Friday 19 August: It is only right to put affluent A-level pupils behind disadvantaged ones

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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495 thoughts on “Friday 19 August: It is only right to put affluent A-level pupils behind disadvantaged ones”

    1. Child scrifice was one of the degenerate practices which were discontinued by the Mosaic law.

      Judaeo-Christianity has been led full circle and needs to start again.

    1. … as they play Russian Roulette with children’s lives – see Ogga’s post below. … and send weapons to kill Russians.
      They’ve all gone completely mad.

          1. Well, it’s a story on the internet, you pays your money and you takes your choice…
            https://www.veteranstodayarchives.com/2015/03/08/the-hidden-history-of-the-incredibly-evil-khazarian-mafia/

            I discounted the stories about satanism among the servants of the banking elite that runs the world until this year – I do now take them seriously, because there have been so many people coming out and saying they or someone else were invited to satanic ritual events.

            The Windsors are mentioned in passing in this (rather badly written) article – Dr Zelenko certainly thought they were one of the families.
            https://sierramadrepreciousmetals.com/2019/06/08/the-federal-reserve-cartel-the-eight-families-who-own-the-usa/

    3. Who are they ? What qualifications do they have ?
      Who voted for them ? How did they arrive at these descriptions ?
      And from what experience do they speak ?

  6. Bonjour tout le monde!
    Lovely to be back in Blighty after two scorching weeks in France.

  7. Silent crisis of soaring excess deaths gripping Britain is only tip of the iceberg. 19 August 2022.

    Lockdown rules that scared patients away from hospitals may be taking their toll, as more appear to suffer from untreated health problems.

    Policies that kept people indoors, scared them away from hospitals and deprived them of treatment and primary care are finally taking their toll.

    Prof Robert Dingwall, of Nottingham Trent University, a former government adviser during the pandemic, said: “The picture seems very consistent with what some of us were suggesting from the beginning.

    “We are beginning to see the deaths that result from delay and deferment of treatment for other conditions, like cancer and heart disease, and from those associated with poverty and deprivation.

    “These come through more slowly – if cancer is not treated promptly, patients don’t die immediately but do die in greater numbers more quickly than would otherwise be the case.”

    Neither the word vaccine nor any of its synonyms or derivatives feature in this article. Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/18/silent-crisis-soaring-excess-deaths-gripping-britain-tip-iceberg/

    2. and taking failed vaccines and boosters.and they are STILL pushing them. Do not be taken in by it all.

    3. Good morning Minty and all. A friend knows a hospice nurse who confidently predicted this trend of excess deaths due to undetected cancer. But couldn’t say much because it wasn’t in the script.

    4. Most, if not all, of the earlier excuses for the growing death toll have been laughed out of court. Now, they have to find something else to blame and the two remaining probabilities are the lockdown and the jabbing project. The PTB probably have decided to endure the opprobrium that has followed the failure of lockdowns rather than throwing the “vaccine” under the bus. The latter is the big money transfer project, however, if the ‘die-off’ continues for an extended period the lockdowns will become a much harder culprit to sell.

  9. 355234+ up ticks,

    Right royal rich rhetoric tis that,

    breitbart,

    Gas Crisis Chaos: Minister Brands Unhappy Public ‘New Enemies of the State’ Amid Riot Warnings.

  11. It is only right to put affluent A-level pupils behind disadvantaged ones

    Is this just another example of Marxist progressive positive discrimination design to completely wreck the country?

    1. Bonjour Bill.
      Didn’t get to visit your friends’ bar in Laure – too much to do with my parents’ 60th anniversary. Maybe next year, or in October or April.

    2. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cbd628e57f1d3a9f5635826bc3b8053025caa24194a0e556fa59f234ee343aee.png Of course, Tim, that is a sensible way to do it (even if we know you are joking). You may also consider wearing them over your trousers, like Superman, or even tucked into your vest, like John Major. Alternatively you could buy clothing that have no itchy labels in them.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9521aaa7dbac6861377eabc3bfad99d0577eb51d3c063e84b8750106c68f13d1.jpg

      1. I don’t know if Dressmann has retail shops in the UK, George, but he could always try their website but of course, I doubt that he will see your post.

    2. The successful candidate has already been determined. The ad is solely to satisfy the legal stuff.

    3. Just another indicator of the world’s madness.

      How do they get away with putting an obvious bias in a job advert?

      We could not, and have been prevented by law, state, “White English Candidates only” even if we said we were particularly interested in this type of candidate.

      Please some employer, please just try it. The precedent has been set..

  16. 355234+ up ticks,

    It will take some politico rhetorical tap dancing to explain this ,if it is so.,

    Lockdown effects feared to be killing more people than Covid
    Unexplained excess deaths outstrip those from virus as medics call figures ‘terrifying’

    DT,

  17. Lockdown feared to be killing more than Covid

    Virus fatalities outstripped by other excess deaths as medics call figures ‘terrifying’

    THE effects of lockdown may be killing more people than are currently dying of Covid, official data suggest.

    An analysis by The Daily Telegraph of excess death figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that about 1,000 more people than usual are dying each week from conditions other than coronavirus.

    The Department of Health has asked for the figures to be examined amid concern that the deaths are linked to delays and deferment of treatment for conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Over the past two months, the number of excess deaths not from Covid dwarfs the number linked to the virus.

    But despite continued focus on the virus, with recent calls for the return of compulsory masks, the figures suggest the country is facing a silent health crisis linked to the pandemic response.

    The British Heart Foundation said it was “deeply concerned” by the findings, while the Stroke Association said it had been anticipating a rise in deaths.

    Dr Charles Levinson, the chief executive of Doctorcall, a private GP service, said his company was seeing “far too many” cases of undetected cancers and cardiac issues, as well as “disturbing” numbers of mental health conditions.

    “Hundreds and hundreds of people dying every week – what is going on?” he asked. “Delays in seeking and receiving healthcare are no doubt the driving force. Daily Covid statistics demanded the nation’s attention, yet these terrifying figures barely get a look in. A full and urgent government investigation is required immediately.”

    Figures released by the ONS on Tuesday showed that excess deaths were 14.4 per cent higher than the five-year average, equating to 1,350 more deaths than usual in the week ending Aug 5. Although 469 deaths were down to Covid, the remaining 881 have not been explained. The ONS does not break down those deaths by cause. Since the start of June, the ONS has recorded nearly 10,000 more deaths than the five-year average – about 1,089 a week – none of them linked to Covid. The figure is more than three times the number of people who died because of Covid over the same period – 2,811. Even analysis that takes into account ageing population changes has identified a substantial excess.

    This year, there have been about 15,000 deaths because of Covid, but experts are concerned this figure could soon be overtaken by non-covid excess deaths. Since the week ending April 16, there have been more than 13,000 excess deaths not linked to coronavirus.

    There were 103 Covid deaths in England on Aug 11 and the seven-day average is currently around 111 fatalities per day. When questioned by The Telegraph, the Department of Health admitted that it had asked the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities to look into the figures, and had discovered that the majority were linked to largely preventable circulatory (heart and stroke) and diabetes-related conditions.

    Many appointments and treatments were cancelled as the NHS battled the pandemic throughout 2020 and 2021, leading to a huge backlog that the health service is struggling to reduce.

    This week, an internal memo from the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan, leaked to the Health Service Journal, said that it was becoming “increasingly common” for patients to die in A&E as they wait for treatment.

    Dr Charmaine Griffiths, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation, said: “Without significant help for the NHS from government now, this situation can only get worse.” Juliet Bouvier, chief executive of Stroke Association, said: “We know people haven’t been having their routine appointments for the past few years now, so we’ve been anticipating a rise in strokes for quite a while now.” DRIVING examiners are being put at risk because of learner drivers being taught poorly by their parents during the pandemic, instructors have claimed.

    As major backlogs leave teenagers facing waits of up to six months to sit their exams, many are struggling to pass their tests because they are unsuitably prepared, it is claimed.

    With the country in lockdown and instructors unable to give lessons for 10 months, many learners turned to their parents for help, said Peter Harvey, national chairman of the Motor Schools Association.

    He said: “Parents were not able to pick up faults that a driving instructor could pick up. People were sitting their test when they weren’t really ready.

    “The result was that, amid a massive backlog of learner drivers, many falsely thought they had learnt enough to pass a test, booked one and promptly failed.”

    Meanwhile, there are calls for danger pay for examiners, given the risky nature of sitting in a car with an underprepared teenager.

    “I don’t think the increment package is good enough,” Arthur Mynott, of the Motor Schools Association, told the BBC. He said: “They’re going out seven times a day with people, putting themselves in danger.”

    A further problem, said Mr Harvey, was that ministers refused to extend the validity of theory tests, leaving learners rushing to take a test before their certificates expired, but well before they were ready.

    According to figures from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency obtained by the AA, there are more than half a million learners waiting to sit their test.

    With no end in sight to the problem and slots continuing to be squandered by unready pupils, some instructors are calling for test fees to be increased as a deterrent. “I think the test is way too cheap,” Mr Mynott said.

    The current cost is £62 and following a public consultation it is due to increase, but by just 90p, while the cost of a theory test will go up by 40p.

    The DVSA said it was hiring 300 extra examiners and performing tests at weekends and during public holidays to help clear the backlog.

    Of course. those of us possessing more than one neuron worked this out from day one!

    1. Their quoting Charles Levinson, who has spoken out throughout, suggests that they were aware of this before, but only now dare to say so, as the narrative shifts. Cowards.

    2. Dr Charmaine Griffiths, chief executive of the British Heart Foundation, said: “Without significant help for the NHS from government now, this situation can only get worse.”

      For god sake doesn’t this doctor know the government caused this and now wants it to solve it. Talk about naive.
      The NHS should be required to sack all Diversity departments and use the money to hire doctors and nurses. The NHS is awash with money but it’s wasted in vast quantities.

    3. I’m suspicious of the Covid figures. 15,000 so far is about 25,000 in the year; 130 in one day is more than 35,000 in a year. These are figures that would be very much at the higher end for annual flu deaths. This sounds like the same overcounting that occurred during the madness.

    3. I sincerely hope that you idiots at the water company are very heavily fined for what they did. But don’t hold yer breath eh……

      1. Somehow I doubt it, Eddy. SE Today interviewed some hopeless mouthpiece from Southern Water y’day evening and gave him a good going over. Won’t make any difference of course.

      2. Off colour and disgraceful. My sincere apologies.

        Given Coles’s sexual orientation he knows very well where ‘jobbies’ come from.

      3. Off colour and disgraceful. My sincere apologies.

        Given Coles’s sexual orientation he know where ‘jobbies’ come from.

      5. I certainly have, ‘Belle! Red flags and warning notices still up but it looks as though the brown stuff has dispersed now. Lots of walking today instead of a dip.

      6. I certainly have, ‘Belle! Red flags and warning notices still up but it looks as though the brown stuff has dispersed now. Lots of walking today instead of a dip.

      1. With my wrong glasses I read that as:

        “Making sure that your stays are straight…”

        1. You know the old sayings Bill.
          A crooked hat had certain implications.
          Not for John Wayne or course.

    4. Happy birthday, Hugh.
      Sensible chap; arranged it for a Friday so he has a long weekend to get slo reflect.

  26. BBC has pandered to the ‘gardening mafia’ for too long, says Don.

    THE BBC has pandered to a “gardening mafia” who just want to show off about their own knowledge, Monty Don has claimed.

    In a column in Gardeners’ World magazine, the presenter said the show needed to attract a younger audience of renters who may not have access to a full-size plot of land.

    The 67-year-old claimed there was a “small but vociferous” part of his BBC audience that watches to “tick the boxes of their own horticultural knowledge”.

    At the same time, this group “loudly disapproves if anything is shown or done in a way that differs from their own”, he added.

    Until recently, the show pandered to this portion of the audience, wanting to “placate” them, Don suggested.

    That approach, however, is going to change, as the show, which has been broadcast since 1968, looks to cater to a newer, younger audience.

    Don has been the lead presenter of the Gardeners’ World TV show since 2003, and has been hosting horticultural programmes for 35 years.

    The Cambridge graduate usually presents the programme, which regularly attracts an audience of 2.5million, from his two-acre Longmeadow garden near Leominster, in Herefordshire.

    Writing in the magazine, he said: “There is a small but vociferous part of the audience who see Gardeners’ World as a chance to both tick the boxes of their own horticultural knowledge and to loudly disapprove if anything is shown or done in a way that differs from their own.

    “We used to be self-conscious about placating this ‘gardening mafia’, but not any more. They are welcome, but Gardeners’ World is not aimed exclusively at or for them.”

    Don said he wanted the programme to attract a younger generation of people who “may never get their own home” but still love “growing things… every bit as much as the owner of a proudly maintained garden”.

    Don explained that his children’s generation, “born between 1985 and 1990”, would never watch the show and if they did they would be “slightly embarrassed to admit it”.

    “I think the answer is that Gardeners’ World obviously has to be entertaining and informative,” Don added.

    “I see it as my own mission to inspire and encourage those starting out on the rich experience of making a garden or growing things.

    “If Gardeners’ World can help shape, inspire and inform your future – rather than shoring up your past – then we are hitting the right mark.”

    He has previously spoken out about the need to attract more young people to the hobby.

    Speaking at the Chelsea Flower Show earlier this year, he said young people “do not feel horticulturally enfranchised”.

    He said the sector needs young people and “we all of us need to embrace and encourage and welcome in a younger generation”, adding it is the most important work that he has left in his life.

    As a child he was “dragooned” into gardening, which he initially “hated”, he said at the event.

    “You were expected to go and work in the garden and that would earn you the right to go and play, and of course I deeply resented this.

    “I hated b—– gardening, because it stopped me doing what I wanted to do.

    “However, I’m extremely grateful, because, along the way, grudgingly, I did learn about it.”

    The Royal Horticultural Society has launched Chelsea Flower Show prizes for indoor and container gardens in an attempt to interest younger people, many of whom started growing plants for the first time during the pandemic.

    The biggest problem with the BBC regarding Gardeners’ World is that it has been forced to become too “diverse”. A massive minority of those people featured on the “Your Garden” feature are normal white couples. If you are non-white, disabled, gay, transvestite, or a combination of those, you are guaranteed a spot.

    1. Monty Don is a prat – who cannot read an autocue nor look at a TV camera properly.

      2. He’s embarrassed because all the people who actully do all the work in the garden are scrutinising his presentation.

    2. When will Don and the BBC bosses realise that few of our ‘yoof’ watch the BBC anyway, and that all attempts to attract them have not justified the transfer of funds to this age group? By dumbing down they are unlikely to pick up yoof viewers and, at the same time, they will shed the older viewers at the other end of the age scale. I trust that all this myopic, box-ticking wokery will see the end of the BBC when the licence fee finally disappears.

  28. Good Morning. Sunny this morning, which is nice. Yesterday was cold, dark, and drizzly. Looking forward to going out today, without a raincoast.

  29. Good morning all from Newcastle.
    That’s the one upon the river Tyne, not any of the others.
    A bright & sunny start to the day and I’m getting ready for my trip up the North Tyne Valley, but will first do a 2nd mug of tea!

  30. Judging from my skim of newspapers, only Bame, Ukrainian and slammer children got any A Levels. There was one white boy – but his grades were lower than expected.

    2. Won’t be long before reservations are set up for us with on-site cheap booze shops…..

    3. It used to be pretty white girls shown hugging each other. I guess the MSM narrative has changed.

      3. For me the day that the exam results are out is the day I avoid news items about them. All those squealing girls are so OTT.

  31. The World’s Greatest Airline:

    “Two pilots on Ethiopian Airlines flight ‘FALL ASLEEP at 37,000 feet’ but manage to land the plane after autopilot sounds an alarm and wakes them up after disconnecting”

          2. If it is made from the original design with original materials then it is genuine. Stupid boy !

  32. “It is only right to put affluent A-level pupils behind disadvantaged ones”

    Does the heading of the Daily Telegraph‘s letter column today mean that the paper believes that social engineering is more important and ethically better than judging people by merit?

    And is it not true that if you give one group an advantage you have to give another a disadvantage?

    I have made the point before that the nastiest, most spiteful thing that the nasty little twerp Blair did in his first year as PM in 1997 was to abandon the assisted places scheme which gave children from poorer backgrounds, paid for by their local authority, the opportunity of going to independent schools which offered bright children subjects that were not properly taught in their state school.

    Levelling up is an admirable aim – but if it requires levelling down to achieve it it has nothing to recommend it.

    1. I prefer now to phrase it as rewardeding people for what they’ve earned. The leftie response to calling it merit is to say that the disadvantaged merit help. The denial of IQ and the insistence that intelligence is bought not born is impossible to argue. That only brings to mind the Mark Twain quote. “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

      1. I wonder what Mark Twain would think were he still alive today? The planet is overrun with stupid people: he’d find it an impossible task locating anyone to give him a decent argument.

          1. Good morning, Rastus. As Samuel Langhorne Clemens claimed: they’d beat me with experience.

      2. Why? Why do they merit help? Why are they disadvantaged? Parent not at home? Only one parent? Then that comes down to culture and lifestyle. Parent not motivated? Parent a low earner? Why then did they have a child they can’t support?

        We created a spreadsheet to plan for Junior. It seems other people don’t, then wonder why they’re struggling.

    2. You cannot, by definition, level up. To level requires taking from a higher side to put on the lower. The best levelling can do is take from one so another can benefit. That isn’t improvement, it’s socialism and that does not, will not, and never has worked.

        1. I wasn’t. I was below throughout my entire school career. ‘He will never amount to anything/doesn’t apply himself/shows no motivation’.

          When I did, I soared. I was bored, more interested in being the class clown to avoid insults (I was a fat kid).

          One year I sent my history teacher (my biggest critic) a photo of the company accounts. I hope he was pleased I’d made good.

      2. The earth removed from railway cuttings during their construction was used to build up railway embankments. The railway engineers were all too aware that locomotives struggle on inclines.

    1. Not to the state. White pensioner murdered by black man. No outrage. No stamping of feet. It’s so commonplace as to be expected. Yet when a black drug addled criminal dies after being arrested the black community surges up as if this is the worst crime ever.

      It was an excuse, nothing more. Floyd had choices. He made the wrong ones.

    1. In the race to gather and sell marketing data, not to mention the privacy exposure forced by China developers are intentionally leaving great gaping holes in their software.

      Android is one of the worst ones, having endless grabs for data to flog. All collected securely by Google, of course.

      1. I know this and regularly, Wibbles, using Ccleaner, it finds 2 – 3 thousand trackers on my laptop

      1. Wearing my tin foil hat I did wonder whether this was a ruse to allow Apple themselves to place malware into the devices.

        1. People are so hapy to be duped like having one of those alexa devices that you pay to have.

          1. People become dependent on the things.
            When I send the cottage guests the instructions on how to find us I warn them that their Satnav might not work and that they should use my directions.
            Even with the warning we still get calls from people who say their Satnav tells them they are here but they aren’t, how do we find you? According to their machine there isn’t a road.

          2. Someons asked me why on earth do you have an up to date road atlas in your car. My reply ,just for fun.

  35. Why is it ‘right’ to discriminate? Oh dear, Jacinta got 3 As and Charmaine got a two Ds and a U. We should look after her first, stuff the rich girl.

    Now, if Jacinta gets 3 As and Charmaine (despite her name) also gets 3 As, and Jacinta calls in first, then you speak to her first. You do NOT discriminate. Down that road leads misery.

      1. I kid you not, my teacher friend predicts the grades of the students by their names. Lo! Alex, Amanda, James, Louise, Emily – all did well.

        Connor, Kelvin, Charmaine all flumped – exactly as predicted. This was a result of prejudice, it’s because Kelvin goes home and plays x box. James goes home and has his Dan sit with him to do his homework, to read with him. The Charmaine’s have huge TVs, the James’ and Emily’s have groaning bookshelves, games and puzzles.

        1. I have read a tale of a university don who graded his students’ papers by throwing them down the stairs. Those that landed on the bottom step got firsts, half way down got seconds and those on the top few steps got thirds.

        2. Coincidentally my eldest is named Emily. She has a library, enjoys solving Killer Sudokus has a Maths Master’s degree and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Mathematics.

    1. I do wonder what sort of madness the state is creating for the future. What is the point of hard work, effort and achievement when the state actively punishes that? When it’s policies are so utterly detrimental to the life of the worker?

      It is intentionally running down our energy, food, fuel and water production specifically to force our economy back to a barbaric one. If you earn, congrats! It’s Thursday after 10. You are now earning for yourself. The rest, from Monday was for the State’s taxes.

      We’re being made poorer, our culture erased by petty, small men (physically and mentally). The future is hellish. I know big fat state thinks it’ll be all different colours holding hands smiling away in fields of flowers with windmills providing everything for free, but it won’t. It’ll be a Mad Max dystopia most savage wins.

    1. Do nurses still have to have a University degree to become a nurse? If so, that is probably the problem. Let’s get back to nurses and matrons and less non medic managers.

    2. Until the late 1970s, hospitals – including enormous ones – were run by a small committee of medical people with a secretary.

      Hospital Management Committees – they were called. Worked OK.

      1. A bit like Magistrates’ courts, eh, Bill? Used to be run very economically by the Magistrates’ Courts Committee, then morphed into HMCS followed by HMCTS, each successive stage becoming far more expensive with more and more layers of bureaucracy.

    3. That’s it, get some cheap shit wogs who will work for a pittance, yet the fat cat jobs will stay – and get jollies overseas

    4. The wilfull decisions of politicians for 50 years refusing to invest in more medical /nursing training places (ably assisted by the BMA) combined with the idiotic changes to nursing training,no bursarys all degree etc means that as demand (coughimmigrationcough) grows this sort of desperation was inevitable
      Of course noone could have seen it coming could they…………

      1. Our Lord Bishop of London, when she was Chief Nursing Officer, contributed more than a little to the problem. Wasn’t it on her watch that nursing changed from a practical vocation to academic theory?

    5. 355234+ up ticks,

      Morning TB,

      “What a mess” via the polling booth, these 30 plus years, other choices could have been made but staying true to party’s of a proven treacherous nature seemed in vogue.

      1. Greengrocer’s apostrophe – and the plural is parties.

        Just a line from your friendly pedant.

        1. Do ‘friendly pedants’ habitually use a hyphen – when a dash — is called for?

          Just asking.

          1. It turns into a dash – sometimes whenyou don’t expect it.

            There is no dash on my keyboard only that hyphen or if you press shift and the upper one, that looks like dash, merely gives an underscore_like that.

          2. My French keyboard on an HP does the same and it also has a number pad as well as numbers and punctuation marks along the top line.

          4. That looks like a standard “Qwerty”, my second row offers three possibilities on each key from 2 to the backbar, and some of them are actually useful.

          5. Same on this one, depending on whether you hold down the shift key, the ‘alt’ key, or both at the same time.
            For example: if you hold down the 3 key (alone) you get a 3. If you hold down the ‘alt’ key first, you get a #. If you hold down the shift key first, you get a £. If you hold both down first, you get a ‹.

          6. I haven’t experimented too far since I pressed a couple of keys for a entering something from elsewhere and everything I had written vanished, and try as I might I could not restore it.

            As it was important stuff, not Nottle, I wasn’t impressed.

            I’ve only had this PC a few months and am constantly being surprised by what it can do and doesn’t appear to be able/want to do.

            It’s a pity my grandchildren aren’t here to put me straight!

          7. I have neither children nor grandchildren (but many nephews and nieces) to help me. All I know about computers has come through bumbling and experimenting. All hit and miss and it still is!

          8. I’m exactly the same, needs must when the Devil drives.
            By and large I cope, but sometimes I have to call in a professional.

          9. Try holding down the ‘alt’ (option) button as you press the hyphen key -, it should give you a short dash – (aka ‘en rule’). If you hold down both the shift and ‘alt’ keys before you press the hyphen key -, you should then get a long dash — (aka ’em rule’).

          10. I work on a microsoft keyboard and I can’t be bothered with all that. If I really need one I can always go to charmap.exe and search.

            Otherwise, life is too short.

          11. But life is not too short, apparently, to spend time in a futile attempt to correct ogga1’s English?

          12. Using the numbers keypad on the right of the keyboard, ALT0150 also works for a long one.

          13. You don’t need to memorise number codes on a Macintosh. The system is quicker and more intuitive (and it has a “Character Map” facility to make it even easier).

          20. It would appear that there are people all over the internet asking how to achieve this:
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMqWLAwRqc8
            https://zapier.com/blog/em-dash-on-keyboard/
            https://thenextweb.com/news/em-dash-en-dash-windows-mac
            https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-type-an-em-dash-on-windows-and-macos
            https://www.avantixlearning.ca/microsoft-word/how-to-insert-an-em-dash-or-en-dash-in-a-word-document-4-ways/
            https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001084.htm
            https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/how-to-get-em-dash-without-numeric-keypad/ef90bfc8-2387-479a-87b5-2c86d695a31d

        2. 355234 + up ticks,

          Morning NtN,

          Brilliant how the English language is
          cosseted so, yet it’s shores left open to abuse, you say apostrophes & I say catastrophes which I find to be of more importance.

          Your friendly patriot.

  40. God give me strength. Doc at hospital told my husband to get blood tests and to go to GP. I have an appointment for blood on Sept 5. He’s just called to see if he can get in at the same time as he has to accompany me anyway- mobility.
    GP’s office said no, he has to go to the hospital for his test. What the flaming Ada is going on? Husband said to the receptionist that they were working against each other.
    The NHS are making it as tough as they can for patients- I am beginning to truly believe that they don’t care if we live or die.
    Our health has been seriously compromised over the last two+ years but they are not helping all that much right now.
    Sod them and sod this bloody government.

    2. I don’t know if this is inefficiency, buck passing or specific need that hasn’t been expressed. Either way, the patient shouldn’t be hassled, the competing departments should resolve it silently.

      1. I think they just don’t give a shit. It is a case of “I’m All Right Jack.” We are going to take the blood form and try and get the phlebotomist to do him anyway.
        It’s all so bloody stupid.

    3. I’ve felt the same way about all this for at least 3 years now. FOAD is now the basic principle. It’s underlined by how its becoming impossible to live as an elderly person who has to survive on a basic state pension.
      Who would ever have believed that if no body knows who you are, or why you are here, or what you actually want here. Arrived in a bloody rubber boat. That you as an invader would be better off than an elderly British born person who has worked hard and has been productive all their lives ?
      WTF is actually
      going on ?

      1. We are being slowly but surely erased from England and the UK generally, Eddy.

        We take up too much Public Sector time but our measley State Pensions bite such a big hole in the Treasury Budget that they want us, as you say, to just FOAD. Well, as they say in Norfolk, “I unt.” pronounced oont.

    4. Have you tried PALS ?
      Patient liaison service.
      On line.
      I found them extremely helpful when I was having problems with the admin idiots.

    5. Our GP is about to retire and there are no GPs within driving distance that will take newsagents, we are well and truly stuffed.

  41. Modern Life……..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ed5d2b3e73ce102e62b391a5ebe3d765b0adae1c952f4dff71a2495073c42d6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0abf92398c958f3fe1d8c7d00acf85ec4daf9bee3896a843ccd9517b518f4de8.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b1219e80293980c15b7ef3d9232577cc3b212c1e82f77d6b945778d8beed2cf4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/68d29df864268b60f4de6af9e30a30b5e07ebf3ce87f3f4bcba6a388e138820c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/26162340d526e25f3fcc029fbcf81145ff63acb707c4c5c7318b32a01676d601.jpg

    1. When flat earthers got a resurgence and used all sorts of nonsense pseudo science to ‘prove’ their views we all laughed at them. Why do we not laugh at a man pretending he’s a woman? Why do we take that delusion seriously and think to defend it rather than mocking it?

    2. I suspect there’s a greater chance that our lives will be improved by friendly aliens than by our cowardly and verminous political classes.

  42. Welcome to the FSU’s weekly newsletter, our round-up of the free speech news of the week. As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture.

    The attack on Sir Salman Rushdie is an attack on freedom of expression

    Sir Salman Rushdie was set to deliver a lecture in New York last Friday when a man rushed the stage and repeatedly stabbed him in the neck, face, abdomen and back. (Reuters, Mail, BBC, Wall Street Journal). The author and British citizen has lived with a bounty on his head ever since his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses prompted Iran to issue a fatwa urging Muslims to kill him, although some outlets – BBC Radio 4 and the Guardian in particular – initially appeared reluctant to admit the relevance of that fact, claiming instead that the motive for the attack was “unclear”. For Frank Furedi that was “rank absurdity”, not least because the attacker’s apparent sympathy for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard and Shia extremism was “obvious to anyone with an internet connection”. (Mail).

    In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the 75-year-old was airlifted to hospital and placed on a ventilator, having suffered injuries to his face, neck, abdomen and liver. (Guardian). He is also likely to lose an eye. (Sky News). Despite these severe, life-changing injuries, his son Zafar Rushdie said in a statement that Salman has now regained consciousness, is alert and has retained his “usual feisty and defiant sense of humour”. (Telegraph).

    The thoughts of everyone at the Free Speech Union are with Salman and his family. Despite the many assassination attempts, the killings and the maimings of those associated with the publication of The Satanic Verses, the years spent in hiding, the safehouses, bodyguards, armoured cars, the “impossible dream”, as he put it in his memoir, Joseph Anton, of kicking a football in a park with his young son; despite all of that, Rushdie has rarely taken a backwards step or missed an opportunity to speak out on behalf of freedom of expression, a principle he has “embodied” – as the author Margaret Attwood put it this week – ever since Ayatollah Khomeini issued his decree. Embodied is right. This barbaric stabbing was an attack not just on Salman’s freedom of expression, but on all of ours. We stand in solidarity with him now, and always.

    “Stand with Salman” – the return of civic courage

    A few days after the order to kill Salman Rushdie was issued back in 1989, the likes of Tom Wolfe, Christopher Hitchens and Seamus Heaney stood up to defend him. The leader of the pack was the writer Susan Sontag, then President of PEN America, who helped organise a public reading of Rushdie´s work in New York. (Times, Spectator). As Sontag remarked at the time, it was a moment that called for some basic “civic courage”.

    Thirty-three years later, and with Salman recovering in hospital, hundreds of writers will once again gather to read from his collected works. The ‘Stand with Salman’ event is being organised by, among others, FSU Director Douglas Murray, and will be held on the steps of the New York Public Library this morning. Organisers are encouraging those who can’t be there to express solidarity in other ways, hosting public readings of Salman Rushdie’s work in their own community or posting home videos of readings from Rushdie’s work with the hashtag #StandWithSalman.

    The stabbing of Sir Salman Rushdie – how did we get here?

    Writing in the Times, Ian McEwan recollected that the Ayatollah’s fatwa initially appeared “like a last desperate lunge against modernity and all its secular confidence”. The world was beginning to open up. Democracies were flourishing. The philosopher Francis Fukuyama was making a name for himself trumpeting western liberal democracy as the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution. Now, however, “when the illiberal spirit is gathering its forces”, the attempt on Salman Rushdie’s life “appears nastily consonant with our times”.

    Nastily consonant and nastily symbolic too. For Douglas Murray, the vicious, on-stage attack stands in metonymically for a wider, civilisational battle. (Telegraph). It was, as he put it for the Spectator, “an attack on literature by those who fail to understand it. An attack on freedom of speech by people who have no concept of it. An attack of the dogmatists and the literalists on people who believe in free inquiry. An attack of the closed mind on the open one.”

    Not that the opposing sides in this battle can easily be separated along geographic lines. As Mick Hume argues, “the attempt by an apparent supporter of the Islamic regime of Iran to murder Salman Rushdie for the crime of blasphemy might seem to reveal an East-West divide, but in truth battles over blasphemy have always been a central part of the struggle for free speech within the West itself”. (Spiked). Contemporary conceptualisations of “hate-speech”, he said, are often little more than redefined, secularised versions of pre-Enlightenment notions of blasphemy – a word which has its origins in the Ancient Greek words for ‘injure’ and ‘speech’.

    That was why FSU member Gillian Philip felt there was a “bitter irony” to the “Western literati” offering sympathy to Salman Rushdie, while at the same time “acting as cheerleaders of woke censorship”. (Mail). “Ever since Sir Salman Rushdie was stabbed, Western cultural leaders have been lining up to express their outrage and declare their support for everyone’s right to free speech,” she wrote. It might be easier to take those words seriously, she continued, if “so many of them – especially publishers, broadcasters and educators – had not shamefully colluded with intolerance in the past.”

    Matthew Syed concurred. We may rightly blame the Rushdie attack on Muslim fanatics, he wrote in a searing piece for the Times, but the “sinister truth” is that for many years, “Western liberals” have “worked as the de facto accomplices of the ayatollah, assisting in the task of dismantling free speech, sending fear through those who dare to criticise or ridicule religion or anything else”. We arrive at a liberal democracy in which an author can be stabbed for the crime of ‘blasphemy’ not just because of fire and brimstone, but also through bureaucratic “stealth and increment, through a million little retreats, through the acquiescence of those who should know better”.

    Gillian Philip fights for freedom of expression in publishing – show your support!

    FSU supporters may remember the case of Gillian Philip. Gillian is the author who brought an Employment Tribunal claim against her former publishers, Working Partners and HarperCollins, on the grounds that they terminated her contract to write young adult fiction because she stood up for JK Rowling on Twitter. She alleges unlawful discrimination, and the case is a landmark in the fight for a woman’s right to state biological facts without fear of losing her job.

    The case has important repercussions beyond the gender debate. Thanks to the exceptional generosity of FSU supporters who donated to our previous CrowdJustice campaign, Gillian was able to bring her case to a preliminary hearing earlier this year. Despite top-drawer representation from Shah Qureshi of Irwin Mitchell solicitors and barrister David Mitchell, the preliminary hearing found that Gillian did not have rights under the Equality Act 2010 because she was employed as a “contract writer” rather than as an “employee” of Working Partners.

    Whether contract writers are ‘workers’ is an important question of law. Without such status, writers do not benefit from employment legislation preventing unfair dismissal or the protections of the Equality Act against unlawful discrimination. Maya Forstater’s case established that gender critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act, but this judgement is rendered meaningless if workers can simply be described as ‘contractors’ and deprived of its protections. Unscrupulous employers are being empowered to side-step employment protections: by designating freelancers as ‘independent’ they have the power to silence writers and other precariously employed people.

    It is therefore vital that we support Gillian as she appeals her case and defends her right to freedom of speech and the protections of employment law. It is in everyone’s interests that authors like Gillian, who entertain and inspire us, enjoy the legal protections they need to express themselves freely and securely.

    Once again, we need your help. This appeal could be of ground-breaking importance for the publishing industry, determining not only the freedom of speech of contract writers, but also pay and conditions. Please join the fight and support Gillian’s crowd funder here.

    From trigger warnings to consent in the UK higher education sector?

    Last week we reported on a Times investigation that revealed 1,081 ‘trigger warnings’ had been applied to texts on undergraduate reading lists at UK universities. Perhaps that figure should be amended to 1,082 given this week’s news that Warwick University is to alert English literature students to the presence of “upsetting scenes concerning the cruelty of nature and the rural life” in Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd (Telegraph). As Professor Frank Furedi pointed out, the problem with trigger warnings is that they “treat literature as a health risk rather than a learning experience, and, in doing so, treat young people not as students but patients”.

    Reflecting on these findings for Unherd and Spiked, FSU Advisory Council Member Dr Arif Ahmed proposes a way around this ever-growing problem. In the same way that surgeons require patients to sign consent forms before undergoing risky operations, Arif suggests that universities require prospective university students to consent to “the risk of exposure to ideas legally expressed in ways they find may find shocking, disturbing, or offensive” prior to their enrolment on a course. If they refuse, “then they would be free to withdraw from university at any point”, and universities “would have no need to… put trigger warnings on course material”.

    Dr Ahmed goes on to add three “clarifications”: first, that the waiver would not cover illegal speech; second, that the waiver would cover expression of ideas but not speech that directly impaired the functioning of the university; and third, that a student who withdraws consent is not preventing any teacher or fellow student from saying or hearing anything “offensive”, but rather, excluding themselves. Perhaps a useful fourth clarification would be that university “extenuating circumstances” procedures would be re-written to ensure the waiver couldn’t be circumvented by students looking to re-sit poorly graded coursework on the basis that anxiety or mental illness caused by unexpectedly ‘triggering’ material contributed to their poor performance.

    FSU Online In-Depth: Free speech in schools

    Our schedule of online and in-person events for September to December kicks off on 13th September with an Online In-Depth. A panel of experts and campaigners will be discussing how and why free speech issues are coming up more and more often in primary and secondary schools. Unlike our usual online events, this one will be open to anyone who is interested in this issue, so please feel free to share the details. You can register here to receive the Zoom link.

    FSU member Cathy Boardman’s legal fundraiser – join the fight!

    FSU member Cathy Boardman is taking the BIMM, a private higher education institute, to the Employment Tribunal for unfair dismissal and discrimination due to her gender-critical beliefs. Dr Boardman was fired from her position as Lecturer in Cultural Studies after students – and one of her colleagues – complained to management about her “perceived trans-exclusionary views”. The charge sheet included a seminar on sex and gender in which Dr Boardman asked students to compare mainstream societal reactions to “blackface” and “drag”, and some standard pedagogic reminders to students to define concepts like sex and gender when writing academically. A few BIMM students who sound like they will no doubt one day flourish in the UK’s burgeoning ‘offence archaeology’ sector also took it upon themselves to comb Dr Boardman’s personal Facebook account looking for evidence of alleged transphobia and subsequently uncovered a post in which she said it was unfair that biological males were competing in woman’s weightlifting.

    A preliminary hearing will take place in November. Please join the fight and support her crowd funder.

    Society of Authors “missing in action” after failing to condemn JK Rowling death threats

    The Society of Authors made the news this week after a row broke out between JK Rowling and Joanne Harris, the union’s chairwoman. The catalyst for the disagreement was last week’s vicious attack on Salman Rushdie, although as Nick Tyrone points out, “the trans issue was hanging there in the background, as Harris and Rowling are widely known to be on opposing sides of the transgender debate” (Spiked).

    Rowling had been tweeting her support for Rushdie in the wake of his stabbing when an Iran-supporting Islamic extremist responded with: “Don’t worry you are next.” (The same Twitter account also posted messages praising the man who attacked Rushdie on stage in New York state.)

    Harris then took to Twitter to ask: “Fellow-authors… have you ever received a death threat (credible or otherwise)?” To many authors, the tone suggested that Harris was essentially accusing Rowling of being melodramatic in drawing attention to the threat she’d received (Mail, Critic).

    Later in the week, Rowling issued a statement via the Times in which she claimed Harris had “consistently failed” to defend female gender-critical authors who disagreed “with her personal position on gender-identity ideology”. She cited the cases of two authors, Rachel Rooney and Gillian Philip, who had suffered “severe personal and professional harm” because they dared to “challenge a fashionable ideology which has been remarkably successful in demonising those who protest against the current attack on women’s rights”. Rowling added: “I find it impossible to square the society’s stated position on freedom of speech with Harris’s public statements over the past two years and stand in solidarity with all female writers in the UK who currently feel betrayed by their professional body and its leader.”

    For Nick Tyrone, Rowling has a point: “If the Society of Authors isn’t going to stand up to the threats authors face to their free speech, and it is not going to challenge publishers who exploit writers, then it’s hard to see why the organisation exists at all. Now more than ever,” he concludes, “writers need champions. We need people who will defend our right to say what needs to be said, regardless of how ‘problematic’ that can sometimes be. But when our own authors’ union is missing in action, we will have to find these champions elsewhere.”

    Authors like Nick are of course always welcome to join the Free Speech Union.

    The “sad inevitability” of comedian Jerry Sadowitz’s cancellation

    Comedian Jerry Sadowitz was scheduled to play two nights at Edinburgh comedy venue The Pleasance during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but on Saturday (13th August), the venue cancelled his second performance at short notice (Spectator, Times). The Pleasance moved quickly to denounce Mr Sadowitz’s first gig, loftily declaring that it “[did] not align with our values”, “ha[d] no place on the Festival” and that it had been so offensive as to make people feel “unsafe”. (This, by the way, after insisting – “apparently with a straight face” as Michael Deacon put it for the Telegraph – that the Pleasance “is a venue that champions freedom of speech”).

    Coming as it does in the immediate aftermath of an attempt on Salman Rushdie’s life, the purely bureaucratic cancellation of a misanthropic, self-loathing comedian cum magician with a penchant for exposing his penis might not immediately seem like the sort of stuff that weekly free speech newsletters are made of. But for the Guardian’s comedy critic, Brian Logan, it was a “watershed moment”. Many previous “cancel culture versus comedy furores”, he said, “involved powerful acts” with TV shows – “your Dave Chappelles, Ricky Gervaises and Jimmy Carrs”. This, however, was something different: “a low-status, stubbornly niche show getting pulled hours before its performance, thus denying hundreds of ticket-holders their chance to see it”.

    TRIGGERnometry podcast host Konstantin Kisin thought it was a cancellation waiting to happen. He recalls his own ‘watershed’ moment back in 2018 when Nica Burns, the Director of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, launched the Edinburgh Festival with an agenda-setting speech. “Today,” she declared, “it is the woke movement which… seeks to establish a clear marker for what is unacceptable,” before adding that she was “excited” about “comedy’s future in the woke world!” Tellingly, nobody in the room protested. “In fact,” says Konstantin, “much seal-like clapping ensued from the ‘shakers and movers’ in attendance who were, it seems, also looking forward to comedy’s future in the woke world.” That’s why for him, the ongoing cancellation of Jerry Sadowitz is more of a “sad inevitability than a surprise”.

    And what about basic comedic principles – doesn’t the notion of an onstage persona count anymore? As Andrew Doyle was quick to point out, the Pleasance’s statement that “opinions such as those displayed on stage by Sadowitz are not acceptable”, displayed a worrying lack of understanding of the difference between jokes – performed by a persona – and opinions – held by the person performing the persona. (Unherd). To denounce Sadowitz’s onstage persona as racist, sexist, or homophobic, he said, makes about as much sense as condemning Macbeth for his ruthless ambition. Will the Pleasance from now on only accept bookings from comics who think, vote and act in a similar manner to the venue’s board of trustees? Perhaps they should save themselves the booking fees and simply install a giant mirror on the venue’s stage.

    The St Ethelburga’s Centre is hiring!

    The St Ethelburga’s Centre is hiring for three new openings and welcomes applications from people across multiple faith traditions, backgrounds, political outlooks, and viewpoints. The three roles are Project Manager, Lifelines Project Assistant and Events and Communications Coordinator. Full details can be seen on their vacancies page.

    Sharing the newsletter

    As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture. You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons below to help us spread the word. If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Best wishes,

    1. The idea of being refused publication for stating the truth shows how far down this insane hole we are. 1984 was a warning, you fools, not a guidebook! Don’t let the Left win! Crush them, cut the head off the snake before it’s fangs pour ever more poison into our society.

    2. Actually, I blame MacBeth for being a henpecked wimp.
      (I don’t think the more graphic American expression would gain the bots’ approval.)

    1. 355234+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Could it be that government forces are
      being collected and assembled via Dover / Dungeness
      and placed in hotels Countrywide, awaiting with a multitude of others ,on welfare, for the call, from the
      minaret.

      Ask YOUR local MP.

    2. He wasn’t killed by a rogue police officer. He was arrested and resisted, thus was suppressed.

      If he hadn’t been on drugs he likely wouldn’t have died.
      If he hadn’t resisted arrest, he wouldn’t have been suppressed.
      If he hadn’t been passing counterfeit notes he wouldn’t have been arrested.
      if he hadn’t committed a serious of violent crimes he wouldn’t be known to the police… and so on and so on.

      The criminal died because he decided to undertake a series of negative actions that resulted in his death. Oh dear. How sad. never mind.

    1. Russia is doing fine and Europe is struggling. The old malice or incompetence question. This is both malice and incompetence and on the part of both Washington and Brussels.

      1. That’s how they destroyed the British Empire, backed Germany by pouring in millions of wonga that they demanded we repay, in order to fund this Marshal Plan.

        In fact, having been the chief instigators of Germany’s downfall, we were then forced to pay to make it whole again.

        Typical America, a day late and a dollar short

        1. They did the same with Russia after WW2 $11.3 billion: never trust America when money and/or the law courts are involved

          1. The US don’t give a monkeys for anyone but themselves! Quelle surprise! The surprise is that we’re surprised!

      2. What did Humphrey say? ‘Never equate to malice what could be explained by incompetence.’?

    2. Suits USA fine. Europe, not so much. TPTB must be wilfully blind not to see that the so called sanctions on Russia are hurting the U.K. far more. Our politicos are complete idiots.

  49. We are going to the shops. Gawd help us.
    Then tonight we will avoid the so-called debate and do some music.
    Rained overnight, of course, because I left the outdoor cushions out. Sunny and warm so they will dry.
    See you later if I survive; I’m never sure these days…

    1. What debate is it that you’re avoiding, political, Untrustworthy and Dishy Rishy? If so, great decision. We have avoided all these debates like the plague. Neither of them seem to be in the least aware that they are part of the reason GB is in the most awful mess. Every which way.

      Good luck at the shops!

  50. I see that the terrorist that attacked Rushdie is asking for bail and the judge is considering the request!

    2. Ghislain Maxwell + Salman (attempted) killer .

      Judicial treatment: Compare and contrast.

    3. And people wonder why Prince Andrew would have been unwise to put himself in front of any American court.

      American courts seem to be leading the world in stupidity

        1. It is all of North America. You cannot talk of world leading stupidity without including Trudeau and pals.

      1. That is the immediate restriction. The judge also responded to a request for bail by saying that he would consider it.

        I would copy the text from the news report but my tablet is playing silly games at the moment.

  51. A real scraper today…
    Wordle 426 6/6

    🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
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    🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I was luckier – a Birdie Three

      Wordle 426 3/6
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨
      🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Par 4. Accidentally getting the one vowel in the right place and ruling out the others early on helped.
      Wordle 426 4/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
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      1. Par for me too.
        Wordle 426 4/6

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        ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
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        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Par 4
      Wordle 426 4/6

      🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
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  52. Shops, as always, tiring. But my husband disappeared into TK Maxx and caught up with me. He has been very worried about my feet, and I am too.
    When he met me he had a large bag with him which contained a beautiful footstool. It has a beautiful Indian design on top, large and square and well padded. It is bliss. I have my tootsies on it now and it feels so good. Maybe it will help.
    I am blessed with this guy.

    1. Lotl

      Does your doctor know about your swollen feet..

      Have you had your bloods done just to rule certain things out .

      You sound very uncomfortable .

      My ankles really puffed up in the severe heat we had recently, kankles as Moh called them ..

      I started to notice other peoples ankles , all shapes and sizes .. and strangely enough quite heavy ladies seemed to have the slimmest of ankles even though they were top heavy and very overweight .

      Odd and unfair isn’t it.

      1. At least that’s something I haven’t got! My ankles have stayed normal size over the hot weather.

    2. Croscs are the answer. Your feet may swell but people take one look at your lower extremities and wonder if you are Peddy our favourite viking.

      The keyboard apologies for being smart.

      1. As a Saville Row tailor once remarked “potatoes wear jackets, gentlemen wear coats”…..

          1. I don’t know. Many years ago I had a temp student job in Saville Row moving shelving for one of the establishments. I was told by the staff that having worked for them I could have suit made by them free of charge. Although I’ve been able to afford the cloth for many years I’ve no need of another suit.

            True story in addition to planting dressmakers pins in the lapels of his coats (in case some oik grabbed him by the lapels the surprise would allow a head but), Basil RIP had his misses sew ‘Saville Row’ labels inside his suit on the off chance that should he be knocked down the ambulance crew would think he was wealthy enough to be taken to a private hospital! for treatment

          2. I was once rebuked by a tailor (at a fitting) for calling a waistcoat just that. He was insistent that the American term ‘vest’ was proper. I always thought a vest was an undershirt.

    1. At least some things do not change, they award the top dogs for failures.

      In a similar manner the bank of Canada has paid millions in bonuses while admitting that they were wrong on inflation. They are now telling businesses not to increase workers wages to keep up with inflation. So many contradictions in one breath is quite amazing.

        1. Our Bob wouldn’t be interested in any task involving shifting less than 20 tons, preferably of granite up a 1:1 incline hill. Only then would he believe he had earned his pint of tea.

    1. I think David Simmonds is a fine acquisition for the ES if they’ve given him a long term contract.

    1. Good. He will know that he will never be able to leave prison. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”.

      1. I sincerely hope that he is “utilised” in ways that even Mohammed would think inappropriate.

    3. Agreed – would that life in the UK meant you will die in prison – but at what cost to the taxpayer?

      Capital punishment is quick and cheap – and should be applied to rapists, of ALL nationalities.

  58. That’s me for this very pleasant day. The morning drizzle turned in to a lovely summer day. Warm but not too hot. Bike ride this arvo – to see the goats. Such amusing animals. Just picked 1½ lb raspberries – much earlier this year. Have already had 6 lb this week – and there will be more tomorrow. The MR freezes most of them to enjoy on our porridge in winter.

    Have a nice evening.

    A demain.

          1. What he hasn’t told you is that there’s nowt wrong with the equipment, it’s the MR’s withering glance that keeps him in his box…

          6. It is an enormous – and sad – regret… Not really a matter for teasing…(however well intended).

    2. I am most comfortable at dinner parties with relatives or friends I know well. Conversation is easy and relaxed on a multitude of topics.

      I am not at all comfortable at most dinner parties with strangers. For manifold reasons.

      1. I can’t remember the last dinner party with strangers – it’s normally our little group of neighbours getting together.

        1. Me too. I remember accompanying someone to a party once where everyone knew each other except me. All attending droned on and on all night about all manner of esoteric bullshit that went over my head. Not once was I invited to to join in (I wouldn’t have been able to in any case) and I simply couldn’t wait for the dreadful night to end.

  61. Birdie Three today

    Wordle 426 3/6

    🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
    🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  62. Just received this wanky wanky bollocks from:

    “With regret and determination,
    Greg Jackson
    Founder, Octopus Energy

    What’s caused this?
    After the lockdowns around the world, global supply chains suffered from shortages, pushing prices up. But Putin’s invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices skyrocketing to unprecedented levels and they’ve only got worse.

    And there was me thinking it was the West’s imposition of sanctions on Russia and the failure to certify Nord Stream 2. Wankers!

    2. Yup. Just landed my email too.
      Can’t be arsed to read it.
      When AVRO went t!ts up, Octopus tried to get MB to set a DD that would have left us subsisting on beans on toast.
      They were told what we were prepared to pay. Cue dire warning unaffordable bills. We are currently £300 in credit.

  63. Good evening from The Pheasant Inn, Stannersburn, just down the road from Falstone.
    The van is parked up for the next two nights and I’m settled in quite comfortably.

    Two pints here tonight, then a walk to Falstone and a couple of pints in the Black Cock.
    Yes, that is the real name of the pub, look it up!!!

      1. I will.
        The Pheasant is very much a tourist pub with B&B and evening meals whilst The Cock is more of a Village Ale House. Both fill different niches in the market.

          5. Not so.

            Most Nottlers are very broad minded, they can see smut everywhere, even on barge poles.

    6. Crikey, BoB! The Pheasant is owned by my fathers cousins cousin!
      He’s called Walter!

          2. Very good, Mr. Grizz! ⭐️🌹
            And another thing! The daughter of my dearest friend lives about a mile from BoB in Bonsall!

    7. Crikey, BoB! The Pheasant is owned by my fathers cousins cousin!
      He’s called Walter!

  64. Some 20 year old Californian lad borrowed $25,000,000 from his uncle, invested it in a domestic merchandise retail stores, kept the shares for a few weeks and walked away with $110,000,000. Hardly worth the effort. Wish I had an uncle.

    1. There’s a strong suggestion that it was a ‘pump and dump’ scheme to entice the suckers. Folk are arguing that the SEC should take a very close look at young Mr Cohen’s dealings.

      1. Agreed, and if true, the little bastard should enjoy a long hard stretch in a place where his “friends” will stretch him long and hard.

      2. I think he is a genuine trader. Been doing it since he was a school kid (American). Very astute.

          2. Apologies, I missed the under tone.
            A fictional scenario:

            SEC: “So tell me Uncle Isiah, Why did you lend young Benjie $25 Mn?”
            UI: “Because he told me he was on to a racing certainty”
            SEC: “And what made you so sure?
            UI: “I had seen his derivative positions, he couldn’t lose”
            UI: “Oh , and by the way, I am mates with the board of directors and had seen the trading figures”

    2. You can borrow mine – he has alzheimers and is destroying his estate by living a long time in his nursing home.
      He seems quite happy and I am happy he is living, but there are uncles and uncles.

    1. Someone telling the truth. This must not become general knowledge. The Yanks still have arms, ammunition, guns and rocket launchers to sell.

    2. A comprehensive summation of the current summation – I’m sure the US knows this but Senile Biden cannot come to terms with it until it all crashes around his deaf ears – and he dies.

      Cannot come soon enough, or at least not until after the GOP have control of the Senate and whatever the other house is.

  67. Firstborn has a new kitten, a tabby moggy. Lovely tiny wee bundle of fluff, he is (and the kitten!). Kitties are adorable & fun!

      1. Great picture and a lovely image:
        The weak and helpless, comforted and protected in strong hands.

          3. When I emigrated with ex to USA we shipped our dog. We didn’t pay for it but it wasn’t cheap and that was in 1981.

          4. I help out where I can. Maddie the Schnauzer spent several years in the Saudi desert, before coming home. She has previously been known to help me out at Choir Practice (when I had a choir).

    2. Very well done Rusty. Wordle 426 4/6

      🟨⬛⬛🟨⬛
      🟩⬛⬛🟨⬛
      🟩⬛🟩🟩⬛
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  70. Well, I guess the “debate ” kiboshed everyone;-) I didn’t watch, she says smugly.

  74. 3552932+ up ticks,

    12
    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    6h
    Please take the time to watch this.

    James Rickards explains the coming Central Bank Digital Currencies. Govnt intends to steal your money but worse than that they will steal whatever freedom we have left.

    Biden Orders US Dollar Replaced with Trackable “Spyware” Version

    Former Advisor to Pentagon and CIA: “Your life savings and freedoms are at immediate risk. Do THIS today…”

    pro.paradigmnewsletters.org

    https://gettr.com/post/p1ngdpe8896

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