Friday 20 August: A bad deal with the Taliban hopelessly implemented by Biden leaves the West a bleak future

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/2021/08/19/letters-bad-deal-taliban-hopelessly-implemented-biden-leaves/

615 thoughts on “Friday 20 August: A bad deal with the Taliban hopelessly implemented by Biden leaves the West a bleak future”

  3. Has anyone noticed that the very people that are bemoaning our lost special relationship with the USA are the same people that spent four years slagging off their last president, who was in fact very pro-British and wanted to do deals with us.

    2. No such thing as the special relationship. There’s only the kissing of US ass.

  5. SIR – Does General Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the Defence Staff, believe his words to Sky News: “I do think they [the Taliban] have changed and recognise Afghanistan has evolved and the fundamental role women have played in that evolution.” If so he is displaying a lack of judgment that would disqualify him from leadership of a Scout troop.

    Christopher Collier
    Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    2. That’s rich coming from a Westerner living in Ho Chi Minh City…..

      Morning Michael et al….

  6. Joe Biden’s asinine handling of Afghanistan could gift Donald Trump the White House. 20 August 2021.

    It’s a bit early in his tenure for a political obituary. But for Joe Biden the Afghanistan debacle may be presidency-shattering. HMS Biden is now holed below the water line and slowly sinking.

    What has really riled Americans is not his original decision to withdraw – which was popular – but that he made the US look like a loser. For a president, it’s the unforgivable sin.

    Morning everyone. It’s true that the whole perception of this thing has changed. From Technical Withdrawal to Disaster and Defeat in seven days. This article might actually read as support for Trump. Something unthinkable in the MSM only a month ago. In my view this is one of those turning points in history. In itself nothing, but with consequences that cannot be foreseen. Biden is finished. He may manage to squat there or even be replaced by Kamala but they are mortally wounded. Another coup, this time backed by the Military, is not impossible and movement by China against Taiwan during this disarray is not unlikely! We are entering truly turbulent times and all Nottlers should keep their cupboards full.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/08/20/joe-bidens-asinine-handling-afghanistan-could-gift-donald-trump/

  7. SIR – If there is no triple lock increase, you can bet your house that companies like my broadband provider will still apply an “annual 3 per cent plus Consumer Price Index increase”. Ofcom must stop them.

    Tim Grover
    Windsor, Berkshire

    Council Tax will soar. The councillors need our dosh to fund their pensions.

    2. Car, house insurers bumped up my premiums so I walked 5 years ago.
      Apply to tehse insuraers now and their premiums are back down to “normal levels”
      Same applies to BB/Mobile phone contract.

        2. So am I – I received renewals that put prices up by
          10% on car insurance but got it down to £7 less than last year as I said I would take out a new policy and save £30+
          House went up some 11 % but we settled on last year’s premium
          Breakdown shot up 30% but again I said that new customers pay a lot less.
          They pointed out I was not a new customer – I agreed but said my wife would be the new policyholder.
          They folded and agreed same ££s as last year.

  8. Friday’s woke offering:

    SIR – You rightly slam President Joe Biden’s betrayal of his promise on April 14 that the United States would “not conduct a hasty rush to the exit” but would withdraw “responsibly, deliberately and safely”. (Leading Article, August 18)

    Donald Trump’s Taliban deal contained an unenforceable aspiration that a “permanent and comprehensive ceasefire will be an item on the agenda of the intra-Afghan dialogue .”

    The Taliban’s obligations listed in Part Two of the Doha agreement relate solely to preventing future threats to the security of the United States and its allies being made from territory controlled by the Taliban.

    Nowhere was withdrawal made contingent on a permanent intra-Afghan peace deal. The agreement’s text shows that in Trump’s eyes the elected Afghan government is just one of the “sides” to negotiations. So much for US commitment to democracy or the wellbeing of the Afghan people.

    All one can say is that Mr Biden’s implementation of the agreement has been as appalling as the deal itself. With such a president, the future for the free world looks bleak indeed.

    Terry Higham
    Haywards Heath, West Sussex

    SIR – I listened to some of the debate in Parliament about Afghanistan and read many comments on it.

    I was left pondering what might have been said in a debate if, say, three months ago Boris Johnson had gone to Parliament to say he was sending 5,000 more soldiers with equipment to Afghanistan to offset the US withdrawal.

    I suspect he would also have been condemned from all side of the House.

    Barry Gregory
    Mickleover, Derbyshire

    SIR – Sir Keir Starmer has been vehement in his condemnation of the British withdrawal from Afghanistan.

    Yet, had Labour won the last election, the Shadow Cabinet, of which he was a prominent member, would have become a government led by a man whose mission would have precisely been withdrawal from Afghanistan.

    Rob Mason
    Nailsea, Somerset

    SIR – Are the people who are complaining that Britain is not doing enough in the Afghan crisis the same as those who condemn Britain‘s imperial and colonial past?

    Michael Nicol
    St Albans, Hertfordshire

    SIR – How disingenuous of Theresa May to suggest in Parliament that European nations could have stepped in to support the Afghans once the Americans left. There was no appetite among our European friends as Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, discovered. She should also know that little could be achieved militarily once American heavy lifting was removed.

    It is one thing for Sir Keir Starmer and friends to try to score points, however ignorant this shows them to be. It is quite another for ineffective former prime ministers to try it on.

    Ruth Barsby
    Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – President Biden must have been advised that the decision to withdraw strategic air support to the Afghan army would hand victory to the Taliban at the pivotal moment in the struggle. It must be one of the most catastrophic mistakes in history.

    Chris Davies
    Woking, Surrey

    SIR – Mr Biden may be heavily criticised for his comments on the Afghan army but, its leaders have much to answer for. Great numbers were “ ghost soldiers” invented by military leaders who pocketed their salaries.

    Similarly, of the $83 billion mostly spenton planes, vehicles and weapons, a large part disappeared as material was sold on to the black market, much of it ending up in Taliban hands. Many soldiers went unpaid and about 5,000 were deserting each month.

    Bob Wallman
    Bramhall, Cheshire

    SIR – What happens to the officers from Afghanistan newly commissioned at Sandhurst (Court & Social, August 16)? Do we let them stay or return them to be beheaded?

    Andrew Johnston
    Cirencester, Gloucestershire

    SIR – Does General Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the Defence Staff, believe his words to Sky News: “I do think they [the Taliban] have changed and recognise Afghanistan has evolved and the fundamental role women have played in that evolution.” If so he is displaying a lack of judgment that would disqualify him from leadership of a Scout troop.

    Christopher Collier
    Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    SIR – As an Afghan veteran I am devastated by the West’s capitulation in Afghanistan. As a Syrian veteran I’m not surprised.

    Eight years ago, the Syrian regime gassed civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta killing 1,500 mainly women and children. The British Government, shortly followed by the United States voted not to intervene, allowing chemical weapons to proliferate and Isis to develop.

    Since then, over 500,000 civilians have been killed and four million are still trapped in Idlib.

    With a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and a regrouping Isis in Syria we must now be prepared to fight terror on the streets of London rather at arm’s length, destroying it before it has a chance to develop.

    Col Hamish de Bretton-Gordon (retd)
    Tisbury, Wiltshire

    SIR – Our terrorists have been home grown. Invading Afghanistan didn’t and never will stop that.

    Michael A St Clair-George
    Rye, East Sussex

    Cap pension rises

    SIR – The simplest way to keep the pension triple lock (Letters, August 19) and avoid breaking election pledges is to place a cap on any rise – based on the inflation rate, average earnings or 2.5 per cent, whichever is higher – subject to a maximum increase of 5 per cent.

    Olga Hubicka
    London W13

    SIR – If there is no triple lock increase, you can bet your house that companies like my broadband provider will still apply an “annual 3 per cent plus Consumer Price Index increase”. Ofcom must stop them.

    Tim Grover
    Windsor, Berkshire

    SIR – In 1799 William Pitt the Younger introduced income tax as a temporary plan to pay for the Napoleonic Wars.

    If the Government describes the final triple lock changes as “fair”, it will be like the BBC calling a TV licence fee fair for those aged 80 and upwards.

    Christine Stewart Munro
    London SW1

    Hydrogen heating

    SIR – Regarding hydrogen to heat our homes (Letters, August 18), before 1970, the majority of Britain’s domestic gas supply was “town gas”. This was produced from coal, and the main component was hydrogen. We therefore have much more experience of transporting hydrogen around this country than we do of natural gas.

    Colin G Parker
    Thame, Oxfordshire

    SIR – For more than a year now, there has been virtually no global air traffic. Do we know what impact this has had on the effects of climate change, before we embark on similar measures?

    Lovat Timbrell
    Brighton, East Sussex

    SIR – Howard Gosling’s concerns about the ability of heat pumps to kill Legionella can easily be overcome.

    Our system is set for the immersion heater to activate for two hours on a Sunday, which exceeds 60C. Heat pumps should not be programmed to heat water to more than 50C or your energy bills increase dramatically.

    Hedley Greaves
    Oakham, Rutland

    Cat chat

    SIR – Since Digby arrived in this house a month ago, my life has been bliss. I can genuinely ignore anything coming my way. When challenged, I reply: “I thought you were talking to the cat.”

    David Pilcher
    Askham, Nottinghamshire

    Golden balls

    SIR – Graham Clifton (Letters, August 19) refers to the difficulty of seeing the squash ball on television. The same applies to hockey, where one has to wait for the slow-mo action.

    A solution would be to treat the ball with a substance that is obvious to cameras but invisible to humans.

    Mike Powell
    Quorn, Leicestershire

    Discovered – signs of human life at the DVLA

    SIR – I finally received my driving licence from the DVLA (Letters, August 13) two days before my driving holiday in France – three months and 10 days from the date of application.

    For those struggling to get through by phone, do persevere. It cost me almost £30 in charges, but I did twice get through to human beings, who managed to get my licence processed.

    Peter Bridgham
    Dereham, Norfolk

    SIR – I applied for my driving licence renewal online on August 13. It arrived on August 18. Credit where it is due.

    Sarah Hill
    Uckfield, East Sussex

    SIR – No word on this page from the DVLA. Surely we should have heard from somebody senior, with a long title, providing information largely irrelevant to the points raised, saying all is well and giving reassurance that normal service is imminent.

    I D Nicholson
    Scarborough, North Yorkshire

    SIR – Weeks ago I sent my licence to the DVLA regarding a change of address. It has not been returned, and in the meantime I acquired a speeding fine for doing 35mph in a 30mph limit. I paid the £100 fine online, but am now instructed to send my licence to the Regional Fixed Penalty Office to have the three points added.

    The police tell me that if it is not back by November the points can be added remotely. Why are we all having to work around the DVLA?

    P J Mills
    Cam, Gloucestershire

    Japan was an imperial power in Madam Butterfly

    SIR – Welsh National Opera’s efforts to link Puccini’s Madam Butterfly to the history of the British Empire (Letters, August 19) is another example of a truth that has become only too evident over the past year: leftist chatter about imperialism and colonialism comes in inverse proportion to knowledge and comprehension of the topics.

    It is true that Madam Butterfly was premiered in 1904 at the height of the British Empire, but even the senior executives at WNO should know that the opera was written by an Italian composer and is set in Japan, a country never under British sovereignty.

    Moreover, in the early 20th century Japan was itself a naval and military power that had defeated Russia on land and sea within 18 months of the first performance of Butterfly.

    It is hardly surprising that Professor Priyamvada Gopal, the academic mentioned in your report (August 18) as one of WNO’s lecturers on the context of Madam Butterfly, is neither a historian nor a musicologist.

    C D C Armstrong
    Belfast

    1. What was David Pilcher doing before the arrival of the cat?

      Taking Moggiedon? A live cat is preferable.

        1. 336969+ up ticks,
          AWK,
          Closer to home methinks, it is being entertained I believe
          because it has a following, no worries, pity for its actions
          is called for imo.

  12. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    This is what courage, great leadership and huge ability looks like:

    Russell Evans, led his company through a hail of bullets during the Italian campaign and rose to the top at Rank – obituary

    One of Evans’s first actions on becoming MD of the Rank Organisation was to cancel the order for the Rolls-Royce which came with the job

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    19 August 2021 • 3:21pm

    Russell Evans, who has died aged 98, was awarded an MC while serving in Italy with 1st Battalion The Durham Light Infantry (1DLI); he subsequently became managing director and then executive chairman of the Rank Organisation.

    On December 13 1944, 1DLI crossed the River Lamone, near Quartolo, south-west of Faenza. The following night, it attacked across a valley and over a tributary of the River Senio. Evans’s carrier platoon, under the command of “A” Company, was operating dismounted.

    During an attack, they were sniped and mortared at close range throughout the day and Evans’s determination and leadership were largely responsible for the fact that they were able to hold on.

    On the night of December 27, the officer commanding “B” Company and a subaltern were wounded in an exposed position near Tebano, on the River Senio. Evans took over a badly shaken company, rallied them, and they held the position until they were relieved four days later.

    Having reformed a rifle company, on April 18 1945 he led his men against a strong German position north of Imola. They took 20 prisoners and killed 10 of the enemy for the loss of one rifleman. The citation for the award to Evans of an MC paid tribute to his courage and inspiring leadership over many months.

    Russell Wilmot Evans was born on November 4 1922 in Birmingham and educated at King Edward’s School. He played cricket from an early age and also represented his school at rugby ,as well as playing the cello in the school orchestra.

    He left school aged 16, but he was too young to go on to Oxford and was accepted by the University of Birmingham where he read Law. In 1942 he was commissioned into the DLI and was posted to the 1st Bn.

    Evans served in Egypt before his unit deployed to Italy. At one stage in the Italian campaign the life expectancy of an infantry platoon commander in the front line was reckoned at about three weeks. He recalled crossing an iron bridge and seeing the bullets ricocheting off the girders, but after being under heavy shelling for days he and his men became almost nonchalant about small-arms fire.

    Leading his unit, he could often hear and feel the turbulence in the air as the bullets passed him. The closest he came to being wounded was when one clipped his ear.

    On a separate occasion, his company was in a valley with virtually no cover and pinned down by fire from a machine gun post on the ridge above. Knocking out that post looked to him like a suicide mission so he asked for just one volunteer to go with him.

    That night, he and his sergeant crept up the hill until they reached a position directly under the post. Lying on their backs, they lobbed grenades backwards over their heads and put the post out of action.

    He was always anxious when his younger brother, Lloyd, was in action. Lloyd was also serving in Italy with the DLI. Russell recounted how the stretcher-bearers brought a badly wounded man back from the front. As they passed him, one of them said: “We think your brother will survive, sir.”

    In hospital, after he had regained some strength, Lloyd discovered that the German who had shot him was also being treated there. He got out of bed, found the man and shook his hand. Lloyd Evans lived to an old age, but with the loss of one eye: he wore a black patch.

    After the war, Russell Evans was posted on secondment to the King’s African Rifles in Kenya. Given his training in law, he was asked to assist at the Nuremberg Trials before he was demobilised.

    Having qualified as a solicitor in 1949, he joined Harry Ferguson, manufacturers of agricultural machinery, two years later. He was involved in the company’s merger with Massey-Harris and resigned in 1962.

    A natural leader, but modest and unassuming: Russell Evans
    A natural leader, but modest and unassuming: Russell Evans
    In 1967 he moved to the Rank Organisation as assistant company secretary and subsequently became company secretary for the whole of the group. He joined the board in 1972, serving as managing director from 1975 to 1982 and was executive chairman for a further year. Declining revenues from films led to joint ventures and acquisitions in a wide range of fields ranging from Xerox photo-copying equipment to motorway services.

    Pamela Hayward, who later became his wife, worked for the Rank organisation before her marriage. She was the secretary to Sir John Davis, the managing director, and subsequently, to Lord Rank, the chairman.

    She and Russell Evans met in the 1950s. When she was asked if her husband was in any way romantic, she said that he had proposed to her outside Battersea Power Station, a building then regarded by many as a monstrosity. He had originally intended to propose at dinner in the West End, but suddenly stopped the car, saying: “I cannot put it off any longer!”

    A natural leader, but modest and unassuming, one of Evans’s first actions on becoming managing director was to cancel the order for the Rolls-Royce motor car which traditionally came with the job. Every year, he travelled the world visiting Rank’s overseas subsidiaries, usually staying in one of the first-rate hotels which belonged to the group.

    He held other directorships, among them at Rank Xerox, Fuji Xerox, Southern Television and Eagle Star Holdings. From 1975 to 1983, he was chairman of Butlin’s.

    In 1954 he had become a member of the Roehampton Club and four years later he and his partner were the first winners of the Mens’ Open Doubles Competition. He played in tennis tournaments to a high standard for many years, and this included playing in many tournaments by the sea against top-class competition around the time of the Wimbledon Championships. He took up golf later on, and enjoyed a weekly round until he was well into his eighties.

    Evans was captain of tennis and squash at Roehampton Club and a squash champion and tennis finalist there. After some years as director, his organisational skills led to him taking a role in the general running of the club.

    He was president for 30 years from 1991 until the end of his life and played a leading part in converting the club from being a privately owned concern to a member’s club.

    Russell Evans married, in 1956, Pamela Hayward. She predeceased him and he is survived by their two sons and a daughter.

    Russell Evans, born November 4 1922, died July 21 2021

    1. “A natural leader, but modest and unassuming”

      Name ONE that you can find in Parliament and Whitehall.

  13. Grandmother, 52, dies after her pyjama top gets caught in oven door handle in freak accident. 20 August 2021.

    A grandmother died after she was strangled in a freak accident by her pyjama top which had caught in the door handle of her oven.

    Barmaid Jackie Cottrill, 52, had apparently fallen before her clothing became tangled, an inquest heard.

    You’re not safe anywhere nowadays!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9910281/Grandmother-52-dies-pyjama-gets-caught-oven-door-handle-freak-accident.html

    1. Another covid death. (It must be: pyjamas = ill = illness = covid – the only one about these days).

    2. Gosh, if she’d hung in there for another 5 years, she’d not have an oven door to cause such problems.
      In fact she couldn’t afford to cook.

        1. I got that look from him when he caught me out doing a dramatic pause in one of my lines and he thought I was drying. Nobody did sinister disapproval as well as Ian Richardson.

      1. “… look after their health…”?
        How? By not having the vaccine? The term numb-skull comes to mind. Pun intended.

        1. when he eventually reappears in the real world, he’ll get reminded about “winking at the cameraman” before even getting onto the jab

      3. Only an MP so not eligible for the placebo jab?

        The “vaccination” is a political decision, not a medical one. Anyone who has taken the time to research the dangers of these potions would not go near them. This person promoted something that is killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of people. His body’s reaction to the potion should be a stark warning to everyone. Boosters are in the pipeline, what further horrors will these new potions inflict on the people gullible enough to accept them?

  16. Can someone upvote this or attach a comment. I’m just checking that my posts are visible to other Nottlers!

      1. Morning Oberst. I wasn’t getting any reaction and after Jonathans comments yesterday I was wondering if there was some Shadow Banning going on!

          1. Disguise it how they may Jonathan this is still a Police State with all that is implied in that description!

          2. When policeman come to your door to “check your thinking” it seems to me that is abundantly obvious. I fail to see why most people don’t see that and protest.

          3. Unless you were at the protest you would not be aware – there were nearly a million at the one I attended a few weeks ago. Richard Tice had to hire a helecopter to film it because he knew the media would pretend 14 people attended and all of them David Ike followers.

          4. The other day, our youngest granddaughter and two of her friends came to the theatre with us.
            Both the friends wore ‘pretty’ masks – even when our son pointed out it was unnecessary, they giggled and said they’d got used to it. We have a generation of compliant, unthinking rule takers.
            For heaven’s sake, if you don’t kick out in your teens, when the hell are you going to question authority?

          8. Last night we watched the Prom. Most of the audience was unmasked- the orchestra too. The conductor and singers however, all wore masks as they walked on and off the stage each time, taking them off before they sang. Absolute pantomime.

          1. I watch out for these things AW. I noticed several of my upvotes disappearing on the Spectator threads the other day!

          2. similar, I’ve seen posts appear, removed. No issue with people tracking, for their benefit, they clearly don’t understand / care what they’re doing

        3. In a deal both sides get something of benefit to them. There is no deal and Biden game away the farm and has no cards left to play. .

    2. Nation states are an illusion at the moment – we are dealing with factions within each who are allied against the national populations – we see that in our dealing with the EU and our own treasonous estabLishment.

  18. Joe Biden’s handling of Afghanistan threatens to plunge UK-US relations to lowest point in 25 years. 20 August 2021.

    Joe Biden’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan threatens to plunge UK-US political relations to their lowest point in 25 years, former UK ambassadors to Washington have suggested.

    With the US president facing criticism over his failure to engage with other Western leaders as the country fell to the Taliban, there is mounting concern among diplomats, ministers and MPs over the health of the special relationship.

    I think I have made my views about the “Special Relationship” abundantly clear in the past, but what’s left of it is undoubtedly in trouble. This is partly because Biden from the viewpoint of his faux Irish Ancestry actually hates us but the larger part is that the rest of the American political and military establishment have come to regard us with active contempt. They don’t show this of course, but it’s there, the UK’s military failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been forgotten just because we built two Aircraft Carriers to boost the American Fleet; while the Governments spineless and inevitable acquiescence in anything proposed by Washington is seen as simple cock-sucking. We no longer as in former times have either respect, or any real friends there. This is Bad News, the United States has many faults but it is still the world’s most Powerful State. Its indifference alone is more dangerous to us than the active enmity of other countries.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/08/19/joe-bidens-handling-afghanistan-threatens-plunge-uk-us-relations/

    1. Why is our beloved financial services industry, the “Free Market”, so intent on offloading Morrisons, a British supermarket trading in traditional Northern commonsense and a working relationship with its suppliers, whom it regards as family, to a bunch of New York loan sharks made rich rich rich through US-Style corporate trickery and asset-stripping?

      1. Did you mean “why”?

        The reason is simple. The “City” stands to make hundreds of millions in fees. No one gives a toss for the company, its staff and its values.

      2. Morrisons may treat suppliers as “family” but Morrisons paying minimum wage to many staff is not family it could be regarded as not much better than modern slavery by many.

    2. Why is our beloved financial services industry, the “Free Market”, so intent on offloading Morrisons, a British supermarket trading in traditional Northern commonsense and a working relationship with its suppliers, whom it regards as family, to a bunch of New York loan sharks made rich rich rich through US-Style corporate trickery and asset-stripping?

  19. 336969+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Appertaining to johnson/biden & minions,aka the sweating nitro brigades,

    The devious, dangerous,double act duo & their dodgy doings guaranteed
    for a doomed destiny.

    Once again total severance is the order of the day, as which should have been applied on the 25/6/2016 concerning brussels.

    Until both sets of overseers are completely routed & changed.

    The damage has already been done, any future input from these pair of political tossers is only going to add to an already dangerous situation.

    Friday 20 August: A bad deal with the Taliban hopelessly implemented by Biden leaves the West a bleak future

  21. Not merely good for a larf…

    Did ‘gender studies’ lose Afghanistan?

    How Ivy League diplomats sought to remake Afghanistan in Harvard’s image

    August 19, 2021 | 5:35 am

    https://3tu97y2w9w35k69i31phftc4-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/GettyImages-1234349374-730×475.jpg
    (Getty Images)

    Written by:Cockburn

    Twenty years of war in Afghanistan are over. What comes next is twenty years, or even more, of recriminations and blame for why the war ended as it did. Scholars and partisans still argue over the reasons America lost in Vietnam, so why should Afghanistan be any different?

    On the plus side, the debate promises to be far more interesting. When it comes to Vietnam, partisans debate rules of engagement, bombing strategies, funding levels, and the Tet Offensive. With Afghanistan, the question could be: did gender studies cause America to suffer its most humiliating defeat ever? Cockburn wishes he was joking.

    Traditionally, nations have waged war by mustering armies, defeating their enemies in battle, and despoiling their lands and cities. Only after total victory is the process of remaking a society feasible.

    Related Stories
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    But America in Afghanistan sought a shortcut, and by “shortcut” Cockburn means “something that takes ten times as long but doesn’t look as nasty for TV cameras.” America hoped that with enough half-baked social engineering in the half of Afghanistan it controlled, it would eventually be rewarded with victory, and Afghanistan would become the Holland of the Hindu Kush. On Ivy League campuses, students are taught to decry “colonialism,” but the Ivy League diplomats who sought to remake Afghanistan in Harvard’s image were among the most ambitious practitioners of it in world history.

    So, alongside the billions for bombs went hundreds of millions for gender studies in Afghanistan. According to U.S. government reports, $787 million was spent on gender programs in Afghanistan, but that substantially understates the actual total, since gender goals were folded into practically every undertaking America made in the country.

    A recent report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) broke down the difficulties of the project. For starters, in both Dari and Pastho there are no words for “gender.” That makes sense, since the distinction between “sex” and “gender” was only invented by a sexually-abusive child psychiatrist in the 1960s, but evidently Americans were caught off-guard. Things didn’t improve from there. Under the US’s guidance, Afghanistan’s 2004 constitution set a 27 per cent quota for women in the lower house — higher than the actual figure in America! A strategy that sometimes required having women represent provinces they had never actually been to. Remarkably, this experiment in “democracy” created a government few were willing to fight for, let alone die for.

    The initiatives piled up one after another. Do-gooders established a “National Masculinity Alliance”, so a few hundred Afghan men could talk about their “gender roles” and “examine male attitudes that are harmful to women.”

    Police facilities included childcare facilities for working mothers, as though Afghanistan’s medieval culture had the same needs as 1980s Minneapolis. The army set a goal of 10 percent female participation, which might make sense in a Marvel movie, but didn’t to devout Muslims. Even as America built an Afghan army that ended up collapsing in days, and a police force whose members frequently became highwaymen, it always made sure to execute its gender goals.

    But all this wasn’t just a stupid waste of money. It routinely actively undermined the “nation building” that America was supposed to be doing. According to an USAID observer, the gender ideology included in American aid routinely caused rebellions out in the provinces, directly causing the instability America was supposedly fighting. To get Afghanistan’s parliament to endorse the women’s rights measures it wanted, America resorted to bribing them. Soon, bribery became the norm for getting anything done in the parliament.

    But instead of rattling off anecdotes, perhaps a single video clip will do the job. Dadaism and conceptual art are of dubious value even in the West, but at some point some person who is not in prison for fraud decided that Afghan women would be uplifted by teaching them about Marcel Duchamp:

    [43 seconds long]

    https://youtu.be/wdrvpSfJM1w

    Watch the video, and you can see the exact point (specifically, 31 seconds in) where the American mission in Afghanistan dies.

    https://spectatorworld.com/topic/did-gender-studies-lose-afghanistan/

    1. I honestly don’t understand how this sort of buffoonery is allowed when dealing with another, especially a traditional culture. Insulting isn’t the word for it. I hate to say it but in my generation of colonialists, this sort of nonsense would never have happened. Some old hand and fluent speaker of Pushto would have stopped it dead in its tracks before it ever saw the light of day. I honestly can’t remember a single instance while in Africa where such a thing, an obvious act of contempt against the culture, was allowed and if it had done the person responsible would have been shipped back to the UK in disgrace. This is an appalling instance of cultural ignorance write large

    2. Jolly good stuff. I share the ladies’ bewilderment about the “art” of Duchamp’s toilet bowl. That is as much a work of art as a cat’s turd.

      1. I believe Duchamp was actual intention was to take the piss out of the art establishment, but instead they took him seriously.

        1. He features heavily in the book about the sack of Rome wot I of just finished.

          He has many parallels in modern politics.

        2. he clearly learnt nothing [possibly intentionally] in Sandhurst, probably for a political reason to be “groomed” as a placeman

    1. Frumpy Friday in West Sussex too, as attractive a day as Angela Rayner, gloomy.

  24. Every so often, my curiosity gets the better of me, and I drop in to Channel 4’s ‘Naked Attraction’ to see if their contestants have improved.

    Mostly they seem to be a grim set of wobbly tattooed dumplings, and I wonder how any nation could evolve such creatures who are sexually offputting – you’d have thought that with natural selection down the generations, the pretty genes would have had competitive advantage by now.

    Yesterday’s jaunt had all the naughty bits censored out with cheesy cartoon pizzas. So we had the surreal discussion, between the presenter and the hapless idiot forced to make a choice, about detailed gynaecological anatomy when all we could see of what they were so earnestly debating was a lump of cheese and an olive.

    2. “how any nation could evolve such creatures who are sexually offputting ”
      I think it’s called the welfare state.

    1. This is not just a Very British Farce, however. It is also a global disaster. What we are witnessing is far more serious than the last days of the Raj. It’s the collapse of the Anglosphere, Churchill’s celebrated alliance of the English speaking peoples, which until now has kept the world safe from tyranny.

      Morning Anne. For such a frivolous subject it has some weighty and accurate opinions!

    2. This is not just a Very British Farce, however. It is also a global disaster. What we are witnessing is far more serious than the last days of the Raj. It’s the collapse of the Anglosphere, Churchill’s celebrated alliance of the English speaking peoples, which until now has kept the world safe from tyranny.

      Morning Anne. For such a frivolous subject it has some weighty and accurate opinions!

  26. Went to give blood for my half-yearly test. Apptmt 7.40. Got there 7.25. Not a soul in sight. Home by 7.35. They could easily have done my arm on Tuesday, when the MR had her blood taken.

  28. 336969+ up ticks,
    These Tommy Atkins are bloody hero’s knowingly handling children in the
    face of future child abuse charges from the political overseers if STILL in
    power, courtesy of the electorate.

    US president hits back at criticism as parents pass their children to soldiers at Kabul airport amid worsening chaos
    .

  29. Meanwhile, in other news:

    Pickles killed his 4th mole yesterday afternoon. He may not be able to work out how to use the cat flap – but I’ll forgive him because he certainly knows how to catch and kill moles. Pickles is 11 months old.

      2. They certainly do. Learn to live with nature not destroy it.

        All because some @rsehole wants a manicured lawn!

        1. Up to a point. My garden is relatively wild and by and large I live and let live.

          Over the years my vegetable patch has been ruined by them, my grass is is so rutted in places that mower blades get chipped and broken, flower beds get turned inside out. Roses get destabilised and die. They undermine paving stones and the drive and weaken fencing posts.

          On the plus side their runs become homes for all sorts of creatures, but even there there are negatives, ground nesting hornets/wasps, mice and even rats and snakes.

          Having seen the pictures of your garden I doubt you would be quite so sanguine if a couple of moles took up residence even for a week.

    6. Please could we borrow him? We are completely overrun by moles. Neither Rumpole nor Chaucer were any use at dealing with them.
      Chaucer mastered the cat flap quickly and so did Rumpole when he was a little puppy until the day when he got stuck and could no longer go in or out until we released him.

      There are hundreds of ways of getting rid of moles and we have tried most of them but none of them work. We want one way that works – not hundreds that don’t. Any suggestion from Nottlers?

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/294f0176ca537cba0615dc10c0d9b7e594ac89f1e9d0420eddf2ff4e4625d327.jpg

      1. I am loathe to try it, but someone told me that dropping shards of broken glass into the runs is extremely effective.
        It causes them to bleed to death. It strikes me as very cruel and there must be a risk one ends up with glass fragments in the lawns where one might not want them.

        1. Yes, I have heard of that but dangerous for cats and dogs who dig.

          How do golf courses manage? The golf course near us at Le Tronchet looks immaculate and I did not see any taupinières anywhere when a friend of ours took us there last week.

          1. We had a catcher in when we first arrived and he caught several over a couple of days.
            He stated that he was happy to do it, but all we were doing was creating a home to let for other moles and were wasting our money because we have forest on three sides and there would be an almost infinite supply of new moles.
            I sometimes put down a double spring trap and catch the odd one but it’s really a labour of Sisyphus.

        1. Apparently just a dummy – one who isn’t bright enough to present a counter argument and cowers in the background.

          Pathetic.

    2. the Raven. People per square mile:

      England 1,119
      Netherlands 1,096
      India 1,067
      Belgium 974
      Japan 865
      Pakistan 633
      Germany 601
      Nigeria 565
      China 376
      France 300
      Mexico 158
      United States 87

      1. That list is wildly erroneous. The real population densities are shown above (under Ogga’s post).

        1. Good morning Grizzly

          “A Man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest”
          [Paul Simon – The Boxer]

          Politicians only quote the statistics that prove what they want to prove.

          You use your statistics and sources – why shouldn’t ogga and AW Kamau do so too?

          1. Good afternoon, Rastus.

            They may do as they please but I like to check verifications prior to publishing. What is the point of printing clearly erroneous and easily refuted data of suspicious provenance?

    4. How does such a character promoting child abuse avoid jail? That culture has form for paedophilia.

      He should have been jailed along with everyone who looked at the images. No, jail is ineffective. Castrate them, flog them, then brand them across the forehead.

  34. 336969+ up ticks,
    In the light of trains & boats & planes mass uncontrolled immigration the
    governance are contemplating a building campaign labelled the
    “Three Monkey project” UNDERGROUND TOWER BLOCKS salves the conscience of current lab/lib/con members straight away as in out of sight out of mind.

    “What mass uncontrolled immigration” ?

    https://twitter.com/Rob_Kimbell/status/1428497453117022211

      1. 336969+ up ticks,
        G,
        Can you first confirm the true number of peoples, mounting daily, that is on these Isles today due to political motives?

      2. 336969+up ticks,
        AWK,
        Plenty of room for it, it gives credence to the fact that when one is on target one will witness down voting flak.

  35. .America’s hasty retreat from Afghanistan should be warning to Ukraine that it can’t count on Washington – Russian security chief. 20 August 2021.

    As US forces scramble to evacuate their diplomats and local staff from Kabul, one of Russia’s top defense officials has said that other states dependent on support from the White House must be aware it can be withdrawn suddenly.

    Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, told Moscow’s Izvestiya on Thursday that the previous Afghan government, headed by Ashraf Ghani, was not saved by its friendly ties with Washington. According to him, the overthrown pro-American regime in Kabul didn’t benefit from the fact that Afghanistan was one of the main US allies outside NATO. He went on to say that Ukraine, which positions itself similarly, could encounter a similar fate.

    Could it ever?

    https://www.rt.com/russia/532516-america-retreat-afghanistan-warning-ukraine/

      1. Just a stroll through Northern Iran, Azerbajan and Georgia and they’ll be in Ukraine in time for tea.

      1. I really don’t understand the supposed logic in allowing people of a certain ‘faith and culture to come in their thousands to northern Europe, when they could have quite easily have crossed the border into Pakistan, they would far better off staying within their culture and their recognised religious sects.

        1. Because their culture says to come into the wilds, where they will get lots of benefits, and they can expand their empire…

          1. T You might think that people who consider themselves as intelligent as politicians seem to, might have seen through the intensions of islam by now. Its nothing short of total domination of the world. But as Russia and China tolerate this intention they appear to be assisting. I wonder how of islamic ‘faith’ are in Japan as well

          2. I don’t think China tolerates it in China – maybe outside only on the understanding that the two of them can divvy the world…?

  37. Waste Not, Want Not
    Three guys go into a bar: a guy from Dallas, a guy from San Francisco, and a guy from Boulder. They drank and got a little rowdy. Suddenly, completely without warning, the Texan grabbed a bottle of tequila, unscrewed the top, took a good swig, and threw the bottle into the air. He then jerked a Colt .45 pistol out of his pocket and shot the bottle, spraying tequila all over everything and everybody. The patrons at the bar shouted, “Hey, bud, why’d you waste that tequila?”

    The Texan said, “Heck, it’s just tequila. Us Texans go across the border all the time and get all the tequila we want.”

    Not to be outdone, the Californian whipped out a corkscrew and uncorked a bottle of wine. He poured some into a glass, swirled it, sniffed, commented on the tart insolence of its bouquet, sipped, tossed the bottle in the air, nicked it with a round from a silly little chrome-plated pistol, and showered a couple of patrons at the bar with wine. The patrons, upset by the casual waste and general lack of concern for their safety, expressed their displeasure and astonishment, to which the Californian replied, “Well, I’m from Napa Valley, and we have more than enough wine where I come from.”

    The Boulderite, a quiet observer up to this point, touched the crystal hanging from his neck, adjusted his Birkenstocks, flipped back his ponytail, put down his guitar, and borrowed a bottle opener from the bartender. He popped the top off a bottle of Fat Tire beer, hammered it back, threw the empty bottle into the air, pulled a 9mm Beretta, took careful aim, shot both the Californian and the Texan, and caught the falling bottle. The patrons screamed in utter disbelief, “Why’d you do that?”

    The Boulderite replied, “I’m from Colorado. We’ve already got too many Texans and way too many Californians, but glass bottles, now those can be recycled!”

    1. Demented Joe was busy taking the knee for Buy Large Mansions. The problem arose when, in taking the knee, he coudln’t get back up and couldn’t reach the phone

  41. Don’t make our costly mistake, Britain: Israeli scientist Professor ERAN SEGAL gives a warning on front line of new Afghan surge despite a UK-beating vaccine drive
    By PROFESSOR ERAN SEGAL FOR THE DAILY MAIL

    PUBLISHED: 22:22, 19 August 2021 | UPDATED: 09:23, 20 August 2021

    View comments
    There is no question that Israel – the country that led the way with a Covid vaccine roll out for its nine million population – is now experiencing a fourth wave of infections.

    And, as is the case in several other countries such as France and Iran, it is deadlier than anyone predicted.

    We are seeing the effectiveness of the double Pfizer/BioNTech jab – the vaccine most widely used in my country – waning six months after the second jabs were administered.

    That fact, and the spread of the much more infectious Delta variant, is the reason for a sharp rise in infections and hospitalisations especially among the elderly and vulnerable.

    Israel is responding with a vigorous programme of booster jabs and I believe our experience may have several implications for Britain and other countries.

    My message is two-fold. Firstly, countries must redouble their efforts to persuade vaccine-refuseniks to get their inoculations. Secondly, a policy of booster jabs must be considered for the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. It would be wise to act now to prevent a deadly wave in the UK.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9909983/Dont-make-costly-mistake-Britain-Israeli-scientist-gives-warning-line-new-surge.html

    1. Happy Friday Belle. I am not due for my 3rd jab till the end of September as its not yet 5 months since I had my 2nd & I was a ” wait and see ” type who did not rush out in 2020 to get vaccinated like millions of others in Israel when the Pfizer vaccine arrived . I might hold off the 3rd jab till early 2022 as I have read a speculative report on a local Israeli financial website that Pfizer are working on an updated version that will be more effective against the Delta variant that should be ready by December 2021, so if its true I wont get the 3rd dose of the current vaccine & will wait for the new version.

    2. Morning all. First I would love to know why the western world has jumped on to the band wagon of the effects of the sarscov2 virus. All viruses mutate and become less virulent . There are supposed to be hundreds of thousands of mutated viruses now. The “inoculations/vaccinations” are nothing of the sort. Proper vaccinations give immunity to the disease. It manifestly is not giving immunity as has been confessed – those vaccinated can still get the disease and they can still pass it in. What, therefore, are they really for? Now we’re being told the “vaccines” are losing “effectiveness” after only a few months – they want people to have “booster” shots. Not just this year, but next year, the year after, and so on and so on. Wish I had shares in the pharmaceutical companies.

      When will people wake up – it is all about keeping us all under control. The New World Order. In other words, one rule for them and another for us. (Although, really, that’s how it’s always been). They want to dispense with physical money so they can track everyone’s spending and, eventually, control that too, as well as allowing access to all sorts of facilities, services, entertainment etc. If you haven’t been “vaccinated” you cannot … complete the sentence. Complete and utter control of our lives.

      The WHO and Klaus Schwabb have already stated that “there will be no return to normal”.

      Sorry to be so gloomy.

      1. There will be no return to normal whilst our government has no integrity and accepts bribes from a foreign organisation(s) in preference to looking after the best interests of its electorate. There is only one answer, greed needs to be ‘abolished’ and the result we need to see will not happen via the ballot box. There is only one path open to us now.

        1. Your last sentence is true I think but I’m not sure there are enough of us who can see what’s coming and what, in fact, has arrived. Too many have stopped thinking at all and have been far too willing to comply with all the ridiculous restrictions. And of course the MSM have made it their business to censor most protests. I really fear for my children and grandchildren. The electorate is just a sideline as far as Government is concerned, an encumbrance and a nuisance. They completely ignore any dissenting voices.

        2. If only we could be sure of free and fair elections. Though of course mass psychosis has taken hold anyway.

      2. It’s a vicious circle of course. The more people are made ill by the injections, the more they inject and the more become ill.

    3. Professor Segal, to me at least, appears surprised by the ‘waves’ of infection following the inoculation of the masses. Perhaps he hasn’t seen the almost tearful plea from Dr Geert Vanden Bossche, one of the leading vaccine developers of our time, to the people driving the jab programme imploring them to stop “vaccinating” during a pandemic. Dr Vanden Bossche predicted exactly what is happening i.e. the development of more mutations and now Segal wants to jab even more people i.e. those people who steered well clear of the potions. Vanden Bossche has been sidelined whilst Segal is allowed to promote more jabbing. Madness, but we know that.

    1. The Left didn’t open the door, they kicked it down, burned it and pushed the invaders in.

  43. I have been looking to tidy up some loose ends, to finish off various small projects.. One is to restore an old racing bike. The bloke at the bike shop told me that he cannot take delivery of electric bicycles he has ordered because there is a shortage of chips for the controls. As well as that there is a shortage of cardboard to make bike boxes for transportation. (I was there scrounging a box…) He finally got two bikes after waiting two months, and sold both within a week.
    I contacted a local business to buy a drill with polishing attachments (to polish bike parts). They cannot get anything. Apparently lots of DIY stuff was sold nationally in the last 18 months, and stocks have not been replenished.

    More rants later.

  44. Morning all if any one is looking for the Wonkers today here are a few………….
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/seaside-resort-bans-deckchairs-to-stop-yobs-using-them-as-weapons/ar-AANw0EE?ocid=msedgntp
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/uk-s-regulator-approves-first-drug-designed-specifically-to-tackle-covid-19/ar-AANx3Pu?ocid=msedgntp
    So please explain what the compulsory ‘Vaccine’ was supposed to do for us all
    There was another article about a young lady who parked her car in her allocated parking bay in the underground space at her block of flats and the divots have fined her 100 pounds because her permit had slipped to the floor in her car and they wont back down. Only in the UK eh !

      1. I have to take my leave of the Nottlers for a few hours, my 6 year old grand son has arrived and I want to show him (over time of course) how a tiny seed from a neighbours Silver Birch tree that landed on our kitchen window sill, can be planted in soil in a pot and then grow into a large specimen. Given ten years.

        1. Lucky you…..lucky grandson.
          My love of nature and gardening began at an early age, thanks to my dad.
          I bought my first packet of seeds when I was five…Nasturtiums, easy peasy to grow. I’ve never looked back.

          You’re closer to god in a garden……..maybe….

          4. I take it you don’t have the luxury of grand children Plum.
            He’s a clever little chap he nearly always gets in class star recommendations from his teacher for being so.
            As I potted the tiny seed in to the compost he said, look grandad there is another one. And he was right there was another tiny seed that had landed on one of the plant leaves on the green house shelf so we popped that on in for luck. They are no larger than this…….. O They are traveling to Totness today for a weeks holiday with the ‘outlaws’ family.

          5. No I don’t have grandchildren , maybe a blessing looking to the future…
            Totness and nearby Dartmouth are lovely places to vist…enjoyed great times at Dartmouth Naval College in my youth. Maybe I should have married that
            Australian officer I was crazy about. Hey ho….!

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

    Victory for sacked Eton teacher

    English teacher and Free Speech Union member Will Knowland, who was referred to the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) after his dismissal from Eton College, has been cleared of professional misconduct in a victory for free speech. Knowland had been dismissed over a lecture entitled “The Patriarchy Paradox”, a critique of radical feminism which was intended to stimulate discussion among sixth-formers as part of the school’s flagship debating course.

    The TRA said that no further action would be taken. Knowland will now take Eton to an employment tribunal. Our Deputy Research Director Emma Webb told GB News: “It’s important that we have teachers like Will Knowland who are willing to stand up for critical thinking in education and to champion the value of having these sorts of things discussed properly and rigorously.”

    Big Tech

    According to an investigation by CitizenLab, a Canadian pro-free speech organisation, Apple is preventing certain words being engraved on its devices, such as iPhones and iPads, to avoid upsetting the Chinese Communist Party. The company has circulated a list of banned words to its engraving division, which applies to Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as China, such as the names of Chinese dissidents and independent news organisations.

    Two men have been jailed for sharing a video about the Home Secretary, Asians in Rotherham and people of colour in private Snapchat groups. Professor Andrew Tettenborn, a member of the FSU’s Legal Advisory Council, has written an article in Spiked explaining why the offensiveness of these men’s views is “no reason to send either of them to prison, or for that matter, to prosecute them at all”. “As things stand,” he writes, “the police and the CPS have the power to lock up troublesome individuals for what they say online in private groups. This is unacceptable in a liberal democracy. The authorities must be reined in.”

    One of the reasons Western corporations shouldn’t engage in censorship of non-woke views is that it makes it harder for Western leaders to criticise terrorist groups like the Taliban for failing to uphold free speech. On Tuesday, responding to a question about the Taliban’s attitude to freedom of speech, the group’s spokesperson Zabihullah Muhajid responded: “This question should be asked to those who are claiming to be the promoters of freedom of speech and do not allow publication of information… ask Facebook company.”

    We also learned this week that Twitter, which banned former President Donald Trump, provides a platform for various Taliban spokespeople.

    For more on online censorship, see the FSU’s briefing about the Online Safety Bill here.

    Trans

    Joan Smith, a campaigner for women’s safety, claims she was sacked by Sadiq Khan because she said she didn’t think transwomen should have access to women’s refuges. Smith is a Labour Party member who was appointed to an independent scrutiny role by Boris Johnson under his premiership as Mayor of London, and has co-chaired the Violence Against Women and Girls board since 2013.

    According to The Times, Smith believes she was sacked for raising concerns on behalf of City Hall-funded charities that are under pressure to admit transwomen to refuges for women who have suffered rape or domestic abuse. She also claims to have fallen out of favour for criticising the way the Metropolitan Police identifies sexual predators and highlighting “endemic misogyny” within the Met in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder.

    BBC News’s in-house style guide has redefined the term homosexuality to mean “people of either sex who are attracted to people of their own gender”. Note: that’s attracted to people of the same gender, not the same sex. Writing in Unherd, Gareth Roberts says “the elision of sex and gender in this new BBC-approved definition is […] quite deliberate, and echoes uncannily the recent words of […] Stonewall on the subject”.

    Critical race theory

    Academic Aysha Khanom is suing Leeds Beckett University after she was dropped from an advisory role following tweets calling the broadcaster Calvin Robinson a “house negro”. Khanom alleges she’s being discriminated against because of her belief in critical race theory (CRT), which should be a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010.

    Calvin Robinson, writing for Spiked, agrees with her: “Freedom of speech is the foundation of any free society […] No platforming and censoring opposing voices only leads them to thrive underground. It is for that reason I haven’t joined in the demands for academic Aysha Khanom to lose her job.”

    Robinson says that the sort of reverse racism people like Khanom engage in cannot be challenged openly if “its defenders aren’t free to express themselves”.

    American Express forced employees to undergo critical race theory training sessions, encouraging them to rank themselves on a hierarchy of “privilege” and apply the hierarchy in the workplace, with “privileged” employees deferring to “marginalised” groups, according to Fox Business. Employees were reportedly instructed to change their behaviour based on their “relative position in the intersectional hierarchy”. After American Express called capitalism “racist”, Forbes Media Chairman Steve Forbes asked whether the company would be bringing in those representing other viewpoints.

    Publishing purges

    As we highlighted last week, Orwell Prize-winning author Kate Clanchy has come under attack for her memoir Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me. Last Monday, Clanchy expressed her gratitude for the chance to rewrite her book in response to the criticisms.

    Jake Kerridge has written a piece for the Telegraph asking whether the “imagination police” in publishing are ruining literature: “Clanchy’s publishers will be poring over her revised manuscript with all the minute attention of 19th-Century Egyptologists reading the Rosetta Stone.”

    One of Clanchy’s former students, Shukria Rezaei, wrote a defence of her in The Sunday Times stating that “critics have no right to be offended” on her behalf. “In the book, she describes one of her pupils as having ‘almond-shaped eyes’,” Rezaei says. “Critics labelled this description patronising, insulting, offensive, colonialist and racist. This upset me. I am that girl with the almond eyes. I did not find it offensive.”

    Rezaei says that the description is “at the core” of her identity as a Hazara, a persecuted ethnic group in Afghanistan, and described Clanchy’s words as “a beautiful reference”.

    Free Speech Union General Secretary Toby Young has written about the Clanchy affair in his Spectator column this week, highlighting the fact that the Orwell Foundation, which awarded Clanchy its highest prize in 2020, failed to come to her defence. “Orwell had an extraordinary gift for prophecy,” he writes, “but I doubt even he could have foreseen that in 2021 the intellectual community which failed to defend free speech would include a literary foundation named after him.”

    Comedy Unleashed TV pilot

    Comedy Unleashed, the politically incorrect comedy club, is filming a TV pilot over three nights from 13th to 15th September. The line-up includes Leo Kearse, Jojo Sutherland, Andrew Doyle, Dominic Frisby, Tobias Persson, Tony Law and more. Tickets can be purchased via Eventbrite. The Free Speech Union’s staff will be in attendance.

    In case you missed it…

    Toby spoke to the TaxPayers’ Alliance last week about Britain’s Free Speech Crisis.

    Sharing the Newsletter

    You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons below to help us spread the word. If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Remember, all of our work depends on our members and donors. Sign-up today or encourage a friend to join and help us turn the tide against cancel culture and censorship.

    Best wishes,

      1. My pleasure, John. I joined the Free Speech Union 18 months ago. If anything is worth fighting for it is freedom to say what you want, when you want, and to hell with who it upsets.

        Sticks and Stones …

        1. I think your comment unites so many of us, no matter how different we are. We have a greater understanding of what is going on.

    2. Slightly off, maybe. I buy coffee from place in Birkenhead. If one uses the on-line shop one may pay by Paypal for all items except one. If one wishes to buy Cuban coffee, you have to phone and pay by card. This is because Paypal will decline any transaction that includes the words “Cuba” and/or “Cuban”.
      Paypal is American.

  47. I missed his second name but did any one else see the ex colonel Richard on BBC breakfast TV telling it all like it is, re the Taliban and Afghanistan. He was commander in chief over there 20 years ago. I felt his fact filled and honest comments really didn’t fit in with the BBC agenda. I expect he might have told a few stories of the government of the day given the chance.
    I’ll get me kit bag……….

    1. Happy Friday Eddy it was probably Col. Richard Kemp . I am surprised that the BBC interviewed him as he is pro-Israel and opposes Palestinian terror & frequent calls for an end to UK & EU assistance to the PLO & Hamas and has accused both groups of war crimes.

      1. They probably had no idea Hatters, they only Folk Us what they see as important to them.

  49. At least the summer closure of the Foreign Office has enabled another unknown nonentity to creep out from under a stone and address the nation.

    I give you: James Heappey MP – an Unheappy name, really.

    1. What makes you think he’s falling and not climbing and taking a mid-flight snooze?

  54. 50 years on: How the Duchess of Cornwall finally won over the nation
    It’s exactly 50 years since Prince Charles met Camilla – they’ve since weathered tragedy and scandal and she has become the Prince’s rock

    By : Camilla Tominey : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/0/50-years-duchess-cornwall-finally-won-nation/

    I have never much warmed to Prince Charles – he strikes me as very dull, ponderous, pompous and dreary. He is two years younger than I am but he has always struck me as being several decades older! I never much liked his first wife – although she was every bit as boring as he is. The MSM often fawned on her but her greatest flaw was she seemed to be completely humourless. It never looked as if being with her was any fun.

    By contrast the Duchess of Cornwall struck me as being lively, jolly, sexy and full of fun. Much more my type!

      1. I have always though that those horsey types like stirrups and whips and a good jump. I’ll rein myself in.

    2. He should have married Camilla in the first place, but while he was away on his minesweeper, she married Parker Bowles instead. He was dragooned into marrying Diana by the grandmothers who arranged it all.

    3. I knew one of the equerries from my time in the Services. Alcohol loosened his normal discretion. His views of Charles and Camilla accord with yours, but not for Diana; he found her extremely hard work, being self-absorbed, horribly needy, vacuous and thick. He often said that Charles married out of duty, Diana for the Mills & Boon dream, both fooling themselves.

      1. Diana’s greatest asset was her looks – certainly not her brain. Give her a nice dress and jewellery and she could dazzle anyone.

        1. I disagree; whereas she was pleasant-looking adolescent, she looked and dressed like a tart in later years.

          Her taste in fashion, jewelry and men – was trashy …

  56. A leading university has become the first in the UK to ban students from living on campus if they have not been vaccinated against Covid-19.

    Deep breath, Ha ha ha ha ha.
    A leading university! How many people on here would even know Hartpury University and College wasn’t a spoof?

    2. Hartpury specialises in animal related courses and in particular horsey ones. In that field it is a leading one.

      1. I apologise in advance but that reminds me of a Tom Lehrer line, “He majored in animal husbandry, until they caught him at it…”.

        1. 336969+ up ticks,
          Afternoon SE,
          The wretch cameron & his approach to a pigs head on a platter, the nearest he got to major was he tucked in his shirttail in in the proper manner.

          5. I read it as “horsey” anyway. Sometimes the old brain compensates and sees what it expects. That can be a problem when proofreading of course.

          6. My posting finger tends to react quicker than my brain – I can see all the typos and errors after posting, but not before.

        2. Hartpury College was there for years as a centre for horse and small animal courses, then progressed to awarding degrees from UWE. Now it appears to be awarding degrees in its own right, so unsurprisingly it doesn’t appear on lists of old or best universities. They are good at their specialist subjects – I have no idea what else they offer now.

    3. Hartpury specialises in animal related courses and in particular horsey ones. In that field it is a leading one.

        1. Why should I? There was/is a perfectly good Vet School next to the Dental Hospital in Bristol.

          2. I can’t comment, but a friend of mine graduated there & joined a country practice in Devon.

    1. Ps. I wonder how long we will wait to see road signs elsewhere as in Wales with English and the local language. After all, the proportion of Urdu speakers in, say, Luton and Bradford must be higher than that of Welsh speakers in Wales.

      2. Before they went home, there was a street in Evesham that was predominately Polish-speaking. I went into one shop and gave up trying to argue the toss when they overcharged me for some dried mushrooms, since they could not speak English and I only had about a dozen words of Polish, most of them rude words acquired during a cultural exchange in 1979.

  58. Streatham terror attack could have been prevented, inquest rules. 20 August 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5f85eecc1692f998719960741cd74f8e0eb4c68cb22dd1bee26f451c443920ab.jpg

    The Streatham terror attack may have been prevented had home-grown jihadi Sudesh Amman been recalled to prison before he struck, an inquest jury has concluded.

    The 20-year-old was shot by two police marksmen after he stole a 20cm knife from a shop in Streatham High Road on Sunday February 2 2020 and stabbed two bystanders while wearing a fake suicide vest.

    Amman was described by senior police and MI5 officers as “one of the most dangerous individuals that we have investigated” just two weeks before the homegrown jihadi was released from prison.

    Read and disbelieve. In happier times he would have been hanged first time around along with his local MP!

    (No comments allowed!)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/20/streatham-terror-attack-could-have-prevented-inquest-rules/

      1. Or to save money that was then spent putting the next lot of replacements in hotels, with all accompanying freebies. Got to keep the replacements healthy !!!

    2. The Streatham terror attack may have been prevented had home-grown jihadi Sudesh Amman’s parents never been allowed into this country been recalled to prison before he struck, an inquest jury has concluded.

  60. Right late lunch then La Vuelta. Thanks to all the usual suspects for their posts, comments. For Ogga’s spambot, the “Robert Maxwell” ie Dud Cheque’s in the post to cover the round [soft drinks only] at the Islington Wine Cellar

  61. Right late lunch then La Vuelta. Thanks to all the usual suspects for their posts, comments. For Ogga’s spambot, the “Robert Maxwell” ie Dud Cheque’s in the post to cover the round [soft drinks only] at the Islington Wine Cellar

  62. No comments allowed on https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/08/20/california-forced-scrap-slave-labour-prisoner-firefighting-teams/

    Do the pious do-gooders labelling the use of convicts on fire-fighting teams on below the minimum wage as modern slavery care about the effect on others and the convicts themselves? Do they care that the scheme is voluntary and that convicts gain from the break from the suffocating prison routine, having a purpose and proving themselves, so desperately needed to make the jump into life outside prison?

    I doubt they care. They just want to make life difficult for people they disagree with or, as is so common with lefties, people they hate and envy for being better or luckier than them.

    Of course, these do-gooders and virtue-signallers don’t live in the forests or crime-infested ghettoes. It’s so easy when someone else is paying the bill or suffering the pain. Selfish cowards, the lot of them.

    1. They are being paid on top of their full board and lodgings.

      I wouldn’t mind betting that many people in the USA on minimum wages would be delighted to be clearing several dollars an hour after all their living expenses are taken into account.

    1. Ah, but does Mr Andrews gouge women’s eyes out? Or flog them? Or shoot them?

      Just asking

  67. Twenty years ago people were terrified of the Taliban’s extremism.
    Today we look at what the Taliban are doing then we look at our Covid pandemic project fear regulations and the Taliban don’t seem quite so extreme after all

        1. I’m fine, thank you. IT problems at work but it’ll all be sorted.

          I had a mad moment this afternoon and ordered a hand bell from Amazon. To supplement the sunflower lanyard.

    2. Oscar knows he’s a good boy; I’m always telling him – every time he does something without sinking his teeth into me 🙂 To be fair, that’s all the time at the moment.

      1. It’s good that he likes you so much. All i get from Dolly is …rub my belly all night. I don’t know where she got that from…!

        1. He’s asking for cuddles now. He has even asked on occasions for a tummy rub, which is real progress.

    3. If it was today it would be a

      Vaccination Centre at Sea of Tranquility or should it be Pandemonium?

  70. Just a snippet on how this government and the MoD reward the veterans that served in Afghanistan.

    The MoD has left veterans waiting for years after promising a veterans’ ID card and has now announced a further delay of at least another year or 2. The card was promised to help veterans prove their service for reasons from the important promised preferential NHS treatment through to the more mundane, such as benefits at military museums. FFS how difficult can it be to issue a card like a driving licence after cross-checking applications against service and pension records? Why does it have to wait getting every possible use debated and agreed?

    1. Just another way of the people who so eagerly take, then waste, our taxes . . . showing their contempt for us.

          1. It’s one of the easiest fish to eat – apart from fillets. The ‘bones’ are in fact cartilage; some people eat them along with the flesh. I don’t, but I find that the meat easily slides off them when properly cooked. Do not cut into a skate wing like a fillet steak, otherwise you’ll end up with a mouth full of ‘bones’.

    5. Very good simple with black butter. We used to go to a supper fish restaurant in Rouen and that was the special followed byh hot creme brulee. No longer their like most of France.

      1. The Cultural Revolution…
        The movement was fundamentally about elite politics, as Mao tried to reassert control by setting radical youths against the Communist Party hierarchy.
        Look at China now….

    2. Let me guess – the BBC is suggesting he did a good job, but it wasn’t ‘real communism’?

  78. BTL comment:

    Russell David
    20 Aug 2021 3:13PM
    The travel rules are an excellent illustration of the cruelty and bovine stupidity of our rulers. The misery they have created… for what? The benefit of a tiny, tiny few? If that. I doubt these rules have saved one single life – they have made millions of lives vastly more miserable though.

    The testing is an absolute racket – craven ministers are in the pocket of sly, greedy test providers.

    I will hate Boris Johnson till the day I die; possibly longer.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/comment/take-foreign-holiday-understand-ridiculousness-travel-rules/

  79. For those who turn off cookies – from BBC news websites

    Some internet browsers have a DNT setting. This sends a signal to websites asking them not to track your browsing.

    This doesn’t work with BBC websites at the moment.

    wonder why the beeb would do that?

          1. I would be surprised if they did.

            The woke nonsense isn’t coming from Vlad. It’s coming from America.

  81. Good afternoon. Nottlers!

    Just popping in for a quick look before going out – I do miss Nottl if away for a couple of days…Good, if scary, 15 min video about how figures are manipulated. Not that we didn’t know, but useful nevertheless.

    https://youtu.be/FPzJrah1U_o

    1. Would never happen here. The motards would ask for “permission”. The plod would refuse – and the bikers would capitulate.

      Where is “Steve-the-beard” when you need him?

    2. Apparently this was in February and was about a new traffic rule banning motards from “weaving” in traffic lanes.

      But it is all grist to the anti “pass sanitaire” movement.

      2. Built by the Mamelukes who were originally slaves. The Mamelukes were mostly Caucasians.

  86. BTL Comment:

    mro. on August 19, 2021 at 6:17 pm
    Hello.
    -Hi, table for two, please.
    -Sure, and your name.
    -Summer.
    -Great. And do you and your guest have your vaccination cards?
    -Hmmm well first..Can you tell us who our server will be?
    -Um, looks like Brad will be your server tonight.
    -GREAT!!! Can you show us Brad’s vaccination card?
    -Um…
    -And also, can you provide me with proof that Brad is not a carrier of HIV, Hepatitis A or B, or any other communicable diseases? Same for you and the kitchen staff.
    -Um…
    -Also, we would prefer not to be served by someone who is on or uses recreational drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, meth, fentanyl, etc, so if you could provide us with Brad’s most recent tox screen, that would be great. Matter of fact, I’m going to need to see all of your employees medical history.
    -Um… Let me get the manager for you.
    -That would be great, thanks!
    Make sure they have their vax card, and medical records please.

    3. Unhappy hour surely Plum?

      “In the fields the corn
      Sways with metallic clicks.
      Man hammers nails in Man
      high on his crucifix.”

      Stephen Spender

    4. “Dad, will Biden still be President when we get to America?”
      “Yes son”
      “Daaad, please can we go home? I’ll feel much safer”

    1. They also come here to visit relatives and sign on for benefits. Takes a couple of years for the department to catch up with them and then guess what?

  94. That’s me gone. All that kitchen work has exhausted me. Time for a drink.

    I’ll not be here tomorrow – day out for family lunch at Wivno. In the rain.

    A dimanche.

    1. Serious question if the ‘vaccine’ loses its efficacy after such a short time what is the point of having a booster, other than to swell coffers ?- (pardon the pun)

      1. Serious question if the ‘vaccine’ loses its efficacy after such a short
        time what is the point of having a booster, other than to swell coffers coffins?- (pardon the pun fun)

      3. The jabs are useless. The figures given by the authorities for efficacy are balls too. Likewise the hospital admissions and Critical care units are populated increasingly by the jabbed, not the unvaccinated as claimed.

        If you have one jab or two you are classified as unvaccinated if you fall ill and are hospitalised within 14 days of your last jab.

        In our village a lady who took the Pfizer jabs now suffers severe migraines, a man who also took the Pfizer jabs suffered blackouts and is now in Papworth (now relocated to Addenbrookes) awaiting heart surgery. Another lady who took the Astra Zeneca is now on strong drugs to control sky high blood pressure.

        The state sponsored administration of these untested, experimental and evidently poisonous jabs should be stopped immediately.

      5. I don’t think you’re supposed to ask questions, you’re just supposed to obey.
        The point of the booster is probably to disguise how many people are getting sick and dying – that fiendish virus has mutated again – jam tomorrow, and Nirvana is beyond the next booster…

      1. She has been brainwashed by a cult. We need to rescue her for her own good. Send in special forces and take her to the same camp as shamima begum. They could compare notes in their asylum cell.

    3. Well what’s that going to do about their carbon footprint? Where is the Paris accord now, eh?

  97. When we bought the house the chap who did the drain survey thought the sewer needed to be relined. The water authority begged to differ and as it was a public sewer albeit 4″ in diameter insisted they replace a section free of charge. However, as it was on private land we had to bear the excavation costs plus the structural engineer’s fee for producing an acceptable solution to providing a safe working environment given that the sewer was ten feet below ground level and required some serious machinery. Talk about serious money down the drain…. 🙁

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2789b0fc7db4da6a695ef3773c5bd72bde0e3b5fd475ce7f147dfcd51f814b78.jpg

        1. A miracle of engineering. So the sewage goes down those ½ inch pipes – straight into the canal?

          1. Not quite. It travels up the green hose and into a holding tank from whence it is discharged via a pump out and itnto the municipal sewerage system.

          3. Two are for the central heating (flow and return) from which there are two spurs off in the photo serving the towel radiator in the bathroom.
            Two are hot and cold for the wash hand basin and kitchen sink
            There is a further spur off the cold water to the solenoid valve for the toilet flush.

            The other side of the boat also has fairly complex plumbing involving the pump a couple of expansion vessels, and various inputs to the dual coil calorifier.

          7. Look at the top of it, it’s newly put on and you can just see the seam about to fall forward….!

          8. Good loo rolls have shrunk in size , not so much paper on the roll , they are not as thick and squidgy as they used to be a few mpnths ago , They have been reduced in size in a similar fashion as a Kit Kat bar or a box of laundry tabs .

            Have you noticed that PM?

          9. You have hot water central heating in the barge?
            I suppose that it makes sense to have a single heat source rather than gas flames or electric heaters all over the place.

            Over 30C and very humid here today, I need air conditioning.

          10. I choose not to have gas on board. So have an all electric boat. Electric heating is out of the question though because it would probably drain the batteries flat in an hour or two. Most narrowboats have a wood burning stove (especially if they are lived on all year) I haven’t installed one as I mostly use the boat during the so called summer months. Consequently the 5Kw diesel heater does the job on chilly mornings and evenings during late spring or early autumn.

          11. This reminds me of a fortnight on the Norfolk Broads.

            We had two sewage tanks. There were eight of us. It was claimed that we would need pumped out no more than once or twice in the fortnight. By Day Five, the tanks were perilously full, and the boat was becoming rather ripe, so we were pumped out. An edict was issued – only #1’s allowed. No #2’s – take them to the nearest pub.

            Unfortunately, most Narfulk pubs (at least those on the Broads) had decided that toilet seats were an unaffordable luxury. Those and bog roll.

            Therefore the terms (Andrex) “Carry out” and “Hovercrap” entered the lexicon. Pump-out #2, mid way through the second week was revealing. Invited by the pump guy to open the flap of each loo. a steaming great turd was clearly visible on the floor of one the drained tanks. So – did someone cheat? Or was this a fibreglass replica, designed to cause conflict? We’ll never know…

          12. Ghastly. Delighted to report that I’ve not had any of those issues in the 8 years I’ve had the boat!

    2. My brother lived at the end of a line of houses which were originally council houses. Some bought, some not. He was at the lower gradient and it kept backing up. The council paid for all the works.

      2. Mum’s house was the last on a downward slope. The public sewers were combined: i.e. they took foul and storm water. So, one day, after extreme heavy rain, all her gully grids flew in the air, and the garden was submerged in sewage. Rang the council (they were responsible in those days). I was told I was mistaken, since ‘no-one else had complained’. I pointed out that no-one else was downstream, and the ‘solids’ floating in the garden were unlikely to have originated from either a seventy-odd year old widow, or her twenty-something son. Plus, the rainbow collection of bog roll hadn’t originated from home.

    3. The depth is unusual, but the need for a structural engineer is frankly ridiculous. Any competent contractor would simply take that in their stride.

  98. When we bought the house the chap who did the drain survey thought the sewer needed to be relined. The water authority begged to differ and as it was a public sewer albeit 4″ in diameter insisted they replace a section free of charge. However, as it was on private land we had to bear the excavation costs plus the structural engineer’s fee for producing an acceptable solution to providing a safe working environment given that the sewer was ten feet below ground level and required some serious machinery. Talk about serious money down the drain…. 🙁

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2789b0fc7db4da6a695ef3773c5bd72bde0e3b5fd475ce7f147dfcd51f814b78.jpg

  99. Woman arrested in Sheffield for nasty comments – apprently about the lad who fell, or them coming here.

    1. I’d have thought that the mother/care of the child should be the one arrested.

      1. It was on another report that they were in a 3 bedroom place in the hotel – there is 4 more siblings apparently. Also hotel windows should only open a small amount – so is the hotel at fault or ?
        I’ve said for a while that those coming over with loads of kids will end up in the new 5 bedroom houses being built on the new estates. The local “Refugee Council” has been on about them being put in suitable accomodation – so we can only make assumptions about where, when some turn up with 8 or 9.kids.

        1. We simply can’t sustain dozens more of these families and their children. We haven’t the infrastructure, capacity or money. They don’t integrate, they’ve no appreciable skills and so end up as nothing but a burden.

        2. Suitable accommodation should be in a barbed wire camp on a small, uninhabited island, with NO phone reception, off the Western coast of the UK, until they have been fully processed.

          Not beyond the wit of man, is it?

    2. Raising the reality of massive uncontrolled immigration as a threat to this country is important.

      Celebrating the accidental death of a small boy is horrible.

  100. Ah you just have to love the unions.

    Trudeau (yuk, spit) is mandating vaccinations for federal employees, the unions are screaming human rights, personal choice. The provincial government has strongly recommended vaccinations but not mandated them for provincial employees. The same union is now screaming that vaccinations should be mandatory.

    A week into the election campaign and Trudeau is making an absolute pigs ear of it. There may be hope.

    1. As we’ve seen, if the media are with you you can win – unless they go very clearly nutso and the public ignore you in favour of the bloke offering what they really want.

    2. He showed great disrespect to Ivan Lendl by climbing up the stands without first shaking hands. I remember thinking how shocking this was at the time.

      I also lost all respect for Michael Schumacher when he deliberately shunted Damon Hill to stop him winning the F1 championship.

        1. At last people are beginning to see that this is the truth and that Trump won by a very large majority.

          Heads should roll – but will they?l

  104. Evening, all. Pretty traumatic day today. Rang the company who should have delivered the dishwasher. “Strange”, they said, “it’s showing on the system as having been delivered.” “Well, it hasn’t been delivered to me.” “Oh, wait a minute – it’s still here in the shop! There must have been a glitch in the system. We’ll deliver it this morning.” This they duly did, just at the time I was expecting to receive the call from the registrar to register the death (ie give them the same information for the third time, but this time get a code for Tell Us Once and pay them for the death certificates). Fortunately, they were late ringing (another “glitch in the system”), but I just had the new machine dumped in the middle of the kitchen before I could find the time to deal with plumbing it in. Now I have two dishwashers, neither of which can be used, and the fridge freezer taking up space on the kitchen floor. They will be there overnight, too, because when I came to plumb it in, I discovered, having turned off the water and run the cold tap, that the damn thing was plugged into the hot water system and I ended up with hot water everywhere! I screwed the pipe connector back up and rang my plumber, who said he’d try to get there to sort it for me (he’s a good bloke). I need a connector put on the cold water supply – I have no idea why it was plumbed into the hot water, unless it just happened to be convenient ten years ago as there was a hot supply to the washing machine (now plumbed into the cold water). Unfortunately, he rang me at about half six to say he couldn’t manage it, but he’d come first thing (08.30) tomorrow. At least there is a chance I can get things sorted tomorrow. I’ve gone through the Tell Us Once system (but I’ve still got the utilities to inform) and I’ve arranged a time to have the Lifeline removed next week (no point in paying for it if it isn’t going to be needed). I’ve had a couple of calls and made a call since then, so at least I haven’t fouled up the phones when I took it out of the system.
    On the Oscar front, he just stared at the postman this morning when the chap came to drop off some post while Oscar was outside the door and Oscar also survived the excitement of the close finish to the Lonsdale when Stradivarius just got up to beat Spanish Mission by a head – I don’t think I’ve watched a close finish where I was cheering one horse on since I’ve had him. He was a bit surprised, but took it in his stride. I shan’t be staying long, so take this as a goodnight from me, as well because I’ll have to be up really early tomorrow to get Oscar walked before the plumber arrives. Hasta la vista, amigos.

    1. Yo, Conners. For what it’s worth, appliance spaces used to be fitted with hot and cold taps. Nowadays, washdishers and mashing wachines tend to need a cold supply.

      1. I have a hot and cold supply, but the washing machine has taken up the cold supply. I suppose when I put the dishwasher in ten years ago, I thought, “oh, I’ll use the hot supply” and it worked fine for a decade. Unfortunately, I’m now ten years older and rather than drain the entire hot water system, I just called my friendly plumber. He’ll fit me a second cold connection and seal off the hot one. After the stress of the delivery and the registrar call happening at the same time, I just wanted a simple life.

        1. The use of only the cold feed in modern washing machines is another measure to combat global warming. Apparently.

          1. Aggravating for me when already having a tank full of hot water ( coal fire ) I have to use electricity to heat up the cold water going into the washing machine. Unneccessary expense.

          2. I’m pretty much the same in the winter when the Rayburn is running; plentiful hot water from an appliance that runs the radiators and cooks the food.

          4. Thanks for the tip – unfortunately the bother of removing this – cold only – one and replacing with a new one would not be worth it at the moment.

    2. Goodness! How complicated can things get?
      Setback here today: It appears I am not allowed to receive advice on equity release from Mother’s house to pay for her care, unless I am physically located, even just for the duration of the call, in the UK. What kind of damn-fool regulation is that?
      Also, the equity release scheme is fantastically complicated – each drawdown is it’s own contract, with own conditions, interest rate and early redemption penalties… meanwhile, the need for the money gets closer. Sigh…

      1. Sell the place, the market is red hot at the moment. I was offered more than asking price by the first viewer for my mother’s house, and that’s what we got.

    3. I wouldn’t dream of fitting a new device that needs plumbing in. Just pay the people you buy it from to do it so that you at least have just one line of communication.

      1. It’s just as well I didn’t given the timing this morning 🙂 Actually, it should have been extremely simple – so simple even I could do it. I did the washing machine with no bother. In future, once I’ve got the new connection fitted it will be no bother, too. I am not sure that the people who delivered it would have been able to do the necessary plumbing changes, if I’m honest. I’d rather get a plumber I trust to fit it (now that I know it isn’t just a simple job for DIY).

        1. Which is why I make sure the white goods come with installation guarantees. That goes for fridges these days too.

      2. Just about every dishwasher you can buy here needs an adaptor so that you can connect the supply line to the machine.

        Just a five minute job but what a con when every dishwasher has a standard fitting that is different to the standard fitting on the supply hose.

        1. Our dishwasher needed all sorts of adjustments to fit it in its hidden cupboard slot. Let the supplier take the strain.

          2. Right, but in hindsight do you not wish you’d got the supplier to fit it? Easier for Oscar’s stress levels too, he does feel your stress.

          3. No, I just wish I’d looked and seen where it was plumbed in before I started trying to install it, to be honest 🙂 I usually do these jobs with no problem and get a lot of satisfaction out of it. I’m just a bit more disorganised than usual these days. Oscar coped remarkably well; he just shouted at the delivery people when they arrived and then, when I moved him out of the way, he stalked off and went to sleep.

          5. I also made up an extension lead because the socket is above the work surface and the plug wouldn’t go through the small gap so I needed to thread a bare wire through and attach a plug afterwards. That’s the way the washing machine is supplied with electricity, but the old dishwasher didn’t have a ready-made plug on it. All the new ones do.

    4. It takes me five minutes to do the washing up after a meal.

      Households with dishwashers invariably stink!

      1. No one has ever complained about a stink in my kitchen. Five minutes, three times a day, comes to a quarter of an hour that could be spent on doing something less painful as far as I’m concerned 🙂

  105. Goodnight all Nottlers. Bedtime music : Parlez-moi d’amour – Avalon Jazz Band. “Parlez-moi d’amour” is a song written by Jean Lenoir in 1930. Lucienne Boyer was the first singer to record the song., Vocals – @Tatiana Eva-Marie, Violin – Gabe Terracciano, Guitar – Vinny Raniolo, Rhythm guitar – Sara L’Abriola Bass – Wallace Stelzer
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcZCsVlhThU

      1. It is normal for living in a big city. So we are told by sadiq khan.

        It may have been true at one time but now we are living in their cities.

    1. China has recognised the Government of Afghanistan. This Government tends to think that the U.S.A are losers.

      You can quote me on that.

      1. China wants access to the mineral resources in Afghanistan. As they say, follow the money.

    2. The best way to outsmart China would be to abandon the absurd electric cars policy immediately!

  109. Goodnight, all. Early night tonight so as to be up at sparrow fart ready for the plumber tomorrow. ‘Twas on a Monday morning that the gasman came to call … 🙂

  112. Biden was always unfit to be president but his Left-wing media cheerleaders didn’t dare admit it
    The craven behaviour of the USA’s court media has hidden for too long the president’s deep flaws

    Douglas Murray : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/20/biden-always-unfit-president-left-wing-media-cheerleaders-didnt2/

    The penny has at last dropped!

    In the comments section under Douglas Murray’s article this comment by a Richard Masters had received 198 Upvotes at the time I posted this.

    Maybe soon the World will wake up to that other great truth that dare not be said:

    Biden was not fairly elected.

    Trump won. The Dems defrauded the American People.

    (How many people who now think this were prepared to say so six months ago?)

    1. And how long will it be before those who are currently convinced about manmade climate change will be prepared to admit that it has all been a great scam?

      1. Maybe a greater scam than the Covid ‘Pandemic’.

        All designed to divert attention from the “Great Reset”.

      2. Many, many of us, Elsie, recognised that the Biden victory was a FRAUD on a monolithic scale.

        1. The Vice President. Kammala blackish person. Soon to run away when the shit hits the fan.

    3. Mng Rastus, the closing sentence of Douglas’ piece sums it perfectly as to the power behind the “curtain” pulling the strings, for years, only now, it’s in the open

Comments are closed.