Friday 21 August: The exam furore is damaging pupils’ confidence in their achievements

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),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/20/lettersthe-exam-furore-damaging-pupils-confidence-achievements/

585 thoughts on “Friday 21 August: The exam furore is damaging pupils’ confidence in their achievements”

  1. Morning all, windy start to the day. The grandkids trampoline gone, it took the rotary dryer with it!

    2. Trampolines flying around in gales cause quite a problem to the railways, especially on electrified lines when they get tangled in the OLE.

      1. I can imagine, this one was behind a 6ft fence but managed to hit the garden rubbish bin, mangle the rotary dryer and bend the arms for the netting before it stopped just short of my greenhouse.
        I normally dismantle it at the start of Autumn but this windy spell caught me out, it is beyond repair, time to visit the recycling centre.

      1. It never left my garden, just caused chaos tumbling round.
        The neighbours are too old to make much use of it anyway. 😂

          1. Screaming, not in my garden. As I keep telling them, you’re not here for fun. 😉

    1. To have completely misplaced confidence is hardly a good thing!

      Many politicians suffer from the delusion that they can do a good job and have a ridiculous sense of self-confidence when they are completely incompetent.

  4. I thought that smart motorways had questionable safety concerns, apparently not.
    Another questionable decision by the Government.

    Seven more smart motorways will go ahead as upgrade is accelerated

    Graeme Paton, Transport Correspondent

    More smart motorways will be outlined today as the government introduces a specialist unit to accelerate road and rail upgrades.
    At least seven new routes without a hard shoulder will be approved to improve 4,000 miles of English roads.
    Highways England will renew its commitment to a tunnel under Stonehenge, pending the outcome of a review by Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, which is due to end in November. It will also confirm plans for the UK’s biggest road tunnel under the Thames east of Dartford to cut congestion on the M25.
    These developments are part of a plan in which Highways England will outline how it will spend £27 billion to improve motorways and A-roads over the next five years.
    Mr Shapps will outline plans for an “acceleration unit” to speed up the construction of transport projects. Large numbers of schemes have been delayed or been subjected to sharp cost increases. This includes HS2, the cost of which has almost doubled to more than £100 billion and may not be completed until 2040, up to seven years late.
    The electrification of the Great Western mainline was heavily delayed and Crossrail, the east-west line, will not open through central London until late 2022, a delay of three years.
    Road projects have been delayed, too. Last year it was announced that 10 out of 112 motorway and A-road upgrades in England due to be completed in the five years up to March this year had been cancelled or paused.
    The Department for Transport will announce that the acceleration unit, led by Darren Shirley, chief executive of the Campaign for Better Transport, will be running within a month to “tackle delays to infrastructure projects and drive progress”. Mr Shapps said the unit would help Britain to “get moving once again after months of lockdown”.
    Highways England will separately publish a plan outlining detailed proposals to upgrade the strategic road network until 2025. It comes despite a pending High Court challenge by environmental groups which claim that the proposals will fail to comply with Britain’s commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
    The plan is likely to include building at least seven stretches of smart motorway where the hard shoulder is removed to create an extra lane and lay-bys are installed to allow vehicles to pull over if they break down. It is expected that the routes will be on the M62, M6, M56, the M40 and M42 interchange, A1(M), M25 and the M3, bringing the total number of smart motorway stretches in England above 60 by the middle of the decade, with most of the M6, M1 and M25 being converted.
    The move is being made after Mr Shapps endorsed the policy in March by insisting that the stretches were “as safe or safer” than conventional motorways. Critics maintain that smart motorways are “death traps”.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/seven-more-smart-motorways-will-go-ahead-as-upgrade-is-accelerated-j3gd0qkqt

    2. In the past when getting from Worcester to London, the quickest way (but not the shortest) is to loop around Birmingham, using the M5-M42-M40. However, since they smart death-trapped the M5 after Junction 5, I find it too scary and now avoid that section. I use the A46 past Stratford-on-Avon, which at least has a verge I can drive onto if I break down. Putting crash barriers up right next to the slow lane is deadly!

      Maybe that’s why they do it? No, it’s to transfer public money to select contractors – Government doesn’t give a fig about saving lives. They’ve been given by the electorate five years to write themselves blank cheques, so cannot hang about.

  5. Biden getting a lot of coverage this morning, he is going to rescue the USA from the darkness caused by democrats all over the USA

  8. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Biden’s speech has, predictably, provided the BBC with top notch, weapons grade Trump-bashing opportunities – and they are making the very most of them. Lead item on the 07:00 R4 news, too. They can barely contain their pleasure. I suspect that most people in this country won’t give a toss…

    Roll on the de-funding of the BBC.

    Busy today. Slayders!

    1. Some Nottlers may recall that I complained to the BBC about the way live snooker kept mucking up the schedules – they acknowledged it and said they would reply within 10 working days! Not very impressive, but today they told me that, as they are receiving so many complaints, they can’t even manage that deadline and their response will be delayed!

      Interesting that the woke BBC aren’t showing the women’s golf [which my very patient wife likes] until the wee small hours – lots of flak incoming for them so they may relent and show it earlier?

  9. Joe Biden Flubs DNC Speech Climax. 21 August 2020.

    Joe Biden (D) experienced another brain freeze moment during the climax of his Democratic National Convention (DNC) address Thursday evening, telling the audience that there has “never been anything we’ve been able to accomplish when we’ve done it together.”

    “There’s never been anything we’ve been able to accomplish when we’ve done it together,” he then stated. According to the transcript as prepared for delivery, this line should have read: “And there has never been anything we’ve been unable to accomplish when we’ve done it together.”

    Morning everyone. This could simply have been a natural slip, the sentence is rather unwieldy. His fixation on the screen prompter and the hand to his right ear at the beginning of the clip however speak of someone who has to be coached through everything. There is no way that this man can engage Trump in live debate. The Democrats will simply have to find a way out of it!

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/20/joe-biden-flubs-dnc-speech-climax-theres-never-been-anything-weve-been-able-to-accomplish-when-weve-done-it-together/

    2. I takes me back to the days of Thunderbirds when all the strings were plainly visible but the puppet masters were hidden.

      Morning Minty.

      1. Fifty years after the series was made, a bunch of film students well versed in CGI thought it would be interesting to make a few episodes of Thunderbirds using precisely the techniques used back in 1965.

        They managed to hire the industrial unit in Slough where it was made, and set to, sourcing a lot of the long-obsolete Airfix kits from Ebay and bringing in a fashion designer willing to make a wardrobe for foot-high puppets. She particularly enjoyed dressing Jeff Tracy, whom she saw as a bit of a peacock, but loathed Lady Penelope. “She is not Barbie” she had to keep saying over and over again. By good fortune, there existed three EP records from the 1960s of episodes that had never been made into films, which provided all the dialogue needed using the original voice artists, most of whom have since died. They had particular trouble with the Hood, whose head came off each time they tried to work the lights in his eyes.

        One of the characters was an Indian gentleman, a new character not voiced in the original series, so they used Sanjeev Bhaskar for this. He was delighted to be involved with the project.

        It was released as a special edition and privately sold (since there were copyright problems with general release – presumably the rights had been bought by Sony), but I managed to get hold of one through Ebay once.

    4. Yet, the media (BBC, NRK) are saying that this speech will slaughter Trump, Biden is a shoo-in, fantastic, etc etc.

    5. I am sure that many Nottlers find that they lose the thread of what they are saying , as I do, when they are talking. Fortunately Caroline knows all my stories and can see immediately when I start to digress and then um and ah so she puts me back on track again.

      The prospect of such a bumbling senile idiot as Biden in the White House is terrifying.

  10. Morning all

    Do you have cross-reactive T-cells?

    If so, you might be amongst the possible 50% of the world population who already had COVID-19 immunity before the virus struck.

    On the other hand, you might be advised to seek a priest to confess your transgression into original antigenic sin.

    Professor Tscharke said the cross-reactive T cells might help to fight off the virus, or they might get in the way of the immune system, making the disease worse, a phenomenon known as “original antigenic sin”.

    https://www.smh.com.au/national/scientists-discover-many-people-unexposed-to-coronavirus-have-immune-cells-for-covid-19-20200818-p55mw2.html

    1. Morning Angie. Don’t know about T-cells, but I certainly have Cross-reactive brain cells!!!

      3. Mine are bloody furious; particularly after today’s headlines confirm my firmly held convictions.

  12. Exam results……

    Morning all

    SIR – As a former headmaster and current vice chancellor, I am becoming increasingly alarmed by how young people’s achievements, in their A-level results last week and GCSE results this week, are being questioned.

    The longer the political furore continues, and the longer the validity of centre assessment grades is disputed, the less the young will believe in the value of their results.

    I know from my own experience how much self-confidence is gained through achieving good grades in exams. We are in danger of producing a cohort of young people who lack that confidence.

    Sir Anthony Seldon

    Vice Chancellor

    University of Buckingham

    SIR – Because of the change in the way GCSEs were awarded, pupils have received higher grades than normal, as teachers have a natural tendency to overestimate their students’ standards.

    And this in a year when you would have expected to see lower grades because much less teaching has 
been done.

    Professor Arthur Morris

    Helensburgh, Argyll

    SIR – I congratulate every student who received results yesterday.

    ADVERTISING

    Ads by Teads

    We now need to halt the language of “inflation”, which suggests that teachers sat around blowing hot air into balloons, making up grades on a whim. No. Centres approached the process with gravity. We weighed up all the data, as well as our detailed knowledge of students. Our expertise and integrity, and their hard work, must not be undermined.

    Sarah Raffray

    Head teacher, St Augustine’s Priory

    London W5

    SIR – In the days of assessment by examinations alone, I achieved by a number of fluke A-level results just sufficient to obtain a university place. For me, this was the wrong path, and led to unfortunate consequences. I was lucky: I eventually arrived at the right destination, but it might not have ended so well.

    Inflated grades, whatever the reason for them, are not necessarily in students’ best interests.

    John Smallwood

    West Auckland, Co Durham

    SIR – Spare a thought for those pupils who, if they’d been able to sit their exams, would have got higher grades than their teachers predicted.

    Every year there are a few who have been underrated and unsung by their teachers – the shy, quiet ones who don’t believe in themselves. Many of them have a shining moment of self-realisation in August, when they open that envelope.

    This year, those students have not had the chance to experience that moment. I hope it dawns on them not too much later in life.

    Annabel Partridge

    Farringdon, Hampshire

  13. SIR – My sister, a retired nurse, is caring for her husband, who has motor neurone disease, her mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, and my frail 94-year-old father.

    Last week, the hot weather exacerbated my brother-in-law’s breathing difficulties, prompting my sister to request a home visit from her GP. She was concerned that her husband might require antibiotics 
for a possible chest infection. During the 10 years that he has suffered from this awful disease, she has never called out her doctor.

    Having battled through the brick wall of triaging receptionists and nurses, she was eventually called by her doctor. She was told a home visit would not be possible because he lacked personal protective equipment.

    I found this response completely unacceptable. Just what is going on in GP surgeries? No face-to-face appointments, no referrals for life-limiting illnesses – and no PPE.

    Eve McLeish

    Hythe, Kent

  14. Morning again

    SIR – This country is floundering. As you point out in your Leading Article (August 19), only about 33 per cent of white-collar workers are back at their desks, and our once-vibrant capital is in danger of turning into a ghost town.

    We need positive messages from our Government, along with confidence and true leadership – but it doesn’t appear to be listening.

    Silvia Nesbitt

    London W13

    SIR – While I agree with Geoffrey Wyartt (Letters, August 20) that a Corbyn administration would not have done a better job of governing Britain over the past few months, I do not see this as a valid excuse for the atrocious performance of Boris Johnson’s team.

    What a sad indictment of a once- great political party that its senior politicians are merely the least-worst option available to us.

    John Waine

    Nuneaton, Warwickshire

    SIR – I note with chagrin that Baroness Dido Harding will be head of the new quango that replaces Public Health England (report, August 17), despite, like Matt Hancock, having no scientific experience or qualifications (both studied PPE at Oxford).

    As yet another senior Tory with no in-depth scientific understanding of the problems we face, she is unlikely to be able to do the job required.

    When will the Government realise that without suitably qualified leaders, its departments will simply make the same mistakes that we have witnessed over the past six months?

    Richard Field

    Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire

  15. SIR – The passports we recently renewed are indeed black not blue (Letters, August 20).

    They are also incredibly flimsy, and I cannot see them being fit for purpose for regular travellers. Perhaps the Government foresaw that people wouldn’t be needing them very often.

    Jane Ferguson

    London SW20

    SIR – Am I alone in thinking the old passport was black not blue?

    Alan Sabatini

    Bournemouth, Hampshire

  16. Well one lesson we can learn from the pandemic is that the more the teachers do the less the better the exam results.

    1. Employers should be deeply suspicious of job applicants who got their GCSEs in 2020 and they should devise their own literacy and numeracy tests and ask all of their prospective employees to complete these tests in basic basic arithmetic and English before they are even considered for employment.

      The truth of the matter is that many people with an A* in Engish Language GCSE in 2020 day would probably have got a fail in “O” level in 1962.

      1. I think many employers already have to do that, Rastus. It’s also quite common for university Freshers to have to have remedial maths lessons.

    2. Maybe the state school teachers have done a Scargill and made us realise they are surplus to requirements.

  17. SIR – I am delighted that scientists have confirmed that honey can be used to combat the curses of winter: colds and coughs (report, August 19).

    In the interests of humanity, may I pass on the recipe that has been handed down through generations of my family, and which has never failed to fight off illness?

    Precision is important. Take a tumbler and in this order place: a hefty slop of orange juice, a generous dram (or two) of whisky, a large spoonful of honey and, finally, a drop of hot water.

    Take this elixir to bed to guarantee a good night’s sleep and awake cured in the morning. You may have to repeat as desired – for medicinal purposes only.

    Ron Giddens

    Caterham, Surrey

    1. The alcohol in the whisky would cancel out the vitamin C in the orange juice. The concoction is merely a feel-good prop.

    2. Precision is important. Take a tumbler and in this order place: a hefty slop of orange juice, a generous dram (or two) of whisky, a large spoonful of honey and, finally, a drop of hot water.

      Doesn’t sound very precise to me.
      A hefty slop
      A generous dram, or two
      A large spoonful

      3. The ‘precision’ was tongue in cheek. It’s probably what got the letter printed!

  18. Coronavirus hospital admissions inflated at height of pandemic. 21 August 2020.

    Hospital admissions for Covid-19 were over-reported at the peak of the pandemic, with patients who were taken in for other illnesses being included in outbreak statistics, it has emerged.

    An investigation for the Government’s Science Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) found that people were being counted as Covid hospital admissions if they had ever had the virus, and were added to those being admitted directly due to it.

    If anyone is ever allowed to analyse the figures when this fiasco is over it will be found that the UK and its people were destroyed by something marginally less lethal than the Common Cold.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/20/coronavirus-hospital-admissions-inflated-height-pandemic-investigation/

    2. So, no coronavirus statistic can be trusted – just like China, Sudan and shyteholeistan.

    4. The fact that this ‘news’ is totally unsurprising doesn’t make any more acceptable.

  19. Good morning all. Dull but dry in Derbyshire.

    Stepson is due to be released from hospital today and once I’ve got his new bedding sorted, his flat will be ready for him.
    I’ll probably go & pick him up from the hospital and try & find out what his continuing care arrangements will be whilst doing so.
    Then over to Aldi’s to do a food shop for him.

  20. Good morning all. Back in the land of the living. Thank you all for your very kind messages of support during the last week. The MR duly passed them on. Without her, I would have been lost.

    I could write a book about the hospital – but, be relieved, I am not going to. Parts of the NHS are flipping brilliant; other parts mind-bogglingly inefficient. They appear to have worked out what is wrong with me- and I have a bag of meds to treat it. I had forgotten just how exhausting it is being in hospital – all the endless noise from 05.55 to 22.00 – and then DURING the night when people die and new patients are trolleyed in. So I shall take it very gently for the next few days.

    I have learned the vital use of mobile phones – and was able to keep in constant touch with the MR and my son and grand-daughter. Life-saving.

    One constant delight was the VERY un-woke and terribly NOT PC banter between the nurses and the patients. The East European nurses (of which there were many) were brilliant. The bames less so. English/E Euro nurses would do the evening meds for a room of 6 in 15 mins; the bames an hour and a half….. Many of the Drs looked as if they had walked up that morning from the Kent coast – but most of them had adequate language (and medical) skills.

    It is wonderful to be home – especially on a fine day – and to see how much the garden has changed in a week, The trombetti and the tomatoes are fantastic!

    I am now going back to bed to wait for my blood-pressure and morning meds… Then new sheets, Drs rounds….(sorry – I have become institutionalised…)

    I’ll look in later.

      1. I’ve just worked out what you’re holding. At first I thought it was a truss of some sort!

    12. Truth be known, it’s good to see you back, Wm, and we all hope that you will adhere to doing what nursey said. I’m not going to be a sneaky shit by telling you what the MR and the rest of us said whilst you were away. Just don’t use ladders if you want to try to escape.

    14. I can never forget that little rolypoly Chinese nurse after my operation in Singapore whose only function was to get me to urinate. I didn’t see her again after the first night. She was then replaced with a convalescent nurse, who was Filipina and very pretty, giving me very much the will to live.

        1. 322833+ up ticks,
          Morning SM,
          Methinks you must consider a type of dog year tally when 16 yo are, in English accounting working out at 32.

    2. It did piss me off reading that yer French thought we were horrible not welcoming these scroungers. What’s wrong with France? Not a war-zone (well only in the HLMs).

      2. Are you fully recovered or on the mend.

        Hope you and your MR are still keeping the wine merchants going and counting the grapes as one of your five a day.

        Welcome back.

      3. Apparently he had already applied for asylum in France and been rejected. The French attitude is ridiculous. Two felons break into a garden shed in Calais, steal a swimming-pool toy boat and a couple of shovels, come to grief in La Manche and suddenly the blame lies with Downing St. Just absurd.

    3. He looks well-fed and not dressed in rags.

      But he died in France. Given the faux outrage from the Left, anyone would think that Boris had brutally murdered him on the steps of No.10.

    4. We all seem to be a captive helpless audience.
      There’s nothing we can do , is there?

      A British Navy Destroyer stops four Muslims in a row boat, rowing towards Brighton .”The captain gets on the loud hailer and shouts, “Ahoy, small craft, where are you heading?” One of the Muslims stands up and shouts, “We are invading England !”
      The crew of the Destroyer all start laughing and when the captain finally stops laughing, he gets back on the loud hailer and says, “Just the four of you?”
      The Muslim stands up again and shouts, “No, we’re the last four. The other 6 million are already there!”

  22. The increase in the number of cases of Covid-19 almost everywhere is very frightening. The UK Government is warning us of a “second wave”, by which they mean more cases. Oh, NO!
    Except that more cases are being detected because more testing is being carried out. Do more cases mean more people dying? No. Do more cases mean more people in hospital? No. Do more cases mean more people being a bit sick and having to stay at home and isolate? No.
    Does the incidence of more cases mean anything? No.
    Have we seen a demonstration of the correlation between numbers tested, numbers going to hospital, numbers dying? No. Can we be sure that the tests are accurate and thorough? No.

    1. Morning Horace. None of it stands up to serious scrutiny! I think it is simply being used to bring on the New Order!

      1. The odd thing is it seems to be universal – not just this country. What is the agenda? To enrich Bill and Melinda? Surely there’s more to it than that?

        1. Yes of course there is! It is in a nutshell World Domination where a shadowy elite control everything from behind the scenes! Where Democracy is a scam, Freedom an illusion and Fear never sleeps.

  23. DT headline: “BBC impartiality row: Newsnight policy editor accused of ‘off the scale’ bias”

    The impartiality is so blatant that I don’t know why the BBC hasn’t been closed down. Its charter, the very basis of its existence, says in Article 6 (1):

    To provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them: the BBC should provide duly accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual programming to build people’s understanding of all parts of the United Kingdom and of the wider world.

    However, given that the BBC spends 86% of its recruitment advertising budget on the Guardian, its management and employees are highly unlikely to be impartial!

    Why doesn’t Boris do something about this outrage? Perhaps because he’s frightened of all the additional Boris bashing that he will get from the very same BBC, Sky, the Guardian and all the other left-wing MSM (which is nearly all of it). Not to mention the bashing from the Labour Party, the LibDems, the Mayor of London, the LBGTXYZ ‘community’, assorted wokes and all the liberal hand wringers who have far too much say these days.

    But Boris is supposed to be the PM of a Tory government with an 80 majority. Where are his cojones when they’re so badly needed? Perhaps his liberal wifelet has claimed them for her own use!

    1. 322833+ up ticks,
      Morning S,
      Alternately it could be the kickback being trousered is adequate, for the moment.

        1. 322833+ up ticks,
          Jbf,
          Sorry to offend but it was understood was it not ?
          I am guilty at times of typing with a lisp to this I admit without reservation.

    2. To try to be a tiny bit fair, it’s best to pick a fight with one enemy at a time. H!tler messed taht one up, and look what happened to him.
      Sort the EU (since taht is ongoing), then the BBC. Don’t fight both at once. Covid is also a distraction.

    3. Why doesn’t Boris do something about this outrage?

      Perhaps because he’s one of them? Morning Sguest

    1. Did the death certificates record Covid though, because the stabber might have been asymptomatic?

      1. Are there now special educationalist in drug dealing and knife crime ………..just wonderin’

          3. We had a guy at the ‘old mid Herts’ who achieved and albatross in for two on a par 5. He became (nick name) known as “The ancient Mariner”.

  27. Oh dear the biased left wing media apple cart has been upset once more.

    Russian doctors say they found no indication that opposition politician Alexei Navalny was poisoned.

    The opposition politician is in intensive care in the Siberian city of Omsk. His allies suspect he has been poisoned.

    Earlier, doctors refused to authorise his transfer to a German hospital, Mr Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on Twitter.

    “The chief doctor said that Navalny is non-transportable. (His) condition is unstable. Family’s decision to transfer him is not enough,” Ms Yarmysh said in a tweet.

    Mr Navalny, 44, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Thursday and was taken to hospital after the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk.

    His team says a plane with all the necessary equipment is ready to take Mr Navalny to a German clinic.

    1. Sounds like trying to visit a pub just outside Oldham, or whichever is the latest British city to be locked down because someone sneezed.

  28. I enjoyed my belated Fathers day present yesterday from number one son. A round of golf in a buggy.
    But unfortunately my knee didn’t hold up to 18 holes i had to quit at 10. I became the main driver. Tee shots good putting also okay, but short game dire. That’s what happens when you don’t play for a long time. And a nice pint after. Exhausted by the time we reached home.

      1. Sharps Atlantic, a very nice pint not too hoppy.
        But don’t mention the water,………. i lost three balls in the lakes.

        1. Last time I played golf, I not only lost all the nice new balls I had bought for the occasion (6), I also lost all those I picked up on my way round.
          I haven’t golfed since.
          :-((

  30. Morning, Campers.
    I see we have finally been given the unsurprising news that the ‘experts’ were lying to us for the past five months. Which is worse: being just plain incompetent and trashing an entire country’s financial and social structure or uttering downright lies to cover that incompetence?
    Whichever way, colour me surprised.

      1. The Sage committee? Various bugginses in quangos and the civil service? Cabinet? Advisors? Professors with yo-yo zips? ‘Our’ NHS?
        We are spoilt for choice.

        1. From a previous edition of the Sunday Times:

          “The UK government used modelling from Imperial College London and Professor Neil Ferguson to
          inform its coronavirus response.

          Imperial also modelled Sweden, warning that their rejection of lockdown would result in 40,000 COVID-19 deaths by 1 May
          and almost 100,000 by June…

          …the latest figure from Sweden shows 2,680 deaths, with daily deaths peaking two weeks ago”.

          1. I thought Sweden had just under 6,000 deaths – or have they been miscounting their figures as well? 5805 yesterday according to Worldometers.

          2. I did point out that it was from a PREVIOUS edition of the Sunday Times!!

            And surprisingly yesterday was not Sunday.

            But even your figures show the enormous inaccuracy of Imperial College’s figures.

            …and yet near accurate figures were produced by Professor Gupta from Oxford, and were determinedly ignored.

          3. I did point out that it was from a PREVIOUS edition of the Sunday Times!!

            And surprisingly yesterday was not Sunday.

            But even your figures show the glaring inaccuracy of Imperial College’s figures.

            …and yet near accurate figures were produced by Professor Gupta from Oxford, and were determinedly ignored.

          4. Sorry Janet – I thought you meant the up to date figures. Yes – the predictions were seriously screwed.

  31. Brexit talks apparent;y going well. Sky News reporting that Michael Barnier is reported as saying the Brexit talks are ” actually going backwards”

      1. It seems our team is still standing its ground. No deal is better than a bad deal as it has always been since June 2016.

        1. I’m amazed clydesider.

          The British civil service have always been so desperately anxious to cave in at the slightest opportunity.

        2. I can’t understand all this long term ongoing fuss with supposedly intelligent adult people, unless of course certain types of known European hereditary obsessions have crept into the equation. Regarding obeying orders.

      2. Doesn’t sound like it. It’s just Barnier who’s expressing his monthly disappointment that the UK is refusing to capitulate to EU demands.

    1. Good point. I notice the BBC have gone to ‘Cases’ and ‘Coronavirus’, the ONS stats still talk about Covid-19 though.

      1. My local BBC radio station can’t get a sentence out without saying “Coronavirus Pandemic” in it. Drives me crazy.

        1. Is the common cold going to provide the government with their second spike this winter? Will anyone be able to tell the difference?

          2. According to the Irish woman ranting on Twitter the PCR tests pick up any coronavirus infection whether it’s live or in the past.

        2. Our news broadcasters just reference the pandemic.

          That way they don need to clarify if it is the illness pandemic or the panic pandemic that is bringing everything to a halt.

  33. Donald Trump is the glue holding Joe Biden’s shaky coalition together. 21 August 2020.

    Should Joe Biden be worried?

    There are signs that his massive poll lead over Donald Trump is shrinking and, even more alarmingly for the Democrats, a Rasmussen poll showed the US president has a positive approval rating.

    Accepting that this poll is something of an outlier, it still demonstrates that the assumption he will sweep Donald Trump away in November is a dangerous one.

    I’m beginning to think that Trump is going to win this one! Let’s face it; it is a choice between him and someone who cannot tie his own shoelaces and who will be confined to the White House Romper Room while his BLM Marxist handlers run things!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/21/donald-trump-best-glue-holding-joe-bidens-shaky-coalition-together/

    1. Did you miss Bidens talk to an empty hall last night? The sleepy Joe label did not stick. Even Fox News is admitting that he did well although they have their obligatory dozens of dem attack stories as headlines.

      Trump has not lost yet but a lot of middle of the road voters will have seen a lively passionate Biden and question Trumps slurs of a 77 year old.

      Trump has a big fight on his hands and every mustruth will be used as ammunition against him.

      1. “a lively passionate Biden..”

        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4VSKCh93vl0
        Dirty Harry Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger! DeepFake

        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b7gTYyQTxMo
        DEEPFAKE] DEMOLITION MAN STARRING ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

        They can deep fake voices as well now, such that you couldn’t tell that it wasn’t the person speaking. The bit they haven’t got totally right is the mouth when speaking, it’s never quite right, but they’ll fix that soon, and be able to produce clips of someone speaking,and you’d not be able to tell that it wasn’t them.

        Biden was wearing a mask, wasn’t he? Speaking in an empty hall, wearing a mask, and sounding a lot livelier and energetic than recently.
        I haven’t seen the speech, but Mike Graham on Talk Radio mentioned it this morning, and that Biden did not sound like himself. Now, I’m not saying that it wasn’t Biden giving that speech last night, but it’s food for thought, and in the clip that Graham played on the radio Biden did not sound like he has done recently.

        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PpMAd7uXMSY
        BIDEN: “YOU KNOW THE THING!”

        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h2SIxFiUANk
        Biden’s Gettysdog Burger You Know the Thing the Lady Address

        https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JRM7zQk8xJg
        “We choose truth over facts.”
        “Poor kids are just as talented as white kids.”
        “150 million people killed by guns….”
        “720 million women back into the workforce…”

        Trump doesn’t need to slur a 77 year-old. He’s doing that himself.

    2. The polls showing Biden winning are of course arrant nonsense,but they serve a dark purpose,if the Dems get their massive postal voting fraud going they will legitimise the fake result

      1. And if they don’t, they’ll claim the election was rigged, Trump stole all the votes, suppressed voters, etc, etc. They’re getting their excuses in early.

    1. This is simple:

      Sack the welfare officer
      Sack the judge
      Tear off and burn that stupid tent she’s wearing
      Cut off any and all welfare – make her homeless or, more likely move in with another freeloading gimmigrant we’re paying for – and prevent her or anyone 5 generations hence from claiming a scrap of benefits.

      She’s a thief. She cheated the system took no responsibility for her actions and must be punished. As a crook we do that by cutting off her income.

      In fact, do the same for any tent weearing gimmigrant. End welfare at a stroke. You get back only what youve paid in and you, the claimant have to provide evidence of that.

      1. Having recently been accused of being a leftie, I must take exception to the haste implicit in your suggestions.

        The judge and social worker need to appear before a public review to explain their actions in this case. Explain why there is no time inside, explain why none of the theft was caught, clearly identify any guidelines of commandments from above that forced them to take such lenient actions.

        Then you can fire them.

  36. The postman has just been – and brought your delightful get well card. Thank you all.

    1. Things were turning too positive around here, we missed your ability to bring us back to earth.

  38. Being serious, for a moment – one story that shocked me in (I think) Wednesday’s paper was the one about the little French boy who was thrown over the parapet at the Tate by some nutcase.

    His parents thanked the world for raising £200,000 by crowd funding to pay for the NHS treatment Compare and contrast with the wogs who come over, use the NHS, run up a bill for quarter of a million then bugger off without paying.

    I was disgusted that the victim of a crime committed by a British person should have even to think about paying. If Johnson (and Halfcock) had an ounce of decency, they’d tell the distracted parents that all bills have been scrapped.

    2. Hello Bill,
      So relieved to see you are back here with us .
      You have had a rough ride on the NHS bus!

      With regard to the French boy who was thrown off the Tate viewing platform , I am really shocked that our NHS didn’t treat the boy for free, considering it was the other side of the NHS that allowed that nutjob his freedom to roam freely ..

      In mitigation Bravery’s defence barrister Pippa McAtasney QC said at the time of the attack the teenager had been in the care of Hammersmith and Fulham Council.

      The court heard Bravery had a history of lashing out at staff, but despite this he was allowed to leave home unsupervised for up to four hours at a time.

      1. I have never had much success with that. Every time I needed medical treatment in yer France (apart from he two yeas when I was in their Health scheme) I had to pay for all services and treatments and then try to recover the dosh from DHSS in Newcastle. Sometimes it worked – most times it didn’t.

        Later I was told to apply to the local French social security office – a minefield of French admin obfuscation. I took all the stuff plus copies plus my passport plus my mother’s birth certificate plus a bank paying in slip.

        After 4 months they sent me – in England – a cheque in Euros drawn on a German bank in London – for about 20% of the true cost.

        My French bank clerk larfed his head off . It would cost more than the face value of the cheque to cash it…..

    4. Do you seriously expect any decency from the serial adulterer Boris Johnson?

      Which relationship will last the longer – that of Prince Harry and Migraine Markle or that of Bonker Boris with his current bonkee, Carrie Symonds?

      2. That sounds all right. Very caring. Now, about the children groomed and raped in their thousands while in care of Local Authorities, and let us not mention those children the Local Authorities and their subcontracted care homes just lost off the radar and maybe were murdered…

    1. Some years ago we had a girl from Cheltenham Ladies’ College whose father was a diplomat and her mother was a very successful business woman. The girl was highly intelligent and was certainly going to get very good “A” level grades. She was going to apply for Harvard University and was very cynically happy to get all the advantage she could out of the fact that her father was black and her mother was white.

  41. The innocence of youth, I broke the news to my youngest granddaughter that her trampoline has been damaged beyond repair, as Monty Python said it is dead! The response I got, OK grampy, you can dig a hole and put in a swimming pool in its place.
    Ha!

        1. There seem to be so many people still in work are moving out of London now JBF, people who live there and rent who have lost their jobs and those who are border line, are being evicted.
          It’s not looking good is it ?

    1. Scurrilous, and woefully short of the ethical standards we would like to expect from the “the Thunderer”.

    2. Nah, it’s a Nato false-flag operation. Vlad’s a nice guy who wouldn’t dream of poisoning anyone.

    3. Cripes; I looked up the Russian for ‘Earl’ and discovered there is Russian Earl Grey tea.
      Does it glow comfortingly on dark mornings?

  47. Good morning all
    Picked up this BTL quote on the main DT headline about the CoronaCon.

    It’s easier to fool people than convince them they have been fooled ‘- Mark Twain

  49. Does it give today’s adolescents any pride or sense of achievement if they know, in their hearts of hearts, that they did not deserve the exam grades they were given?

    Personally I find there are few things more off-pissing, condescending and demoralising than being praised and congratulated when one knows one did not do as well as one could have done.

    1. That requires self-awareness, something that seems to be singularly lacking in modern woke society.

    2. The interviews I have seen with A-level and GCSE pupils have them saying that they are glad they have obtained the results they ‘deserve’. So I don’t think they accept the fact that this year’s results are suspect.

    3. 322833+ up ticks,
      Morning R,
      ALL trade / profession paper tigers bode ill for any nation,
      and imo we have a bloody zoo full.

    4. Should they all have been given either a pass or a fail and let the universities have entrance exams.

      What do you suggest apart from the fact the exams should never have been cancelled.

      1. There was no need to cancel them. What is our abiding memory of exams? The Desks Were Far Apart.

        1. I agree with you.
          I’ll take your word for it with exams. I passed the 11+ then left aged 15.

    5. “No Sir, I cannot take the credit for that. It was Jim Watson that did it and he deserves all the credit and the reward”, I said. Well, I said it three hours later, when Sir had gone.

  50. Slight incident at breakfast. The Sultana choked on her croissant. We had been talking about the BBC’s friendly, uncritical, endless and pointless (for us) coverage of the Democratic Convention. The Sultana had mentioned that there had been lessons on how to pronounce the name of Mr Biden’s running mate, the candidate for Vice President. The Sultana asked me how I would pronounce the lady’s name?
    “Camelarse” I said. That was when the Sultana had the slight choking incident. When she stopped laughing she was fine.

    1. The B.B.C. is like most of our media. It lives in that part of woke California known as London. Its delusions include being ‘fully European’ and there fore Brit hating; and excited about elections in a country they do not live in, cannot vote in nor if truth be told do not understand outside of television programmes that make them feel ‘part of it’. One of their bleats about Brits is that those numbskulls don’t care who is the President of America on Thames.

  51. Time to go and do the crossword.

    Two final things about the NNUH. First, the food was extremely good. The contractor is on a tight budget, the workers are on piece rates with tight targets . All very reprehensible, of course, but to produce mass high quality food for a 1200 bed hospital is pretty impressive.

    And I have just finished a long call from my Asthma Nurse wanting to know how the first 12 hours of liberty went. Again, impressive. She told me that they reckon it takes six weeks to get over being an in-patient…..

    1. Why don’t they use airline food caterers?
      Anyone expecting Cordon Bleu either in hospital or on a flight is deluded.
      Many moan about airline food but how many turn down a meal when it’s offered.

        1. 322833+ up ticks,
          Morning M,
          If food were pro UK governance we would all stave to death awaiting a decent meal.

      2. When SWMBO was in Crawley hospital, waiting for Firstborn to come out, we discovered the food wasn’t fit to be served to a dog (smash – dry powder in it, dolloped onto a tray and allowed to grow a skin…). This despite the staff canteen winning prozes for the food! I said she should phone for pizza, but she was too nice to do that.

      3. I wish I had turned down the “shreem” (it turned out to be shrimp) on the Aeroflot flight back from Moscow when I was coming back from the Gobi. I certainly suffered for it.

    3. Did you apply for a 50% refund for meals taken on Mon-Weds, seems only fair to pass on the savings.

    6. Well done, Bill. Your asthma seems to have been treated well and you are sans any hospital-acquired infection. Win – win! And a good excuse for a double celebration…

    9. Yay. Nice ter see yer; ter see yer, nice.
      I remember being extremely miffed because I’d chosen the very scrummy shepherd’s pie for my lunch and the b’stards chucked me out during the morning.

      1. Ta, dear heart. I thought of you and TB often while undergoing hands on treatment by healthy young nurses….

      3. I was allowed to eat my lunch before being kicked out, but I had to do so in the patients’ day room!

      1. Thanks, Paul – so far so good. It was LOVELY to have a glass or three of a very sophisticated rosé last evening…!!

      1. I was in a pub years ago when the barmaid was that well endowed. The guy in front of me was mesmerised. When she asked him what his order was he said “two pints of T*t’s please”.

  53. Just back from the Turkish barbers. Feels great to shorn, trimmed & massaged. Face masks worn at 1/2 mast & no visors – not that they are any good.
    Prises have gone down – my VIP cost only £35.

  54. 322833+ up ticks,
    The death is a sad affair in any language of the migrant no right minded person wants that.
    By the same token,
    Do not the political overseers consider it to be a trifle suspicious that of a child of such proportions breast feeding.

  55. Anyone just hear the TMS coverage on Dorset Knobs? Up there with “The bowler’s Willie”.

        2. I’ve played it back: “A hard knob in the morning sounds like the perfect way to start the day.”

          She seemed like such a proper girl.

          2. “Not sure she’ll last much longer.”

            Why?

            I’m not a great fan. I find her speech a bit lazy although her commentary’s improved, which is more than can be said for Alison ‘Gorblimey’ Mitchell.

          3. Mainly because her comment wasn’t as cunningly contrived as “The bowler’s Willie” one. It was ‘cheap’ in comparison. As she’s black, at least I think she is, she might get away with it. We’ll see.

          4. Unfortunately, “The batsman’s Holding, the bowler’s Willey” didn’t happen.

  58. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8644117/Swedens-coronavirus-expert-warns-wearing-masks-dangerous.html?ito=amp_twitter_share-top

    Sweden’s coronavirus expert warns that wearing masks is
    ‘very dangerous’ because it gives people the idea it is safe to be in
    crowded rooms or public transport

    Anders Tegnell has voiced scepticism that masks will control Covid outbreaks

    Sweden’s
    infectious diseases expert noted countries with widespread mask
    compliance were still experiencing rising cases of coronavirus

    Dr Tegnell previously said evidence of the benefit of wearing masks was ‘weak’

    1. Some health‐care and ancillary hospital staff have mooted wearing surgical facemasks all the time even when asymptomatic to protect themselves and patients. However, given the current low and declining transmission within the Australian community, the risk of a health worker inadvertently catching or spreading the infection if not wearing a mask is very low. Symptomatic health‐care workers should not return to work until they have been tested and found to be negative for COVID‐19.

      The public might wear masks to avoid infection or to protect others. During the 2009 pandemic of H1N1 influenza (swine flu), encouraging the public to wash their hands reduced the incidence of infection significantly whereas wearing facemasks did not. There is no good evidence that facemasks protect the public against infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID‐19.

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7323223/

      Surgical site infection rates did not increase when non‐scrubbed operating room personnel did not wear a face mask.

      https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1445-2197.2009.05200.x

      In other words, either inside or outside an operating theatre, masks don’t prevent infection.

      1. Yes ,but they prevent infection in the street, on public transport, in supermarkets, in shops, in restaurants and pubs, in cinemas and in gyms. (The Government says so.)
        As long as we stay out of operating theatres we will be safe.

  59. An old school friend told me stories about his time working for a large building materials supplier. He had to visit builders to have them sign contracts. They mostly lived in palatial style. He gathered they had left school early with no qualifications at all as far as he could tell. Some could only sign their names with something like an effort. All were very savvy and successful. School and academic achievements have become a sort of fetish in our times. This city where I type this was founded by the efforts of men who were born in poverty and used their brains.

    1. Everyone needs a roof over their heads, a bath room, a kitchen etc.
      There is terrible irony in my family, my fathers (an accountant) side were all academic and ran business. My mothers side were trades people but very successful.
      By my father side of the family I was encouraged to go into commerce and printing. I hated all the noise, i also hated my C of E school and chose to learn a trade, joinery. My mothers brother was a builder and his two sons chose printing and commerce. They both became millionaires…………… it’s a funny old world eh.

    2. The builder, that my son works for, has recently built his dream home – one of the more palatial houses in the village, but he has worked bloody hard to get where he has. It is very well built (I would say that as my son was working on it for a couple of years) and a pleasing structure for a modern house. Of course he wouldn’t get invited to the drinks parties at all the other ‘big houses’ in the village.

    1. 322833+ up ticks,
      Morning PT,
      Was working in Poland PVC plant construction, a russian behind every tree, the accommodation block held also the animals bar ( for travelling industrial tramps) that was sung on eve of every going the UK way flight.
      Top yer beer up with tears.

        1. 322833+ up ticks,
          Afternoon RE,
          Similar I was sitting on a barge ( concreted over when filled extending the Gib land mass) plates of meat in the med watching the little fishes when someone said Piranha in there, very, very,very quick re-action.

    3. That song will always remind me of the Ark Royal and the days before successive governments of all persuasions forgot that defence of the realm is the first priority.

  62. DTStory

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/21/quarantine-rules-results-gcse-gavin-williamson-brexit-boris/

    Brexit talks in deadlock as both UK and EU admit a deal is looking ever more unlikely.

    The Withdrawal Agreement was supposedly the prelude to making a trade deal and without a trade deal it is worthless.

    So if there is no trade deal then Britain will not be bound by any of the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement?

    This should free us from the disastrous May/Johnson capitulation/sell-out/surrender WA?

    2. I suspect that May and Johnson have foolishly already handed over the money, so Barnier and pals are no longer interested.

  65. I see the slammer toe-rag who was convicted of the Manchester murders declined to attend court to learn his sentence.

    Why was he not taken to the dock in chains? How soft have we become.

      2. No Sue.
        You can be fined for not wearing a useless mask but not for not attending court.

    2. A slammer defrauded the taxpayer with a fraudulent benefit claim totalling nearly £100,000, and got away with a 15 hour course. WTF is going on in this pathetic country?

        1. An appeal will be made. A deal will be done. He will be able to serve his sentence in Pakiland and be released in three weeks.

    1. He will then be out to claim his pension, no way will his lawyers allow him to be returned home.

      1. By the time he’s released this will be home the way immigration is going.
        Fortunately I won’t be around.

      2. 322833+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Kp,
        Read all the signs the placement of people of power, councils, parliament, mosques going up
        churches going up…. in flames, troops coming in
        indigenous … locked in.
        These Isles can number their main enemies up t o six as in submissive pcism & appeasement plus lab/lib/con.

        The recent past tells me he will be out under a new
        ruling power receive compo and be recognised as a hero.

        What remains of the indigenous will be down on one knee in compliance.

    1. This is why (and I assume it is a photoshop) councils must be starved of cash and made accountable.

      If the six figure salaries reappear, get rid of the parasite claiming it. If they waste money – for example by stopping car parking in city centres – sack them. If nonnsense signage comes up, make the individual councillor pay for it.

  69. For obvious reasons, I generally avoided any chat in horspiddle about the Plague. I was struck, while eavesdropping, how many of the (admittedly elderly) patients were frightened silly by it all. “Haven’t been into a shop since March”; “I like lockdown – no need to risk going into the town.”

    Twice I mentioned Hong Kong ‘flu in 1968 – when 60,000 people died without any of us knowing (or caring, come to that). “That was QUITE different; not dangerous at all….unlike Covid which might kill millions…”

    I went back to my crossword…..

    1. Two new deaths recorded in the UK today……….. and now Sage is pushing the R rate up again.

      I was going to meet some friends for lunch in Cirencester on Wednesday – it was cancelled as nobody wanted to sit in a cafe and it was raining. People who are normally quite sensible are still shit-scared of this bug which kills at least 0.001 of its victims.

      1. I’m not sure, VOM. I nicked it from a FaceAche page that is run by former colleagues.

  72. Amazon has just been – with a large box – full of goodies from NoTTLers.

    I suspect I know who is behind this very generous present – and I thank you all. Somehow you have divined that crosswords and maps are among my favourite things – and they will keep me going for weeks. And that dead cool clip-board “mit stifthalter”…. I have been wanting the Sara Wheeler book ever since I read a glowing review.

    Thank you all again – an old fogey is very touched (read that as you wish!!)

    2. Although not a participant in your gift from the NoTTlers, being so far away, we have sent happy thoughts across the pond, for your swift return to your usual trombetti self! ( Can’t have Phizzee showing off with his successes! ) J & J

  73. Afternoon, all. Perhaps the exams fiasco will make the woke generation think a bit and become a little more questioning. I live in hope 🙂

  75. That’s me for this first day of liberty.

    Thank you all again for your kind remarks. I shall be dipping in and out according to how my body goes.

    Have a jolly evening planning how to defraud the government of tens of thousands of pounds – and get away Scot free.

    A demain – on espère.

        1. I lived in Thetford for ten years. Had no real connection with the town, although I worked in Bury St Edmunds / Little Paxton / Norwich. Musically, I was organist at St Peter, Brandon, and sang with ‘Mildenhall Team Choir’ Used to cycle through Thetford Forest between Thetford and Brandon. Never encountered a beast.

          Funniest was cycling through Croxton, early one morning. Came across a ‘Sleeping Policeman’. Traffic calming? Nope: ’twas a member of Norfolk Constabulary, parked up in his police car, catching z’s.

    1. Time they stopped reporting the garbage spouted by that woman. The DM is obsessed with her and I suppose the DT is too, but I can no longer read it.

    2. Oh, just go away and shut up, Meghan. You’re just spouting nonsense that the majority doesn’t want to hear.

    3. It’s quite obvious which party she is backing, although she hasn’t explicitly stated it. The question is – are Americans influenced by celebrities who endorse a political candidate or party? I think it’s obvious that, in the UK, such an endorsement has the opposite effect to that intended i.e. it puts off voters. But in the USA?

      1. Depends on the target audience doesn’t it? Anyone on nttl would at best ignore her, younger celeb admiring youth will probably be embroidering tapestries with .her words recorded for posterity. Look back at the photos of that recent Johnny Depp trial where they made it look like hundreds were lining teh roads outside teh courthouse just to see the little squirt.

        They used some celeb (that I have never heard of) in Vancouver to push their mask policy at the young ones ignoring rules..

    4. I think she is psychopathic. If you look at the photographs in the dm today of her and Harry(?) handing out stuff to the er… needy, you can see that Harry’s head and neck have been photoshopped on to a different male body – look for the faint outlines against the background and blurring where these meet his clothing at the neckline. The photo of him looking through the car window giving the thumbs up is easy to photoshop, as is photoshopping a mask on to earlier photographed heads. It is an elaborate con by Markle. The thing is, why is the RF keeping silent about it? Therein lies the real mystery. She relies on our instinct to accept things at face value without looking too deeply.

    1. That’s great; something like that had to happen – there’s a BRIGHT light at the end of the tunnel …

      2. Dream on…he’s not a raving leftie so stood no chance. He was shortlisted merely to make the selection process appear respectable.

          1. I can understand your desire for such, but the B’stard Broadcasting Corpn ditched such niceties some time ago.

    2. That stupid SNP bitch might not be so welcoming if the English withdrew financial support to her pretend parliament. The Scots would be back to the days when a jam sandwich was flung onto the streets from a tenement to feed their children.

      1. 322904+ up ticks,
        Morning C,
        By the same token I do believe we in England suffer the same as the Scot in so far as the silent majority
        putting up with lab/lib/con /snp.
        No right minded person supports & votes for the downfall of THEIR nation but that is surely what
        has / is happening.

    1. The White City council estate is just behind Television Centre. The “diversity” there is quite deliberate of course. As I come in and out of the office each day, I pass the Tardis. Bluddy thing doesn’t work.

    2. The police are weeping, saying “if these thugs don’t obey the law we might have to do something”. No arrests…

        1. Given that they appear to have known that there were problems on the line elsewhere, why were they going so quickly?

          5. The problems were further south on on the southbound line and had been reported by the driver of a train travelling north two hours earlier that had reached Stonehaven safely. The driver of the HST had no reason to think that the northbound line was affected but it is certainly odd that he had accelerated to near full line speed when he had only five miles to travel to return to Stonehaven.

          6. I believe that there had been problems around the area during a previous heavy rainfall, it strikes me as foolish on the driver’s part, but I suppose one can’t drive on the assumption that earlier repairs might not have been adequately executed.

          7. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘earlier repairs’. The land drain is the subject of the investigation but there is no indication in the report as to when it was installed.

            My suspicion is that for some turf or topsoil and grass seed this accident wouldn’t have happened.

          8. It was meant in more general terms rather than specifc to this incident, although I recall reading somewhere that the drain work was recent.

          9. I’d have thought that the driver might have seen the condition of the other line as he went past going South. Had he simply stopped where he was, and not crossed over to go back, the tragedy would have been avoided almost certainly.
            I am wondering if a number of the passengers were railway crew on their way to take over other trains either in Perth or Glasgow, thereby giving a greater degree of urgency to the solution.

          10. The two trains would have passed the site only a few minutes apart so at that time the HST driver would not have suspected anything. He was then held for two hours before being ordered to return, by which time the sun was out.

    1. Something seems to ring a few bells about the places you mention TB but i can’t quite put my finger on it………

      1. 322833+up ticks,
        Evening RE,
        As I posted a while ago, I would like one church bell to ring, to trigger another, then another, until they echoed nationwide a ppealling for everyone of a patriotic nature.

    2. 322833+ up ticks,
      Evening TB,
      Seems like I am not the only one that said “join the dots”
      and see a gigantic mosque appear.

    3. There are Muslims and Muslims.

      The most ugly, bigoted, and the most IQ challenged, come from a certain country that is usually described as ‘Asian’ but which everyone knows begins with P and the third letter of which is K. I bet all the mayors quoted above are from that country.

      These people, thanks principally to Tony Blair, have invaded this country and will continue to do so with impunity. I say this because they have even infiltrated the immigration service.

      I have mentioned this before but one only needs to visit Her Majesty’s Passport Office in Victoria to see who works there. The last time I went, there were about 30 people waiting to renew their British passports. There were only two of us who were ingenious British and most of the rest, some in niqabs, were obviously from a certain country referred to above.

      To cap it all, when I went to collect my new passport in the afternoon, the call to Islamic prayers was being played over a loudspeaker.

      Are we just going to stand by and let this happen? Yes, because the silent majority don’t demonstrate in the streets, don’t trash buildings, don’t want a Marxist government, don’t read the Guardian, (etc., etc.)

      2. 322833+ up ticks,
        Evening S,
        That is an awful lot of donts that can only lead to
        complete submissive pcism & appeasement being the norm, supporting the lab/lib/con is showing the peoples compliance in getting down on both knees.
        Many indigenous who are putting this issue into place via the polling booth are leaving one hell of a legacy or one legacy of hell.

      3. “There were only two of us who were ingenious British”
        Two will be enough if ingenious enough.

        2. Yes! Most of them don’t follow it at all in practice. I don’t have time to explain it in detail now – another time! I have 50 years of experience in dealing with those evil people who follow the murderous ideology and also those, the vast majority of Arabs, at least, who hate the bigots.

          Good night!

  83. Good night all.

    Shopping, banking, having a haircut & cooking all in one day sure take it out of one.

  84. Katie Hopkins has allegedly just referred to the Biden-Harris ticket as

    “Sniff & Blow”

    1. I’m wondering what sort of place they are queued up in? there must be a reason why the windows are so far up the walls.

      1. 322833+ up ticks,
        Evening W,
        Uniform issue, the reset army being put in place via the polling booth.

  87. We are at the mercy of the statisticians in this pandemic

    Only belatedly are we realising that the statistics fed to us do not always mean what we think they mean

    ROSS CLARK

    Just as the assassination of JFK was the first global event to take place in the age of rolling TV news, Covid-19 is the first pandemic to happen in the age of daily statistical bulletins. We have become glued – or perhaps imprisoned – by the endless onslaught of figures for deaths, new cases, hospitalisations.

    Our lives can be thrown upside down when they move in the wrong direction – any country that starts registering more than 20 new cases per 100,000 people can expect to be put on Britain’s quarantine list. Last week, the whole of Auckland was sent into lockdown after the New Zealand government announced four – yes, four – new cases in the city.

    Only belatedly are we coming to realise that the statistics fed to us do not always mean what we think they mean. Until last week Public Health England was counting as a Covid death anyone who had died after testing positive for Covid-19, even if that was months ago, they never showed any symptoms and went on to be run over by a bus.

    This morning it transpires that the statistics for hospitalisations were compiled in the same way – anyone who went into hospital and tested positive for Covid-19 was counted as a Covid case, even if they had fallen off a ladder. By the same token, the common cold could be made out to be consigning to emergency wards and killing many tens of thousands of people in Britain every year.

    There’s another statistical oddity we need to be aware of, too. In recent weeks Spain has become the seat of what has been called Europe’s ‘second wave’. Recorded new cases have leapt since bottoming out in June, with 35,582 of them being recorded in the last seven days – constituting a peak nearly as high as that in April. Yet if so many are catching Covid-19 why aren’t they dying or going to hospital?

    While there has been a small rise in hospitalisations in recent weeks it is nothing compared to what was happening in the spring. In the past seven days, 1,407 have been hospitalised with Covid-19 and 122 have died – compared with nearly 900 deaths every day at the height of the epidemic. While you would expect a lag between new recorded cases and deaths, in the spring there was only a gap of seven days between peak new cases and peak deaths. The ‘second wave’ in new cases has been evident for seven weeks now.

    It is only when you look at the small print in the Spanish health ministry’s daily dispatch that you realise something amiss. Up until 10 May, Spain was only counting in its daily tally on new cases people who had tested positive in PCR tests – the ‘do you have it?’ test which detects traces of the actual virus in swabs of the nose and mouth.

    From 11 May, however, Spain started adding to the figure people who had tested positive in IgM tests, assuming they had also displayed some symptoms. The IgM test is the ‘have I had it?’ test, which looks for antibodies in the blood. This doesn’t start picking up cases until around 14 days after infection. In other words, Spain is counting in its daily total people who had the virus weeks ago.

    Sooner or later we are going to have to have an inquiry into the role of statisticians in the Covid-19 crisis. They will have to be put in the hot seat and grilled as to whether they contributed to the sense of panic which has gripped so many people and disrupted normal life for so long.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/21/mercy-statisticians-pandemic/

    1. They will have to be put in the hot seat and grilled as to whether they contributed to the sense of panic which has gripped so many people and disrupted normal life for so long.
      These background (‘The They’) people who are jiggling and juggling around with the lives of others will not be accountable after this is all over.
      My elderly sister and B i L had to drive to Heathrow today to pick up family members from a newly arranged flight from Croatia. Because they are young and still have jobs to go to.
      ‘The They’ are similar to dry rot in a house, sometimes you don’t realise you have it until the floors collapse of the roof caves in.

    2. I watched a government ONS statistician on TV a few days ago. Both my wife and I exclaimed that the man should have gone to Specsavers and in addition was obviously certifiably mad.

    1. How very old-fashioned of you, Eddy. I just press the button marked FLUSH (sometimes the one marked DOUBLE FLUSH).

      :-))

      Sleep well, my friend. I am off to bed now, as well.

  90. This was featured on here earlier. While the Salisbury Review article is quite right to criticise the behaviour of certain Asian groups in the country (look at paragraph on Bradford), there is this:

    Manzoor Moghal, chairman of the Muslim Forum, Leicester, said: “Many workers in the local textile factories…had given up observing social distancing. They were carrying on with their pre-coronavirus lives as if nothing had happened…Many people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are what I might call fatalists, believing that they will die when they are meant to die…I know someone who’s been refusing to observe social distancing and will not wear a mask for precisely this reason. He believes that his fate is written in the stars.”

    Some of that behaviour would not be regarded entirely unfavourably on here, would it?

    https://twitter.com/AgainBraine/status/1296765374424326145

    1. From my experience of working on a project in Leicester, the Muslims already think that they control the streets.

      A great Roman city traduced by imported scum.

  91. ‘Night, all. I’m off to indulge in Alcina by Haendel. Should keep me out of mischief for a while 🙂

  92. Had an early night and got woken up when the DT came to bed. After tossing & turning for an hour, decided to come down for a while.

    Following links from a YouTube post on Going Postal, I got to this excellent performance of Boccherini’s Night Music of the Streets of Madrid:-
    https://youtu.be/-RSL_MrJhkY

    Very much worth watching.
    If Soweto can produce a music ensemble like this, then there is, perhaps, still some hope for South Africa?

  95. It seems at a glance of the statistical declarations that nigh on a million folk in Scotland are on furlough whereas about 9 million folk are on furlough in England. Scotland, despite SNP claims to the contrary, actually pays nothing to contribute to this largesse.

    When furlough payments cease shortly, I hope, a lot of folk will have to get their fingers out, avoid daily trips to the coast and get back to any work they can find.

    I cannot think of a more stupid government initiative than to pay people to stay at home when the actual threat is equivalent to an unusual seasonal flu. Admittedly contagious in its emergence, undetected thanks to Chinese obstinacy and deceit (the Chinese manufactured the virus in their Wuhan laboratory).

    The sooner we ignore the silly attempts by Hancock and the Dido thingy and the other incompetents the sooner we can recover our economy and return to normality.

    1. I have the same problem at our club.

      I have never been concerned about this (anti) social distancing and have never believed the propaganda put out by the government. Some members are paranoid about it and I seem to be the only one who is prepared to put my head above the parapet. We sanitise equipment before and after play, I socially distance myself from this, and all to what benefit.

      In the current Covid climate the government scared people with the death rate. Now that has fallen by the wayside they now scare us with infection rates despite the death rate falling. Very few will question the logic of this and happily toe the line.

      Great article, thank you.

      1. They have to scare people to death to keep them acquiescent and compliant. The question is “Why”?

        It’s the same with our table tennis club – I have to draw up a risk assessment for a risk I think is negligible, but I have to somehow comply.

        1. I spoke to our club secretary this morning who is one of the terrified but wants to bend the rules to suit her needs. She gets very annoyed with me when I say we should scrap all this nonsense. The classic this morning was I didn’t vote for this government but I think they’re doing the right thing. Contradictory answers.

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