.

          4. They don’t need race memory to remember domination. It’s within living memory. Makes them a bit spiky (and, as far as the only Hungarian lass I know, the most beautiful girl in the world…).

          5. Exactly the problem. They think our freedoms are written in stone, not written with the blood of our ancestors. They have never known anything else. Never was the term “easy come, easy go” more applicable.

  60. Phew! It’s warm & muggy!

    Been doing some housework………..we’ve got one of those new-fangled cleaners that only run for a few minutes before the battery dies, so I had to get the old one out to finish the job. And that’s only one room……..
    I know – little & often and it wouldn’t get so bad…..

    1. Half an hour a day, a friend told me, you can get an awful lot done in half an hour, she said. I am just not that disciplined, sadly. It is a major overhaul every so often for us (me).

      2. Nor am I! Life’s too short to spend it cleaning……… half an hour a day adds up to a long time over the years! I have a blitz every so often when I can no longer ignore the cobwebs and piles of stuff.

        1. That’s me too… there comes a moment when I say right! I can’t stand any more of this! And I roll up my sleeves metaphorically speaking and get on with it. I do have a fairly high tolerance level of the accumulated detritus of day-to-day living.

    2. Hi Ndovu. I have been catching up on cleaning the house, well, made a start yesterday and continued today. My “excuse” is bowls! Played lots during the (what passed for) summer and neglected the cleaning. While I’m catching up I’m thinking to myself, if I did this every other day it would be really very quick. But then I think there’s more to life than cleaning! I never liked cleaning, unlike some. Our house is a home, we console ourselves, not a show house.

      1. Thanks vw – I’m not the only one then! If I had a cleaner, I’d have to tidy up for her first…….

        Many years ago, when we were both still working, we had a cleaner come – she did a fantastic job, and when we walked in the place looked spotless. She must have taken a lot longer than the two hours we paid her for – but after a week or two she decided she wasn’t going to continue but go back to teaching!

    3. We don’t have a vacuum, we have a Polish racing snake who does the cleaning. No wonder she’s so thin, she moves close to the speed of light, and the house is clean in a jiffy. Fantastic lass!

  62. Welcome to the Free Speech Union’s weekly newsletter. This newsletter is a brief round-up of the free speech news of the week.

    Catholic priest cancelled by Nottingham University speaks to BBC and GB News

    Our support for Father David Palmer, the Catholic priest blocked from becoming Nottingham University’s new chaplain because of his tweets opposing abortion and euthanasia, is referred to in a BBC report in which Father Palmer says he is considering taking legal action. In our letter to the University’s Vice-Chancellor we warned that Nottingham’s decision to block Father Palmer was likely to a form of unlawful discrimination.

    Father David Palmer also spoke to GB News. He said: “No-one is going to be surprised that a Catholic priest is opposed to abortion and euthanasia. It’s as basic as you get.” Gavin Ashenden, the Queen’s former chaplain and a convert to Catholicism, has written about the university’s illiberal anti-Catholic stance for Christian Today.

    British institutions colonised by American ideology

    The BBC has “offered” staff an “allyship” test to see how “privileged” they are, the Telegraph reports. The test includes questions on whether you feel able to “express” your sexuality in the workplace and what your “gender identity” is. Another question asks whether staff “identify as white”. The quiz offers advice at the end, encouraging employees to “shut down” inappropriate jokes “even if no one’s hurt by them”. Michael Deacon in the Telegraph suggests the BBC needs to check its own privilege.

    Also in the Telegraph Melanie McDonagh has written about the prevalence of woke ideology in British schools. One of the aims of woke teachers is to “decolonise” the curriculum, but that usually means rewriting it so it incorporates various fashionable ideas from America, such as critical race theory, thereby turning British schools into a colonial outpost of American social justice ideology. McDonagh says that an activist minority in the profession, many of them recent graduates, are driving this change.

    Calvin Robinson has written in the Telegraph about the NHS’s employment of an army of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion ‘experts’ to promote “anti-white propaganda”. One blog post on the NHS’s Leadership Academy website begins: “Dear white people…” The post advised white NHS employees to “work on their empathy”, among other things. It seems like an odd use of resources if the NHS really is in the midst of a financial crisis.

    Liberalism is under attack from China and extremists on the right and left, says the Economist. The magazine’s leader article goes on to say that classical liberalism is “undergoing a severe test” as the commitment to Enlightenment ideals like free speech is under attack, both from within and without. But Charlotte Ivers argues we shouldn’t worry about the capture of “great British cultural institutions” by the woke left because they “no longer hold the power they once did”.

    Comedy in the age of cancel culture

    Sheffield Council’s decision to cancel comedian Roy Chubby Brown, who was due to perform at Sheffield City Hall, has been lambasted on GB News. The move will make him a free speech martyr, says theatre critic Dominic Cavendish. The Council has refused to back down, but one councillor has warned that the move to ban him from City Hall, where he has been performing for 30 years, was a “very slippery slope”. Rod Liddle says in his Spectator column that the councillors and MPs behind the efforts to cancel Brown will suffer politically. If you don’t think Roy Chubby Brown should be banned from performing at Sheffield City Hall, you can sign this petition.

    Comedian Janey Godley, hired by the Scottish government to front a Covid-19 public information campaign, has apologised for using “highly offensive language” on Twitter. Conservative MSP Douglas Lumsden has contacted a theatre where Godley is due to perform to raise her “history of offensive and derogatory language on social media”, questioning whether it is “appropriate” for her to star in a family pantomime.

    Jay Leno says cancel culture is a “fact of life” and described how he has stopped joking about sex, sexism, race or politics. Nick Dixon, a member of our Advisory Council, says in Spiked that Leno has surrendered to cancel culture.

    Comedian David Spade has spoken about how the fear created by woke Witchfinders-General makes him worry about even quite recent jokes he’s told in comedy sets.

    Cult-like cancel culture must be opposed

    Following a Daily Record article trawling through the past tweets of the staff of a Rangers FC podcast – which resulted in two employees having to resign and apologise – the newspaper itself has now been forced to start an investigation after Rangers supporters compiled a dossier of distasteful comments made by the paper’s staff. This YouTube video, in which the editor of the podcast explains how he and Rangers’ fans turned the tables on the Record’s offense archaeologists, is well worth a watch.

    A cult survivor has compared cancel culture to her own upbringing – when she had to read books in secret – and says modern life is beginning to resemble the cult she escaped from in 2013. Katie Morgan-Davies, who fled the Communist Collective, told the Sunday Times: “I feel like there is an element of 1984. We have to think in a certain way and speak in a certain way.”

    FSU Advisory Council member Zoe Strimple says defenders of free speech cannot afford to rest on their laurels as censorship (and self-censorship) is spreading throughout the UK’s institutions and workplaces. She writes in the Telegraph: “A sinister creep of real censorship is afoot which marks a more serious and permanent shift. Nobody much cares, in their heart of hearts, what students yell about. But when restrictions on what can and cannot be said on the public record, no matter how fair, become so onerous that whole reams of truth risk becoming imperilled, then we should be scared.”

    Sam Wallace has written in the Telegraph about the FA’s ridiculous decision to charge Middlesbrough defender Marc Bola for an offensive tweet posted nine years ago when he was just 14.

    Rav Arora describes what it’s like to be cancelled – and how to survive the experience – in the New York Post.

    Portland State University has become a “social justice factory”

    Professor Peter Boghossian has written a “devastating” resignation letter to the Provost of Portland State over its complete surrender to woke ideology. He says the institution is now “a social justice factory whose only inputs are race, gender, and victimhood and whose only outputs are grievance and division”. Professor Boghossian goes on: “Students at Portland State are not being taught to think. Rather, they are being trained to mimic the moral certainty of ideologues… Faculty and administrators have abdicated the university’s truth-seeking mission and instead drive intolerance of divergent beliefs and opinions. This has created a culture of offence where students are now afraid to speak openly and honestly.”

    Magdalen College students are up in arms against the College President, Dinah Rose QC, because she is representing the Cayman Islands in court, defending its ban on gay marriage.

    Trans

    Alex Bramham, hounded out of a Pride parade for his support of the LGB Alliance, writes in the Critic that gay dissenters from trans ideology are increasingly finding a home on the right.

    The Guardian has cleaned up an interview it did with the American gender theorist Judith Butler, who suggested that believing sex is inextricably connected to biology was “one of the dominant strains of fascism in our time”. Ella Whelan points out in the Critic that redacting controversial comments can’t hide them forever in the Twitter age.

    Culture war

    Author and journalist Ed West has spoken to Triggernometry – the podcast hosted by FSU Advisory Council members Konstantin Kisin and Frances Foster – about whether conservatives have lost the culture war, and Dr Nikos Sotirakopoulos, a sociology lecturer, explores the role of tribalism in fuelling culture war clashes in an article for UnHerd.

    Alison MacLeod has written about the Chatterley trial for the Telegraph. Why is the world of arts and letters being plunged back into a pre-Chatterley era?

    Hollywood must stop kowtowing to Chinese censorship

    Jawad Iqbal argues in the Times that Hollywood must stop bending over backwards to avoid China’s wrath – particularly as it doesn’t work, with the seemingly anodyne new Marvel blockbuster being banned in China. He writes: “Nothing appears off-limits when it comes to Hollywood kowtowing to one of the world’s most censorious regimes.”

    Dorian Lynskey has written an essay in UnHerd about the dying art of film reviewing as critics are increasingly trying to avoid making negative judgements for fear of the social media backlash.

    Big tech

    Our Deputy Research Director Emma Webb appeared on GB News to talk about the threat to free speech posed by censorious social media companies like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

    The Online Safety Bill has been described as “fundamentally flawed” by the lobby group Big Brother Watch, which has warned that the legislation will have a seriously chilling effect on free speech. Mark Johnson has written in UnHerd about the secretive Counter Disinformation Cell, a group of public officials “tasked with scouring social media platforms and flagging ‘disinformation’ with the platforms themselves” with the aim of getting the content removed and the authors banned. He says that the Online Safety Bill “will be the final culmination of this power convergence, where corporate terms and conditions and domestic law will be synonymous, and the platforms’ power will be consolidated by state legitimacy”. You can read our briefing on the Online Safety Bill here.

    Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has signed a decree aimed at stopping tech companies from removing accounts and content that they politically disapprove of.

    The Great Lockdown Debate

    Our General Secretary Toby Young will be participating in a debate in London on 27 September about the Covid lockdowns alongside Oxford Professor of Medicine Carl Heneghan, businessman Luke Johnson, former Deputy Speaker Natascha Engel and Times leader writer Oliver Kamm. The motion is: “The lockdowns of the past year caused more harm than good.” If you’d like a ticket, you can buy one here.

    Sharing the Newsletter

    You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons below to help us spread the word. If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Remember, all of our work depends on our members and donors. Sign-up today or encourage a friend to join and help us turn the tide against cancel culture and censorship.

    Best wishes,

      1. That may be my fault, Tom. I simply copy the letter from my email inbox and then paste it onto this forum. That way it comes out all anodyne and looking the same.

        If you tell me which links you require I’ll post them on here for you.

    3. Catholic priest speaks up for Catholic doctrine – well, I’m shocked! Actually, these days, I’m amazed. Would that the CofE stood up for Christian morals and ethics.

    4. Why are councillors getting involved in a private booking? The decision to rent the hall or not should be based on ticket sales. If some whinging brattish blue haired twerp complains, then they can choose not to go.

  63. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s explosive Oprah Winfrey interview was met with boos when a clip was aired at last night’s National Television Awards. After Sir Trevor McDonald introduced the collection of the year’s most iconic TV moments, a montage aired with scenes from the Royals’ infamous interview. While the booing did not appear on the ITV live telecast, attendees at London’s O2 Arena revealed to MailOnline that the audience ‘loudly’ jeered and booed once the Duke and Duchess appeared on-screen. During the chat with Oprah in March, Meghan claimed her sister-in-law Kate Middleton made her cry before she married, accused an unnamed senior Royal of expressing ‘concern’ over Archie’s skin colour suggested she was ‘silenced’ by The Firm.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

    I well remember that when, aged 5 or 6, I was whining, whingeing and being thoroughly odious my mother told me: ” If you don’t stop crying I shall give you something to cry for.” I went on blubbing pathetically so my father stopped the car, my mother dragged me out of my seat and gave me a very well-merited smacking at the side of the road. Thereafter every time we passed that particular part of the road on a journey I piped up cheerfully: “That’s the place where Mummy gave me something to cry for!”

    I wonder how Kate made Migraine cry. I doubt if she gave the nasty, spoilt little monster the damned good smacking she so clearly deserved?

    The best solution for Migraine’s mental health issues would be if, instead of employing a psychologist or a psychiatrist, she employed a good psmackbottomist.

    1. Narcissistic projection. At the time it was said that M. made K. cry – it was over the fitting of the bridesmaids’ dresses; I think M shouted at K’s daughter Charlotte, and the ensuing unpleasantness from that rumpus made K. cry which wasn’t surprising, she was emotional having given birth to Louis three weeks previously.

      A good psmackbottomist would be ideal for someone who seeks to blame someone else for the result of her own bad behaviour and in so doing portray herself as the victim in the debacle. ‘Victim’ is another word I have come to detest in these troubled times.

    3. I imagine that Kate suggested Megan has a duty to the public and that’s how they earn their privileged positions.

      Megan wouldn’t understand that as she sees others as there to be used for her benefit and her very existence merits special treatment.

      This is why megan is an odious twerp who needs slapping, repeatedly around the face.

  64. I see the teenage DG of MI5, Ken McMcallum, has been on the news to tell us that the Afghan business has increased the risk of terrorism in the country. He says ‘the threat has been evolving greatly since 9/11 with the huge challenge of Islamist extremism, a resurgence of state threats [no names] and the rise of [——-].’

    I’m sure you can fill in the blank.

    And no mention of deportations.

    1. A plane load to Pakistan was cancelled this week !!!!!
      And more arrive at Dover every week. Even our own govt want us gone.

    3. Yes. Heard that as well. I can’t imagine what a Right wing terrorist looks like. Are they furiously writing articles to the Daily Mail? Offshoring their business taxes? Demanding less legislation? Complaining abour market capitalism?

      Of course, they mean Left wing terrorists. The ones who destroy property, oppress people and threaten the kind of idiotic extremism typical of a psychotic?

  65. “The UK has resettled thousands of Afghans through the established Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) and will welcome an additional 20,000 to Britain through a new scheme.”
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/britons-among-foreigners-able-to-leave-afghanistan-on-flight-to-qatar/ar-AAOgOu3?ocid=msedgntp
    The first “thousands” is vague. The next is under ” a new scheme”. Is that on TOP of the original 20k???
    Or in plain English – WE ARE NOT TELLING YOU HOW MANY ARE COMING – PROBABLY MILLIONS.

  66. Dead elm tree, a 50 footer or so, dropped this morning & partially logged. Came in for a cupper then it started raining.
    Rain stopped, so now off out to finish the job.

        1. Just keep refilling BoB’s army mug with tea and he makes the Duracell Bunny seem like an absolute wimp.

  67. Dinghy crossings and renewable energy –

    There’s a solution that will fix both – put a socking great floating continuous barrier (with a couple of gaps for ferries) a mile of the coast from Margate to Hastings. Put some paddles underneath to soak up the wave and tidal energy and voila.

    Give the job to the Army and it will be ready by next April.

    1. If we were sensible we would realise that millions of extra people in this country would use up energy, and that massive, uncontrolled gimmigration was neither economically nor socially acceptable. Frankly, get rid of them, save ourselves billions, plenty of food, fuel and energy to go around. It just needs the 25 million dross Labour imported to be deported.

      1. Having just spent countless hours on the M25 and various offshoots therefrom, I am wondering which bit of “We’re Full Up” is not being understood.

      1. I’m on to you, Plum! Your time-out was just while you slipped out to get a coupla bottles of sherry from the corner shop.

        1. Oh, mum! I’m completely teetotal! I’m on tea, coffee and gallons of water having given up all alcohol on my LCHF diet.

          2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-BJzqMbsxI&t=3s Watch this excellent video if you have the time. It talks about how all the dietary information given to us over the past few decades has been utter hogwash. LCHF stands for Low Carb High Fat and the excellent presenter shows how the food that the manufacturers want you to eat is poison and is killing you. I’ve felt 100% better since I embarked upon it.

        2. The mother in law says something similar. She’s on the gin – neat. Stuff leaves a glass looking like it’s held petrol.

  70. Delingpole: Personal Carbon Allowances – Your Next Stop on the Road to Global Tyranny

    If you haven’t yet had enough creeping authoritarianism, stolen freedoms and encroaching One World Government tyranny, you are just going to LOVE Personal Carbon Allowances.

    Personal Carbon Allowances (PCAs) may be just the thing we need for our new ‘sustainable’ future as we emerge from the COVID-19 crisis. Or so claims a paper published in Nature Sustainability.

    A PCA is the 21st century equivalent of the ration cards that European households had to carry during the Second World War to make sure they didn’t consume more than their ‘fair’, state-allocated share of food, clothing and so on.

    The paper explains that a PCA ‘mitigation policy’, first mooted in the 1990s, is ‘ripe for revisitation.’

    This policy aims to link personal action with global carbon reduction goals. A PCA scheme would entail all adults receiving an equal, tradable carbon allowance that reduces over time in line with national targets. In its original design, the allowance could cover around 40% of energy-related carbon emissions in high-income countries, encompassing individuals’ carbon emissions relating to travel, space heating, water heating and electricity.

    So far, so dreadful: as if it wasn’t bad enough that nearly one half of your daily consumption will be subject to rationing, the paper breezily says that your allowance will ‘reduce over time.’ In other words, the thin gruel that the state allows you at first will become ever more meagre. What’s more, the range of items on the rationing list will get bigger and bigger.

    New, more ambitious PCA proposals include economy-wide emissions, encompassing food, services and consumption-related carbon emissions, for example.

    But why, you might wonder, in such rationing necessary in the 21st century when we are not at war?

    According to the paper, PCAs ‘could play a role in achieving ambitious climate mitigation targets’ and ‘could be trialled in selected climate-conscious technologically advanced countries.’

    Yes, no doubt they could. But the need for such unparalleled intrusion by the state into the lives of citizens in the free West rests on several heroic and unexamined assumptions: first that there is a climate crisis; second that unilateral action by ‘climate-conscious technologically advanced countries’ will make any difference if larger scale emitters like China and India continue to grow their energy economies; third, that this proposal has been submitted to cost-benefit analysis and found superior to other, less intrusive and authoritarian options like allowing economies to get richer and using the extra money to deal with any climate problems that might arise in the future.
    *
    *
    *
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/09/10/delingpole-personal-carbon-allowances-your-next-stop-on-the-road-to-global-tyranny/

    1. Hmmm….Global,One World Government etc.
      Do they expect the likes of China,Russia,India,Iran to meekly accept all this?

    2. No rationing is necessary.

      We should be living in an absurd age of immense wealth. Masses of energy, endless consumption to have whatever you wish for, a home you can easily afford, low taxes anda small, efficient government.

      However, we’ve the exact opposite. Why? Big, fat, state.

  71. Back from memorial service. A remarkable lady – one of Fakenham’s stalwarts.

    Pity the church “sound system” was so bad that one couldn’t hear any of the tributes… Yet another place where the concept of “speaking up” seems to be regarded as too invasive…

    1. We were taught how to read aloud at prep school and I was a regular reader at chapel services.

      I am still occasionally called upon to read at funerals and I always insist that the microphone is turned off.

  72. Raining hard – so I thought I’d glance at this week’s Spectator.

    The damned leftie rag has the wendyballer Brashford writing his week’s “diary”. Or, rather, he has employed someone who can read and write to do it for him.

    The language is far too sophisticated than anything he could come up with. Once he stopped kneeling.

  73. Four-star hotel cancels weddings and bookings after almost 100 Afghan refugees are block booked in by the Home Office for six months
    The Urban Hotel in Grantham repurposed all 90 of its rooms to house Afghans
    Four star hotel also cancelled its events and bookings with no prior warning
    Displaced families will now stay in luxury hotel accommodation for six months
    Comes as cost of resettling displaced families expected to cost taxpayer £2.5bn
    Ministers say 10,000 Afghan refugees who fled Kabul are quarantining in hotels
    By JACOB THORBURN FOR MAILONLINE

    PUBLISHED: 17:04, 8 September 2021 | UPDATED: 08:08, 9 September 2021
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9970081/Grantham-hotel-cancels-guests-weddings-bookings-accommodate-90-new-Afghan-refugees.html
    AND THIS

    https://twitter.com/BrianDa50333747/status/1436073130527690753?s=20

    1. Do we need 100 hotels, 200, 300 …? We’re not told … we’re just the mugs who pay …. and its not just money …

      1. I note the contrast with the treatment of Polish families whose menfolk had definitely fought on our side in WW2 – they went into communal Nissan Huts and many of them stayed there well into the 1950s …. all were expected to work.

        1. I bet this is bad news for dog walkers in the Grantham area … and, presumably, another 100+ areas.

          2. I’m also starting to wonder IF this is compatible with reducing carbon emissions (these s*ds will have the free-for-them heating full on all winter). Oh, BTW, no pork deliveries for the next 6 months …

          3. Of course it isn’t compatible with reducing carbon emissions, but that only applies to the indigenous.

      2. Sorry to hear that, Plum. Is there anything we can do to cheer you up? Take a look at Oscar’s funny haircut when I post pics. That should give you a laugh!

          3. She deserved a medal for bravery, or at least an MiD; continuing her job in the face of determined opposition 🙂

      3. When I’m feeling down, I find that often a sentimental film or piece of music helps me lift myself.

  76. Well, I got the main trunk of that elm I dropped cut into 13 x 3′ to 3½’ lengths, so counting the height of the canopy, 50′ wasn’t a bad estimate!
    A 6″ dia main trunk growing up from an oval triple stump that was about 10″ x 12″.
    That’ll be a decent month’s burning when it’s seasoned.

    Dropped a bollock getting the brambles mulched that I’d pulled earlier this week. Caught the poking stick in the workings and stalled the bloody engine. Don’t think I’ve damaged anything, but being a Briggs & Stratton it does not like restarting when hot.

    A couple of pictures of a pair of spheroid stones that have been hanging round the bit of hillside that passes its self off as “My Garden” since long before I got here.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b92ee9fb1308cffb2e7ef70974c871eddb0f2253ebb99f10471817917f1a08b4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4f8959087f312f0785355e1b1175c96884fe878a0aeb945527a04e330ec96b0b.jpg

    Now, compare them to this object, photographed in Folkstone a few years ago.
    Do I have a pair of cannon balls? Or, to be more accurate, a pair of roundshot?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ffb570b76d57f6dd7ca93a4f4ec87a93c0ae07b8b30b6f9c03c067b376980f1.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/018c0a363fdeb89e6d1a170f1e4bc2792132040d0effb8742546d856747acabc.jpg

    5. Yo Bob

      Drove through Bonsall today and ended up at Sainsburys.

      A journey not without angst, we met a very large tracator/hedge -trimmer when there was No Turning Back!

      I am now totally Paranoid about Tracators, see my first post of the day

      1. Ah! You went down Salter’s Lane! Silly man!!
        Now, if you’d dropped down Clatterway to just before the junction with the Via Gellia, you could have pulled up and joined us for a mug of tea up in the garden!

  77. Took delivery this morning of a whole fillet of grass fed beef 1.5 kg. From New Forest Stores.

    Portioned that up into 11 steaks. Some trimmings left over. Now what to do with them i ask myself. Dolly went apeshit.

    I Chinese cleavered into a near paste and mixed it through her slimming biscuits. One very happy little doggie.

    1. I hope you enjoy it, Philip. I have to say, though, that I find fillet beef wholly overrated, over-expensive and, although tender, with the least amount of flavour of any cut on the entire cow.

      I’d much rather buy sirloin (the uppercut), rump, rib-eye or onglet for a steak; or shin, skirt, chuck, clod, flank or brisket for longer cooking.

      1. I agree with you about taste and flavour. The fillet i have bought will last for the next 12 months. Just an occasional treat prepared en croute with pate and a good madeira sauce.

        Or even a Marinara . Diced mushrooms, tomatoes and onion sweetened with vermouth.

        I do like a hearty beef stew/casserole but sometimes a little finesse is good for me too.

        1. Oxcheek – cook v.v. slowly with vegetables, prunes, Marsala and a pig’s trotter for extra unctuousness.
          And heaps of mashed potato.
          One of the compensations for enduring the winter.

          7. Best Beloved has bought some oxcheek – which for us is the best cut for slow or pressure cooking and a bunch of ox kidney.

            Yep, I’m looking forward to some sumptuous Kate & Sidney Pie.

      1. They sell filet steaks individually. £15 for 250 gram. I think that is a bit too big.

        I like the old classic of a steak en croute with pate on top and a madeira sauce. I think 150 gram is plenty for that dish.

        1. One to make you smile:
          At the local night markets they do a beef burger topped with foie gras and served with chips. It’s surprisingly tasty.

          How would you like your burger? Bloody or rare?

          Well cooked? You bloody Philistine! Here’s your reconstituted Afghan sandal…

          Enjoy.

  78. Shoddy

    https://twitter.com/MichaelVaughan/status/1436282651304923139?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1436282651304923139%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fcricket%2F2021%2F09%2F10%2Fopening-day-englands-fifth-test-against-india-called-live-latest%2F

    12:15pm
    They’re leaving on a jet plane
    India are attempting to move their charter flight back to the UAE – where the IPL will resume on September 19 – forward to tomorrow, so they can leave England as quickly as possible, writes Tim Wigmore.

    The charter flight from East Midlands Airport was originally due to leave next Wednesday, the day after the scheduled conclusion of the final Test at Old Trafford.

    But after the Test was cancelled due to Covid-19 fears, India are understood to be making attempts to bring forward their flight.

    The bulk of India’s support staff, who will not work on the IPL, will return home on commercial flights.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2021/09/10/opening-day-englands-fifth-test-against-india-called-live-latest/

  79. Afternoon, all. Just popping in as I’m off out tonight to have a meal in a local pub with a friend. Oscar is flat out; he exhausted himself fighting the groomer earlier. Most of him has been done, but he became so uncooperative she had to give up before she could do his front legs. He is, therefore, very neat apart from one very fluffy front leg, one not quite so fluffy front leg, a completely fluffy head and tail and the odd tuft that couldn’t be removed due to his turning himself inside out. The groomer certainly earned her fee (and I gave her a decent tip for perseverance). He’s going back next month (after he’s recovered from the trauma) to be finished off. We made the mistake of bathing him first. He was quite good for that, then got progressively worse with the clipping as he got fed up. Next year, we’ll just clip him as fast as possible and then bath him another time. He is very shiny white apart from his head, though. Quite how long that will last is questionable. Pictures will follow when the camera has charged up.

    1. We deal with our cats in separate stages, ‘cos they get fed up with the grooming quite quickly. It’s a pest, but works eventually after about a week, one suave and we–presented cat. Otherwise, they run off, or perforate you, and everybody is seriously pissed off.

      1. It’s the first time I’ve had Oscar trimmed. We all learn from our mistakes – well, those of us who aren’t in Westminster do 🙂

        1. He learned, too, that it’s not an assault on his person. So, everyone is now wiser… I hope!

      2. When Rumpole was a puppy he had a horrible skin disease and we had to give him a strong medication once a week and a shower with medicated shampoo every day.

        We tethered him to a tree and squirted him with the garden hose – after initial objections he resigned himself to it and finally actually enjoyed it.
        We had students with us and the threat was that if they lapsed into speaking in English they would have to give Rumpole his shower. Rumpole made a complete recoverery and lived a healthy anf happy life. He died 18 years ago at the age of 12 which is a good age for a boxer,

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9d0de24ffaff974e6315dc881b3d56146e7bf21b5c68be48163c360de2c410d9.jpg

        (I agree my beard was not a success. My son Christo has now grown one and it is even worse than mine was!)

        1. Hmm. I don’t have a tree to tie him to which is in reach of the hosepipe. Other than that, it sounds like a plan 🙂

          2. She was very good with him. He had been in to meet and greet before anything was done to him, but to no avail. I suspect we’ll have the same performance next month as well.

          3. Dolly has settled in well with her groomer. Katerina told me last time that she didn’t even need to use the harness. Dolly meekly just sat there.
            Once your dog has been a few times i’m sure things will settle down.
            Rewards for good behaviour as i’m sure you are well aware.

  80. The French want us to pay for Europe’s disastrous immigration policies. It’s time to take control
    Let’s trust that the government’s new Nationality and Borders Bill isn’t a sheep in wolf’s clothing

    Robert Taylor: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/10/french-want-us-pay-europes-disastrous-immigration-policies-time/

    BTL Comment:

    The British have acquired the reputation of being the worst negotiators in the world.

    Before Brexit Britain made concession after concession after concession with no reciprocal action so is it any surprise that the EU still can control the flow of goods into Northern Ireland which is a part of the UK?

    Is it any surprise that EU fishing boats are still plundering UK waters?

    And is it any surprise that no deal was reached on financial services?

    And so now it is hardly surprising that Britain is giving millions and millions to the French to do nothing to stop the boats coming to Britain.

    “Thank you suckers” – you can hear the French say mockingly to us.

    And does anyone seriously believe that Britain will stand firm this time?

    3. The British have acquired the reputation of being the worst negotiators in the world. – yepp, utter incompetence. The EU ran rings round the UK, and still do.
      Is the incompetence deliberate (advantage to the enemy) or just stupidity?

      1. Why not both? Government set about making leaving the EU as difficult, awkward and frustrating as possible. It united against the country on the side of the EU. We’ve no skills in this area as we gave it away to the eurocrats. Our idiots then thought they’d pull a fast one and ended up screwing everyone over.

  81. Some gloom chez Thomas. Pickles is a bit below par. Has slept all day – though he has been persuaded to eat a few mouthfuls twice. No sign of anything obvious. He did have his quarterly anti-tick treatment on Wed – could be that, I suppose. Gus wasn’t bothered by it – and is bored because his brother isn’t interested in playing/hunting.

    Striving to be optimistic….

    1. Almost worse than having kids… but the concern is because you love their furrynesses. It’s what makes you human… Poor old Pickles.
      Our two get really upset when the other one isn’t there, or isn’t on form. Know what you mean, Bill.

      1. We were out for the day, so our son popped in a couple of times to let Spartie out and give him his supper.
        I was writing lists, organising meals, leaving harness in an obvious place and making sure S had a short morning walk.
        It was only when I realised around lunchtime that I felt distinctly hollow that I remembered I’d forgotten to have breakfast.

    2. The older and clumsier I get the more I fall over. I fallen off bicycles, tripped up on steps and gone full length in the back garden. However, despite my innate clumsiness, I’ve never sustained any injuries due to always instantly recalling how to fall properly. A skill taught me at police training school where I learnt how to deal with attacks by those wishing to injure me.

    3. Of course our older bodies are going to swing into action with: “I remember that move from three weeks ago! Yup, it’s the triple-back-slap-dislocated-shoulder move….” at this point I should point out that if my comments do not sound like me, I have in my hand a large gin and tonic because….. I have given up wine. For now. Almost teetotal.

      1. Well done you. I’m teetotal as well. I only drink Gin & Tonic too…. :@)

        Slice of cucumber? It’s one of your five a day.

        1. As is my slice of lemon. So that’s two of five-a-day in a G&T! Three if one adds a slice of lime!

          The thing is, poppiesdad has been ill for several weeks with an odd virus (deffo not covid); he went off alcohol, when he tried it again he said ‘ugh! that tastes awful!’ and it was a former favourite of his. So I thought I might as well join him in sobriety as it is no fun by yourself. But I can enjoy a G&T toute seule in the conservatory from time to time.

          2. Sorry to hear hubby not well. Chicken soup ! Not out of a tin. Make him stay in bed ! Doctors orders.

            I will send you my bill later… :@)

          3. Also, “as it is no fun by yourself.”, you’re never alone with the drunken pals on the forum.

          4. It sounds mad, but I agree with you; I can enjoy a G&T on my own, but not a glass of wine.
            Totally illogical.

      2. Ah, but when enough wine, or Guinness, has been imbibed my body is more relaxed so that falls and trips do less damage.

        I’ll limp over and fetch my zimmer.

    5. They are right, but the problem is that you need to acquire the skills much, much younger, so that they are totally instinctive.

      I got hit by a motor bike. I was jay-walking, but he was on the wrong side of the road. I was knocked into the air, did a standard break-fall without thinking about it.

      I got up and walked away, his motorbike was a write-off.
      Fortunately a passer-by stopped me and told me I had been badly cut by the bike and I had to go to A&E for stitches. One of those injuries where shock ensures one doesn’t feel it. When it was pointed out I realised I could see my thigh bone!

      2. You were “jay-walking” – possibly pissed? – and therefore anaesthetised to the femur injury ???

        1. If only.
          I had just finished work and was crossing Ludgate Hill on the way to Blackfriars station.
          There isn’t a lot of flesh where I got cut so presumably not too many nerve endings either.

      1. That’s Bill Thomas and i claim my 50 guineas.

        The thing to do if that were to happen is remain still. Sheesh !

    8. Falling correctly was one of the first things we were taught when I did judo as a kid. I still do it when I trip over the garden rake/hose/wheelbarrow/whatever.

  83. There is some drivel in the papers about the NHS (clap) needing trillions to pay for the 6 million people on the waiting list to be treated.

    A puzzled pensioner writes. If these operations have NOT been done (as they presumably haven’t), then trillions will NOT have been spent on them. The people who are to be treated will then cost what WASN’T paid when they were not treated.

    If you see what I mean. Or am I missing something (as usual)?

      1. Silly me.

        Anyway, I have received an appointment to see that chap at NNUH for my “three monthly check” – face to face… The last time I saw him was 17 November 2020! Though he did ring me once in January.

        Still – progress. They’ll even exempt me from wearing a mask if I ask nicely….

    2. If the money has been sloshing around, waiting…. it will have been spent on something else, like diversity, or vired (is that the word?) to border services. Sloshing money burns holes in slush funds.

      1. Well, it is baffling. I don’t think anyone in the NHS was let go in the last 2 years. All have been on full pay and their continual, continuous employment will be in the budget for the next few years. If more staff are required to catch up for lost time then there may be extra funds required. However, there will also be a requirement for more facilities, otherwise it will be a case of putting off Peter to treat Paul. (We can build facilities but where would extra staff come from?)
        However, transferring budgets from A to B is common practice in public organisations. It is used to conceal overspends and badly prepared budgets. Public Service budgets, councils and NHS prepare budgets on a roll over basis, using the budget for the existing year as the starting point. Sometimes they fake expenditure in order to boost the budget for the following year. NHS Border did this by being invoiced by a Borders council department, for services not received. Entered as expenditure in NHS accounts, thereby showing that the full amount of the budget was needed for next year (plus increase for inflation of course). After the financial year end close off the Borders council issued a credit note. By then the falsely inflated budget had been submitted and approved. Of course the Borders council operated the other way round. The NHS invoiced the Borders council, on reciprocal basis., etc.. So the Borders council budget was similarly boosted for the following year.
        Businesses with sense, use zero base budgeting i.e. they start from a blank piece of paper and work out what they need to spend. There is no automatic Inflation increase.

    4. It’s like the test tube shortage. The NHS has been doing less work for the past 18 months, therefore there must be millions of test tubes sitting in cupboards and store rooms.
      Unless (whisper it v. quietly) someone has either made a procurement c0ck-up or has been taking backhanders from Mr. Rashid’s Medical Supply Company.

      1. Thank you. It was an excellent meal. I didn’t save anything for Oscar because of his tendency to pancreatitis. I don’t need another vet’s bill at the moment; I paid for the funeral today.

  86. That’s me for this slightly worrying day. Early night to be fit for THE BIKE RIDE tomorrow morning. £400 plus in sponsorship. Very generous people around.

    Then a posh do at Gresham’s at 1pm – a memorial service for a chap who was head for yonks. Became a legend in his own lifetime (and made sure one knew it). I understand from some of the former staff that, although he was a “hero” to parents and children – he could be an arrogant, condescending twat. I’ll enquire tomorrow.

    So have a jolly evening – hop they show film of armed police arresting the Afghan “refugee” in Manchester this arvo….

    A demain – prolly.

      2. The Historic Churches Trust organises a sponsored bike ride/walk to as many churches as you can visit in a day – sponsorship divided between the trust & the church of the rider – usually in September each year, so I am guessing it is that.

    4. L.B-L. ? He was, reputedly, not a bad rugby player. Though you are no admirer of the Youngs brothers and their father who played international rugby too!

  87. Fury over Cressida Dick’s two more years as head of Met Police: ‘Bitterly disappointed’ Tory MP Harvey Proctor leads backlash after Priti Patel confirmed Scotland Yard chief will stay in post until April 2024

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9977717/Cressida-Dick-stay-Scotland-Yard-chief-April-2024.html#newcomment

    I suppose you could argue that Priti Patel is strong, courageous and sticks to her guns in the face of all opposition. She does not want to find a solution to the channel dinghy immigrants so she plays a blinder by pretending to take a firm line and letting the problem rip; and now, presented with the chance to get rid of the worst ever head of the Met she defies what people want and keeps her in place for another 2½ years.

    On the other hand I suppose you could argue that she is not fit for purpose.

    1. Look at all the current likely replacements:

      Woke, politically correct, common purpose, quota promoted etc. etc. and you can see that Patel might be hoping that a real policeman could rise through the ranks in the meantime.
      Fat chance of course.

      1. I vote for Mr Grizzle to be made i/c The Met.

        Can some ‘puter literate Nottler raise a petition

    3. “I suppose you could argue that Priti Patel is strong, courageous and sticks to her guns in the face of all opposition.”

      Did you mean I suppose you could argue that Priti Patel is ignorant and arrogant.

      “On the other hand I suppose you could argue that she is not fit for purpose.”

      Amen.

    1. Had this very old chap doing Sinatra songs very very badly. I dropped a tenner into his box and really put him off his stroke. It was worth it to see him almost croak ! :@(

    1. “The brigade said everyone is accounted for at the industrial site in Saville Town where the fire broke out.”

      Oh, the irony! The seat of the fire in the place where England’s Islamic Revolution began when the BNP was fire-bombed out of the Scarborough Hotel.

  91. So, if you were a people smuggler, you would buy the cheapest, flimsiest dinghies you can find for the cross-channel trip, in the sure and certain knowledge that the captain of the Border Force vessel that found you would consider it far too dangerous to turn you back and happily escort you and your passengers into Kent.

    The road to hell etc…..

    1. In that case just take them on board, destroy the dinghy, and carry on to yer France where they can be disembarked safely.

  92. This adverisement (admittedly in yer Weegie) -I just found it in English – is one major reason I joined this organisation.
    The “actors” are all employees.
    To me, an engineering and fabrication company that can come up with a recruitment ad like this is worth joining!
    https://youtu.be/gzrjoDElQy0

      1. Worlds leading offshore contractor, us.
        Last project, better safety record, early installation, early first oil, no worries.
        Best in the world, us. For now. As long as we don’t get complacent.
        Not the cheapest, though.

    3. Here’s a tenuous connection that you and I have, Paul.

      My first job was with the engineering firm Markham & Co Ltd, Chesterfield, mechanical and production engineers, who, amongst many projects, manufactured mining equipment, tunnelling machines, water turbines and die-casting machines. Markham’s were bought out by John Brown engineering of Sheffield (and Glasgow shipyards), who were later bought out by Trafalgar House. T.H. were then bought out by Kvaerner of Oslo who are now owned by Aker.

      Small world, innit?

        1. I thought you were a cousin of mine. Sorry i never sent you a Christmas card but i thought if you were a total basterd like me, you would probably throw it straight in the bin… :@)

  93. This adverisement (admittedly in yer Weegie) -I just found it in English – is one major reason I joined this organisation.
    The “actors” are all employees.
    To me, an engineering and fabrication company that can come up with a recruitment ad like this is worth joining!
    https://youtu.be/gzrjoDElQy0

  94. If only our domineering politicians would listen to Sarah Gilbert

    Let Covid melt away into the soup of endemic respiratory diseases which have long lived among us

    ROSS CLARK

    If there are still fans of a ‘zero covid’ strategy advising the government they do not include Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, the designer of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. In a telling passage of her interview with the Daily Telegraph she said: “We are not going to eradicate Sars-Cov-2. It’s going to continue to circulate. And at some point, schools will remain open when there are infected children because, ultimately, we have to move to the point where we are living with the virus.”

    This should really have been obvious since March 2020. There was a narrow window in which it might have been possible to snuff out the virus, just as the world managed with the original SARS virus in 2003/04, but as soon as it became clear that it was circulating asymptomatically in the population the game was up. The challenge then was trying to find a way of living with it – as we do, of course, numerous other viruses. And that is what we did – the vaccines developed by Gilbert and others which have reduced the mortality rate to very low levels, while also cutting, by about two thirds, the risk of being infected in the first place.

    Why, then, has it taken so many people so long to come to terms with the idea of living with Covid? Still we are fed this daily statistic of new Covid infections, even though it hardly matters very much any more – it is only hospitalisations and deaths we need care about. Still, much of government policy seems to revolve around the conceit that we can somehow make the virus go away if we trace contacts and – as was the case up until 9 August – make them isolate for 10 days. We think we can keep out new variants by incarcerating travellers in Travelodge rooms. And still there is talk of closing schools for an extended period and calls for an October ‘firebreaker’ lockdown – a rebranded version of the two-week ‘circuit breaker’ which many advocated last autumn and which proved such a miserable failure when it was eventually tried in Wales, where infection rates just carried on where they had left off.

    Australia has tested the zero covid policy to destruction. The reward for locking down a large proportion of the population for several weeks, as well as maintaining some of the strictest border controls in the world? Daily infections are now running at 2000 a day – higher than at any point during the pandemic.

    Push for zero Covid and we will never be able to call an end to this pandemic. The quickest way we will be able to declare it to be over will be to get the whole world vaccinated – or as many as possible. Yet the government has become bogged down with the issue of third, booster jabs for the over-50s when the priority really should be first jabs for the world’s population. Isn’t it fascinating how Pfizer, which is profiting from its vaccine, has been pushing more booster jabs in developing countries while Gilbert, whose vaccine is being made by AstraZeneca at cost price, is prepared to say she thinks boosters are unnecessary for now? If we could get all countries vaccinated in the way Britain now is, the last justification for ‘red lists’ and hotel quarantine would evaporate.

    As Gilbert says, immunity from vaccines is lasting well, especially when it comes to keeping people out of hospital. Yet still we allow ourselves to be spooked by numbers of vaccinated people who test positive. That was always going to happen – vaccine trials showed that they were much more effective at preventing symptoms and death than they were preventing mere infection. Stubbornly high numbers of recorded daily infections should not prevent us going about our daily lives.

    Indeed, at some point the government should be brave enough to stop publishing infection figures and let Covid melt away into the soup of endemic respiratory diseases which have long lived among us.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/10/domineering-politicians-would-listen-sarah-gilbert/

    1. It’s time they stopped this obsession with testing and stopped giving out the figures for ‘cases’ every night. They don’t put any of these figures into context.

  95. I’m not a fan of their organisation, but no one else will have the guts to do this, at least and by doing so they are bringing out part of the truth. Thanks to our stupid reckless brain dead useless irresponsible government, these brave people are highlighting the fact that our country as we once knew it,……… is finished.
    https://www.patriot-movement.uk/britain_first_exposes_illegal_immigrant_hotel_in_salford?utm_campaign=salford_hotel1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=britainfirstpayments
    Armed police arrest Afghan fighter at Manchester Hotel.
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/armed-police-arrest-afghan-special-forces-commando-at-manchester-hotel-sky-news-learns/ar-AAOiABa?ocid=msedgntp

  96. Harris is correct – well, almost. The West has indeed given up but he makes a fundamental error by referring to the ‘differences between Islamism and Islam itself’. And he omits to mention Lee Rigby.

    Twenty years on from 9/11, we must finally stand up to Islamist extremism

    Our complacency in dealing with this most vile of ideologies has granted the terrorists ultimate victory

    TOM HARRIS

    When parliament was recalled in September 2001 to debate the terrorist attacks on the United States days earlier, recently-elected MPs such as myself were in no doubt about the geopolitical earthquake that had just taken place.

    For three months since the general election, we had swanned around Westminster, the summer sun smiling down as we, masters of all we surveyed, looked forward to a long career in government.

    Then everything changed.

    From that point, everything MPs did was defined by – or at the very least overshadowed by – the fight against Islamist extremism. Whether that fight was literal, as in Afghanistan, or through legislation – control orders, pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects, ID cards, surveillance measures – hardly a single month went by without some new measure being laid before parliament requiring our urgent attention.

    Yet as in so many areas of life, the degree to which everything has changed over the last 20 years can be seen in how so many things have stayed the same. Do our leaders recognise the threat still posed to our way of life and to our values by those who adhere to a truly medieval philosophy?

    If there is a reluctance by MPs to be too outspoken against Islamist extremism, it’s partly to do with the first word of the term: Islamism… it just sounds a bit too much like Islam, doesn’t it? In fact one of the first conversations I had with a newly-elected colleague who arrived in the Commons in 2005 was about this very subject. When I offered my opinion that Islamism was the single biggest threat to human life today, she objected strenuously, accusing me of Islamophobia. It turned out to be no more than a miscommunication: when I explained the differences between Islamism and Islam itself, she retracted her accusation. But she still was not convinced of my case.

    Many still aren’t. The outrages of Islamist extremism still occur regularly, though not, thankfully, on anything like the scale of 9/11. Nevertheless, for the friends and family members of the victims of the 7/7 attacks or Manchester Arena bombing or the knife attacks on London Bridge and on Westminster Bridge and at the very gates of the Palace of Westminster in 2017, the devastation is every bit as cruel and intense as it was for those many thousands who said goodbye for the last time to their loved ones on that fateful Tuesday morning.

    Yet there remains a reluctance to recognise the root cause of that terror – an ideological conviction that a single worldwide caliphate under Sharia law must be established, by force if necessary, and that non-Muslims (and, indeed, most westernised Muslims) must be subjected to the rule of the imams or dispensed with altogether.

    When Islamist terrorists murdered journalists and other staff at the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, there were many observers who equivocated about the crime, who suggested that maybe those journalists had had it coming, given their disrespect for Mohammed expressed in the cartoons they published on the cover.

    When a French school teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded by a terrorist who had chosen to take offence by Paty’s decision to show his pupils a cartoon of Muhammed, it was just the latest of a number of outrages that should have woken the west up to its complacent approach to this most vile of extremisms. And yet when President Macron spoke out in defence of liberal values and against this evil philosophy, he received next to no support from his fellow world leaders. They were too busy looking the other way and hoping not to catch the extremists’ eye, lest their own countries become new targets.

    And when a teacher at Batley Grammar was forced to go into hiding after extremists protested his showing those same cartoons to his own pupils, you could have heard a pin drop in parliament. Think about that for a minute: a teacher was put in fear of his life – and the lives of his family – for doing something quite legal, for something that to a normal mindset would have been deemed unexceptional and even informative for his pupils – and had to hide behind police protection. Why? Because the experience from France suggested some violent and appalling events might flow from that teacher’s actions.

    Again, there were many who were happy to blame the victim. And even during a high-profile parliamentary by-election in the constituency where the school is based, not one of the parties even raised the issue.

    So consider for a moment the motives of those 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001. Consider the motives of the terrorists who bombed the London Underground in 2005, who killed and maimed young girls enjoying a pop concert in Manchester, who murdered journalists for having a different worldview from them, who executed a teacher who had done absolutely nothing wrong. And consider this: they seem to have won.

    The terrorists wanted to warn the rest of the world that they must acknowledge the superiority of their religion, that if we don’t behave ourselves they will take matters into their own hands.

    At first we were outraged. We refused to talk terms with barbarians and we sent troops into Afghanistan to arrest the man behind 9/11. But war is long and difficult, and the effort to fight cultural extremism is uncomfortable and inconvenient, as that early conversation with my new parliamentary colleague showed.

    So we chose instead to tolerate the occasional loss of life, an acceptable level of violence, as Reginald Maudling once said to his cost, in return for our not being too critical of the men and women who hate us and the ideology that maintains them.

    We are beaten. We’ve learned our lesson and we’ve learned to keep our mouths shut rather than stand up to the bullies. As a nation we are prepared to allow teachers to be intimidated and threatened, and we can bring ourselves to make excuses for the slaughter of journalists – just don’t ask us to take a stand against the extremist ideology that motivates the perpetrators. Far easier to say “Well, on the one hand…” than to condemn savagery and risk the ire of scary men with guns and knives.

    We should at least be grateful that the 3000 victims of 9/11 and subsequent attacks are not around to witness our cowardice today.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/10/twenty-years-911-must-finally-stand-islamism/

    2. ‘As a nation we are prepared to allow teachers to be intimidated and threatened, and we can bring ourselves to make excuses for the slaughter of journalists – just don’t ask us to take a stand against the extremist ideology that motivates the perpetrators. Far easier to say “Well, on the one hand…” than to condemn savagery and risk the ire of scary men with guns and knives.’
      No, not as a nation, just a certain part of it, notably politicians of all hues, the MSM and a weak woke bunch of lefty apologists.

    4. There is absolutely no getting away from the fact that everywhere islamic conformists are or where ever they go, there is trouble.

      1. Do they ever stop and contemplate why there is absolutely zero tourism to their countries? No-one wants to visit them.

    5. Terrorism produces fear and reactions out of all proportion to the numbers actually killed.

      If the West was serious about dealing with it they would fight fire with fire and send out death squads to kill the terrorists and their extended families. If the maniac knew he was likely to be identified, hunted down and killed, along with his entire family and the members of his village/community I suspect there would eventually be far fewer volunteers; partially because the villages and communities would root out and kill the maniacs to save themselves.
      In nuclear terms it was MAD, make terrorists realise that MAD applies to them and theirs.

        1. If absolutely necessary, why not?
          There will come a point where it becomes them or us, better to get it over with sooner rather than later. Look at the demographics.

          3. Perhapsa we start with the concentration camps – empty the Mosques, cleanse Dewsbury, Bradford, Leicester, Birmingham et all and rid ourselves of the filthy pestilence in our midst.

    6. 11 September

      Sixty years ago, tomorrow, I joined the RN

      It used to be a date I celebrated: not anymore

    7. I’m pretty sure This comes as no surprise to Joe Public. Alf and I remember Abdul Hamza preaching in Finsbury Park with his followers blocking the street way back in the 90s or maybe earlier I’m not sure of the year. But the Police should have moved them on and stopped all that then. Give an inch and they take a mile, etc. etc. And so on from there.

    1. Give Tony my best wishes if you communicate with him on twitter. I used to enjoy his posts, it’s a pity he departed.

  98. Vaccine passports have already set us on a slippery slope

    ‘Public health need’ shouldn’t be allowed to become the basis on which freedom is meted out by the state

    SILKIE CARLO • 10 September 2021 • 4:56pm

    The steady march towards medical ID cards is on, after the Scottish Parliament voted in favour of vaccine passports this week. In Westminster, the Government is set to follow suit but won’t even commit to giving MPs a vote on the matter – as though votes in the House of Commons are now gifts from ministers. Meanwhile, the Welsh government will make a decision on the matter next week.

    And yet before vaccine passports have even arrived, the culture secretary has already been preparing the ground for vaccine ID requirements to be extended beyond nightclubs, stadiums and conferences to ever more spaces – “according to the public health need”. That’s hardly reassuring given how far the elastic justification of “public health” has already been stretched over the past 18 months.

    You don’t have to look far for evidence of that. The very law ministers will use to impose vaccine passports is the eye-wateringly draconian Coronavirus Act. The Act’s powers for ministers to suspend elections, ban protests, quarantine people indefinitely and more were gravely nodded through Parliament in March 2020 on the premise that they were strictly temporary to meet the public health need. But 18 months later, these lingering powers are expected to be extended yet again and used in part to reorganise the country into a two-tier, checkpoint society.

    The extension and endurance of vaccine passports is, likewise, surely inevitable. Mission creep is baked both into the ill-defined goals of the scheme, and the nature of executive-led politics. With the Government now setting its sights on mandatory Covid and flu vaccinations for NHS workers, it is not difficult to see how the role and content of medical IDs will grow.

    Ministers want vaccine IDs to achieve something that the vaccines can’t do. Already, 90 per cent of over-16s have come forward for the jabs, and yet cases have still been rising. Thankfully, the vaccines are largely preventing serious illness and, better still, the data shows 98 per cent of adults have antibodies, but the jabs do not completely stop people from catching the virus or passing it on. And if vaccinations cannot stop infections, nor can vaccine passports.

    However, the “public health need” is becoming more faith-based than fact. Given the inevitability of new variants, and the minority of people who will always refuse vaccination, the public health need will be cast immortal. At the same time, the performance of public health policies and institutions has become the basis on which freedom is meted out by the state.

    If vaccine passports go ahead, the Johnson government will have made it so that no citizen has genuine freedom in Britain without carrying papers. To our British sensibilities, that is not freedom at all.

    Silkie Carlo is director of Big Brother Watch

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/10/vaccine-passports-have-already-set-us-slippery-slope/

    1. I offer a cuning plan, aimed at the ‘more mature Nottlers

      DO NOT GET THE PASSPORT

      Get sent to prison, free food accommodation, health care, heating TV, recreation areas and inheritance for kids is protected

      Up Yours Janus Johnson

      1. Joking apart, the brief 9pm news summary on R4 led with the news of the rising infection rate (sic) in Scotland and included a brief clip of Wee Crankie hinting heavily at more drastic measures. When will the media learn that a positive test is not a case/infection? Why does the BBC in particular continue with the announcements of these stats?

      2. I’m planning on booking a place in the Royal Hospital, Chelsea. I quite fancy myself in a tricorn hat.

    1. Third World problems

      Era of limitless choice in welfare state countries is over, says top people smuggler.

      1. Exacto. Who needs fifty two varieties of brea,fast cereal or thirty five different yoghurts.
        We managed perfectly well before pak choi appeared in the veg aisle too.

        1. You could apply the same logic to every commodity and make 20 million people unemployed as they won’t be needed to make these useless things any more. That’s a Tory wet dream. That’ll hold wages down for decades. We’ll need just one power company, one water company, one communications company, one supermarket, and so on. A bit like how it was when you grew up. Yes I know when you reached maturity you wanted more choice and more competition to drive down prices, but now you’re yearning for those days of old again.

    3. We are going to have to open “English Restaurants” near all Chinese military bases, to spy on them,
      like what thay have done to us for 50+ years

    4. I have a really good bean shoot recipe. All that is required is one kg of bean shoots, some straps to hold the lobbyist down and a plunger. Chilli optional.

  100. Wow! I had never heard the St Matthew Passion & wondered what all the fuss was about. Tonight’s presentation was truly amazing.
    It was useful to use the subtitles to catch up with the German, especially with the soloists.

      1. I had always kept it in the same pigeon-hole as “The Sound of Music”, i.e. to be avoided.

          1. Yes, I enjoyed it. especially as it was in German. Oberammergau must be a bit like that, but I don’t think I could sit through such a long performance, despite the breaks.

  102. Good night all.

    Pan-fried hake fillet with crispy roast potatoes for supper. SB The Great Wave.

  103. And another thing! The Test match. I had five wasted days written into my schedule. What am I not going to do with them now?

    1. And another thing! The Test match. I had five wasted days written into my schedule. What am I not going to do with them now?

      Erase them!

    2. You’re not alone. It’ll just mean ridiculously long drinks breaks, early lunches and teas, followed by a declaration (of feeling cheated).

    3. Has India won the series 2 – 1 or has the cancellation of the final match voided that result as the series has not been completed in full?

      1. Itchy beard.
        There’s some debate as to whether it was cancelled or forfeited. If they decide it was due to Covid, its cancelled and they win the series,
        More likely, seeing as they all tested negative, they didn’t want to play, but wanted to stay away from any risk of being exposed to catching infection in order to make sure they’re at full strength for the more lucrative IPL.

    1. Flip off British gas. The role of the state is to provide energy, not to ration it in the name of a lie.

      Let’s see these idiots leading the way and making the sacrifices first.

      Besides. They’re all black, so it doesn’t apply to me. Have the newcomers do without first.

          1. No, Charlie was the old boy I lost in April. Snowy (Milou) is Tintin’s dog, but Oscar (my dog) had just been to the groomers and was, for once, sparkly, indeed snowy, white 🙂

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