Friday 12 April: Hope that the Cass report will usher in a cultural shift on gender issues

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

895 thoughts on “Friday 12 April: Hope that the Cass report will usher in a cultural shift on gender issues”

    1. Not a pleasant cartoonist, is Peter Brookes. Despite being about Wilson’s paramours he still has to make a dig at Margaret Thatcher. (Good morning, btw.)

      1. Even worse is the fact that he missed out ‘Dim’ Jim Callaghan in the sequence of PMs.

  5. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) Story

    AN UNKNOWN PIECE OF HISTORY………SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT

    Did you know????

    The Goldberg Brothers – The Inventors of the Automobile Air Conditioner.
    Here’s a little factoid for automotive buffs or just to dazzle your friends.
    The four Goldberg brothers, Lowell, Norman, Hiram, and Max, invented and developed the first automobile air-conditioner.
    On July 17, 1946, the temperature in Detroit was 97 degrees.
    The four brothers walked into old man Henry Ford’s office and sweet-talked his secretary into telling him that four gentlemen were there with the most exciting innovation in the auto industry since the electric starter.
    Henry was curious and invited them into his office. They refused and instead asked that he come out to the parking lot to their car.
    They persuaded him to get into the car, which was about 130 degrees, turned on the air conditioner, and cooled the car off immediately.
    The old man got very excited and invited them back to the office, where he offered them $3 million for the patent.
    The brothers refused, saying they would settle for $2 million, but they wanted the recognition by having a label, ‘The Goldberg Air-Conditioner,’ on the dashboard of each car in which it was installed.

    Now old man Ford was more than just a little anti- Semitic, and there was no way he was going to put the Goldberg’s name on two million Fords.
    They haggled back and forth for about two hours and finally agreed on $4 million and that just their first names would be shown.
    And so, to this day, all Ford air conditioners show:

    Lo, Norm, Hi, and Max on the controls.

  8. Canadian parliament breaks into God Save the King

    MPs vote against removing oath and refuse to be silenced by speaker

    Benedict Smith, US REPORTER
    11 April 2024 • 4:49pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/04/11/TELEMMGLPICT000373561015_17128496328220_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq_HmxF9R2KdqCLT2QTDb6dQMHEZjeD2Ev0SsQqzoA0j8.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Greg Fergus, the speaker, repeatedly called for order

    The Canadian parliament broke into God Save the King after MPs voted against removing the oath of allegiance.

    The Government and most of the Liberal and Conservative MPs joined forces to vote down the private member’s bill, which was supported by the Left-wing NDP and nationalist Bloc Québécois parties.

    MPs voted to keep Section 128, which requires that new parliamentarians must swear to be “faithful and bear true allegiance” to the reigning monarch, by 113 votes to 197.

    A member cannot legally assume his or her seat in parliament until they have taken the oath under the Canadian constitution, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reports.

    Monarchist MPs applauded the bill’s defeat and spontaneously began singing God Save the King when the result was announced.

    Greg Fergus, the speaker, repeatedly called for order but eventually gave up as the members continued, undeterred. They carried on until they reached the end of the first verse.
    *
    *
    ******************************

    1. I’m surprised that they voted to keep the oath by 113 votes to 197. Shurley shome mistake? Didn’t they mean by 197 votes to 113? (Good morning, btw.)

      1. Presumably they were asked to vote for or against the motion, those in favour came first, those against second.

    2. From the look on his face in this picture this chap is a member of the smirking class!

  9. Putin seizing Kyiv would be more catastrophic than Vietnam War, says Boris Johnson. 12 April 2024.

    Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Kyiv would be a “catastrophe” bigger than Vietnam for American leadership on the world stage, Boris Johnson has warned.

    It wasn’t a catastrophe at all. It was a defeat that allowed Vietnam to go its own way and the Domino Theory proved to be complete bunkum. The US did have to rebuild its army but that was probably an improvement.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/04/12/putin-seizing-kyiv-vietnam-war-boris-johnson/

  10. He’s getting desperate…

    Hate crime call handlers given script defending Humza Yousaf

    Police Scotland issues guide on ‘form of words’ to use when people complain about First Minister

    Daniel Sanderson, SCOTTISH CORRESPONDENT
    11 April 2024 • 6:45pm

    Police Scotland staff have been given a script defending Humza Yousaf after he faced a deluge of hate crime reports.

    The national force issued an email guide to call centre workers and officers, advising them of lines to take in response to claims that the First Minister made a racist speech at Holyrood at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement.

    Mr Yousaf, who was then the justice secretary, had highlighted the race of a series of high profile figures in Scottish public life in June 2020, pointing out that each of them was white.

    He added that at 99 per cent of the meetings he went to he was “the only non-white person in the room” and said Scotland “has a problem of structural racism”.

    His remarks have since been taken out of context online in a 45-second clip, with Elon Musk describing Mr Yousaf on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, as a “blatant racist” in October 2022.

    Such was the volume of complaints about the remarks that Police Scotland issued a guide on a “form of words” to recite when members of the public complain about the First Minister under his new hate crime laws.

    It states that Mr Yousaf had been making reference to his “own personal experience of racism” and that “nothing said in the speech was threatening, abusive or insulting”. It adds that when he had been referring to “white people”, he had been “pointing out a matter of fact”.

    The guide said: “There was no malice or ill will towards any person or group displayed in anything said, and so it does not meet the threshold to be recorded as a non-crime hate incident.”

    The email, issued by Police Scotland’s diversity unit after the hate crime laws came into force this month, added that the speech was protected under Mr Yousaf’s rights to freedom of speech. The force has been deluged with complaints since the legislation was brought in, many of them about Mr Yousaf.

    In the first week of the legislation, 7,152 online hate reports were made, though fewer than four per cent – 240 – were recorded as hate crimes.

    The force has previously faced questions over why the complaints were not recorded as a non-crime hate incident, while remarks by Tory MSP Murdo Fraser, complaining about Scottish Government gender policies, were.

    According to Police Scotland’s published policies, hate incidents are recorded based solely on the perception of the person making the complaint.

    Sharon Dowey, the deputy justice spokesman for the Scottish Tories, said: “It’s a measure of how farcical Humza Yousaf’s hate crime law is that police officers have effectively been given a script on how to respond to the flood of complaints made against the First Minister under the very legislation that he piloted and introduced.”

    A Police Scotland spokesman said: “We have received a number of complaints in relation to a speech in the Scottish Parliament on 10 June 2020. Earlier complaints regarding this matter were assessed at the time and it was established no crime was committed and no further action was required.”

    **********************************

    annette morris
    11 HRS AGO
    I found his speech offensive ,insulting ,disrespectful illogical, irrational and deluded in a country which is 95% white .and yes I was offended ..so what was the point of his speech other than to promote a blatant anti white racist message

  11. Hope that the Cass report will usher in a cultural shift on gender issues

    I still cannot work out how the whole gender issue emerged from nowhere to become a tool for controlling public opinion and silencing free speech and criticism.
    It never really existed 50 years ago, except on tv comedy shows.
    And now all of a sudden all these children supposedly want to change gender.

    1. Part of the cultural marxist long march. As Alinsky said, “We will make the West so rotten it stinks.”
      They will seek to normalise and exalt ever more disgusting and unnatural perversions to collapse Western civilisation. The destruction of Classicism, Christianity, normalisation of abortion and homosexuality, drug taking, Trans, then paedophilia etc.

      1. I mostly agree with you, with the exception of paedophilia. You have fallen into the trap of using a lazy US-based scapegoat – a get-out to excuse all other perversions, and much used by the very people who are making things much worse.

        “Paedophilia” and “terrorism” have become the tools used to suspend fundamental legal principles such as Habeas Corpus, because of their emotional potency, and I consider that the glib use of these two terms to be extremely dangerous.

        1. Are you an advocate for paedophilia, Jeremy? Not saying you are but your post is rather opaque. What do you mean?

          1. No, and it’s as blunt as I can make it, given that free speech these days is incriminating.

            Both paedophilia and terrorism are being used as a pretext to breach fundamental laws of justice, such as Habeas Corpus and the Burden of Proof. Just consider the Enhanced DBS Disclosure that can blight someone’s career and social standing for life, which relies on malice and hearsay.

            It seems that “hate” is now joining that growing list of justice-exempt charges, and it won’t be long before being “inappropriate” is proof of criminality.

  12. Wordle 1,028 5/6

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

    Good morning, chums. I hope you all slept well. I had a recurring nightmare, based on my cinema days. But with today’s glorious weather, I hope we can all enjoy the day.

    1. Morning Ma’am.
      Do describe your nightmare? Did you fall into the popcorn machine or were you an usherette and realised while working that you were naked? 🙂
      I used to suffer from a recurrent nightmare so one day I spent a lot of time thinking what I would do to the nightmare figure, went to bed, it recurred and in my dream I shot it, and was never bothered by that nightmare again.

      1. When I have nightmares of my cinema days, I resolve to reflect on them the next morning and discover what was worrying me and how I might – like you – resolve it. Those nightmares recur very seldom these days. (Good morning, btw.)

        1. Last night’s nightmare took me to the theatre, where I had bought a ticket to see something I really wanted to see. Waiting for it to open, I wandered out for some fresh air, and found myself going down the road where I was born, expecting to turn round when I got to the TV studios. There were the new flats with the name of the road written on them. However, I somehow ended up in a moving car. I looked out and found I was in Pall Mall. Now I know enough about London to know it was not Pall Mall, but by then I had no control over where the car was going, which was then motoring through interminable London suburbs away from the theatre, and there was no way I could change this, except by waking up. So I did.

      2. Good morning. My recurring nightmare was falling from high buildings. Then i learned how to fly.

    2. Good Morning Elsie,

      Three here

      Wordle 1,028 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩⬜⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  13. Good morning.
    It’s really odd but latterly I can only access NoTTL via a favourite Youtube video I have bookmarked. That works every time, even Geoff’s links go into eternal loading.

    1. “Who can explain it, who can tell you why. Fools give you reasons, wise men never try.” (From SOUTH PACIFIC.) (Good morning, btw.)

      1. its the who would have insted question that keeps them in . If we did not have themhere who would be the head of state, probably someone like Blair. wash my mouth out.

  16. This report about the threat to puffer trains has attracted more BTL comments than Humza Hate

    Steam trains face end of the line in Britain after row over slamming doors

    Ban threatens the popular Hogwarts Express among other West Coast Railways trains

    Christopher Jasper
    11 April 2024 • 5:47pm

    Some of Britain’s last steam trains are in danger of disappearing from the railways following a row over the door locks on 60-year-old carriages.

    West Coast Railways, the biggest operator of steam and classic diesel trains on the national network, said its business was in the balance following the move by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to scrap an exemption that allowed it to use traditional hinged-door carriages.

    The safety watchdog banned the popular steam-hauled Jacobite train service – dubbed the “Hogwarts Express” for its appearance in the Harry Potter franchise – in January because the doors on its 60-year-old carriages don’t have central locking. The ORR was concerned that passengers could open the doors themselves while the train was moving, risking injury.

    The ban threatens not just the Hogwarts Express, which has run every summer for 30 years along the West Highland line, but also many of West Coast Railways’s other historic trains.

    The company operates 60pc of all main line heritage rolling stock in the UK, comprising 125 coaches. Fitting new locks across the fleet would cost an estimated £7m, a bill that commercial manager James Shuttleworth said was both unjustified and beyond its resources.

    A cross-party group of MPs backing West Coast have written to Rail Minister Huw Merriman urging him to engage with the ORR on the matter and warning that regulators operating unchecked “have the capacity to bring business they regulate to a quick end”.

    Mr Shuttleworth said: “Nobody is saying they want to compromise on safety, but we’ve got to keep the historic ambience of the old carriages. Otherwise nobody will want to travel in the first place.’’

    Mr Shuttleworth added that the Hogwarts Express had “become a key part of the Highland economy.”

    The Jacobite train runs 300 services a year along the 41-mile route between Fort William and Mallaig, carrying a total of 110,000 passengers.
    *
    *
    ***************************

    David Cornhill
    11 HRS AGO
    I don’t see what the problem is, if someone is so stupid to open the door when moving and fall out it might have the advantage of cleaning up the gene pool for future generations.
    All they need is a sign warning of the danger.

    2. Darwinism in action.
      Has the British Public become more stupid since central locking was introduced on trains? Discuss.

    3. Steam locomotives (the word ‘train’ refers to the carriages or trucks they haul) pull coaches — with dinner provided — on the North Norfolk Railway between Holt and Cromer.

      And let’s not forget that the iconic Flying Scotsman (4472 in LNER livery, or 60103 in British Railways’ colours) is still steaming along strongly a year after its centenary.

    4. What I remember of old carriages and opening doors is that one had to pull the strap, let the window down and then put one’s arm through to turn the handle on the outside.

  17. I wish people would grasp the idea that gender is a grammatical concept, when they misuse the ENGLISH word to identify that they mean biological sex (male and female).

    2. Trouble is, Tom, they won’t. They are so impregnated with vapid Americanisms that they know no different.

      I am angered by BritBox, the Television streaming service that provides British TV programmes. The abysmal quality subtitles are written by a dim Yank! It is beyond galling to hear a character onscreen talking about their mum while at the same time reading the subtitles showing ‘mom’!

      1. Good morning, Grizzly. I had the opposite kind of experience when I went recently to watch the remake (in musical form) of THE COLOR PURPLE; at one point I almost laughed out loud when the subtitles for the hard of hearing were written as “… the colour purple.” Lol.

      2. Kind of related. Why are all the foreign films on Netflix dubbed with the same voices? Male leads across the continents all have the same English speaking voice – according to Netflix.. A voice incidentally which sounds nothing like any of the characters look. Right whiny and boring.

    3. Trouble is, Tom, they won’t. They are so impregnated with vapid Americanisms that they know no different.

      I am angered by BritBox, the Television streaming service that provides British TV programmes. The abysmal quality subtitles are written by a dim Yank! It is beyond galling to hear a character onscreen talking about their mum while at the same time reading the subtitles showing ‘mom’!

  20. I heard you, and am arming Britain for a more warlike world. 12 April 2024.

    Our new Integrated Procurement Model is a response to a more dangerous world and the lessons we’ve learned from Ukraine and previous acquisition programmes. Our overriding objective is to create and procure the newest and best capabilities for our Forces as quickly as we can. I’ve put targets in place to deliver battle winning capabilities in years rather than decades, helping us stay ahead of adversaries, bolster our supply chains, and strengthen our Defence sector.

    He’s not talking here about weapons but the Civil Service and since they have proved to be utterly useless there can be no change. They probably laughed themselves sick at his naivete.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/12/i-heard-you-and-arming-britain-for-a-more-warlike-world/

    2. There’s no doubt the procurement model is broken but any private industry figure whose company works on bleeding edge R&D will know why projects tend to overrun badly. Just try it with radical new software programmes trying to do things existing software, often with 20 plus years of development, cannot do.
      That said much of the problem with the MoD I understand is politicians and service chiefs meddling with specifications and trying to make one platform service many needs which makes things over complex.

      1. The very words “Procurement model” like “Mission statement” excite my scepticism. They are bureaucratese to excuse personal incompetence.

        1. Procurement model is the standard procurement process. All companies have one, just as they have defined New Product Development processes.

      2. The very words “Procurement model” like “Mission statement” excite my scepticism. They are bureaucratese to excuse personal incompetence.

  22. A £10-a-shot high-powered laser beam that will “revolutionise the battlespace” has been successfully fired for the first time.

    The DragonFire’s high-power firing of a laser weapon against aerial targets during a trial at the Ministry of Defence’s Hebrides Range was a UK first.

    The weapon, developed by Qinetiq, the UK defence contractor, is being developed to hit missiles, drones and other enemy targets.

    By using electric power, it does not require ammunition, which is seen as an advantage at a time when the West is burning through missile stockpiles by donating them to Ukraine.

    Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, said: “This type of cutting-edge weaponry has the potential to revolutionise the battlespace by reducing the reliance on expensive ammunition, while also lowering the risk of collateral damage.”

    He added that such advanced technologies were “crucial in a highly contested world,” and helped the UK to “maintain the battle-winning edge and keep the nation safe”.

    DragonFire weapon
    The weapon’s range is classified, but it is highly accurate and reportedly capable of hitting any visible target CREDIT: Ministry of Defence
    Laser-directed energy weapons can engage targets at the speed of light and use an intense beam of light to cut through the target, leading to structural failure or more impactful results if the warhead is targeted.

    In 2017, a £30 million contract was awarded to the DragonFire consortium to demonstrate the potential of the laser weapons.

    The cost of operating the laser is typically less than £10 per shot, which means it has the potential to be a long-term low-cost alternative to certain tasks missiles currently carry out.

    In comparison, the Sea Viper missiles that were shot from HMS Diamond in the Red Sea to take down the Iranian-backed Houthis drones and missiles cost roughly £1 million each.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/12/laser-shoot-down-drones-fitted-royal-navy-within-five-years/
    I have to say for once that that is impressive.

    1. Don’t worry, they’ll power it by solar panels or wind mills. “Come lads the breeze has died down, blow harder”.

    2. “…highly accurate and reportedly capable of hitting any visible target…”
      Only in direct fire. No good with indirect fire. And what if the target is polished to a good shine? Where do the reflections go? How many PP3 batteries are required?

      1. All valid questions but the hole punched through a mortar shell is pretty impressive, as it the £10 per shot cost.
        It’s now going to field testing.

  23. British troops to test Ocean’s Eleven-style electromagnetic weapon for first time. 12 April 2024

    7th Air Defence will get the EMP technology in the summer, and will also receive the DragonFire laser in September. The experts in this group will assess the capabilities of the two different technologies separately, and provide feedback on flaws and possible improvements.

    Yes and both are General Election propaganda that will be forgotten as soon as it is over.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/12/british-troops-test-oceans-eleven-electromagnetic-weapon/

  24. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/27fad0d8c4c64e123e7ae5db32f889ca491a629d5fc78db8124ee9f1771a4e91.png Personally, if I were a local Norfuckian citizen of Wymondham, I would want to eject every Limp Dim from the place.

    Moreover, I would make the town the first in the UK to expel every member of the Religion of Peace from the locality. A series of large vivid posters would be erected on every street corner proudly proclaiming: “THERE IS NO ‘MO’ IN WYMONDHAM”

        2. I am reminded of the Modern Toss cartoon “I looked out of this window and saw something I didn’t like, I want a refund.” *standing in the glazers shop with a window in hands*

  26. Good morning from Helicon and Anglo Saxon Kingdom of Mercia with axe in handbag and carrying the burning arrows of Zeus .

    A bright spring morning, it’ll be warm today and the baby birds in the nest below my bedroom window are making a huge noise.

    1. Greetings returned to you from the Kingdom of Raedwald.
      (A bit before your time.).

      1. Hello Tom.. an Æthelflæd hug to you from East Anglia. Why live in Caledonia if you hate it so ? Surely you don’t have to stay there .

    1. I’m imagining Welby reading it out doing his bit and between takes remarking “Hey, it’s not half bad this stuff”.

      1. Might do him good to remember what first called him to be a Christian.
        That said, let’s judge everything on its merits,

        1. That’s assuming he was first called to be a Christian, rather than his mate telling him he’d got a nice job for him.

  28. Comment: Recovery underway, but inflation will still fall
    Paul Dales, chief UK economist at Capital Economics, is more focused on interest rates.

    The 0.1pc rise in GDP in February and the upward revision to the gain in January from 0.2pc to 0.3pc all-but confirms the recession ended in the fourth quarter.

    But while we expect a better economic recovery than most, we doubt it will be strong enough to prevent inflation (and interest rates) from falling much further as appears to be happening in the US.

    GDP would need to fall by an unlikely 1.0pc or more in March for the economy to contract in the first quarter as a whole. As a result, we can safely say that, after lasting just two quarters and involving a total fall in GDP of just 0.4pc or so, the recession ended in the first quarter.

    But while we expect the recovery to be stronger than the Bank and the consensus, our sense is that it won’t be strong enough to prevent inflation from falling much further, which appears to be happening in the US.

    As a result, we think CPI inflation in the UK will fall below US CPI inflation in April and that the Bank of England may first cut interest rates from 5.25pc in June and reduce them to 3pc next year rather than to 4pc as investors expect.

  30. Morning all.
    I’ve been dipping in and out but not posing much lately.

    I’ve been a bit down with all the criticism in the news and the letters of the NHS. Everyone I know (except a certain nurse who shall remain nameless) is doing her/his best and working awfully hard to keep things going. We are so short of staff, we’re teetering on the brink every day of closing clinics or losing more staff because they’ve had enough. To cap it all, we have been told that all recruitment has been paused, no agency staff will be allowed to back fill the vacancies and no overtime will be paid.

    Meanwhile, complaints about trivial things are on the increase probably due to people being stirred by the national mood into complaining when they wouldn’t have previously. Each complaint takes such a long time to investigate and respond to that it is counter productive.

    All of this and violence, abuse and sexual harassment from patients is rising all the time indeed one of our HAS was subject to sexual harassment just yesterday.

    When people complain about ‘the NHS’ its as though its something inanimate without considering the effects on the people who are trying their best.

    1. All the medics, doctors and nurses i have met during my many visits have been absolutely superb. Their care took away most of the pain. I am grateful that such people give their time and expertise for me.

      1. Thanks Phizz. Others have said the same – care is good once you’re in, it’s getting in that’s the problem.
        That’s down to numbers and they’re being cut even further.

    2. I’m sorry it’s getting you down, Stormy. It’s awful when you do your absolute best for an extended period, and yet all you get in return is unthinking whingeing. Especially if it’s seen as fashionable to do so – “Everybody knows…”, rather than actually having any substance. Unfortunately, this kind of negativity seems to have become a national trait in the UK, some kind of teambuilding for the population. Doesn’t help you, though… but be sure that NoTTL is on your side.

      1. Thanks Obers. I know Nottlers are supportive of the individual care they have experienced.

        1. A couple od years ago, in the depths of winter, I was feeling suicidal bu,t with the help and care of fellow NoTTLers, i was pulled through it.

          I can’t thank them enough. We’re all behind you, Stormy.

    3. I’m not sure people here are complaining about individual members of staff, albeit we all have experiences of bad ones, but the NHS is gobbling up an ever greater proportion of the nation’s wealth to an unsustainable extent while on every measure it is becoming less productive in terms of absolute as well as relative terms. Something has to give.
      A friend of mine is a top of the tree NHS consultant. She is very interesting to talk to about what has gone wrong. When appointed to run her department 25 years ago she reported to the Trust Deputy Chief Executive, Since then they have added four new tiers of management between her and her former Boss, two of which are nurse practitioners and two ‘professional’ managers. She now spends half her time arguing with the four tiers of management about patient care plans, people who are nowhere near as qualified to make judgements on what is required.
      A couple of other acquaintances are also senior NHS consultants and they’re similarly very critical of its set up and neither think it needs more money.
      Another problem is the Unions, a third is Labour’s PFI which eats up insane money.

        1. I’m sorry. Yes, it’s wall to wall depressing for any committed, hard working, sane person here. All I can say is take strength from your family and friends, (the sane ones) and people here. Most people are sane, just not that engaged because they feel powerless. All we can do is do our best and set a example.

    4. We know that.
      However, we also see and have experience of those less dedicated to their job.
      On the one hand a GP who spotted very early signs of prostate cancer (patient now approaching 10th anniversary of her observation), on the other hand a practice that left a patient in limbo for six weeks after a skin cancer was recorded – and that discovery was made by the patient, nobody from the practice had made any contact.
      A ward sister who moved heaven and earth to obtain a vital injection v. used urine bottles on bed tables and food left out of reach.
      The good are carrying the lazy. ‘Twas ever thus but given the millions being imported, the problems have become more obvious. And the Covid over-reaction highlighted the failings.

    5. In December 2015, my wife had a heart attack. The ambulance arrived in about 5 minutes, ECG taken and sent to Cardiologist who told the ambulance crew to take her immediately to the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford. On arrival she was whisked into the Operating Room and a stent inserted. From the first 999 phone call to her being wheeled out of the Operating Room and to a bed on the ward was about 4 hours. She was discharged less than 48 hours later.

      Her care was superb (and this was all on a Sunday evening). I am eternally grateful to all the NHS staff who cared for her.

    6. Don’t take it as personal attacks on you or the staff – my husband has had good care from the NHS over the last three years. One thing after another but he’s still here and well.

    7. 385980+ up ticks,

      Morning Siadc,

      From the start of my prostrate cancer trip nothing but praise, another issue involved was on entering specsavers for an eye test, and in the waiting area the whole false ceiling came down to meet the floor on top of two old ladies and me, rescued the two ladies as you do,on to the eye test resulting in being referred to the hospital and six injections in the eye administered with care and humour over the intervening months, as I say nothing but praise from me.

    8. Well said Stormy. A friend (yes really) pointed out that if anyone wants a career in nursing, they should choose the Maternity Dept. Mainly successful outcomes, and the customers usually return home happy.

    1. 385980+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,

      At least let us be merciful in punishment in placing the sack over the head prior to punishment.

  32. Good Moaning.

    “Hate crime call handlers given script defending Humza Yousaf
    Police Scotland issues guide on ‘form of words’ to use when people complain about First Minister”

    Come on, NOTTLERs; let loose your imaginations. Let them rip!

    1. 385986+ up ticks,

      Morning Anne,
      This is only temporary until they get AI up and running with a govmental bullshite answers unit in place.

      By the by I am NOT a robot.

    3. Scotplod just make themselves look stupid by trying to defend the first minister who is clearly racist. By their own rules if someone perceives something to be offensive then it is offensive. So very typical of the Left…cognitive dissonance.

      2. Seems Scotplod is broken. Best Useliss gets rid and buys himself one with better skills in putting down the upstart plans methinks.

    4. Scotland’s first minister has hit back at a claim by Elon Musk that he was a “blatant racist”.

      Mr Musk posted the comment on his X social media platform in response to an edited clip of a speech Humza Yousaf gave after the murder of George Floyd.

      A spokesman for Mr Yousaf said Mr Musk should instead “tackle racism and hatred that goes unchecked on the social media platform he owns”.

      He also said Mr Yousaf had been on the receiving end of racism his whole life.

      The first minister’s name was trending on X, formerly known as Twitter, after Mr Musk tweeted about him. Mr Yousaf reacted on Friday morning by posting: “Racists foaming at the mouth at my very existence.”

      He then added: “Me:” and shared a gif from the BBC comedy Still Game, featuring the character Navid dancing in his shop.

      Mr Musk, who has more than 160 million followers, had replied “What a blatant racist!” in response to a post by a prominent right-wing social media account. It had shown an edited 45 second clip of a lengthy speech Mr Yousaf made in the Scottish Parliament in June 2020.

      The clip has been widely shared by similar accounts in recent months.

      Four problems Elon Musk needs to fix at X
      A fact check carried out by the Reuters news agency in February concluded that the clip misrepresented Mr Yousaf’s comments by suggesting he had been arguing that Scotland contained too many white people.

      Reuters said: “Yousaf’s speech was given as part of a wider discussion about racial injustice and the lack of people of colour in positions of power in the Scottish Parliament and government.

      “The speech did not assert that white people make up too large a proportion of Scotland’s overall population.”

      Mr Yousaf gave his speech the month after the murder of African-American George Floyd on a Minneapolis street sparked worldwide protests against racism and excessive use of force by police.

      Mr Yousaf, who was justice secretary at the time, told MSPs that the country had to “accept the reality and the evidence that is in front of us, that Scotland has a problem of structural racism”.

      He went on to say “in 99% of their meetings I go to, I am the only non-white person in the room”.

      ,
      Mr Yousaf has spoken in the past about the racism he has had to face throughout his life
      Mr Yousaf then listed a number of positions – including the lord advocate, solicitor general and Police Scotland chief constable – and, after each, added: “white”.

      He said the same was true for every high court judge, every deputy chief constable, every assistant chief constable and every prison governor in Scotland.

      Mr Yousaf, who succeeded Nicola Sturgeon as first minister in March, also highlighted senior positions in the health sector and the trade union movement.

      On Friday, a spokesperson for Mr Yousaf said: “The first minister has been on the receiving end of racist hate, abuse and death threats his entire life, and has stood firm against hatred and bigotry, of any kind, throughout.

      “Sadly, much of the racist abuse and threats of violence the first minister faces are directed his way on X – formerly known as Twitter.

      “Mr Musk should use his position to tackle racism and hatred that goes unchecked on the social media platform he owns.”

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67241312

  34. SIR – All my life I have been intimidated by the idea of playing Scrabble. My grandparents insisted on us playing, and my husband is competitive. Being dyslexic, I can’t stand the game.

    But at last the makers are bringing in a more relaxed version, making it easier for the likes of me. So I want to say a huge thank you to Mattel for its understanding.

    Robyn Maitland
    Sherborne, Dorset

    Just fuck off and play something else. Wanker !

    3. Good morning CPO Phizzee, and everyone. The lady is a cereal let-her righter. Her
      husband is very keen on mustard, and keeps a hen for eggs. He attended Plumpton Agricultural College in the early 1970s and is a Trustee of a U3A charity in Sherborne. Probably their children have fled the nest, and that for the moment the grandchildren score is zero.

    4. Ah but, you’re on the wrong side of history apparently.

      Doing similar for weightlifting in the next Olympics, I understand. Anyone who can lift a 50lb barbel at least 1mm gets a gold medal. Turning up gets a silver and if you can demonstrate any injury, even if caused before you got on the airplane to the venue, then there’s a bronze in it for you.

  35. Good morning, all. Bright with a mixture of blue and light overcast skies.

    While we’re on the subject of weather, or is that climate? The Highwire has a look at what is being reported from real science, not the science of the risible Gores and Gateses of this World.

    Pacific Ocean temperature, El Nino warmer and La Nina cooler.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c3b03b58a51d4b623383fdce40dfd46f5a8a942249fa245ceae40ca9c9350af.png

    Probability of La Nina occurring 2024 – source NOAA, USA’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Seasons on the graph’s x axis are in groups of three months.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc515f31791f70b894e1c836ff60a24cbe8eae20347047723d6151193301b3c2.png

    Projections.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/28ec5ed8518da1532afd5183cbe31b5f2f4732542642760a475f2784c2385c95.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a15050e5f89913a07dbfd8ad51d9ca86108ea1e83616197338c224f84ba68398.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/94ca70fc48fe4395f61f820b48ab86942f33b0cc1cf6200d5ea2fa84ef0a6d54.png

    Then there’s the Sun. Rather more involved than, ‘It’s human generated carbon dioxide…’

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0f868fb258de62b3c9407dc3fe39f080ea0ececd2cf17185c1ed9f164138f485.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/33cf46e437299f19dcc99a7909d1f9e8ffcaccf44343da148d0f0b2b4ec356a8.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/47969a072bace0024f1febdcf993d2a80ed349a39bbc2d0f059a031727d921b0.png

    Real science is still happening but one big blockage to the truth is the legacy MSM. These latter organisations are clearly in the ‘science is settled’ camp and use hyperbole as their weapon of choice.

      1. I reckon most of MSM are direct nepo-babies or nepo babies of friends of those with MSM influence.
        That accounts for their lack of intellect, in general (no new blood/regressive mean etc), and why they are incomprehensibly wedded to the pandemic, gender and climate mayhem. That’s why they hate btl commenters as they continuously show up the hacks. And once you get a clump of thickies they promote like-minds so they are never challenged. That is why the BBC is incapable of improvement. That is why it must go – along with many of our thick-threaded other institutions. The Spectator is now tinged with the same influences. MSM is thick with thickies.

          1. I should imagine its something to do with nepotism SirJasper – the offspring of nepotistic dynasties, all in it together.

          5. Child of a sleb or politician who somehow, remarkably lands a plum job in tellyland or some position of influence. There’s a lot of it about.

      2. I reckon most of MSM are direct nepo-babies or friends with nepo-babies. That accounts for their lack of intellect, in general, and why they are incomprehensibly wedded to the pandemic, gender and climate mayhem. That’s why they hate btl commenters as they continuously show up the hacks. And once you get a clump of thickies they promote like-minds so they are never challenged. That is why the BBC is incapable of improvement. That is why it must go – along with many of our thick-threaded other institutions. The Spectator is now tinged with the same influences. MSM is thick with thickies.

    2. Problem is, a period of cooling will be used as evidence that the atmospheric CO2 reduction efforts actually reduced the temperature, and so was the correct thing to do… whilst we all freeze to death, with nowt to eat. Gosh, that will be fun.

      1. Everything gets used by liars, doesn’t matter what it is.

        Two fleas riding on the back of an elephant, which is itself one of a herd stampeding through the forest. At the end of the stampede the fleas look back along the path of destruction the elephants left in the forest. One flea says to the other, “My, didn’t we reorganise that forest!”

        A little parable about science liars

      2. Sorry Paul I’ve just said similar. Can’t get used to looking at all comments before I stick my two pen’orth in.

    3. Unfortunately the climate change/net zero/global warming lie is the foundation for a multi trillion dollar global industry. No matter what the evidence to the contrary, there is now far too much at stake to allow it to be challenged, it is way, way beyond the MSM, the MSM are simply tools in the game, like that little girl Thunberg. The interests involved far surpass those profiting from even the military industrial complex. Government leaders are bought up, through greed, ego and promises of future gold. It is the basis of things like Net Zero, the mantra is pain today to secure a golden secure future. Net Zero, save the planet for the next generation by paying today. Except it is all built on a lie and the secure golden future is a myth and will never come to pass.

      2. When the GSM kicks in the current mob will say all there efforts have been successful. They’ll change the story to fit the weather.

        1. That’s why they changed the marketing from ‘global warming’ which was roundly debunked as nonsense – to ‘climate change’. They lie habitually.

      3. …it is way, way beyond the MSM, the MSM are simply tools in the game

        That is true where the globalists’ endgame is concerned but the impact the MSM has on the people who go about their lives without thinking too much is well worth the cost to the globalist cause. The introduction to the climate segment of The Highwire shows what these tools are capable of doing: the MSM is an integral piece in the power-hungry globalists’ strategy.

    4. The Modern Grand Solar Minimum of Solar Cycles 25-27 started in 2020 and will last until 2053. You can read all about it here.
      https://solargsm.com/

      By about 2030 things should be getting distinctly cold if Valentina Zharkova is right.

      1. Quote:

        “Zharkova emphasized that the global warming will become irrelevant in the next three decades during the modern grand solar minimum (GSM), which started in 2020 and will last until 2053, This GSM will cause a decrease of the average terrestrial temperature by up to 1oC in the next 30 years and not its increase as warned by the IPCC people”.

        Some time ago the UN pointed out that the northern limit to growing grain moves about 300

        miles further north every 1C increase.

        One can assume that for every 1C decrease the northern limit will move 300 miles further south.

        Has anyone done any calculations as to how much grain production we will lose?

        Yes!

        Bill Gates has been buying up agricultural land, and is now the biggest single owner in the USA.

        He will certainly desire the global temperature to decrease.

      2. Indeed so. This is not new news, as such. A new fangled theory came along positing Global Warming and began rearing its ugly in earnest after a couple of decades around the early 70s…. yes, I’m looking at you Prof Brolin. The rest is of course history.

        Another theory countered that idea, plus some other factors thrown in and even my physics teacher back in the day could explain the detail of how it would actually pan out for us. He predicted a shift back to cooling around 2030-2045 at which point people would most probably need to break out their warm jackets if they want to go outside. All the temperature fluctuations we’ve seen between then and now he described accurately, too.

        Nowadays it seems academic thought chases after the politically defined, “all the science” instead.

        1. Just think what the cold will do to growing food – there will be a lot of starvation.

          1. That’s what they say about global warming too. Along with the drought conditions and wars over water resources. Personally I think we’ll manage whichever happens.

    5. Bringing science to a discussion about climate change is a knife to a helicopter gunship & armoured tank platoon fight.

      The hoax of climate change has nothing – not a thing – to do with science of any sort. It is simply bout retarding the progress of this country to suit a globalist agenda. It is intended to make and keep the UK poor. It is an economic weapon to force societal and economic change, to eradicate what we are and to punish us for our decisions.

      The ECHR did the same for Switzerland but, thankfully, their laws constrain their political class.

      1. More of us are aware of the great Climate Change Hoax.

        You may find this useful to rebut their silly arguments:

        Climate Change and You

        The climate ‘science’ is wrong. CO2 being 0.04% of the atmosphere is a cause for good, as it is essential for plant life.

        The atmosphere is 78% Nitrogen and 21% Oxygen. The remaining 1% are various trace elements of which CO2 is but a small part.

        The greatest cause of any change in the Earth’s climate, is due to the cyclical nature of the Sun’s phases, which may lead to vast differences between ice ages and continual heatwaves

        Check https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/03/04/challenging-net-zero-with-science/

        Please feel free to copy and paste this anywhere appropriate.

        1. You’re right, I agree. As I said to a chum who squealed ‘denier!’ at me I said ‘when did it become a religion for you? When did you, a developer having to deal in logic stop *thinking* and demand facts and evidence? When did it become blind faith?

    1. This dumbing down of everything grinds my gears.

      Apologies for the bad language. Fuckit. Bollocks. 15 points and 16 points respectively.

      1. Fuckit is useless in Scrabble. Bollocks is much better, especially if the triple word can be used. Lock becomes Bollock, using the first triple word, and and can pick up the second triple word, especially if it starts a word like Squish. What are the chances of that happening though?

        1. Rare. I got ‘perjurers’ over two triple word scores once. Across two words descending.

          1. I used Ka once and got howls of protest. Have they never read The Ka of Gifford Hillary, by Dennis Wheatley?

        2. Bollox is a legal word now, I think. At least I think it is, since I’ve seen it written so often. Put that on a triple word.

        1. I thought they had deleted triple word scores – too hard on the mental arithmetic, doncha know.

  37. Good morning all,

    Lovely start to the day here at Castle McPhee in the Hampshire/West Berkshire borderlands. Wind in the South-West, 10℃ and we should see 18℃ today.

    It says it all.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f8ef38d2dcbc6127d82409b941aea7408fcd76268b9f448c6bbb500d8be008d7.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/11/call-handlers-given-script-defending-humza-yousaf/

    Sharon Dowey, the deputy justice spokesman for the Scottish Tories, said: “It’s a measure of how farcical Humza Yousaf’s hate crime law is that police officers have effectively been given a script on how to respond to the flood of complaints made against the First Minister under the very legislation that he piloted and introduced.”

    Sharon hasn’t read the instructions on how to be a proper Tory. What she should have said is this: “It’s a measure of how farcical the idea of having such a thing as a hate crime law is, or indeed, the very concept of hate crime. Hate is a human emotion and sometimes it is justified. You cannot criminalise it”.

    1. If what he said about the indigenous white people of our nation a few weeks ago wasn’t a HATE crime in bucket loads. Hate crime doesn’t exist.
      Why wasn’t he arrested and thrown in jail ? And still there ?

    3. The Left write these laws to protect their favoured groups from public opinion. They never allow law to be used against them.

      The day Humza is in jail for his racism is the day this law has done it’s job.

        1. I’m surprised the po lice aren’t prosecuting all the right wing complainants for wasting po louse time

  38. I popped by to see the Spectator and was delighted to see some old names that I haven’t for 14 years since the ConHome with Tim Montgomerie . Mr M Dunn & Sally Roberts . They were very much Caneroons and I was a Right Wing Conservative but we all got on well . More gentle times then, politics and the world is more brutal now

    1. I’m not sure it is. I think the polarising nature of what’s being done to this country under the abusive banner of ‘for the cheeeldren’ has created a backlash. The state meddles, interferes, fiddles, intervenes, controls, manipulates, twists and forces decency and common sense while excuses and lauds incompetence, failure, criminality, illegality and arrogance.

      Just look at plod threatening a chap who beeped his horn – to make people aware of his vehicle (legal) – because the police refused to enforce the law and remove those wasters blocking the highway (illegal).

      The state has caused the divide. It’s now desperately trying to silence the gigantic storm wave of majority opinion to protect it’s favoured evaporating puddle of nut jobs.

  39. He might be wearing a suit and tie but he still looks like he needs a wash. A whitewash.

  40. Morning all 🙂😊
    Looking better outside and a heatwave. Apparently…..
    Not sure what the Cass report is, anything to do with Mama Cass ?
    It’s not been mentioned mainstream, but it seems as if, morning Itv presenter Alison Hammond, brought the labour leader to his knees over his more recent and sudden wealth and other more advantaged aspects of his life.
    Well done if it’s true, I’ll bet there are a few more of them out there who need the ‘privacy blinds’ opened on their lives, expenses claims and other sudden profit margins.

    1. Our youngest son is now in Dubai and has taken his gulf clubs with him.
      Eldest taking his two lovely children and his muver to the Tower of London today.
      I didn’t think I would last the morning.
      So staying home alone.

    2. Doesn’t help that it is whitey’s taxes used to fund the scroungers. Cut off welfare and they’ll go. Cut off housing benefit and they’ll be homeless.

      Saves a fortune on welfare fraud (which, is resolved would be enough to scrap the basic rate of tax.

      Just stop paying the vermin to breed.

  42. Have Scottish politicians read the Cass Review? 12 April 2024

    The Cass Review may prove to be a tipping point in radical gender ideology’s march through mainstream politics, institutions and civil society. It certainly appears to spell the end of routinely sending children who express confusion about their bodies or their identities down the transition path. The political responses to the report, especially from those who were until recently fully signed on to this ideology, suggest that under what remains of this government and the next Labour government there will be a more cautious approach.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/have-scottish-politicians-read-the-cass-review/

    https://cass.independent-review.uk/

    1. Scotland’s state machine is using any weapon it can to enforce ‘the message’. The totalitarian Left have their claws in now and won’t let go. They’ll do so much constitutional and economic damage that they will be the only option for a nation utterly dependent on welfare and state debt.

      No one votes for fewer freebies, after all – as long as someone else pays, they don’t care.

    1. Thanks Tom.
      I hope he sees things in the same perspective as the rest of us.
      Boys are boys and girls are girls. It’s so simple.

      2. Yet there’s nothing wrong with a boy wanting to play with dolls or to be sensitive. Equally nothing wrong with that same lad making mud pies in the garden. What matters is building a sense of identity that is uniquely your own and to not be afraid of it, or feel the need to conform to anyone else’s expectations.

  47. That letter was not written by Robbing Matelund.

    ers sed:

    Curr

    Al me life I have bin intimudaited bi the hidea of playin Skrabble.
    Me grandparunts insistered on us plaiing, and me usband is competative.
    Being dai slexic, I cant stand the gaim.

    But at last the maikas are bringin in a moor relacked vershun, maikin it eesier four the likes uv me.

    So I want to say an uge thank you to Mattel for its unnerstandin

  48. A few years ago on holiday in Tuscany sitting out side with glasses of vino after dinner, looking across the wonderful countryside towards Sienna, my good lady and I were playing a friendly game of scrabble.
    And two fellow holiday makers came past and we invited them to join us.
    Very quickly It turned out that the lady was a retired English teacher and she slaughtered us. Wadda mistake-a to make-a.
    Look it up peeps, HPB Stigliano.

  49. Off topic
    Is anyone else who uses BTinternet e mail having problems logging in to the site?

    1. Not this site but BT are always logging me out of my emails recently although the PC is on 24/7

    2. Remove both the power cable and the signal cable, wait 10 minutes and re-connect. when the router shews blue, try again – works for me

      1. Thank you.
        That’s always my eventual fall back.
        Being out in the sticks everything internet connected is extremely slow here.

          1. If only.
            They are laying fibre in the town but we’re not due for it for several years.
            I’m not sure of the correct terminology but I think were in the 2mb/sec range on a good day.
            I recently upgraded to a better router and now get 3.5.

  51. Yes – they changed the log-in procedures a few days ago and it has been carp ever since.

    2. I’ve been getting logged out even though I tick the keep me logged in box.
      Today a new screen appeared that wouldn’t recognise my stored password. I had to start again from scratch after a delay of 20 minutes.

  60. 385980+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Friday 12 April: Hope that the Cass report will usher in a cultural shift on gender issues

    “Gender issues” crap when you made the cane and scrumping
    criminal acts you took away the minor fears and joys of childhood, now kids are brain damaged via walking into
    lamp-posts muttering into phones or by governance / parents consented, & surgery / medication.

    Now in lieu of parental control as in ” don’t be bloody daft, and eat your greens or you’ll get a clip we will suffer layers of don’t give a toss peoples issuing treatment & medication for a malady that does not, in mass exist.

  62. We have BT Internet but not their email. All OK here though I did have a problem some weeks back when using my phone I suddenly had to use the backup account instead of the usual one with the elephant avatar.

  64. Not all, Try Dumfries & Galloway Royal Infirmary (DGRI) for the cold – ambient temperature and the staff attitude. I refuse to go there.

      1. I am keeping my fingers crossed. This is our 3rd successive dry day – at least during dylight hours. It has meant more outdoor time for me and the pup – good for both of us.

      2. Farmers are not able to plant varieties of new season’s crops due to flooded fields.

    1. Could be caching. Browsers do this – they hold bits of the page locally to make showing it (rendering) faster.

      It might be you need to log out, then log back in. Some sites enforce log out after a time – remember that while you’ve, say, webmail open, your browser is keeping a connection open to the other end’s server.. If nothing’s happening on that connection the server will close it.

      1. Thank you
        I log out of everything every night and turn the computer off and clear caches. I also check the email regularly, it’s only my BT connection that appears to be affected by it.
        I know they’ve been making alterations, they’ve been telling me for months.
        It might be because I only use BT for my email.

      1. Our military tries. This is a mistake. What is the ultimate purpose of war? To stop the fighting. You don’t do that by showing the enemy mercy.

        I was censured for this in post but the only way to bring conflict to an end is unremitting brutality. Shock the enemy to such a degree with utter massacre that it loses the will to fight.

        1. Agreed up to a point, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. I agree in full that the area bombing of national socialist Germany was right, but when it comes to, for example, the war in Afghanistan, in which we invaded another country allegedly to impose a better way of life on the (unasked) Afghans, dropping large bombs on wedding parties is surely unhelpful.

    1. Do you remember that when Wilson was elected as party leader his chief rival the disgracefully intemperate George Brown’s whereabout were unknown as he went on the bender of a lifetime!

      The aficionado of most alcoholic beverages was generally held in rather more affection that the adulterous, mendacious and devious ‘Thirteenth’ Mr Wilson.

      2. Indeed I do. Brown had been temporary party leader for the month between Gaitskell’s death and Wilson winning the election. Callaghan, the other candidate came third after Brown.

        The honourable member for Belper was a regular fixture on the Washington party circuit at the time, making hay on his reputation as a bon viveur. Just before my first Stateside visit I bought a handy little guide to US customs called The First-Timer’s Guide To The USA. Its quite witty foreword was written by George Brown who related the story of his own first visit to Washington. He had been invited to a black-tie ball and he desperately needed a pair of braces for his dress trousers. He unsuccessfully sought such an item in most of Washington’s gentlemen’s outfitters before realising that they would have understood him better if he had asked for some “suspenders for his pants”.

  70. Hope that the Cass report will usher in a counter-revolution against the top down woke globalist cultural revolution the western establishment is forcing down our throats, for it will not change the attitude of the evil globalists who rule us.

    1. It won’t. Some brave, decent folk might refer to it but the trans agenda will roll on. Why? Because it’s about power. The trans lobby don’t care about kids or even mentally ill adults. No, they want power. Power to make you think what they want you to think. Power to control, manipulate, isolate and brainwash you into their ideology. These are thoroughly evil, bitter, twisted people who’s agenda is frightening – it’s cancerous. The Left move in, feed you your fears, isolate you from sources of good and truth like family, stable friends and logical thinking and replace it with their own attitudes and ego to make you conform to their view.

      Then the unstable, impressionable mind collapses and can no longer think rationally and has only the hate left to use lest cognitive dissonance, doubt, and the pain of reversion come slamming home.

      It is a particular cruelty and the Left love using it.

    2. “It took Dr Hilary Cass four years to produce her review, but she reaches a conclusion that most of us see as blindingly obvious.”

      A bit unfair: she (can I say that) like all of us, could see the problem.

      She has had to put her decision forward, supported by provable facts.

      The real problem is that the whole gender problem is tied into the One World /WEF etc saga, where we are ruled by a handful
      of meglamaniacs.

      I doubt if they will allow the present gender fiasco to be changed

      1. Did you have your tonsils and adenoids removed when you were a small child .

        T and A ops were a rite of passage for most of us post war youngsters .

        I wonder how many ops are done these days , and how many countries postwar , operated on their small children , and what were the real benefits?

        I wonder whether Prince William has had his removed , he has a very nasaly bunged up speech pattern which might be another unrelated problem ..

        Just also wondering whether Ts and As ops were the first government controlled experiment on NHS children ?

        1. When I was growing up, in the 1940’s most GPs worked from home.

          They. like dentists, had their ‘surgery’ in the front room of their house.

          Things started to go wrong when Health Centres becaame the norm.

          1. Certainly. That is exactly how Dr Vosper in Stanmore worked when I was a patient between 1942 and 1948.

        2. Yes when i was about 5 so 1972. It must have been late April too as i missed my birthday sweet which the school gave all Primary School children at the Thursday assembly. I remember being very cross about it so they allowed me to get it on Tuesday with the Junior School children.

        3. If I remember, we only had our tonsils out if we got tonsilitis. If not, we didn’t. I would have had mine out in about 1957/8 aged nine or ten. On the other hand, tonsilitis is adults is truly horrible and it takes weeks to recover from the op to remove them, so maybe it is not such a bad idea for it to be routine?

        4. I had my tonsils partly removed (they left bits in so I continuted to suffer from tonsilitis later in life!) when I was six. I was on a long waiting list and missed a lot of school before the op because of infections. It was a lot better afterwards.

      2. The lass done good, and it must have taken some courage.

        (Unless the transgender malarkey is all a bit of a sacrificial red herring,)

  71. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/12/spiteful-britain-choosing-poverty-over-growth/

    The article, while clearly pandering to the readership has a point. We may as well be in the 19070s of high tax, big state, restrictions, controls, debt and waste. What’s worrying is this article: https://order-order.com/2024/04/11/reeves-new-tax-panel-wants-higher-taxes/.

    Labour refuse, steadfastly, to do what needs to be done and cut spending. Their attitude is always to take more. Someone should ask them why, and I doubt they’d really, honestly know. It’s just their default to spend other people’s money. That’s why we’re in the mess we are. It’s why we haven’t recruited for over a year. It’s why Mongo and Oscar get £600 pocket money instead of the 500 they did previously. It’s why you do a shop and look at either how much you havne’t got or how much you’ve spent and find it 50% higher than last year.

    The hectoring, lecturing and sheer windbaggery from the entire uniparty is boring, tiresome and destructive. None of them will do what must be done because they’ve created – in Labour’s case – and enforced, in the Tory case the problem: massive state dependence. Instead of tax cuts, they create in work tax credits. Instead of tax cuts they push subsidy. Instead of effective energy production they socialise energy costs. Instead of sacking indolent (https://order-order.com/2024/04/11/jacob-rees-mogg-slams-endemic-civil-service-inactivity/) civil servants they cow to the unions for a 4 day week.

    For every single thing that should have been done, the exact, diametric opposite has been. The entire farce of Westminster, Whitehall is a failure. It knows it, we know. It knows we know and still they pee on us and tell us it’s raining and to be glad the water’s warm.

    1. It’s ok, the “rich”* can pay their “fair share”

      *anyone on over about £85k, which conveniently is what MPs are paid for their invaluable and useful hard work. Of course their £200k “expenses” are not taxed.

  72. Prince William and Prince George cheer on Aston Villa in first outing since Princess of Wales’ cancer announcement
    The young prince sported a Villa scarf as the pair celebrated their team’s 2-1 win over Lille
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2024/04/12/prince-william-prince-george-princess-of-wales-cancer/

    BTL

    It is one thing to support the national sporting team but surely supporting a football club is an example of the monarchy proletarianising itself?

    Certain companies used to proclaim with pride that they had Royal Warrants of Appointment. I wonder if Aston Villa will put ‘By Appointment’ signs over its grounds’ entry gates and on it programmes?

    2. Although it’s good that Prince William and George had some father and son time together ( George does look rather sad and disinterested ) I’d have thought Polo or Cricket to be more the sports for royalty rather then football. I hope it’s a genuine interest .

      1. Which made me think…..I don’t remember any member of the RF taking an interest in cricket which I love by the way. I wonder why not?

        1. I just checked. Prince Philip The Duke of Edinburgh played cricket when a younger man. Prince Edward and Prince Charles are presidents at Lords , but I don’t think they actually play. William does actually like football and as one would expect polo .

          1. I don’t remember ever seeing any of them turn up to watch a match. On the other hand, with cricket you really have to write off a whole day so I guess it is difficult for them.

    3. Stockport County could have moved to By Appointment for their home matches when we were going, the crowds were so small that it would have made sense to allow us to just phone when we were ready.

    1. That graphical illustration is a poor reflection of the point you are trying to make, wibbles!

      1. How so? I thought I was getting that this stupid law was giving anyone and his Mum opportunity to complain without consequence.

        For those complaining about Humza the problem there is a different sort. As soon as his started off his racist rant he should have been stopped, called a racist and sacked and kicked out of the chamber on the spot, on live TV.

        1. Looking at the graph – the blue is a year’s worth of gripes, whereas the black is one week.
          Visual impact is poor and you have to think about it.
          But even this numerically challenged bint got there in the end.

  74. 385980+ up ticks,

    The resounding echoing throughout the valleys of England could still be heard two days after the statement was made,
    the reply was f… right offffff.

    Send UK troops to Ukraine but away from front line, suggests ex-armed forces minister

  75. I note with interest that the slammer murderer, killed by the police in Bordeaux, was NOT a terrorist.

    Just a slammer unhappy because a couple of other slammers were drinking alcohol.

    What a relief. Just imagine if he HAD been a terrorist…

    1. 1 Timothy 5:23 “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities”.

      Mo didn’t get the message. No booze, no bacon, no dogs, no music, no dancing. What a joyless religion Islam is.

      1. Except for the two slammers who were knocking back rosé when Abdul knifed one to death and half killed the other.

      2. The reason for that was apparently because the water was nearly always contaminated and the wine, which was not as we know wine today but of course alcoholic, purified it! Many religious dietary restrictions have a very practical root. The Jews were banned from eating shellfish because there was no refrigeration so it went off very quickly and poisoned people, and pigs were riddled with tape-worm which they could live with but humans can’t.

        1. I’ve recently discovered that one likely reason for dogs and pigs being banned foods is that in the ancient world they would quite happily eat human excrement, and this was a very good reason for not eating them as meat. 3000 years ago humans didn’t know about recycling pathogens from human excrement, but God certainly did.

          1. I’ve had some copraphagic dogs. It’s supposed to be because they aren’t getting all the minerals they need, but mine had a balanced diet.

  76. I’m interested to see if the Cass Report gives people the cover to admit what they’ve always known to be true but have been too cowardly to say out loud.

    For the last several years, anyone who dares to push back against the activists’ agenda on the issue is routinely described as a fascist.

    Say what you like about Fascists, but at least they get the Trans running on time.

    1. Good morning Finknottle. I wonder why it’s taken so long for this report to be published and I’m concerned about what Stonewall will do . Basically this evil ‘ medical intervention is a cover for child abuse . We must also remember the role of sinister Mermaid Charity which reminds me of the child catcher in chitty chitty bang bang .

      1. Love the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang analogy and I re-watch the film every Christmas 🤣However, the child catcher is merely the tool of someone else much higher up, Baroness Bomburst, and it is those forces that need addressing, not the foot soldiers.
        You are correct, it is a cover for child abuse and what makes it particularly evil is that it mostly attacks children at the onset of puberty when they are at their most vulnerable. I don’t know about you, but I certainly remember all the confusion I felt about bodily changes and all the hormones that started to rage. Luckily I had a sensible, understanding mother so I, and my two sisters, were guided through it and came out intact on the other side. I also have two brothers and albeit in a different way, it is no easier for boys either.

        1. Hello Peta, we watch it every Christmas too 😉 Maybe Baroness Bomburst represents thr charity Mermaids. I think they must have has fun with filming that. Dick Van Dyke is 98 years old now and apparently still sprightly. it’s truly evil because children pre – puberty are the most vulnerable and questioning, girls and boys equally vulnerable and at the mercy of those with their own agenda . It’s also rife in schools where children are being egged on by other children who think changing gender is cool .

          2. A part of the problem in schools today is the unrestricted use of social media that the children have and I would say that is the wickedest tool of all. All children want to be “cool” and accepted into their peer group. They are also easily manipulable especially, as you say, at puberty. It is adults behind this, not the children themselves. I would ban the sale of smart-phones for the U-16s as has been suggested, and certainly ban them from all schools at any age. After all, the sale of cigarettes, alcohol and access to gambling is banned for children and with good reason, so why not smart-phones? For security reasons if desired the children can be given non-smart phones. The drop in sales would be quite dramatic which would have the happy side-effect of being a good lesson for big tech.

        2. Hello Peta, we watch it every Christmas too 😉 Maybe Baroness Bomburst represents thr charity Mermaids. I think they must have has fun with filming that. Dick Van Dyke is 98 years old now and apparently still sprightly. it’s truly evil because children pre – puberty are the most vulnerable and questioning, girls and boys equally vulnerable and at the mercy of those with their own agenda . It’s also rife in schools where children are being egged on by other children who think changing gender is cool .

      2. Love the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang analogy and I re-watch the film every Christmas 🤣However, the child catcher is merely the tool of someone else much higher up, Baroness Bomburst, and it is those forces that need addressing, not the foot soldiers.
        You are correct, it is a cover for child abuse and what makes it particularly evil is that it mostly attacks children at the onset of puberty when they are at their most vulnerable. I don’t know about you, but I certainly remember all the confusion I felt about bodily changes and all the hormones that started to rage. Luckily I had a sensible, understanding mother so I, and my two sisters, were guided through it and came out intact on the other side. I also have two brothers and albeit in a different way, it is no easier for boys either.

    2. Gender is a grammatical concept, otherwise it’s biological sex (Male or Female).

      1. Indeed, in the Romance languages (Latin based) everything has a gender based on male or female!

          1. “Needed” is perhaps not quite the right word because that is how the languages evolved from Latin, but it certainly makes learning them much more difficult!

          2. I speak reasonably fluent ‘Plat’ Deutsche but cannot be bothered with the differences between Der Die und Das nor with the French Le et La.

          3. I speak pretty fluent French and one remembers the genders by the process of repetition, both speaking and reading. The trouble with not bothering with them is that it can change the whole meaning of what you say!

          4. I’m certainly understood in German and while my French is not fluent, but sufficient, even if a trifle tres mauvais. I can also get by in both Spanish and Swedish.

      2. Indeed, in the Romance languages (Latin based) everything has a gender based on male or female!

    3. Over here that report is giving the ruling clases quite a problem, they are deeply invested in youngsters being encouraged to go through sex change treatments. Our overlords do not appreciate being questioned.

  77. I’m interested to see if the Cass Report gives people the cover to admit what they’ve always known to be true but have been too cowardly to say out loud.

    For the last several years, anyone who dares to push back against the activists’ agenda on the issue is routinely described as a fascist.

    Say what you like about Fascists, but at least they get the Trans running on time.

  79. DISTRICT OF CORRUPTION
    Biggest Corporate Welfare Scam of All Time
    Stephen Moore
    From Takimag
    April 12, 2024
    President Joe Biden keeps lecturing corporate America to “pay your fair share” of taxes. It turns out he’s right that some companies really are getting away scot-free from paying taxes.

    But it isn’t Big Tech companies in Silicon Valley or the Wall Street financial company “fat cats” or big banks or Walmart. They pay billions in taxes.

    The culprits here are the very companies that Biden is in bed with: green energy firms.

    It turns out that despite all the promises over the past decade about how renewable energy is the future of power production in America, by far the biggest tax dodgers in the country are the wind and solar power industries. Over the past several decades, the green energy lobby — what I call the climate-change-industrial complex — isn’t paying its fair share. That’s because the vast majority of these companies pay nearly ZERO income taxes.

    But they wade in rivers of federal direct and indirect subsidies that keep these zombie companies alive. Over the past two decades, the renewable energy lobby has collected more than one-quarter trillion dollars in subsidies — payments that we’ve been assured over and over would be temporary. The argument for these grants, loans, tax abatements and other sweetheart kisses is that these were “infant industries” in need of a Head Start program for CEOs. Except these companies have never even reached puberty after all these years.

    What’s worse is that Biden keeps spoiling the children with lavish gifts for bad performance. A new report by tax expert Adam Michel at the Cato Institute finds the green energy subsidies — mostly created by Biden policies like the so-called Inflation Reduction Act — will drain the Treasury of as much as $1.8 trillion over 10 years.

    The Cato report finds that since its passage, “the estimated cost of the IRA’s new and expanded energy tax credits increased dramatically.”

    These tax shelters are just a form of Aid to Dependent Corporations. They never seem to want to cut the umbilical cord.

    What have we gotten for this mountain of taxpayer-funded green energy largesse? Nothing, really. Today, we still get 80% of our energy in America from fossil fuels and nuclear power. Wind and solar are stuck at less than 10%. This is some investment we’re making.

    Meanwhile, Biden keeps railing against companies that pay no income tax. He’s advocated a mandatory 15% minimum corporate tax. But guess what industry is explicitly exempt from the minimum? The green energy lobby.

    It’s just a reminder that a lot of people are getting really, really rich off climate change hysteria.

    The “green” in green energy doesn’t stand for a cleaner environment. It stands for the color of money. Yours and mine.

    Here as well I have little doubt

    1. Green: also the colour of the useful idiots taken in by this evidential scam

    1. I’m not entirely sure this is a police matter – not to start with anyway. Surely HMRC should be conducting an initial investigation and if she is found to have transgressed, then they press charges and involve the police.

      1. Another MP has reported her to the police so it’s not just civil matter. Also for breach of electoral law.

        1. I know it is a breach of electoral law, but the initial breach is tax law and surely that must be established first? I’m certainly not defending her – she is clearly hiding something or she would have produced the tax advice that she got – but reporting her to the police before a transgression has been established looks to me more like headline hunting. Still, couldn’t happen to a better person :))

    2. Hang on! Our next Chancellor Rachel Reeves doesn’t recognise Tax EVASION, only Tax AVOIDANCE (legal, when I last checked), as being something she will crack down on (at least in the Radio 4 ‘interview’ with Nick Robinson about which I posted last Tuesday).

      1. It”s the legal that crushes the economy. All the money clicked abroad at the first hint of tax.

  81. Manchester Police are to investigate Angela Raynor’s dodgy tax dealings .
    She’ll get off, I’d imagine Manchester Police are politically motivated .

    1. I imagine Raynor isn’t disclosing the information as it’s deceitful underhanded tax fiddling. Despite her thick chav attitude she, like most Lefties has a streak of rabid cunning through them for their own profiteering. As it is, all this farrago exposes is the utter lack of democratic accountability the public have over these crooks.

      What’s sad is that those who would understand what she’s done wouldn’t vote for her and those who don’t will just blunder on, happily ignorant as she’s ‘like them’.

      What’s the phrase? Tories go into politics rich and come out richer. Lefties go into politics poor and come out millionaires.

    2. Absolutely terrible that ‘ victimhood that the cloak society had placed around youth. It removes personal responsibility from the young and benefits those who force victimhood on the young. Covid also made the situation worse with lots of young people allegedly thinking of suicide.

    3. I’m very much afraid that it is a reflection of the “entitled” generation. They think that they are entitled to be happy all the time and their brains are not equipped to process the fact that life just doesn’t work that way. They are also the “blame” generation, their unhappiness is always someone else’s fault. Finally they are too selfish to understand that happiness, like everything else worthwhile in life, needs a lot of effort and that the best way to be happy is to try and make others happy, or at the very least not unhappy.

      1. Happiness is an inbred culture – it depends a lot on your inner well-being – that’s what I’ve found anyway after nigh on 80 years.

        Another example of Nature v Nurture.

        1. Up to a point, yes, but some people seem to be born with an inner peace that helps them to deal with adversity while others are not and this is where nurture comes in. So it is isn’t quite as cut and dried as Nature v Nurture.

          1. Not sure I agree there. How we manage stress is inured from an early age – very early. How our parents respond to us as babies, almost.

            Bowlby did a great study in abandonment of children and concluded that if we are secure it is because our childhoods were predictable.

            For example, an unpredictable mother with wild mood swings who demands constant approbation causes an insecure, aggressive child who either panders to the inconsistency or survives it by fighting.

            A secure child is one who knows what will happen because it’s happened before. As a kid I was helping my parents bring the suitcases downstairs and I dropped one. My mother beat the life out of me, only stopped by my Dad who got in the way and said it was an accident.

            Junior’s knocked a radiator on the wonk bashing around and I said the same to him as I did when he broke a mug. I said ‘calm down, look around, you could get hurt.’ I turned out to be reasonably stable after years of therapy and I want my son to know that my only interest is in his safety, that he can come to me if he breaks something. Teaching him if he goes wrong that I’ll beat him up is just going to create a monster who, as my mother found out will be bigger and stronger and nastier than she could ever be – especially when she turned on my brother who would simply cower as she rained bash after bash with a wooden rolling pin.

          2. What a dreadful upbringing and good for you for not repeating history – so many people do 🙁 I do not understand how anyone can inflict such cruelty on children. Actually, I don’t understand deliberate cruelty in any form at all.
            However, I have come across children who have had appalling childhoods in various ways, not necessarily physical cruelty, but have had an inner ability to rise above it, make something of their lives and be happy in spite of it. I have also come across children from the most stable and loving of homes who have turned out to be real bad eggs.

          3. My God, Wibbling. That’s an appalling description! Good on you rising above it and not treating your lad similarly.

      2. Perhaps Jordan Peterson is right and happiness is smply not the human condition therefore we should accept that and aim to achieve a useful life. Augustine of Hippo thought along similar lines in that he thought true happiness cannot be achieved until the soul is at one with God.

        1. I think that there are periods in most people’s lives when they are unconditionally happy but it is always transitory. The best one can hope and strive for as a constant is probably contentment.

        2. There are ways to be happy – certainly content but many factors have to be in place before that. Is Alan Sugar happy? He has money, property, is doing what he wants to do. Does that mean he is happy? Is a welfare gimmigrant given a home and money happy? Probably not.

          It’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d7d4bbc93b624b567cdaa105e0d16b2972eaa98149dac71714f560b88a6c780.jpg

          When far too many people (my lot included) are struggling around the physiological of heat and light it’s difficult to relax and attain higher orders. That’s not to say folk on the bottom don’t have the top, it’s just insecurity.

          What disgusts me most is the entire state machine is currently dedicated to ensuring no one can escape the bottom of the pyramid.

    1. I had the same thing with my house insurance, went up from £119 to £170. Stopped the auto-renew, went on line and got the same cover for £137. Told my original insurer and they immediately came back with £118 – why didn’t they give that figure to start with? Because they hope you won’t be arsed to go on a comparison site to get it cheaper. My car insurance is due in a month or so and I’m expecting the same thing but I rarely stick with the same company as loyalty counts for nothing

      1. Because far too many people don’t know how to do that. Martin Lewis is, thankfully making in roads into that but it’s all farce and scam. When you do have a problem they’ll stick two fingers up to you.

    2. This once sane and fairly safe country has become an absolute bloody night mare.

    4. I am with the same insurer (I recognise the banner). Mine went up by about 50%. A quick look on Compare The Meerkat, call my insurer, and a suitably big chunk knocked off. Much less hassle than changing insurer. Why don’t they just give you the right price in the first place?

      Edit – I see Fallick_Alec has made the same point.

    1. And which demographic needs:

      They called on Gove, who they accuse of presiding over the biggest homelessness crisis in Britain’s history, to commit to investing in more quality three, four and five bedroom council homes. Demonstrators held placards demanding homeless families stop being forced out of London, blew whistles and cheered as a piñata representing overcrowded temporary housing was broken.

    2. 85 million according to Tesco. Some 35 million than there would be if massive uncontrolled invasion hadn’t been enforced by Labour and continued by the Tories. 1.2 million a year for 25 miserable years.

      1. Currently there are plans in many rural areas to build hundreds of new homes.
        Including on country side where we live. I asked the current council to comment on these known facts after the sent out an election flier, telling everyone how wonderful, hard working (Woking) and useful they are. (Not)
        The only way they can pay for all this is by increasing council taxes. But of course the new occupiers of the properties will be exempt. There will never be any jobs for them in such rural areas. They’ll just soak up the free benefits. I might not be here in ten years time, but my family and Grandchildren will. And they will bear the rising costs of illegal immigration.

        1. Yes, it’s quite amusing that council tax rises because government houses non-rate payers at rate payers expense, then complains that more housing is needed.

          Housing should be left to the market. If you can’t afford it, you can’t have it. That will, bluntly, bring housing down. Which, as a home owner is an annoyance but no where near as annoying as big government deliberately inflating the housing market

        2. And the “homes” they build would bd deemed cruel to house a family of rabbits in. Shoddily built, with no parking and no supporting infrastructure or facilities and amenities. And ugly to boot. Further demoralising people.

          1. And using millions of tonnes of different building materials. None of it credibly ‘green’.
            Let alone the massive increases in energy usages, water and human waste disposal.

          3. AArgh! If those are better looking! The huge problem with “modern” architecture (apart from its anti-human brutality and inherent meanness) is that it does not age well.

          4. Very, very ugly. People need access to beauty, contrary to the progressive/marxist absolute c*nts that have seized power around the world.

  88. JACOB REES-MOGG SLAMS ENDEMIC CIVIL SERVICE INACTIVITY

    Guido noticed that civil servants are now complaining on a Reddit forum about not having enough work to do. It beggars belief…

    Have a read of some of their comments:

    “My team and some in other teams have not been given any cases for around a month and I’ve been doing voluntary e-learning in the meantime.”

    “I worked on a casework team that did this for like 2 whole years. It was mental. They did a mass recruitment of 300 caseworkers and had no work for us. We were sharing single cases between 20 people and stretching out simple administrative tasks like spreadsheets over the space of a month.”

    “My experience was identical just over two years ago. I think they recruited dozens of caseworkers just to meet a target and so the gov should showcase all the extra resource they were putting into REDACTED compliance.”

    “At the beginning of the year this is exactly where I was and it’s incredibly frustrating! We have had work come through now, not loads and our managers are still moaning about how busy they are without passing work to us.”

    “I once went several months without being given any work, I spent the time learning Android development and building an app that would send me chapters of Charles Dickens books on the schedule that they were originally released.”

    “I had the same problem over Christmas. Went 6 weeks without a case.”
    “I’m in a similar situation but I started as an SEO about 6 weeks ago and haven’t been given any work yet.”

    “Sounds like where I am. Huge recruitment program and work coming through in dribs and drabs. I am not complaining as I got a promotion out of it.”

    “I’ve been on training for the last 9 weeks was meant to start my actual job on Monday and they still haven’t done it. Wtf is going on? Tired of waiting tbh.”

    Jacob Rees-Mogg tells Guido in response to the comments: “Boris Johnson had a plan to reduce the civil service by 91,000. This level of inactivity is a reminder of the costly overmanning of the public sector all of which is paid for by the private sector.” This is increasingly the case.

    Jeremy Hunt vowed to cut civil service numbers at Tory conference last year when its ranks actually grew by 3.2%. That added 15,400 more pointless, unproductive pen-pushers to the blob. The civil service now employs over half a million, an increase of 69,000 from pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, its pension scheme is extremely generous – increasing numbers of bureaucrats are now retiring on annual pensions of £50,000 or even £100,000. Those pension benefits are indexed-linked, unlike the pensions the rest of us get in the private sector. Civil servants (and MPs) can even get through to HMRC more quickly on a special “VIP line” while they are shut down for the rest of us. And despite all that they constantly complain of having to come into the office while PCS, the civil service union, is pushing hard for strike action to get “a significant shortening of the working week with no loss of pay.” The cheque for which would be written by the tax-crushed private sector…

    https://order-order.com/2024/04/11/jacob-rees-mogg-slams-endemic-civil-service-inactivity/#comments

    1. No wonder they want to work a 4 day week. Most already are only working 1 day.

      A lot of this is down to project management. With no consistent incoming stream of work there is simply nothing to do. I imagine this is because big government is determined to do absolutely nothing and to take credit for everything. Half the civil service could be sacked and no one would notice. Then the next half. and the next. The remaining 50,000 would be busy but that’s what efficiency results in.

    2. A lazy bunch of no-hopers – clear them ALL out and start afresh – with indigenous English only.

    3. To: Bernard Woolley
      From: Sir Humphrey Appleby

      REDUCTION IN CIVIL SERVICE NUMBERS

      Thank you for your note. I understand your concern at the recent Budget announcement of cuts in the service, but I assure you that there is no need to distress yourself in any way. This has all happened before, and there is an established procedure for dealing with it. We simply follow the infallible seven-stage plan.

      1: Welcome the announcement, praise the Chancellor and say that such a procedure is long overdue.

      2: Set up an internal Manpower Reduction Unit. This unit will be responsible for identifying areas where reductions in personnel numbers should be sought. These areas will, of course, be those where reductions would cause the maximum press outrage and parliamentary embarrassment. This will, of course, entail a gratifying increase in the size of the Cabinet Office.

      3: Arrange for each threatened department to set up an Informal Response Unit to show why any specific proposed cuts are, in fact, administratively impossible, legally inadmissible, financially unjustifiable or politically unacceptable; preferably all of these. Since these units are informal, there is no need to reveal their existence to the Cabinet.

      4: When there is extreme pressure to show actual reductions, turn government units into independent bodies. This removes all personnel from the government payroll, but their salaries continue to be paid by means of a grant-in-aid. You will remember that this worked very well with Kew Gardens some years ago; the scam is still not worked out.

      5: Where trusts are inappropriate, create agencies. Those, too, can have staff who are not on the government payroll, financed by fees for specific tasks.

      6: If it starts to look as if there are too many trusts and agencies, encourage staff to leave and form small companies. These companies can then be awarded contracts for training, research, accounting services, data-processing, booklet production and the like, on which they are currently employed and which will secure their existing salaries, allowances and pension arrangements.

      7: Turn full-time jobs into two part-time jobs. This will enable you to brief your minister to claim dramatic reductions in full-time posts.
      This strategy has never failed us yet. Since our colleagues in the Treasury have already persuaded the Chancellor to spin the process out until 2008, we can be sure that, by then, there will be a new chancellor, a new prime minister and, quite possibly, a new government. At that point, the whole squalid business can be swept under the carpet. Until next time.

      Humphrey Appleby

      Copyright: Antony Jay & Jonathan Lynn

        1. The recent statement by a certain council in the Midlands that they couldn’t afford the

          upkeep of the war memorial flower beds must be one of the best.

          1. https://www.gbnews.com/news/war-memorial-flower-beds-ditched-by-councils

            A row erupted in the West Midlands after the town of Royal Sutton Coldfield was informed in February that Birmingham City Council budget would not include funding for planters on streets and flower beds surrounding two war memorials.

            Birmingham City Council owes almost £3billion to lenders and has recently cut its budget for street lighting, anti-graffiti measures, cultural heritage and landscaping in public green spaces.

            Conservative councillor David Pears said: “For a number of years the town has been neglected by Birmingham [City Council]. We were set up [a town council] a few years ago and are well run with a small budget.”

            He added that Birmingham City Council informed them the funding would be cut at “very short notice and the town council had to make a decision almost on the same day.” He said that it should “never have happened” as residents have been paying council tax to Birmingham “for years for services that haven’t been delivered.”

            Plenty of cash for Lefties and overmanned departments though!

          2. Yes, we’re incredibly pleased that they didn’t make a single employee redundant.

          3. What I find comical is that despite being proven incompetent for failing to manage a force backed, fixed income with no competition, no risk, no product the management teams have not been sacked.

            This is the fundamental problem with government. Failure is rewarded.

    4. Unless he leaves the Conservative Party very soon Jacob Rees-Mogg will find it increasingly difficult to be taken seriously and to gain any credibility.

      All very noble to go down with the sinking ship but the rats who desert are the ones with the brains.

    5. Nothing changes.
      In the 1960s, MB worked as a civilian in the local REME offices.
      By 10.00 am, he had done his day’s work and then spent the next 7 hours trying to fill in time and look busy.

  89. Parts of Ukraine without power following Russian strikes. 12 April 2024.

    A Russian drone damaged equipment at a substation in the Dnipropetrovsk oblast overnight, cutting power to a number of households and individual consumers, Ukrainian energy operator Ukrenergo said on Telegram.

    The attack came after Russian missiles and drones destroyed a large electricity plant near Kyiv and hit power facilities in several regions of Ukraine on Thursday, destroying the Trypilska coal-powered thermal power plant near the capital.

    Reading between the lines; which of course is what you have to do. The Russian attacks are becoming more successful because the Ukies are running out of anti-air missiles. The problem is that so are their suppliers. The Russians have used those rather laughable cheap Iranian Shahed drones as decoys and drained the arsenals of the West. No amount of cash is going to fix this.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/apr/12/russia-ukraine-war-live-us-house-speaker-negotiates-with-white-house-over-wartime-funding-for-ukraine

  90. Parts of Ukraine without power following Russian strikes. 12 April 2024.

    A Russian drone damaged equipment at a substation in the Dnipropetrovsk oblast overnight, cutting power to a number of households and individual consumers, Ukrainian energy operator Ukrenergo said on Telegram.

    The attack came after Russian missiles and drones destroyed a large electricity plant near Kyiv and hit power facilities in several regions of Ukraine on Thursday, destroying the Trypilska coal-powered thermal power plant near the capital.

    Reading between the lines; which of course is what you have to do. The Russian attacks are becoming more successful because the Ukies are running out of anti-air missiles. The problem is that so are their suppliers. The Russians have used those rather laughable cheap Iranian Shahed drones as decoys and drained the arsenals of the West. No amount of cash is going to fix this.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/apr/12/russia-ukraine-war-live-us-house-speaker-negotiates-with-white-house-over-wartime-funding-for-ukraine

    1. There is an irony there.
      During the Vietnam war, US air attacks forced the NVA to fire off so many anti-aircraft missiles that the Warsaw pact countries were forced to denude their own air defence systems to keep them supplied.

      1. Afternoon Bob. Yes they are expensive as well. The Soviets felt obliged to support the North Vietnamese but recieved no thanks for their largesse.

    2. I wonder if those examples of damage shown in the article were the result of live targets, acquired, tracked and illuminated in real time, and at what range, or were they examples of the damage caused by the laser under static laboratory conditions, and at what range. I am not yet convinced of the capability under operational conditions. The radar shown in the ship does not seem to have the dimensions to provide the tracking fidelity that would be required. As for hitting a £1 coin at 1 km, yes, feasible, but under what conditions is such a claim made? The energy required at the target to cause such damage does not seem feasible for a 50kw laser beam (37 × 1.5 Kw). I am very unconvinced.

      1. I thought that the whole thing, including the photographs, was pretty unconvincing Richard.

        1. As far as I recall they have been working on this sort of thing for over 30 years, and never managed to achieve the effects required at powers of less than several hundreds of Mw, simply because of range and atmospheric attenuation. When you get to those powers the practicalities of installation and control in operational environments become limiting factors.

          1. Harry will get to do the business. He’s been practising on Dolly. You should see the long suffering look she gives me.

          5. Nope. Just Dolly. I just turned round because i heard a squeak and he’s humping Ducky toy.

          6. It happens all the time here. My leg. He likes the furry animal-striped brown and black slipper on the end of the leg.

        3. Anybody want to borrow a Newfie? Guaranteed to drool, fart, bruise your legs with his tail wagging, drool, shed. Has two expressions: ‘I’m a dimmo!’ or ‘How did that get there!’. Doesn’t really bark but when he does you’ll need new windows and to check your brickwork.

          Like to climb on you.

          Comes with accessories of small boy and hoover.

          1. That would be an interesting cross. I once saw a pickup with four very large dogs in the back, which i assumed to be lying down. Once the tailgate was lowered one could see that they had very short Queen Anne legs. A chat with the owner revealed that they were unplanned Dachshund cross Great Danes.

      1. Tiny little thing, I’d lose that little dog around the house and hope he doesn’t accidently end up in the washing machine .

        2. To be honest I prefer bigger dogs such as Rumpole, the boxer we used to have.

          As a child I had a Border Terrier – a small dog with a big dog personality.

          1. Incidently We’re watching Rumpole of the Bailey atm, Horace does resemble a Boxer ? We had labradors and a collie when I was a child . A cousin had a Border Terrier and now owns a Fox Terrier – the same breed
            as in Agatha Christie’s ‘ Dumb Witness ‘ . I prefer larger dogs too – cannot abide pugs or handbag dogs as they’re called.

          2. I had to have my Fox Terrier put to sleep in February. He had a big personality. I used to nickname him “Monsieur Bob” a la dumb witness, that’s when I wasn’t berating him as Mr Grumpy 🙂

          3. Fox Terrier’s are such distinguished dogs, ” Monsieur Bob ” brilliant:-)

          4. We prefer small dogs.
            We love the sheer bloody mindedness and trying to keeping one ahead of their evil little brains.

      1. Not only film star looks he’s also a gentleman. He opens doors for Dolly. Then she steals toilet rolls !

        1. Oh no! I was hoping that would end when puppyhood was over! Our resident whirling dervish has just been eyeing up the clothes rack to see if there is anything he can steal from it.

    6. Aaahhh ……. Spartie has an appt. with his friseur on 24th. April.
      He was in this doghouse this afternoon. Very unusually, he rolled in fox poo so I cut short the walk and chucked him in the bath. As I had run out of dog shampoo he was refreshed with Argon Oil poo. He looks very fluffy and rather grumpy.

  93. Even Republicans Are Now Calling Out Putin’s Lies. 12 April 2024.

    As America’s support for Ukraine hangs in the balance, so does its commitment to truth over lies, and its resolve to resist Russian disinformation. The good news, after lots and lots of bad news, is that the pro-truth, pro-Ukraine resistance is now, at last, mobilizing even inside the Republican party in Congress.

    Troll and bot armies commanded by Russian President Vladimir Putin have been waging active information warfare against the US and other Western democracies for years. And Putin’s tactics seem to be working: Witness the aid package to Kyiv that’s been stuck in Congress for half a year, and is now likely to come up again within weeks. One reason for the delay, which costs Ukrainian lives every day, is that Putin’s lies have messed with the minds of some Republicans in Congress — few in number, but enough to cause trouble and deadlock.

    This is desperate stuff. I used to keep an eye out for Russian Trolls on the Spectator threads and only spotted one likely candidate while I was doing so. UK Nudge Unit trolls on the other hand were as thick as flies on a cowpat. The Telegraph threads are a pretty good example of what is actually going on. They have their own in house trolls to counter any posts that contravene their own policies and delete any that become Top Comments.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-12/even-republicans-are-now-calling-out-putin-s-lies

    1. My BTL DT comments are often removed or censored.

      I may not be a billy goat and I may not be gruff but it looks as if I must be a troll – fol de rol.

    2. Even if the DT doesn’t remove your comment they often remove “likes” if they don’t like it!

      1. Yes. One of my BTLs looked like going to the top of the Most Liked list as it had 20 upvotes in the first 2 minutes.

        For some strange reason an hour later it had stuck on 24.

  94. Why do the quacks think you’re there for them? ‘Oh it’ll be in the afternoon’
    ‘Well that’s no good. When?’
    ‘Oh, we can’t say.’
    ‘Then don’t bother.’

  95. Was doing a bit of nettle and bramble bashing beside the road and saw my 1st slow worms of the year!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4685ac9f6e6250c6e748648c72597d9ffc0a7252fa660f3b414c074833b9728b.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f0db0455f0ad44ee83327eae1bb42006c98e33e99eae2008a9278efbf5d208ae.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b6b7677bc157acc2615df1e4820b3b39e379599f12d521d94ce9b3035df30779.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/49e732347cbb787a07c1a293ca275fcee927420a6ab46c7a6355db2f95f9b6a9.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6d23b6c4583d3c11ef64b8bd21d23282dd4c0045e8a94e9fab525e18e9fe8063.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b3868bf5745f71257d009803e577d2c1a8cfd13d60277a230da6e0b2b38a0ead.jpg

    1. It’s very long and smooth. Are you sure it’s not a glass snake? The slow worms here are covered in patterns and much shorter.

      1. Definitely slow worms. We have a bit of a hotspot here and often see young one which are patterned, but they lose the pattern as they get older.

  96. How America’s next Civil War could unfold: ‘It’s looming – the battle lines have already been drawn’

    The blockbuster imagines sectarian conflict tearing apart the United States. How realistic is its vision – and could it actually happen?

    Colin Freeman • 11 April 2024 • 11:00am

    Famous for its craft beer and indie bookstores, the city of Portland in Oregon is not an obvious place for the United States to start fraying at the seams. A haunt of Millennial hipsters and downsized tech bros, it prides itself as a vegan-friendly, eco-friendly, migrant-friendly beacon of progressive America.

    One person many Portlanders have never felt friendly towards, though, is Donald Trump, and when he unveiled his “zero-tolerance” immigration policy back in 2018, protesters took to the streets. So too did the Far-Right Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys movements – which is how Alexander Reid Ross, a Portland academic who studies political violence, got some first-hand experience of his specialism.

    “A big fight broke out between about 150 right-wingers and 75 anti-fascists, and at one point, about seven right-wingers were crowded around one kid giving him a real stomping,” he remembers. “I rushed to push them away, at which point one of them punched me in the face.”

    Ross backed off, but then went back into the fray, warning the mob that they risked killing the man they were beating. “Later, the guy who was being stomped said I’d probably saved his life.”

    Footage of the incident can still be seen on YouTube – one of countless clips of violence from the Trump years, which also saw the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and the storming of the Capitol in 2021.

    Similar scenes of unrest also feature at the start of the new film Civil War – which takes the concept of America’s political fracturing to its logical extreme. In director Alex Garland’s new dystopian blockbuster, the enemy isn’t Russia, Islamic terrorists or AI, but the American people themselves, who have taken up arms against each other.

    The movie is fictional, but with widespread fears that November’s presidential elections may plunge America back into turmoil, many are already hailing it as a cautionary tale. Some have even questioned the wisdom of Hollywood releasing it in the current climate, fearing it may stoke tensions further.

    “Is an action blockbuster that feeds into the violent fantasies of neo-Confederates, anti-government militias and MAGA morons a good idea?” asked one contributor to a discussion thread on Reddit. “I personally don’t think so.”

    Such jitters aren’t uncommon – according to a 2022 poll by YouGov and the Economist, 40 per cent of Americans think a new civil war is “at least somewhat likely in the next 10 years”.

    Perhaps wary of stirring such tensions further, in the film Garland is at pains to avoid saying what has sparked the conflict, or who the combatants are. As he told a recent preview of the film at Texas’s SXSW festival: “We don’t need it explained – we know exactly why it might happen, what the fault lines and the pressures are.”

    All viewers learn is that 19 states have seceded from Washington’s rule, led by a (somewhat unlikely) alliance between Texas and California, sparking a war that has left the country in ruins. Even the film’s central characters are ostensibly neutral observers – a team of journalists, led by a seen-it-all war photographer played by Kirsten Dunst, who drive across the nation in a bid to interview the embattled president (Nick Offerman).

    Indeed, the film is as much about journalism as it is about war – a profession which, even in the cynical Trumpian era of fake news, still seems to hold some romance for Garland. Dunst and her team are utterly fearless, following soldiers into bouts of very close-quarters combat. Their bravery gets them remarkable pictures – although if this correspondent’s experiences of covering real-life wars for The Telegraph are anything to go by, the chances of them still being alive to collect their Pulitzers at the end of it all would be limited. Also slightly rose-tinted is the way their car has “PRESS” emblazoned on it. In most modern conflicts – especially civil wars in 21st century America – that is as likely to get journalists into trouble as out of it.

    Nonetheless, Garland leaves viewers in no doubt that the movie is inspired by real-life US events. The president is an authoritarian who has scrapped the FBI – an apparent reference to Trump’s own legal run-ins with the Bureau. The war’s original frontline is Charlottesville, Virginia – scene of fierce clashes between Far Right and anti-fascists in 2017 at the notorious “Unite the Right” rally, in which one anti-fascist protestor was killed. And while there are no obvious rednecks vs woke standoffs, one soldier who holds Dunst’s team at gunpoint asks pointedly, “what kind of Americans are you?”

    So could such a scenario happen in real life? Might America see a second Civil War, with MAGA supporters and liberals replacing Confederates and Yankees, and the culture wars as the faultline rather than slavery?

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, America seems as divided on this question as on any other. For every doomsayer, others point out that the US has weathered similar upheavals in the past. Take the 1960s, for example, which saw the counterculture revolution, the anti-Vietnam War protests and the assassinations of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Could things really get even worse than that?

    Garland, for one, seems to think so. Social media, he says, has turbo-charged the tribalism of US politics, with both sides portraying each other as not merely wrong, but evil.

    “Left and right are ideological arguments about how to run a state,” he told SXSW. “But we’ve made it into ‘good and bad’… it’s f––king idiotic, and incredibly dangerous.”

    Ross, who has studied far-right movements in his work at Portland State University, believes that the risk of war has ebbed compared to 2020, when a “low-intensity conflict could have been feasible”. But he too is far from complacent.

    “A lot of the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol are now in jail, and that has taken the wind out of their sails a bit,” he says. “But if Trump gets re-elected, he wants revenge – he’ll pardon all the Proud Boys, and they’ll come straight back to places like Portland to fight people again.”

    A rematch of past street brawls isn’t the only looming flashpoint. Trump may yet face jail for his role in the Capitol riot, which would infuriate his supporters. If re-elected, he has threatened a mass deportation of illegal migrants, and to cut federal funding to Democrat-run cities with rising crime rates, branding them “anarchist jurisdictions”.

    He continues, also, to use language often compared to Hitler’s, vowing to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country”.

    Meanwhile, the culture wars still rage over issues such as abortion rights, the teaching of race and gender identity politics in schools, and border control, with different states taking matters into their own hands. Republican-run Texas, for example, has refused to comply with a Supreme Court order to remove razor wire along the Rio Grande, citing President Biden’s failure to halt illegal immigration.

    There is also a widening urban-rural divide. In rural areas of Oregon, for example, conservative voters want to secede to neighbouring Idaho, unhappy at being lumped in with liberal Portland.

    In a recent article for London’s Chatham House think tank, Bruce Stokes, an Associate Fellow in the Americas Programme, argued that the US was now “more divided along ideological and political lines than at any time since the 1850s”.

    “I don’t think we’re going to see armies of blue and grey-clad soldiers fighting it out,” he tells me, referring to the uniforms worn by the Unionists and Confederates. “But if you look at a whole series of issues, from abortion to LGBT rights and the death penalty, you get a divide that is similar to the old Civil War ones.”

    While formal state-vs-state conflict seems unlikely, what could happen is a messy Northern Ireland-style Troubles. Rather than the conventional military forces that square off in the film, there would be gangs and paramilitary groups carrying out tit-for-tat killings.

    “I am not saying someone is going to assassinate Biden or Trump, but all kinds of other legislators and officials have no security,” says Mr Stokes. “Could some politically-deranged person assassinate one, which then has a copy-cat effect?”

    This is far from a rhetorical question. Last November, David DePape, a right-wing conspiracy theorist, was convicted of the attempted kidnap of former Democrat House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Meanwhile a California man, Nicholas Roske awaits trial on charges that he plotted to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump nominee, at his home in 2022.

    The risk of bloodshed is made much easier by America’s ultra-liberal gun laws. Many far-right militias in the US are already heavily-armed, as seen by the assault rifles they carried during protests in the Trump years.

    Ross believes that left-wing groups may also now tool up if trouble flares again. He fears the growth of American versions of far-left groups like Italy’s Red Brigades, which killed nearly 50 people in kidnappings and robberies during the 1970s and 1980s.

    “Left-wing protesters suffered a lot of police brutality during the 2020 protests, and that can end up just sending people into traumatic spirals that can unleash enormous violence,” he said. “I do worry that if Trump gets elected again, it could spawn new left-wing formations who will not be constructive at all.”

    Just as the Soviet Union is said to have funded the Red Brigades and other European terror groups, warring factions in America might get covert support from Washington’s enemies abroad, for example Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

    While they would be no match for the state directly, they could shelter within sympathetic civilian populations, as the IRA did during the Troubles. In extremis, insurgent movements might even get backing from local National Guard units and sheriff’s departments, which often cherish their independence from federal government.

    One man who fears the risk of civil war more than most is Mark McCloskey, a lawyer from Missouri. During the height of the BLM demonstrations in 2020, he and his wife Patricia pointed weapons at protesters who marched through their private neighbourhood. Photos of the stand-off, in which McCloskey carried a rifle and his wife a pistol, came to symbolise how close America was getting to open conflict.

    McCloskey, who has since run for Republican office and been hailed as a hero in conservative circles, told me some likely “tipping points” he sees for a future conflict. They included an attempt to jail Trump, dramatically increased gun control measures, and “BLM type riots which would be met by armed resistance.”

    He added: “I could go on and on as to what the average person sees as political system that is intentionally weakening our country – open borders where illegal immigrants get funding and rights that are denied to citizens, rampant drug use killing more Americans each year while states push to legalize drugs, the promotion of anti-family lifestyles… the war against religion. So, yeah, I can see a civil war looming on the horizon. The battle lines have already been drawn.”

    Garland’s film has already sparked lengthy online debates about how such a conflict would unfold. And this being the divided America of the 2020s, no discussion is complete with some predictions about which side would win.

    “I see a working class and rural sort of alliance facing off against a laptop-class urban elite,” wrote one Reddit poster. “Of the two, I can guess who is tougher, more self-reliant and probably has military experience and knows how to use guns. It’s not the investment banker in the Hamptons or the HR executive for a tech firm in Silicon Valley.”

    In a civil war, though, a military victory doesn’t mean a moral victory – especially when the arguments are over complex issues like values and identity. Stokes, who at 74 is old enough to remember the US student protests of the 1960s, cautions radicals of all persuasions to be careful what they wish for, be they Portland anti-fascists or Virginia Trump die-hards.

    “I remember back in 1968, there was a lot of loose talk among young college people like me about how we might have to have a revolution. A romantic Marxist sense of overthrowing the old order and installing a new one. We forgot that when that happened in Russia, there was a lot of terror afterwards.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/alex-garland-civil-war-could-it-happen-how-realistic/

    Civil War, review: Alex Garland’s Apocalypse Now for centrists thrills at every turn

    The Ex Machina director’s vision of an imploding America is neither anti-Trump nor anti-woke. Instead it’s as riveting as cinema gets.

    Robbie Collin, FILM CRITIC • 11 April 2024 • 11:00am

    It wouldn’t be fair to describe Alex Garland’s new film as Apocalypse Now for centrists – even though for some of us, that sounds like the movie of the year. But it certainly is a hotly topical heart-of-darkness journey in which the darkness’s political origins and aims are virtually beside the point.

    Though it might be about total societal disintegration in a very near-future version of the United States of America, Civil War is neither an anti-Trump exemplum nor an anti-woke one. And that lack of a clear-cut message is liable to cheese off all the right people (not to mention the left ones). But Garland, the writer and director of Ex Machina, Annihilation and Men, is defiantly uninterested here in taking a side. Rather, his film is about the business of side-taking itself, and where our growing mania for doing so ultimately leads.

    It opens in chaos – familiar in ways, and all the scarier for it. The US President (Nick Offerman) is fumbling through a dry run for an emergency broadcast, while newsreel clips of rioters punctuate his ahs and ums. Beyond the concrete perimeter of his White House bunker, the breakaway forces of California and Texas march on Washington, while Florida toys with a secession of its own.

    Whatever prompted these defections is left unexplained, which is a deeply smart move: if given a rationale, we’d only end up siding with or against it. Instead, what Garland wants us to ponder is what his film blasts at us with relentless and uncompromising tension and style: a vision of a self-inflicted, and ultimately also self-willed, national collapse.

    Fortunately, he gives us an expert to take our cue from. Grippingly played with battle-scarred detachment by Kirsten Dunst, she is Lee Smith, a seasoned photojournalist who honed her craft in foreign war zones. She’s clearly modelled on her namesake, Lee Miller – and in case we miss the reference, it’s pointed out by Jessie, an aspiring snapper played by an exceptional Cailee Spaeny, of Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, whom Lee bumps into while covering a military-civilian fracas.

    Soon, the two are making the 857-mile drive from New York to Washington (fighting means they have to avoid the direct route) in order to interview the President in his Colonel Kurtz-like outpost. Also on board are Lee’s colleague Joel (Wagner Moura), and Stephen McKinley Henderson’s Sammy, a newspaper reporter of the old school – who, even mid-Armageddon, sports tailored shirts with monogrammed cuffs.

    Civil War moves in ways you’d forgotten films of this scale could – with compassion for its lead characters and a dark, prowling intellect, and yet a simultaneous total commitment to thrilling the audience at every single moment. Each leg of the journey toggles between pin-drop suspense and rivetingly frantic firefights, often staged with a mesmerisingly surreal edge. And the action is often intercut with Lee and Jessie’s photographs of it, creating uneasy syncopations in the bloodshed, as well as space for us to mull the moral murkiness of that classic centrist fallback: standing back and not getting involved.

    A siege at a ramshackle Winter Wonderland is essentially Full Metal Jacket’s Battle of Hué crossed with the Glasgow Willy Wonka Experience: in other words, unnerving squared. But it’s a fraught encounter with two loyalist troopers, one played by Jesse Plemons in cherry-red sunglasses, that feels like the scene everyone will rave about afterwards. Here, Garland boils down his film’s point of view on points of view into a single nerve-splintering standoff: one man’s righteousness can be another’s psychopathy, and sometimes the only difference between them is your angle.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2024/03/26/civil-war-review-alex-garland-kirsten-dunst/

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDyQxtg0V2w

    1. Thing is, there is a right and wrong way to run a country. The right way is a low tax, small state economy. That maximises individual liberty and freedom of choice. Jobs are created from low taxes, the state cannot heavily legislate to restrict freedoms or levy taxes, nor can it borrow massively to ruin the currency.

      In every country where Left wingery, big state is deployed we just have misery, debt, waste and inefficiency, crushing taxes, poverty and a huge welfare state.

      Nerdrotic has a good response:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnExudKQXWI

  97. I’ve not been one for eating sweets since a child but I love chocolate very much .
    I just now opened the wrapper of Green & Black’s chocolate ( I eat Italian, Swiss Dutch & Belgian too ) it’s the only English chocolate I like ( besides Maltezers ) the usual big chunky bar was reduced to somewhat miserly squares half the size . The usual 190g bar was now 90g and yet the price is the same .

      1. That doesn’t explain why a well-known brand of cat-food reduced their sachet size from 100gms to 85gms without the commensurate reduction in price. When this was picked up and the company questioned they said that it was to help people not to over-feed their pets. I really did not make this up!

    1. Phizzee. Go back inside, change your trousers and come back outside with petrol and a lighter.

      You’ll feel better once they’re burning. Trust me.

      1. Nooo !

        I also have a new shirt but i can’t wear them together. The shirt is black cotton covered in gold and red hibiscus flowers. Summer’s coming !

          2. They’ve a nice simple black trouser you can wear.

            Don’t worry though, I’ve reported the company to trading standards for selling harmful or hazardous items. You’ll be safe from now on.

        2. You know what they say: “Spring is the time of a young man’s fancy. Summer sees him even fancier!”

          1. I have a lunch event for neighbours in June and a drinks party in July. I’ll treat them to my fashion sense then.

      1. The shirt was just what i was wearing at the time. As the pants are so busy i will pair them with a white cotton shirt.
        Glad you like them. :@)

      3. Dedicated, darling, dedicated.

        ♬They seek him here, they seek him there,
        His clothes are loud, but never square …♬

    11. Can’t see Alf wearing them – thankfully I don’t think they make them in his size! 😂😂😂

      1. Don’t be negative. He could wear them as shorts. Wouldn’t you like people to see his lovely knees? :@)

      1. Walls and curtains all plain. Pastels and not forgetting the exterior of the bungalow being Pistachio green. Most unusual in Southern England.
        I like to dandify when i emerge from my Winter chrysalis.
        I also have no problem with people laughing in their grey, drab brown anoraks.

          1. Nope. A bit west. Quite useful really because i just have to mention the ‘greenhouse’ and all the taxi drivers know where to decant me,

      2. When we were young (weren’t we all), BiL asked if a dress I was wearing was made from old curtains. Given his life-long staid, anorak clothing, a bit rich. Some years down the line, he and his wife got matching leather trousers, looked ridiculous. Tempting to get my own back!

      1. Doggie bench. I bought it from British Heart Foundation but they are also available on line

  99. Interesting observation by a conservative mum from the USA on Twitt:

    Nua
    @nua_peasant
    A large number of people have been brainwashed into associating anything tidy, bright, and clean with Stepfordism, Nazism, authoritarianism, and repression.
    It’s the derisive, subversive lie put forth in the 1998 film Pleasantville and all the similar propaganda designed to make people hate any aspirational or nostalgic vision of a moral, Rockwellian America where 2+2=4.
    —

    Certainly, nice, bright clean, beautiful music, art, family life, morals are sneered at. But honestly you can’t tell where the deliberate agenda stops and the mere pretentious idiots start.

    1. Alma Deutscher (b.2005) is a half-Jewish English composer, musician and conductor now living in Vienna, who specialises in melodic romantic music, which she calls “beautiful”.

      Last year, a review of her third opera ‘The Emperor’s New Waltz’, a satire on modern music, which premiered in Salzburg, was met by an accusation that she was like Hitler because she intensely disliked decadent music of the trendy avant garde, and preferred something with a melody and beautiful harmonies. This German critic said she was on a mission of purification of the arts, which went right back to the Third Reich.

      Alma herself said that quite a number of her relatives perished during the Holocaust, and she composed in the style she liked. Besides, Hitler liked dogs; was the critic suggesting that everyone who likes dogs is like Hitler?

      She is quite capable of producing atonal modernistic material – her symphonic overture ‘Siren Sounds’ started off as a tone picture of Viennese traffic, which morphed into a series of waltzes. She said she wanted to create something beautiful out of ugliness.

      If you want an inspiration for a model for family life and morals, and someone who brought this to a dysfunctional family wreaked by divorce and scandal and the trauma this brings to those caught up in this, then perhaps look no further than the current Princess of Wales (b.1982). It is a cruel twist of fate that brought her cancer, and I do hope she recovers soon.

      1. What an utterly ghastly review. Germany is in thrall to sploshy abstract painting; I guess that’s the reason why.

        1. Germany acquired the collection of Heinz Berggruen and I believe has built a museum on the new museums site in Berlin to exhibit the paintings which include Picasso and Klee.

          My visits to Berlin were pre unification and the place will have changed enormously in the past thirty to forty years.

  100. S.S. St. Helena.

    Complement:
    41 (0 dead and 41 survivors).
    7,600 tons of grain and general cargo, including canned meat, cotton, rice and wet hides.

    At 05.09 hours on 12th April 1941 the unescorted St. Helena (Master Percy John Reavley) was hit under the bridge by one torpedo from U-124 (Georg-Wilhelm Schulz) and sank capsizing to port about 100 miles southwest of Freetown. The U-boat surfaced and questioned the survivors before leaving the area. The master, 35 crew members, two gunners and three passengers were picked up by HMS Wishart (D 67) (Cdr E.T. Cooper) and landed at Freetown.

    Type IXB U-Boat U-124 was sunk on 2nd April 1943 in the North Atlantic west of Oporto, Portugal by depth charges from the British corvette HMS Stonecrop and the British sloop HMS Black Swan. 53 dead (all hands lost).

    https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/br/st_helena.jpg

    2. Reminds me of the Mathematical Bridge in Cambridge thought to have been designed by Newton. It was once dismantled but when attempts were made to reassemble it bolts were necessary at certain joints where previously there were none.

  102. A shrill Double Bogie Six!

    Wordle 1,028 6/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Just back from fishing. Saw some nice birdies,
      Wordle 1,028 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Par

        Wordle 1,028 4/6

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

    2. Wordle 1,028 6/6

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

    3. A querulous par today!

      Wordle 1,028 4/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  103. Goodness me – what WILL they think up next?

    “Offering a chair to an older colleague at work could count as age discrimination, an employment judge has ruled.

    Being given the opportunity to sit while younger staff stand could lead to ‘less favourable treatment’, a tribunal concluded.

    It means that any employer who offers a chair to elderly workers, rather than their younger peers, could be breaking equality laws as the older person could ‘legitimately conclude’ they were being treated ‘disadvantageously’.”

      1. My father went to war when I was three. When he returned in 1945 I was nine and had no idea who he was.
        So my mother raised me She taught me that a man should hold a door open for a lady; he should rise when a lady joined the company; he should raise his hat when meeting a lady. (Remember when all men wore hats or caps?)
        When in my forties I held a door open for a lady I was told in no uncertain tones that she was perfectly capable of opening the door for herself. My first experience of a feminist.
        I still follow my mother’s teaching.

        3. I hold the door for whoever is about to pass through. I’ll give my seat to someone who looks like they need it.

          1. Same here and I’m female. It would not occur to me not to do this and I’m surprised that anyone at all would find this either unnatural or offensive

        4. I’m reminded of the incident when a man opened a door for a woman and she dismissively commented ‘You don’t have to open the door for me just because I’m a lady, you know’ to which the chap replied ‘I’m not opening the door because you are a lady, but because I am a gentleman’.

          1. I’ve used that line myself.
            I’ve also replied: ” I open doors for anyone who is clearly going my way.”
            Here in France, I find that people are far more courteous than they now are in the UK.

          2. I visited France many years ago with an experienced friend and he explained that the French were a very polite people, and if they were curt to you it was most likely because you had done something highly impolite without realising that was what you were doing. He then explained a few situations in which a politeness was often omitted by Brits unaware of it – such as saying goodnight to other diners in a restaurant when leaving. Given the deterioration in courtesy in Britain over the years since then, I expect the difference is even greater.

          3. It’s still very much the same. It took a couple of visits to realise one even says hello and goodbye in a Doctor’s waiting room and it is normal to greet total strangers when out walking.

    3. I suppose that will also apply to offering a woman your seat on the train, which I was brought up to do..

      2. At my advanced age (and with my obviously decrepit body) I find women offering me a seat!

      3. We were all (boys and girls) brought up to offer our seat to anyone who needed it more than we did so I have offered mine to a man on more than one occasion :)) The boys were brought up to always offer their seat to a woman no matter what her age!

        1. I’ve seen male jackasses take a seat that was being offered to a woman. I nearly got punched by a bloke when I told him I was offering the seat to a woman, not him.
          I think he saw from my glare that punching me might not be a good idea.

          1. I have to confess I’ve never seen that. Not sure what I’d do if I did, but nothing would not be an option.
            What I did see once though was in Hamburg, trying to get into a department store with my husband who had just come out of hospital and was on crutches. It was a swing door and people just went barging past us leaving it to swing back. After a few minutes I lost it and yelled at everyone in general that never in my life had I seen such appalling manners – everyone stopped dead in their tracks! Then someone very shame-facedly held the door open for us to go through 🙂 I have to say that I don’t think that would happen in France.

        2. MB always walks on the outside of the pavement.
          How very dare he presume my gender!

      4. I was using a cane in Malta and when i got on the bus three young men got up at the same time and offered me their seats…

        1. I was using a cane in Malta and when i got on the bus three young men got up at the same time and offered me their seats.

          Edit. Meant to post to Sos.

        2. I was using a cane in Malta and when i got on the bus three young men got up at the same time and offered me their seats.

          Edit. Meant to post to Sos.

    5. Effin’ ‘ell! With my knees, I’m delighted if someone offers me the chance to sit down!

      1. I’m just not sure about this song and never have been, Bill. I don’t know what it’s saying nor which way round. Interesting that it’s from over half a century ago, though. At the time I thought it was a boy complaining that his mother wouldn’t let him do boy things, or chose to feminise him. I suppose with hindsight it could equally be a cheerleader for the trannie complaint.

        1. I’ve just been reading that Pete Townsend wrote the song (in 1967) for an abandoned rock opera in which parents of the future would be able to choose the sex of their children. The mother in the song wanted four daughters but one was born a boy, so she treated him as a girl. I can see, though, how it might be viewed as one of four girls yearning to be a boy.

  106. Andrew Mitchell has a new job or title atleast, deputy foreign secretary, bestowed upon him by David Cameron .

    2. Andrew Mitchell:

      “Plebgate” (also known as “Plodgate”[1] and “Gategate”[2][3]) was a British political scandal which started in September 2012. The trigger was an altercation between Conservative MP and Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell and police officers on duty outside Downing Street. Leaked police logs, later apparently backed up by eyewitness evidence, suggested that Mitchell had sworn at police officers and called them “plebs” (a pejorative word signifying someone of low social class) when they refused to open the main gate for him as he attempted to leave with his bicycle, telling him to walk through the adjacent pedestrian gate instead. Mitchell apologised, stating that he had used bad language but denied using the words claimed and in particular calling police officers “plebs”. However, finding his position untenable amid the media storm surrounding the incident, he resigned from the post of Chief Whip a month later.

        1. False: Andrew Mitchell forced MPs to leave the House of Commons chamber while Andrew Bridgen was speaking about vaccines.

          By: Sam Doak
          March 21 2023

          Fact-Check
          The Verdict False

          Footage of this incident makes it clear that MPs chose to leave on their own accord.

          Context

          On Friday March 17, 2023, British MP Andrew Bridgen addressed his parliamentary colleagues. Speaking on the topic of alleged vaccine-related harms, Bridgen accused the media of failing to cover dangers related to COVID-19 vaccines and asked why this matter was not being addressed by the government.

          As Bridgen was speaking, several MPs began leaving the chamber. Ultimately, only a small handful remained present to hear Bridgen’s remarks. In the days since, clips showing MPs exiting were circulated widely online by those skeptical of vaccine efficacy and safety.

          The narrative that vaccine skeptics have put forward is that fellow MP Andrew Mitchell forced his parliamentary colleagues to leave while Bridgen began speaking. A clip purportedly showing this has been circulated with the caption, “The Government Minister who instructed MPs to leave the Chamber when Andrew Bridgen began his vaccine efficacy/harms speech was Andrew Mitchell, MP for Sutton Coldfield.” Since this was posted, it has been retweeted over 3,800 times.

          In Fact

          The clip in question is composed of official footage published on parliamentlive.tv. It has been zoomed in so viewers can only see Mitchell crossing the chamber and speaking to two MPs, who leave shortly after. While this could give viewers the impression these MPs chose to leave because of Bridgen, the full recording on parliamentlive.tv makes it clear that this is not what occurred.

          Bridgen made his comments through what is termed an “adjournment debate.” According to Parliament.com, these occur at the end of a parliamentary sitting and serve as “an opportunity for an individual backbench MP to raise an issue and receive a response from the relevant Minister.” The full video showing Bridgen’s remarks makes it clear that MPs begin preparing to leave at the beginning of Bridgen’s adjournment debate, which is perhaps unsurprising as this is the last piece of business that was considered during this day. Crucially, the two MPs in question prepared to exit before Mitchell approached them.

          It should be further noted that one of the MPs, Layla Moran, is a Liberal Democrat MP. As Andrew Mitchell is a Conservative MP, it is unclear under what authority he would be able to instruct Moran to leave the chamber.

          Bridgen has made numerous false claims about vaccine safety in recent months. He was suspended by the Conservative Party in January for comparing vaccine rollouts to the holocaust.

          The Verdict

          Andrew Bridgen’s comments were the last contribution scheduled for March 17. Video of this event makes it clear that MPs decided to leave on their own accord as he began addressing the house. This claim has therefore been marked as false.

          https://www.logicallyfacts.com/en/fact-check/false-andrew-mitchell-forced-mps-to-leave-while-andrew-bridgen-was-speaking-about-vaccines

          2. He may not have “forced” them to leave but he was certainly seen to be encouraging them to do so.

          3. He did not compare vaccine rollouts to the holocaust. What he did do was quote a Jewish scientist who said the harms caused by the vaccines were the worst event ‘since’ the holocaust.

        2. He did indeed Ndovu. He could be clearly seen whizzing round the benches of those still seated. Some did leave of their own accord, but it was clear that some still wished to remain until Mitchell whispered in their ear, leaning across the bench in places to do so. He was at pains to do that as quickly as possible, that was quite obvious.

    3. Gawd. Nothing, but nothing, keeps that trud down.
      Like Schitz, he must keep a stock of incriminating photos and recordings.

  108. That’s me gone for this chilly day. Some sunshine but not very welcoming. Did a couple of hours in the garden but was glad to come indoors.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  110. Reading through the DT letters , and being rather puzzled about the trans debate .

    Clever women just get on with things , they aim high , then perhaps become mothers , wives , aunt and grandmothers .

    I was lucky enough to have a clever mother , she was a Wren during the war , could taxi aircraft , fix them because she was an air craft mechanic , and later on in life fix the family car , sort out problems , do the cryptic crossword , and generally try her hand at most things , she was left handed .

    My 2 younger sisters are talented and reached the top, , and youngest sister was head girl , formidable and talented , the one below me should have been a Victorian explorer , was an excellent PA to 2 top bods, brilliant shorthand skills , cryptic mind , and even swung from a circus trapeze in a big top when she visited Malaysia , both girls are fearless, brilliant at sport , swimming , hockey, lacrosse . tennis .

    They are both very female , left handed again , and of course always vied for praise from my father .. and they don’t take any nonsense from men .

    Dad used to call me his prototype , a bit softer and easier , I am a games player , but not wildly competitive .. and quite content in a strange sort of way ..

    If my siblings had been born recently , would the education system have confused their gender aspirations .

    You know that song , I just like being a girl .

    Strangely though , younger son now fifty years has a male partner , so where on earth has that come from , he was in his twenties when we suspected oddities , no matter what , no one would ever have guessed , ever !!

    1. Good evening Belle,
      Are you suggesting a link between being left-handed and clever/skilled etc? My German teacher at school, as well as being a crack shot with the blackboard rubber, was left-handed. I can’t remember what triggered it, but he once stated, “I’m left-handed, Hitler was left-handed.” Strange man.
      Your younger son sounds a bit like ex-DiL (younger son’s ex). Just 2 and a half years into marriage and 6 Months after buying their first house, she suddenly announced she was a lesbian. There were no prior indications, and even her mother was totally floored.
      Mind you, she did well out of the divorce, pocketing £24k (which she promptly blew on a new car!), half the equity in the house, in spite of her only putting a minimum into the hefty deposit. Long-term, my son will be better off, and not just financially. I never fully trusted her loyalty. Son is now with a far ‘better’ partner with whom he has a lovely baby.

      1. The same thing happened to the son of some good friends of mine, but it turned out that her parents actually knew. When the marriage fell apart within a year my friends asked her parents if they had known and they said they did, so my friends asked why they didn’t say anything. They said that they were afraid that he would call the wedding off!!

          1. Apparently that’s what they did think/hope. When my friend told me that she had departed after less than a year I said that perhaps she just didn’t want to be married. She snorted and said “Oh she did, just not to a man!” There’s nothing wrong with my friend’s son by the way. About two years later he remarried to a lovely girl, has two children now in their teens and is very happy.

          2. Good to hear your son now has a happy, settled marriage and children. Our son has such a lovely partner now, and I think (and hope) they will get married at some point. Or, once bitten, twice shy.
            He was lucky not to lose his home at the divorce. He had to increase the mortgage to pay her off, but said he could now afford to do so – hinted that he was no longer subsidising her multiple holidays (with her old school pals and with her mother), boozing and so on.
            I sometimes wonder if our ex-DiL also just loved the idea of the wedding – she wanted all sorts of ‘tacky’ extras too. Unfortunately, she is in many of the photos from older son’s wedding.
            Though why she would have ‘hidden’ her inclinations, I have no idea. After all, in their generation being ‘gay’ carries no shame. Maybe she will get her comeuppance at some point.

          3. My friend’s son – not mine, I don’t have one 🙂 Financially he didn’t suffer too much, unlike your son, I think the laws surrounding that are somewhat different in France though I don’t have personal experience of that situation! What I do know though, is that my friends were (sadly both dead now) devout Catholics with friends in high places in the church. They actually got the marriage annulled so that if and when their son did re-marry it would be recognised by the church. This may well have made a difference.

    2. Good evening Belle,
      Are you suggesting a link between being left-handed and clever/skilled etc? My German teacher at school, as well as being a crack shot with the blackboard rubber, was left-handed. I can’t remember what triggered it, but he once stated, “I’m left-handed, Hitler was left-handed.” Strange man.
      Your younger son sounds a bit like ex-DiL (younger son’s ex). Just 2 and a half years into marriage and 6 Months after buying their first house, she suddenly announced she was a lesbian. There were no prior indications, and even her mother was totally floored.
      Mind you, she did well out of the divorce, pocketing £24k (which she promptly blew on a new car!), half the equity in the house, in spite of her only putting a minimum into the hefty deposit. Long-term, my son will be better off, and not just financially. I never fully trusted her loyalty. Son is now with a far ‘better’ partner with whom he has a lovely baby.

    3. The deputy headmistress at my secondary school taught that homosexual men have domineering mothers but if you fit that stereotype, it certainly doesn’t come across here! Freud had it that you dropped younger son on his head as a baby. I’ve a niece who identifies as lesbian but the woman she lived with and financially supported for years dropped her like a ton of bricks when her dream job came along. Now works for a Dem senator in Washington DC and was recently given some award or other by the party.

      1. If it was true about domineering mothers I, and my bothers, would have turned out queerer than Phizzee…

    4. Your son is gay…….many men are. It’s fairly normal. Trans is something else and definitely not normal especially the mental targetting of children, who are naturally confused as their bodies change.

      I have gay friends and they are good company.

      Your mother and sisters are/were strong women who were not held back from reaching their potential.

  114. When will this warmongering PoS stop trying to escalate this conflict?

    The Germans could and should give the Taurus missiles, and we could all give and do much, much more. We could easily give Ukraine the long range artillery to take out the communications between Russia and Crimea and cause Putin serious strategic problems.

    Why aren’t we doing it? This time the advantage of the West is even bigger than it was in the Cold War. The Nato economies are about 30 times the size of Russia.

    If we get a grip now and start seriously manufacturing the munitions the Ukrainians need, then we can not only fix the problem of Ukraine — we can drive jobs and growth in our own countries.

    It is time for the West, including Britain, to snap out of our sleep-walk; to recover the spirit of Reagan and Thatcher and invest in the defence of our freedoms.

    The simplest and most cost-effective way to defend freedom is to invest now in the defence of Ukraine.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-13301849/BORIS-JOHNSON-waiting-Ukraine-weapons-needs.html

    The longer the conflict continues the less likely it becomes that Putin will back down and the more likely it becomes that it will go nuclear, if merely the destruction of nuclear facilities in the region.

    1. Johnson is being bribed or blackmailed or both. We know who wants Russia out of Ukraine and he’s got Johnson and others in his pocket.

      1. The aim of the US in provoking a war with Russia using Ukraine as proxy has always been the dream of breaking up Russia and stealing its resources.

        As matters stand Ukraine has now been largely sacrificed as a country and peoples. Russia is a vast continent and could never be carved up in the way that the globalists and their puppet regimes had anticipated.

        1. I think people don’t appreciate how vast Ukraine is either.

          Talk about rich pickings for the Yanks.

      2. The aim of the US in provoking a war with Russia using Ukraine as proxy has always been the dream of breaking up Russia and stealing its resources.

        As matters stand Ukraine has now been largely sacrificed as a country and peoples. Russia is a vast continent and could never be carved up in the way that the globalists and their puppet regimes had anticipated.

      3. Johnson is an opportunistic fraud, your “controllers” don’t even need to blackmail or bribe him

        1. Maybe. But something definitely happened to him during his sojourn in St Thomas’s Hospital. A different man emerged.

    2. The next two months will make it obvious to goons like Johnson and Cameron that Russian terms and the unconditional surrender and disarmament of Ukraine will be demanded. The four regions and Crimea are now Russian territory.

      The collective West is powerless to relaunch the Ukrainian war machine. The Ukrainians have already lost a generation of its young men and achieved nothing but defeat and destruction of its forces. Ukraine has neither the soldiers nor the weapons to fight Russia.

      Russia will not allow any part of a residual rump of Ukraine to join NATO and neither should we in the UK continue with such destructive policies at the behest of the illegitimate vile and corrupt Biden regime.

      1. I hope you’re correct, although I sympathise with the Ukrainian families who have lost relatives and even more I sympathise with those who have been mutilated in a lost cause.

    3. One little problem, Ukraine has all but run out of combatants. I do not know if that little point is mentioned by BoJo as the article is behind a pay-wall and I refuse to subsidise that oaf.

      Boots on the ground are essential if one country wants to occupy and control another, or reclaim what one believes was once theirs, even though they didn’t particularly like the inhabitants of those areas. Sadly the Ukraine doesn’t have the feet to fill the boots. Enter NATO?

      Would arch-strategist, BoJo, break the first rule of war i.e. do not march on Moscow? I doubt that he has heard of that sensible rule.

      1. Spot on.

        And what I find heart-breaking is the fact that Ukraine has lost its future for the benefit of non Ukrainians and its own politicians, all of whom will extract millions and vanish.

    2. Where the heck does she think her food comes from? Or does she just eat factory made sludge and bugs?

    3. I wonder what the fat bat has to say about the ecological effect of wind turbines and solar farms.

      On a similar theme…

      The RSPCA has gone bonkers

      A life without killing any other living organism is not possible even for the fiercest vegan

      ROSS CLARK • 12 April 2024 • 2:40pm

      I can guarantee that no wasp which enters my office during the summer months will get out alive. It will be swatted humanely, quite possibly with a rolled-up copy of The Daily Telegraph. But watching the RSPCA’s latest advert, released to celebrate its 200th anniversary, I may need to be a bit careful in future.

      How can I be sure the charity will not have stationed one of its pseudo police officers outside my home to capture me executing the insects? The advert appears to depict swatting insects, along with treading on snails as acts of cruelty. It shows a number of animals, from farmed cows to hedgehogs to insects, apparently singing that all they are asking for is a little respect. It ends with someone nearly treading on a snail, then thinking twice and picking up the poor thing and depositing it somewhere safe.

      I don’t want to diss the RSPCA too much, given that it does valuable work in countering genuine acts of cruelty: dogs, cats, horses which are the subject of neglect, beatings and the like. But its advert, whether intentionally or not, equates the killing of any creature – however low down the food chain – with animal cruelty.

      If you want to go down this blind alley of extreme animal rights it will very quickly lead to you into an impossible situation. Yes, I guess I could refrain from swatting wasps, and I could take extra care to look down at my feet to check I am not crushing any snails – possibly at the cost of walking into lamp posts.

      I could turn vegan, at the risk of malnourishment. But I would still be culpable of killing members of the animal kingdom – so long as my immune system remains functional.

      There are, it is true, some people who hold these extremist views on animal rights. But I don’t think their views will chime with the majority of RSPCA donors.

      Killing other creatures, I am afraid, is an integral part of being a living creature yourself. Trying to live a life with no killing would mean no vaccines, no walking about for fear of crushing microscopic creatures, no keeping your vegan scones from rats, no wood preserver to keep your eco-home safe from burrowing insects, no nothing.

      And yes, even vegan foods rely on pest control. I used to keep an allotment on which I used no pesticides – and I know I wouldn’t have had anything left to eat myself had I not gone to war against the slugs, using lethal means. Flinging them unharmed onto neighbouring allotments certainly wasn’t going to solve the problem.

      Only in children’s books do all creatures manage to live alongside each other in complete, gormless harmony. The RSPCA should stop pushing that kind of fantasy and return to what it does best: which is to campaign against cruelty and unnecessary suffering inflicted on creatures which are capable of experiencing it.

      There are quite enough shackled donkeys and starved goats in the world to occupy the RSPCA’s time without it going to the aid of flies and snails.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/12/rspca-has-gone-bonkers/

      1. I’m a great believer in live and let live as far as the garden is concerned.

        Most of the creatures here seem to be happy to eat the things I’m not keen on.

        In the house it’s a totally different matter, enter at your own risk…

          1. I’ll certainly happily eat the boar and the deer.
            It’s the hunt feast next Saturday, I’m looking forward to it
            Seven or more courses, aperos, wine and digestifs until they are coming out of my ears, what’s not to enjoy, particularly as HG is designated driver

          2. I buy boar and deer from a local hunt every year – a whole deer and half a boar which I then share with a neighbour. Thankfully it all arrives butchered! I make a civet with all the difficult cuts then portion it and freeze it into about 12-14 meals. The venison haunches have done many a lunch/dinner party 🙂 I pay the princely sum of €5 per kilo!
            I love the hunt lunches but sadly missed it this year. It was on Easter Saturday and I had to go into the church to do the flowers for Easter Sunday 🙁

    4. The RSPCA’s new advert proudly shows off exactly who they are – bigoted Left-wing extremists

      Having spent millions on a new look, they just couldn’t stop themselves from producing two minutes of pure propaganda

      WILLIAM SITWELL • 12 April 2024 • 6:02pm

      That’ll shut them up, the RSPCA has been chuntering this week, that’ll close down the criticism, and silence the naysayers. Fifty years after the last logo tweak and with a little help from creatives JKR and advertising agency AMV BBDO the (exactly) 200-year-old society, launched to prevent cruelty to animals, has a new look.

      The letters are now released – uncaged – from their elongated octogen, and they breathe as a hero blue type or a secondary range of colours with a neat full-stop (which can alternate as a little animal). And the advertising flourish is that the letters can morph into the word RESPECT.

      “We need people to reappraise us and rethink our place in the world if we are going to face up to the huge challenges facing animals,” said RSPCA chief executive Chris Sherwood, adding; “our bolder, brighter, welcoming brand aims to inspire everyone, whoever they are, to get involved so that together we can help animals now and for many years to come.”

      And there we were thinking that the reason the RSPCA had lost traction with its traditional heartland of supporters – country-dwelling, animal-loving, passionate conservationists – was not because of some old-school logo but because it had long descended into a, er, rabbit hole of political posturing, reckless spending and aggressive litigation.

      Or, as Tim Bonner, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance once put it, an outfit specialising in: “smears and bigotry,” of “dysfunctional governance, and especially a radical animal rights element on its council… we all appreciate the work the Society does for animals, but there is no room in animal welfare for a political agenda and bigoted approach”.

      Although it was founded on principles of animal welfare, in recent years it grabbed the headlines for becoming the UK’s largest private prosecutor and, in 2017, a committee of MPs accused the RSPCA of “hounding pet owners” and “targeting vulnerable ill, or elderly people”.

      Chief Executive Sherwood joined the charity in 2018 after his predecessor left in what has been described as “opaque circumstances” (did Jeremy Cooper quit having lost internal battles with animal rights extremists? Was he given a golden goodbye and gagged from ever discussing the RSPCA?). And Sherwood acknowledged the problems facing the charity this week. “We have great awareness – 93 per cent –,” he told Third Sector magazine, “but, while many people know who we are, the strength in the brand weakens when it comes to how much they like us and drops even more when considering donating.”

      Which is a truly wonderful way of saying “everyone’s heard of us, but they all hate us”.

      Hence the spending of considerable sums on the re-brand, which included very detailed research, and will incur considerable sums in infrastructure costs (from changing letterheads and signs in everything from buildings to vehicles). Sherwood refuses to divulge the cost but says it was less than one per cent of its animal welfare operations.

      And will this help to re-secure the love, to reach more people, as Sherwood says, “from all walks of life, particularly the younger generation”?

      The question is quickly answered by having a gander at the slick, new advert that has gone out with the new branding. Which I’ve done and, with a tendency to be moved to tears, to have my heartstrings pulled, to be brainwashed by brilliant telly, I was feeling pretty veganistic while watching.

      The animals are incarcerated (if they’re cows), about to be whizzed into a million pieces by a blade (if they’re bees), kept in a bleak and fetid crowd of thousands (if they’re chickens), soon to be run over (if they’re hedgehogs), swatted by a newspaper (if they’re a spider), locked in a suffocating car (if they’re a dog), boiled alive (if they’re a lobster), muzzled and brutalised at the track (if they’re a greyhound) or trod on (if they’re a snail).

      It’s a stunning piece of propaganda where animals, many of whom are given the voices of children, are threatened by brutal humans – from evil restaurant-goers to bastard lawnmowers – and in which they all plead, nay sing, that all they’re asking for “is a little respect” (you know the Aretha Franklin song).

      As I say, I was coming over all vegan and then the voice of Chris Packham came on as a snail was rescued and I quickly came to my senses. And to the staggering realisation that having spent millions on a new, blue, modern and forward-facing look the RSPCA just couldn’t help themselves and with their first major advert paint a picture of their organisation, quite deliberately, as the bigoted, anti-meat-eating, anti-lawn-mowing, left-wing, heads-in-the-clouds, preaching, hectoring, animal rights extremists that, over the years, we’ve all come to know (and hate).

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/04/12/rspca-rebrand-extremist-left-bigots-animal-rights/

      1. I’ve done my bit for nature.
        This afternoon, I stopped Spartie from killing and eating a bumble bee.

      3. Whenever their (foreign but sad-eyed) woman comes on pleading for cash, I yell at the TV, “I am not going to waste my money on you for you to splurge it on full page adverts in national newspapers to stop a legitimate activity, pay your CEO a six-figure salary, maintain an expensive office in London and close animal shelters”. I’d rather support the Blue Cross.

    5. Won’t Jesus have a word or two to say on the subject?
      I might also add, if I wasn’t such a lovely person, that the gobby one seems to have consumed a fair amount of food produced by farmers – and probably fishermen as well.

  116. I was just thinking to myself earlier that

    A Labour government with a large majority would soon overturn all the good right wing work that the Conservatives never did this last 14 years.

  117. Well I went for it. Cut the main lawn and the old churchyard. treated the Memsahib to a trip to Waitrose in the new motor. Bizarre;y nowhere in Sidmouth to have a decent coffee at 5.10pm in a lovely April evening. No wonder retailers are closing down – they’re too lazy to open at time lots of people might be about.
    Glass of Dunkerton’s Black Fox cider as a restorative before I collapse in the pain wracked heap.

      1. Traditionally a very wealthy and lovely small resort town but even Sidmouth is now in decline and the genteel older visitors being replaced by chavvy scruffs.

  118. Good evening fellow Nottlers.
    A somewhat frustrating day in the garden with ‘attacks’ from both sides. Yet more near continual stone cutting on one side (only been at it for 3 years …..) and the other side having their roof de-mossed and cleaned with a very high pressure washer (powered from the truck engine) which, judging by the colour of the spray coming back off the roof, appeared to be removing some of the roof tile surface. With the strong winds gusting around, I had the ‘benefit’ of both neighbours’ works. Not a day for hanging out white sheets.
    I came across this, though other Nottlers may have already posted it. How stupid is this woman? Does anyone actually believe such nonsense? As far as I can tell, she didn’t say it on 1st April. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c51d02068206f24cfedfa8c9b88518cd242cce22f410d2e6ba7de11911b1667b.jpg

    1. The Mail yesterday has the story of a Black US ‘influencer/astrologer’ (ie making living off the barking mad) who was so traumatised by the eclipse she knifed her boyfriend to death, hit the motorway at speed, chucked her two children out (the 9 year old survived, the baby died) and then committed suicide by driving into a tree.

          5. A bit of cultural appropriation? Which, of course, is a one-way street. Maybe decided on Whoopie when she realised, ‘Whoopie, I’m gonna get mega-rich off a stupid name and gullible sleb world. ……

          6. They’ve all got something to hide, that’s why they moan so much and make so much noise.

    3. A female of that ilk in the States – an ‘influencer’ – actually murdered her children, her husband and totalled herself by driving into a tree because she was convinced the eclipse was the end of the world.

      1. Both were born into very humble circumstances but transcended them in amazing ways but still remained completely authentic. For me Cash is an Old Testament Prophet figure.

  120. An article that is fascinating but it also makes my spine creep.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/farewell-voyager-1/

    “Farewell, Voyager 1

    Some time soon we will have to say farewell to our most distant emissary – the Voyager 1 spacecraft. After almost 50 years in space, it’s 15 billion miles away and showing signs of wear and could soon stop transmitting.

    Late last year, Voyager 1 began to decline, sending back spools of gibberish to its handlers on this planet. A few days ago, Nasa engineers finally traced the problem back to a single chip but it’s clear that Voyager 1 will shortly have to cut contact and make its way out across the universe on its own. It’s strange to think that it will be exploring on out into deep space long after its makers – humans – have become extinct.

    Voyager’s isolation is impossible for us truly to comprehend. Light – the fastest possible traveller – takes just over a second to reach the moon, and about four hours to pass the most distant planet, Neptune. Yet to reach Voyager it takes more than 22 hours.

    Along with its sister probe, Voyager 2, Voyager 1 was launched in 1977 to take advantage of a rare alignment of the outer planets. The Voyagers found wonders, particularly on the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune. They sent back staggeringly detailed photographs of the planets as they passed. But once sent outwards there was no turning back. The Voyagers, along with two previous spacecraft, Pioneers 10 and 11, and the subsequent New Horizons probe that reached Pluto in 2015, are, along with a handful of ancillary objects, the only ones ever to leave our solar system.

    From where Voyager is now, the sun is still the brightest star in the sky, though nowhere near as bright as it is from Earth. The planets and the Earth are barely visible at all. It’s outside the sun’s extended influence, but not yet free from its gravity. For thousands of years it will continue to pass the orbits of the debris that circle the sun in its cold, dark outer reaches. But soon it will pass even them, and head out into the galaxy.

    Voyager 1 has on its side a message from us: a golden disc of images, sounds and words from planet Earth. Here are the songs of humpback whales, the sound of a kiss, a thunderstorm, Bach and Beethoven, an Indian raga and the songs of the first people on Earth who had enough to eat. Carl Sagan was involved in its compilation and wanted to include ‘Here Comes the Sun’ by the Beatles who he said were all for it. But the copyright belonged to EMI, who asked for too much.

    Perhaps most telling is that the disc includes only a silhouette of a naked man and a woman. This is because of objections to a message plaque placed on the Pioneer spacecraft, which showed a more detailed outline of a naked man and woman. Incensed politicians said there should be no further ‘smut in space’. Nasa caved in because it was a government body and followed official rules ordering that nothing should be included that was remotely erotic.

    It was a last-minute decision to put president Jimmy Carter on the disc, on which he says: ‘This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe… we are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.’ We are still trying.

    Voyager’s 1970s vintage computers are still working, though almost all of its instruments have been turned off. It’s remarkable that scientists can still contact it, let alone reprogram it to compensate for memory damage caused by the impact of harmful cosmic rays. Its power source will work for several years but engineers worry most about its computers’ health. It recently struggled but recovered. One day it will not answer back.

    In 50,000 years, less than the blink of a cosmic eye, our sun will no longer be the brightest star in its sky, having been replaced by Sirius, the brightest star in our night sky.

    In Voyager’s life the first footprints on the moon are as fleeting as are the Rings of Saturn. Long after the pyramids have crumbled into sand and the Earth has become uninhabitable, it will be just starting its odyssey.

    It will move through different constellations and spend its life far from the warmth of stars but who knows what alien skies it might traverse during some distant eon and what alien eyes will look upon its golden disc and wonder about us. If so Voyager 1 could be one of our last marks on the cosmos and the measure mankind is judged by.”

    1. That is as you say, spooky, but a very philosophical article. Thank you for posting it.

    2. I wonder whether civilisations, should there be any, have done similarly all around the universe.
      And if they have, when will they contact each other.
      Can it happen before the end of time?

      1. I wonder when something like that will turn up here, on our parochial little planet, from elsewhere?

        1. It might already have done so.
          What makes you think the general population would be told?

      2. The chances of another intelligent lifeform in the Universe existing in this narrow window of time are pretty remote.

        2. The chances of life on earth existing in its present (or any) form – by accident – are vanishingly small. The statistical/mathematical calculations involve figures of mind boggling magnitude. So this world alone falls into the category of the overtly miraculous.

          1. Yet there are a huge number of galaxies out there amongst billions of stars and trillions of planets.

            If other life exists it maybe completely different to us in every way. If a species has invented faster than light travel, even if it were ‘nearby’ we may never see it, ever. If we didn’t have satellites we wouldn’t know that America exists without going there and then by accident encountering locals.

            We most likely don’t have the technology to see ‘across the galactic pond’, let alone across the galaxt.

          2. Our galaxy; It is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars.

            Galaxies; It is estimated that there are between 200 billion to 2 trillion.

          4. Quite. One demonstrably miraculous circumstance indicates that there might well be many others. The universe is vast and if physicists are to be believed only one of an infinite number.

        3. “Another” intelligent lifeform might not think us particularly intelligent but just regard us as food.

      3. I think we would be regarded as seafarers used think of leper colonies, to be avoided.

    3. And the same species that built that amazing machine, that looked up to the stars and said ‘I want to go there; is the same one that has blicks killing people over drugs, or pakis hacking another paki apart with axes and spades, or scamming tax avoidance out of greed, or deliberately making people miserable and poorer through inflation and taxation, or vomits paint over works of art to get their own way.

      How can some be so noble, so forward thinking, so magnificent and others such utter, debased, worthless scum?

        1. Evening JD – it was one of my late brother’s favourite songs but I do remember it fondly from when we used to sing it together…. (it’s actually quite hard to sing!).

          2. I have to admit, only vaguely, but I do remember the strapline ‘When the man comes around’….. just listened to it now, another cracker!

          3. Those last records are just soul stirring, as if he already had one foot in the next world and could see both future and past.

  123. I know it’s early but I’ve been busy and I’ve
    cooked the dinner Erin, number one son and the grandchildren have been to the Tower of London today. It was 25c in the green house with the door open. I’ve had half a bottle. And it’s a colour full sunset. Washing up next. I’ve been told we are going for a walk tomorrow to Hertwood forest to see the Blue Bell’s. I’ll need an early night. 😴

  124. So it looks like war now between Iran and Israel, as it appears was always the plan after the West has been softened up to side with the Palestinians.
    All we need now is the army of young men of fighting age that we have recently imported to rise up against us and we would be truly in a hole of cataclysmic proportions.

      1. I’m not sure about that, sos. They have a disturbingly MittelEuropean ethos, harking back to mid C19th German motivations.

          1. Again, not so sure. Soros, for example, took a huge bung from the UK when he engineered the crash.

          2. I don’t know what you are referring to.
            The Soros win was a one way bet at the time.

            If I had been chancellor I would have fixed the currency exchange rate at a level that Soros et al would have been stuffed and watched the speculators burn.
            It wouldn’t have taken long as their margin calls exploded.
            No matter how rich they thought they were, the exchequer could have taken it and the turned a profit.
            Ho hum, a missed opportunity

          3. Exactly how Soros framed it. As he did his work for the SS during the war “I saw an opportunity and i took it”, IIRC

          5. I wonder. Life is rife with such opportunities if one takes a completely amoral stance and cares not for the consequences to others.

          6. I honestly don’t think that my modest little investment would have bust the Bank of England or anyone else, but would have been quite useful to me :))

    1. I saw that, the fish rots from the head. The appalling standards in public life are now reflected in society generally.

    3. It’s Liverpool – it isn’t just close, it is full of Liverpudlians. The racecourse and the town are inextricably linked. I’ve just watched some amazing sights (as well as the racing). “Not many of them in a pound” vied with, “blimey they’re nearly out!”

    1. They have no principles. Lefties don’t care about anything. She’s a hypocrite, crook, fraud and cheat. She’ll survive because she’ll just squeal ‘they do it!’.

      That she has hidden the truth all this time is the real problem. The democratic deficit is staggering.

    2. I’m liking the forensic social media dive. Haha Leftists, them’s the rules, set up by you lot.

  128. Off topic
    I’ve accidentally discovered a paywall breaker at the DT
    Click on the link and immediately start pressing the escape key.
    When the article appears start scrolling down until the subscribe bit kicks in.
    Refresh the page.
    Do the same again and when the subscribe bit reappears refresh, and voila the article can be seen in its entirety.
    It’s much quicker than my explanation might indicate.

  129. Evening, all. Nothing will change until the Augean Stables of woke warriors has been swept away and cleansed. Reports and enquiries are just a means of pretending they’re doing something but actually kicking the problem into the long grass.

        1. When tax revenue collapse due to high taxes the state’s response was inflation. Until government is permanently forbidden from manipulating the currency through devaluation, until, frankly, it is tied to something valuable such as gold or hell, energy – it is worthless and government a malevolent toddler.

          They must simply be controlled. Until there is absolute democratic accountability and MPs at any level are sacked on a whim – there is no point.

      2. The money has run out. Many times over. The state is borrowing 600m a day. 8bn in interest monthly – compounding, as the state continues to borrow due to overspending.

        Brown suppressed interest rates to keep borrowing. That wasn’t possible any more as QE rendered our currency junk and big fat state refused to cut waste so inflation was their recourse to destroy the currency to keep borrowing.

        Only one thing will stop this madness – simply put, 1bn worth of cuts to state spending. Entire departments need to go. Whole programmes stopped – net zero the biggest and most destructive.

          1. He is an intelligent patriot who dared be honest with the public. Folk here are so used to free money for everything – I called a charity to ask about insulation loans and the list of welfare is endless and we, being married, heterosexual, white and both working get nothing. We’ve never even been able to claim child support.

      1. Dry here for once; I did manage to do some weeding in the garden before I watched the racing.

      2. A lovely picture – however, it reminds me. I’ve been watching Waiting for God. It’s a lovely gentle comedy and I like it.

          2. Glad you like it, but it’s not that grand……just expensive to heat!

            Oh and damp is an issue!

          4. Thank you. Or perhaps I really ought to thank my great x quite a few grandfather!

          5. Scudiero, I Terpsichore Muse of Helicon who lives in Mercia, Constable County of East Anglia. Do have plenty of sheep but little land.

          6. I guessed it was you, Georgiana, before I scrolled down to this. I’m not sure how easy it would be to swap land for sheep. Also there are wild goats here and they seem to be increasing in number.

          7. You’d have lots of sheep and goats in Snowdonia and land.
            I’ve less land but a few hills 🙂

          8. There were half a dozen wild goats round me today. They avoid dog and I but I’m still wary…..,they have big horns.

          9. Its probably best to avoid the big horns of goats , labradors and humans alike even if goats are placed most of the time

          13. I have a unique character;-) i think I told you last year, my parents didn’t think I’d like my French Christian name so they gave me two middle names the feline second name that I’m known by generally and Georgiana ( my paternal grandmother s name ) which gets chopped off bank cards, driving licences etc as it’s all too long. As far as avatar names you know me as Terpsichore ( Terpsi ) my inner muse .

    3. As I always say. Never mount an inquiry until you’re positive it’ll produce the answers you want to hear.

    3. Credit where credit is due, I couldn’t have done it without all of you helping.

      1. I do, but tomorrow is usually my least successful betting day of the year…..this time it will be different and my horse will not fall at the first damned fence!😂

        1. The only way to win at racing is to own the horses or better yet, the course.

          I’ve often wondered if I could set up a lottery – not massive prizes but the number of prizes calculated on the revenue, so if you have a pot of £1000 there’s 2 £100 prizes, 10,000 it’s 20. More people win less.

          1. Ha! Owning race horses is a well established route for turning a large fortune into a small one!

          2. I have it on very good authority that the only way to win is to breed them. Owners, especially small ones, rarely come out on top unless they get very, very lucky.

          3. “Fools breed horses for wise men to buy” is the received wisdom. Speaking from experience, breeding is a very expensive and risk infested procedure. Anything to do with horses involves dollops of luck and dreams and should be embarked upon for love, not money.

          4. Breed them and sell them, you mean? Even that is not guaranteed. Stallion fees, cost of the mare’s upkeep, vaccinations, vet’s fees, boarding for foaling, risk (the mare and/or foal might die), auction premiums, VAT and then the foal/yearling may end up unsold. Owner breeders have a great deal of satisfaction, but not necessarily a lot of profit.

        2. Probably best to choose from Willie Mullins’ squad then. He probably has half the field. See what odds you can get on a Mullins winner (and him to win the trainer’s championship over here).

          1. I shall have a modest flutter on I Am Maximus (Mullins/ Townend) and Minella Indo (De Bromhead/ Rachael Blackmore . . .

          2. It looks a very open race, but then in the National, anything can happen. I remember Foinavon! Then there was Red Marauder when only two finished without remounting (not allowed these days). I actually thought Mon Mome was vastly overpriced and shouldn’t be dismissed (unlike the snooker player).

          3. I had a fun bet of 2/6d on Foinavon at 100/ 1!

            Arkle’s stablemate, I had visited the stables near my parents’ retirement home in Ireland.

          4. Both named after mountains, like Ben Nevis. There isn’t a horse named after a mountain in this year’s field, is there?

        3. As a child, my parents used to take me to the races at Wetherby. Mum would bet on the handsomest horse which could be relied upon to refuse at the first fence.

          1. We were taken to the races sometimes as children too. We were given a couple of pounds and told we could spend it how we liked and if we wanted to bet my parents would put the bet on for us. At one meeting my younger sister, aged 7 or 8, once went through the whole card bar one race winning on every one by betting on greys. There wasn’t a grey in the race she missed so she didn’t bet! She won a fortune but my parents never actually told her how much and didn’t give it all to her either. She was perfectly happy with what they did give her – it was the winning that counted🤣

          2. Did you go to the York Races as well? Do you remember the enormous saddle outside the hotel on the A64 (?) going into York? I used to be fascinated by the saddle, how I longed for a pony of my own. I spent hours in my head converting our garage into a stable …!

          5. Especially the Ebor meeting? On the Knavesmire which strictly speaking is common land and was once a place of execution, hence the name.

  134. The only way to make a small fortune in racing is to start with a large one! I have only ever owned one horse that actually made me a profit (think vet’s bills, wormers, gallops fees, transport, entry fees, farrier’s bills, lad’s expenses, jockey’s fees, training fees …).

    1. No horse I have ever owned has made me any money….but I don’t keep race-horses. Mine have all been hunters.

      1. At least mine run for prize money, but it’s poor over jumps (unless you’ve got a Grade I horse, which I never have had) and my flat horses are handicappers.

  137. Do any of you remember a car named Kit ( my namesake) but it just arrived in places ‘ what was the TV programme .

    3. To expand a little Michael Knight, the leather trousered driver of the talking car, was played by David Hasslehoff. They really don’t write theme tunes like that anymore. The latest synth sounds combined with the inheritance of classical, music’s development and variation. Another BOSS LEVEL theme tune from that era was Airwolf. A similar premise of a man with an awesome bit of kit sorting out them bad uns.

    4. To expand a little Michael Knight, the leather trousered driver of the talking car, was played by David Hasslehoff. They really don’t write theme tunes like that anymore. The latest synth sounds combined with the inheritance of classical, music’s development and variation. Another BOSS LEVEL theme tune from that era was Airwolf. A similar premise of a man with an awesome bit of kit sorting out them bad uns.

    5. MoH has just acquired a new motor. It greets her by name when she gets in. It has voice activated navigation. Two days ago she asked it to navigate to a place and it answered: “I’m so sorry I’m busy right now searching for Easter Eggs”……I was a passenger in the car and can verify that that is the truth!

  138. Can someone put up blue moon by Audrey Hepburn for me, I’m struggling with You Tube tonight. And Johnny Cash too . Thank you.

      1. That’s the one, for some reason I get blue moon, moon river and moonlight Sonata by Beethoven mixed up . I’ve been trying to get Moon River on You Tube for ages and have given up now

      1. Sorry it didn’t quite work, but thank you for trying James, it’s appreciated

          2. Oops, my great apologies to her. Actually I did know that from a former thread at the Speccie, but it slipped my mind for a moment.

          3. You have to “copy video url” and paste. I’ve only just learnt to do it (from a nottler) which is why I’ve been a bit profligate :- )

          4. Aha, thanks O. The Disqus tools obviously don’t do what they say they should.

        2. Not many people know this, but Johnny Mercer, in writing lyrics to Hank Mancini’s music decided a good lyric might be Blue River, hence the use of the phrase “my huckleberry friend” because huckleberries were blue. Then he discovered that there already was a song called Blue River, so he changed it to Moon River, but forgot to change the “huckleberry friend” line which actually became the most memorable part of this wonderful song. Needless to say, the studio’s heads were not enamoured of the song (compare Louis B Mayer’s dislike of Over The Rainbow from The Wizard Of Oz) and both studio heads wanted to remove their respective songs. “Over my dead body” said Audrey Hepburn. And the rest, as they say, is history.

  140. A load of fireworks just went off simultaneously somewhere in the direction of Shepherd’s Bush Green, producing one hell of a noise and a very brief light show. Is there something to celebrate?

      2. Mr C , sir. We are in the twilight years of Western civilisation,I just wish everyone would realise. We are lost .

  141. I think it depends on how professionally it is done. I know two breeders who have done very well indeed.

    1. I think you need a lot of luck. I was once involved with a horse that was by a champion miler and a good sire, out of a multiple group I winning mare. He had genes to die for, looked a million dollars and proved to be completely useless, even after he’d been gelded!

  142. The odds against that are pretty high! Grey is a recessive gene, so statistically there are far fewer grey horses and even when they run, they don’t often win. When you do get a good one, though, they are often very good.

    1. Astronomical I should think – pity she didn’t do an accumulator then my parents could have retired 🤣 If I remember, there was only one grey in each race bar the one where my sister didn’t bet.

      1. I was a great fan. Neptune Collonges as well. He was at Alderhey meeting the children this morning. He turned his hoofs to dressage when he retired.

  146. One of the Irish runners, probably. Not for nothing was the first winner called Lottery!

  147. I had a fall, broke my ribs and have had problems with my lower vertebrae. I’m not riding at the moment. I keep telling myself I’ll get back into the saddle eventually but I may end up having an Aiden Coleman/Dane O’Neill moment.

  148. Good night everyone from Helicon, Mercia, the beautiful Audrey Hepburn and me .
    Thank you for the pleasure of your company. This is a delightful site xx

      1. 386013+ up ticks,

        Morning R,

        Surely the only ones to profit from it are the Dick Turpins.

  152. Oh – I’m so sorry to hear this, falls of any kind at our age are not good news. I hope you recover soon. Breaking ribs is quite easy as one gets older – I left a DT Sunday Supplement on the floor, came running into the room, skated across the carpet and landed heavily on the arm of a chair and fractured a rib. Our younger son’s brother-in-law was given a hug before starting a marathon in the US – and got a cracked rib – however he had been following a strict vegan diet fro quite a few years so I suspect he was lacking certain nutrients. However, ‘ribs’ sounds painful, one is bad enough – hurts when you cough, laugh, drive (around corners and over snoozing policemen). I hope you’re back in the saddle soon.

    1. I got bucked off! The problem with ribs is that the medics don’t do anything. Nobody straps them up any more. Getting out of bed proved a trial and required some ingenuity.

    1. It’s just me, Terpsi who dreams of Venetian balls and playing the violin even if badly. Good night sweet dreams.

  157. I’ve just had “What’s good for the goose is good for the growler.” immediately removed from DT website article on Ms Rayner’s recent woes. Fancy that.

    1. Very good! ……though it ought to be ‘sauce’ rather than ‘good’, surely?

      Ginger growler sounds a bit disgusting.

  158. Well chums, I am now off to bed. Good night, chums, sleep well and see you all tomorrow.

Comments are closed.