Friday 15 November: Streeting must demand accountability at all levels of NHS management

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.

687 thoughts on “Friday 15 November: Streeting must demand accountability at all levels of NHS management”

    1. 396972+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      These creatures speaking from behind hedgerows, partial concealment, for when the shit hits the fan in their personal case a long awaited shave will precede a rebirth.

      Over the last three plus decades via the polling stations and using the lab/lib/con close shop parties regularly in political affrays, regards to the winning parties future actions, as witnessed prior when in office, to be of no consequence these creatures it has been consented to, are allow walk among decent peoples.

      1. 396972 + up ticks,

        Morning DB

        plus good question,I personally believe that the mosques must be kept in good njck, on account of
        change of Country management
        coming shortly.

  6. Good morning, chums, and thanks to Geoff for today's new NoTTLe page. Somehow I clicked on Friday's page and ended up on yesterday's?!?!? Just to let our Wordle fans know that I really did get the word in three today – and without seeking any clues.

    Wordle 1,245 3/6

    🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Good morning Elsie and all.
      I couldn't get yesterday's wordle at all despite eliminating all the common letters – I finally entered a random number word in the sixth row just to see the answer – I didn't know the word.
      Today was a lot easier!
      Wordle 1,245 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Good morning Elsie and all.
      I couldn't get yesterday's wordle at all despite eliminating all the common letters – I finally entered a random number word in the sixth row just to see the answer – I didn't know the word.
      Today was a lot easier!
      Wordle 1,245 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  7. Guardian’s Self-Deplatforming Post 420 Times More Popular Than Average Tweet

    The Guardian has got all of Westminster talking about its tantrum decision to quit X because it is too “toxic” under Elon Musk. The tweet advertising this has now been seen 21 million times, making it approximately 420 times more popular than their average tweet…

    Lobby hacks are sanctimoniously announcing their departures to rival “nice” platform Bluesky, whose main feed is made up of people complaining bitterly about Twitter and Musk and patting themselves on the back for how nice they are. They will of course stay on X where all the actual news is…

    Meanwhile The Guardian, a whole paper, is depriving itself of 50,000 views on each post because it has got itself worked up about the site’s owner. Is that what the counsellors recommended?

    14 November 2024 @ 17:36

    1. Interesting.
      Before Elon Musk bought the site Tw@ter was notorious for cancelling right wing opinions and those complaining were told by Lefties, "It's a private company, they can cancel who they like."
      Now it is not cancelling as much as it used to, the Left are up in arms.

  8. Goedemorgen allemaal, vooral Geoff
    Today's Tale – this one is for the Ladies
    Three men are walking down the beach when they find an old lantern in the sand. One gives it a rub and a genie appears. The genie says, “You can have one wish each.”
    The first guy thinks for a few minutes and says, “I would like to be a hundred times smarter than I am now.”
    “Your wish is granted,” says the genie.
    The second guy blurts out, “I’d like to be a thousand times smarter than I am now.”
    "Your wish is granted,” says the genie.
    The third guy thinks hard and long and decides, “I would like to be ten thousand times smarter than I am now.”
    The genie grants his wish, and he turns into a woman.

    1. There was the Irishman who found a lamp, rubbed it and a genie appeared. The genie said I'll give you 2 wishes. "Great" said Paddy "I'd like a glass of Guinness which never empties" The glass appeared. Genie said "You have a second wish, what will it be?" Paddy thought and said " Bejeesus, I'll have another of those glasses"

      1. Very few geologists believe in man made climate change.

        What annoys the PTB about geologists is that they use proper evidence gleaned from millions of years.

        Give a Net Zero fanatic any clear evidence and he will do his best to supress it.

    3. Has a free speech suppressor put 'white noise' on this clip to make it more difficult to hear what Ian Plimer is saying?

      I think the Idiot King is working on a project to introduce a new organisation to stop people saying hurty words against Net Zero:

      The RSSFS – The Royal Society for the Suppression of Free Speech.

  12. Oops.

    “A £100 million air traffic control meltdown last summer could not be fixed quickly because a support engineer was allowed to work from home. More than 700,000 passengers were stranded when flights were grounded on Aug 28 after National Air Traffic Services suffered a technical glitch that crashed vital control systems. An inquiry found that the engineer rostered to be on call was at home – rather than on site, despite it being one of its busiest periods.”

      1. Youtube yesterday had a video about the size of the 777 engines, and actually said "The massive fan is there to cool the engine"! Not that "That's where the thrust mostly comes from"…

  14. So big protests by farmers are on the way, police are banning the use of tractors, so the communists have only been in for just a few months and already we will be getting tractor stats reports

    1. I shall carry a "No Farmers, No Food" sign in my car so that I can show my support if I get caught up in one of their protests!
      (I never leave the house in my car without a good book in case of break down anyway!)

  16. Good morning all. Still dark with a lightening sky but dry with 0°C on the Yard Thermometer.
    A long drive to pick up some auction purchases, across to Colsterworth via Melton Mowbray then Scunthorpe via Newark & Gainsborough, then motorways M118, M18 & M1 back to Clay Cross with the back roads for the last bit home.

    1. Yep. But when it does…….

      Anyway, the fact that the UK was a laughing stock and airlines lose millions of pounds – not to mention the disruption and inconvenience to passengers – mustn’t impinge a person’s right to wfh, eh?

      1. What people get away with in the workplace today is extraordinary.
        The young graduates in the consulting company who shares our offices have redecorated their offices like a cross between a private flat and a kindergarten – Ikea furniture, pastel coloured walls, mirrors, brightly coloured motivational signs, ceiling to floor curtains….their concept of the workplace is not the same as ours.

        1. Perhaps they were told they couldn't work from home, so they've brought their home to work with them?

    1. Francis Scarr – Putin's BBC's propaganda machine.

      “The Burevestnik, a cruise missile with unlimited range and a nuclear engine, invulnerable to all existing and up-and-coming missile defence systems, and the Poseidon super torpedo, which weighs 100 tonnes and is capable of wiping several American states from the face of the Earth with a single strike. My underlining.

      He doesn't even mind making statements that are obviously stupid. I suspect he has been rejected by some Russian boyfriend who works for the Kremlin and is getting his own back.

  19. did they though? Do we really think people “tweeting” were the sole cause of the riots? I stopped reading the Geoffrey Robertson piece when he wrote “Some social media racists have rightly been convicted over disinformation which actually stoked the recent riots outside asylum hostels.”. Was Lucy Connolly a “racist”? Is that whom Mr Robertson has in mind?

    Anyway, from the Letters:

    ”Sir – A social media post expressing racial hatred is not “free speech”. Whipping up such hatred led to the awful riots we saw in Southport, with people trying to burn hotels housing refugees. Inciting violence is against the law and, as we have seen recently, can lead to jail.
    Do we really want to live in a country where, in the name of “free speech”, social media posts are unregulated, with sites descending into cesspits of vituperative abuse? Michael Miller
    Sheffield, South Yorkshire”

    1. What evidence exists that proves that any "rioter" was motivated by what he read online? This false link was used as justification to help crush Free Speech.

    2. Yes Mr Miller, we do. Because that is a country with free speech, including stuff we don't agree with. I fail to see why the government should have a monopoly on saying stuff I don't agree with.

  20. “BRITAIN will ban new coal mines in a landmark decision that forms part of Ed Miliband’s drive to hit net zero.
    The Government said it was bringing forward a decision to restrict new licences, ending an era of coal-fired power generation that at its peak supported more than 1m jobs.
    It follows the closure of the last UK coal power station in September, ending 142 years of coal-fired generation in Britain. Ratcliffe-on-soar closed on Sept 30 after five decades of service that powered more than 2m homes.
    The Energy Secretary is pushing forward with plans to achieve clean power by 2030, with Britain the first major economy to stop burning coal for power.
    Mr Miliband’s decision to shun coal is in stark contrast to the previous government, which gave approval to the first new deep coal mine in 30 years. Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, gave permission for the mine near Whitehaven, Cumbria, in December 2022.
    However, Labour sounded the death knell for coal mining in the UK after it said it would not contest a High Court ruling that blocked the mine from being built after a series of legal challenges brought by climate groups.”

    1. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Reopen the remaining viable mines, open new deep mines, get fracking and build enough Small Modular Reactors to provide cover for the entire country. At present we are prisoners of French American and Arab energy suppliers who could shut down the United Kingdom overnight,
      Free the UK from foreign control.

  22. So let me get this right…one arm of the Labour Party is saying "we'll do to farmers what Margaret Thatcher did to coal miners" and the other arm is banning new coal mines?

    Not really motivated by love for their fellow mortals, are they…

    1. Somehow I don't recall farmers embarking on an endless wave of strikes industrial inaction in the 1970s, nor did they ever have access to a NCB-style pension fund. Also, a dairy herd has to be milked every day. Twice.

    2. Somehow I don't recall farmers embarking on an endless wave of strikes industrial inaction in the 1970s, nor did they ever have access to a NCB-style pension fund. Also, a dairy herd has to be milked every day. Twice.

  23. Morning all

    I'm beginning to think DT isn't going to make it to his inauguration. He keeps kicking over Hornets Nests!

  24. Good morning, a rather cold morning today but bright, ill have to put socks on my sweet smelling toes 🙂

  25. Is it meant to be a comedy? Gladiator II reviewed. 15 November 2024.

    It’s nearly 25 years since Ridley Scott’s Gladiator came out and you’ve probably been wondering what happened to the little boy in that film. I know I have. I can’t say it’s kept me up at night, but at the back of my mind it’s always been: where is Lucius, son of Maximus, nowus?(sic)

    Well, Lucius, son of Maximus, is nowus (sic) a strapping lad with thighs of steel who has been forced to become a gladiator and fight for his life just like his pop. This film borrows heavily from the first instalment. True, it does have some new elements. It has Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, monstrous man-eating baboons, sharks, a camp little monkey in a frock and all the historical inaccuracies we’ve come to expect from Scott. What it doesn’t do is bring anything fresh or even vaguely interesting to the table. Compared to the original it is plainly, and disappointingly, not as goodus.(sic)

    It helps, if you are a Film Critic, to actually know what you are talking about, though depressingly, this isn’t as often as you might think. I remember reading, many years ago, the critique of a movie in which it was embarrassingly obvious that the author had not actually seen it. Since then I’ve constructed many idle explanations for this. He was sick, he had a previous date with a girlfriend; he didn’t actually want to go and watch it and sold the gratis tickets then phoned around to get an opinion and was told a collection of mischievous lies. Whatever. This experience has done some good in its way since I now read the critiques for the information and ignore their opinions.

    I don’t know what Ms. Ross’s explanation is. Lucius was not the son of Maximus. This is such a stinker that it puts the rest of her observations of historical and cultural inaccuracies in the shade. The Romans didn’t know about Sharks? So what? Do we go to the movies to be instructed in Classical History? Well I don’t. I go to be entertained. This said, and the prices of theatre going, I shall probably wait for the DVD and watch it at my leisure.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-it-meant-to-be-a-comedy-gladiator-ii-reviewed/

    1. The critics are paid for their opinions. I prefer looking at the audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

  26. 396972+ up ticks,

    This WILL herald, if left too around 48% of the peoples, the creation of the work from home terrorist and the peoples accepting that threats are enough to insure abeyance.

    Dt,

    Christmas fair cancelled by ‘over the top’ health and safety terror fears
    Rotary Club in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, abandons event after being asked to block off roads

  27. Good morning everyone, and comrades.
    Telegraph: 'Economy nears stagnation ..'
    Welcome to the USSR! the Unlimited* Socialism of Starmer & Reeves.
    * other uns are available.

  30. 396972+ up ticks,

    Friday 15 November: Streeting must demand accountability at all levels of NHS management

    This is really ALL codswallop, these political overseers are, in total as in the parliamentary hub westminster, working extremely
    hard in opposition to the decent peoples of England

    This streeting chap will do as the master TOOL capo dei capi
    instructs, via theWEF/NWO, RESET agenda.

    🎵

    Perhaps the peoples will listen now, Vincent ?

  31. SIR – A social media post expressing racial hatred is not “free speech”. Whipping up such hatred led to the awful riots we saw in Southport, with people trying to burn hotels housing refugees. Inciting violence is against the law and, as we have seen recently, can lead to jail.

    Do we really want to live in a country where, in the name of “free speech”, social media posts are unregulated, with sites descending into cesspits of vituperative abuse?

    Michael Miller
    Sheffield, South Yorkshire

    Yes. I do. Those sites that descend to such a low level will eventually only have posters of a similar mindset. Easy to round them up and send them all to the gulags.

    Watch out Nottlers !

    1. Nobody was trying to burn a hotel housing refugees – a woman expressed an opinion that she wouldn't care if they did. Not the same thing at all.

      1. I believe there was an attempt to set fire to a migrant holiday hotel but the two may not be related.

      2. "wouldn't care" if they did.

        In China Xi Jinping goes further.. failure to cheer & whoop his addresses & speeches spells trouble. And those first to sit down during a standing ovation are fired. There's even an App, released in the week of the Communist Party Congress, that lets users clap for Mr Xi by tapping their phone screen as many times as possible in 19 seconds.

        Starmer stares into distance.. App.. ovations.. 39 seconds..

      3. "wouldn't care" if they did.

        In China Xi Jinping goes further.. failure to cheer & whoop his addresses & speeches spells trouble. And those first to sit down during a standing ovation are fired. There's even an App, released in the week of the Communist Party Congress, that lets users clap for Mr Xi by tapping their phone screen as many times as possible in 19 seconds.

        Starmer stares into distance.. App.. ovations.. 39 seconds..

      4. "wouldn't care" if they did.

        In China Xi Jinping goes further.. failure to cheer & whoop his addresses & speeches spells trouble. And those first to sit down during a standing ovation are fired. There's even an App, released in the week of the Communist Party Congress, that lets users clap for Mr Xi by tapping their phone screen as many times as possible in 19 seconds.

        Starmer stares into distance.. App.. ovations.. 39 seconds..

      5. Very mild, considering the febrile state of the country in the days following that terrible occurrence.

      1. Two secondary school girls are also being looked into after they said another student smelled 'like fish'..

        That'll be Violet Gibbons who works at the chippie.

          2. When I left the Army in1997, mong was used to describe someone whose performance was below par. There was no connection with Down's syndrome.

          3. On holiday in the USA with married friends, the chap turned up one day wearing sandals and socks beneath his shorts.

            His wife sneered at him and said, “I’m not going anywhere with you dressed like a mong!”

          4. That is a specific word that refers to one specific condition though..but “retard” just means anyone stupid – it’s hardly a medical term. But there are kids nowadays who have been conditioned by their parents to regard “silly” and “stupid” as unmentionable words (“the s-word”) which I find offensively foolish.

          5. ‘Spaz’ was used as a general insult. Anything cheap or naff (before ‘naff’ was coined) was ‘spazzy’.

          6. 'Reject' was a well used pejorative term used in schools in the 70s and 80s.

            Now that there a so few factories left in the UK producing any goods at all – let alone substandard goods – the term has fallen into disuse.

      3. He's nine.
        If it's old enough to be married for Islamic girls, I'm sure it's old enough to be investigated by the police, just in case he's a Venables in the making.
        /sarc

    3. Inciting? Committing violence is against the law but those responsible are not being punished. Only those who complain. What constitutes “hate speech” is entirely subjective and your opinion Mr Miller is not worth more than mine.

  32. Good morning, all. Dull, dry and calm.

    Perfect weather for Channel hopping. While we're on the subject…

    …look a squirrel or is it possibly a tiny crumb of 'evidence' to make us believe that something is being done. He really does despise us and thinks that we're dumb enough to fall for his bullshit.

    One man, Starmer? One solitary man? There are gangs out there and we would not only like you to stop these gangs but also to expose who is paying the bills. Until you do those things stop the gaslighting. You're done politically but it appears we're stuck with you and your gang for the time being.

    https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1857076102532931708
    He's getting beaten up on X and here's one of the replies.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8de8a49d6845e2b5007c74445630d549d85410c3889e8d56933dce350cfe961a.png

  33. G'day all,

    Grey overhead at McPhee Towers, wind light and variable, 2℃ rising to 9 or 10℃. It's supposed to be a sunny day.

    Just had a nice couple of days away. Took SWMBO and self off to Bath, to a very nice hotel, supper at the Ivy and to the Theatre Royal to see a play with Felicity Kendall and Matthew Kelly in the starring roles followed by a gallery visit and shopping. Dropped into Sally Lunn's where groups of Japanese tourists were photographing their buns. I have to say, I do like the Japanese.

    We hadn't been to Bath for quite a few years and very little seemed to have changed – apart from the parking charges ↗️ and being unable just to walk into the Pump Room for tea, you have to pre-book – if you can find a slot.

    It's still striking how similar it is to Edinburgh New Town. One thing was noticeable though and it's this: Ignoring the obvious tourists, the 'Global Majority' count (which excludes the Japanese too) was very low. This is still very much an English city and much the better for it. Hardly a slammer to be seen.

    Get yourself there before it changes.

      1. Yes. Lots of car parks convenient for the city centre. Charges depend on your vehicle's emissions (checked by Reg. No. at ticket machine) but beware, you may not be able to pay by credit/debit card so you'll either have to have a heavy pocket of coin of the realm or pay by phone app. £11-17 for six hours, more for 24 hours ( can't remember how much). Google maps will show all and sat nav around the city is a good idea – it helped me avoid the jams when we were leaving. The best thing is to book into a hotel with free parking if you can find one that suits your pocket and walk in.

        1. I refuse to pay by anything except cash! Groan at the vehicle emission nonsense…
          Thank you for the tips

      2. Yes. Lots of car parks convenient for the city centre. Charges depend on your vehicle's emissions (checked by Reg. No. at ticket machine) but beware, you may not be able to pay by credit/debit card so you'll either have to have a heavy pocket of coin of the realm or pay by phone app. £11-17 for six hours, more for 24 hours ( can't remember how much). Google maps will show all and sat nav around the city is a good idea – it helped me avoid the jams when we were leaving. The best thing is to book into a hotel with free parking if you can find one that suits your pocket and walk in.

        1. Sketches are by my Art Master at City of Bath Technical School the late Peter Coard. They were published in books under the title Vanishing Bath.

          Peter Coard taught me to sketch and inevitably I developed a very similar style. We both used black Biro on 8” x 5” stiff white paper.

  34. Telegraph View
    It isn’t the police’s job to patrol opinions
    There are thousands of hate speech allegations made every year, many against those who are not in Allison Pearson’s position to fire back

    Telegraph View 13 November 2024 6:50pm GMT

    Rarely has the word Kafkaesque been used in a front-page headline in The Telegraph but it was fully justified in our account of the experience of columnist Allison Pearson. She found herself confronted by the police on her doorstep on Remembrance Sunday, of all days, to be accused of what she understood to be a non-crime hate incident (NCHI).

    The two officers declined to specify what it was she had written on a social media platform nor would they tell her who had made the complaint. Later, Essex police elevated the undefined potential offence to a crime under Section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986, which is incitement to racial hatred.

    The purported tweet that brought this about was posted a year ago, which raises the obvious question as to why this is being pursued now. But unless we know what it is, how is anyone to judge? Are the police to be arbiters of what is right or wrong to say? This is not so much out of a Kafka novel as George Orwell’s 1984, a thought crime.

    In a country that prides itself on freedom under the law it is unjust for the agencies of the state to hound people with allegations that do not even meet the threshold of criminal behaviour. The police are not capable of making such subjective judgements and nor should they be expected to. Yet there are thousands of NCHIs logged every year.

    It is not just the police who are at fault here. They feel under pressure because politicians are too craven to stand up to Left-wing lobbying groups and make clear that the regulations on so-called hate speech should not be used in this way, and were not intended to be.

    They were introduced after the Stephen Lawrence murder in 1993 to aid the police in reporting and recording racist incidents and crimes but are now deployed to shut down perfectly legitimate opinions on all sorts of matters, from religion to gender.

    Police forces have been encouraging people to report what are essentially views that others may not agree with or find offensive. This is an abuse of the law and it should have been repealed by the Conservatives because it certainly will not be by Labour.

    At a time when they need to get a grip on violent crime, and rarely solve burglaries or thefts, the country despairs of the skewed priorities of both the Government and the police. It has to stop.

    1. "They were introduced after the Stephen Lawrence murder…to aid the police…"
      Stop right there. You are already justifying these laws, pretending that they were brought in for good and honourable reasons, and are only now being "abused."

      The Telegraph is nothing more than a lying mouthpiece for THEY (The Hierarchy Exploiting You – a convenient term for the billionaires that own the media and politicians). It pretends that it is on our side.

      However, the truth is that these laws were brought in for EXACTLY the purpose for which they are now being used. To intimidate, and to shut down free speech. First they created a wave of public support and emotion – using their captive media! – then they exploited that wave to bring in draconian, anti-free speech laws using their captive politicians. Oldest trick in the book!

      We will never get any further forward if people carry on buying into the lie that everything is well meant; the right thing just can't be done because the people in power are too incompetent; if we vote them out, we can elect more competent ones who will get it right next time.
      These people are fkg PAID to be incompetent and look the other way – and that includes the Telegraph!

      2. A bit harsh. The DT is reporting what happened rather than expressing an opinion. However, it might have been better had it written '…in 1993 ostensibly to aid the police…'.

        1. They are regurgitating the party line, which beggars belief – they deserve to be judged harshly for it!

      3. A bit harsh. The DT is reporting what happened rather than expressing an opinion. However, it might have been better had it written '…in 1993 ostensibly to aid the police…'.

    2. I can't help wondering whether there are organised groups who trawl through social media, looking for anything that might be useful at a later date and storing such posts, in case they are later deleted. It's a travesty, because the poster, whoever they might be has not been given a police caution, upon arrest. (rather than the formal police caution instead of prosecution).

      "Anything you say will and can be used against you in a court of law.” It entered into use in the late 1990s, following the Miranda v. Arizona Supreme Court case, before which the right to remain silent was dubious. The UK Miranda Rights is referred to as the 'Police Caution'."

      https://hnksolicitors.com/news/right-to-remain-silent-uk-miranda-rights/#:~:text=Anything%20you%20say%20will%20and,as%20the%20'Police%20Caution'.

      I'm sure our learned Nottlers friends can expand.

      1. Yes, there is an army of antifa activists who do that. The internet wars between young right wing activists and young left wing activists are none the less vicious for being largely unseen. The difference is that the right are mostly fighting with memes and ridicule, and the left are fighting with lawfare and going to people's employers telling them that they must sack the "nazi" that they employ.

          3. Well this type of Antifa bullying is still the same. If you include the explosion of Jew Hate to the mix then sure.

  36. Morning all 🙂😊
    No sunshine here today.
    Car in for MOT later and front nearside puncture last night. Tyres only a month old.
    I've got to get going, back later.

    And our government's wonder why they are so hated ? They don't appear to have much commonsense do they ?

    1. If you are part of the victimhood industry you have to work hard to find victimhood wherever you can.
      It's a tough job but someone's gotta do it.

    4. “That picture tells me I’m not welcome”

      That tweet tells me you are a race-grifting narcissist!

  38. Good morning all

    Patches of blue, 2c.. and thank goodness I swopped the lighter 7.5 tog duvet over for the 13.5. Moh feels the cold badly, so he slept well with his new replacement CePAP breathing machine ( really silent , I couldn't hear a thing , no whirring , noise etc, and less loo visits during the night, and he feels happier now.

  39. A pub in Oxfordshire caught in the middle of a renaming saga may hold on to its original title after thousands of residents voted in favour of keeping it.

    Only days ago, Greene King had announced that The Midget in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, would be rebranded after a lecturer with dwarfism deemed the name offensive.

    Now a petition favouring the original name has received more than twice as many signatures as the original one calling for a change.

    The pub, which opened in 1974, was named after the MG Midget car that was once manufactured in the market town.

    It’s ‘disablist hate speech’
    Earlier this year, Dr Erin Pritchard, a senior lecturer in disability studies at Liverpool Hope University, started a petition demanding the pub be renamed as because she claimed the term midget is “disablist hate speech”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/15/pub-rename-midget-petition-abingdon-oxfordshire/

    1. As long as the sign doesn't depict a person with dwarfism, I really don't see what the issue is. "Midget" just means a small entity.

      3. MG Midget rather like the larger MGB are iconic cars , why do people get so arsey ?

        My sons loved a tiny delicious fruit sweet , called a Midget Gem , they used to ask for them by weight , and they were always dispensed , weighed and put into tiny white paper bags .

        1. I remember midget gems! Pretty sure we used to buy them by weight from the big jar behind the counter too.

      1. The Black Boy in Sudbury Market Square has been renamed something silly. Not sure whether it is a Greene King pub.

        I do hate this attack on our historical names and towns. I suppose Whiteladies Road and Blackboy Hill in Bristol will be next if not already renamed. The idiots there have already renamed the Colston Hall. It is truly pathetic.

    3. The same Greene King which changed the name of the Black Bitch in Linlithgow. The Black Bitch is a dog in the history of Linlithgow and townsfolk there refer to themselves as 'Black Bitches'. It's also close to where I spent my youth and I have ancestors who were 'Black Bitches'.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-59494786

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e1415cf464404918845b866094c038f99a0fa6dfd10fb8bfdff9c4c420c4e400.png
      https://www.visitwestlothian.co.uk/blog/2024/august/the-legendary-tale-of-the-black-bitch-of-linlithgow-scotlands-unlikely-heroine/

      Ignorant peasants in Bury St.Edmunds, aren't they?

      1. Thankfully the famous Cheshire hound was called Blue Cap. If it had been Black Cap all hell would have been let loose.

    4. The main object behind Orwell's Newspeak was to reduce the number of words in a language because a population's ability to think coherently and reason will shrink with the shrinkage of the vocabulary available to it. This will produce a more stupid population which is easier to control.

      Taking words like 'midget' out of use is a part of the plan to stupefy! I am sure Nottlers can come up with many words which are no longer 'acceptable.'

      The current case involving Allison Pearson shows how very sinister it is when a person can be hounded by the state for the ideas they have and the words they use.

  40. The park and rides are very good
    If you want to stay in a hotel I can thoroughly recommend Bailbrook House. Just a short bus ride into town and taxi fare back less than£10

  41. Progress hard to discern amid the fog of net zero war

    The minister standing in for Ed Miliband at energy questions is a pink-haired vegan as MPs show scant enthusiasm for Cop29

    Tim Stanley 12 November 2024 7:55pm GMT

    Who will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury? Gary Lineker? Too pure. Sue Gray? Too expensive. Or how about the Rev Keir Starmer – a flying bishop, zipping around the world promoting the Good News of net zero.

    His latest pilgrimage is to the beautiful city of Baku, Azerbaijan: a gas-guzzling, hereditary dictatorship where the president opened proceedings by describing fossil fuels as “a gift from God”.

    Amen!

  42. 396972+ up ticks,

    I personally don'e believe a word of it , but it wasn't for the want of trying via the 48%.

    BUT If this be the case FAR BETTER TO GO IT ALONE
    Than to die as a nation in the clutching grasping arms of the treacherous eu.

    Dt,
    Britain on way to long-term decline without EU, warns Bank
    Andrew Bailey urges Chancellor to forge stronger post-Brexit relations after Trump victory

      2. Sorry old chap I do not know, however according to the DT this morning the Met, Sussex and Essex police farces has first hand knowledge in such matters as Allison Pearson has just discovered.
        I’m not so sure they know much about burglary, car, assault crimes etc judging by their clear up rates.

  43. Today Free Speech has a highly entertaining piece by Paul Sutton, ' The Poetry of Gin and Tea .' The title is a reference to the two drinks Paul sees as being central to Orwell and his approach to Englishness, freedom and what we've lost. Please read and comment.

    And so far, the polling in the ' Off With His Head ' article is that ten percent think Charles is doing a good job, 20% think he isn't and want the monarchy abolished, while 70% agree that he isn't doing a good job, but still support the monarchy. It's not too late to vote.

    Energy watch 07.00 15 Nov: Total demand= 36.37 GW. Supply: 50.8% fossil fuel; 20.3% renewables; 13.2% nuclear; 8.3% biomass and 3.17 imports.
    See bottom of page for a graph of energy supply sources for the last 24 hours.

    If the insane plan to reduce Britain's fossil fuel consumption by 80% was implemented today we would only be able to generate 52% of our own supply. That means we would either have to import about 37GW, which is probably impossible. If so, half the lights in the country would go out.

    And as UK only produces an negligible 0.82% of global CO2 emissions, reducing UK's output by 80% would have a statistically negligible of the global output.

    https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/

    1. Your statistics here represent my view: I am in favour of the monarchy but I think the Idiot King is not very bright and interferes where he should not interfere and does not do so when he should!

      He should be far more concerned by the swamping of his country by aliens who detest us, our values, religion, laws, history and way of life and less obsessed with global warming, Net Zero which is already impoverishing Britain more than any other country in the developed world. His support for the WEF is, frankly, very alarming.

    2. ‘Morning Tom. I think Energy Watch is a bit of a misleading title. It is of course Electricity Watch, which is less than a quarter of the country’s total energy use.

      Interesting stats on Charles!

  44. Economy nears stagnation in blow for Starmer
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/15/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-uk-gdp-economy-starmer-growth/

    BTL

    The Chancellor is deranged.

    Pouring money into the wage bill for an economically unproductive public sector while overtaxing private enterprise is the best way to strangle growth. This is so obvious that I can only conclude that Reeves is mad or that she is deliberately setting about wrecking the economy to hasten the arrival of communism.

    1. I hate back of cigarette packet scribbled together politics .

      I think the whole of the Labour party are deranged .

      You know blooming well they are taking and not giving , the free suits, dresses/ spectacles and other freebies and foreign flights are the values that Labour has adopted for decades .

      Pleas take a moment to look at this link .. and weep over the amount of land and farms all over the country that are being sold ..
      The media hasn't investigated this .. but those of us who need to eat and nourish ourselves should feel very very worried .

      https://www.farminguk.com/farms-and-land-for-sale

        1. It's been high for a long time. Small country, high population density – supply and demand.

      2. "I thinkknow the whole of the Labour party — especially the twats who voted for them — are deranged."

    2. They are probably going to use statistics like number of jobs created to try and pretend the economy's going well – when the 'jobs' are fake ones in the public sector. That has been a huge theme in the US during the Biden years, I have read.

    4. The Chancellor's policies might tend towards State Capitalism, which was the reality in most 'communist' states.

  45. Another straw in the wind.

    China Borrows on a US Par
    China has issued $ 2 billion in sovereign bonds at yields equivalent to US treasuries. The three- and five-year debt was issued in Saudi Arabia and was twenty times over-subscribed. US treasuries have also been considered the benchmark for risk-free securities. Is the market starting to challenge this assumption?

    1. Why is China borrowing dollars? Don't they already have trillions of them in their forex reserves? And are the Saudis unaware that Uncle Sam can create dollars ex nihilo? China can't

        1. US debt increases $2 million per minute. Yesterday when I looked it stood at 35 + trillion . I wouldn’t be surprised if it has increased to over 36 trillion by today …

          1. Years ago there was a debt clock in Times Square(?) which flicked over very quickly.
            I believe they've had to get a bigger version.

  46. Correct, but I get the infor from a site with what they call an ‘energy dashboard’ and the two terms are, wrongly as you say, pretty much entwined in the public mind. The concept of ‘energy’ is surprisingly little understood.

  47. That’s the general consensus Rastus, and most, including myself, would disagree. Nip over to the article and vote if you want, maybe repost your comment there?

    2. And yet make a hurty remark online and off to prison! There seem to have been several instances recently of paedophiles involved in online distribution of disgusting material being spared prison!

    2. Big companies who plant trees on the land and use it "to offset their carbon"
      Just a scam to starve the people.

      1. Which it will be. Eventually after jumping through a few hoops to make it look as if there was (token) resistance. Ed. "token" because the result will be a foregone conclusion.

  51. 395972+ upticks,

    Danny Cohen

    ‘Jew hunts’ are returning to the streets of Europe
    History is repeating itself – anti-Semitic violence is back once more in Dutch, Belgian and German cities

    And less we forget, England is in there with the worst of them I believe we lead the field in "NOTHING TO BE PROUD OF AS A NATION.

    1. I wonder who has actually taken over the long vacated position of chancellor/dictator of Europe.

  52. Just pick up any newspaper and read about the deplorable antics of present-day humans — whether the political class or just the rest of us — and you can be left in no doubt, whatsoever, that the species has run its course and is no longer fit for purpose.

    1. I'd agree a majority seem to have Grizzly, they get too much publicity – but there are a good number of us who aren't deplorable, and I know all ages of those. Plus us lot here. Take ❤️

        1. Especially when we’re on the naughty step, Grizz…😘 what birds have you spotted today (the winged and feathered ones)

          1. None today, Katy, I’ve been attending the funeral of a good friend. My report on that is above.😢

  53. Sack the judge.

    The trainee teacher should never be allowed near any child.
    I hope the police tried to track down every member of his groups, although I doubt they did much.

    1. My thought, too, sos. Who was the judge, anyone know? And what's the procedure for sacking/debarring a judge?

    1. What these vegan cretins cannot possibly comprehend is the fact that munching on weeds is what has atrophied their tiny brains. This has warped their feeble thought processes so much that they feel obliged to put the blame for everything squarely on the shoulders of those sensible people who wish to carry on enjoying the eating of delicious and nutritious meat.

  55. Dropped car off and very slowly walk back home up hill.
    Although it's a bit chilly I was sweating, nice mug of decaff. And rest …… as the garage spend more of our savings. 🤗

    5. The Grauniad, Independent and BBC, amongst others, are all anti Hegseth, which seems to suggest he isn't all bad!

    6. That needs verifying. However the fact the is a Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion should be deeply concerning for anyone who has spent a little time with a James Lindsay podcast or two.

    1. We thank God for our doctor, Françoise, who recommended us not to take the vaccine gene therapy.

      1. Boy do I hear you, Rastus. Your GP sounds a keeper. I argued and better argued with my family, who made it clear no uncertain terms I needed to be jabbed. They all regret it now, just not as much as I do. My husband phoned the GP to talk about my reaction..his response? 'oh yes, we have a number of those reports, many from men concerned about their female partners. So that's alright then, except it isn't. Further, husband went to collect his regular meds, surgery closed, huge snake like queue in the car park, meds being handed over by someone clothed head to feet in plastic. Compare to Spanish Inquisition medics. And all for a rhinovirus. **** scared because it came out of a lab, which they knew but denied.

        1. Certainly needs something. Was it Bob Dylan…’they went to get the hangin’ judge but the hangin’ judge was drunk'(Idiot Wind’, I think about his divorce).

  64. Pensions reform is Rachel Reeves’ latest swindle

    The idea that the Government’s political agenda should determine investment choice is a very problematic one indeed

    Neil Record

    15 November 2024 10:08am GMT

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/11/15/TELEMMGLPICT000401841142_17316648851200_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf-0Jyi0jPPD6Zx1hiwTPhlc.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Reeves delivering her quietly radical plan for pensions at her Mansion House speech

    In Rachel Reeves’s Mansion House speech, she has unveiled her plans to consolidate the 86 funds of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) into a small number of “mega-funds”.

    There has already been some consolidation under previous administrations, but this plan is more radical. The Chancellor is planning to create these large funds which she claims will not only deliver better returns, but also allow a large pot of the money – she estimates £80bn – to be invested in green and tech infrastructure. This would represent 22 per cent of the latest value of £361bn of assets currently in LGPS.

    However the LGPS is not actually a fragmented scheme; it is already one scheme, with all the benefits to workers and pensioners guaranteed by central government. This is unlike private funded schemes, whose benefits to pensioners are not guaranteed by the government, and which are genuinely fragmented.

    LGPS has so many separate funds managed by local authorities as a matter of history and localism. In the past, Councils have felt proprietorial towards “their” pension funds, and have resisted giving them up to larger groupings.

    But although these funds are locally managed by the Councils that set them up and funded them through their employees’ and employers’ contributions, they do not actually form the basis of the pensions promise. The funds themselves simply provide an offset to the Government’s guarantee.

    However, having (partially) funded schemes – even ones guaranteed by Government – is better than fully unfunded schemes, where the cost is borne by people two generations younger than the beneficiaries. LGPS represents a relatively small part of the overall Governmental pensions promise; which is dominated by the completely unfunded central Government employees’ pension schemes.

    The Government’s claims that very large size in pension funds (£25bn-£50bn) improves returns is not borne out by the international evidence, except to the extent that some reduction in professional investment fees can be achieved in very large funds. It is true that infrastructure projects are often very large scale, but many are already securitised, or formed into funds, allowing smaller but still institutional investment size to participate.

    The tone of the Mansion House speech implies that the Government will be directing or “encouraging” investment into its pet projects, like green and tech infrastructure.

    These are very high risk, long-term and illiquid investments. Many pension funds are reluctant to risk their money on these sorts of investments given that there is already a huge universe of attractive domestic and international investments (like listed equities) currently available to them.

    However, most problematic is the idea that the Government’s political agenda should determine investment choice. The remit given to the professional investment managers that currently manage LGPS funds is that they (a) stick to their area of expertise and investment guidelines, and (b) that they maximise the return/risk ratio for their chosen asset class.

    The Chancellor may believe that £80bn can be productively invested in green and tech projects; but it seems likely that her incentive is primarily to promote her political agenda. By contrast, the investment professionals may or may not choose to invest in infrastructure.

    Sophisticated investment techniques for pension funds such as asset/liability modelling have already been developed to include all relevant asset classes – including infrastructure – in judging what asset-class weights are needed for an efficient and well-diversified portfolio.

    Adding in Mrs Reeves’ views are unlikely to improve their performance.

    The Chancellor’s belief that her ‘directing’ funds into UK infrastructure investment will promote economic growth is also misplaced. Whole-economy growth requires sustained improvement in the labour productivity of the working population, as well as maintaining constant or rising levels of workforce participation.

    According to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), the construction sector has below-UK-average levels of labour productivity, so the work itself will not make us richer. Indeed, if construction itself forms a more substantial part of the economy, it may make us poorer.

    Whether or not the increased physical capital that results from construction makes us richer depends on the extent to which it improves economic performance in the area to which it is applied.

    Obvious examples of productivity-improving physical capital investment include modern automated and robot production facilities, making the same or more products with a smaller or much smaller workforce.

    By contrast “green” infrastructure (wind farms; solar; nuclear) is heavily subsidised in the UK, otherwise less would be built. Measured against international market energy prices, the energy they produce, carry or store is very expensive, increasing the cost of energy for the general population, making them worse off. This is the opposite of economic growth.

    So not only is the Chancellor creating new and potentially dangerous conflict of interest in the pensions market, she may also be shooting herself in the foot from a growth perspective.

    ****************************
    David Roache
    7 min ago
    This is yet another example, though even more sinister, of "Government knows best". Why on earth does Reeves pretend to be a better investment manager than the professionals who are currently managing the schemes. Also, and probably even more pertinent, the Government (of whatever colour) has a thoroughly awful record for large infrastructure projects. Getting a decent return from, say, HS2 would be challenging to say the least.
    This move by Reeves is a cynical ploy to gain control of billions of investment funds to pour into her pet, dogma-driven schemes.

    Denise Crow
    8 min ago
    Going by her baptism of fire which has been a disaster over the last four months she needs to be banned from getting her grubby little hands on any pension funds. Labour have a track record of decimating them. She is a danger to the Uk economy.

    Anthony Collins
    10 min ago
    Top growth in G7 to second from bottom in no time. How to talk down and kill a recovery in three months flat. Not a clue how to run anything, OMG our country is in serious trouble.

    1. Commenting yesterday, before the speech, Sky Business News congratulated the Chancellor, stating

      that we need more investment in long term and low return infrastructure projects.

      *They're obviously going to be low return, otherwise pension funds would have already invested in them !!

        1. Not just bye bye money, what if the funds won't be able to pay the pensions in the future because of poor returns?As they are guaranteed by the government – i.e. us – that means we will be even more on the hook for providing local government pensions than we already are (where does she think the "employer" contributions come from now?) The woman is economically and financially illiterate.

          Edit – although a similar programme was devised by the Tories a while ago…they are all morons.

          5. "The woman is economically and financially illiterate" – as befits someone who worked for the Bank of England, whose record is hardly inspiring!

          6. She didn't have a degree in Economics, but only a PPE degree.

            Amongst the experts, this is considered only one step above basket weaving.

          11. She worked in the mailroom. Probably wasn't any good at cleaning toilets. I'll always remember the filing clerk in the BBC document registry who was found filing everything under B, because the first line on every document began with…well, you can guess. I wonder if Reeves was any better in the mailroom?

    3. SSame As we are seeing in Canada, they are directing pension funds to invest in their pet greenie schemes. If the funds lose money, who cares.

    4. In four-and-a-half years' time, this beyond useless bunch of scum will be voted out of power, hopefully forever.

      They know that and are more than happy to complete their task of destroying the country while they are still in power, all the while lining their personal coffers for their own retirement, which will be living the life of Riley wherever that takes them.

  65. And another one is oft..
    Andrew Gold applies for Argentinian passport after authorities allowed Islamo-Nazis in Holland & Sweden to go on a week long Jew-hunt.

    Islamists Prepare Riots in Paris before & After tonight's football match between France & Israel.

  66. Judith Woods
    Our colonial guilt is now so absurd we are branding dogs racist
    Banning dogs in the countryside because ‘one black African female’ felt unsafe is barking mad

    Here boy! Good girl. Sit. Si-i-i-t! Right, that’s your lead on. Walkies? Who’s up for racist colonial walkies!

    According to the Welsh wokerati, that joyful waggy yomp across the Brecon Beacons or Snowdonia, sorry Eryri as we must learn to call it, is an act of oppression.

    Why? Nobody knows. But a report submitted to the Welsh Government to steer “anti-racist” policy has recommended the creation of dog-free zones to make the outdoors more inclusive.

    And before you ask, owning a Saluki (originally bred down Mesopotamia way) or even a Basenji (Democratic Republic of the Congo) does not let you off the hook.

    I’d like to say I’m joking. But that would make me part of the problem, which would be singularly unfair as I have an Irish passport and technically my forebears never colonised anywhere, although I will concede a few of us are responsible for some well-dodgy tarmacking.

    But I am white. Ewww! Middle-aged. Stop! And a woman. Yuck!

    And, again according to the new bonkers report by the environmental group Climate Cymru BAME, “People Like Me” are guilty. Guilty of dominating – no, not the Chagos Islands, we haven’t got the time and besides we promised to babysit the grandchildren later – the nation’s allotments, and making black, Asian and minority ethnic people feel excluded from “food growing groups”.

    See the winter veg you planted in the raised beds at the back of your garden? Those aren’t just parsnips, those are ethnic exclusionary parsnips.

    Swiss chard? More like a structural, experiential and cultural barrier to the outdoors preventing those from other racial or religious identities accessing the countryside.

    It’s funny how nobody seems to get antsy about the white, midlife men who are waging war on one another with cataclysmic consequences, failing to address climate change and generally scrapping for wealth, power and territory at the cost of an obscene number of lives.

    Much better to castigate perimenopausal women for having the temerity to cultivate raspberry canes and chat over the fence about the merits of fir apple potatoes. Easy targets.

    But at least they can’t hit us where it really hurts – but oh yes they can. Right slap in the miniature schnauzer.

    According to the report, all breeds, from Airedales to Yorkshire terriers should be banned from designated spaces across the countryside in order to make the outdoors more inclusive.

    The recommendation is echoed by the North Wales Africa Society which is pushing for “dog-free areas”, explaining that during its focus groups “one black African female stated she feels unsafe with the presence of dogs”. Come again? At the risk of inciting the rozzers to come round my gaff and do an Allison Pearson (note to self: must update dressing gown in case police appear at the front door over claims of allegedly inciting racial hatred) I’m slackjawed with disbelief.

    For a start, the phrase “black African female” has a troublingly bureaucratic-verging-on-colonial ring to it. What’s wrong with calling her a woman? And who decided she should be representative of the entire black population?

    If an ethnically South Korean female (doesn’t sound much better) had said “she likes to eat dog” would that be enough to rebrand corgis as ambient snacks? And what about a Nepalese Chhetri female who might have pointed out “on Kukur Tihar we worship dogs”. Tell that to the Archbishop of Wales.

    While I’m on the subject (I’m old enough to prioritise due diligence over the crackpot insistence on diversity, equality and inclusion) the continent of Africa comprises 54 countries. In Botswana, the demand for dogs is so high that householders are limited by law to just two animals. In Kenya, Business Daily recently debated whether companies should offer dog owners compassionate leave when their pet falls sick. And in Namibia, the introduction of livestock dogs is safeguarding the endangered cheetah population; big cats are warded off by noisy big dogs and are no longer shot by farmers.

    That’s why I struggle to extrapolate one woman’s perception into grounds for a punitive anti-dog policy. I’m not blinkered by puppy love. I agree that dogs should be kept out of certain areas in parks and public gardens. But to somehow equate a grand day out with a pair of springer spaniels with covert racism, or even unconscious bias is (TRIGGER WARNING) stupid.

    In some respects, it’s a reflection of our frankly bipolar attitude to man’s best friend who is simultaneously man’s worst enemy. A friend of mine is desperate to get a King Charles Cavalier puppy at the cost of £1,800.

    I keep telling her she should adopt a pre-loved (sorry I’m not sure of the socially acceptable lingo) pet. But the heart wants what the heart wants – plus to be fair, the only dogs randomly breeding in her area seem to be Staffies and Mastiffs with heads like Grant Mitchell.

    The truth is we vilify some dogs and lionise others. There are some longstanding dog owners who still (secretly) turn their noses up at lockdown cockapoos. Well not the cockapoos themselves who are very sweet, but at the newbies who bought them.

    What can I say, we are a tribal bunch. But when anyone threatens to curtail liberty we stand together. There are members of my local dogwalkers’ group who seem to spend most of their working hours picking up random dog poos in the local cemetery in order to prove what a responsible lot we are and head off any threats of a ban.

    Oh and if you’re not au fait with the etiquette, there is something uniquely revolting about scooping up excrement from an animal that isn’t yours. Don’t ask me why, it’s just a fact.

    It’s the irresponsible owners who let the rest of us down and a nasty encounter with an out-of-control dog can be really unpleasant. The answer, I would suggest, is to reintroduce dog licences so humans can be forced to take responsibility, not ban dogs wholesale.

    Otherwise I fear a war of attrition looms: I for one have no intention of ever sacrificing Walkies for Wokies.

    😂🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻😂🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶 Her article is hilarious .. but something to worry about .

    susan nixon
    5 min ago
    This is all about the fact that dogs are considered haram in Islam. In Europe there are rising cases of Muslim taxi drivers refusing to take guide dogs and there are sometimes culls of dogs in Islamic countries. This is a dog loving country and immigrants should be made aware of this when they signal there intention to move here. They integrate with us not the other way around.

    Comment by Sandra Harrild.

    SH

    Sandra Harrild
    8 min ago
    I have no colonial guilt and I am an ex Pat brat and proud of it.

    Why should I or anyone else be forced to take on the twisted guilt and hatred that the intelligentsia have for their country.

    Comment by Chris Buckman.

    CB

    Chris Buckman
    9 min ago
    Excellent piece, great humour! Thank you, Judith.

    1. There are dog free zones in every town and city in the UK. dozens of them in some areas, they are called mosques. I suggest that those who are afraid of dogs find the nearest and set up residence there.

    2. You don't understand. The kaffir have an atavistic memory of white slave catchers hunting them down with snarling pit bulls and then dragged them off in chains, only to slave in the fields under the baleful gaze of white masters overseeing them with wicked Chihuahuas.

    4. What's she going to do when she meets a cow with horns?
      oh yes, silly me – that'll have to be banned too.

    5. Wonder if the black African female found the Welsh language inclusive? Surely they should ban that too.

    6. The response to a tiny recommendation made in a report to the Welsh government is, quite literally, barking mad. There is nothing in that report to say that dogs, the ownership of them and the practice of walking, exercising and playing with them in green spaces is in any way racist. Nor does it recommend the wholesale banning of dogs from huge swathes of the Welsh countryside.

      Yes, one black African woman expressed concerns about dogs in a green space local to her, but it's the sort of worry that any person of any age, race, creed, colour, sex, religion, sexuality or any other conceivable subdivision of humanity might have anxieties about and serve as a deterrent, from the mild to the crushing, about encountering anything canine in local parks, gardens or playing fields. There is no racist element to it.

      i can, however, see the purpose of magnifying this tiny sentence in a report to something of huge magnitude. It helps to make a mockery of reports such as this and the amount of public money wasted on them, as well to both enrage and amuse a readership which laps up this kind of nonsense. But, to pretend that this portends a body blow to a much treasured way of life, of culture, indeed the very essence Welshness, all at the behest of and obeisance to some uppity Johnny Foreigner, is quite ridiculous.

      I'll whisper it quietly to Judith Woods but there are already public spaces in both Wales and the wider UK where… wait for it… dogs are prohibited.

  67. Another difficult one:
    Wordle 1,245 4/6

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

    1. Again ditto, Ped
      Wordle 1,245 4/6

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

    2. At least I managed this one, I ran out of options yesterday
      Wordle 1,245 4/6

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

    1. It's a people problem Phiz – not a dog problem. During Johnson's Lockdowns, I watched from my window the numbers of people walking their dogs (people and dogs I'd never seen before, presumably a 'reason' to leave the house). When we were released from confinement, peopl returned to work, I sometimes wonder what happened to the dogs.

      1. Good Morning KJ! Apparently a lot of them were turned into pet shelters by their non committed selfish owners who could no longer be bothered with them.

        1. 'Morning johnathan 🙂 I can well believe it. I love dogs, my first when I was four years old – my father fetched home a puppy, mother not pleased. Since then had several more, mostly rescues, current ones only other ones from pup stage – two crazy terriers..

          1. Would love to have a dog again but my health forbids it. Wouldn't be able to take out for walkies. At present I have a cat that came in one stormy night, soaked to the bone and then refused to leave. But he is a good boy if not that good at barking.

          2. Not alone in that, johnathan, vaccine in my case. Dogs are 15 and 13, and not as bothered for long walks, luckily (it means I have to trim their nails tho’). Vet bills will put me off owning any more pets. Cat sounds a delight.🙂🐱..what his/her name?

          5. Thank you. He’s been very quite today, haven’t seen him at all. That’s rather ominous, it usually means he’s heading for an epileptic seizure – feline epilepsy is a thing, and it frightens the hell out of me when it happens because he is quite unaware, runs and thumps against walls, gets caught in computer cables etc. and then lies there seizing for a quarter of an hour or so. it’s very distressing because you can’t do anything other than get out of the way unless you want to be scratched to shreds.

          7. I live in the countryside far from civilization, thank God. Every time I have to go into town all I want to do is go back home. England has become a pit. When I go to hospital it is barely English but full of women wandering around with headscarf’s. To be frank, it makes me angry.

          8. I fully understand your point of view. Do you have a decent sized garden that could be made secure? You could let your dog have the run of the garden to save having to take him or her for a walk. Dogs are SO beneficial to humans it seems a shame not to be able to have one somehow or other.

    3. Small dogs are well known for being aggressive and snappy, Phiz…apparently so are people, my height is just over 5 feet…..

        1. 🤣🤣🤣 chihuahuas are lovely dogs, I had one – a long haired, bit of a tangle so close to ground. Are yours great partners in crime?

          2. They’ve got your number 🤣 under this👎lovely name Dolly. My Patterdale is Harry, named after old chap I bought him from. Have cleaned up bin search a few times too!

          3. Dolly is named after Ann Mitchell's character Dolly Rawlins in the TV series 'Widows'.

            A group of women whose husbands were all gangsters and were banged up in jail.

            Dolly and her friends took over the 'business'.

          4. A few years later i got another Chi. Had to call him Harry of course. After Dolly Rawlin's husband.
            It was a good series. Written by Lynda la Plant.

  69. Morning all. But only just. There is an anemic looking sun today shining over West Sussex but there is no wind, breeze, or zephyr. What is a windmill to do?

    2. I suspect your last comment may be classified in today's world as a NCLC "Non Criminal Love Crime"

    3. I suspect your last comment may be classified in today's world as a NCLC "Non Criminal Love Crime"

    4. The parole people who made these decisions should be required to put their liberty where their love is, and if any of these creatures commits another terrorist offence, those releasing them should be forced to share a cell with them.
      Or, if they kill a lot of people and themselves in a suicide attack, they should be forced to share a grave with them.

      1. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Love thine enemy was interpreted differently in Medieval Europe. If someone was possessed by the Devil then burning them at the stake to cleanse their soul was an act of kindness. An idea that doesn't go down very well with the church today. Mind, variations on the theme are still considered acceptable.

      1. A black lesbian woman no less.
        He has probably said no to cutting off an arm to make him disabled (but thee again Roosevelt has done that already).

  73. – So Rachael Reeves has not only resurrected the magic money tree, she now has a magic economic growth tree too.
    Despite cutting it back hard, leaving it out in the frosts, not feeding it and letting dogs raise their legs to it, she magically expects it to keep growing faster and faster.
    Well it's not doing very well so far, almost stunted, but she has a secret cunning plan to cut off the tap root.
    All the economic experts at the bank of England think it will work.

    1. Short of plant feeding material? Where's all of that bullshit being generated in the HoC going, then?

  74. Perchance Andrew Bailey seeks promotion to Baron Bailey Bridge of REME?

    Bank’s Bailey Backs Reeves in Biased Attack on Brexit

    Reeves got the big guns out last night for her Mansion House speech, in which she claimed that “we must reset our relationship” to repair “structural challenges, including those which have come from Brexit.” Andrew Bailey came along to support that analysis. Even the FT said that’s a “highly unusual” move…

    The Bank of England Governor said the UK should “welcome opportunities to rebuild relations” with the bloc because “the changing trading relationship with the EU has weighed on the level of potential supply.” In a thinly veiled attack on Trump, Bailey said the “picture is now clouded by the impact of geopolitical shocks and the broader fragmentation of the world economy.” Which means we should take shelter with a stagnant continental economy…

    Reeves has already shaved off the UK’s comparatively lower costs of doing business while the Home Office sets up a dedicated “Europe Hub” to get closer to the continent. On the US the Chancellor said “there is so much potential for us to deepen our economic relationship.” The US might be more minded to open up to Britain if it wasn’t in the process of running back to a rival bloc…

    15 November 2024 @ 10:46

    1. Bailey is a fat useless lump in my opinion and he was useless at the FCA and is equally useless at the BoE.

  77. Allister Heath
    Starmer’s Britain is no longer a free country – it’s an Orwellian dystopia

    The Allison Pearson witch-hunt lays bare this country’s despicable slide into authoritarianism

    Allister Heath 13 November 2024 7:30pm GMT

    We must urgently speak out, or risk having to forever hold our peace. Free speech, the foundation of our liberties and democracy, is under threat like never before – yet much of the public remains blissfully unaware of the enormity of what is being taken from us.

    The shocking treatment meted out to my colleague Allison Pearson, a brilliant columnist much beloved of Telegraph readers, must serve as the final wake-up call. She recounts how two police officers came knocking at her door at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday to inform her that she was being investigated over a post on X, formerly Twitter, published a year ago.

    Still in her dressing gown, she was stunned. The officers refused to tell Pearson which of her many posts their visit related to. They wouldn’t remind her what she had written. They weren’t allowed to tell her who complained; so much for open justice. The officers weren’t to blame: they were following Kafkaesque procedures dictated by an out-of-control technocratic machine.

    Pearson notes that the period during which her supposedly offending post was published appears to coincide with the aftermath of the Hamas pogroms, a time during which she made a heroic stand against anti-Semitism.

    Given the intensifying culture wars, and the collapsing trust in our institutions, the fact that one of Britain’s leading conservative commentators is being investigated in this way will unnerve many voters. Two-tier justice is real, in one fundamental way at least: Pearson is in trouble for an ancient tweet while the police rarely bother to track down stolen cars or mobile phones, even when presented with real-time geolocations or webcam evidence.

    The BBC’s Huw Edwards walked free. Violence and disorder is rife and shoplifting has effectively been decriminalised, leading to the routine pillaging of supermarkets. Yet the state seems more interested in intimidating those accused of wrongthink. Even when real criminals are jailed, they are usually released early.

    At best, it smacks of grossly misplaced priorities, of gigantic displacement activity, of laziness; at worst, it indicates a sinister power grab by an authoritarian elite that dismisses property theft as mere freelance redistribution and to whom free speech is synonymous with micro-aggression and oppression. What is certain is that this madness infuriates the right-thinking, silent majority like little else.

    The basic rule ought to be that the authorities should not come for journalists in free societies. When they do, what hope is there for ordinary citizens? This isn’t just about those of us paid to opine: it is about the right of everybody in Britain to speak our minds without fear of arrest or cancellation. Free speech isn’t just about laws; it requires a culture of tolerance, the idea that we can agree to disagree while remaining civil.

    Donald Trump’s election, combined with Elon Musk’s purchase of X, is ushering in a new era in America. The woke establishment is about to be annihilated, and much of the censorship of the past few years – surrounding Covid, the Hunter Biden scandal, the routine banning of counter-elites and even the president-elect himself from social media – is being overturned.

    Yet the UK is going backwards. The rule should be, as Voltaire didn’t quite say: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Even in the USA, land of the First Amendment, there are numerous constraints to free speech, and rightly so.

    In Britain, we have contempt laws. It is rightly illegal to express support for a banned terror organisation. But by and large, speech should be as free as possible, and even disgusting falsehoods should be allowed. Nobody should have a right not to be offended. The current online rules are not fit for purpose. Offline, business-owners should not be told to police the speech of their customers; there should be no “banter police” in pubs or shops.

    The Left-wing human rights project so beloved of Tony Blair and Keir Starmer has failed to prevent outrages such as the probe into Pearson, and our membership of the The European Convention on Human Rights has gone hand in hand with the collapse of our ancient liberties. We live in a country where thousands are now routinely deemed guilty in the most opaque of manners of “non-crime hate incidents” (NCHIs), an extraordinary, controversial concept originally formalised by the Blob, not by MPs through legislation.

    The police are told not to scrutinise claims; feelings, it seems, have greater authority than facts. Having a NCHI recorded against one’s name can show up on enhanced criminal records checks, making it harder to get a job, and yet not everybody who has been blacklisted in this way is even aware of it. How can this Orwellian dystopia be compatible with “human rights”? One should either be convicted of a crime, or be entirely innocent. NCHIs should be abolished.

    The old legal order is being undermined in other ways. Pearson was corrected by the police when she asked who her accuser was – he or she is the “victim”, they said. Yet such terminology implicitly breaches the presumption of innocence. We need to wait until a fair and proper process has determined whether or not the accused is guilty under the law before being able to determine whether there is a victim, and who that person might be.

    It is true that actual victims of certain heinous crimes have seen their complaints wrongly dismissed, or treated with a lack of seriousness, by some authorities. Such failings are unacceptable. However, this doesn’t justify veering to the other extreme and to assume that all claims, all accusations, are always true.

    “Justice deferred is justice denied” is another fundamental principle – yet Pearson is being pursued for a year-old tweet under public order legislation relating to material allegedly “likely or intended to cause racial hatred”. We appear to be in the grip instead of a culture of anonymous denunciation of a variety once only found in tyrannies.

    What has happened to our wonderful country? We used to be freedom-lovers, but we now apparently acquiesce meekly to the rise of authoritarianism and the normalisation of censorship. We need to speak out fearlessly, or else the Britain we knew and loved will soon cease to exist.

  78. This doesn't make for pleasant reading for those who might be upset by such things.

    Nine days on an open raft, in the North Atlantic in November and after what they had witnessed and been through just doesn't bear thinking about.
    Remember after (if they were lucky) a couple of weeks survivors leave they would be back at sea.

    M.V. Havbør.

    Complement:
    64 (60 dead and 4 survivors).
    11,500 tons of crude oil.

    At 18.16 hours on 15th November 1940 the Havbør (Master Halvor Skarrebo) was hit on the port side aft by one torpedo from U-65, while picking up 31 men from rafts from the Kohinur, which had been torpedoed three hours earlier by the same U-boat. The men on the raft had warned the Havbør that the U-boat was nearby, but boats were lowered anyway. The ship immediately caught fire after being hit and some of the rafts and lifeboats were trapped by burning oil. The Germans initially planned to question the survivors but after observing the results of their attack left the burning tanker, which sank about 7 hours after the attack. The master, 27 crew members and all the rescued men died in the flames. Three Norwegian and two Danish crew members of the tanker jumped overboard and swam towards the abandoned raft from the other ship, tore a plank loose and paddled for life away from the burning oil.
    Later the survivors encountered a lifeboat from Kohinur and asked to be taken on board, but after having inquired how much water they had on the raft, the lifeboat sailed away from the raft, because it was already filled to capacity. The raft kept drifting and on 16th November, one of the Danish men died, he had been badly burnt. On 24th November, the remaining survivors were picked up by the British steam merchant Baron Ardrossan and taken to Freetown.

    Type IXB U-Boat U65 was sunk on 28th April 1941 in the North Atlantic south-east of Iceland by depth charges from the British destroyer HMS Douglas. 50 dead (all hands lost).

    https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/nw/havbor.jpg

    1. just posted this story and deleted after I saw you beat me to it. But my comment still stands, that if they are that ignorant about Hinduism no wonder they are so relaxed about Islam, they obviously haven't a clue what an existential threat it is to the UK.

    2. There you go Phizzee.. Today's ESG activism in action..

      Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol that uses Twitter for announcements said it is leaving social media site X.

      Ice cream brand accuses its parent company Unilever of censorship, threats and intimidation related to Ben & Jerry’s pro-Palestinian activism.

      "You thought bridges and ice cream were just that.. but no, it turns out they are political activists now. They are making change happen. I mean I'm just waiting for Fairy Liquid to get involved."
      ©Katie Hopkins

    3. There you go Phizzee.. Today's ESG activism in action..

      Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol that uses Twitter for announcements said it is leaving social media site X.

      Ice cream brand accuses its parent company Unilever of censorship, threats and intimidation related to Ben & Jerry’s pro-Palestinian activism.

      "You thought bridges and ice cream were just that.. but no, it turns out they are political activists now. They are making change happen. I mean I'm just waiting for Fairy Liquid to get involved."
      ©Katie Hopkins

    4. There you go Phizzee.. Today's ESG activism in action..

      Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol that uses Twitter for announcements said it is leaving social media site X.

      Ice cream brand accuses its parent company Unilever of censorship, threats and intimidation related to Ben & Jerry’s pro-Palestinian activism.

      "You thought bridges and ice cream were just that.. but no, it turns out they are political activists now. They are making change happen. I mean I'm just waiting for Fairy Liquid to get involved."
      ©Katie Hopkins

    6. I would expect the No.10 staff to be expert at protocol and etiquette; perhaps they were overruled by Starmer's advisors?

  85. 200 odd ports, kilometres of cable run, hundreds of metres of fibre, a stack of switches, storage and wifi deployed, tested and commissioned ready for the staff on Monday.

    It's quite helpful having very big dogs you can slip devices on and then call them about and track that roaming works ok. If you map the floorplan and import it into the thingy you can actually see where someone is (well, which access point they're connected to). Yesterday was a positive mad house with my three, a cat, 2 labradors and some mongrel poodle thing.

    Long, long days. Suggested taking folk out for lunch but everyone voted to go home for sleep.

    2. That Hamish chappie is certifiable. He suffers from hallucinations and seems obsessed with the farcical notion that a few poorly armoured heavy clanking lumps of metal are a match for Russian equipment.

  87. Furious residents claim their village in the shadow of Windsor Castle has been turned into a 'hell hole' after asylum seekers were moved into its hotel.

    “I’m becoming more and more convinced that Starmer and Reeves have a sinister plan.
    “They want to carpet bomb our farmland with new towns for immigrants and net zero wind farms.
    “But before they can do that, they have to ethnically cleanse the countryside of farmers.

    Jeremy Clarkson.

  88. Another cuppa dear.. two sugars.

    You aint no economist bruv.
    Guido Fawkes digging up fibs on Rachel Reeves 'economist' CV.
    Rachel Reeves Today, just hours after she was dealt a blow by terrible economic growth figures Ms Reeves was caught quietly editing her LinkedIn CV to reflect her true role.

    A plagiarist to boot too.

    1. “spent her professional career as an economist working for the Bank of England, the British Embassy in Washington and at Halifax Bank of Scotland.” LOL an analyst for one of the recapitalised banks, Lloyds Banking Group LOL.

      Guido revealed, she was in fact, part of a small complaints team at HBOS, handling routine tasks far away from the economists’ desk…

        2. How very dare they invade her privacy by following her when she was being paid to do a job?

          (Is what the Leftards will complain about).

  89. Another cuppa dear.. two sugars.

    You aint no economist bruv.
    Guido Fawkes digging up fibs on Rachel Reeves 'economist' CV.
    Rachel Reeves Today, just hours after she was dealt a blow by terrible economic growth figures Ms Reeves was caught quietly editing her LinkedIn CV to reflect her true role.

    A plagiarist to boot too.

  90. Well, I'm now back home from the second funeral and wake in just eight days! This time it was a good friend, Viveka, who died a week last Monday from a rare form of leukaemia. Viveka was just eleven days short of her 66th birthday (which would have been yesterday). The funeral was a non-religious affair in the local village hall. It was carried out with every bit of solemnity and grace as it would had it been in a church or chapel.

    Viveka was a Swedish woman who had two lovely daughters with her first husband, who left her after the second had been born. It was then that she met and later married Luis, a Spanish national who brought up the girls as his own. Luis, sadly, passed away in 2017. Her elder daughter, Anna, lives in Copenhagen with her Færoese husband, David and their two young children. To make the family a complete United Nations affair, her younger daughter, Jeanette, married Richie, a Ghanaian, and they live in Stockholm with their two young children. Richie is a doppelgänger, in height, looks and physique, to Maro Itoje, the England rugby lock. A well-groomed and highly-educated man, he is a really smashing bloke; he gave me a man-hug I shall never forget.

    In contrast to last week's funeral, most mourners were dressed very well with dark suits aplenty and the odd black tie. I say 'odd' because the old custom here in Sweden is for male mourners to wear a black suit with white shirt and white tie. Two male mourners were so-attired.

    It was a sad though bittersweet occasion remembering the life of a well-loved widowed wife, mother and grandmother to her family; and good friend to many. I am already missing her, so very much.

    3. Sorry to read about your friend, Grizzly (and that I missed this post earlier) – I know a young teen initially mis-diagnosed but turned out to be leukaemia – treatment can be brutal, and lengthy.

  91. There is still some speculation in the DT letters today about what Allison Pearson tweeted.

    I added my comment to the BTLs:

    We don't yet know the content of the Allison Pearson tweet or the identity of the 'victim' who posted it.

    But given that the 'offensive' tweet was issued at the time of the 2023 October 7th outrage of rape, murder, kidnap and imprisonment committed by Hamas against Jews, and given that Allison Pearson has championed the Jews' cause since then, it seems likely that her tweet had something to do with that outrageous event.

    So are we now to guess that those who say they disapprove of those who commit murder, rape, kidnap and imprisonment should be hounded by the police and are more 'hateful' and more to blame than those who actually do these horrible deeds in the first place?

    1. According to some.. it doesn't matter a jot what the Tweet was.. whether or not it was deleted.. nor that it could be ten.. twenty years old.. the (right sort of) Claimant 'perceived' hurt. And that is all that is required during the Starmergeddon regime.

    2. According to some.. it doesn't matter a jot what the Tweet was.. whether or not it was deleted.. nor that it could be ten.. twenty years old.. the (right sort of) Claimant 'perceived' hurt. And that is all that is required during the Starmergeddon regime.

      1. It is a retweet by Pearson of a photograph posted several months ago amid heightened tensions over the policing of Gaza protests. It shows a group of people of colour posing with a flag on a British street, flanked by three police officers.

        The photograph angered Pearson, who wrote a tweet condemning the Metropolitan police: “How dare they.

        “Invited to pose for a photo with lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel on Saturday police refused. Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters.”

        The person who complained to the police is not Muslim nor one of those pictured. They are a former public servant with training in criminal law. They wish to stay anonymous, fearing reprisals, especially from far-right elements, but told the Guardian the post by Pearson was “racist and inflammatory” – which she denies.

        They added: “Pearson tweeted something that had nothing to do with Palestine or the London protests: she tweeted a picture of two persons of colour holding a flag of a Pakistani political party standing next to some GMP officers … Her description of the two people of colour as Jew haters is racist and inflammatory.

        1. “They” is a deliberate trouble-maker. We don’t need to guess “their” politics (“fearing reprisals, especially from far-right elements”).

          “They” loves the attention “they” is receiving and the chaos “they” are causing.

          “They” is a typical Leftard Narcissist (is my guess).

        2. “They” is a deliberate trouble-maker. We don’t need to guess “their” politics (“fearing reprisals, especially from far-right elements”).

          “They” loves the attention “they” is receiving and the chaos “they” are causing.

          “They” is a typical Leftard Narcissist (is my guess).

        3. “They” is a deliberate trouble-maker. We don’t need to guess “their” politics (“fearing reprisals, especially from far-right elements”).

          “They” loves the attention “they” is receiving and the chaos “they” are causing.

          “They” is a typical Leftard Narcissist (is my guess).

        4. The amoeba-turd brains of the scum that write in, publish, sell, buy and read The Guardian are part of the problem of why the country is in the dire straits that it is right now.

          A modern-day Guy Fawkes would be well advised to hone his gunpowder craft of the offices of that waste of bog-roll before going back to complete his task at the Palace of Westminster.

        6. And how do the Gurudian ‘journalists’ know what the PCs attending APs house wouldnt tell her?

    5. The person who complained to the police is not Muslim nor one of those pictured. They are a former public servant with training in criminal law. They wish to stay anonymous, fearing reprisals,

      They? They? Seems a bit gay to me.

      1. He’s probably right though. Censorship is still very strong on Twitter. As for Trump, no way he isn’t compromised. Neither Trump nor Musk is going to bite the hand that feeds them.

  94. We've got some nice dry seasoned hardwood logs for the fire next week, it'll be chilly .

      1. Starting next week. Snow of noticeable depth forecast for Northern England & Scotland.
        We might even get some here in Norway, as well.

        1. I don’t take much notice of forecasts, often out by a day or three 😆, watch nature instead. You’ll be able to ski!

        1. Hi Audrey,

          Just a small thing – but if you give the Hertslist email out online, would you be kind and delete that email after it has been acknowledged by the recipient, please? It's not a good idea for any email to be available online for too long, and I just came across one!

          Thanks!

          1. Sorry I thought I deleted the link I gave to the two people on this site ( I sent the link only on this site and in relation to this site) it was those who wanted contact with JD . Sorry again, I’ll delete the post.

    2. I hope you have a certificate of authenticity for those logs, you'll have millipede after you. Sarc.

    4. So have I.
      All collects, sawn & chopped by me!
      Stacking was a joint effort with Graduate Son.

  95. Rod Liddle
    I have no time for Radio Four’s dross
    14 November 2024, 6:32pm

    Iswitched the radio on in my car today and it went straight to the BBC World at One on Radio Four. I thought I’d tuned it to Radio Three but instead of a mellifluous tune I got Sarah Montague. I was on the bit of the A66 in Middlesbrough where it merges with the northbound A19 and it is a tricky interchange, with narrow lanes and huge growling lorries. I am mentioning all this as a means of explaining why I didn’t change channels straight away. I wanted to make sure I was on the Tees Viaduct and not headed to Teesport, you see. I needed to concentrate.

    What I heard was an interview with a Palestinian bloke (described as a ‘playwright’) who lives in London but has family in Gaza. The point of the interview, according to Sarah, was: what is it like for the expat relatives of those Gazans, hearing about them being shelled all the time? So Sheikh Speare (I didn’t catch his real name) explained that it was awful or beyond awful. The word genocide was used a lot. At one point Mr Speare said he did not like being ‘genocided’. There was no meaningful challenge to what was, in the event, an emotional diatribe. Just a litany of despair. In context it might have been an interesting three minutes. But presented as it was, it just seemed like more anti-Israeli propaganda from the BBC. At the end Sarah said they had asked the IDF for a comment and they said they always tried to mitigate civilian casualties. But that’s not really balance, is it? A written statement from the IDF versus a screed of emoting from a self-described ‘victim’? Doesn’t quite do it for me. And yet this kind of thing happens quite regularly.

    A little later it was the afternoon drama which was about a woman who had an evil manipulative male voice in her head telling her to do things, an evil, cheating male husband and an evil male boss at work who was a ‘monster’. But by now I was on the relatively quiet A689 through Sedgefield and I could both change channels promptly and wind down the window and spit on the road.

    1. Tthat reminds me of my last R4 experience, also in the car, and also involving some pointless people that nobody in their right mind would seek out and ask an opinion from. Somehow they never seem to get plumbers or people who fix central heating on R4.

    2. Easily done, switching to Radio 4 by mistake when all you want is the news headlines or the pips.
      Happened to me yesterday IIRC. Some woman with an agenda was wittering on about genocide and Israel being unacceptably mean to a population of ray pists and baby burners.
      In my mind I was shouting RELEASE THE HOSTAGES and ASK THE JAPANESE ABOUT WHAT CAN HAPPEN WHEN SOMEONE REFUSES TO SURRENDER. Expletives deleted.

  96. It appears there is a cold snap on the way from Sunday. Sort of winter weather in winter, surprise/shock/horror.

    I wonder whether the wet forecasters on yer beeboid tv will show an icy blue UK…as a contrast with the glaring red when it is a warm summer's day?

    Perhaps any courageous NoTTLer who actually sees beeboid output could let us know in due course? It would be a public service..

  97. Steerpike
    Chagos latest: Mauritian ex-PM banned from leaving country
    15 November 2024, 12:20pm

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/GettyImages-2172887724.jpg
    The circumstances of David Lammy’s Chagos deal get murkier and murkier. This week, the incumbent Mauritian government went to the polls – and got roundly thrashed. Pravind Jugnauth’s MSM party won just two of the 62 seats in parliament, with the Labour party taking the other 60. Now, five days after losing office, the Mauritian press is reporting allegations that Jugnauth is banned from leaving the country. It is the latest extraordinary claim in an alleged wire-tapping scandal that could derail the UK-Mauritian agreement to hand over the Chagos Islands.

    It follows the revelations of Sherry Singh, the former CEO of Mauritius Telecom, which highlighted Jugnauth’s alleged involvement in the acquisition and installation of illegal listening devices. During her testimony, Sherry Singh specified that the order for the listening equipment had been validated by Jugnauth when he was PM. As Zinfos974 notes ‘This case could have major repercussions on the Mauritian political class, with revelations that have apparently already had repercussions on the balance of power on the Sister Island.’

    The Independent last month reported fears that that British High Commission’s phones had been hacked during the Chagos Islands talks. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) confirmed that the Mauritian police were investigating after audio of apparent discussions between Charlotte Pierre, the British High Commissioner, and other political figures were featured on a Mauritian Facebook page.

    The conversion is believed to have taken place in the autumn of 2022, meaning it is likely to have occurred towards the start of the negotiations over the Indian Ocean islands. Sub-optimal to say the least. Jugnauth has previously denied his administration were behind the phone-tapping allegations: and that the apparently leaked recordings are ‘fabricated conspiracies and falsehoods.’

    Iain Duncan Smith, that doughty defender of British interests, has already asked the Foreign Office to make a statement on ‘the adequacy of the security provisions within Mauritius’ telecommunications system.’ But, sadly, if, unsurprisingly, Anneliese Dodds declined to do so, blandly insisting that ‘this is the subject of an ongoing police investigation in Mauritius, and we are unable to provide further comment.’

    Let’s hope the investigation concludes sharpish eh?

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

    John Mcintosh
    4 hours ago
    Astonishing. We’re being taken for absolute fools. And when Trump inevitably and rightly pressures a re-think, Lammy will have managed to p*** off both sides, despite previously claiming this giveaway would win the UK more global support.

    Important to reiterate that Labour hasn’t just given away UK territory. Instead, Labour has committed UK taxpayers to pay money to give away UK territory (and for a sum that they are refusing to disclose).

    1. Aside from any other considerations, Chagos is a key – if not the key – strategic base in any West v. East conflict scenario.

      Perhaps the Secretary of State doesn't know that?

      2. Of course he doesnt – he thinks Henry VII succeeded Henry VIII and Marie Antoinette discovered Radium!!

    1. Well done Rene, boring par here!

      Wordle 1,245 4/6

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

    3. Forgotten all about Wordle after yesterday's dodgy one.
      . Par today.

      Wordle 1,245 4/6

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

  99. Picked up the car passed MOT. But needed another new tyre, stabbed yesterday in the outer rim by a pothole.
    Tyre only 4 weeks old. The local council will be getting the bill for that.

  101. Evening, all. My BP went sky high this afternoon; they have closed lots of roads near where I live and this morning when I went out, despite the fact the works should have finished yesterday according to their permit, the road was blocked so I had to turn round and make a detour. When I came home, knowing that my usual approach was blocked as I'd had to turn round on the way out, I approached from the other side, only to find that blocked as well. I could see my road, only feet away. In vain did I point out the notification said it would allow residents access – I had to retrace my steps and approach from the other side despite there being barriers. "I'll tell the people to let you through," said the chap in high viz. When I finally arrived back at the barrier, there was no sign of anybody to let me through, just a couple of blokes in high viz playing football. I leaned on the horn. They looked up and carried on. Just before the explosion somebody, also in high viz, came out of a parked lorry and said, "yes?" You could have heard my teeth grinding in Chester. Having gone through the rigmarole again, he deigned to move the barrier to let me pass. I drove up to the pair who had been playing football and went through the whole thing again. Reluctantly they let me pass with injunction to "keep to the right side". Having done that, I reached my turn off to be stopped again. Finally I was allowed to squeeze past the lorry and get home. Grrr!

    Accountability and government? What planet is the headline letter writer on?

  102. Surprise! Radio 4's PM leads with the story of the dangerous USA anti-vaxer that Trump wishes to appoint as Health Sec. An interview was conducted with a journo from the New York Times.

    Also: "Afghan migrants make up the second largest group crossing the Channel. We talk to one of them." A young woman says: "Please let me in." TBF, the Taliban are a bad lot but the population of the country is well over 40 million and there's a lot of land between there and here.

  104. The usual end of the week local elections. Idiots voting Labour and Lib Dems .
    Local government is where we can hit Labour hard !

  105. As I said yesterday, I saw an actual doctor at the GP place. I have from time to time in the past, when calling in for a blookd test or suffin (after waiting three weeks for an apptmt) that the place was not staffed!

    Well, last night, as we waited 45 minutes to see the GP, it became clear that the 30 or so people waiting patiently (see what I did there?) were actually being served. There were at least six GPs and eight or so nurse/ancillary medical staff. That aspect was quite impressive.

    What I do not understand is why there is tis appalling time lag between asking for an apptmt and actually seeing a medical person. But I am sure that Street Wetting has his finger on the pulse….. He seems so keen (and neat and tidy – bet his cushions are cleverly arranged).

    1. The reason for the interregnum is they are hoping you get better or drop dead. They don't mind which as it means they can have an early tea.

        1. :@)
          There is some truth in it. GP’s refer to some people as the ‘walking well’. Quite a lot of appointments are taken by people that if they had waited 10 days their illness would have resolved itself.

    3. Not so, here in yer Sverige. Last week I got two appointments to see my GP for my annual OAP's MOT. The surgery simply contacted me to tell me it is time. The first appointment is for me to attend the surgery to provide an analytical blood sample. The second appointment, exactly a week later, will have me see the GP whereupon he will give me a once-over and discuss the findings from my blood sample. This happens annually, like clockwork.

      1. My experience here is you have to write a letter of complaint to the practice manager to chase them up.

        They never do automatic follow ups.

      3. They're really good at inviting me for 'winter vaccines' uk, Grizzly…now been invited over ten times, aiming for the baker's doz….(all on good thick paper, helps lighting the stove).

  108. Well, after detouring into Matlock for a bit of shopping, I arrived home about 4ish.
    All in all, not a bad day, other than the traditional congestion at the M18/M1 junction, a reasonable days driving, but I think I'll be having an early night in bed tonight!

      1. The cartoon depicts the bloke who dresses as a woman promoted by Biden to some senior Naval post and the freak appointed by Biden to some other Army post but who was caught stealing clothing from travel suitcases at airports.

        Men dressed as women questioning Trump appointments to oversight of the military all of whom have combat experience.

  111. Tonight's is the last "super-moon" for ten years, so have a look; for many of us it might be our last.

    EDIT for correction
    There will be other supermoons, but not as close as tonight's.
    Ack KenL

      1. Are you Phizzee in disguise?
        An explanation which also contains my favourite word. The only one that I am aware of that contains three y's and no vowels:

        A supermoon is a full moon or a new moon that nearly coincides with perigee—the closest that the Moon comes to the Earth in its orbit—resulting in a slightly larger-than-usual apparent size of the lunar disk as viewed from Earth. The technical name is a perigee syzygy or a full Moon around perigee.

        2. Syzygy – what a great word.

          Do you remember the very early text-based computer game “Advent”? (It was called that because file names had a maximum of 8 characters, so “Adventure” was too long.). Anyway, the magic word was “xyzzy”. Usually followed by a response of “nothing happens”.

    2. Where did you read that? The next one is October 2025, followed by three more in the next three months.

        1. There seem to be a couple of definitions of what distance away the moon needs to be, but 360,000 km (which I convert to 223,693 miles) seems to be the most popular. Having said that, this table suggests that tonight's doesn't quite make the cut! Set the date to October or November 2025 and you can see the distances – they show the moon will be closer than it is tonight. https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/@2637532?month=11&year=2024

      1. I look at these reports and wonder whether they are true, or merely headline grabbers.
        Even though I post links to them.
        Many are interesting in their own right, even if not totally accurate

    5. Thank you. Have been”wfh” today for various reasons which means i actually haven’t been outside. Have just checked, it is there and beautiful. Have told children to check it out – take a moment to enjoy the majesty of it.

      1. It is spectacular.
        Given responses to my original post, the 10 year aspect appears to be debatable.

        1. Well my children won’t know. Hopefully they will take a minute to contemplate it. That’s all that matters.

    6. "Super-moons" look most impressive near to the horizon on clear nights. Unfortunately, it only appeared here while rather high in the sky and a little obscured by a thin veil of cloud. Nonetheless, our moon remains a delight to see. I never tire of it.

      You'd think, after all that's been discovered, that it would have lost its magic, but it remains a fascinating enigma. I suspect that something deep rooted in our inherited psyches keeps us both compelled by and in awe of it, even with a touch of fearfullness, perhaps.

  112. Thank you, I must learn to read upwards not downwards. It would appear that Allison P made a factual error, confusing the PTI banner (red white & green) with the flag of the Palestinians, which is red white green and black. I have now discovered that the PTI happens to have been founded by Imran Khan, and it is a party espousing Islamic Socialism. It is anti-capitalist (but non-dynastic) and Wiki's list of 'Islamic Socialists' includes the late Yasser Arafat.

  113. There is another undiscussed health crisis going on…

    Among pets.

    In recent years, the average lifespan of a golden retriever has gone from 17 years to 10 years.
    In 1980, cancer rates for pets were less than 10%, now they are above 25%.
    But when we observe these animals in the wild, they have essentially zero disease.
    So, what is causing this alarming decline in pet health?

    Their food.

    Pets like dogs and cats are naturally carnivorous, designed to eat meat.
    Feeding them grains, soy, and other processed plant-based ingredients (common in essentially all commercial pet foods) will make them sick.

    Here's the ingredient list of one of Walmart’s best-selling pet foods:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/083f3b0fe426255cbb083cd7e83869af74dc282ef27d8646eccf29d66f9bbd80.png Unlike herbivores, dogs and cats haven’t developed adaptations to process plant toxins, which leads to various health issues when consumed.

    So what is the solution?

    Feeding your pet a diet that mimics what they would eat in nature, a diet full of foods of what they are designed to eat. MEAT.

    Regards,

    Max.

    1. The ONLY meat that my late hound (lived 15 years and 7 months) was raw chicken liver. He neatly removed each chopped piece and placed it carefully next to his bowl!

    2. Exactly right, Grizz. Some of the kibble is the worst. One of my dogs had more or less constant loose stools, vet said she was just discovering the cause due to feedback from other dog owners. It is so expensive to have a pet these days, think the couple I currently have will be the last:-(

      1. I have to say the dogs I've fed on working dog meat and kibble seem to have been okay; they lived well into their teens.

        1. He’s pretty much ok now (and for many years, he’s almost 15) on Royal Canin grain free kibble and their meat trays or Butchers grain free trays. I know some people change and change around, but I’ll stick with what works, for now 😊

    3. Dolly and Harry eat chicken mostly. I feed them chunks of raw stewing steak twice a week. I buy grain free biscuits for them.

      They also get the very expensive steaks i have bought in so called restaurants like Rules, Covent Garden.

      I was shocked at what they put in front of me. One bite and i asked them to box it up for take out. They didn't bother asking me why. I think it was £35. Thank goodness i didn't order the Chateaubriand.

      Dolly and Harry enjoyed the Cafe De Paris butter that went with it. I thought it was amateurish.

      But my dogs aren't as fussy as i am.

  115. From Roughcommon (sent in a cleft stick)
    I am currently in a hotel in Plymouth, nearly 5 hours' drive from London where I was staying with Son no. 1.
    The wifi in my room is very weak so I'm using my iPhone as a Wifi Hotspot (which ain't as Hot as I'm used to).
    So the radio waves are taking longer to get to NTTL.blog HQ.
    Just a warning that Today's Tales may be late (or absent) tomorrow morning.
    I'll do me best!

  116. That's me for today. Grey and chilly all day. Colder tomorrow. Be nice if the sun came out a bit. Been very absent the last two weeks,

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

      1. I've always liked the John Cooper Clarke line:

        You make my life like a fairy tale – Grimm!…..

    4. There have been prolonged bright spells here for the past few days. While a dreary pall hung over Stevenage for a couple of weeks, this week.has been much more agreeable. Norfolk is not being kind to you.

        1. 396972+ up ticks,

          C,
          Our main three advantages are at least 52% of us are patriotic, and we have weight of numbers, plus self respect

          We surely take tolerating others far to far.

    2. There is an enormous overturning moment, so to keep the damn thinks upright, they need a big, heavy, strong base.

    3. It's not just all steel ballast sand cement also in enormous quantities and all the energy expended in abstraction.

      1. 396972+ up ticks.

        Evening RE.

        Pipefitter/ welder
        alligator skinner.
        foreman/ supervisor
        UK / overseas
        onshore / offshore,
        north sea / libyan desert, and bits in between.

  119. Good Evening all, from a cold Costa del Glamorgan.

    We are visiting relatives, delivering pressies and paying homage at the local Crem

        1. It's all very well giving me 10/10 but where is my medal? Where is my holiday to the Bahamas. My Spa treatment and Red carpet photo op?

          I just think you are a shallow fraud.

  120. After two walks from home and back from the garage today I'm feeling the effects. Erin thinks I should do it more often. But i told her the MOT is only one a year. 😄
    I'd love another lovely labrador dog but I couldn't do it justice.
    Good night all……😴 soon.

    1. You could get a little dog like i have and just stick them on a treadmill. Dolly manages to power my laptop. :@)

      1. We have a hi-energy dog. This was not intentional. But I had picked him up and the deal was sealed as puppies do. We didn't realise the hi-energy aspect until later.

      2. On my walk I bumped into an old black Lab today and he came over to say hello.
        I just love them.

        1. A stinger puppy is the answer. Half Staffie and half Springer. Mad but loving, and will do anything for a treat.

    2. MOT is only once a year

      Erin thinks I should do it more often.

      Me On Top?

      Edit for missed copy and paste

    3. MOT is only once a year

      Erin thinks I should do it more often.

      Me On Top?

      Edit for missed copy and paste

  121. From coffee House, the Spectator

    The head of the Valencia regional government has just attempted an impossible task – justifying his administration’s conduct before, during and after the flash floods that killed over 220 people in the Spanish region last month.

    Since the catastrophe on 29 October, relentless, richly deserved criticism has been heaped on Carlos Mazón’s right-wing Partido Popular administration, which last year scrapped a special response force for natural disasters. On the day of the floods, instead of monitoring the situation, Mazón enjoyed a leisurely restaurant lunch lasting until six in the evening and then took over an hour to reach the emergency command centre. The flood warning, when it finally came, was too late: the alert pinged on one woman’s mobile phone while she was hauling herself up the side of a building, the torrent roaring just below her.

    It’s not clear how much longer Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez can cling to power

    And then the recovery effort, at least in its early days, was a mismanaged chaos. Besides the long delays in updating the numbers of dead and missing, for days the under-resourced relief was slow to arrive and coordination was conspicuous by its absence. With volunteers outnumbering soldiers, ‘Only the people can save the people’ soon became a popular slogan.

    Meanwhile Mazón and his ministers have been caught out in numerous self-serving half-truths and contradictory declarations. The technology to send alerts to people’s mobile phones, for example, has long been in place but Salomé Pradas, Mazón’s interior minister, declared that she was not told until the evening of the day of the disaster that such a thing was possible. She later retracted that statement. When some impertinent journalists caught up with her as she entered a building and asked why she’d lied, she simply turned and gave them a long, contemptuous ‘How dare you?’ stare.

    So it was no surprise last Saturday when an estimated 130,000 people took to the streets in Valencia, some calling for Mazón to resign while others demanded that he be prosecuted and sent to prison. Waving placards – one read ‘Our hands are stained with mud, yours with blood’, another ‘Not everyone is here; we’re missing all the people that drowned’ – they daubed the walls of government buildings and clashed with riot police.

    Today, when he appeared before the regional assembly to explain his government’s actions, Mazón’s two and a half hour-long speech was cold and scripted, sounding at times almost as if he was rehearsing his legal defence. He barely mentioned the dead and the bereaved, preferring to cite large quantities of detailed facts and figures that proved, he suggested, that ‘the system’ had been unable to cope with the unprecedented magnitude of the disaster. But lessons had been learned, he assured everyone: he was restructuring his government and was now ready to lead the region towards a better future.

    His resignation would at least have allowed his party to claim that some political responsibility had been shouldered. However, no one really expected him to step down: that would almost certainly trigger elections in which his party would suffer a heavy defeat. But on the other hand, how can Mazón carry on? He’s heckled if he shows his face on the street and has, of course, no chance of re-election.

    The incompetence and dishonesty that Mazón and his ministers have displayed is nothing new in the Partido Popular. It was a Partido Popular government for example that blamed Basque terrorists for the Madrid bombings in 2004, despite the forensic evidence pointing to Al Qaeda. And over recent years it’s been hard to keep track of all the Partido Popular politicians accused of fraud, embezzlement and money-laundering.

    But things are no better in the socialist camp. It seems unlikely that the fragile minority left-wing coalition currently governing Spain will escape all blame for this catastrophe. And it too is mired in corruption scandals, one involving the prime minister’s wife. Meanwhile, the only important measure it has managed to get through parliament is the hugely unpopular amnesty for hundreds of Catalan separatists facing criminal charges. The radical left Podemos party is currently making its four votes, which the government needs if its budget is to be approved, conditional on the severance of ‘commercial and diplomatic relations with the genocidal state of Israel’.

    It’s not clear then how much longer Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez can cling to power. When the general election does come, the right-wing alliance of the Partido Popular and Vox is likely to secure an absolute majority. If the Partido Popular then proves, yet again, to be more interested in the spoils of office than in working hard for the public good, then the more principled Vox, ideologically much closer to President-elect Trump and enjoying good relations with his team, will have plenty of scope to implement its policies.

    WRITTEN BY
    Jim Lawley
    Jim Lawley is a former university lecturer who has lived and worked in Spain for 40 years.

    1. I feel slightly, but only slightly, sorry for the Spanish administrators/politicians, they were following EU guidelines.

      However, I also feel they deserve all the wrath they are getting; only obeying orders is no longer an acceptable excuse.

      1. Not really. Lawley probably didn't want to mention the details but the Valencian president was not available at the beginning of the crisis because he was in a long and private lunch with a an 'objectively very attractive´ woman journalist ( she was described thus on national TV) with whom he has been flirting for some time as various videos on social media demonstrate. nothing to do with EU directives.
        The national government is PSOE, the regional government is PP and rivalry caused great friction impeding speedy aid to the afflicted region. Nothing to do with the EU.
        In the last few days there have been further floods but emergency services are now in place.
        The incompetence shown by Sanchez and Mazon has little to do with EU directives, I think-

        1. His flirtations are utterly irrelevant, if he had dropped everything and returned to his office what difference would it have made?
          How many dams would still be in place if Spain had ignored EU directives?
          How much less damage would the rains have caused had those dams still been there?

          I suspect that the vast majority of that destruction is down to obeying EU directives.

          1. 'if he had dropped everything and returned to his office what difference would it have made?'
            Things would have been very different. The emergency services weren't working. No civil defence was in place. No request to national government for urgent aid. There was no coordination of public services. A real mess. People without food, water, electricity for days.
            the list goes on.
            That the flooding might not have been so serious if more dams had been in place. Maybe. But the governments, regional and national, did not move fast enough, indeed their incompetence was flagrant, which was why politicians and the royal family were pelted with mud when after several days they zoomed in for some photos in the flooded areas. The people felt completely abandoned to their fate because that is what happened.

          2. Perhaps we can deduce from this that Big Government is not the answer, and we are better off co-ordinating and collaborating amongst ourselves without the dead-weight hand of “Government”?

          3. In the end that is what happened. volunteers came from other parts of the country, young people came to help clean up and ordinary people are contributing food and equipment. But no, now the administration is more organised. This was a special case of incompetence caused by a the Valencian government and political rivalry between PP and PSOE.

          4. And you actually believe that that politician in his office would actually have made the slightest difference?

            Would you like to buy a bridge?

          5. The present European (including the UK) mob of politicians couldn't coordinate a wine tasting at a good vineyard.

      2. Are rivers in our country now being dredged? Have we built any new reservoirs? Both were stopped by EU diktat, and both have caused floods and water shortages respectively. But we are no longer in the EU. Are we?

        2. No longer being in the EU means that governments are free to voluntarily copy EU regulations than than comply by diktat.

          1. Governments are free to copy any regulations from anywhere.
            1. Not dredging and not building reservoirs have caused harm in this country and were caused by EU diktat – so why, if we are out of the EU, has this not been remedied?
            2. Lots of EU regulations and legislation were transposed into UK law. A great many have not been repealed from our law and therefore still apply. Why has this not been remedied?

            My point was that successive governments have behaved as if we are still in the EU in everything but name, i.e. BRINO. We are supposed to be out altogether and certainly not still bound by EU decisions that actually harm this country.

    2. "It was a Partido Popular government for example that blamed Basque terrorists for the Madrid bombings in 2004, despite the forensic evidence pointing to Al Qaeda. " It has been 20 years and I am out of touch, but there was an echo of a shadow of a suspicion that the killers obtained their ex plos ives from a source in Northern Spain.

  122. It was in the post.

    Evri left it somewhere that you would find convenient.

    Check your back passage.

    1. Oh ! You use Evri. Formerly Hermes where they play football in the warehouse with the parcels.
      I am not surprised you use them instead of a proper courier.

      Found it ! It was in the dustbin.

  123. From Coffee House, the Spectator,

    Of all Donald Trump’s cabinet appointments this week, his selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is in some ways the least surprising. Yet it could prove the most controversial.

    RFK Jr’s mistrust of Big Pharma and Big Food resonates widely

    If confirmed, RFK Jr will oversee a sprawling federal agency of some 80,000 employees. HHS shapes which drugs Americans can access, the food they consume, and directs billions of dollars into medical research. Given Kennedy’s radical views on the downsides of processed foods, certain vaccines and widely prescribed medicines, his leadership could place a Republican administration in direct conflict with some of the most powerful forces in the modern world: Big Pharma, global agribusiness, and the planet’s largest corporations. On health, Trump’s much-vaunted “realignment” may soon collide with the immense might of corporate America.

    Trump’s alliance with RFK Jr is fascinating in itself. The two men struck a deal over the summer. RFK Jr suspended his independent presidential effort and endorsed Trump the day after the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, when “Kamalamania” was at its peak. In return, Trump all but confirmed at various rallies that RFK Jr would play a significant role in his administration – provided he steered clear of energy policy.

    “Bobby, stay away from the liquid gold,” Trump quipped during his victory speech on 5 November. “We have more liquid gold than any country in the world. Other than that, go have a good time, Bobby.”

    Kennedy and his vice-presidential nominee, Nicole Shanahan, have been similarly explicit about their agenda: Make America Healthy Again. In a video entitled Enough is Enough, released last month, Kennedy pledged to tackle the consumption of US food products he believes are fuelling alarming rises in obesity, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, and Alzheimer’s.

    “The Democrats, who claim to care about health care, have stood by while other countries banned these poisons that make our kids sick,” he declared. “President Trump and I are going to stop the mass poisoning of American children.”

    Free-marketeers may dismiss such rhetoric as typical East Coast puritanism or hippie woo woo. They argue that the elite, who can afford expensive organic food, want to deprive the lower classes of cheap, sugary pleasures. Yet RFK Jr’s mistrust of Big Pharma and Big Food resonates widely – among Democrats, independents, and a growing number of conservatives. The “crunchy con” movement, first identified by Rod Dreher in 2006, is in the ascendancy.

    RFK Jr has written a book about Anthony Fauci. It is a strong attack on the leadership of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an agency of HHS, throughout the Covid pandemic. Kennedy accuses Fauci, the then director of NIH, of conducting ‘a historic coup d’état against Western democracy,’ among other things. So, if RFK does indeed land the role, we can expect a series of exposés over what Fauci and other leading western scientists did in 2020, which are bound to be explosive.

    Kennedy also has a key ally in Tucker Carlson, the influential TV commentator and Trump confidant, who shares his concerns about the sickening of America. Carlson regularly draws attention to the rise of dementia, the decline in sperm counts across the West, and the harmful impacts of processed sugars, seed oils, the contraceptive pill, and more.

    Carlson and Kennedy have been inspired by Casey and Calley Means, siblings who this year brought out a book, Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health. Casey Means, a doctor, argues that the food-industrial complex is causing significant health issues in children, while the drug-industrial complex profits by treating them into adulthood. Expect her to be given a role in RFK Jr’s HHS.

    Watch the Americano show on SpectatorTV:

    Freddy Gray
    WRITTEN BY
    Freddy Gray
    Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator

    2. As the man said himself – if you are happy with medication, take it, but he's more interested in removing additives (such as those we ban) from US food and promoting a healthier lifestyle, such as exercise.

      The NHS does the same thing.

      After all, my asthma and knees would be far happier if I didn't carry 20kg of fat around with me.

  125. Quote of the day

    ‘I’m certain [Musk] has a whole team of people who are now looking at any information they can gather on me and try to use it to besmirch my reputation.’

    – Former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf alleging that X owner Elon Musk ‘scours the private messages of those that he sees as a threat'.

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

    Look Jock. Nobody could besmirch your reputation any more than you have already done to yourself.

    1. He's delusional – I doubt Musk has ever heard of him. Like Khan thinking Trump's got it in for him.

      1. These little squits with enormous egos, thinking they are something they aren't, and that others are always to blame for anything they themselves have done to attract criticism.

    2. Yep, a team of one.

      And YOU are that team of one, busily wrecking what tiny reputation you had.

  126. Good evening.
    Well, had an appointment with a new dentist. Lovely lass who lives in one of the houses built over my old school playing fields. As we chatted, she learnt some Colchester social history.
    Anyway, I will be splashing the cash on some dental work.
    Given what this vindictive government is planning to extract from us, any money spent before we cark it will deprive the spiteful sods of money to waste on their pet projects.
    (And I will retain my winning smile.)

    1. Nothing better than having the annual check, followed by a clean and polish, and hearing the words, "See you in 12 months."

    2. I think that's their cunning plan Anne, it boosts the economy. And if you give it away to the next generation, they blow it on all the things that they want, again boosting the economy.

  127. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    A few days ago, in the suburban surroundings of the Phoenix cinema in Finchley, north London, a major film by a great director that positively hums with contemporary relevance received its first, and by the looks of it, only showing in the English-speaking world.

    Like so many examples of authoritarianism, the censorship is confined to the Anglosphere

    The Jewish Film Festival finally found the courage that art house cinemas, the BBC, Channel 4, and all the streaming services lacked and put on An Officer and a Spy for one night only. And now it has gone again. Even Amazon Prime does not have it, and it is meant to have everything.

    The suppression of the film version of Robert Harris’s novel about the Dreyfus Affair of 1894 to 1906 is the most glaring act of censorship in recent cinema history.

    Like so many examples of authoritarianism, the censorship is confined to the Anglosphere. The French version, entitled J’accuse, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2019 Venice Film Festival. It was nominated for a record 12 César awards, the French film industry’s equivalent of Oscars, and won Best Adaptation of a Book for Robert Harris, Best Costume Design, and Best Director.

    And there lies the rub, because the director in question was Roman Polanski, one of the greatest directors of our time, but who also, in 1978, fled Hollywood after pleading guilty to engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl Samantha Gailey (now Samantha Geimer.)

    At first glance, the censors seem to have a rational case. Polanski is a fugitive and a sex offender. Samantha Geimer has forgiven him and they have reached a settlement, but strictly speaking, her views are irrelevant and do not expunge the offence.

    Many would reply with the old argument that you must separate the life from the work, and that anyone looking for scenes of moral uplift in the private lives of artists is doomed to disappointment.

    But the old arguments don’t apply in our neurotic age.

    The banning of An Officer and a Spy has no rational explanation. The censorship is a random and arbitrary act, conducted in secret and driven by the real and imaginary fears of media bureaucrats.

    At the screening in Finchley, the journalist Tanya Gold introduced the film and said that we live in “a time of censorship and idiocy and the two are not unconnected”.

    Indeed they are not, as the history of this film proves. John R. MacArthur, the publisher of Harper’s magazine, has championed it in the US, but found that “film distributors were terrified of being denounced and picketed. Commercially it’s very viable because it’s a great film. It is an extraordinary thing that it has been banned: an illicit and hideous victory for the woke.”

    Even right-wing Jewish organisations were frightened to touch it. “You can take Mein Kampf out of public libraries in the US,” MacArthur continued, “but you can’t watch a movie about the Dreyfus affair.”

    The absurdities do not end there. Polanski has been cancelled – but not entirely. His 1974 thriller Chinatown is one of the best film noirs ever made. It’s still shown, and as late as May, BBC radio dedicated a 45-minute programme to discussing “one of modern Hollywood’s greatest and most controversial movies”.

    Spoiler alert but the plot of Chinatown ends with a revelation of child abuse. Compare it with An Officer and a Spy, which tells the story of Georges Picquart, who is superbly played by Jean Dujardin. He is appointed head of the French army’s secret service. Gradually he starts to suspect that the army falsely convicted a Jewish officer, Alfred Dreyfus on charges of treason.

    Polanski captures the claustrophobia and the growing sense of menace as Picquart’s superiors insist that he cover up the scandal. Picquart refuses, and they turn on him. And when the affair breaks with Emile Zola’s thunderous J’accuse denunciation of a miscarriage of justice, a condemnation that is remembered to this day, reactionary France responds with a paroxysm of anti-Jewish hatred.

    They are frightened that activists will denounce them

    That Dreyfus is clearly innocent does not matter to the army, the mobs on the street or the right-wing press. He is a Jew and the attempt to clear his name is a Jewish conspiracy.

    Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, heard the chant of “death to the Jews” at anti-Dreyfus rallies. French Jewry was the most assimilated and emancipated Jewish community in Europe, he reasoned, but still Jews were not safe. Only a new Jewish state could save them from racist Europe.

    If you want to know a part of the reason why Israeli troops are fighting in Gaza and Lebanon today, you should watch this film. Except you can’t watch it. You can watch Chinatown even though Polanski abused a child and its theme is child abuse. But you cannot watch An Officer and a Spy, whose theme is the dangers of secrecy and censorship, because arts and media bureaucrats have secretly suppressed it.

    I have saved the greatest absurdity for last. As far as I can see not one feminist group or organisation for the survivors of child abuse in the UK, US, Canada or Australia has called for An Officer and a Spy to be banned. As with so much modern suppression, distributors, channel controllers and film festival organisers have engaged in pre-emptive censorship.

    They do not think that Harris’ and Polanski’s film should be banned themselves, but they are frightened that activists will denounce them if they do not ban it. And, they reason, those activists will in turn be frightened by the thought of other activists denouncing them if they do not denounce, and so on until the nth degree.

    Dave Rich, the great authority on modern antisemitism, has noted how Jews are being written out of modern culture. He points to Lee, Kate Winslet’s portrayal of the life of the war photographer Lee Miller. She witnessed the Holocaust, but there is only, he says, one “explicit mention of Jews in a film that climaxes with the liberation of Buchenwald”.

    None of this pathetic sanitising of history is on display in an Officer and a Spy. Polanski confronts racism and conspiracy theory with a directness liberals used to admire. When the generals question Colonel Picquart, for example, they accuse him of “being paid by a Jewish syndicate” to clear Dreyfus.

    Maybe in these post-Gaza days, liberal audiences do not want to know about anti-Jewish hatred. Or maybe arts organisations are turning into the authoritarians they once despised.

    “We are not policemen,” a festival organiser said to me. “The courts and the justice system should punish people, not the arts. People should be free to watch what they want.”

    Except in the English-speaking world, we are not free. We are policed by frightened bureaucrats. The scandal of the Dreyfus Affair is not over yet.

    Nick Cohen
    WRITTEN BY
    Nick Cohen
    Nick Cohen is the author of What's Left and You Can't Read This Book.

    1. I remember trying to read J’accuse in the mid-70s in Switzerland when I was working and learning French. To be honest it went over my head a bit. It was given to me by the 1st wife (Swiss) who had had a 6 month stint on a kibbutz a couple of years earlier. I'll give the film a look.
      https://ok.ru/video/7481855576654

    2. Learning about the Dreyfus Affair when i was c 15 in History was a pivotal moment in my upbringing.

      My children of course have never been taught this in History.

      1. As someone who spent O level and A level history classes learning about the Tudors and the Stuarts I always marvel when i read these posts. What varied and interesting history classes. We never got beyond 1714.

  128. – So when the farmers are protesting in the weeks to come, will the Socialist Workers be counter protesting?

    I can just hear them chanting,
    What do we want?
    No food!
    When do we want it?
    Now!

    1. I want to know where that antonym get it's money from.

      As socialists they're desperate to stop food production. Communists always are.

      This is where this farce is heading unless the Left wing green madness is stopped.

  130. Just how low can Labour sink? (from Daily Sceptic)

    Batley Grammar School teacher “bound to provoke a reaction”, says Labour Party advisor

    In an astonishing exchange on GB News, Labour Party advisor Mike Buckley claimed not to have heard about the Batley Grammar School teacher who remains in hiding three years after showing students a cartoon of Muhammed during a religious education class.

    The teacher used the cartoon to explore the importance of freedom of expression in liberal democracies – ironically provoking days of demonstrations outside the school gates by Muslim activists. He also received several death threats credible enough for him to be placed in police protection. (Less than six months earlier, the French schoolteacher Samuel Paty had been stabbed and beheaded in the street for the same ‘crime’.)

    When the story was explained to Mr Buckley, he rhetorically shrugged his shoulders. The teacher’s actions, he said, were “unwise and unnecessary”, and “bound to provoke a reaction”.

    With ‘progressive’ thought leadership like this, who needs blasphemy laws?

    Full details here
    https://dailysceptic.org/2024/11/10/how-could-a-labour-party-advisor-not-have-heard-about-the-batley-grammar-school-teacher-still-in-hiding-after-showing-his-students-a-cartoon-of-muhammed-threes-years-ago/?mc_cid=ecf520ece5&mc_eid=6be60bbc38

    1. "Unwise and unnecessary?" Thanks to successive governments importing hordes of savages who want to destroy us.

    2. It's a fairly rational reaction to have a fear of being beheaded.
      Islamophobia month?
      Fcuk that for a game of soldiers.
      Tell the truth about Islam month would be better.

    3. That example demonstrated the damage muslims have done to this country. Firstly the police should have controlled the muslim. The teacher should not have been sacked, but exhonerated.

      The muslim should have been reminded that they are guests – unwelcome ones at that – and will have to put up with anything we unending levels of abuse, that any response to this will be met with a thorough beating.

    1. He's right, but increasingly I want to know how to get rid of these fools. I'm tired of having stupid, petty, destructive law forced on me. That only 20% of the voting public elected these utter cretins shows how stupid people are and underlines the evidence that some people simply cannot be allowed to vote and government must be controlled – with recourse to immediate removal and repeal of any law, at any time.

    2. ANDREW NEIL: Starmer wants to tell us what to eat, what to drive and how to heat our homes. His climate change obsession will be his downfall
      By ANDREW NEIL, DAILY MAIL

      Published: 17:29, 15 November 2024 | Updated: 18:51, 15 November 2024

      1. I’m sorry. I read it earlier and didn’t copy it because I thought it was freely available. It now seems to be behind a paywall. If I had realised that they were going to do this I would have copied it.Next time I’ll copy and paste.

    1. Yesterday's short debate on R4's PM about the Allison Pearson story spent too much time on which laws were which and when they were implemented and nowhere near enough on why we have them in the first place.

      1. We don't need them at all, but they are weapons of the Left. The media are, intrinsically Left wing. They don't even present the idea that we don't need these laws. Even Badenoch couldn't conceive of it.

      1. Dont disagree Mola, but dental charges are a national disgrace, that's why people go to A&E with efffing toothache!!

  137. OK, just home from Charing Cross Hospital with a prescription for my first regular meds. Beta blockers. I thought I’d had chronic indigestion for the past three weeks but apparently it’s my heart not my stomach, though the pounding was in my abdomen not my chest. I went into Boots at lunch time as I know they do blood pressure testing. Thought I might as well. Blood pressure normal but my pulse was 158. By the time I got to the hospital it was 170. They took me straight in to Resus and with meds got my heart rate down to 101. After lying there for hours having all the tests, I’m totally exhausted. Hopefully better tomorrow.

    6. Beta blockers seem to work for me but it took some time to get the dose right.

      Too strong a dose and suddenly the floor becomes your friend as you keel over with low blood pressure and a slow heart rate.

      I am saying that it works for me but I have nothing to compare my experience to. At least I am still ticking away and doing some energetic stuff.

    7. Atrial fibrillation (AFib… was that what you had , Sue .

      You must have been rather frightened /alarmed etc .. You must rest properly , and try to keep in touch with people regularly .

      You will be feeling exhausted , at least you are being treated with Beta blockers .

      Don't worry too much , at least they are on your case .

      Take care.

    9. 170! Blimey Sue. I'm glad you stopped to get it checked. Good thing you've been seen quickly- I hope you feel better tomorrow.

    10. Atrial Fibrillation is rather unsettling. There's no.pain but a fluttering in the chest and a feeling of unease can be quite disconcerting. While it can correct itself without assistance, should it persist, it's wise to seek help, as you did. I hope a regime is formulated which resolves your current predicament. For the record, I take 5mg of Bisoprolol, twice daily. While I still get occasional bouts of heartbeat irregularity, they are neither intense nor prolonged. Good luck, Sue.

    11. Please be careful and take it easy. Work can wait. Have you considered one of those alarm type thingies you wear around your neck?

    12. If it’s AF I hope you can get suitable treatment.
      In 2014 I had 10 episodes lasting between 2 and 17 hours and was incapable of walking any further than from the sitting room to the lavatory. Absolutely exhausting and debilitating.
      In the the October I had an atrial ablation, under local anaesthetic, at St Peter’s and have not had any irregular heartbeats since.
      Fingers crossed that a solution to your condition can be found quickly.
      I was not given any medication thankfully.

  139. One for sos In addition to the $36 trillion US Govt debt. Collectively US households are currently $18 trillion in debt (Fed Reserve Bank of NY data)

    Going up tits?

  142. So far DT’s nominations to run various organs of his executive have an element of the ‘Untouchables’ about them. I hope they don’t disappoint…..

    2. My OH has taken Bisoprolol since his heart op two years ago and has no side effect that we know of. He 's pretty well.

  144. 396972+ up ticks

    Pillow ponder,

    Now there;s a question ,

    I would say, NOT for much longer, about another year of morally illegal foreign troops crossing then one of labours outer treacherous skins will be shed revealing an islamic slip.

    Negotiations will become a regular call, eventually an unconditional surrender will be demanded.

    https://x.com/BritLad95/status/1857451057284018387

    2. Slammers say that muslims should be treated as a race when applying legislation. So an affirmative answer to the question would come under the gocha of stirring up racial hatred. Do not pass go and proceed directly to jail. There is no free speech in UK and the courts are briefed. TR has been made an example, so watchit you lot… I'm leaving the country.

  145. The president of Valencia? Yes of course, if he had coordinated rescue work immediately, requested help from central government,which was his responsibility, it would have been very different.There were days of great frustration because of the disorganisation. Forget your EU prejudices. It was a natural disaster and the authorities behaved irresponsibly, because in Valencia the president was unavailable and the rivalry between the two parties impeded the national government from taking control. It was a bun party and and has been denounced as such.

    1. That’s after the event.
      I was writing about the causes.
      Of course the authorities could have done more, but prevention is better than cure.

      1. The cause is that it rains a lot. There are a lot of floods in the region. The article stated that the authorities were very slow to react and the writer quite rightly pointed out how dissatisfied people were with the Valencian and central governments.

  146. Goodnight, all. Had a busy day and got quite stressed over not being able to get back home easily. Tomorrow is another day.

    2. Good night, Conners – and Kadi. So sorry to read of your difficult day. It's been similar for me too, so I too will be off to bed soon.

  148. Ooh, take care Sue! Glad they dealt with you promptly, and that you’re home safely! 💕

  149. The Atocha attack happened the day before the elections, if I remember correctly, and the ruling PP party blamed ETA although it became obvious that this had not been the case. PP had been expected to win the elections and this act of terrorism changed everything.
    The attack was revenge for Aznar’s support of Bush and Blair in the war against Iraq. PP wanted to cover this up, at least until the elections were over. However they were not successful, their conspiracy was exposed and it made everything seem worse. Zapatero unexpectedly became the next president.
    There was no connection between ETA and the Atocha bombings.

    1. I should have written 'via' not 'from'. Yes, 200kgs came from a miner who was prosecuted and imprisoned, but who had introduced the Moroccans to the miner?

  151. We've had a busy day as well – funeral service – more a celebration of Carole's life, then a gathering afterwards to chat over tea and cake. The day started with a horse-drawn cortege round the village, stopping by her house for a couple of minutes. We didn't go to that bit, but there are pics on the Help a Hedgehog Hospital page on Facebook. The cremation service was family only. The Church service was well- attended – the church was packed. Carole had a full life and spent 14 of her last years caring for hedgehogs.

    Going to bed shortly.

  152. Right, chums, that's me for today. So Good night all, sleep well and I'll see you all tomorrow morning.

    2. If he shared 1000 videos it makes me wonder how many babies and children are being abused.

      I feel ill thinking about it

      1. I was sick to my stomach reading that. I won't click on it, I'm not strong enough for that kind of thing.

  154. There certainly are a lot of exploding heads over at the simple mention of those nominees.

    surprise, democrats objecting to trump finding like minded executive members.

  157. Hamas are Islamists – the police investigated me for saying just that

    It is no coincidence that Allison Pearson has in all likelihood been targeted for speaking up for Israel, just as I was

    Ian Austin • 15th November 2024 • 6:30pm GMT

    It isn't just journalists like Allison Pearson who have been investigated by the police for comments on social media. I also fell foul of the thought police for tweeting about the Middle East, just as Pearson suspects she did as she was told it dates back to a year ago, when she was tweeting about the Hamas atrocities on October 7.

    Back in February I ridiculed UNRWA's claim that it had not known about the Hamas operations centre underneath their offices in Gaza, saying: "Everyone, better safe than sorry: before you go to bed, nip down and check you haven't inadvertently got a death cult of Islamist murderers and rapists running their operations downstairs. It's easily done."

    Political opponents and extremists deliberately misinterpreted my joke, claimed my use of the word Islamists was Islamophobic or racist and caused a torrent of abuse and threats. I suppose that was to be expected, but I was shocked and appalled when the police became involved.

    Late one evening a few days later I received a call from West Midlands police asking about my whereabouts and safety. I assumed this was because of the threats.

    How naïve that was. It was actually because they had received complaints about my tweet, had carried out an investigation but decided not to take action. They would, I was told by a senior police officer, have recorded it as a "non-crime hate incident" had the rules not been changed to raise the threshold.

    They said it was because I had used the word "Islamist" and asked whether I had seen what people had said on LinkedIn. I explained that Islamist is used 17 times on the Government's list of proscribed organisations. It was coined to distinguish between decent law-abiding Muslims and extremists and is used by governments, academics, expert think-tanks, and the world's leading media organisations.

    I was furious and think the public would be livid to find out the police are wasting time on rubbish like this when a tiny proportion of rapes or burglaries result in some someone being charged. Most police officers think this is crazy too. They think their job to investigate actual crimes with real victims. This madness must stop.

    Government ministers, the civil service, and police must stand up to extremists instead of taking political-motivated complaints seriously. And we must all defend the values of free speech and democracy that make this the greatest country in the world.

    It is no coincidence that Pearson has in all likelihood been targeted for speaking up for Israel, just as I was. The Middle East's only democracy faces an existential threat from terrorist armies fuelled by a nihilist ideology that has ambitions far beyond the region.

    Islamist extremism has nothing less than the Western values that underpin our civilisation in its sights. Iran has declared war on the West and our very way of life. Israel is the front line, but it is being fought here too.

    Our laws and police force have been weaponised in the campaign to silence critics of Islamism. What begins with a few tweets won't end there. There are groups at work doing the bidding of Iran and other rogue foreign states as they seek to impose a creed that is deeply misogynistic and homophobic.

    They cynically exploit the tolerance which is a proud part of Britain's fabric but only to undermine it. And, as a result, the freedom of speech on which our democracy depends is under threat too.

    It was George Orwell who warned: "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

    He coined the phrase "thought police" too and the Labour government should be looking to the great socialist and patriot for guidance.

    Lord Austin served as Labour MP for Dudley North from 2005 – 2019

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/15/hamas-are-islamists-police-investigated-ian-austin/

    Elsewhere, Maya Forstater has had charges against her dropped after 15 months. She was investigated for by Scotland Yard after a complaint that her June 2023 post about a transgender GP was allegedly a malicious communication.

    She claimed the Metropolitan Police appeared to have "sat" for two months on the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decision that there was no crime committed before informing her on Thursday evening, just a day after The Telegraph published a story about her plight.

    She writes:

    "I was threatened with arrest for the crime of malicious communication over a tweet. Very much like the Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson, I was told that the police could not divulge the reason for the investigation because "the victim" would be "susceptible to further comments".

    Eventually, when I presented myself at Charing Cross police station, the investigating officer handed my lawyer a single sheet of paper with half the text of a single post on it.

    It was about Kamilla Kamaruddin, a male GP with a practice in the East End of London who decided to live "as a woman" at age 53 and had written articles about being allowed by his "adorable" female patients to perform "more intimate examinations that they did not let me do when I was a male GP".

    I had written a blog post expressing concerns about this. In it, I pointed out that Kamaruddin described the possibility that patients might still recognise him as male as being "prejudiced and ignorant".

    My tweet said that Kamaruddin "enjoys intimately examining female patients without their consent". For those words, I was investigated for over a year, on suspicion of having committed a crime defined as sending an "indecent or grossly offensive" message intended to "cause distress or anxiety to the recipient".

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/15/police-drop-hate-crime-investigation-maya-forstater

      1. It's just after half midnight on Saturday 16th November, Tom. While Geoff occasionally starts a new page shortly after midnight, you're most likely having to wait until approx 7am for a fresh page. Try to get 40 winks before then.

  160. Hopefully out hunting….cats don't last long here (badgers/foxes/cars/poison (usually for rats to be fair)). Hadn't heard of feline epilepsy but I guess most animals can be susceptible. Possibly try catching him in a thick blanket, wrap as tight as poss but so that he can still breath? Far as I know, epileptic humans have to be similarly wrapped to ensure don't hurt themselves or others. Good luck, johnathan…vet says one of my dogs has 'a marker' for Cushings – he can be a bit of a pain, panting/barking/running around, but I say he's a terrier it's what they do…always at 99…(dog that is, not vet, although come to think of it I'm the one at 99 when I see the vet charges)…

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