Friday 19 February: If Boris Johnson wants to follow data not dates, the data have to be right

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as 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:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/02/19/lettersif-boris-johnson-wants-follow-data-not-dates-data-have/

900 thoughts on “Friday 19 February: If Boris Johnson wants to follow data not dates, the data have to be right”

      1. Morning, Stormy. If you hover the cursor over where it says “8 hours ago”, you’ll see the actual time of the post, which in Conway’s case was 12.30 am…

        1. I usually wait until after midnight before posting Birthday greetings – but as French time is an hour ahead of English time it keeps me up rather late.

      2. Yes, I posted it as soon as Geoff announced that he’d put it up. There is no way I would manage to be up at 0800 unless I hadn’t been to bed! 🙂

  3. Why are U2 spy planes constantly flying around the US and why is DC still full of soldiers ?

    Because President Trump had power secretly devolved to the military under emergency legislation.

    Meanwhile the civilian federal government still appears in office but it has no real power and is only an illusion. That Biden is senile doesn’t matter.

    The military accepted emergency devolution because our global enemies – China – helped corrupt an election in order to install a puppet who is a de facto enemy agent.

    No wonder Donald looks so happy and relaxed and is always smiling !

    Consequently, Donald, de facto, is still President although obviously not in the White House.

      1. There are emergency powers available to POTUS in the event of enemy attack including devolution of powers to the military.

        That’s what President Trump did, and the military accepted, because covert operations proved that China played a substantial role in election fraud to give power to a puppet Chinese government.

  5. Morning, whoever is still up.
    Woke to pump bilges & felt too awake to go back to sleep.
    A group of comments from people wondering why the arch-Leftie, Jack Monroe is being given space in the Telegraph.

    Alan Measles
    19 Feb 2021 12:54AM
    Please can the Telegraph stop inflicting Jack Monroe on the readership? I’m not interested in her sexuality or struggles to raise her son. One royal pain in the @r$e narcissist is enough, thank you.

    Flag7UnlikeReply

    Mad Jack Mytton
    19 Feb 2021 1:17AM
    @Alan Measles
    It’s an ex Guardian columnist. A full blown lefty, woke, PC, imbecile.

    Flag1UnlikeReply

    Robert Spowart
    19 Feb 2021 1:42AM
    @Mad Jack Mytton @Alan Measles That is being unfair to imbeciles.

    I wonder if there is a polder in Holland that needs protecting?

    DeleteLikeReply

    Will Mington
    19 Feb 2021 1:42AM
    Or dismal choice of the father thereof.

    FlagLikeReply

    1. Because the DT under the Barclays has literally evolved into the Deep State Daily News.

      Note how the DSDN is constantly and passionately anti Trump and runs so many weird articles.

      There’s a reason for that.

      Because Trump is the enemy of the Barclay globalist set centered on Davos.

      Maybe it’s time to ask exactly where the Barclay money came from ?

    1. Quotes from the consultation:
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/53382dd96c2595c54b94ad7d7f8607611aed25bb272c00725760a5f942d8ade4.png

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4510ab93a9ad836d4722992163957148c4ab08f0fb05f26c4db945553416666c.png

      (End quotes from document) Nasty stuff, and the “consultation” appears to be nothing more than an exercise in allowing the companies who are going to implement this to define the requirements spec.

      They also cite the corona social distancing regulations as a reason why they are bringing digital identities in. Bu..but those were only for 3 weeks to flatter the sombrero, right?

    2. Quotes from the consultation:
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/53382dd96c2595c54b94ad7d7f8607611aed25bb272c00725760a5f942d8ade4.png

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4510ab93a9ad836d4722992163957148c4ab08f0fb05f26c4db945553416666c.png

      (End quotes from document) Nasty stuff, and the “consultation” appears to be nothing more than an exercise in allowing the companies who are going to implement this to define the requirements spec.

      They also cite the corona social distancing regulations as a reason why they are bringing digital identities in. Bu..but those were only for 3 weeks to flatter the sombrero, right?

    3. Morning, Bob. It seems that no-one in the MSM is interested in that press release. At least – I’ve searched for the title, using Google and DDG, and only fringe publications give it a mention… Journalism is dead.

  9. The Building Permit

    Some have asked what I’ve been doing in retirement. Well, I applied for a building permit for a new house.

    It was going to be 100 ft. tall and 400 ft. wide, with 12 gun turrets at various heights, and windows all over the place and a loud outside entertainment sound system.

    It would have parking for 200 cars and I was going to paint it green with pink trim.

    Then I was gonna hire some idiot to stand on top of it and SCREAM as loud as he could three or four times a day.

    The City Council told me: Forget it…AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN! So, I sent in the application again, but this time I called it a “Mosque”.

    Work starts on Monday. And here is the best part, it’s going to be tax exempt!
    I love this country. It’s the government that scares me.

      2. Nice of Col Kemp to reply, that you’ll need to ask MOD for answers. That worked so well in 2003.

  11. Hilarious….

    The government’s press release about Digital ID contains the phrase…

    “Build Back Better”.

    Davos !

    Next…

    1. The whole thing seems to be just ID2020. I don’t remember that being in LibLabCon’s manifesto at the last sham vote, do you?

  12. I tried publish the following BTL on letters:

    Since Laurence Fox has yet to publish, I have but one question – when will we see a manifesto published, because, currently, there seems no alternative to the left-wing liberal/labour/conservative coalition.

    Britain is in trouble.

    DT said there seemed to be a problem. Is it a DT problem?

    Tried again – obviously I’m barred as a trouble-maker.

    2. 329563+ up ticks,
      Morning NtN,
      If I remember right Gerard Batten the UKIP leader produced one that was given much praise until the take down treachery struck.
      A multitude of the ovis are my belief is are still steered by the political close shop manifesto’s, as in an extension to fairy tales.

    3. Morning, Tom. Many of the yesterday’s DT articles were carrying a message at the bottom, saying that, due to technical difficulties, comments would be open from 6.30 am today. At the moment, there’s only one comment below the Letters page. I think they’re genuinely having problems.

        1. Correction – it said 1 comment at the top of the page, until I went to the actual comments – where there were 11. Rubbish system – Disqus has its faults, but the DT system is an utter crock of shonet…

          1. Oi!
            “but the DT system is an utter crock of shonet ©Bob of Bonsall if you don’t mind!!
            😉

          2. Oi!
            “but the DT system is an utter crock of shonet ©Bob of Bonsall if you don’t mind!!
            😉

    4. I noticed that – yet again – there are problems with BTL postings.
      Maybe Dildo Whatsit is in charge.

  13. Good morning, Good gentlefolk, having published my funny for the day, I shall retire and take my ease into the joys of Friday morning.

    I hope to talk later.

  14. UK troops surge as Iraq simmers: Hundreds of British soldiers will be sent to Iraq as part of new NATO mission. 19 February 2021.

    Currently 100 UK personnel are stationed there training Iraqi security forces. Under a new Nato mission, they could also be used in a security role – which could bring them into direct conflict with militia groups.

    Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s announcement last night came days after a rocket attack on a US base in northern Iraq killed a civilian contractor and wounded nine others.

    Morning everyone. The secret to this deployment lies in the second paragraph. The “rocket attack” was not by ISIS or any Jihadist group but disaffected elements within the Iraqi State Forces. Since the Iraqi “Government” cannot themselves protect the Americans the Occupation Forces are being increased to maintain control. It just looks better if the US is not directly involved so NATO has been dragooned into the task.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9276693/Hundreds-British-soldiers-sent-Iraq-new-NATO-mission.html

    1. Well then, Bob3, sounds like it’s time to pop down to the supermarket to stock up on the booze!

      :-))

  16. Morning all.

    Just been looking in now and again recently.
    Been tied up with a query from patient.com with health problems presenting as excessively elevated heart rate, exercise intolerance and foggy brain yet no diagnosis from local practitioner or cardiologist but being treated with a new heart drug.
    ECG OK, BP slightly low but patient worried about treated for anxiety.

    I’m trying out the latest fitness kit (Polar H10) to see if Poincaré analysis of Heart Rate Variability will help to aid a doctor’s diagnosis.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b35bb0ff281d3cfdf783b8182b9142cdd0f34c4c2adcd7a74d09a8dc3d91ad28.jpg

    Here’s this morning’s reading where I did a supine to standing test to measure my sympathic/parasympathic balance:

      1. Footballers get dementia. Tennis players get Tennis elbow. Athletes get arthritis. Long distance runners get anorexia.
        Exercise is bad for you.
        Don’t do it.

        1. Eny skule beke no the san is always ful of kids wif sports wounds.

          (The chap who wrote Molesworth’s Down With Skool went to the same skule as I did)

  17. Russia’s ‘geopolitical’ vaccine: Is Sputnik too good to be true? 19 February 2021.

    Two weeks ago, the leading medical journal the Lancet published glowing results for Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, triggering a wave of optimism in the EU that the jab might help fill a gap where Western manufacturers had overpromised but underdelivered.

    Now, some Kremlin watchers say the report in the Lancet should have sounded alarm bells instead, and prompted the EU to apply closer scrutiny. They warn that Sputnik is a geopolitical tool that Moscow is using to manipulate Western democracies, exacerbate divisions and present Russia as a pandemic saviour.

    This is just a spoiler of course. It looks as though the Sputnik Vaccine is easily the best available. That the EU is preventing its approval as well as continually dishing it in the MSM gives you an idea of where their true interests lie and it’s not with the people of Europe!

    https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-sputnik-geopolitical-coronavirus-vaccine/

    1. How is Sputnik a geopolitical tool that Moscow is using to manipulate Western democracies, and none of the other vaccines are being used for the same thing?

      1. Well the virus is “geopolitical tool”, but nobody seems bothered. No one has yet nuked China.

  18. Make this man Archbishop…

    SIR – A great friend of mine, who was an Anglican priest, maintains that one should do something extra during Lent rather than give something up.

    With this in mind I shall repeat my Lenten observances of previous years by providing increased custom to the workers who toil day and night in the Scottish distilleries.

    Francis Eastwood
    London SE9

    1. As I have given up pretty much everything that made life worthwhile (and not from choice), I was very limited in what I could abstain from for Lent. I decided I’d wear something purple (the penitential colour) to remind me to repent, so I dug out an old purple scarf left over from my UKIP campaigning days. Wasn’t there a poem once about wearing purple when you got to a certain age?

      1. When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
        With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
        And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
        And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
        I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
        And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
        And run my stick along the public railings
        And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
        I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
        And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
        And learn to spit.

        You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
        And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
        Or only bread and pickle for a week
        And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

        But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
        And pay our rent and not swear in the street
        And set a good example for the children.
        We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

        But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
        So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
        When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

  19. Good morning from a damp, dank & dark Derbyshire, though I will say it is slowly getting brighter in the mornings.
    A not very warm 2°C outside with a moderate but steady rainfall.

    1. One of my greatest sadnesses is that my wife and sons never knew my lovely father. He died two years before I met Caroline, 9 years before Christo was born and 11 years before Henry was born.

      1. I consider myself a lucky man to have had the parents I did, many are not so fortunate to be able to say that.
        I’m sure he would be pleased you found happiness and contentment in your life.

      2. My father died two years before I met my wife. I like to think he’d be very proud of my two sons, and they of him.

  21. Pictured: Celtic fan, 35, charged over ‘offensive’ tweet about Captain Tom Moore that read ‘burn, auld fella, buuurn’ hours after NHS hero’s death. 19 February 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6cc04c1e0986ab168ab3ad5c649422a94e515f91072b7d49df5bc0a91f87cca9.jpg

    The move to charge Kelly sparked an outcry, with Laurence Fox questioning why police were using the legal system to prosecute ‘idiots who tweet idiotic things’, as he urged everyone to ‘protect free speech, even if you don’t agree with what’s being said’.

    It comes as the SNP continues efforts to introduce a new hate crime bill that will criminalise ‘stirring up hatred’ – a ‘vague’ definition that critics believe could legalise cancel culture.

    I’m not even certain that the Tweet makes sense let alone being offensive. Bearing in mind the Tweeters history and location it was probably sent in an alcoholic stupor. What I am certain of is that it is being used by the SNP to curtail Freedom of Speech!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9273781/Pictured-Celtic-fan-35-charged-offensive-tweet-Captain-Tom-Moore.html

    1. He is a nasty fool, but this shouldn’t be brought to court.
      More and more people seem to see the courts as a way of validating hurt feelings, or as they would say “hurty feelings.”
      There is an article in today’s Mail about the backlog of employment cases.

      I know someone who brought a case against their last employer because they transitioned, and in doing so, lost male privilege and became the target of the office bitch (for our male readers, I must explain that this is the woman who is sweet, cuddly and flirtatious whenever a man is around, and utterly vile to the women, apart from her selected small group of friends, who form a coven to badmouth all other women).
      The case was supposed to be about transphobia. The whole thing was only about self-validation and hurt feelings, and in my opinion was worthy of a class of ten year olds.

      2. I agree. This has set a dangerous precedent which has already led to an alarming degree of self-censorship.

    2. This particular comment was an obnoxious insult to a dead veteran who had done his best to raise money for charity and was very successful. If the comment was as in the headline, it was also an insult to our military. Even if the Celtic fan was drunk, it was a vile insult and he deserves to be charged. Drunk drivers get no freedom from prosecution and I think there must be a limit on some aspects of Freedom of Speech.

      1. If it had been ignored, rather than actions being taken that caused it to be splashed over every newspaper and news report, I doubt more than a few people would even have been aware of the comment.

          2. Just the sort of muck-stirring our meeja prefer, rather than the more onerous task of actually investigating and reporting factual news. Takes the headlines away from the current Scottish Nationalist Party shenanigans as well, Bonus!

      2. I think there must be a limit on some aspects of Freedom of Speech.

        I don’t! You cannot be partially Free or nearly Free! You have it in totality or not at all. Freedom contrary to popular myth is not some comforting state where you are left to vegetate. It demands the highest personal commitment since you must decide your own fate! This why it is not as popular as it might be!

        1. Absolutely, we have freedom of speech or we have censorship! There are libel and slander laws for those who libel or slander. The best course of action, regarding the clown’s tweet, was to scroll on by and ignore such stupidity.

      3. It’s certainly insulting, from a small minded little man, but should not be part of criminal proceedings. One offer to retract, if not followed by a broken arm, should be enough.

  23. SIR – What is the point of opening a pub that is not allowed to sell alcohol?
    Like many others, my husband and I would love to go out for a meal after all these weeks in virtual isolation, but we would also enjoy a glass of wine. Are to be deprived of this small pleasure because a few people might behave thoughtlessly?
    Doreen Brown

    That’s the way of things Ms B.
    Gun laws were changed after one male went on a shooting spree

    1. And that happened twice. Prior to Hungerford semi-automatic rifles were legal and Dunblane saw off the legality of pistols.

        1. What happened is open knowledge.
          WHY it happened is the subject of a 100y sealing order.

          1. Morning Bob – There was more to the Dunblane scandal than the school shooting. The powers that be made the sealing order to protect themselves.
            I think Scotland’s greatest tennis player was an innocent pupil at the Dunblane school at the time.

          2. Correct.
            And, I believe, one of the guilty parties has a statue in the middle of Glasgow.

      1. 329563+ up ticks,
        Morning AS,
        Surely the people power lobby can have a say, but
        in regards to the close shop voting pattern they adhere to they seem very reluctant to disagree via the polling booth.

    4. … and after the police had been told by his club that he should not be allowed guns, but did eff-all. Again.

  24. Morning all

    Here are the vaccine letters….

    SIR – The Prime Minister has endorsed the idea that the easing of lockdown should be based on data, not dates.

    On the face of it, that sounds fine. However, given the Government’s use of data throughout the pandemic, one has to question what data will be used.

    The sort of data provided by mathematical modelling, exaggerated by assumptions? Or the sort where deaths from any cause within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test are published as Covid deaths?

    Robin Humphreys

    Exmouth, Devon

    SIR – This week, an additional 1.7 million people have been asked to shield until the end of March, potentially causing upheaval to their home and work arrangements.

    The list was drawn up using a new “calculator”, which takes into account various factors before giving its verdict: in other words, an algorithm. The Government might like to recall the last time that such a method was 
 used to determine people’s fate, and how that turned out. Have we learnt nothing?

    Kate Pycock

    Ipswich, Suffolk

    SIR – Dame Esther Rantzen (Letters, February 17) writes that Britain has a high Covid-19 mortality rate due to its past reluctance to lock down.

    The Oxford Government Response Tracker, which compares policy responses to Covid-19 around the world, shows that Britain has imposed strict restrictions for longer than any other country in Europe during the pandemic, with the possible exceptions of Ireland and Portugal, and longer than almost all Asian countries.

    Dame Esther then singles out Japan as a relatively successful country during the pandemic. Yet Japan’s restrictions have been much lighter than Britain’s. So it does not, perhaps, offer the best argument for lockdowns.

    Dr Oliver Robinson

    London SE9

    SIR – I continue to be dismayed by elderly readers arguing that those who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 should be released from some of the restrictions (the purpose of which was, in part, to protect them).

    Do they not consider those of us of working age, who will be paying for the lockdown for years to come? Are we not in this together?

    Anthony Cooper

    Kinoulton, Nottinghamshire

    SIR – I read Olivia Utley’s column about weddings (Comment, February 16) with interest. Our daughter is getting married on May 29. She and her fiancé have not planned a big day, but would like to be able to enjoy their wedding.

    We are quick to condemn young folk as snowflakes, but how many among the older generations would emerge smiling from the experience they have had trying to organise the most significant day of their lives? The vaccination programme has been a success: can we let the young enjoy the benefits?

    Vanessa Marment

    Kingston Lisle, Oxfordshire

    2. Ah, yes, Japan. An island with very little, if any, diversity. If Mrs Marment thinks planning a wedding these days is difficult, she should have tried it in wartime – rationing (food and clothing), churches being bombed, the vagaries of leave (even compassionate leave to get married) were somewhat bigger obstacles than having to limit your guest list.

  25. Morning again

    SIR – I have been cutting my husband’s hair and my own for the past 11 months (Letters, February 17).

    Our miniature poodle, on the other hand, visits a professional groomer.

    Fiona Wild

    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    SIR – My husband, an orthopaedic surgeon, has returned to his barber surgeon roots and cut my hair regularly during lockdown –, much to my relief.

    I have trimmed his hair only 
once.

    Sarah Wilkinson

    Nettlestone, Isle of Wight

    SIR – I have received expert haircuts from my wife.

    When I returned the favour, it resulted in a slight length discrepancy and the need for a compensatory head tilt. Strangely, I have not been asked to correct it.

    Maybe I should stick with my day job.

    Jamie Buchanan FRCS

    Sedlescombe, East Sussex

    SIR – Having let my husband cut my hair, I am praying that the weather remains cold enough for me to wear 
a hat.

    Ann Orton

    Barningham, North Yorkshire

    1. Well I refuse to cut my hair at home, because I do not want to deprive my hairdresser of income that will help to keep her business afloat. It is a bit longer than usual at the moment, but I hope to be able to get an appointment soon.

      1. Snap. My hairdresser is local, and I’ve known her since she took the over business while still a teenager.

      2. I had 2 haircuts last year. One at the hairdressers before the lockdown and one by my young son with a number 4 all over cut in the Summer.
        This year I gave myself a number 3 cut in early January which is only now growing back in. I won’t go back to the hairdressers until a couple of weeks after my second jab.

        1. Normally I go for a number 3 but I let it grow for 6 weeks or so and I couldn’t get a brush through it, let alone the trimmer.

    2. A man does the dog’s nails, but I do his hair.

      With a brush.

      I suggested the wife go to him as well – she wasn’t impressed – but, now her hair’s grown back to a sensible length I’m not going to let her cut it again.

  26. ‘Morning, Peeps. The last wartime survivor of a very remarkable organisation, the ATA. Unlike some of the applicants she had no previous flying experience:

    Eleanor Wadsworth, last surviving British female pilot from the Second World War – obituary

    As part of the Air Transport Auxiliary she delivered Spitfires and Hurricanes from factories to their squadrons

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    16 February 2021 • 5:38pm

    Eleanor Wadsworth, who has died aged 103, was the last surviving female pilot living in Britain who flew during the Second World War. She was one of 166 women who flew with the Air Transport Auxiliary, or ATA.

    She was working on the construction of new facilities for the ATA at White Waltham when a notice appeared seeking more pilots. “The thought of learning to fly for free was a great incentive [so] I put my name down and didn’t think much about it,” she recalled. Her application was successful and she was among the first six accepted from those who had no previous flying experience.

    She joined in June 1943 and began her training at Thame, near Aylesbury, and when she left the ATA in September 1945 she had flown 28 Hurricanes and 132 Spitfires, among a range of other types.

    Eleanor Fish was born in Nottingham on October 15 1917; she trained as an architect, but there was little work in the city and she became an architectural assistant for the ATA.

    She went solo after 15 hours’ flying time, and her first task after gaining her “wings” was to fly the “air taxi”, an aircraft used to shuttle pilots to factories to deliver aircraft and then return them to their parent airfield. As she gained more experience, she too began delivering aircraft to squadrons.

    On a delivery flight in December 1943 she ferried a Fairy Swordfish. With her trussed up in her Irvin jacket in the open cockpit, it took four days to get through very bad weather, staging through three airfields before arriving at Machrihanish on the Mull of Kintyre.

    In February 1944 she had gained sufficient experience to fly fighter aircraft, and first flew a Hurricane the following month. After delivering a number from the Hawker factory at Langley, she progressed to the Spitfire, which she flew for the first time on May 18. By July she was flying twin-engined aircraft.

    On one occasion she was flying a single-engine Fairchild Argus to collect a crew after they had delivered a Lancaster bomber. Just after take-off, a piston failed and flew through the engine cowling. Reacting quickly, she immediately turned for the airfield and made a safe emergency crosswind landing.

    From October 1944 Eleanor Wadsworth was based at Ratcliffe near Leicester. In one month she flew 10 different types of aircraft, including 20 Spitfires. The famed fighter was her favourite: “it was so perfect to handle, just lovely and flew like you would want it to. They had a beautiful, throbbing engine in the front. It was so responsive, light to the touch. Like a beautiful sports car, really.”

    In April 1945 she delivered a Spitfire Mk V AR501 from Ratcliffe to Catfoss near Scarborough. This aircraft is now based at the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden, and recently completed a long-term restoration to fly. Eleanor Wadsworth had a photo of 501 as she is today proudly placed in her logbook.

    She left the ATA as a Third Officer in September 1945, having flown 600 hours on 22 different types of aircraft.

    During a conversation two years ago, Eleanor Wadsworth commented: “I was part of an exclusive wartime sisterhood, a group of courageous, individual gifted women, who in very dangerous circumstances delivered a huge range of types of aircraft to service squadrons.

    “It was a fantastic organisation, and it was incredible that it was got together as a functioning organisation in such a short time, that had grown from nothing at a time when the RAF could not cope by releasing pilots to collect aircraft from factories.”

    She was particularly proud that “we were the first to get equal pay for equal work. We were years ahead of our time in what we did, but also how we were paid like for like.”

    After leaving the ATA, Eleanor Wadsworth started a family, and in 1958 she and her husband moved to Bury St Edmunds, where she later worked for the brewer Greene King in the surveyors department.

    Her role in the ATA, and that of her fellow “Spitfire Girls”, was largely overlooked until the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown was persuaded to honour them with a commemorative badge in 2008.

    The Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace commented: “It was ordinary people doing extraordinary things that defeated fascism and we should never forget Eleanor’s example and achievements.”

    Eleanor Wadsworth and her husband, Bernard, were married in Nottingham in 1945 by the Bishop of Egypt and Sudan, who was in the city. Bernard predeceased her, and she is survived by their two sons.

    Eleanor Wadsworth, born October 15 1917, died December 23 2020

    1. Quite a few female ATA (At-a Girls!) pilots lost their lives, particularly in bad weather; no navigational aids and no training in instrument flying. They flew fighters, but without armament.

      1. But Nottl at present is a ‘Sea of Tranquility” and we shall all be over the moon when the nonsense ends….

        Morning Minty et al.

  28. Good morning, all. The MR is much better this morning – her bruised back is easing. Thank you for your helpful comments yesterday evening.

    Why do we go to Mars? Because it is there? Seems an awful lot of money to take a photograph of a shadow.

    1. Muscles and bruises can be eased by the application of a really hot bath or a sauna. And suitable alcohol. Haven’t researched the effects of candles whilst you bathe, so can’t comment.

    3. Does it really matter if life existed on Mars, will it change the price of fish? Apparently, St Greta put out a similar message yesterday.

    4. Good that things are improving.

      Why go to Mars?

      So that the scientists can find different life forms, bring them back to Earth and cause an incurable pandemic, of course.

    1. Don’t know about y’all, but I don’t go into a cubicle with an audience to watch how I use it. So, whether I sit or stand will not be known to others, and thus they cannot be excluded or included.
      Just shows again that these trans men aren’t really men, as it never occurs to blokes to go to the toilet mob-handed, as women often do (why?).

    2. Quote from a desert dweller watching a western man pee: “What is wrong with him that he has to stand up to pee?

      1. Quote from Western man to desert dweller: “you may want the fleas from a thousand camels infesting your cockpit, I don’t”

    3. One reason why there is almost always a queue for the women’s lavatories at a theatre is the additional time it takes to have the pee in one of the few cubicles available, compared with men standing 6 or more abreast getting in and out (or should that be out and in?).

    4. I have heard that newlty arrived illegals DON’T know how to use a lavatory . There are signs in some public lavvy’s about how to use a the facilities ,especially no standing/ squatting the other way round on top of the seat.

      2. On of the images forever burned into my brain is the sight that confronted me when I opened the toilet door on a Class 156 unit.
        A facility for disabled people, as the door slid open I saw a lady of the Peaceful Persuasion facing the wall behind the toilet pan whilst straddling it with her skirts lifted up whilst she tried to relieve herself. Nearly all of her output going straight onto the floor.

          2. Thank you, John, but I cannot claim credit for it. It was a remark by a wit at the SE Labs (EMI) Ltd Bar on the Feltham Trading Estate as long ago as 1976 when we had a sort of club that NoTTLers would have appreciated – full of witty banter.

            It opened at 5:30 and I would often phone my then wife, telling her that I would be home at 7:30 – I never said which 7:30!

    8. Every man can pee standing up. If you decide to mutilate yourself, you’re still a man, just mentally ill.

  31. 329563+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Friday 19 February: If Boris Johnson wants to follow data not dates, the data have to be right,

    Dates are a MUST for the political overseers in so far as being inclusive of
    a forgive and forget period for the ovis with the May elections looming.

    As posted late last night turn down a tad on the lock-down regulating valve
    allowing the pressure to bleed off over the two months approaching the 6th May should protect the political minions, and result post elections as business as usual.

    You certainly get results with a lab/lib/con close shop coalition vote.

  32. ‘Morning again.

    Another distraction from the Fishwife as the Salmond affair approaches. This is what BSE looks like::

    Nicola Sturgeon has ordered that the EU flag is flown from Scottish government buildings every day, despite Britain no longer being a member of the bloc.

    Opponents of the First Minister said the demand showed her “obsession” with constitutional issues and “makes no sense” in light of Brexit.

    The request was included in updated official guidance over which flags should be flown from buildings run by the Scottish government and its agencies.

    While the Union Jack is to be flown on only one day a year –Remembrance Day – Ms Sturgeon “instructed that the European flag is flown from Scottish government buildings on a daily basis except for specific flag flying dates”, the guidance says.

    Dean Lockhart, the constitution spokesman for the Scottish Tories, said: “The UK has left the EU, so Nicola Sturgeon’s personal decision to order the flying of the EU flag on Scottish government buildings makes no sense.

    “It reconfirms the SNP’s refusal to accept referendum results and their ongoing focus on constitutional issues at the expense of more important priorities. But we should not be surprised. Like all nationalists, Sturgeon is obsessed with flags.”

    Last year, the SNP narrowly won a vote to keep the EU flag flying outside the Scottish parliament despite fears that the move compromised the neutrality of the parliamentary estate.

    A Scottish government spokesman said: “The EU flag is flown to reflect the overwhelming vote of the people of Scotland to remain in Europe, and as a mark of solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of EU citizens who continue to call Scotland home despite Brexit.”

    In the 2016 referendum, the Scottish public voted to remain in the EU by a margin of 62 to 38 per cent.

    No prizes for guessing the nature of the BTL comments:

    David Arrowsmith
    19 Feb 2021 8:44AM
    She would fly a swastika if she thought it would help her cause.

    Lesley Lewin
    19 Feb 2021 8:44AM
    The Wee Crankie has lost the plot!

    Joanne Russell
    19 Feb 2021 8:43AM
    This indicates to me that Nicola needs a holiday and preferably a long one.
    I can’t see the Union Jack flying in Brussels any more and I never saw our Saltire, sorry Nicola, not once.

    With a bit of luck the Voters in May will give her a pink slip.

    T Light
    19 Feb 2021 8:43AM
    Listening to LBC I was not aware the only time the Union Jack is displayed in Scotland is on Remembrance day and yet the EU flag is displayed daily .

    Alan Keegan
    19 Feb 2021 8:43AM
    She’s a vile megalomaniac.

    What’s most horrifying is that so many Scots are so incredibly stupid, hate filled and careless of their own children as to keep voting for the hate clan.

    SNP supporters are killing the country, it’s civic life, abusing their children (by supporting bad education) and nurturing terrorism.

    Tom Samuels
    19 Feb 2021 8:43AM
    Her constant anti English stunts is just incredibly boring

    2. “voting to remain in Europe”? The question was not do you want to haul the British Isles into the middle of the ocean, it was do you want to leave the EU!

  33. Right I must go and deal with several patches of ‘dead plaster’ discovered behind the wallpaper in the hall. It’s going to be hacked off just like me…. 🙁

  34. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/abd677a52585f6b16fc49a44ed9be97d362aeacab940b9d00394286be395d4e3.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7e35819e632410611dac2561304c264c4bea5c5136af67f3c1a0d32c96c6d127.png

    A couple of days ago a leading Tory stated that the (paraphrase) “…mood of the Tory backbenchers was sulphurous,” re lockdowns etc.He is correct, their lack of action to curb Johnson’s, Hancock’s and SAGE’s manic excesses stinks to high heaven. With what has gone on, and what is to come, these spineless charlatans will never be able to redeem themselves for sitting idly by, and worse, voting through Johnson’s attacks on our freedoms along party lines rather than supporting the people and Country.

    1. Morning Korky. That this business has been a success is a Travesty of the Truth! When the figures are finally added up it will be found that the measures taken actually increased the severity of the Pandemic and caused more deaths than if it had been ignored!

      2. The latest disaster is the plan to test children twice a week. I listened to a scientist on TalkRadio and later read an article on Lockdown Sceptics and both claimed that if CV-19 had never existed these tests would produce >19,000 false positives. More than enough for Johnson to keep the schools closed and prolong lockdown. The man is seriously out of control in his efforts to break this Country. Except for a valiant few the Tories are complicit in Johnson’s plans whilst the “Opposition” such as it is, is guilty too.

        1. Morning all.

          The only person with any standing willing to speak up for our freedoms is Lord Sumption. Lawrence Fox is trying and is given some publicity but the “rebels” in the government are not shouting loudly enough. And none of them is calling for the end of lockdown. There is even a hint in the DT of yet another lockdown in the future.

    1. Did you know, Maggie, that the Mistle Thrush Turdus viscivorus is one of the earliest breeding birds in the UK?

      2. Morning Grizzly,
        I had no idea they were , I always thought blackbirds were the earliest. They have been chasing each other and foraging for food and dry grasses for their nests .

        The doves and pigeons seem to have been fornicating for months . Total opportunists . There is a nest in the hawthorn tree , the doves have used it , and so have the woodies .

  36. Good moaning.
    Before I go shopping – with a satisfyingly unhealthy list of goodies to buy – a couple of cartoons via sonny boy.
    (I cannot begin to tell you how doomy I felt at the idea of steaming bloody white fish and not making shortbread in perpetuity.)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b4f59d9f862f8be92f94345cd207b70d18f399bcc1bd2da1bb11e5dae41b982a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3a5d86d0ccb1abde2ab22fe3ebf59d012320ce3dd8d8151bafedc5fcc00308e1.jpg

    1. Headline: Joe Biden tells Anderson Cooper he likes kids ‘better than people’, Internet reminds him ‘kids are people too’

      We’ve seen the videos of him with various kids at important functions.

    2. Headline: Joe Biden tells Anderson Cooper he likes kids ‘better than people’, Internet reminds him ‘kids are people too’

      We’ve seen the videos of him with various kids at important functions.

    2. IT washes over my head. Any human that I encounter who does not wish to be “identified” as either a normal man or a normal women is regarded as an IT.

  39. Right, precipitation has eased off, I need some eggs, so it’s boots on and off to Cromford!

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

    Unconscious bias victory

    After the intervention of the FSU, Somerville College, Oxford reversed a policy requiring students to score 100% on a test following a mandatory unconscious bias training course, which, among other things, would have required them to affirm that they’d found the course beneficial. After a student at Somerville, and a member of the FSU, asked for our help Toby Young wrote to the College’s principal Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, saying “the relationship between conscious and unconscious bias, and the impact of unconscious bias training on a person’s real world behaviour, are subjects of an ongoing academic debate and if the college values academic freedom it should not insist all students take one side in this debate”. Baroness Royall responded by dropping the insistence that all students would have to achieve a perfect score in the course assessment. “This is an area where I should have thought further,” she wrote, “and I thank you for bringing it to my attention.”

    You can read Toby’s letter to Lady Royall, as well as her response, and Toby’s follow-up letter here.

    Free Speech Union USA

    The US FSU, which will be officially launched later this year, has taken action in the case of artist Emma Quintana, whose installation at the University of Tampa, entitled White America: Supremacy, Nationalism and Patriotism, was dismantled and rearranged by a group of offended students. Ms Quintana is professor at Tampa. Toby and the American FSU’s CEO Designate Ben Schwartz wrote to the President of the University, Ronald L. Vaughn, praising Jocelyn Boigenzahn, the director of the university’s art galleries, for standing by the artist, and expressed the hope that the controversy would not affect Professor Quintana’s employment status.

    If you’re interested in finding out more about the US FSU – or getting involved – you can email the new organisation here.

    Free Speech Champion

    Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced this week that the Government plans to appoint a ‘Free Speech Champion’ to the board of the Office for Students to ensure free speech and academic freedom are protected on university campuses. This will be one element in a new academic free speech bill that’s likely to be included in the next Queen’s Speech. The bill, which aims to strengthen free speech protections in English universities, comes after a report put out by the think tank Policy Exchange last year that, among other things, called for the creation of the new post. For the first time, student unions will have a legal requirement to uphold free speech and students and academics who are penalised for exercising their lawful right to free speech will have a new legal route to claim compensation.

    Matthew Goodwin, Professor of Politics at the University of Kent, who is a founding member of a secretive “group of rebel academics” set up to push back against the growing woke illiberalism in universities, stressed the necessity of the new role. He said: “There is a long list of academics in Britain’s universities who have found themselves marginalised or intimidated by fellow academics, administrators or students.”

    Nigel Biggar, FSU Chair and Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford, welcomed the news, saying: “As British society has become more polarised, the civic vocation of universities to train graduate citizens in the virtues and art of handling controversial ideas civilly has never been more important. The government’s plans promise to inject some energy into that culturally vital role.”

    The Telegraph interviewed several students who have been persecuted for exercising their free speech on campus, including FSU member Thomas Inns, who was suspended from the Students’ Union at Falmouth University for sending a sarcastic email. He sought the FSU’s help and was ultimately exonerated. He said the ordeal was “emblematic of the desire [at universities across the country] not to see anybody offended. Basically it’s trying to protect students from real life.”

    Meanwhile, Toby has some words of wisdom for the new Office for Students appointee in this week’s Spectator: “My advice to whoever is tapped up to be the government’s ‘Free Speech Champion’ is first to cleanse the internet of anything the enemies of free speech can dig up and use against you — so delete all your social media accounts, for a start. And second, tell Downing Street about all the skeletons in your closet before your appointment is announced and get a cast-iron guarantee from Boris that he will stand by you no matter how many people call for your head. Unless you can get that pledge, preferably in writing, don’t do it.”

    Free speech for all

    Rob Lownie, one of the first Free Speech Champions in the newly launched initiative of the same name, writes that free speech is not just important for those on the right of the political spectrum. He says: “Free speech is, in its purest form, inherently progressive, and never reactionary. It helps us to understand one another, encouraging us to ask people why they think the way they do, rather than dismissing their views on sight.”

    Another of the Free Speech Champions, Izzy Posen, co-founder of the Free Speech Society at Bristol University, has resigned as Events Coordinator, after “fundamental disagreements on core values”. The society was founded “to disrupt what felt to us as a dogmatic orthodoxy on campus and to increase viewpoint diversity” but it no longer considers free speech a priority, according to Izzy. He added that the FSU is “the only powerful organisation doing good things for free speech”.

    You can sign up to become a Free Speech Champion here and donate to the new campaign here.

    Politically incorrect research

    After working for a decade in a gender clinic, psychotherapist James Caspian undertook a research degree at Bath University to explore the phenomenon of “detransitioning”. He asked to include the testimonies of women who, although they hadn’t undergone surgery to detransition, “felt as if they had been drawn to a movement, some of them even used the word ‘cult’.” The University ethics committee refused his request, and revoked its earlier permission for his initial proposal, saying: “engaging in a potentially ‘politically incorrect’ piece of research carries a risk to the University”. He took his case to the High Court, which decided against him, and is now taking it to the European Court of Human Rights. He said: “Too much is at stake for academic freedom and for hundreds, if not thousands, of young people who are saying that they are being harmed and often silenced by a rigid view that has become a kind of transgender ideology and permits no discussion.”

    NCHIs

    A Freedom of Information request made by Harry Miller, former police officer and founder of Fair Cop, revealed that “none of the 43 police forces in England and Wales could cite any crime that had been prevented” by recording “non-crime hate incidents” against 120,000 people in the past five years. Miller said: “Non-crime hate incident reports do not appear to have any usefulness as a crime prevention tool, but what they do have is a chilling effect on free speech because they make people think twice before saying or posting something on social media in the fear that it could land them with a criminal record.” The responses to the FoI will be submitted as evidence in the forthcoming Court of Appeal case against the College of Policing, schedule for next month.

    Covid excuse to suppress free speech

    According to Human Rights Watch, Covid-19 has been used as an excuse to suppress free speech in at least 83 countries, none of which registered any free speech-related derogations, which they are required to do under various international human rights treaties. “Failing to register derogations makes it easier for governments to evade international oversight that could curb the abuse of extraordinary powers,” the NGO said. It also found that critics of state Covid policies were arbitrarily arrested in 51 countries, laws criminalising the spread of alleged “misinformation” were passed in 24 countries, and journalists and protesters were physically assaulted by the police or military in at least 18 countries.

    Corporate cancel culture

    Bill Michael, the UK Chairman of KPMG, has been suspended pending an investigation into statements he made during an online staff meeting. He told workers not to complain or “play the victim card” over working conditions caused by the pandemic and associated restrictions, during which KPMG has not furloughed any of its UK staff. He also called unconscious bias training “complete crap”. Offended staff members demanded he “check his privilege”.

    Holocaust Relativism

    Spiked editor Brendan O’Neill exposes the double standard regarding Holocaust Relativism, following Disney’s sacking of actress Gina Carano from The Mandalorian for tweeting that “hating someone for their political views” today is not unlike Nazi persecution of the Jews in the 1930s. Arnold Schwarzenegger was widely celebrated a few weeks earlier for comparing the Capitol Hill riots to Kristallnacht, O’Neill points out, so it must have been Carano’s “lack of wokeness” that got her cancelled. This is a demonstration by our new cultural elites of their arrogant assumption of control over words, language and memory itself, O’Neill says. “Disney and its backers are essentially saying that their cultural power is such that they now own the historical memory of the Holocaust itself.”

    Innocent tweet

    Writing in the Daily Mail, Sue Reid relates the story of 76-year-old Margaret Nelson, whose Twitter following had grown to more than 9000 over the past year, including soft drinks company Innocent. After a tweet in which the former teacher said “Death doesn’t misgender. You die as you were born.” a Twitter troll called Andrew? with the handle @leftist_rage tweeted to Innocent, asking why it followed the account of a “clear transphobe”. Innocent thanked him for the “heads up” and unfollowed her. Then Margaret received a call from the police for an alleged hate crime. The police later dropped the matter, but this is but one of many disturbing episodes that has led to the creation of new organisations including Counterweight and the Free Speech Union. Toby Young is quoted in the article: “The Big Brother that George Orwell warned about in 1984 is a reality. It is not the state watching everything you say, it’s a troll-army of activists.”

    Facebook ads

    Brian Monteith, editor of Think Scotland, a unionist publication, and a former Conservative MSP, writes of having his Facebook adverts repeatedly rejected for violating Facebook’s “vaccine discouragement” rule, despite wanting to advertise articles that didn’t mention vaccines. Facebook has offered no explanation, but Brian’s guess is “that those that don’t like what Think Scotland’s contributors write complain to Facebook about my adverts using the ‘vaccine discouragement’ policy and this automatically triggers an algorithm shutting down my ability to trade and my authors’ ability to be heard. Their free speech has been cancelled.”

    Brian is a member of the FSU and it is helping him raise this case with Facebook.

    Scottish blasphemy

    Madeleine Kearns examines Scotland’s “new blasphemy law” in a piece for Law & Liberty. Under the guise of stamping out “hate”, the Hate Crime and Public Order Bill adds nothing to the law that isn’t already there, she argues, except attempting to “control the human heart”. “Since there are already laws that prevent abuse and sentencing to reflect the seriousness of crimes aggravated by bigotry, why is a separate category of ‘hate crime’ even necessary?” Kearns asks. While the justification for the bill is that “preventing ‘hate’ requires preventing certain kinds of speech … what the drafters really believe is that preventing speech will somehow prevent hate. It won’t.”

    Sense of humour failure

    Cyprus Chief of Police Stelios Papatheodorou acknowledged that the police “should be more careful in the future” after the December raid of a woman’s house over a Twitter account clearly labelled “parody” whose tweets had offended Justice Minister Emily Yiolitis. The police obtained a warrant after Yiolitis complained about the account, allegedly run by Niki Zarou, who now plans to sue the state. The head of the human rights committee of the bar association Achilleas Demetriades said it was worrying that “Yiolitis had reported to police something that does not constitute a criminal offence, but rather free speech”.

    Twitter has removed multiple parody accounts over the past few months, issuing temporary suspensions to popular accounts, including Titania McGrath and The Babylon Bee, as well as permanent bans to less high-profile accounts. Two such accounts that have been kicked off Twitter without any explanation are The Grauniad and Sir Lefty Farr-Wright, which had nearly 23,000 and 26,000 followers, respectively. Fortunately, their satirical missions live on in two newly created accounts, which can be followed at @GrauniadMe and @GiveUsAQuid.

    Exeter University no-platforms debating society’s entire termcard

    Exeter’s students’ union has written to all student societies ordering them to cancel any events involving external speakers. This followed complaints after FSU Advisory Council members Claire Fox and Joanna Williams had participated in a debate at the university, proposing the motion: “This house regrets the rise of the snowflake generation.” Before they spoke, the President of the debating society produced a list of “resources that you could turn to” if you were traumatised by the debate. On 25 January, the Exeter Socialist Students posted a statement online condemning the debating society for hosting Claire and Joanna, accusing them of being “transphobic”, and saying the students who run the society “do not adequately vet their speakers and appear unable to run their society safely”, and, two days later, the students’ union wrote to the debating society and demanded they cancel all future debates until they could put more robust risk assessment protocols in place.

    Toby Young has written to Exeter’s Vice-Chancellor asking her to lift this ban as soon as possible. You can read his letter and the Vice-Chancellor’s response here.

    The Telegraph has written about the episode here. Toby is quoted as follows: “This shows why the government is right to try and rein in student unions. They should not have a right of veto over which speakers are invited to university debates.”

    James R. Flynn

    Writing in The Critic, publisher Paul de Quenoy remembers James R. Flynn, political philosopher and member of the FSU’s Advisory Council, who died in December. Paul’s Academica Press published Flynn’s book A Book Too Risky To Publish: Free Speech and Universities after it was cancelled by its original publisher. Flynn believed in “an open and uncensored society in which debate and disagreement flourish in the pursuit of truth. By standing up to his bullies, Professor Flynn helped restore that ideal and has already encouraged others to do so. May he rest in peace.”

    Kind regards,

    1. Thank you for posting this, though what frightens me more than anything is that the group needs to exist at all. The Left are forcing such division, oppression and conflict that eventually war will ensue – again, as always.

      This time with such a brain washed, uneducated population and the degree of state infiltration we may not win and evil will take over and then, this time the hated fascist Left will never stop the slaughter.

      1. I agree. They exist because it is time for reasonable (i.e. normal) people to fight back and not let the forces of evil overrun us. To vacillate is to surrender.

      1. The problem is, Johnson who from memory said renewable energy technology was not powerful enough to “pull the skin of a rice pudding” has gone completely green due to the influence of his fiancée.

    2. What has done for the Texans has been failure of infrastructure. Texas used to get spells of very cold weather and their power system, the delivery of power, was armoured against it. As very cold weather hasn’t happened for decades, and anyway they were being told there would be no more with ‘Global Heating’ they haven’t kept it up. That is why the system has collapsed in the face of cold.

      Florida would be worse.

      1. As the video points out, the media and bogus scientists have convinced policy makers, that the climate is getting hotter and they have concluded that there will be no severe cold snaps. As a consequence, the turbines were not heated, and this is a cost that has to be borne by somebody- ultimately, the consumer. In other words, Green energy is yet more expensive and its utility even less than the reality on the ground. Building “windmills in the sky” is one thing, their ability to deliver is always way below their supposed output and this proves, once again, that they are more of a liability than an asset. As the video also mentions (in another more northerly state) the reliable coal-fired power station surrounded by non-functioning solar panels is due to get the chop.

        1. At best 33% of Texan power comes from wind and solar. That would explain rolling blackouts, but it does not explain why large parts of the State have been without power for days. Some fossil fuel generation plants have had to shutdown because they could not work in the very cold weather, others because the connection system is broken and they can’t distribute what they would generate.

          1. Some fossil fuel generators using gas, need electricity that was supplied by unreliables to function. It is the same with oil refineries in Texas, some have had to shut down.

          2. True, but as most of Texan power comes from fossil so that shouldn’t have been a problem, but it was. When you put up a supply cable you calculate the required strength against wind action and icing. If you stop worrying about icing then come the cold weather they ice up with more weight than they can carry, your cables fall down and you have no connectivity. In engineering this is covered by Duh!

          3. Phillips Petroleum designed the expansion of the BP Refinery in Grangemouth (now Ineos) in the early 50s.
            Design was proven & worked in Texas & Oklahoma ………… it took people running around
            with blowtorches & steam blankets to keep it running during the first winter.
            Nobody had allowed for Scottish winters being different from Texas.
            1950s average winter weather was a lot longer & colder than today.

          6. The gas terminals I have worked on have lagged pipework with trace heating elements running next to the pipes.

  42. A large number of fairly minor cases which are awaiting being dealt with in court are to be dropped to allow more serious cases to be dealt with as soon as possible. [BBC Radio 4 Today news] Criminals get it easy these days.

    1. I assume that illegal entry into the country and fake asylum claims will be top of the list for being dropped. Quickly followed by burning your taxpayer funded accommodation down because you know you’ll get moved into better.

  43. I see there is a spate of cases being brought against elderly men (it is always men) by women who claim that 20, 26 or 30 years ago they were sexually assaulted.

    Well, I was sexually assaulted by a young Dutch woman in 1965. It scarred me for life – and I am most grateful to her. But she really ought to be prosecuted (assuming she is alive, that is).

    2. There’s news in the DM of a 60 year old headmaster who facing allegations of sexual assault against an adult has been found dead with gunshot wounds…..

          1. It’s a Magnum Covid-44, the most powerful invented pandemic in the world. It can blow a man’s finances clear orf! Are you feeling lucky? Well? Are ya? Punk!

    3. But you would have been 24 at the time and able to look after yourself!

      I did not meet my ‘significant’ Dutch woman until I was 40 and she was 24 and we were both able to look after ourselves! I have never been the same again since then!

  44. A propos race replacement.
    Here is a link to the report. I have not been through it in detail. however a couple of things seem clear. The unchallenged premise is that population decline is a bad thing. The other is that replacement has to be young people and families from foreign parts.
    Incentives will be offered.
    If you want people to live in the Highlands invite people from Glasgow and give them incentives.

    https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/independent-report/2021/02/designing-pilot-remote-rural-migration-scheme-scotland-analysis-policy-options/documents/designing-pilot-remote-rural-migration-scheme-scotland-analysis-policy-options/designing-pilot-remote-rural-migration-scheme-scotland-analysis-policy-options/govscot%3Adocument/designing-pilot-remote-rural-migration-scheme-scotland-analysis-policy-options.pdf

    1. Population decline is a good thing for the planet. But Corporations won’t allow it to continue. They need customers/consumers to exist.

      1. Fewer people with more money would mean more is spent.

        It’s more likely governments want a bigger population as it ensures more reliability in getting the result they want – especially if that population is poorer, more dependent, less mobile and vastly less educated.

  45. Who the hell is this “Joe Biden” that everyone keeps talking about, Surely that’s a misspelling.

    Joe Bidet make much more sense!

      1. From Monty Python……….
        There is another psychological principal which has it that we tend to ridicule that which is alien to us and bidets, which most Europeans regard as serious pieces of sanitary ceramic, appear to elicit that response in us Brits. Remember the Monty Python sketch about the package holiday on the Costa del Wherever, where there’s “only a bleeding lizard in the bidet”? – this was funny because the bidet was every bit as exotic as the lizard.

        1. I understand that in Caledonia, a “bidet” is a young horse.

          Perhaps Duncan could confirm – in the Gaelic, of course….

      1. Apparently Kamala ‘cackle and lie-a-minute’ harris is apparently doing quite a lot of the work, talking to foreign leaders, presumably because Biden is not up to talking due to his ‘afflication’.

    3. A good job Peddy’s not around at the moment – I never thought that he could help you. I once used a ‘whom’ instead of a ‘who’ and posted it before checking and then edited my post to correct my post immediately. But I wasn’t quick enough for Peddy who took his normal delight in pointing out the fact that, as a former English teacher, he thought I was completely incompetent!

    4. A good job Peddy’s not around at the moment – I never thought that he could help you. I once used a ‘whom’ instead of a ‘who’ and posted it before checking and then edited my post to correct my post immediately. But I wasn’t quick enough for Peddy who took his normal delight in pointing out the fact that, as a former English teacher, he thought I was completely incompetent!

    5. Go and watch any of the coverage of his recent ‘town hall’ – he’s mumbling and talking nonsense amongst the lies. Good coverage on Stephen Crowder’s (Crowder bits) and Ben Shapiro’s channels (small segments make it easier watching) – and very funny too. And yet the MSM give him a free pass and defend his actions/words.

  46. And another thing……

    That Murrell woman’s mad EUSSR flag flying order.

    I am fed up with the use of flags as some sort of virtue signalling. Every time a govt “minister” appears, there is a Union Flag in the background. That is quite unnecessary. Flags are NOT political accessories. Yer continentals do it (so do the Yanks). But we used not to.

    Please use flags on flagpoles. On appropriate occasions. Not otherwise.

    1. Morning Bill – The EU may object to their flag being used like this by a non-EU member. The Americans are brought up to respect the Stars and Stripes.

      1. It would be the best thing Fondalyin has ever done if she brought a case against Wee Krankie Sturgeon for national misappropriation.

    2. They make a point of burning the flags around the world to show disapproval of tyrannies.

      Are there not any patriotic Scots who can cut down the flag of the dictatorial, mendacious and untrustworthy EU and burn it to the sound of Scotland the Brave played on the bagpipes and Land of Hope and Glory?

        1. There was a video of the EU rag being raised by a Bundeswehr detachment with the Beethoven replaced by the Horst Wessel Lied on YouTube but it has been censored as Hate Speech!

    4. Most of yer Swedes have full-size flagpoles in their gardens. Go to a Swedish party and there are little Swedish flags all over the table!

      It’s as though they need to constantly remind themselves who they are!

      2. We had a 30ft flagpole in the garden when I was a lad, it was my job to lower it every year and paint it. The UJ was hoisted every St Georges day

  47. Why does my Tesla need new suspension after only 68,000 miles?
    With 26 years’ experience of solving your problems, HJ tackles a weighty issue. Plus: why isn’t there a database of known car faults?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/advice/honest-john-does-tesla-need-new-suspension-68000-miles/

    Good morning my friends

    I saw part of a TV programme last night which also showed that Britain is many, many years away from being able to provide the necessary service facilities for a wholly electric car industry.

    A BTL comment

    Electric cars are not ready for use by the general public and the infrastructure will never be ready for them.

    Covid imprisonment is just a dress rehearsal for the fact that the liberation of the masses that the internal combustion engine brought is soon coming to an end.

    1. The intention is to remove mobility by prohibiting ICE cars. They know the electric car program and mass windmills will be a failure.

      That’s part of the plan which is a confidence trick to force people into a dead end from which there is no escape.

      It’s the same as David Cameron suddenly demolishing coal fired electric power plants instead of putting them to reserve.

      By the time the population realize they’ve been cheated, it will be too late.

    2. “Social distancing during the pandemic” is given in the government’s digital ID document as a reason for bringing digital ids in.
      That clearly doesn’t stack up with “3 weeks to flatten the curve.”

    3. Rather like the Letters page letter saying that they travelled from Land’s End to John O’Groats with no problems and could charge their EV at the latter and enjoy the view, whereas an ICE car could not. Of course, they failed to mention that the ICE car would only have had to refuel once on the entire journey (as opposed to 2-4 times for most EV cars) and would not have needed to refuel at their destination, and thus could still easily enjoy the view.

      What they also fail to mention that the number of electric cars on our roads is only 0.7% of the total (2019) and the days of no queues and cheap prices at the service stop charging stations, never mind council ones, will be soon coming to an end.

      Given how much money the government is borrowing during the pandemic and likely to still be through various unemployment payments once any ‘reopening’ starts’ or other support, exactly how will we as a nation be able to afford all the new infrastructure needed to support all thos new EVs by 2030? Sell even more of our wealth to Bill Gates & Co at a fraction of their previous worth to fullfill the promise of Agenda 21/30/The Great Reset?

      1. I wonder if the government have considered how people in cities will charge EVs? It’s often difficult to park directly outside your house; how about those in flats? In older villages where many houses also don’t have garages the same problem arises – are we to have a tangle of cables all over the pavements? Are there enough materials to make all these batteries, and how long will they last? Where will all this electricity come from??? I’m not optimistic that Boris and Co have the answers to any of those questions, or indeed that they have even thought about them.

        1. I wonder how the electric vehicles performed in the very cold days and in the floods. No comments about how well they performed which suggests there were problems. [as expected]

          2. They say that there are no problems in Canada when using an EV. They seem to be able to survive minus thirty temperatures and work efficiently for normal daily trips.

            However, distance on a single charge might be a problem, a year ago there was an article in a car magazine by someone who drove an EV from Toronto to Detroit (only about 250 miles). It took them most of the day, they had to stop for a recharge several times and finished the trip with no heat, no radio or any other optional electrical equipment.

        2. Roadside (kerbside?) charging points being provided has been mooted. I don’t see that happening, myself.

    4. As always, people lacking imagination get to hog the money, and those with imagination and vision end up writing comments online.

      The destruction wreaked by Beeching in my childhood is something I have regretted all my life, and is now coming home to us today as a gross act of short-sightedness, considering the quarterly return and the boss’s bonus over what may be needed in the next century. The same mentality operates today with the shovelling of the entire transport budget onto a zil lane railway with just eight stations.

      What is needed of course is an extensive network of railway lines with drive on drive off rolling stock and stations in each town, so that people can drive to their nearest station, not more than ten or twenty miles away, in their electric vehicles, and let the train do the long distance stuff. Drivers then sit in the compartments with their wifi and their buffet meals while the train charges up their cars as part of the fare. Drive off the other end with the cars fully charged, the drivers refreshed, and it should cost little more than the aggravation of actually driving along the death trap motorways.

      But the money needed to invest in such a scheme has now been blown on HS2 alas!

  48. Mail to a Con MP………..

    Who are the UK “authorities” ?

    Davos and the UN.

    Mt Gates, Mr Soros.and Open Society.

    Mr Johnson only does what they want.

    It’s exactly as “Conservative Woman” told us..

    “The Tory Party has turned into Bill Gates’ lapdogs”……..

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-tories-have-turned-into-bill-gatess-lapdogs/

    Mr Johnson, to paraphrase Dr Starkey, is not interested in “rational defense of the nation”.

    There’s an obvious explanation for that.. and now we find Mr Johnson and Mr Hancock are involved with Tony Blair who was running a policy and law department store and fiscal laundry………..

    That confirms everything !

    Polly

    1. And come the next opportunity to vote, the great majority who read or contribute to conservativewoman will return the same dross back into power.
      I’m starting to become another Ogga, although he is correct in many things he says.

      Morning PP

      1. 329563+ up ticks,
        Morning VVOF,
        Good to have company of your calibre,many in my eyes are super glued to the party name regardless of consequence of party actions.

        Many want their party in Number ten refusing to acknowledge the fact that “their party” is a segment of the lab/lib/con close shop coalition, we could never have got into such an odious state as a nation without their continuing input.

        In the nicest possible way may many more follow in your “starting” footsteps and follow through.

    2. And come the next opportunity to vote, the great majority who read or contribute to conservativewoman will return the same dross back into power.
      I’m starting to become another Ogga, although he is correct in many things he says.

      Morning PP

  49. Morning all, just off to the vampires for some sort of blood tests…………..just a small prick and not a whole armful.

    2. My vampire nurse is really good. I don’t feel anything when she puts the needle in. Which is a relief.

      Good luck with the tests.

        1. Quite – we were both relieved that the vaccination was done by nurses and not by doctors (who were conspicuous by their absence).

          1. You have to wonder where many of them are on Fridays, given all the golf courses are closed at the moment…actually I wonder where most of those at my surgery are the rest of week, given the surgery is essentially empty and you can’t diagnose a lot of people down the phone (nor even if you both have video conferencing and know how to or can [poor bandwidth in rural areas] use it).

            My local ‘vaccination center’ (in the other health centre in town) seems to have almost stopped vaccinating people – with the original month of a constant stream of people now changed to barely any, with the car park back to its usual (pandemic) capacity. Maybe they got through our (sizeable) more elderly/vulnerable population quicker than ealsewhere and have been instructed by NHS England to hold back and wait for the slow jokers to catch up…

            That letter from Stephen Powis [corrected] of NHS England looked, to me at elast, very ‘selective’ in his quoting figures – once again.

        2. Last time my nurse asked me if i minded a trainee doing it. She inserted the needle painlessly but she managed to get blood all over my arm.

          Practise makes perfect.

        4. I had a bit of a bad tempered elderly lady trying to take samples a few years ago, she couldn’t find a suitable vein and the other lady at the testing centre had to take over.
          My arm ended up looking as if it had been run over, it had everything but the tyre marks. Massive bruising on the whole of the lower inner arm, the Doc who looked at it called it an ecchymosis. It was when I had to to take warfarin for my blood thinner medication. It’s not good medication.

      3. I arrived 5 minutes before my app sat down and was called in straight away, the ladies are all so pleasant.

        1. Good morning, again

          I have always enjoyed circumlocution in order to try and make clichés sound humorous rather than just banal and I am always keen to invent and employ an original turn of phrase if one comes to mind.

          3. Check the Freeview listings once a week. Sometimes the Good Old Days are shown. Leonard is there in fine flow, with all the audience dressed appropriately.

          4. I don’t think I’d like to view that again.

            It would remind me too much of my very elderly aunts singing along with the TV .. I cannot bear that sort of thing !

          5. I was sitting in a wonderful café right next door to the City Varieties, just a couple of years ago, drinking excellent coffee and enjoying the best bagel I’ve ever tasted.

          6. Good afternoon T-B – I came across a word yesterday which I had not seen before “imbroglio”. It was in the book I was reading ” The Secret Life of Bletchley Park” by Sinclair McKay. It is of Italian origin and means a confused, complicated or embarrassing situation. Incidentally I am halfway through the book and it is very interesting

          7. Afternoon Clydesider .

            How is the weather up there with you?

            I have heard the word imbroglio before , but would be unsure how and when to use it .. it sounds like a BBC Newsnight word!

          9. I have read several of Sinclair McKay’s books about Bletchley and the Y Service. As you say, very interesting.

          1. A quiet day in and some rare roast rib of beef (and all the ‘trimmings’) for supper. I’ll be tasting the attainment of the biblical age with water.

          3. It rained hard last night and that has started the thaw. Hopefully it will be gone in a few days time and I’ll be able to enjoy the snowdrops at last.

          5. I’ll be watchful. 😉

            Having said that, I’m more concerned it might transform into single malt!

    3. There have been no new comments on most DT columns since around 02.00.
      I’m not sure if Mrs. Mop has plugged her hoover into the sole office lekkie point, or it’s cr@p software. “Likes’ are none

      1. Morning Anne. I’m inclined to believe that there are fewer articles. I’ve only put up three or four posts per day lately!

    4. Looks like that the same ‘problem’ as the other day is affecting the DT again. You’d think that with all those ‘extra online subscribers’ the Telegraph says they have, they’d be able to afford more IT staff and preferably some decent, unbiased moderators.

      [update] At least for the last two months, the ‘extra’ DT online subscribers don’t actually turn into extra revenue, because the average spend is £191 compared to £193 before. The number of ‘registrants’ (non-paying guests just with a login) has essentially flatlined at around the 6.5M mark.

      The daft thing is that you can get access to most articles – one way or the other, without needing to pay a subscription, the only thing that you can’t do is comment BTL, which as we’ve been seeing, is increasingly difficult because of heavy moderation of ‘wrong think’, editors bend the knee to woke.useless columnists and ‘journalists’ who demand ‘no comments allowed on my articles’ or their (IMHO) seemingly useless IT system breaks more and more often to similarly not allow reader comments.

      Much better to read what we can for free and come here to discuss the issues. Then the DT gets no money from us and is hsown our contempt for their change in tone and treatment of its own readership. They may eventually get the message once the money starts drying up.. I’d also like those ‘subscription figures’ to be independently audited by a third party who IMHO hasn’t been tainted by previous dodgy audit/accountancy scandals worldwide.

  51. I do love the propaganda from Prof Fergusson – saying ‘we could be back to normal by May’ then ‘life will never be the same again’. Plus the Telegraph going full-on Orange Man Bad (and IMHO lie after lie) again in their puff piece interview with Dr Fauci, with them giving an easy ride to Tony Bliar and his ‘approach’ to ‘ending’ the lockdowns. I remember the days when he was rightly bilified by this paper. Now it lauds him as some ‘voice of reason’.

    1. The constant change between good/bad news seems to be very well choreographed by the govt. Hopes up – 2 days later – another mutation.

    3. What he means is he will be back to sh***ing his piece of fluff without the danger of being held up as a hypocrite.

    2. Just had my first AZ jab at G Live, Guildford. Arrived around 10:50 for an 11:00 appointment. One person ahead of me. I was out of the door by eleven. Very quiet.

      While somewhat sceptical about the efficacy and the safety of the so-called vaccines, the writing on the wall suggests that they’ll make normal life impossible without them. And at least, the Oxford / Astra Zeneca version isn’t quite as novel as the mRNA varieties. I’ll let you know if I die overnight…

      1. I had occasion to unload a lorry of metal reinforcement mats. Heavy, an awkward size and springy. The delivery driver did not help. It was not his job, and he thought there would be a team on site. He was a dwarf so that would be another reason. Anyway, there was just me. I unloaded the mats, stirrups and very long bars. Just as I finished unloading the last mat the driver came over to me and said “That’s really dangerous work. These mats can get caught and spring back and punch a hole in you”. Thanks…
        Hardest physical work I ever did.

      2. No, this is section 2 of the dualling, the most difficult part, west of this bridge, is the road up the Clydach Gorge to section 3. The new east bound carriageway is complete and carrying all traffic in a contraflow. The old road, the future westbound carriageway is being rebuilt to modern standards.

        East of this bridge the dualling is completed all the way back to section 1. This new bridge will carry the westbound carriageway when it is complete and the existing section of old road (quite short, about 400m) will be upgraded to modern standards.

        What is under this bridge? Bat caves and some very nasty geology. Should be all finished 1st week of May, and as there should be no more nasty surprises that date should be achieved. Unless of course as they rebuild the old road up the Cydach Gorge they find that nothing was actually holding it up. That happens in Wales.

  59. From TCW:
    The latest information release on Adverse Reactions to the AZ vaccine can be found here:
    https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/962406/COVID-19_AstraZeneca_Vaccine_Analysis_Print.pdf
    Separate pages for each section. One is particularly short but scroll on down to the next page.

    Edit: First web link did not work.

    Further Edit: See also this https://dailyexpose.co.uk/2021/02/14/think-the-oxford-jab-is-safe-adverse-reactions/

      1. Sorry, as soon as I saw it I realised it hadn’t taken. I re-edited it immediately. It didn’t copy live from TCW so I went back into the document itself to get the link.

        I hope I am making sense, I have just come down with shingles …… it rather obviates my dithering decision re the shingles vaccine.n

        1. Oh dear – shingles is rather nasty – have you got the anti-viral tablets? Five a day but they stop adverse long-term reactions. You need to start them within 72?? hours of the rash appearing.

          1. Hello Ndovu – yes, I’ve been given the anti-virals but I am sure it is too late, I didn’t realise what the pinky-red blobs on my back were, at first – I didn’t even realise I had them as I couldn’t see them – especially as I felt all right in myself. Everyone I know has said that they had some warning by the fact that they didn’t feel all that well. With hindsight I can see I felt a little tired last week. I thought it was just the effect of a gloomy February. The feeling unwell has only just kicked in. The blobs are prickly.

          2. Mine started with a painful right ear – so I thought I had an ear infection. Other than that I didn’t feel unwell. The rash came up a couple of days later – and was text-book – just like the photo on the NHS website. One side only – around my right shoulder and neck.
            I phoned the surgery and got an appointment that afternoon (it was 2019) and saw a schoolboy doctor who agreed it was shingles, and so did his supervisor. I used more paracetamol that week than I normally do in 10 years. I found aloe vera gel was soothing on the rash. I felt exhausted and run down for a couple of weeks after it had cleared up.

          3. Yes, I have the painful right ear, as did my mum, 35 years ago. She described it as a crab getting its claws into her skin in and around her ear – and that is it, exactly. I haven’t thought about that from that day until this day. I have three small blobs under the right ear and one on the side of my nose by the corner of my right eye as well as the ones on my back in an arc by my right shoulder blade. I sent off a photograph to the surgery and got a reply back late afternoon – yes, shingles. The rash is just starting to settle and at the same time I am starting to feel more below par, as you say. I haven’t needed to take paracetamol but my husband was virtually taking it round the clock for three weeks, he was really ill with the shingles and I had just fractured my ankle! – and even 18 months later he is saying he feels ‘shingley’ in the evening – we think the nerves are affected by the cold sometines when we are taking Poppie for a walk during the day. I think I must have a mild dose of the shingles.

          5. Thank you – so far it is not so bad. Fingers crossed. The Solpadeine (Max) is on stand-by!

          6. I needed the paracetamol for the nerve pain. I didn’t really feel ill. It was just after Easter and we were visiting family so we still went and I coped so long as I was dosed up. Then we’d arranged to meet friends for a few days walking in the Dales – I managed that as well and two threatre trips when we got home – all pre-booked and I didn’t want to cancel. I did get through a lot of painkillers though. The antivirals are supposed to stop any further nerve pains after it’s cleared up – I haven’t had a recurrence, but it sounds as though your husband has these after -effects. My aunt was afflicted with nerve pain around her waistline for the rest of her life.

          1. Thank you – so far I am not nearly as bad as my husband who had shingles 18 months ago, he was really ill with it.

          2. You be careful, Mum, we need your sort on here – maybe that’s being needy but I’m sure I’m not alone in appreciating your wisdom.

          3. Thank you, that is very kind – I feel everyone on here is so much more erudite than myself. I have slept most of the afternoon and feel somewhat better, for now.

    2. If I understand it correctly, these are from people who reported symptoms to a doctor?
      Did anyone here report any symptoms as being connected with the vaccine? I got the impression that most people just stayed at home.

      1. We didn’t think to report Moh’s reaction , because we were given a leaflet explaining several side effects , I must say if I hadn’t have been feelings so fuzzy myself I would have rung the doctor / NhS number , in hindsight.

      2. There must be countless numbers who do not bother to report their symptoms – that old British habit of “mustn’t grumble” is still strong in those over a certain age.

    3. Moh reacted badly 6 hours afterwards for 48 hours .. AZ vaccine . I just had a headache and felt achy .

      Moh started to feel cold and shivery and tired , he went to bed early and his whole body was quivering like a leaf , as he climbed the stairs , the beaker of squash he took up stairs spilt as he climbed . He was really bad .. managed to undress , get into jim jams and he slept like a log , woke several times to pee , and I couldn’t relax because he was still so shaky en route to the loo.

      I haven’t seen him tremble for about 40 years , the last time was when we were in Nigeria when he caught blackwater fever or something horribly similar. and his pee went black and temperature reached the very top, that was all those years ago, I had to tepid sponge him to bring his temp down and he had huge amounts of antibiotics.

      This time , he was rather warm and very pale looking , he isn’t a rosy cheeked man , sallow features , but he definitely looked bad .

      Still all over now , that was last week , but we do still feel achy and lacking in energy .. could be the weather and just a coincidence .

      We have different blood groups etc.

      I guess a few savage side effects are better than being intubated as the result of Covid.

      1. Side effects show that the vaccine is working. In other words, his immune system may be more effective than yours!

    1. 329563+ up ticks,
      Afternoon NtN,
      As I was pointing out yesterday the best way to combat “wokeyism is via humour.

  61. I see that Tom Harwood (who occasionally writes a column for the DT) is moving from Guido Fawkes to Andrew Neil’s GB News. Given Tom’s (IMHO) recent conversion to the Establishment pov on the pandemic response, etc as espoused by the Telegraph more generally, that doesn’t bode well for the output of GB News.

    We’ll see.

          1. I haven’t been to London in the last 50 years except to march at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day, 2019.

      3. A film about BAME fat girls who can’r dance? Can’t dress either. Unmissable? Er … no.

      4. How sad. All those starving girls and misunderstood drug cartels. Should go down a bomb in London, Birmingham. Leeds. Manchester, Leicester, Liverpool… every penny raised goes towards starving BBC producers and the upkeep of their French chateaus and private islands.

  63. Re the surplus stocks of vaccine that Boris will give away. I am just wondering how much these space programmes cost , and why there is no investment or desire to clean up the world and probe the depths of the Sahara or badlands of Australia or America for water ?

    If pandemics are becoming more common , how do we know that these viruses aren’t brought back by returning space craft ?

    Gawd knows what else the Chinese or Russians have been up to , and I don’t think letting the Americans off the hook should be taken lightly either.

    1. 329563+ up ticks,
      Afternoon TB,
      By the same token TB what have any martians done to
      deserve contamination via lab/lib/con coalition supporting
      earthling things ?

  64. NASA have landed a Rover on Mars after a 300million mile voyage. Bloody Hell, the one I drove in the 90s barely used to make it to Sainsbury’s.

    1. I heard they are actually opening a Bar on Mars and later another Called the Rover’s Return.

        1. There could be a problem pouring the pint.
          I can’t imagine a pint of red dust. Mind you Red Barrel was pretty terrible.
          I just hope they find some evidence of previous occupants, it would explain what Eric Von Danekin was trying to tell us in his book Chariots of the Gods. I still believe it was true.

      4. In those days the Rover was considered to be the affluent doctor’s car; it was also called the ‘Aunty’ Rover.

        My maiden Aunt Lil – who was a doctor in Salisbury – had a Rover 60 which she called Serena. It was the only possible choice as she was doubly qualified to own one..

  65. Dolly Parton has asked the state of Tennessee not to erect a statue of her, saying she doesn’t think it’s right with the way things are at the moment.

    I would agree, a statue seems a bit much.
    A bust would be more appropriate.

  66. Prince Harry and Meghan tell Queen they will not return as working members of Royal Family. 19 February 2021.

    The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have informed the Queen that they will not be returning as working members of the Royal Family, Buckingham Palace has announced.

    Her Majesty wrote to the couple, confirming that in stepping away from official duties, it was not possible to continue with “the responsibilities and duties that come with a life of public service.”

    Good riddance then?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2021/02/19/harry-meghan-will-not-return-working-members-royal-family/

    1. Once she has had her second child she will divorce him. Now that she has destroyed his relationships with everyone else.

      1. I’ve been saying since they became engaged she’s going to dump him after she’s got what she wants.
        I might be wrong………..

        1. Her next baby might be dark and curly haired , like the maternal grandma .

          It is a bit like breeding non pedigree puppies , one never knows what will turn up in the litter!

          1. We have a good friend who has dark hair and is as white as snow, both her son and daughter have no obvious sign of the once mixed race. But her great grandfather was a Caribbean gent.

          3. It’s just that we have all seen it before TB, there aren’t many who have stayed married to the person they started with.

          4. We must be the exception, then; we’ll notch up 42 years in July. The answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything 🙂

          8. And that rugby player Danny Capriani has a Jamaican father and a white English mother but he does not look at all as if he is half black half back.

          9. That’s so true. I once knew a blonde German girl who’d married a Jamaican and had two daughters. One was blonde but with Afro hair and features and the other had coffee coloured skin with soft dark wavy hair. The blonde daughter was very jealous of her prettier sister.

          10. Apparently Meghan was also hit by the curly stick re. her hair. If I remember correctly, she has her hair “relaxed” i.e. straightened. Talk about cultural appropriation. She also had the Afro gap between her teeth fixed, plus her nose. If she is so proud of being “black”, why did she bother? The answer’s bloomin’ obvious.

          11. Apparently Meghan was also hit by the curly stick re. her hair. If I remember correctly, she has her hair “relaxed” i.e. straightened. Talk about cultural appropriation. She also had the Afro gap between her teeth fixed, plus her nose. If she is so proud of being “black”, why did she bother? The answer’s bloomin’ obvious.

          12. No 1 looked like an albino. Indeed I am still not convinced that he is their natural child.

        2. She has dumped everyone else in her life including her family when they were no longer useful to her. Ghastly woman.

      2. I know a bloke who worked hard, was recruited by his client (a small US business), went to the USA, worked harder, earned some money, bought & paid for a property, acquired an American fiancee.
        Not so long after the wedding, she divorced him and took ownership of the house.
        Back to the UK, wiser, and the second time around he married a German (IIRC).

    2. The pair of them have behaved appallingly, but why don’t we hear some thing from his father?

      Also if Prince Phillip sadly exits, would Harry be welcome back to the funeral , I hear that he is isolating just incase he has to fly back to the UK for you know what ..

      What a mess, and is that brat still being paid from the public purse?

      2. Something, somewhere is being paid for by us. It has to be – if the opportunity is there for mulah, Me-again will grasp it.

    3. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have informed the Queen that they will not be returning as working members of the Royal Family, Buckingham Palace has announced.
      Obviously it doesn’t pay.

        2. Notice that Me-again is the main guest star – Harry is only allowed in at the end…just the way Me-again wants it.

          3. General improvement though i haven’t had a full diagnosis yet. Still more tests and scans to be done.

            Had a retrograde step a few nights ago and was in agony all night. As i was feeling a bit better i over did it and paid the price.

            As long as i stay off my feet i can get a good night of sleep.

            Thanks for asking.

          5. Yes, of course there is that, but giving that woman star placing above the dolt is really taking the wee.

    4. What will the pathetic little toy-husband do when he is given the push? This seems likely to come about when she has no more financial motive for staying with him.

      1. That mulatto doxy has previous form, a previous dumped 1st husband , dumped father, sister, and other relatives , and friends , and now she has dumped the Royal family .

        In a previous life , she would have been drinking rum and chewing tobacco !

    5. By contrast and allowing that her husband is almost as daft as his brother, has the Duchess of Cambridge ever put a (public) foot wrong?

      1. No – and I wish the papers would stop calling her Kate Middleton – she’s been married almost 10 years now.

        1. I agree – it is very disrespectful now. After a dubious start she has improved out of all recognition.

        3. I think now it is an affectionate way of addressing her. The MSM have never called her Princess Katherine – actually I’m not even sure of how to spell her Christian name.

      2. The Duchess of Cambridge is the antithesis of the Duchess of Sussex.

        She is an excellent example to us all on how to behave. That’s why Meagain can’t stand her.

          1. William and Katherine are young enough. I think she would make an excellent Queen. She has had a good role model and paid attention.

          2. I think Charles should be given his shot. Then Katherine and William will see first hand on what not to do.

          4. Hopefully they will already have seen the Queen at close hand. I hope Charles, when he is king, ceases his climate change nonsense but won’t hold my breath.

    6. They were lucky to have been offered the opportunity in the first place. When they left it should have been “in the name of God, go!”

    7. No BTL comments – DT afraid of the posts about parasites, publicity-seeking slebs and so forth.

      Probably all deserved.

  67. And still communities in and around Manchester are 50% below the expected average vaccine take up. Who do theses people think they are in refusing to take the jab ?
    But of course the media take great pains not to actually mention the cultural and religious leanings of the dissenters.
    Where as the televised media made a huge issue about the north London Jewish community wedding during lock down.

  68. This subject does not feature enough in the news except as a means to promote the virtues of that kind, tolerant and understanding old man now in the White House.

    Boris Johnson holds the future of the fatally flawed Iran deal in his hands

    Biden’s eagerness to rejoin the agreement is disastrous for the Middle East. The Prime Minister must show him that another way is possible

    JOHN BOLTON

    News that Iran is fabricating uranium metal, reported to International Atomic Energy Agency’s members on February 10, sent shock waves through national-security circles globally. Uranium metal’s most common use is forming the hollow sphere of highly-enriched uranium at the core of nuclear weapons. When imploded, the compressed uranium reaches critical mass and detonates in an uncontrolled fission chain reaction.

    Predictably, Iran concocted alternative pretences for its uranium-metal work, which fooled no one. Indeed, this is simply one more opening for Tehran to make public illicit work already undertaken, but previously undisclosed. The mullahs are upping the stakes ahead of any negotiations with the Biden Administration, which is overly eager to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA).

    The United Kingdom’s reaction to Iran’s latest ploy will be critical. The JCPOA was long a Holy Grail for the European Union, which the willfully blind Obama administration was delighted to embrace. Washington’s withdrawal from the deal amounted to sacrilege for the EU and its US arms-control acolytes. But however ambitious to rejoin Biden’s team may be, the world has changed dramatically since America’s departure in 2018.

    In particular, the Middle East has shifted tectonically. Israel now has full diplomatic relations with Bahrain and the UAE, and with others likely in the very near future. The shared reality that Iran is the greatest threat to regional peace and security is largely driving this quickening Arab-Israeli rapprochement. The former adversaries will not react kindly to outsider efforts to expose them to more imminent danger from Iran. Tehran’s aid to Yemen’s Houthi terrorists; arming Shia militia groups in Iraq; and backing the Assad regime in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon, all demonstrate Iran’s hegemonic Middle Eastern ambitions. This is an appalling time to restore top cover for the mullahs’ pursuit of nuclear weapons.

    Here, Boris Johnson’s role is central. Prior British governments, including while Johnson was foreign secretary, supported the deal. But that was then, and this is now, especially given London’s new freedom from acting in lock-step with Berlin and Paris. Consider what Iran has been up to.

    In January, Tehran admitted enriching uranium above JCPOA-permitted levels, which, some argued, showed the risks caused by Washington’s withdrawal. The real problem, however, is the deal itself, which should never have allowed Iran any enrichment capability.

    Enriching to reactor-grade levels of U-235 (nearly 4 per cent) using the centrifuge method, as Iran does, completes roughly 70 per cent of the work necessary to reach weapons-grade levels (typically 90 per cent-plus). Continuing to 20 per cent, which Iran did, encompassed 15 to 20 per cent of the additional work required to attain weapons-grade. Although the maths may seem puzzling to laymen (it certainly did to me at first), this is simply a matter of basic physics. Merely bringing the US back into the deal will not resolve its inherent fatal flaw.

    The “speed” with which Iran produced uranium metal is significant. Tehran assured the IAEA in mid-December it would likely take four-five months, not less than two, to fabricate metal. IAEA’s bone-dry reports reveal time and again Iran failing to disclose nuclear-related activity until the agency stumbles onto it. This follows a pattern Jim Baker once called “cheat and then retreat”: Iran admits to illicit nuclear-weapons activity only when public disclosure is imminent and inevitable, or when it seems advantageous to do so.

    Now, regarding uranium metal, Tehran is likely revealing previously existing capabilities, under the pretext that, America having withdrawn from the JCPOA, Iran is freed of its commitments. Of course, knowledge cannot be unlearned, so Iran benefits by putting new subjects for bargaining on the table well before any diplomatic moves by President Biden.

    When the UN Security Council terminated its ban on selling conventional weapons to Iran last autumn, even the EU admitted this was a severe mistake in the nuclear deal. So too are the JCPOA’s sunset provisions on other restrictions on Iran, and the grossly inadequate scope of IAEA inspection rights. Worst of all, the deal does not even touch on Iran’s ballistic missile programs, its support for terrorism or its belligerent conventional military activities in the region.

    Instead of America rejoining the failed JCPOA, we should instead be comprehensively rethinking how to deal with the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Its ideological fervor is undimmed, even as its menace grows. The Biden Administration does not get this point. The Johnson government would be doing itself and Biden a huge favor by thinking strategically about Iran, and not simply reprising past mistakes.

    John Bolton is a former US national security adviser

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/18/boris-johnson-holds-future-fatally-flawed-iran-deal-hands/

    1. If they get close to success, one can only hope that they suffer a similar own goal to the one recently reported from Afghanistan.

    2. if the news sent shock eaves through national security circles then they were not doing their job very well.

      2. That’s not the fking point….
        If they want us oldies to pay for the fking privilege of watching BBC £157.00 license give us something to watch in the afternoons.

          3. If everyone stopped paying the licence fee they might take some notice – they can’t fine or jail everyone. MPs put it on their expenses, prisoners don’t pay…..

        3. You do make me laugh Plum! 😂😂😂 I’m with you all the way.

          The Beeb used to have a Sunday afternoon serial, one of the classics, but I expect that’s old hat. Things like Dickens. We have some DVD classics, North and South, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, that kind of thing which I love watching.

          1. Sadly Aunty is trying to attract younger viewers.. note dumbing down of BBC4 which was excellent … politics, drama, music etc.
            Kids don’t watch telly…………….FFS wake up BBC

        4. Record it and watch it tomorrow afternoon.
          I rarely watch anything live on the day it is broadcast, especially ITV. I look ahead through the week, and set to record anything that looks worth watching then watch the following day. The bonus with ITV progs is that you can FF through the breaks.

  72. Great excitement. G & P went outdoors this afternoon. Stayed near the house. I took each up to the orchard so that they could practise climbing. Neither was interested and made for the back of the house where the MR was busy gardening. We realised that only one was visible. Gus had disappeared. We searched and called – nothing. After 10 minutes we were beginning to get a tiny bit anxious – when Gus materialised from next door’s garden… His first solo adventure. Needless to say, Pickles was beside himself with worry…..squeaking and searching…

    Panic over! The first of many, no doubt.

          1. That is closed at present. It was let to a (slammer run) poultry company which did not care for the adverse publicity it was getting from the shambolic state of the “farm”.

            We wait to see what the greedy, obnoxious wanqueur who owns the site plans to do.

            Meantime, the place is silent and odour free.

          2. Dogs are useful protein….especially for anyone with circulation problems….

            Just saying..{:¬))

          3. I don’t tink so Chico.

            High-protein diet affects circulation

            Gemma Alderton

            See all authors and affiliations

            Science 14 Feb 2020:
            Vol. 367, Issue 6479, pp. 753-754
            DOI: 10.1126/science.367.6479.753-e

            Article

            Info & Metrics

            eLetters

            PDF

            Diets
            that are high in protein can be used to promote weight loss. The
            downside is that recent evidence suggests that high dietary protein is
            associated with increased incidence of cardiovascular disease,
            particularly atherosclerosis. Zhang et al. fed pro-atherogenic
            mice a high-protein diet and found that more atherosclerotic plaques
            formed. They observed that the resulting high concentrations of amino
            acids in the blood activated mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)
            signaling in macrophages in atherosclerotic plaques. mTOR integrates
            numerous amino acid–sensing pathways, and its activation in macrophages
            leads to the accumulation of dysfunctional mitochondria and apoptosis.
            This work provides important mechanistic insight into how dietary
            nutrients can influence systemic homeostasis.Nat. Metab. 2, 110 (2020

          2. If you have mice in the house, that is worth more than rubies! Cats are far better than mouse-traps!

    2. EDP newsflash – Man falls from tree teaching cats to climb trees. Retired lawyer released from hospital and advised to teach granny to suck eggs instead.

    3. They’re just finding their feet. Just you wait until they turn into teenagers.
      Out all night, bringing birds home etc

  73. Beware Smart Meters and surge Pricing>

    The texan Experience – (Hold on to you 10 gallon hat!)

    “… and in case you were wondering, OilPrice.com ran the numbers of how much it would cost to charge a Tesla in Texas earlier this week. While a regular charge costs around $18 using a Level 1 or Level 2 charger at home, estimates showed that the surge in power prices would have cost $900.”

    2. Luckily my friend in Dallas was without power for a few days otherwise the prices could have bankrupted him.

      Like most Texans he is on an established rate plan, he would not have seen the effect of the spot market until his supplier declared bankruptcy.

    1. Same in Canada, cases have been dropping since mid January.

      You might think that it is something to do with more UV light now that the days are getting longer.

      1. We in North Shropshire (rural and sparsely populated) are lumped in with Telford and Wrekin (urban and with a significant bums in the air population). Guess what? Our (NS) rates are falling, but T&W’s are rising – so we are told that “Shropshire’s” rates are above the national average. Jiggery pokery in the number presentation springs to mind.

  75. In a landmark decision that marks the close of a years-long legal battle, the British Supreme Court has just ruled that Uber must classify its drivers as workers instead of the ‘self-employed’ designation that currently applies to Uber drivers in the US, Europe and elsewhere.

    The ruling already looks set to jack up Uber’s labor costs, as Uber drivers in the UK are now officially entitled to minimum wage and holiday pay. Uber’s loss at the hands of Britain’s Supreme Court is the last leg of a lengthy legal battle: Uber appealed to the British Supreme Court after losing three earlier rounds.

    Taxi!

    1. They will probably appeal it to either ECJ or the ECHR.

      And win

      And then we’ll discover that one, other or both of those courts retains jurisdiction over such matters under the stick your head in a gas-oven ready withdrawal agreement.

    4. Well, that would tend to make Uber responsible for the behaviour of their drivers. I suppose they may have to vet them all.

      1. Blew our local hydrogen car filling station to bits a couple of years ago. Hell of a bang, it was.

      2. Appalling tragedy though it was, according to an article I read decades ago, the subsequent abandonment of lighter than air craft gave Britain a slight edge in the development of long range aircraft in the years before WW2.

    5. It must be hydrogen week worldwide. They were touting some new hydrogen bearing goo that is stable at room temperatures earlier on. Mix with boiling water and you get hydrogen and goo poop.

      If it is true they might have solved the storage problem so it wil only go boom at the point of use.

    7. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Why not just plug into the sun? All you need is a non-melting cable, 93,000,000 miles long. What’s not to like?

      1. Shame on you,such cynicism,I’ll have you know the Unobtainium pipeline project is well advanced,just another 2 or 3 hundred billion of green taxes and we’ll have free green energy for ever Comrade

    8. They’ve spent a lot of time creating a huge “problem” and they are now desperately looking round for solutions. If they just said “look, we don’t want to be dependent upon the A-rabs for oil” they’d have us all on board.

  78. Sudanese refugee ‘kills French immigration official’. 19 February 2021.

    A Sudanese refugee stabbed and killed an employee at a centre for asylum seekers in the southern French city of Pau on Friday, a police prefecture official told Reuters.

    BFM TV reported that the stabbing occurred after the asylum seeker was told that his request for political asylum had been rejected.

    He was obviously the ideal immigrant!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/19/sudanese-refugee-allegedly-kills-french-immigration-official/

    2. Well he’ll probably get to stay in France for the next 25 years or so. There may be one or two thinking about dusting down Madam Guillotine ….

          3. Gosh – that takes one back! I was a Cub and then a Scout – and I loathed the whole begging aspect of the thing.

          4. We had to do Bob a Job week during the Easter school holidays. My father slipped me 10/- and we then had fun inventing jobs and the people who had supposedly employed us and said he would give me a further shilling if the jobs sounded silly enough.

          6. I’m considering a class-action lawsuit.
            It was a form of slavery and I’m owed squillions in compensation.
            You can be our lawyer, unless you wish to join in the claim and you are thus disbarred.

          12. Not begging, Bill. You simply asked if they had any jobs they wanted doing. Most people were happy to give a little money for some useful work done by Scouts. Of course, there were always the odd niggardly one who would hand out massive work for which they would then pay niggardly sums.

  79. Sudanese refugee ‘kills French immigration official’. 19 February 2021.

    A Sudanese refugee stabbed and killed an employee at a centre for asylum seekers in the southern French city of Pau on Friday, a police prefecture official told Reuters.

    BFM TV reported that the stabbing occurred after the asylum seeker was told that his request for political asylum had been rejected.

    He was obviously the ideal immigrant!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/19/sudanese-refugee-allegedly-kills-french-immigration-official/

    2. They’ve all been good since I stopped working in 2010. Last year was a bit low, but still and all.

    4. Also 1967 I had my 21st birthday on my first trip abroad, a holiday with 6 mates in Benidorm. The celebrations lasted three days. And now there are only 4 of ‘the magnificent seven’ left. Another one John, who during that fortnight on that little known Spanish beach we decided to go to South African ad venture together, recently died and his departure is on the 24th.
      But after 47 years on the 31st of August this year we are still married and still reasonably sane.
      If you are out there, Hello Barbra Courtney from Warrington and Joan Williams from Speak Liverpool. xxxx

  83. That’s me for the day. Have a jolly evening.

    A demain (when it is supposed to be warm and sunny).

  84. Did you see – Edie BBC2 – ?

    83 year old Edie believes that it is never too late – packing an old camping bag, leaving her life behind and embarking on an adventure she never got to have – climbing the imposing Mount Suilven . Sheila Hancock

    If you didn’t see it….lucky you. It’s totally depressing.
    I often wonder WTF the BBC are trying to do to the ‘oldies’…FOAD?

    1. Pension plan for BBC luvvies, long past their best, if they ever had one.
      PS see ITV for similar.

    2. I’ve got just the thing to cheer you up, a little, maybe. I know you’ve got BBC, so go to iPlayer films and watch She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.

      1. Thanks mol, I’m warming to Channel 81.
        I used to bunk off school and watch films from the 60’s. The Carpetbaggers
        9.20 pm tonight …take a butchers.

        1. True. I grew up watching the Duke’s films. Strangely, I didn’t see his first starring role film until 5 years ago.

          1. When one looks at his record, it is extraordinary how many films he featured in.
            And of the ones after that one how many were actually very memorable.

          2. I used to think ‘Stagecoach’ was his first starring role. Then I discovered ‘The Big Trail’.

    3. I watched that a couple of years ago. It looked good n paper, but you’re right. It was a complete misery.

    1. But but but….

      If all the doctors, nurses, consultant physicians etc. in the rubber boats can’t work as doctors, what are they supposed to do?

          7. Too bluddy right interspecies transition isn’t permitted until next week – life can be a bitch….

  87. 329563+ up ticks,

    Blair Tells Boris Not to Ditch Tier System After Lockdown
    bliar AKA,anthony charles lynton ( Bow st.) / johnson a match forged in hell if ever there was one, no doubt the current members / supporters of the coalition will find it acceptable.

    Yet in the case of two proven patriots as in Gerard Batten taking Tommy Robinson as a personal advisor there was castigations galore.

    Issues like this is why these Isles are steeped in sh!te,and without radical change are staying there.

  88. Other news:

    The FDA (the civil service trade union) is still having a hissy fit because a female Hindu midget told some of its members to get on with it.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56125796

    The BBC is grovelling because one of its interviewers asked a Muslim woman some awkward questions.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56123959

    MI6 boss apologises grovels for past ban on LGBT staff. Dominic Raab says the country is a safer place because of their bravery.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/19/mi6-boss-apologises-for-past-ban-on-lgbt-staff

    Gun fights and tales of barbarism in Somalia, Ethiopia and South Sudan. What do you mean “That’s not news”?

    1. Left wing union seeks to get Conservative minister sacked….
      Muslim woman asked to comment on Muslim practices….

      And in other news?

      As you say SFA.

    2. Not news the BBC is interested in, certainly.

      It’s all so tedious. The alphabet community are irrelevant. The sooner they got on with that irrelevance and shut up no one would be bothered. Same for racism – stop labelling people. Don’t you realise you’re the problem here, racist?

  89. Criminal mastermind and Johnson administration advisor, Tony Blair, is an expert at laundering vast amounts of public money straight into the pockets of friends and cronies, and into his own pockets too…….

    Tony Blair was running a policy and law department store and fiscal laundry when he was in office. George Soros was his star client and they met in New York in April 1996 to plan their financial and political partnership.

    This way for devolution and speech laws… that way for climate change, open borders and human rights.

    If you had enough dough, you could have bought any law or policy you wanted from Tony Blair… and now that Tony is running Johnson and Hancock Ltd, it’s pretty obvious Johnson has opened his own policy and law department store too for billionaire customers such as Gates and Soros only.

    Now, it’s this way for Net Zero and Build Back Better.. and that way for Vax Passports and Great Reset. HS2? Third floor, just beyond the Northern Ireland tunnel.

    Trade offs, kickbacks, sweetheart deals, commissions and stuffed brown envelopes? That’s Accounts on the top floor.

    The others were laundering since the 1990s, so Johnson and Hancock Ltd, purveyors of policy and law to billionaires, doubtlessly think as Major, Blair and Cameron are worth $75 million plus each, why don’t we launder too ?

        1. I swapped lay for lie. As it happens my 8 year old granddaughter taught me two days ago that a word that can have two different meanings that’s spelled the same is a homonym. And that a word that sounds exactly like another but is spelt differently is a homophone e.g Bear and bare.

          2. Apologies, but when you said that I heard the Hallelujah chorus in my head that at least someone, somewhere knows what it is.

          4. Funny that, I learnt about homonym and homophone when my daughter first went to an American school in the 80’s and I still get them mixed up.

    4. If you are aching from your fall , and the weather is horrible , just relax and think about what surprises your lovely garden might present you?

      We are quite shocked because our peach tree has swollen buds , and it needs pruning, where is Peddy and his advice, Moh wants to prune it.

      Our garden is very straggly looking and the flower bed looks a real mess , so many weeds , or are they? The garden is on a slight slope and muddy as anything .

      We need to make a trip to the tip with bits and pieces .

      2. Hi Belle
        I’m missing my tennis…not used to sitting around doing bu**ger all.
        The garden is in need of some serious attention but my heart is not in it
        at present..

          4. Have you got an ipad or other type of tablet? You can download apps for Netflix, Amazon Prime etc.
            Approx £7 or £8 a month ea. Netflix films and progs are all free once you subscribe; Amazon Prime has a lot of free films and progs but also some that you have to pay extra for.

            Recommended:
            Netflix:
            Breaking Bad (Natch 🙂 ) 5 series
            Better Call Saul (but watch BrBad first) 4? series
            Ozark 4? series
            The Staircase 1 series
            Manhunt:Unabomber 1 series
            Amazon Prime:
            Good Girls 3 series
            Sneaky Pete 3 series
            Bosch ?series
            American Gods ?series
            Lots more, but those are off the top of my head

          6. Sorry to hear that, Plum. Perhaps it’s the time of year; I had a really bad day yesterday and hit rock bottom, but today I’m starting to climb out of it. It has been really dull and dreary here – five o’clock type daylight even in the middle of the day. Lack of sunshine doesn’t help, does it?

          8. Just in case anyone has forgotten, The West Wing is available FOC (though with adverts) on the All 4 on demand service. For the ordinary Amazon members like me, you can get a free one month trial of Amazon Prime roughly once every two years – I managed to (other than being handy this year for quicker deliveries of Christmas presents) binge-watch my way the sci-fi series The Expanse up to just before it started to drop in quality (new episodes in Jan 2021) 🙁 They also have some good documentaries as well.

          9. Buy an Amazon Fire Stick, £30-50 depending on whether they have a deal. It turns yer telly into a smart one! You do need decent Broad band and one that has a USB port but I find it amazing. You tube is a treasure trove, and You can play all those oldie bands without having to squint at a small screen. Other connecting devices are available.

        2. You could find a nice big long wall to play tennis against yourself? I might get my bike out assuming the tyres are not perished.

    7. Violin lessons at 10.00

      Watercolours at 12.00

      Commence autobiography at 2.00

      Sherry at 5.00

      Tell us about progress at 6.0, sweetie ! … x

  91. I’ve just come across another jolly good reason for not subscribing to the DT – it’s so effing depressing!

  92. Night All,the drink’s in and it’s time to cook so I’ll drop this random lot off to clear the decks

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/32ff7eece756308320a0804768bc853dab0f7072cb0bbf3374419a5245cea702.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1490f9422c3f2ce02c7aa2f71e10e8895637038b6a07655fef4bdaa0d4d2f793.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/acda5a9cc7e401fb3558ae334e0e37927f6101223db041f3f9930483222401cb.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/03a4234f5e0d771c2eedc76d79bf3a2f3daac0498d7f60f823c3c1edf57e8e42.jpg

    And Finally

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ffc97d52cde2e31b6702ad16af2cb61a139f4c39e470d60a58589d16709bcba.gif
    Edit
    Forgot one
    https://twitter.com/policecommander/status/1362516823598641155

    1. This morning on th toady program you had Robinson exlaining that Texas was suffering without power which was causing shortages of food and clean water.

      In the next breath, he’s wailing to some green trougher about how the US will be welcomed back to the climate change meeting in Paris.

      I’d imagine with “Thank god, I was going to have to travel business class rather than by private jet!”

      Or “Troughs back on boys!”

      It’s pathetic. Do they even realise what they’re saying? No energy, no clean water, deaths, poverty, starvation yet these gormless, hateful fools demand that our economy be hammered back to the stone age.

  94. Dear Grammar Experts,
    Is there a word to describe a word which is subject and object in the same sentence?
    e.g. I bought a house which contained a cat?

      1. No she can’t be a Subject she’s an American….Although she can be an Object of derision…

    5. It’s tricky – you could have a subject that is also an object, but I can’t think of a scenario where you could have one thing both subject and object simultaneously.

  95. My first sourdough loaf is about to be taken from the oven. It smells different from my usual home baked bread.

        1. That looks good!
          I love heavy sourdough dipped into minced chillies (from a jar) on the terrace in the summer, together with red wine…

          3. The toner cartridge place. Each slice of bread gets nicely flattened by the pinch rollers on the out tray. This one can even make both single and double sided toast and add ‘butter’ The top shelf is for putting the jam on.

            You think that’s bad – a former employer was soooo stingey that he used to make us use both sides of the A0 plotter paper and remove the used toner (there is such a thing) to save money – which is delicate work as its even finer than flour and can get into the lungs like asbestos!

          4. Great! Thanks for the advice. As the ‘custodian of the Parish printer’ it seems to me that – since moving – mine may well be the only retirement bungalow in the UK with a full size commercial colour laser copier/printer. But we’ve had a succession of ‘end of lease’ machines from Ebay over the last decade or so, which cost bugger all to buy, and the toner can usually be found at greatly reduced prices on Ebay, too. Cost per copy is a fraction of a penny, and when the machine dies, you throw it away and find another.

          5. I did respond to you before but i think it got lost.

            I live in a bungalow in the UK and am also retired.

            I have a HP colour laserjet 555DTN

            Weighs 55kilo and is the size of a large washing machine.

            So there ! :@)

          1. Panasonic SD2500 – absolutely brilliant, self cleaning (and if you want to you can make jam in it)

          2. I have the Panasonic ‘Croustina’ SD-ZP2000KXC – which was ‘a thing’ for a while. Sadly discontinued, it is designed to make crusty loaves, and cost a bloody fortune. I use Panasonic’s ‘sourdough’ recipe. It involves making a culture 12 hours before, but it involves yeast and balsamic vinegar, and doesn’t require obsessive feeding etc., of a ‘genuine’, long-lived sourdough culture. Life’s too short. Makes lovely bread, though.

          3. Having tried various permutations I’ve settled on the following ingredients listed in order as they go into the pan:
            1&1/2 tbs of sugar
            I sachet of Sainsbury’s yeast
            200gms Canadian and strong white flour
            200gms Canadian and strong wholemeal flour
            100gms Seeded bread flour
            1oz Butter
            1&1/2 tbs milk powder
            1&1/2 tsp salt
            1/3 tps vitamin C (from Trade ingredients -by the kilo but it lasts years!)
            350ml of water added carefully so as not to dissolve the salt (which according to Paul Hollywood kills the rise!)

            It takes no more than three minutes to whack the ingredients in & press a couple of buttons and 4 hours later a perfect loaf.

          4. Great. Here’s mine:

            Culture:

            300 g Heygates Prestige Strong White Bread Flour*
            1 tsp Allinsons Easy Bake Yeast
            1 Tsp sugar
            2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
            300 ml water

            Mixed up, transferred to a jar and left for 12 hours

            Loaf:

            250 g Sourdough culture (see above)
            250 g flour (as above, or Heygates Norfolk Crunch)
            1 tsp yeast as above
            1 tsp sugar
            1 tsp salt
            120 ml water

            Set breadmaker to ‘lean’ setting, which takes six hours.

            I can make two loaves from one batch of culture, and I tend to make both in rapid succession, let them cool and dry out somewhat, then slice and freeze them. I have a small rotary food slicer, which means I can make rather thinner slices than I can ever buy in the supermarkets, or cut by hand.

          6. *Meant to say – other bread flours are available. But when the supermarket shelves were stripped, I ordered 16 kg each of Heygates Prestige Flour and Norfolk Crunch. I’m still working through it. But I’ve had better results with Waitrose Very Strong Canadian White Bread Flour…

          7. Waitrose is my first port of call for their very strong Canadian flour. However, I discovered today that a local M&S Food Hall is also offering Canadian & Strong White flour as well as stone ground wholemeal….

          16. I’ve always wondered what the difference is between strong flour and ordinary flour.
            What is added to (or taken out of) it?

          17. Gluten, and protein. From Google: Very strong white bread flour is made from a blend of premium wheat and has an even higher protein content and gluten strength than the strong white bread flour. This guarantees a fuller rise and when blended with other flours such as rye and wholemeal will help give a rounder loaf.

          21. Strong flour, also commonly known as strong bread flour, is made from hard wheat varieties. It contains more gluten than other types of flour which gives it its elasticity and enables the dough to rise with a good structure.

  98. Pretty obvious from this that Biden is not the President of the United States…………..

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/Tg9EsnfOpdWe/

    But then we knew that anyway because under emergency powers available to President Trump, power was devolved to the military due to a foreign enemy, China, faking the 2020 election.

      1. It looks to me the military haven’t accepted Biden as President and are just going through the motions for appearances.

        There’s no other reason to get the salutes so wrong.

        1. But every detail would be agreed and choreographed in advance, surely? No President who was aware of what was going on would accept that reduced ceremony though. It’s especially surprising for Biden, because he has been around the White House for so long, he must know the impact of the ceremonial aspect.
          It could be that there wasn’t much enthusiasm for the full ceremony so they pleaded corona regulations as an excuse.

          1. If that’s all that was on offer, there’s not much Biden and his gang could do about it.

            Take it or leave it. That would fit with Donald devolving power to the military but still remaining as de facto President.

          3. There’s a difference between Biden ordering things to be done.. and them actually happening.

            There’s a lot of disinformation here…..

            What you see and hear is not necessarily what you get because the entire operation is clandestine and secret. Partly for reasons of public order, but also for self incrimination by Deep State and their associates. That’s what the U2 planes are for.

          4. You have a valid point. I wouldn’t have thought Thievin’ Joe’s inauguration could be so minimal, so who knows what else will or won’t happen?

        2. I’m not convinced. If the military had reason to take power they would have done so in a positive move before Jan 20. Once the new regime is in the Capitol, then its game over.

          1. Everything is being done in secret to maintain civil peace and Biden and his gang are being allowed space to implicate themselves. Biden and Harris can’t do anything, they’ve got to go through with it. The only alternative is to resign.

          5. I believe there are still unresolved challenges to the presidential election results passing through legislatures and courts at the present time.

            There is so much shit on the Biden family’s historic corruption that cannot be hidden or exempted by presidential Executive Orders dictated by Obama to his dilapidated puppet Biden.

            In addition some of the potential outcomes of a Biden presidency are being advanced prematurely in Texas with catastrophic results, so Biden will have not a little difficulty in proclaiming his platform of a New Green Deal which has been exposed as a gigantic farce.

            You cannot sustain such massive lies as have been perpetrated by the Democrats for any length of time. Everyone in the world is watching.

        3. I doubt that anyone including the Democrat High Command can really believe that they have gotten away with the stolen election. Even with a complicit, deviant and hypocritical MSM and Social Media giants it must be bloody obvious to any sentient being that they are guilty of high treason.

          The ‘go get Trump’ agenda of Nancy Pelosi and Schmuck Schumer are indicative of a mad and obsessive panic. It is much the same with Mitch McConnell who probably realised that his cosy sinecure at the Capitol is about to be terminated.

          You really cannot live a lie comfortably and that is now evident in the rabid machinations of the Democrats on Capitol Hill.

          As for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, two more incompetent, ignorant and unqualified grifters would be hard to find in the sewers of what was once the fine city of New York, now a wreck.

          Other cities wrecked by Democrats in league with Antifa and Black Lives Matter are available such as Seattle and Minneapolis and others.

          We have been given to believe that the higher ranks of the armed services are pro Biden. I very much doubt it. I can well believe that the military have the lowdown on the electoral irregularities and malfeasance in public office of those officials on both sides who took funding from the Chinese Communist Party.

          We must pray that Biden is stopped in his tracks ASAP.

    2. His ‘town hall’ the other day was a joke. When he wasn’t lying or ‘mis-speaking’, he was mumbling incoherently. Harris fielding calls to/from world leaders.

      God help us all.

    1. I’m awaiting any of the CEOs of the big pharma companies or Bill Gates to get their jab live on TV. What’s the betting it’ll be saline? Ironically, Mark Zuckerberg won’t be one of them, having rightly stated the other day that the vaccines have not been tested long term yet.

      1. Quite. Perhaps against my better judgement, I accepted my first Oxford / Astra Zeneca jab today. If I was much younger than nearly 64, I might have declined. I’m not entirely convinced that diabetes is such a serious underlying condition. Yet my ex-girlfriend’s former husband has been in hospital in Bournemouth for three or more weeks, mostly on a ventilator, and is far from pulling through. He – like me – is diabetic. At his daughter’s graduation a few years ago, his current wife took me to one side and asked my advice about his diabetes. Which he was ignoring. He’s around 70, and his prognosis is far from good.

        That aside – I’m somewhat sceptical about the vaccines, and would happily eschew them. But the writing on the wall leads me to believe that life in the “new normal” is only going to be possible with a vaccination passport. I hate the idea, but I’m unwilling to spend the rest of my miserable existence in solitary confinement.

        So far, so good. There’s a bit of bruising on my upper arm, but otherwise no side effects, apart from an inexplicable urge to translate my post into Chinese…

        1. My attitude too. I think you should assess your own risk, regarding health and age. I am 65 and in good health so will wait until life becomes unbearable without getting vaccinated or it disappears on its own accord.

          1. I had no side effects from my jab two weeks ago. I wasn’t too keen to have it, but I’ve had many in my life and it’s our only get out of jail card as far as I can see. I’m not ready to give up on travel yet.

          2. Me too, Jools. Not so much for international travel, but I want to get back to the pub…

            And – knowing the fuckwits in charge of the Church of England – I’d also like to get back to work. Somehow, downloading hymns from bloody Amazon isn’t the same as being an organist and choirmaster.

          6. I know Geoff. I’m just not convinced that after inoculation we will be “set free” or back to normal. I think the PTB have become very attached to the powers they have assumed over the last near year. Not to mention the green agenda. The future is looking rather bleak I feel. I hope it isn’t bleak but one day we have encouraging sound bites but contradicted in the next minute by some minister or other. Quite honestly I don’t think the government is running the show.

          7. Alf and I have written separately again to our MP, he has replied bless him but I’m sure he’s extremely fed up with hearing from us – tough. What else can people do? And when I read today that we “may soon be allowed to sit on a park bench “ it makes me so angry. FFS, sit on a park bench!

          11. Given that “singing in a choir is as much fun as you can have with clothes on” I think you will..

          14. I had an email from our rector today saying they weren’t going to open our churches for worship any time soon – it was too risky.

          16. Not as far as I know and there was an article the other day from a professor of epidemiology who said that there was no evidence of people flocking to the beach being “superspreaders” – so Maggie should take heart.

          18. I was beginning to think I would start using the BCP to officiate at my own services – when I was a child I wanted to be a priest, but I grew out of it 🙂

          19. I’m relieved that I wasn’t offered the Pfizer jab. mRNA is rather too novel for my liking. Despite diabetes and several related complications, I think my health is pretty good. I am fairly sure that I had a fleeting visit from Covid-19 last January/February, but the symptoms were mild, and lasted for only a few hours. So I may already have immunity. A surprising number of people I’ve spoken to had similar symptoms around the turn of last year. But we were told to take paracetamol, and not bother 111 unless we were dying. So I think a much larger proportion of the population has had the lurgy than is ever admitted…

          20. The Pfizer jab was the only flavour on offer when I turned up last week to (reluctantly) receive my first dose. So far you won’t have noticed any difference…..

          21. Yep. Frankly, I’d have accepted either. And neighbours who attended the same centre a few weeks ago were given the Pfizer jab. But I would have been more uneasy about the mRNA variants.

          23. If what you write is correct perhaps now
            is the time to advertise the post for a
            replacement ‘Mod’…….. :-)))

        2. At 76, rising 77,Geoff, I’m not prepared to risk something that may have longer-term effects.

          I’d rather take my chances in living a bit longer, rather than become a drooling idiot in a corner, wetting myself.

      1. Mine, too, deserves a medal – for longevity, if nothing else! He keeps me sane, tries to make me smile when I’m down and generally is indispensable. He won’t get a medal because we don’t have such magnificent scenery to walk in and I don’t plaster our photos all over social media.

          1. I find it hard to understand why people want to post photos of themselves, their activities and their meals on social media, but then I am essentially a private person.

          2. I never want to, Con, if only because I am the least photogenic person I’ve ever known!

    3. There is a difference between an OBE and an OM. Personally, I think Max received the greater honour – not too many BAMEs have that.

  101. For the past few days I’ve been conducting a scientific experiment on the relative evaporation of blended versus single malt whisky. The provisional results now in indicate that a 12 year old Speyside whisky will evaporate more quickly outside the bottle than a Spar Shop Glen Dhu (Silver Medal winning) blended whisky but it’s bluddy close.

    1. You allow either to evaporate? More money than sense… :-))

      My 18 yo Ledaig is firmly corked, and kept in the box. As for ‘the angel’s share’, any angels spotted in my kitchen will be given short shrift…

      1. I’ve an unopened full bottle of 1953 J. Nismes-Delclou Armagnac …..( which was given to me by friends 18 years ago but is no longer available)

          4. Nice but, unfortunately any form of brandy is now off-limits for me, as it would do severe damage to my poor weakened heart but Scotch – that opens up the blood vessels and promotes the heart’s welfare. Long may it reign.

      3. Yeah! F**k the angels! Actually, thinking about it, you have to wonder … I’ll ask a Priest, he’ll know.

    2. My Christmas bottle of 12 year old Highland Park must have a leak,………. every time i take it out of the box there is an obvious problem with seepage. Maybe I need some thing with more maturity and less frivolity.
      And with that it’s good night from me………..

      1. Confession: at the moment I’ve got some Welsh whisky on the go …. IMO it’s not as good as Old Pulteney or Isle of Jura …

        1. An Englishman, a Welshman and a Pakistani man were sat in the waiting room of the maternity ward at the local hospital.

          A nurse comes out and says to the men “I’m sorry, but there’s a been a mix-up and we don’t know which baby belongs to which mother. Any chance one of you could come in and see if you can help?”

          The Englishman stands up and says that he’ll help. He walks into the ward and, a couple of minutes later walks out with what is obviously a Pakistani baby. The Pakistani man stands up and shouts “What do you think you’re doing?!”

          And the Englishman said “Look, one of those babies in there is Welsh, and I’m not taking any chances.”

        2. On one of my golf society ‘tours ‘ of Ireland about 20 years ago, we stayed in Middleton and visited the old Jameson distillery. It was quite an eyeopener to have 4 or 5 different types of whisk(e)y to tastes the difference between, after the tour. They used anthracite to heat the floors in the malting floors. As opposed to Peat for the Scottish versions. They also gave us a Bourbon to try along with the others too sweet to be considered whisk(e)y for me, but not bad as jus another drink.

    3. Thanks Stephen but I use Highland Earl 1 Litre from Aldi at £14.99 and it is more than OK with plain water or Highland Spring. I cannot afford single malts much as I’d like to. My favourite is McAllen 12 yo but it, and The Glenlivet, are far beyond my parsimonious purse.

      1. Any single Malts that make their way int this household are usually given as presents at Christmas so rarely last beyond Feb! If you do spot a Glen Dhu do give it a go I think you will be pleasantly surprised,

  102. For the past few days I’ve been conducting a scientific experiment on the relative evaporation of blended versus single malt whisky. The provisional results now in indicate that a 12 year old Speyside whisky will evaporate more quickly outside the bottle than a Spar Shop Glen Dhu (Silver Medal winning) blended whisky but it’s bluddy close.

  103. I watched a lovely film on Netflix this evening. Tom Hanks The News of the World.
    Highly recommended. It might also bring a tear to an eye or two.
    Copuzlayders.

    2. Can I ever forgive Hanks for the dreadful rubbish that was ‘Greyhound’? I am not yet even ready to try.

    1. We’ve currently got a bottle of SA sauvignon blanc open – Comeback King from Laithwaites. SA wine producers need our support.

    2. Kanonkop Pinotage
      11.99 at Majestic
      Delicious
      Edit
      Tesco have their Cape Blend for11quid 25% off 6
      Also a good glug

    4. Too many to select just a few.
      I especially liked wines from Fairview when I was there. I like nice soft wines so their Merlot is my favourite.
      Their most popular blend (at least over here) is a Cotes du Rhone knockoff called Goats do Roam

    5. I can’t be bothered with globe-trotting to find good wine at reasonable prices. These are from Aldi and Chablis is our ‘special’.

      French Sauvignon Blanc 2 £4.49 £8.98

      French Chardonnay 2 £4.49 £8.98

      Chablis Premier Cru 2 £13.99 £27.98

      Order Totals £45.94

      Standard delivery FREE

      Total Price £45.94

    6. I wonder which country in the EU would have wanted a quota on South African wine…no, I just can’t imagine. Denmark, perhaps?

    1. Unfortunately Princess Nutjob has far more influence over the United Kingdom but is infinitely less entertaining than La Markle. It is a difficult choice but I think the crown must go to Princess Nutjob.

    2. Chrissakes, Richard, if ever there was a need for the cleansing of the Augean Stables, that time is now.

      How do we get through to the Bonzo Dog Do Da Band that he is now a busted flush?

      Who is our ally in the press, willing to trumpet this shiite from the roof-tops?

      1. Nobody. This vaccine “triumph” over the EU has made Boris untouchable, especially as the media are right on board with his Great Reset programme.

        1. I was disgusted that the EU deal was lauded as a brilliant success by the MSM – and even by Farage – when a moment’s reflection would have exposed it for the shabby sell-out it is.

          1. Me too, but I never expected anything else from the Cons, I’m afraid. Had they been serious about a good exit, they would have brought Farage into the negotiating team.

        2. I was disgusted that the EU deal was lauded as a brilliant success by the MSM – and even by Farage – when a moment’s reflection would have exposed it for the shabby sell-out it is.

        3. I was disgusted that the EU deal was lauded as a brilliant success by the MSM – and even by Farage – when a moment’s reflection would have exposed it for the shabby sell-out it is.

    3. Pah. Business as usual for the Conservative Party. They always reserve their deepest hatred for other Conservative factions.
      Carrie and Gove are both fake Conservatives who should be in the LibDems or Labour. Gove showing his true colours now that he has a powerful left-wing ally at the top of the Conservative party. He always was a better slate-master than figurehead candidate.

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