Friday 15 December: Patients deserve to know that their health is in the hands of a real doctor

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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529 thoughts on “Friday 15 December: Patients deserve to know that their health is in the hands of a real doctor”

    1. Morning Obers. Your comment puts me in mind of

      Things that always surprise the British
      -How hot it is
      -How cold it is
      -How dark it is
      -How light it is

      🙂

  2. ‘Morning All

    Early Medley

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  4. Patients deserve to know that their health is in the hands of a real doctor

    The NHS has the best doctors with qualifications that money can buy

      1. We always have done. It’s the system itself – doesn’t work properly and that’s without the Covid debacle. GPs slow to refer and now, of course you’re lucky if you can get a GP appointment to start with!

  5. On a half-day holiday today. Enjoying a well-deserved (imho) lie-in. This caught my eye; mpneedless to say, the usual mirthless mob are decrying it for the usual parroted reasons:

    “A SATIRICAL film about fake transgender basketball players has proven a surprise hit with viewers as conservative film studios hit back against “woke” Hollywood.

    Lady Ballers has remained among the most popular releases for online audiences since its release on Dec 1.

    In an attempt to satirise the debate over transgender people in sport, the film features a male basketball squad who claim to be women in order to compete in a female league. Lady Ballers was released by The Daily Wire, a Right-wing studio co-founded by Ben Shapiro, a conservative media personality who has declared it is “time to blow up the Death Star that is the Left-wing monopoly on entertainment”.

    Lady Ballers features cameos from anti-woke figures including Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, and Candace Owens, a conservative political commentator.

    Despite a harsh reception from critics, who called it “transphobic” and “not funny”, the film remains in the top five most popular streamable movies a fortnight after its release, according to audience rating site Rotten Tomatoes. More than 5,000 people have left reviews with an average rating of 94 per cent. The film describes itself as “the most triggering comedy of the year” and follows high school basketball coach Rob, played by Jeremy Boreing, who is also the film’s director and writer, and CEO of The Daily Wire.

    After being inspired by a former student who works in a drag bar, coach Rob assembles his former high school basketball team and convinces them to compete in a women’s league, claiming they are transgender.

    They perform well in the league until they come up against another team composed of men who are better at basketball and also claim to be women. In one scene, a man taking part in a women’s basketball game has his shorts pulled down to reveal that he has a penis. The referee says: “I don’t care.” In another, one of the men becomes “trans age” and competes in a schoolgirls’ baseball game – mocking the apparent proliferation of “woke” concepts in recent years.

    The film was received unfavourably by critics, who said it was offensive. katelyn Burns, a columnist for the Left-wing cable network MSNBC, called it an “awful anti-trans propaganda film”.

    But fans applauded the film’s message, writing on Rotten Tomatoes: “Wow, laughs in the face of woke culture from start to finish. Any other studio would be cancelled immediately.” Another added: “Very refreshing to see an answer to the leftist BS.”

    Polls show the American public is increasingly likely to base their opinion of a celebrity on their political views, rather than their work. An October survey for The Hollywood Reporter found 25 per cent of viewers would not watch a television programme or film if it contained a cast member whose politics they disliked, while the same percentage would unfollow them on social media.

    Studios like The Daily Wire claim to offer refuge to viewers concerned about Hollywood’s drift to “wokeness” and refusal to release comedies that joke about controversial subjects.

    Angel Studios, another alternative streaming platform, recently released Sound of Freedom.

    Critics said the film had undertones of the Qanon conspiracy theory and Trumpian concern about child sexual exploitation at its core.“

    1. Btw it is interesting to read properly the Terriblegraph report. “In an attempt to satirise..” “a surprise hit” etc etc

    2. Concern about child sexual exploitation is “Trumpian” now?
      Lefties have a thing about Qanon. I gather it’s some sort of forum, but they seem to know far more about it than anyone I’ve ever met.

  8. Why Putin’s awkward Q&A may not be all it seemed. 15 December 2023.

    Text messages on a live feed seemed to pose tough questions, but the Kremlin is not averse to manufacturing manageable criticism.

    Essentially this article accuses Vlad of allowing adverse text messages through to his presser as a form of inverted propaganda. Not something that Mr Goebbels would have approved of one thinks. This of course is having it both ways. There were adverse messages but they might or might not be genuine. An Orwellian paradox beyond solution.

    Did Vlad’s staff fix the messages? Almost certainly. Just like they do here in the UK. When you see Sunak interviewed on TV the parameters of the questions are set beforehand. If you don’t agree, there’s no interview. The audience on Question Time is carefully chosen to reflect the views of the BBC. It’s also worth noting that the Telegraph, in which this story appears, regularly censors posts on the threads and indeed wipes out whole sections if they don’t meet expectations.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/14/was-putins-question-and-answer-session-a-kremlin-disinforma/

    2. Russia bad, is the message, even when they try to appease the nay-sayers.
      If you ask Why is Russia bad, the answer comes, with a lot of obfuscation and hemming, “because the papers tell me to say so!”

    3. Just watch PMQs. ‘Thank you to my honourable friend for asking what we are doing about grass in Dorset. We’re wonderful in every way and are creating jobs wealth and growth around the country.’

      One from the opposition: ‘I thank my honourable friend for his comment about inflation and reply that we’re creating jobs wealth and growth around the country’

      They simply lie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tyyub60jGc

      It’s old, but far too true.

  9. Why Putin’s awkward Q&A may not be all it seemed. 15 December 2023.

    Text messages on a live feed seemed to pose tough questions, but the Kremlin is not averse to manufacturing manageable criticism.

    Essentially this article accuses Vlad of allowing adverse text messages through to his presser as a form of inverted propaganda. Not something that Mr Goebbels would have approved of one thinks. This of course is having it both ways. There were adverse messages but they might or might not be genuine. An Orwellian paradox beyond solution.

    Did Vlad’s staff fix the messages? Almost certainly. Just like they do here in the UK. When you see Sunak interviewed on TV the parameters of the questions are set beforehand. If you don’t agree, there’s no interview. The audience on Question Time is carefully chosen to reflect the views of the BBC. It’s also worth noting that the Telegraph, in which this story appears, regularly censors posts on the threads and indeed wipes out whole sections if they don’t meet expectations.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/14/was-putins-question-and-answer-session-a-kremlin-disinforma/

  10. Me again. On a roll. This on the appalling admission by the woman boss of Aviva they white male senior hires boned her personal approval (but not anyone else). The author half-way through opines that arguably the Equality Act is one of the worst pieces of legislation…so the debate is on. What is the worst piece of legislation? I will have to limit the the entries to UK-only legislation as the Scottish and Welsh nut jobs would otherwise run away with the prize. (I notice on the front page Mandelscum admits Bliar introduced the Hunting Ban in exchange for £1 million. The question is, how much was he paid to “reform” the House of Lords, bring in “devolution” and the office of London Mayor, abolish the law lords/muck around with the post of Lord and set up the “Supreme” (sic) court?

    Anyway, the article: “An there we have it. Laid bare for all to see, the pernicious effect of our national fixation with “diversity, equality and inclusion” (DEI). Aviva’s chief executive Amanda Blanc this week told MPS on the Treasury Select Committee that there is no senior “non-diverse” (white male) hire made at the company without her personal approval. There is no need, she implicitly admitted, to sign off on the appointments of non-white people and women. Most people would call that clear evidence of discrimination.

    But don’t expect the Left-wing mob, usually so vocal in its condemnation of racism and sexism in all its ugly forms, to sharpen its pitchforks this time. Social media is not awash with calls for Blanc’s resignation, nor have demands for a boycott been issued. Others have suffered obloquy for far less: advertisers refused to be associated with GB News due to concerns over “bias”. Mcdonald’s was targeted after a location offered free food for the Israeli military.

    Performative progressivism, as has long been suspected, doesn’t extend to campaigning against discrimination against white people or men. Perhaps we should thank the exquisitely named Blanc for giving the game away: rarely is the true purpose of DEI – not to, rightly, fight against hateful racism and sexism, but to position us all on an intersectional pyramid of victimhood, white men placed bottom – put so bluntly.

    We have been drip-fed stories about “values” and “diversity”, when really those espousing it mean “conformity” with a particular worldview. Underpinned by the Equality Act, arguably one of the worst pieces of legislation foisted on the British public, DEI has marched through our institutions, stifling freedom of expression and stymieing economic growth along the way. Entire sections of annual reports are now devoted towards these activities: HS2’S 2022 statement was 52 pages long, much of it keenly explaining how many men had been excluded from the doomed project.

    And make no mistake: the DEI industry is doing all it can to avoid becoming a victim of its own success. Thus, despite the clear evidence of the massive progress made in recent decades, we are warned ad nauseam that the country has never been so bigoted: English cricket is systemically racist, along with constabularies, the fire brigade, our criminal justice system and virtually any other area of public life. Women are still widely described as victims of the patriarchy.

    Often, this is based on demonstrably false assumptions. Feminist activists noisily complain that the gender pay gap is widening, while other groups try to steal their oxygen with such absurdities as the “gender obesity penalty gap”, the “gender sleep gap” and the “gender play gap”.

    Anyone who bothered to look at the gender pay gap data would observe that it is now negligible for those aged 22-39, with men pulling away later in life largely because of compensating differentials and free choice. Some women go part-time when they become mothers, many opt for less dangerous work, which is why workplace injuries are suffered overwhelmingly by men.

    The average male life expectancy is 79 years, compared to 82.6 years for women. Less than 5 per cent of those in prison in the UK are female. When Tory

    MP Ben Bradley tried to ask an “equalities” question about white working-class boys in Parliament in 2020, he was warned that it may be turned down because it did not appear to be a question about protected characteristics. Yet this group are more likely than any of their peers to achieve less in school, less likely to go on to higher or further education and less likely to secure a well-paid career.

    And now we discover that those who do buck the trend might not make it past the filters of the Diversity Queen at Aviva. This isn’t to argue that we should extend equality legislation to take in ever-wider groups, though the DEI gang are certainly trying, with “neurodiversity” and “social class” their newest frontiers. Rather to insist that companies stop the smug virtue signalling and focus on the bottom line.

    One could ask whether such granular involvement in recruitment is the best use of Blanc’s time, as boss of a FTSE 100 company. Is this the level of commitment to shareholder returns they were expecting, given there is little evidence of a causal link between diversity and profit?

    Neither skin colour nor reproductive organs determine business acumen. Bosses should hire the best people for the role, irrespective of identity. Those who don’t are in the wrong job.”

    2. When ‘feminists’ complain about the ‘gender pay gap’ they like to fiddle the figures, cherry picking career averages while ignoring the reasons for the gap itself. They never include data on men who’ve made the same choices to be a full time parent. No, what they really want to say is ‘we want a free ride into the cushy executive suite, where you get your own shower and pilates studio and spend all day having lunch with expensive, glamourous clients on expenses.’

      – because they’ve no idea of the pressure, work ethic, drive and discipline needed to succeed at that level. If they had it, they’d be there.

      I remember the Warqueen would come home starving hungry after telling me she’d been at lunch all day – it was a negotiation battlefield, not a dinner out.

    3. She claims there is a persisting Old Boys Club where appointments to executive positions are not determined by ability but by who know, who your friends and acquaintances are. She wants to break that cycle.

      2. It exists in her head, else why would she be in her job? Replacing an old boys’ club of white men with a network of minority troughers has already happened, and doesn’t have a particularly good track record!

      3. But it’s not true (in my experience). Maybe competent women (I couldn’t possibly comment about myself but Wibbling’s Warqueen surely qualifies) get where they do because they are, well, competent?

        1. Yes indeedy, Sir. I saw that one. He fits right in, according to a public statement by Ms Christie’s grandson

          3. While lolling back and enjoying the never ending royalties of “The Mousetrap”.
            Bite, hand, don’t etc……

    1. Littlejohn draws a scenario where “…instead of putting them up in hotels…” it might be possible to reverse the immigrant flow to this country. In fact, if all such perks (currently at the British taxpayers’ expense) were cancelled and illegal immigrants were placed in a secure but less comfortable place (I’m thinking prisons here) the illegal flow would soon be reversed.

  13. 379536+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Friday 15 December: Patients deserve to know that their health is in the hands of a real doctor

    WHY ?

    We the peoples, have aided & abetted the creation of the odious situation we find ourselves in today.

    We have condoned through the countries ballot stations the pedophile rape & abuse of our children without even listening to their pleas for help, assisted and given succour over the decades, to the daily ever expanding invasion forces etc,etc,
    and in general stood by and watched our own, who had the BALLS to stand up and be counted, trampled underfoot in the haste to return the political governing instigators of our problems, via party before Country ballot station voting, back into power.

    So anyone enlighten me as to WHY we have the right to demand to see a real doctor when we, though the ballot box
    have continued to support / vote in the majority, for
    ersatz governing parties over the decades.

    PS,
    To the victors the spoils,
    The real doctors are to be found awaiting the next Dover landing barge.

    1. 379536 + up ticks,

      O2O,

      When one is,
      supporting / voting for the governing party who are the problem creators one must surely accept the odious consequences when they come to fruition.

      We’re told to save the NHS – but when is the NHS going to save us?
      From long waiting lists to late diagnoses, the Nation Health Service is bursting at the seams – and so are the people burdening it

      May one ask,

      Are any of the invading forces in danger of suffering ?

  14. Wordle 909 3/6

    I did it in three today.

    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨
    🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Three for me too, Elsie 🙂

      Wordle 909 3/6

      ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
      🟨🟨⬜🟨🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Good morning, BoB. Here it is now a full sunshine day, so the washing machine calls. Enjoy your day.

    1. That reminds me: when De Gaulle came to power in France, he told the Americans to convert France’s dollar assets into gold, which the Americans duly did (this was in the era of Gold Standard 2.0). De Gaulle was not pleased to learn that the gold in question was in the vaults of the New York Fed, and he demanded its repatriation to France. Fine, said the Americans, but our responsibility for your gold ends the instant it leaves the doors of the Fed. Good luck getting it to the airport through crime-ridden New York!

      Ever pragmatic, the French authorities reached out, as they say, to the Mob, who, in return for a fee, guaranteed the safe passage of Franc’s gold out of the Big Apple. (No love lost between De Gaulle and the Septics.)

      1. ha ha never heard that story about getting it out of NY! Typical French.
        There are serious doubts about how much gold is left in the Fed now after half a century of looting and no audits. I suppose all will be revealed in due course.

      1. Yes, I choke up at that one, particularly when singing it in the chapel at the Royal Hospital School surrounded by teenagers.

    2. I love Abide with Me. Pity it is irrevocably associated with funerals! It’s a terrible earworm too!

      1. It’s also associated with the FA Cup final and has for many years been subject to the ire of a certain type of media columnist for its ‘dreary sentimentality from a bygone age’.

    3. The Director of Music at Blundell’s when I was there had tears streaming down his cheeks whenever Abide With Me was played and sung and he once had to leave the chapel to recover.

        1. He was nicknamed Jazz for obvious reasons and Jazz Hall was well connected in the musical world and he managed to get professional musicians who were well known to come and give concerts in the school. I remember seeing Valerie Tryon playing the piano and Leon Goosens play the oboe.

          He also managed to persuade professional soloists to sing in the Choral Society’s presentation of Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Handel’s Messiah.

      2. Vivaldi Concerto in D major, 2nd movement, with the slow, sad, reflective playing always gets me going. Reminds me of a dear, departed friend.

      3. I well up at Dusty Springfield’s recording of Going Back as well as Cilla Black’s touching rendition of Liverpool Lullaby.

  18. Good day all,

    Light cloud overhead McPhee Towers heralding a nice day. Wind in the Sou-West, 6℃≫8℃.

    For those who are interested, James Delingpole has a new website:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6bdb7bead71eed9af0915e84db5bf72da9f7223b3f33ed9053e2b0c896bf6d81.png

    https://jamesdelingpole.co.uk

    There’s not much on it at this stage, it’s still being built according to James. Substack seems to be his preferred medium now although the Delingpod will still appear on Odysee, Bitchute and Rumble. New Delingpods are available first to paying subscribers on Substack and he say he’s intending to delay the free release a bit longer to give the payers a more clear-cut privilege. His privilege; he says his Substack, Patreon and Delingpod are his only forms of income. Who am I to doubt him when he has so obviously been cancelled by the mainstream.

    A recently released one is this and it’s a cracker:

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/PO3UCzZgyXna/

    Over two hours or so, James and Alex Thomson of UK Column/Eastern Approaches discuss biblical topics – Supersessionism, the true nature of Judaism and its application to Israel/Gaza today among other things. Alex is a former GCHQ Intel Officer and his knowledge is impressive to say the least.

    1. His new website is the ugliest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Looks as though it was designed by Gilbert and George’s blind interior decorator.

  19. MS

    Martin Selves
    50 MIN AGO
    During Covid, I had a problem with my right hip replacement. During this 2 years I had 4 cancelled appointments to see my Consultant, but I did see him once, or rather the Registrar. I asked to have a few words with my “man” who who I liked a lot, and he dropped into to see me. I asked him what he was doing over Covid, was he operating, could he take the sample from my Hip as he had suggested prior, etc etc. It was clear he turned up to work every day, but he had nothing to do. The operating theatre’s were silent, and all Consultants were on holiday inside the Hospital apart from emergencies.
    It was very clear almost everything had stopped for Covid, the Hospital was being protected, but the people had been abandoned. If I could see this clearly, then every Consultant in every Hospital in the land could see it as well. Why did they remain silent? They could see the patients were getting minimal care, little investigations, and serious illness allowed uncontained. Why did they not say anything, why did other Country’s do the same thing. Looking back it seems incredible no one took the Torch to Johnson and his Team. Our protection was a simple mask that did not work, and they knew it.
    And it continues today. This sham investigation is not looking at this, and its going to run for another 3 years at a cost of £1 bn. Will anyone speak up in the NHS or HMG and present this Elephant for investigation? The enquiry is chaired by former judge and crossbench peer Baroness Hallett. That doesn’t sound quite right to me. She is firing blanks at the wrong target.

    2. “…People who left school in 1925 at age 14 used to speak better English than this; what she meant is not that the process should have been diverse, but that the candidates chosen should have been diverse, in the technical sexist and racist meaning of the word…”

      I have to take issue with Dalrymple’s own use of the word. In this context his use seems to imply that diverse means non-white and non-male but I’m only guessing. One candidate cannot be diverse, it is the range of candidates that should be diverse.

      1. Not sure here, he writes as you quoted: “the candidates chosen” using the plural, which seems to imply he is saying the same as you are.

    3. Yes, but from racists who wanted ‘da blicks’ on there. How about Britons complain about the lack of whites on the Nigerian team? How about the Left stop polluting this country like Thames water do our rivers and get a kick in the face?

  21. Good morning, all. The forecast clear sunny sky hasn’t appeared but at least it’s calm and dry at the moment..

    Wow! Realism breaking out in MSM.

    …to ask why governments were putting emissions-reduction targets before any idea existed about how to replace hydrocarbon energy resources.

    Any number of reasons why but getting to the bottom of the problem is going to be difficult: too many politicians have been captured and convinced, one way or another, that the policies they have to follow are the right ones. Basically, they’re thick and lack the ability to think about cause and effect required of legislators.

    https://twitter.com/clim8resistance/status/1735335068321615977

    1. Lefties always whinge that’s it’s ‘net zero’, not ‘gross zero’ but also refuse to explain that forcing the UK economy into the buffers by 2500, let alone 2050 would ruin our standard of living.

      But that’s the point, isn’t it? This isn’t about science, it’s not about the environment, ecology (as we do need to do something about that), it is about power. The Leftist state’s control over what we can do, where we can go, when, how much we can have. It is the erasure of freedom and choice dressed up as ‘good for you’ while those forcing it will, of course, never do without.

      1. If you ignore the real demand and set about forcing people to use less energy by about, oh, 90% through forced tax hikes, levies and sheer unreliability and you can easily meet your targets. It’s a bit like closing every lane of the M25 in a way to force down use of petrol. Statist Lefties sit in their warm office having meetings pontificating over the righteousness of policy while below them, in the freezing, collapsing, exhausting day to day reality millions of people struggle.

        However, because I’m a cynic, we all know that people will simply have to pay. We cannot go below a certain way of life. Too much relies on technology. That just confirms that the entire farce is a tax scam to claw inn ever more revenue. It’s just another fuel tax. Big fat state knows it, I know it, Lefties deny it but eventually everyone will realise the basic truth. It’s a hoax to soak tax, like every government scam.

  22. Good Moaning. (And boy oh boy, am I moaning!)
    Looking forward to my porridge laced with paracetamol.

    1. A willingness to put a blindfold on, and repeat the mantras “Just obeying orders” and “just doing my job” are also pre-requisites, as is being susceptible to the flattery of being invited on a Common Purpose course.

    2. Quite simply this stops when Home office officials are held accountable for their decisions. If they’re making us vulnerable to criminals then that needs to be exposed and responsibility levied as appropriate.

    1. I can’t tell if it’s me anymore, but I am utterly, and thoroughly cynical of this whole covid farce. I’m sure at the outset it was a medical emergency, but it quickly seemed to morph into a trial vaccine programme driven by political hubris.

      2. All I can say is that our doctor advised Caroline and me not to have the vaccines so we didn’t. We take Vitamin D and zinc daily so when we both had Covid (or the tests said we did) Caroline did not even have to take to her bed while I spent one day in bed sleeping and it was over. Most of our friends and family members who had had the Covid jabs and boosters who had Covid at the same time as we did were quite ill and some took to their beds for over a week.

      3. I just cast my mind back to 1957.
        Despite depleted classrooms (32 pupils reduced to 5) and adults with real jobs falling by the wayside, life continued.
        Ditto in 1968.
        But in those days, we had the awful example of the Soviet Union to focus people’s attention on the advantages of freedom of thought and personal liberty.

  26. 379536+ up ticks,

    What a brace of political top rankers,

    Dt,

    Tony Blair banned fox hunting after taking £1m donation, claims Lord Mandelson
    Labour peer says debate got ‘pretty transactional’ and animal rights group insisted on the ban ‘in return’ for very sizeable amount of money

    1. This the same Mandelson who gave the job of bringing Greece into the EU to the bank who’s board he sat on, and the net day bought an £8m house in London?

      That Mandelson?

      2. I’m puzzled by this. Peter Mandelson was born on 23rd October 1953. Greece signed the treaty of accession to the EEC on 28th May 1979 when Mandelson was 25 and officially joined on 1st January 1981 while Mandelson was still 27. Did he really sit on a bank’s board at such a young age?

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Mandelson
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Accession_1979#:~:text=It%20entered%20into%20force%20on,basis%20of%20the%20European%20Union.

    4. That is wishful thinking, I’m afraid. Banning hunting was a huge vote winner for Blair. It aligned with his policy of tearing down Britain, but it was and remains to this day, a huge vote magnet.

      1. That tells you much about the nature of our fellow countrymen and women, doesn’t it? Same as with the lockdowns/vaccines.

        1. Several years after the ban, there was a poll of country dwellers, and 80% didn’t want the hunt reinstated. It really is just a clique, and always has been. Their behaviour in former times did not endear them to most people, but the rural poor have never had much say.

          1. That is not the result of real country people. Townies with no idea, that have moved into the country.

          2. Again, sorry that is a comforting myth. Reality is that most country people don’t like the hunt, but because the hunt are usually big landowners, they pay lipservice to them.

          3. There are plenty hunt participants and hunt followers who don’t fit that description. Plenty.

          4. Followers maybe, but given the cost of hunt subscriptions and running a horse, not the hunt members. The hunt followers from the poorer section of the community are usually regarded by everyone else as servile suckers up to the local squire.

          6. Simply not true around this part of the country nor around the part of Northumberland where I grew up

          7. I think hunting people don’t really talk to non-hunting people a lot, and everyone tends to avoid the subject anyway as it’s so contentious. Clearly you don’t agree, but I am just saying it how it is.
            Would I point this out at home? Probably not, as the hunt people are notoriously aggressive.

          8. If they dont like the hunt they are not country people. When you have had all your hens killed by the fox and non eaten.

          9. A lot of hunt people genuinely believe that, and worse, they perpetuate the myth to townies, who then start supporting hunting because “everyone in the country supports it.”
            The countryside is a very hierarchical place, historically most people won’t say what they really think to someone who is higher status than themselves because people’s lives are inter-connected in a way they aren’t in the town, and they don’t want to get on someone’s wrong side. There’s a sort of alternative group of people (the majority) who regard the hunt as a nuisance, who all know who they are and who sympathises with them, but almost nobody wants to say it in public unless they have to. Some keep a foot in both camps, acknowledging that they have to let the hunt on their land because they don’t want to make enemies – that is well understood.

            As for the chickens, without wishing to be sanctimonious, I recommend a sturdy hen house, a well fenced run within sight of the house and locking your chickens up after dark – worked for us.

          11. “Just leave people alone”
            That is exactly the problem that most people who live in hunting country have with the hunt, ironically. And we know it has never ended.

      2. That tells you much about the nature of our fellow countrymen and women, doesn’t it? Same as with the lockdowns/vaccines.

    2. That was exactly my unChristian thought.
      I resent what spineless governments have turned me into.

      1. Haven’t been able to ascertain how many were returned to France – hopefully all of them. Think we all know how eager RNLI and others are to bring them to UK, even if clearly still in French waters.

      2. I completely agree. A while back I’d have thought… you’re cruel- then you see this:

        https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/news/2023/01/26/horrific-murder-in-bournemouth-shows-how-illegal-asylum-abuse-threatens-your-safety
        https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/21103563/migrants-murderers-terrorists-rapists/
        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/05/29/channel-migrants-albania-crime-wave-numbers-jailed/
        https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-66466270

        And on and on and on.

        Apparently government doesn’t keep stats on who commits crime – that’d be embarrassing (it does, of course) – so pretends it can’t report on that.

    3. The danger of losing one’s life doesn’t seem to be any deterrent to people making the crossing in small boats. These journeys must be stopped. Either provide free transport to migrants on ferries or turn the boats back. The first option would only increase the number of migrants. The second option would be unacceptable to the government. The Rwanda solution is not a solution at all – it is just to give the appearance that the government is attempting to do something.

      1. It is plain to me that the so-called government (and opposition parties) WANT these hordes to come and swamp what used to be a Christian country.

        2. Just hope that Vlad doesn’t sweep through the Ukes and makes it to the Channel. We will be lost as its just not possible to stop crossings (according to our leaders).

    4. RNIL a bit slow out of the gate this morning, the French got there first. Bet the other 65 are furious.

  28. Ofgem has just blown the Net Zero lie wide open. 15 Deecember 2023.

    We were promised a future of abundant, cheap, secure energy. This Soviet-style approach will deliver nothing of the sort

    Lol! I’ve just received an email this morning from BritishGas telling me that Ofgem have authorised an increase in price for the coming winter. It’s not difficult to see where this is going. It is after all now a Marxist System where government regulates everything and we all know what happens then. This is a rerun of the Soviet Union. Eventually it will all crash in ruins but before that there will be a great deal of human suffering.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/14/ofgem-has-just-blown-the-net-zero-lie-wide-open/

    1. I’ve thought for a long time that the hatred of Russia stems from bitter resentment that the Soviet regime fell and the people returned to Orthodox Christianity. The aim was never to destroy the USSR but rather for us all to become The People’s Democratic Republics of wherever, just as Ayn Rand has it in Atlas Shrugged. Not accidental that she’s so out of favour with the supposed intelligentsia and even gets slagged off in publications such as The Critic, which are on the whole more balanced than the mainstream. I’m only disappointed that the Russian hatred of the Jews, which is what drove the Ashkenazim back to the Middle East in the late 19th century, has resurfaced.

    2. Whenever government meddles in a market we get shortages. Lady T broke this in the 70’s and the moronic Miliband has forced socialism back in.

      We’re heading for rolling brown outs, then persistent black outs. The only way to prevent this is the utter, permanent abolition of all the green crap. The state has got to be punished first – destroy the pensions of those in the department for impoverishing the country.

      1. First, you need a voting public willing to put in office people prepared to make those choices. I see little evidence of that, given Labour’s big lead in opinion polls. Other than that, an armed coup is needed to impose on the public, by force, the policies it persistently refuses to vote for.

  30. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/14/labour-bradford-cheshire-east-bankruptcy-council-tax-rise/

    Councils have a force backed, fixed income. Their costs are predictable and can be managed. There are huge, 20 person management teams paying themselves six figure salaries plus expenses in them and still they fail and say ‘oh well, cough up’.

    Why should we? If these people ran a company in the same manner then they’d be in jail!

    A starting point would be to fix council management salaries. They’re NOT worth their cost. It’s middle management job at best with no risk, no product, no marketing. Another big step would be to make them all IR35, same for all senior civil servants and MPs.

    1. Same with GP surgeries.
      Ever since ours introduced “prescription teams” and assorted jobsworths, the coq-ups and missed messages has been awesome.
      Nobody has responsibility for anything.

        1. Divided responsibility . everyone thinks someone else is dealing with it, meaning nobody is dealing with it.

  31. Covid jabs, EVs, dependence on renewable energy sources, banning efficient central heating and the attempts to reduce CO2? –

    It’s a sort of administrative premature ejaculation: putting things in place too soon, too quickly and coming before anyone is ready!

  32. Good morning all

    Look at this . https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12867401/wealthy-surgeon-beat-champagne-charlie-girl-lover-banned-treating-patients-one-year.html

    A wealthy surgeon who beat his lover in their Travelodge room and bought Class A drugs on the dark web has been banned from treating patients for a year.

    Dr Perbinderpal Grewal, 50, slapped and choked the woman, pulled out clumps of her hair and threw her on the bed after he booked a room at the budget hotel in Portsmouth in the hope he would have ‘rough sex’ with her.

    The woman, who had met Grewal on a dating app for rich men, was said to have been left in ‘complete shock’ following the horrific sexual encounter in 2019 and fled to reception in tears with her hair in disarray and red marks on her neck.

    She then received a text from him in which he said he ‘didn’t know what he would have done as he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself,’ adding: ‘I wanted to f*** you whilst holding your hair down and slapping you.’

    At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester, Grewal was found guilty of misconduct charges relating to his violent behaviour towards the woman known only as Ms A.

    The public school educated surgeon was suspended from medical practice but avoided being struck off after claiming at the time his workload had been unusually high due to staff shortages and that he had been racially abused.

    The hearing was also told how Grewal, a consultant in Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at Southampton General Hospital would take unnamed Class A drugs he had purchased from the dark web for ‘most of his free time.’

    Funny thing really… those types are usually gropey gynaecologists, filthy creatures .

    1. And when I am put on trial and required to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; what do I say?
      Do I say that in this trial I am legally required to lie?
      That should be fun, going all the way to the Supreme Court and the appropriate European Court for my human rights.

  34. This is the scum that the government are allowing into the UK to look after our elderly.

    https://twitter.com/CMY1952/status/1735604948920922158

    Four Nigerian healthcare workers have been found guilty of abusing an 89 year-old woman with vascular dementia in Wolverhampton.

    Ame Tunkara, 33 & Morounranti Adefila, 43 jailed for 4 months.

    Last Sept Danny Ohen, 39 & Bridget Aideyan, 49, were jailed for 6 mths & 4 mths.

    https://west-midlands.police.uk/news/health-workers-jailed-over-abuse-woman-aged-89

    Deport them .

  35. That should keep MeGain in ethnically sourced ensembles until …. well, possibly Boxing Day.

    “Prince Harry was a victim of phone hacking carried out by publishers of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror newspapers, a High Court judge has ruled.

    Fifteen of 33 articles brought by the Duke of Sussex in his legal claim against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) were found to be the product of phone hacking or unlawful information gathering.

    He has been awarded £140,600 in damages.”

    4. Strewth!
      Not surprised there are many in critical condition – being fragged like that, I wonder there aren’t more dead! I assume the 3rd grenade was for him – you can’t see much in the smoke, but you can hear the fuse go, and then the bang.

    7. They were not grenades! They were firecrackers. If they’d been real grenades then the camera would have been atomised for a start, as well as everyone in the room.

    8. Know the feeling. As anyone who’s sat on a parish council can confirm.
      The fewer the powers, the greater the argy bargy.

  38. 379536+ up ticks.

    Yet another capsize in the English channel,

    Dt,

    Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was “cracking down on the terrible trade of people traffickers”

    If so it has a better cover up than the pakistani paedophile
    16 year Rotherham odious issue, there is no visable sign of this ” crackdown”

          3. I do. Home-made sausage meat, chopped chestnuts, and a packet of Paxo sage & onion.👍🏻 That’s my go-to when I can’t be arsed.

          4. This one doesn’t have sausage meat in it. It does have chestnuts and truffles. It’s a wet mix which you pipe under the skin of the breasts.

          5. I thought Breast enlargement has its drawbacks.

            PS So far this winter it’s been fairly mild and pleasant if living on a narrowboat. Things can get tricky if the canals freeze solid for a week or three…..

          6. His boat is called ‘Wayaway’. If you see him say hello. He thinks you’re a lightweight for not being on all year. :@)

          7. Tell him to repeat that once he’s taken his boat up the Bristol Channel in a force4 North Easterly Head wind….

          8. He’s on the grand union at the moment. He’s been aboard for the last four years so i expect he has some experience.
            This was just a courtesy call on my part. Unlikely to be a regular event.

        1. They wouldn’t dare.

          Any other time a loin of cod wrapped in Parma ham would be a nice supper. Green salad. Glass of plonk.

    2. Why does not Britain have its own enforceable asylum and migration policy?

      The UK no longer has the constraints of belonging to the EU that Denmark and Holland have had to overcome?

      1. 379539+ up ticks,

        Afternoon R,
        We have far more serious internal constraints, for one, the repeating voting majority that continues to vote for the downfall of the realm, and that seemingly, with the pro WEF kings consent.

          1. I don’t think many people realise that she is undoubtedly a very evil woman who can even simulate weakness in a calculating way so that she can give in to what she wanted in the first place.

            Her whole treatment of Brexit shows just what a thoroughly foul woman she is.

            “No deal is better than a bad deal, ” and “Brexit means Brexit ” were deliberate lies to disguise her unswerving desire to scupper Brexit from the very start.

            What would put the cherry on the cake would be to see her locked up in a prison cell with Tony Blair while her husband was locked up with Blair’s wife!

  41. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c1c220951e935158ec0d13007ca7506c716eba33fd33d98853565ab7398b3f32.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/14/ofgem-has-just-blown-the-net-zero-lie-wide-open/

    No comments allowed – presumably because more and more people now understand that there is no climate crisis, no man-made global warming, carbon dioxide is both beneficial and necessary and that Net Zero is a complete scam.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/787dd6f09047a64fe21fb33b0aae6569f6051f3b22244a4e44bae56775815547.png

    1. Why has the Telegraph suddenly come out against stuff that they’ve been supporting for at least fifteen years? Is it to do with the imminent sale to the Arabs?

        1. My guess is that he will step aside at some point, and William will come in as the new face of the monarchy, and we will all be expected to forget that his Earthshot organisation gave Jacinda Ardern a job, and that he wittered on about CO2 and tried to get people to take the jibby jabs.

          1. On the contrary, BB – Woke Willy will be much, much worse than the JWK. After six months one will be begging JWK to return….

          2. William would quite happily preside over a much reduced multi-kulti population that was confined to 15 minute cities, fed bugs and jabbed every month, I feel.

          3. Charlie Boy had to wait a lifetime to become monarch, I do not see him giving up that position in a hurry. The Windsor family are showing their true colours i.e. elitists of the first water.

        2. Would millions of people adjust their views in response? Does this king or any modern monarch still have the power to shape public opinion? Perhaps I’m one of those rare people who doesn’t take much heed of the monarch of the day and who thinks that the monarch’s opinions don’t much matter.

  42. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c1c220951e935158ec0d13007ca7506c716eba33fd33d98853565ab7398b3f32.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/14/ofgem-has-just-blown-the-net-zero-lie-wide-open/

    No comments allowed – presumably because more and more people now understand that there is no climate crisis, no man-made global warming, carbon dioxide is both beneficial and necessary and that Net Zero is a complete scam.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/787dd6f09047a64fe21fb33b0aae6569f6051f3b22244a4e44bae56775815547.png

    1. Put not your trust in billionaires. Any of them. Especially the one reputed to have the most billions of all.

    1. Proper women should refuse to compete is any competitions in which men pretending to be women are competing.

      That woman who withdrew from the final of a women’s snooker competition because the other finalist was a man should inspire all female athletes to do the same.

      Just as those who test positive for unacceptable drugs are banned in sporting contests so should fake women with unacceptable willies be banned from competing in women’s sports.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7163414f2a199de34dd493d960b4af7a09e562d8bb7c2f51649fd69ddb7275cd.png

      1. It’s the organisers who should step in and ban those born male from competing against females. I admire the pool player who wouldn’t compete but that is just one person, one on one. In team events it’s different. They would all have to withdraw and some may be reluctant to do so.

        1. Sharon Davies, the British Olympic swimmer, is very much in favour of only born females being allowed to compete in Women’s sports. She is clearly a very strong-willed woman and probably not easy to live with judging by her marital history.

          She is certainly a tough cookie so let us hope she can succeed in galvanising real women athletes to refuse to compete against fake women.

    1. We ordered a new car a couple of months ago.

      As it is a petrol vehicle it has a malus imposed upon it. A malus is the opposite of a bonus – it is an imposed disincentive. Our car has not yet been delivered but we have now been told that the malus has just risen by €100.

      Merci, cons!

      1. My car is getting old, but I cannot see myself buying another new car, as I want a petrol car without internet connectivity. I don’t think such a thing is possible to buy new nowadays, so I shall have to look second hand.

        1. Motor manufacturers have invested so many resources towards producing unmarketabe EVs instead of ICE cars that their plans must now be put on ice.

          The Ford Malus could well become market lrader.

    2. Just as with the ‘bladerunners’ people might find their subsidised wind blowers being wrecked. Now that would be a shame.

    4. We got a new one (LPG) this last February. Its a Veissmann. It’s not a combi. It’s brilliant. We are really pleased with it. It’s not very often we are ahead of their little games.

  47. Victor Orban got exactly what he wanted from crunch EU summit. 15 December 2023.

    The EU owes Hungary about €30 billion, funding that has been withheld as a punishment for eroding democracy.

    Mr Orban wants what is his, and in the Ukraine row he has spotted his opportunity.

    Earlier in the week he managed to squeeze €10 billion out of his European colleagues. But he won’t stop there.

    The EU has been trying to stuff Hungary for years because it won’t join its little Woke World. I hope Orban gets every penny!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/15/orban-got-exactly-what-he-wanted-crunch-eu-summit-ukraine/

      1. Know a Hungarian lass… God, but she’s utterly gorgeous, and clever & kind, too
        My kind of country, Hungary.

        1. There really are stunning women there. They seem normal as in not pumped and botoxed. My landlady arrived on my second day to check that i was settling in and happy. She arrived on a scooter just wearing bra and panties with a large white shirt and flip flops. I had to keep looking into her eyes because i thought i would probably look like a beetroot otherwise.

  48. Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).was president-of COP28 – Well, well, well!

    1. I have read it said that “ESG will be dead within five years” too, because of rebellion among big companies.

      That would take us close to 2030. So if this momentum is building, all we have to do is dodge digital ids, cbdcs and fifteen minute cities during that time, and we have a fair chance of emerging into the new economic cycle without a new feudal political system.

      1. Are you sure that’s not because they reckon they’ll have us all coralled, chipped, tracked and enslaved by then so they won’t need it?

        1. Environmental/Social/Governance score. It’s how BlackRock rates companies and decides which ones get investment… or not. If you don’t do climate change, you’re a naughty boy so no investment cash for you.There’s real push-back on it now, apparently.

        3. Environmental, Social and Governance. Companies have to conform in order to get credit and investment. That is why you see all this propaganda on food packets and websites, for example.

    2. And the next COP will be in Baku, Azerbaijan where even the air smells and tastes of oil when you step off the ‘plane.

        1. They only need to get lucky once. The Donald has to be lucky every time (as the IRA said to Margaret Thatcher after Brighton).

      3. He is our only hope. Haven’t biblical (?) prophecies claimed that our salvation will come from Russia? (Or was it Nostradamus? – the prophecy, I mean). Anyway, I think Vlad is going to make us suffer the attentions of Schwab for a while to ensure our gratitude.

    3. One of the most interesting things about Vlad is how much he understands about the West. I can only presume that he reads vast amounts about it.

      2. Putin is very unusual for a politician in that he is incredibly hard working and particularly well informed.

        Putin’s calm and measured approach to the prodding of the Zelensky regime under directions from Biden and his ability to rebuild the Russian economy despite myriad sanctions has been a masterclass. His management of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine has all but expunged the Nazi elements and rendered Ukraine unviable as a Nation.

        He is of course spot on in his analysis of the US and its innate and practised hypocrisy.

        My hope is that Putin has realised that the vast majority of British people have no regard for either the Obama-Biden regime or for that matter the Sunak-Cameron ‘government’. We are not enemies of Russia.

    4. One of the most interesting things about Vlad is how much he understands about the West. I can only presume that he read vast amounts about it.

    5. One of the most interesting things about Vlad is how much he understands about the West. I can only presume that he read vast amounts about it.

  50. BTL comment about fake doctor’s. How many in the UK.

    Don Trump

    3 MIN AGO

    Fraudulent doctors and nursing qualifications are rampant, according to the medical regulators in India and Nigeria. In rural India over 50% of doctors have fraudulent qualifications according to the Indian regulators.
    These qualifications are then ‘Western Washed’, which means fake doctors and nurses will use these fake qualifications to gain entry into naive western nations like New Zealand, obtain a post, stay there for a couple of years, then use that reference to obtain work in Europe and the UK.
    Do a Google search and read what is going on, its an eye opener.
    India and Nigeria are not the only sources of fake qualifications, but this was only one example/

    2. I thought it was a bit strange when I last went to the doctor with a sore throat and he prescribed two poppadums and a lime pickle to be taken every day for a fortnight.

    3. I thought it was a bit strange when I last went to the doctor with a sore throat and he prescribed two poppadums and a lime pickle to be taken every day for a fortnight.

    4. Its the same with pilot licenses in India apparently. I imagine there a massive industry in producing fake certificates.

    5. On my way to the cinema I caught a foreign object in my eye – it was very painful and disturbed my vision.
      With little time before the film started, I sought help from a local pharmacist – it was a complete eye opener.

      2. Our grandson is in his 3rd year of a 4 year degree as a Master of Pharmacy. He then has a fifth year working under supervision for his Master’s. He will then be qualified to prescribe. He has been on hospital placements accompanying senior pharmacists in charge of cardiac and stroke departments advising consultants.

        1. Excellent when he is fully qualified get him to join NOTTL where he can get extra practice advising our walking wounded!

  51. I do love perlice speak.

    Story. Woman in Norwich goes missing. Believed to have fallen/jumped in to the River Wensum. Today woman’s body found in River Wensum.

    “Police are keeping an open mind…..” as though bodies are being pulled out of the Wensum every hour or so!

    I know they have to wait for identification etc…but still!

    1. After the complete cock up they made over Nichola Bulley and releasing private and sensitive information i am not surprised they have learned to be tight lipped. Anyone would think the Police had only just came into existence given how feckin’ amateur they all are. Except when pushing over old ladies…they’re good at that.

    2. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
      And therefore I forbid my tears; but yet
      It is our trick, nature her custom holds, …

      [Hamlet]

    1. Well done Viktor! The anti Hungary /Orban comments on the BBC news site are a feast of Lefty bile.

    2. Ghastly, I used to enjoy a smoke at the rear of the aircraft. Then only Air France had a Coin de Fumeur where you could stand up for a fag. Then ‘no smoking’ long haul flights got even longer, subjectively at least.
      BA were always famous for their middle aged air hostesses who would frown when you kept asking for more mini bottles of wine.

    3. Apparently I’m “unable to view this Post because this account owner limits who can view their Posts. Learn more”. Clues?

  55. Well, that’s the first part of the decorations done. Two branches of holm oak suspended horizontally (to make it cat proof).. Tomorrow, indoor staff will begin the decorations. Cats completely indifferent. Perhaps next year, we’ll try a tree….

    Dark at 4 pm. Ugh.

    1. AHEM!!!
      My Christmas tree is not dead wood but a healthy rooted Nordman (I think) Fir that should, so long as we remember to water it in hot weather, last us for the next half dozen Christmasses.

  57. Looks like the missing person from Norwich has been found.
    It’s not going to be a good Christmas for the lass’s family.

    Police: No evidence of third-party involvement after body found in search for Gaynor Lord
    Police say body not yet formally identified, and Ms Lord’s disappearance in Norwich still being treated as missing person inquiry

    Police in Norwich have said there is “no evidence of third-party involvement” after a body was found in the search for Gaynor Lord.

    Dave Buckley, a chief superintendent with Norfolk Constabulary, said the body had not yet been formally identified, and Ms Lord’s disappearance was still being treated as a missing person inquiry. He said his “thoughts are with Gaynor’s family at this distressing time”.

    A body was found in the River Wensum on Friday in the search for Ms Lord, a 55-year-old mother-of-three, who disappeared in Norwich almost a week ago.

    She was last seen just after 4pm last Friday. The coat that she had been wearing was later discovered in the river in Wensum Park. A number of other personal belongings including her rings, glasses and phone were discovered by the riverbank.

    Norfolk Constabulary confirmed that a body had been found by underwater search teams on Friday morning and had been recovered from the water.

    In a statement, the force said: “While the body hasn’t formally been identified, Gaynor’s family have been informed. They continue to be supported by specially trained officers.”

    Marine units, along with Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service and the Coastguard had been involved in the search.

    Earlier on Friday, two specialist divers pulled a large object in a black bag from the River Wensum. The divers removed the object from the water next to an orange buoy that had been positioned in the river.

    The case has drawn comparisons to that of Nicola Bulley, the mother-of-two who disappeared walking her dog beside the River Wyre in Lancashire on Jan 27. Her phone and dog were found close to the water’s edge and her body was eventually recovered from the water on Feb 19.

    Ms Lord vanished after leaving the Jarrolds department store in Norwich city centre, where she worked at a the Bullards Gin stand.

    Norfolk Police had previously said they have not been able to establish her state of mind when she went missing with “any degree of confidence”. The force had established that she had visited the grounds of Norwich Cathedral on the day of her disappearance.

    She was later seen performing yoga at nearby Wensum Park, according to a witness.

  58. “French statistics do not provide a breakdown of crimes based on race or ethnicity, nor do they reveal immigration backgrounds. So, when EU officials claim that “there is no link” between migrants and rising crime, this is a lie based on omission. They often hide such data as a means to obscure any relationship.

    In contrast, Denmark’s data includes such information and reveals that migrants and second-generation migrants with Danish citizenship actually have higher crime rates, including instances of murder and physical assault, according to their percentage of the population.

    Germany’s federal police office, the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), has recently revealed that mass immigration into the country is a significant contributing factor in the surge in violent crime. The number of crimes involving German citizens – which includes dual citizens who may have been born elsewhere, rose by 8 percent in 2023 compared to non-German suspects which increased by as much as 23 percent. Furthermore, cases involving foreign minors rose considerably by 37 percent.

    Ironically, migrant activists argue that the practice of redacting migrant status in criminal reports helps hide police profiling against them; they claim that they are targeted and arrested at a much higher rate than white Europeans. In reality, migrants are simply much more likely to commit crimes.

    In a rare admission by the Ministerial Statistical Department for Internal Security (SSMSI), they reported that 69% of violent robberies and other violent crimes, which include sexual assaults, occurring on public transport in the greater Paris region of Île-de-France were committed by individuals who are foreign nationals. More comprehensive reports like this are impossible to come by for the whole of France, but what happens in Paris is probably a reflection of most cities across the nation.

    2. Oh well done. Boring four for me.

      Wordle 909 4/6

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

      1. It’s a shame that you have to use 5 letters to form a word. If you could just use colours I would get the answer in one every time (Green, Green, Green, Green, Green.) Lol.

    6. Par here.

      Wordle 909 4/6

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

  60. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story, better late than never. Busy Zedding.

    It’s The Way I Tell >‘Em “Shitty day, isn’t it?”

  61. I’ve just come back from the village PO which until about six months ago was run by a delightfull wife and husband team.
    I needed to buy some Christmas cards and stamps ant to return a couple of parcels and had printed the labels to go with them.
    The new owner gabe the parcels back to me saying I needed to stick the labels on. I asked for some sellotape and he gesticulated to an area across the other side of the room. I couldn’t see any sellotape so asked again and he pointed to the rolls of tape on sale.
    I asked if he meant I should buy a whole roll just for two small pieces that I needed and he said they didn’t provide it. I pointed out that the previous owners used to be helpful to their customers in that regard but he refused offer any tape.

    Well, I went out and across the road and was given some tape in the shop across the road – bu**ered if I was going to buy it from.him. I took the parcels back and told him how helpful the other shop had even. He was indifferent, rude in fact. I gave him the 50+ Chritmas cards I was going to buy – he totted them up to about £40 and I said I was going to buy them elsewhere instead.

    They are a Pakistani couple and have A LOT to learn about village life.

    2. I can almost guarantee that if you use their PO service in future, whatever you post will become lost in the post.

  62. That’s me gone for today. Grey and damp all day – and outside wasn’t that different! Decorations started. I mentioned my suggestion of a tree next year (see comment below) to the MR. She gave me a look….!

    As my favourite grand-daughter often takes a fortnight to reply to an e-mail – I wrote a letter, got a bank loan for a 1st class stamp and posted it on Monday (to Chiswick). It never arrived. So I e-mailed the same letter and she replied in minutes. She is going on a choir tour to Paris next year – so I sent her a couple of snaps of of her dear, dear and ever so missed Dad when he and I did a father/son boys trip to Paris in 1983. Gosh what fun we had! He was at the age (14½) when he just wanted to do everything that was suggested. There is not a day goes by….

    Anyway, have a spiffing evening.

    A demain – when it is alleged to be “mild” – for the next week.

    1. The cats may be snoozing, but if faced with a tree indoors, they might wake up in a flash! Of tree lights, I mean.

    2. I messaged my sister on Facebook about Steadfast Sidney and his statue at Portland Bill. I have now had an avalanche of emails, phone calls and invitations. I fucked that up and now i might need to fake my own death.

      1. Make the most of the attention.
        You might find common ground that doesn’t bring back bad memories.

        1. My brother who is two years older than me was sent away to a ‘special’ school where they taught him how to make his bed and comb his hair. He then came home on ‘visits’. and told me all the boys do it. This went on for three years until i went to secondary school. Wasn’t so bad but then he was introduced to the comprehensive system and joined me at my school. He continued to abuse me.

          Do you have any idea what it is like to be in a family group celebrating whatever and remaining silent and smiling with your abusers standing next to you…
          I have other brothers and sisters. The eldest sister being worse than the childhood fumblings.

          2. There’s more.
            However…I have been happy for many years. A bit worried i have opened a can of worms.

          4. A good memory. Chesil beach all night. Staring up at the Milky Way in all its splendour. Never seen anything like it.

          5. Hello Phizzee, sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday, it’s been kinda busy here!!
            Anyhow, as I was told many times, you can choose your friends but not your relatives! I’m glad you have found happiness (cue Ken Dodd, sorry!)

          6. I like hearing from people from far and wide who, let’s face it we are unlikely to meet. What a wonderful forum this is. Even if they are a bit nutty… :@)

        1. It doesn’t work that way. I made a big mistake in contacting. Talking to one is talking to all.

          1. Talk to them all together, tell it how it was; retreat and see who comes out of the maelstrom?

    1. Just pity 5he guys that shot the hostages, their mistake will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

  65. The huge cost of Scotland’s ‘free’ tuition fees

    14 December 2023, 3:40pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b6a5a830a7b0852ff51d94998a3fc885596fce7ad3589036d852bd771d93793a.jpg

    ‘The rocks will melt with the sun before I allow tuition fees to be imposed on Scotland.’ So read the words carved into a stone outside Heriot-Watt university in Edinburgh unveiled by Alex Salmond while he was first minister. But as the SNP’s education policy begins to unravel and the budgetary pressures build at Holyrood, how much longer before the Scottish government starts to revisit its practice of subsidising students, even middle-class ones who can well afford to pay tuition fees?

    From the vantage point of a Scottish sixth former, the system north of the border looks great. Unlike their English cousins, Scots attending Scottish universities pay no tuition fees. Scottish students do have to pay their living costs, but even so, according to the Student Loans Company, Scottish students graduate with average debts of £15,430 compared with £44,940 for English students. But that presupposes that Scottish students can get into university in the first place. Scottish universities have a strong incentive to favour students from abroad, or from elsewhere in the UK.

    Free tuition is gradually starving Scottish universities of cash. While English universities, too, have an incentive to favour overseas students over UK ones because they can charge them what they like rather than the £9,250 set by the government, in Scotland the situation is markedly worse. Give a place to a Scottish student and a Scottish university has just £7,610 a year available to educate them – made up a teaching grant which works out at £5,790 per pupil plus a shadow tuition fee (paid by the Scottish government rather than the student) of £1,820 a year.The overall per-capita funding of Scottish students in Scottish universities has fallen by 19 per cent in real terms over the past decade, according to a study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    Not of course that spending more money would necessarily lead to better quality education, as the SNP has proved with schools. In 2000, soon after devolution, Scottish schools led the UK, with higher Pisa rankings than in England, Wales of Northern Ireland. They were still just about ahead in 2012 after the SNP introduced its Curriculum for Excellence, which downplayed the importance of knowledge in favour of instructing students in what are supposed to be transferrable skills. But those skills certainly are not transferring themselves into high Pisa scores. In maths Scottish pupils now trail English ones. The only consolation for Scotland is that Labour-run Wales is a little bit worse. It is certainly not down to a lack of money. Scottish schools now receive an average of £1,300 per pupil per year more than their English counterparts.

    Scotland was once revered for its Enlightenment. The high value put on education was still visible at the beginning of this century. Yet under the SNP the Scottish education system has undergone a dis-enlightenment.

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

    Jolly Radical
    a day ago edited
    Scottish Exam Board – Maths GCSE Paper

    1. If it takes 2 hours to charge an electric car, why does it take 2 years to charge Nicola Sturgeon?

    2. If Peter has £600,000 and uses £110,000 to buy a motorhome, how much is left to buy a Jaguar?

    3. If Nicola weaves money through the books and Peter ringfences the same money, how can the money exist at all? Show your working. Oh, don’t bother.

    4. If Nicola disappears somewhere unpleasant for two years and Peter does three years in a similar establishment, how long will it take for one of them to present as transgender in order to visit the other one?

    3. Is that first one Andy Capp? If so, I haven’t seen him for nearly 50 years when my dad used to buy the Mirror and the DT every day.

    1. Why do they keep lying? Well, yes, if you are a bit like me and only drive to and from the shops, school on a duff day, the vets and doggy day care maybe the infrequent journeys would be ok, and yes, if I fuelled in the evening using cheaper rate electricity I’d save again but the impetus is on pushing down use, not maximising it.

      And of course, the state is only going to keep making electricity more and more and more expensive so what’s the point?

  69. Is this the world’s most cringeworthy Christmas card?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12869779/Harry-Meghans-Christmas-card-wishes-happy-holiday-season-Duke-Duchess-thanks-fans-support-2023-release-festive-greeting-card.html

    The message accompanying the card read: ‘On behalf of the office of Prince Harry & Meghan, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Archewell Productions and Archewell Foundation, we wish you a very happy holiday season.

    ‘Thanks for all the support in 2023!’

    Not from Harry and Meghan, but from their office.
    Not from the Archewell of bottomless self pity but from the corporations
    Not from Harry and Meghan, but Prince Harry and Meghan. I would assume that if he’s standing on his “Prince” it should really be Henry.
    Not recognising what the holiday season is all about (apart from them, of course)

    What a pair of grifters…

    2. Prince and Princess Henry. Princess Michael of Kent has never demanded that she be known as Marie Christine, though that is her given name. A different class of lady.

    5. Well it is more Christmassy than the Wales’s miserable effort, or Sunak’s kindergarten design.
      I think the black and white cards are because they know what’s coming and they are desperately trying to pretend they aren’t billionaires.

          1. No -nothing Christmassy about it. But I quite like it as a family group photo, just not really as a Christmas card.

      2. They might at least include a Robin, some Holly and a reference to the Three Wise Men, the Manger and Christchild.

        But not at all, Christmas is all about THEM.

      3. They might at least include a Robin, some Holly and a reference to the Three Wise Men, the Manger and Christchild.

        But not at all, Christmas is all about THEM.

    6. I see he’s won £100,000 + damages from the Mirror newspapers today so it’s a happy Christmas for him.

  70. Good evening. One of the most ticklish of challenges is a world where the Filth is on record as wanting to reduce the world population to 500 million is going to be how the rest of us treat the large number of people who are presently doing the bidding of evil but who will soon realise that they too are in the crosshairs. Not to mention the ones who have been coerced into acts in support of the enemy. I don’t think debate is worth pursuing for much of what we now see, as we are way past politics, but how we deal with these people does I think need grown-up thinking from early on in the present awakening.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/tarableu/p/healing-after-the-filth?r=10qzvs&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcome=trues

    1. I honestly don’t know the plans of our elite world leaders when it comes to whittling down the world’s population, and hopefully (probably not) it’s a long term benevolent cut in birth rate .
      What I do know is that the Earth is vastly overpopulated by the human race.

      1. I wonder how many people it takes to support a millionaire’s life style, let alone a billionaire’s?

        500 million people isn’t going to keep them in the luxury they are accustomed to; that a racing certainty.

        1. An excellent point which supports my view that the NWO, no matter how evil they may be, would not benefit by the sudden death of 93%, or so, of human population.

          Edited to put ‘not’ in between would and benefit. I screwed up my argument badly.

        3. Disposing of approx 4 billion bodies will be a bit of a headache but an embarrassment of riches for Rattus Rattus….

          1. A sight more than 4,000,000,000.

            Rattus rattus, Rattus norvegicus perhaps, but it won’t be Rattus albus.

      2. They’ve already done the long term ‘benevolent’ cut in birth rate, via oestrogen in water, plastic softeners, feminism -> women in the workplace, destroying marriage, encouraging homosexuality, abortion on demand etc.
        Think this is hyperbole?
        It’s not.
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/63bb27a5ef776397689727f3c7423afd7c5802b4f98e58e71d07ec088e27b35e.jpg

        https://archive.org/details/fredericks_jaffe_memorandum_to_bernard_berelson/1969.03.11%20-%20Original%20Jaffe%20Memo%20-%20Horvath%20Compilation/page/n8/mode/1up

        1. So why have they only reduced the native, white population of these islands, while encouraging the incoming Muslim people to have large families on benefits?

          2. Slightly baffles me too. There is a myth going round, that is probably believed by more than half the world, that the West only became great because they plundered other lands. They seem completely unaware of the vast trove of scientific and engineering discoveries and inventions that launched the industrial revolution. So presumably they think that they can eliminate white people without penalty.

          3. Or possibly they think what’s left of the white people will be paying reparations – ie handing over our properties.

        2. 1969 US population 203,000,000. At the time of this ‘Jaffe Memo’.
          Current population 340,831,015

          Doesn’t seem to be working well. I know immigration will have a lot to do with numbers.

          1. In the memo, they do say that more measures will be needed if the “soft” ones don’t work. It looks like a lot of guess-work really.

    2. 500 million? It hasn’t been 500 million since about the C14th.

      Three or four billion would be more realistic.

  73. Right, I’m off to bed. Good night all.
    Not been a bad day, the rain stayed away and I got a bit done to the van interior where I’m fitting a small folding table.

    Lovely colourful sunset tonight:- https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0f4fb4596f316933f4a587cdcf6e1938a18c140870512f49188927a430fa811c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c73a5005777099d7454276c50b4a0c54a1253bf852affe7734f7ba83fd27d2ce.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3d2ad62856b7dbe2ab1088c6f8a31c6d5d5063197c1fa6b6ac4ab184614658e6.jpg

  74. Evening all!

    Been a busy day……… and this evening I’ve lost all my passwords as my password manager file seems to have deleted itself……… bit of a nightmare. Managed to reset my email password but that’s all so far. Nottl and Disqus were still open so can use them until I have to change those!

    2. That is a real bore ndovu. I keep mine written in a book; I know ‘they’ say one shouldn’t but I’ve written them in a sort of code. When I last counted, I had 73 passwords for work and another 60 odd for personal accounts. There’s no way I’d remember them.

      3. My clever son in Basel found the file for me – it was hidden in the tmp folder. I’ve never had to remembe rpasswords. I’d be completly lost without it. I did manage to change my Gmail password and get into that.

        1. Some scholars believe it never happened – especially as Herod was thought to have died around 1BC….

          1. It also doesn’t make sense that the Holy Family would have escaped into Egypt. They only had to go home to Nazareth, as Herod had no jurisdiction there. Matthew probably intended his narrative as allegory. The story doesn’t feature in the other Gospels.

  79. Evening, all. Been a busy day; went racing (my horse finished second) then later attended a carol service in a local church. Great fun with audience participation.

    As for the headline letter, patients would be pleased if they were in the hands of competent doctors who actually listened to them and tried to do something to improve their health.

      1. I think that Sunak pretended to be in favour of Brexit just as Johnson did. Sunak says he voted for Brexit – did he really?

  81. Have a happy, happy day , Plum but we’d love you to talk to us. You’re missed. We love you.

  83. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/41b804f3d344268904f1a2595205521fe73872ff6998ac9e324f483052ffc727.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/12/15/rishi-sunak-maths-a-level-royal-society/

    BTL

    I must say that those of us who scored top marks in the Common Entrance exams and then went on to pass “O” levels in both Elementary and Additional Maths with A grades have no need to go on studying Maths until the age of 18 as they were more numerate at the age of 13 than many school leavers ever will be.

    Surely those who are already numerically literate before the age of 15 or under should be able to claim exemption from this scheme?

    1. They forced people to study modern foreign languages up to 16. Mind you, it would have been torture for me to have had to study maths up to the age of 18.

      1. I have the highest regard for Our Annie, even though by her own admission she is “pants at Maffs”.

      2. I have the highest regard for Our Annie, even though by her own admission she is “pants at Maffs”.

    2. There are a lot of pupils who would have liked to leave school at 16 as in the old days. But can’t. What use is another 2 years at school when they have no interest in it.

    3. Thankfully I was able to leave school at 15. I could have been forced to study maths until god knows when but I don’t think it would have made any difference.
      Perhaps Sunak should have been forced to do carpentry until he was 18. He would, no doubt, be as useless at that as he appears to be at everything else he touches.

  85. Goodnight, all. I didn’t have time to read all the contributions; I have to be up tomorrow to attend a meet.

    1. The meet was at “The Cock and Pye
      By Charles and Martha Enderby,”
      The grey, three-hundred-year-old inn
      Long since the haunt of Benjamin
      The highwayman, who rode the bay.
      The tavern fronts the coaching way,
      The mail changed horses there of old.
      It has a strip of grassy mould
      In front of it, a broad green strip.
      A trough, where horses’ muzzles dip,

      John Masefield (for more – much, much more)

      1. I have a picture of my father aged about 6yo (c1928) meeting John Masefield and a signed copy of his collected poems.

        1. I too, have a copy of his ‘Collected Poems’ Much later though – originals lost in too many moves. My version is 1995.

  87. Wordle 910 5/6

    It took me 5 attempts to get there this morning (Saturday) so I’m posting here rather than waiting for Geoff at 7 am. Good morning, chums. See you all much later.

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

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