Friday 23 December: Oliver Cromwell and the challenge of dealing with complex history

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 we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

533 thoughts on “Friday 23 December: Oliver Cromwell and the challenge of dealing with complex history”

  3. 369174+ up ticks,

    369174+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Let the green tranny, poofter,political heretics kick Olly into touch and the remaining remnants of political decency may as well be cast aside in total
    as we embrace repress,replace, RESET with submissive open arms.

    The Civil War was a decisive factor in the evolution of our constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, to the profound benefit of this country and much of the world. Cromwell’s statue must be kept, not only to mark his greatness, but also as a warning against the folly of republicans along with today’s intemperate prigs and zealots who are so keen to order our lives for us.

      1. 369174+ up ticks,

        Morning AS,
        The only olly that could be mustard I believe is the chap that incorporated the park litter bin as part of his filing system,
        ” letwing”, left parliament 2019 I believe to take up a park attendant position.

        1. I wonder if Stapleford deliberately clicks on every single post you make, ogga.

          It’s rather pathetic if he does. Perhaps he is mentally ill.

          1. 369174+ up ticks,

            Afternoon W,

            Without doubt it is my own down ticker
            if mentally damaged compassion must be shown, I believe it to be an old tory (ino) party supporter / voter who is witnessing the dawn of realisation as to what it has been putting it’s name to for the last forty years.

  5. The Taliban are taking away women’s right to learn. The world can’t afford to stay silent. Gordon Brown. 23 December 2022.

    Since the Taliban returned to power, girls have been banned from attending secondary school. Now they are being banned from primary school. Thousands of female government workers have been told to stay at home. Other recent rulings prevent women from travelling without a male relative or attending mosques or religious seminaries. Last month, girls and women were banned from entering public places, including parks.

    The rest of the world cannot now stay silent in the illusory hope that these bans are temporary. It is time to take the Taliban on – and it is the Muslim nations across the world that follow Islamic law to uphold the education of women and girls, and believe it central to Islamic teaching, that are in the best position to lead the charge. Muslim countries hold the key to restoring women’s and girls’ rights in Afghanistan.

    This is the man who has stood supine as thousands of girls were raped in English towns. Who helped preside over the occupation of Afghanistan and its utter failure. Who is a fervent supporter of the policies that has imported tens of thousands of adherents of Islam into the UK!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/22/taliban-women-right-to-learn-afghanistan-muslim-nations

    1. I’m afraid it’s none of our business. It’s up to the Afghan people to decide their own laws, no matter how repugnant they may seem to people of other countries. We wouldn’t want them interfering in our parliamentary system.

      If nothing else, its shows the danger of having an Islamic government imposed on a country, and the fact that Islam is incompatible with democracy. Let it act as a warning to the rest of the world.

      1. Which is why the grauiand really can’t complain about it, as they’re ardent supporters of massive muslim race replacement.

        When will they realise it’s a bad idea? When Owen Jones is heading toward the pavement?

    3. Why then is the graniad not complaining about blacks not being required to pass basic academic exams in america?

      Or – let me guess in the hypocritical, Left wing mind – is that different?

    4. In 3, 2, 1…the left will start bleating that the Taliban aren’t following the same islam as all the muslims in Britain are.

  7. Oliver Cromwell and the challenge of dealing with complex history

    I think we are in desperate need another Cromwell to be fair

    1. He would need an army, and a way to manage the media. Elsewise the onslaught of negative press would never end. Truss was done in mostly by the hard Left press who bitterly hate the idea of individual freedom, independence and responsibility.

      They want socialism. They want poverty. They want shortages, misery and scarcity. They do NOT want freedom and prosperity.

    2. The Major Generals would approve of Christmas 2022 at Allan Towers.
      No decorations, no tree and all the other festive gubbins packed in boxes.

  8. How come so many people are getting seriously ill with the flu and needing hospital treatment?

    Haven’t all the vulnerable people been jabbed?

    1. I see what you did implied there, Bob3.

      N Essex weather this morning is much the same as yesterday. Ugly!

  9. From the front page, on the probation officer’s report into the horrific murder of the 3 kids and the mum:

    “ The probation officer in question is understood to have spent a lot of time working from home, meaning other members of their team did not get the usual opportunities to read the report or offer advice on it.”

    What a shame in the 21sr century we do have a means of swiftly exchanging reports so out colleagues can read and critique them. Imagine if we could invent something that does that. Let’s see. We could call it electronic mail, or e-mail for short. What do you think? Might it be successful?

    1. I’ve never seen the point of ‘ambulance’ written backwards.
      Anyone who doesn’t recognise an ambulance is probably unable to read English – whether from west to east or vice versa.

      1. Yes, and someone standing in the road trying to read it might well get knocked over before they can decipher it!

  12. US says Putin’s call to end war in Ukraine insincere. 23 December 2022.

    Washington was swift in response to Putin’s peace comments.

    The White House’s national security spokesman John Kirby said Putin has “shown absolutely zero indication that he’s willing to negotiate” to bring an end to the 10-month-old conflict.

    “Quite the contrary,” Kirby told reporters during an online briefing. “Everything he (Putin) is doing on the ground and in the air bespeaks a man who wants to continue to visit violence upon the Ukrainian people” and “escalate the war”.

    The US has no intention of allowing a negotiated end to this war. It is working perfectly for their geopolitical ends. Russia is under financial blockade and fenced in militarily by NATO. This allows them a relatively free hand to deal with China. It is not however without risks. The World Economy and the Dollar Hegemony are under tremendous stress. A collapse is not beyond the bounds of possibility. From there it would take very little for the situation to become a shooting war that encompasses the entire globe.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/12/23/putins-call-to-end-war-in-ukraine-slammed-by-us-as-insincere

  13. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. A good one to watch.

    Italian Auction – only 44 seconds

    You don’t have to understand Italian to follow the auctioneer:

    A Chinese Ming Vase is up for auction. The bidding opens at a half-million Euros.
    Bidding is brisk and each bidder is clearly identified as each raises the bid by 100,000 Euros. (The exchange rate at auction time was 1 Euro = 1.43.) Within seconds, the bid stalls at one million Euros, and the gasp from the crowd identifies the excitement that prevails in the room. The successful bidder is the last one who bid one million, and the auctioneer counts down the bid, “Going once, going twice, and sold to the gentleman sitting in front of me for one million Euros.”

    Now, you are going to have to see the video for yourself. The auctioneer is exuberant. The pace is fast. This is how an auction should be run. Please note the excitement on the auctioneer’s face after the final bid.

    Aspirin Cardio: Auction – click the you tube link below
    https://www.youtube.com/embed/3e0yZCLjwfU?rel=0

  14. ‘Morning, Peeps.  Mild and wet, typical pre-Christmas weather.  A blocked rainwater drain to be cleared this morning – oh joy…

    Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – Oliver Cromwell’s statue outside Parliament should not be removed, as proposed by John Barstow and Michael Varvill (Letters, December 21).

    For better or worse, he is an important part of our history. The itch to demolish memorials to our past, whether to appease the fashion of the day or conciliate those with some historic grievance, should be resisted. Ironically, it is just the kind of action that Cromwell and his fellow Puritan iconoclasts might have proposed.

    The Civil War was a decisive factor in the evolution of our constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, to the profound benefit of this country and much of the world. Cromwell’s statue must be kept, not only to mark his greatness, but also as a warning against the folly of republicans along with today’s intemperate prigs and zealots who are so keen to order our lives for us.

    Patrick Walsh
    Newbury, Berkshire

    Couldn’t agree more, Mr Walsh.  Trouble is, you can’t reason with ‘intemperate prigs and zealots’.

    1. Yet hundreds of Muslims are allowed to block the road, kneeling down with bums in the air, ‘praying’, without being arrested. Likewise the proponents of the new religion ‘Climate Change’ are allowed to block the roads either slowly walking or gluing themselves to the tarmac.

      1. I suspect the Abortion clinic across the road has reported her to the police as a nuisance and they are doing their duty to ask her what she is doing there daily annoying the clinic and probably upsetting the patients going in for abortion. She is protesting silently but for some reason the police need to take her to the police station to interview her and search her. There are two sides to this story which need to be told before criticising the police.

        2. 369174+ up ticks,,

          Morning CS,
          I do beg to differ, she has every right to stand there as long as her legs hold her up,
          her thoughts & her prayers are her OWN internal affairs.

          Ask yourself would they quiz an imam or something in a burka.?

        3. The police *should* be criticised. They apply double standards across the board. If the state approves, you get let off. If the state doesn’t, they bring down an egregious hammer to punish you in excess.

        4. I think women have a right to have control of their own bodies, but I also think this lady has the right to her silent praying or whatever. The cops won’t have a leg to stand on if this woman has really just been silently standing there.

    2. 369174+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      The lady being questioned should have really said that through prayer you are in contact with God, so what would pc 49 like to demand be answered ?

      Changing “God rest ye merry gentlemen” to be inclusive of wooly woofter, trannies. paedo’s etc,etc, insert your stance.

    1. That is what she’s hoping for, I think. Then she can fuel the Indy fire with ‘the wicked Toaries, and hated Westminster’!
      Edit: Sorry! Good morning Paul! How is the trip here going?

      1. Dull, mostly, ta. Weather glum, too much driving & buying. Visits to pub greeted with scowls by MiL.

          3. They tramp mud all through the house. Being good Scandis, we remove shoes at the front door.

        2. Crikey, A visit to the pub would be a delight with my mother in law. The Warqueen hasn’t finished work yet and MiL rolls up the driveway looking delighted with herself, already having had several G&Ts.

          3. It’s a bummer all round. Nearest Nottlers (afaik) are hours drive away, and tbh, I’d rather be on licenced premises than driving all day. Too much of that already (driving, that is, not pubbing).

      2. If an individual can choose their gender on a whim, then surely other people should be able to choose how they regard another person’s gender too!

        Can I refer to her as “it” or “he”?

        1. You can pet! ‘She’ certainly doesn’t know what a woman is and has a D notice slapped on her past!

      3. Almost certainly. She wins amongst her voting bloc either way. However, she doesn’t *get* her way. She is stopped, and reminded who is in charge.

      4. Agreed, it’s just an attempt to drive another wedge into the country. I realise Olga Krankie needs the Greens onside to maintain her grip on power but the 220,000 green voters were probably thinking of conservation issues in the countryside and clean beaches not legalised rape as a push for division in support of independence.

        1. Which confirms that voting Green is a sign of mental illness – or, at the very least, an inability to concentrate.

    2. As long as we in the rest of the UK do not have to recognise Scottish Gender Recognition Certificates, the Scots can do what they like. Thank God I don’t live in Scotland.

      1. Scotland is a wonderful place (when it’s not “dreich”) and the Scots are wonderful people. It’s just Week Krankie and her supporters who are the “bampots”. Lol.

    3. Good. That wretched harpy needs to learn her place – under the boot of the people paying the bill.

    4. We will see which way the Westminster Labour MPs jump.
      The Scottish MSPs – and, I think 4 ‘Conservative’ MSPs – supported this evil bill.

  18. Oh dear, the snowflakery are still banging their drum:

    SIR – Once again, the main defence of Jeremy Clarkson’s remarks about the Duchess of Sussex is his right to free speech. I’ve also seen social media comments such as: “He was just saying what we were all thinking.”

    However, there’s a reason why we don’t always voice our thoughts. Anyone can have moments in a conversation when they randomly say something foolish, then kick themselves after being met by an awkward silence. But Mr Clarkson didn’t even do that. He sat down and wrote something for a popular newspaper that was both creepy and vile.

    How is it ever acceptable for a perfectly sane individual to declare publicly they want to see someone carted through the streets naked and tormented? Free speech is hardly an excuse for such repugnant language.

    Emilie McRae
    Trowbridge, Wiltshire

    This BTL poster gets my vote:

    Angus Long6 HRS AGO

    Emilie McRae letter. Please give it a rest. Yes, what Clarkson said was unpleasant to some. But equally there were those who agreed.

    His column was passed by the editor. So he is not entirely to blame for it’s publication anyway.

    People need to stop being so pathetic and grow a backbone.

    I read the other day that a university, Birmingham I think, has demanded that staff and students refrain from saying Christmas in case it offends other faiths.

    Why would anyone of another faith be offended by Christmas?

    Surely anyone who is, is the bigot.

    This country is crumbling away. I’m so glad I lived through the 70’s. We had a real life back then.

    1. It is perfectly obvious that Clarkson did not mean his remarks to be taken literally. As I understand it, the reference is to a ‘Game of Thrones’ episode (fictional, obviously). Clarkson is much given to hyperbole e.g. “people who drop litter and drivers who stop on yellow cross-hatch boxes at junctions should be given the death penalty”.

      His remarks will have offended some people. I have been offended by some of Clarkson’s remarks in the past, but the important thing to understand is that no-one has the right not to be offended.

      1. People who drop litter should be shot.

        As should people who don’t indicate. Who tail gate. Who take up two parking spaces, who don’t obey the fundamentals of roundabout law and who smoke.

        Execute them.

          1. Be fair, Bill, at least wibbling didn’t go the whole hog and accuse them of being Very Silly Sausages! Lol.

        5. I nearly got wiped out on a roundabout today; a tanker pulled out so far that he blocked the exit and the white van in front of me, who was on the roundabout and indicating where he was going, had to jam on his brakes to avoid running into it. I had to do the same to avoid the white van (I was going to take the same exit).

    2. You see, when you keep quiet, the Left assume consent. When you speak up, they feel the right to harrass, abuse and insult you.

      Part of free speech is hearing things you might not like – and living with it – rather than bitching to a newspaper to complain about how nasty someone you disagree with is for speaking the truth.

      The Markle creature is a venomous, disgusting narcissist. Clarkson was at least, honest. Markle can’t be.

        1. Lefties can’t learn. If they could, they wouldn’t be lefties. Instead, they keep having the same attitudes throughout their lives despite all the evidence that what they believe is damaging, destructive and simply does not work.

          Look at Corbyn. The man’s an imbecile.

    5. When will peop[le like Emilie McRae realise that statements such as Clarkson’s are just hyperbole and not meant to be taken literally? In pre-social media times, it was no different. People would shout at the TV screen or their Daily Red-Top and exclaim:”They need stringing up!” or “Horse-whip them and send ’em back!”
      The same as “Death threats”. What are the chances of any such threat being carried out? Practically zero, I would guess.

  19. Good morning all! Relegated to the Laptop this morning as t’Lad is occupying the room the main PC is in and is still in bed.
    A much less cold 2 degrees outside and the forecast rain has not yet started.

  20. Now these pilots really were a very special breed:

    Lieutenant Ivor Faulconer, Fleet Air Arm pilot who flew the Walrus amphibian biplane during the war – obituary

    Later he survived two accidents when serving as a night fighter pilot and after the war he was a founding member of the Royal Air Squadron

    ByTelegraph Obituaries 21 December 2022 • 1:05pm

    Lieutenant Ivor Faulconer, who has died aged 101, was one of the last surviving pilots to have flown the Walrus amphibian biplane and a founding member of the Royal Air Squadron.

    In December 1941, Faulconer was appointed senior pilot of two Walrus in the battleship King George V, flagship of the Home Fleet. He recalled: “On board KGV, there were two admirals, six captains, 19 commanders and 27 lieutenant-commanders. At times, although I was only a very junior sub-lieutenant, technically, I was a head of department and, as such, I had direct access to the captain. When we were going to fly, I had to go up to the bridge and he would ask me, ‘Where do you want me to steer the ship?’ and later, ‘How did I do?’ ”

    The ungainly looking Supermarine Walrus was an amphibious biplane with a single pusher engine, reckoned to be one of the noisiest, coldest and most uncomfortable of aircraft, yet it came from the same stable as R J Mitchell’s better-known Spitfire. Manufactured at Woolston, Southampton, the Walrus first flew in 1933, and though thought inelegant it was a rugged aeroplane which saw postwar service as an air-sea-rescue plane until the advent of the helicopter in the 1950s.

    The Walruses embarked in King George V in wartime for spotting, reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare and were the first front-line naval aircraft to be fitted with radar. When launched by catapult, Faulconer recalled, “you went from 0 to 50 mph in about 20 yards. You had to make friends with the gunnery officer who fired the rocket, because if the ship was rolling, you could be pointing downhill.” It was affectionately known as the “steam pigeon” from the steam produced by water striking the hot Pegasus engine.

    Based in the Orkneys and in Iceland, Faulconer was on several hunts for German capital ships, on convoy escort in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, and was in KGV when she ran down the destroyer Punjabi on May 1 1942. He also participated in the Battle of the Barents Sea on December 31 1942 when the Kriegsmarine’s failure to inflict significant losses on convoy JW 51B so infuriated Hitler that he gave the order that German naval strategy should concentrate on U-boat rather than surface warfare.

    In early 1943, Faulconer volunteered to become a night fighter pilot, flying the two-seat Fairey Fulmar, which had been withdrawn from service as a day fighter. Deployed at sea to repel shadowers, but with too little experience of night-time deck-landing, Faulconer suffered two accidents. The first was on February 2 1944, when he hit the barrier onboard the escort carrier Ravager. The the second, more serious, was on March 3 1944, when he hit the round-down (at the after end of the flightdeck) of the escort carrier Nairana. Laconically he recorded: “The aircraft broke in half. Luckily, the half we were in stayed onboard.”

    Ivor Christopher Faulconer was born on March 27 1921 at Munden House, Watford, the third son of Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Cholmley Faulconer and his wife, the Hon Elsie Holland-Hibbert. He was educated at Scaitcliffe in Surrey before going to Eton in 1934, where George Lyttelton was his housemaster: Lyttelton, he remembered, had huge hands and was able to tear a telephone directory in half.

    Ivor’s mother was a pioneer aviatrix and a friend of the “Flying Duchess” of Bedford, and as a boy he would help prepare for visits by his mother’s aviation friends to the family home, Nottlers, St Albans, by pegging out sheets to mark the landing ground. He recalled: “The great thing was not to get one’s head cut off by the propeller, and I always remember being waved away as pilots taxied in.”

    To accommodate 15 aircraft at an air display at Nottlers in 1933, the fence between two fields had to be taken down, and young Faulconer witnessed wing-walkers and a wonderful aerobatic display by the circumnavigator Mrs Victor Bruce in her black-and-white chequered biplane. The event was spread over two days and several of the pilots stayed in the house, where their whisky consumption was prodigious.

    Sometimes Faulconer was put in a speedboat on the Welsh Harp Reservoir in north London, where his mother used to practise bombing him with bags of flour. Once, young Ivor went to chapel with his riding clothes under his choir surplice, and as soon as the service was over he dashed out, threw off the surplice and headed for the playing fields, where his father was waiting in a hired Leopard Moth to take him hunting with the Fitzwilliam in Huntingdon.

    “Overall,” he wrote, “I had a very privileged introduction to the early days flying and all it entailed, both the excitement and the understandable danger that was taken for granted back then.”

    After Eton, Faulconer read Geography at New College, Oxford but, with flying in his blood, he volunteered for the Fleet Air Arm in July 1940. He trained in Miles Magisters, Hawker Hinds and Hawker Harts at Luton and Netheravon, before learning to fly Supermarine Walruses at the Royal Motor Yacht Club at Sandbanks, Dorset. Advanced training took place at Milford Haven, where he practised landing in the slick created by a parent ship, which remained underway at about 14 knots, and took about two minutes.

    Demobbed in January 1946, Faulconer became a jobbing stockbroker but continued flying with the RAF Reserve, and he bought a half-share of a Tiger Moth. When a friend converted one of these to a seaplane, he used to borrow it to commute to his weekend home at Fishbourne in the Isle of Wight.

    In 1966, a chance meeting with Peter Vanneck, who had been a midshipman in KGV, led to the founding of the Air Squadron. Vanneck had transferred to the RAF and had retired as an air commodore before becoming Lord Mayor of London. Over dinner with Vanneck, Tony Cayzer, Hugh Astor (who Faulconer had known at Oxford), Douglas Bader and Faulconer, the idea was mooted of forming the Air Squadron, and each attendee was encouraged to invite another person into the squadron, which gained its royal title in 2016.

    The Royal Air Squadron is now a vigorous charity which works with young people and supports the armed services and a wide range of aviation activity, including aviation meets.

    Faulconer’s memoir, Take to the Air: Reminiscences of a WW2 FAA Pilot, was self-published in 2014. His flying logbook has not survived but he is thought to have completed more than 100 carrier launches with around 20 at night, flown some 1,500 hours during the war, and about the same number postwar, in 40 different aircraft types.

    He married three times, first in 1947 to Anne Fleming (divorced in 1969), secondly, in 1969, to Daphne Breakwell (née Atkinson), who died in 1989, and thirdly, in 1992 to Anne Oliver OBE, who survives him, along with two daughters and a son of the first marriage, and by many stepchildren.

    Faulconer was sustained by his Christian faith, and by meditation, which was not necessarily the best way for everyone, but it was the best way he had found.

    Ivor Faulconer, born March 27 1921, died October 1 2022

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6cf21fb8e180aafa309f43459e880938dcd318099e51d93c5901a7dd620bf4ed.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5f0e3a9e8e6d20d264dfeac591a1d452c453556f0143b5eb19f9f9adeed9297c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89f6c7a163e48f9a54dba5c34bbb9e68c9e9ffb74975d4e991afa74855f1daf3.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1daa9f8c07a47b43b1f96f901b208d26383c8601dc4d8e15c392214830e3cd58.jpg

    A fitting BTL comment:

    Giles Evans
    1 HR AGO
    RIP Sir, another one lost of a great generation, brave, dedicated and above all modest. There can not be many of their ilk left.

    1. Good morning. Raining.

      Got me birdie out this morning and drowned it in brine. First step done !

  22. 369174+ up ticks,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    14m
    Watch this & repost please.

    Mark Moss reveals the insanity of the €1.7 trillion US 4,000 page long spending package being rushed into law.

    It will add at least another trillion to their national debt, & trillions already given to the Pentagon cannot be accounted for.

    Americans should be outraged but it also affects the rest of us. Billions are going to fund international Globalist bodies, programmes & agendas that will directly impact on all our lives.

    https://gettr.com/post/p22q35u6d42

    2. Is this in addition to the trillion the senile fool wasted on more tax inspectors and the Left hailed this as ‘more jobs’ , or an entirely new amount of money being wasted unnecessarily?

      Why didn’t the Republicans dominate at the recent elections?

  23. The propaganda gets ever more ridiculous and extreme.

    Putin’s thugs prowl through Ukrainian orphanage in chilling CCTV showing them going room-to-room in search of children to abduct and turn into soldiers
    Ukraine claims 13,000 children have been abducted and sent to Russia
    CCTV shows armed soldiers prowling an orphanage to kidnap the children
    They found it empty after brave local families took them into their care

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11568777/Putins-thugs-prowl-Ukrainian-orphanage-children-abduct-turn-soldiers-CCTV-shows.html

    1. I thought the Ruskie Soldiers were so hungry they were cooking any children they found and were eating them for breakfast…

      Morning folks

      1. Morning Oberst. It’s pretty obvious from reading the BTL comments that scepticism is not limited to Nottlers!

    3. Ukrainian intelligence claims a staggering 13,000 orphans as young as toddlers have been kidnapped and shipped to Russia where they are indoctrinated with pro-Kremlin propaganda, while teenagers are trained to be soldiers.

      Toddlers? These would be for the infantry one assumes?

      2. Stealing children for the use of. History repeating its self from the 10th and 11th century.

    4. The commenters btl have seen through the propaganda. Derision is the name of the game. Everyone knows now that Ukraine is a centre for child trafficking. The public is waking up in more ways than one.

  24. Good morning, everyone. I slept really well last night and enjoyed a full eight hours’ sleep. I hope most of you did the same. Now to look for Tom’s morning fully and skim most of your posts before “signing off” and seeing to my pre-Christmas chores.

  25. The paper enjoins me to avoid contact with my grandparents if I have a cold. Well they all died between 1925 and 1953 – so that’s OK.

    I expect they all had covid….

  26. Everyone is deriding ‘nepo babies’ – but the backlash seems horribly unjust
    This is the voguish new term for young actors who are the offspring of famous actors, and are thus presumed to have benefited from nepotism

    Michael Deacon : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/12/22/nepo-babies-need-know-trend-hollywood-backlash/

    Most of us want to do our best for our children but increasingly the state is against us trying to do so. If we have talents to pass on to our children or if we can help them become self-sufficient then we must do so. Mind you there is a difference between untalented people relying entirely on their parents’ or family’s wealth or name rather than on their own talents (as the Beckham children and Prince Harry do) and those who make it by their own worth.

    BTL

    As parents we tried to put our two children’s best interests first so we paid for them to go to private schools and we paid their fees and living expenses when they were at university. As a result when they left university they got good jobs and were no longer dependent on us and have not asked us for a penny piece more.

    Independence is the the best gift one can give a child but one should help them get there as quickly as they can through education so that they will not become dependent on the state. If a child inherits musical, artistic or acting abilities from his or her parents then why should he or she not benefit from these talents and make a good independent life for himself or herself?

    Unfortunately we have a woke establishment that hates the idea of people being self-sufficient.

    2. I agree with you, Richard, and you’ve already supplied them with 2nd gift we should give our children – education.

    3. The last sentence sums the whole problem up. We also have immensely thick people who hate success and are frenziedly abusive toward it.

      1. ‘cos it aint fair, inni, bro.
        That success comes from relentless hard work, risk-taking and talent isn’t seen – they just assume it was awarded, like a premium-bond win.

    2. We recently had a girl called Jemima on one of our courses – she was a very pleasant and intelligent girl who will do well in life.

      1. I know a teacher who predicts her classes grades based on their names.

        This teacher deliberately spends more time with the less able in her class.

        She’s rarely wrong: the Kennedys, Candices, Britneys all consistently perform worse than the Chloes, Emilys, Annas. It’s sad, but there’s a clear pattern, exacerbated by welfare that simply becomes generational and thus fixed.

        1. I’m afraid names are an indicator of life’s chances.
          Emily is more likely than Britney to have books around her.

          1. Last week, I was watching a live ‘oction from Sotheby’s – as you do. Among the gels on the phones were Annabel and Hattie.. No Bevs or Tracys. Funny that.

  28. Morning all 😊
    8 hours sleep uninterrupted and Back home in our comfortable bed. The hospital beds resemble skeletal contraptions and the mattress resemble the surface of tarmac roads.
    Hopefully on the mend and tempted with an invitation to see our lovely nearly three year old (going on thirteen) grand daughter taking part in the nativity at her local church Christmas eve. She’s a star at whatever she does.
    I hope I can manage the hill.

  29. US faces coldest Christmas in years as Arctic storm raises ‘bomb cyclone’ alarm. 23 December 2022.

    Two-thirds of the US population are under extreme weather alerts as thousands of flights are cancelled.
    A deep freeze enveloping most of the United States early on Friday combined with a massive winter storm to leave two-thirds of the nation under extreme weather alerts, confounding travel plans for millions of Americans.

    Heading into the Christmas holiday weekend, the looming storm is forecast to develop into a “bomb cyclone”, unleashing heavy snow from the Great Lakes region to the upper Mississippi Valley and western New York.

    Lol! Call a Cop meeting! The whole Climate Change scam is unravelling before our eyes!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/12/23/us-faces-coldest-christmas-decades-disrupting-travel-amid-arctic/

    1. Why do weather forecasters use such extreme language? As I’ve pointed out before, ‘weather bombs’, created by ‘explosive cyclogenesis’, are what a previous generation of presenters simply called ‘rapidly deepening depressions’.

      2. You have to wonder why there is so much effort put in to making dreadful preachy films that no one wants to watch. These woke groups simply don’t get it: the squealing Left don’t want to watch these films – they just want to force you to make them.

    2. Is Sleeping Beauty a poor depiction of step mothers? Does Mr Dinklage think the dwarves are a depiction of him? How about Lord of the Rings?

  31. E-scooters: Met Police action needed after girl’s death, coroner says
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64063895

    The victim rode this contraption on the pavement and then on the road, where she died. I’d ban the bloody things anywhere. So many time have I been out walking and had one pass me rapidly and silently from behind. However, if they’re to be banned from the roads because they’re a danger to riders then shouldn’t bicycles go as well? Similarly, if they’re to be banned from pavements, then so should bikes, whose riders are an equally selfish nuisance.

    1. The Highway Code states: “You must not cycle on a pavement.” The offence of riding a bike on the pavement is punishable by an on-the-spot fine, a fixed penalty notice of £30. This is charged under Schedule 3 and Section 51 of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.

      2. I thought it was covered in bye-slaws, ie in some places you can, others not. There are many “shared” pavements cyclists and pedestrians.

          1. Contractors have spent the last few weeks widening the pavement to incorporate a cycle path through the town to the next village. Unfortunately if two lorries meet, one has to mount the kerb for them to be able to pass one another.

      3. I thought it was covered in bye-slaws, ie in some places you can, others not. There are many “shared” pavements cyclists and pedestrians.

    2. I hate the things. Mainly ridden by yooufs at speed where ever they like disregarding all laws. If 100kg or so hits you, its going to cause damage as has already happened.

      1. A brat did this to me as I turned to cross the road. I was shoved sideways. He came off and bounced.

    3. Bikes ARE banned from pavements (£50 fine for riding on the pavement). The problem is, nobody polices it.

  32. Airports are more efficient WITHOUT Border Force strikers! Heathrow and Gatwick passengers’ joy at ‘brilliant’ British Army getting them through queues in ‘record time’ as 1,000 passport staff begin eight-day strikes during busiest Xmas since 2019
    Border Force is striking on the busiest Christmas in three years from today
    Travellers at Heathrow and Gatwick have praised the Army for stepping in
    Passengers told to expect delays at six UK airports as up to 1,000 staff walk out
    Millions will set off on getaways before rail and bus drivers strike tomorrow

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11568675/Border-Force-strike-busiest-Xmas-three-years-Passengers-told-expect-delays-six-airports.html

    No, really?
    /sarc

    1. They should simply do away with border controls. The endless queues and IT glitches and delays simply affect the law abiding. Any wog who wants to enter without “papers” can easily find a way.

      1. Good morning Mr T and everyone.
        But then there would be redundancies and even less need for so-called ‘wogs’.
        Of course if the Top Wogs in Government & Whitehall were not scared of something unknown, we could all have access to biometric ID. Coupled with AI, that would prevent anyone going airside without permission, unless of course they were heavily armed Climate Protestors.

  33. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/least-12-refugees-die-boat-stranded-sea-without-food-water/

    It all sounds terribly tragic. All looks such awful photos. Those poor people blah blah blah.

    Yet the Rhohinga made life miserable for the Buddhists with rapes, murders, looting and paedophilia. Folk don’t talk about that. I wonder why? It’s almost as if shout muslim, get plot armour. Whereveer they go, they make people miserable.

      1. Sending them out to the Indian ocean would at least hinder them from ferrying the criminal dross into this country.

    2. Just as the MSM don’t talk about all the Ukrainians killed, from 2014 onwards, not by Russians but by other Ukrainians. Ukraine – a country described in the Guardian in 2021 as among the most corrupt in Europe!

    3. We have these escooters for hire (by app) everywhere. Blasted nuisance, and the local operator, Tier, doesn’t collect them up and put them away for winter – they are just left in a pile by the side of the road, often run over / ploughed away by the snowploughs.

  34. ‘Morning All

    Excellent Bob Moran article on TCW rips the MSM apart

    “We need journalists who seek the truth above all else and upon

    finding it, however unpleasant or inconvenient it may be, give it to the

    people without hesitation. We need them now more than ever.

    The media has decided it’s time to reflect on lockdowns and pretend

    that it’s just become clear that they may have constituted a massive

    criminal act.

    However, an even bigger scandal, a more heinous crime, is continuing

    today. And these journalists are doing the same thing again. How long do

    we have to wait before they start writing their columns about the great

    vaccine scandal?

    It’s tempting to write these people off. Perhaps we should take the

    view that they’ve had their chance and failed miserably in their

    responsibilities. But I would rather see them search deeply for any

    moral conscience they have left, find the requisite levels of courage

    and integrity and start doing their jobs.”

    How many more months will they spend sitting comfortably on the

    truth, watching millions of people suffer at the hands of a lie?

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Press-Conference-200-1024×688.jpg

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/after-self-censoring-shame-over-lockdown-how-can-journalists-stay-silent-on-vaccine-danger-2/

    1. Just become clear? Where’s he been the last few years? Why didn’t he bring the truth to the people when it was clear?

    2. I think the woman on the right thinks she is in school and is asking the speaker/teacher for permission to go to the loo. Lol.

    3. Probably even worse is msm ignoring the fact that the ‘totally safe and effective jabs’ are still being pushed.

      1. This is because the deaths are unexplained and not at all directly linked to the vaccine in any way whatsoever.

        What. So. Ever. They’re unexplained. Capise?

  36. Well, I watched part one of the Wagathon lawsuit. Quite good – the smarmy, smug, wealthy Sheen was very good as the smarmy, smug wealthy barrister who acted for Mrs Rooney. And, in any case, cross-examiation is a joy to watch (though NOT to take part in – believe me, I know!!)

    One small problem is that neither of the actresses playing the leading women look remotely like the real ones.

    Vardy is quite clearly not only unbelievably thick but vile, as well. Rooney is a bit brighter, because she thought of the trick that lured Vardy into the trap that gave her away. (Or her “team” did.)

    The most eye-opening aspect was the revelation that these women, thick or otherwise – spend hours and HOURS on sochul meeja every day.
    Quite extraordinary.

      1. But, but – they have their TV progs, their promotions, websites, shopping….as well, of course, as devoting themselves to their hideous offspring.

        2. What! You think they are constantly calling each other Very Silly Sausages?!?!? Lol. (Frankly, I don’t know how Geoff and the Mods let me get away with it.)

  37. Modern Life…….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bb374c7bd730bd27b3294f6fe04bdd2f6101bf76f81db0f65a08be88250e0d6a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0dcec8deef42cd04d4853958ef2338ad2edefe2dbcb1a7b38f1c1488b2c3a8f8.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d5e3344d4aa4f74e096fcbe0f5ee6aefa773aa38b14fb1fa9221e69548658fe0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a34151d050ad5faaf2ff2dff83fe3dd35167b0155e9e78de2bb8afce2b45adb1.jpg

    Well,well,well…….scary stuff

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1605677518694014978?cxt=HHwWhICz2cXMwcgsAAAA

    11

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99a93237b61b6b14cad6981153fb43a983cde86adb6f5b0b6e11d8aea57063ea.jpg

    3. “We can solve all the world’s problems if we reduce the world’s population to where it was 500 years ago,” says the 88 year old, whose expected life span in in AD 1500 would have been 50 years.

  38. I feel like spitting on the treacherous organiser ofthe Good (sic) Friday Agreement,

    which then prosecuted our troops and allowed the Murderers of those same troops and Loyal British citizens,
    to walk free

    BTL Removed from lettters

        1. Quite so. Shutting a lot of those institutions, and as good as leaving many of the inmates – many completely institutionalised – to fend for themselves was cruel.

    1. Nicola Sturgeon wins vote to allow male murderers and rapists in womens prisons.

      Just when you thought she couldn’t get any Krankier.

      1. A man was let into a women’s refuge. He proceeded to rape one of the women there.

        All because he said he was a woman.

        Again, for the slow at the back (MPs) – a man pretending to be a woman used that to rape a woman in a place she needed to be safe from that man.

        In other news – man pretending to be a woman breaks another woman’s skull in a UFC ring.

        The list of madness goes on. A man in a dress is mentally ill. Nothing else. They do not deserve special treatment, they are NOT women and should be refused access to women’s facilities. More, they should be treated as mentally ill and psychologically unstable.

        The disgusting thing is – there are a number of trans people about the place. A tiny number. You’ve likely never heard from them. Why? Because these are decent people living a complex life quietly, without wanting special treatment or consideration. The gobby loud mouths have made their lives harder than they need be.

        2. Yes, i agree with all of that.

          I had a friend and neighbour in Birmingham who liked to dress in women’s clothes. Lived quietly. Not an annoying activist.

          He remained a he until his surgery and then became a she. Still is.

          She threw a house party to celebrate. Neighbours and friends all came and had a jolly good time.

          I went upstairs and changed into a rather nice summer frock. To show solidarity.

          Strangely enough it felt oddly liberating. No underwear !

          Just for the evening you understand. I don’t make a habit of it. Unless Nuns are about.. :@)

      1. Pride is a deadly sin…and comes before a fall. Sexual proclivities can of course be another matter entirely.

        1. She’ll be able to solve the unemployment problem. Think of all the thought Gestapo she could put to work.

          3. I used to know a Ghanaian girl who joked about having “a bum you can balance a tea cup on”.

          4. Not just black women, Audrey Hepburn had very large feet too. And my friend The Master (aka Harry Lime) has very small hands too.

        1. But bear in mind that a trigger warning may er, be a trigger itself – so the warning will need a warning, but then the second warning will also need …

    13. Hang on that’s our next door neighbour who swears at us when we feed the birds because they poop over her side of the fence.

    14. Hang on that’s our next door neighbour who swears at us when we feed the birds because they poop over her side of the fence.

  44. Two dead and four wounded in Paris shooting: Retired train driver, 69, is arrested after hero cop ‘grabs shooter’s gun’

    One witness told French news agency AFP that seven or eight shots had been fired, sewing mayhem in the street D Fail

    Knit one, pearl one, drop one? (The girls’ will get it.)

      1. I don’t use spell checker, but it often intervenes and corrects my perfectly correct posts. It has already happened twice today!

          1. Problem is, Phizzee, that I glance at my post which is correct and the Spell Checker often kicks in just as I click on the Comment box and move swiftly on.

            SORRY, I just re-read your post which was about cancelling Spell Checker through the Settings option. Apologies.

    4. I’ll have you know I darn my socks.

      More notable was the eagerness to print that the gun man was a ‘silent’ (didn’t shout for a loo and a snack bar) white male. You never hear whenn it’s a Muslim.

      Of course, the problem is the same – gimmigration. Don’t let them in, don’t have people going off the hook.

  45. If someone has already posted this, I apologise.
    It is well worth reading and the same goes for her website

    From TCW:
    The woman who could cancel Net Zero
    By Iain Hunter.

    Professor Valentina Zharkova of the University of Northumbria. The professor’s fields are applied mathematics, plasma physics, pattern recognition, solar-terrestrial physics and solar activity. What she has to say may be about to blow a hole in the AGW nonsense, taking down Net Zero in the process

    1. Huh. As if.
      She’ll likely have a terrible ‘accident’, commit arkincide, or be otherwise cancelled. Too much riding on AGW for the PTB to give up gracefully.

    2. ‘Green’ is a mechanism of oving money from the earner, to the state. Nothing can be permitted to interrupt that.

      1. Very true, but nature in the form of Physics and in this case, Astrophysics, has a way of getting its own way.
        Regardless of what political ideology might hope for.

      2. That was the first indication to me that it’s all crap – pay more and it’ll all be fine, and people were willing, nay eager, to pay more tax! Then it was obviously a megascam.

      1. I liked her comments in answer to a question: she said she does this work out of curiosity and is not funded for this side of her research.

        Richard Feynman had the same attitude, things interested him because he was first of all – curious.

        So no wonder she can say and publish what she finds.

  46. Mark Serwotka is threatening civil service strikes. This is good, as not only will no one notice, but more than that, we won’t have to pay them!

    1. Unfair to have a Bitcoin logo when, if he’d used Bitcoin this wouldn’t have happened.

      The truth behind that farce will never be exposed. The Democrats are just abusing office now.

      1. He took people’s money for buying Bitcoin on his crypto market place, didn’t buy Bitcoin and credited their accounts with fake Bitcoins!
        He has admitted this in public. He is as thick as a plank.

    1. What he says is excellent and true, Alec. What a pity he sounds like Barry Humphries as Sir Les Patterson. Lol.

        1. I don’t know, Alec. I thought that naming Sir Les as the Chief of the Australian Cheese Board was very funny.

        2. Mr Thomas, you are David Cameron (a.k.a The Babbling Poltroon) and I claim my 5 bob postal order. Laughs Out Loud.

  50. How to defeat Putin’s energy blackmail once and for all. 23 December 2022.

    Ever since Putin’s forces launched the full-scale invasion on Ukrainian soil, devastating the lives of millions of its inhabitants, the world’s energy, food and financial markets have been in turmoil. It is estimated that 10 months in, the Russian invasion has already affected the lives of around 1.6 billion people in 94 countries, with 1.2 billion of those experiencing crises in energy, food and finance simultaneously. However, Putin’s weaponisation of food and energy supplies aimed at blackmailing and destabilising Ukraine’s allies, especially the West, has not diminished our support. In particular, the Western allies have remained steadfast in unity and solidarity against Russian energy terrorism and since 24 February have become more creative and innovative in increasing energy security and reducing reliance on hostile foreign regimes. This must continue.

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

    Joseph Marjoram.

    First up, Ambassador, I have huge respect for Poland and have visited your amazing country.

    Secondly, with these Ferrero Rocher you are really spoiling us!

    Thirdly and here’s the rub, 75% of the rise in gas prices occurred before the war, which has conveniently distracted from major failings here in the UK 🇬🇧.

    Net Zero and a refusal to dig the fuel beneath our feet or to have built new power stations fuelled by “nuclear” is making us poorer and colder and will literally kill people this winter.

    The war is a useful scapegoat for the determination of our governments to make us poorer. Perhaps they want us to own nothing but be happy?

    A case could be made that the actual fighting in Ukraine is quite a minor part of what’s going on! As Mr Marjoram points out the effect of the war on energy supply is only just now beginning to take effect. There’s no doubt that the US, having its own resources is quite happy for Europe to take the hit. One of the reasons they sabotaged the Baltic Pipeline. A weakened Europe as well as Russia is a double win for the US!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/23/how-defeat-putins-energy-blackmail/

    1. The reason why gas is expensive is because the government has rigged the market so all fuels are sold at the price of the most expensive. This was to protect unreliables, but has been exposed with the price of gas soaring.

      This is why we must start fracking and digging up coal – but, commiting to the insane net zero nonsense is demanded by the EU, so of course, our globalist fanatics will not permit that.

  51. They’ve failed to put together a nativity play in Liverpool as they couldn’t find 3 wise men and a virgin

          1. You asked for it…..

            A guy is driving down the road and he has 3 penguins sitting on the back seat of his car.
            A traffic cop sees this and pulls the man over.
            “Sir, do you know you have 3 penguins on the back seat of your car?”
            “Sure,” says the guy.
            “Well, ” says the cop, “you take those penguins to the zoo.”
            “Of course , officer, ” says the man.
            A couple of days later the same man is driving down the road and again, he has 3 penguins on the back seat of his car but this time the penguins are wearing sunglasses.
            The traffic cop pulls the man over again.
            “Sir, I thought I told you to take those penguins to the zoo.”
            “I did, officer, and today I’m taking them to the beach.”

            (I’ll go quietly.)

    1. The corruption now is quite blatant and has penetrated every institution at the highest levels!

      1. This is why they cannot be permitted to police themselves. We all know how it goes. They choose a judge wanting a gong, hand him a backhander, he finds the decision the state wants.

  53. 369174+ up ticks,

    Are you thinking what i’m thinking ? to me it looks very much like the electorate are gearing up to giving the tory’s a political kicking
    via supporting reform AKA tory (ino) Mk 2.

    Nearly 6 in 10 Brexit Voters Would Back an Anti-Mass Migration Party over Tories

    1. Not enough. Even with the majority who voted for Brexit that’s not enough people to elect a strong, Right wing government.

      The Left have infiltrated endless unnecessary quangos and other such dross. We would need root and branch reform – sacking everyone within 6 degrees of Shami chakrabalti, for a start.

      1. 369174+ up ticks,
        W,

        Then it is well past time we got started is it not ?

        Once started the fightback WILL gain momentum.

        1. No, ogga, it won’t. The population is divided into broad groups – the welfare dependent (including the public sector, Lefties, statists, those expecting to profit from big government), the struggling – an ever growing group just trying to get by who don’t understand that every problem they suffer from is caused by big fat state, yet demand more state to fix it, normal people getting by, more interested in getting daughter to piano and swimming lessons and the motivated who understand the problem but can do nothing about it.

          The first group is vast. Truly, monumentally vast. A great swathe of idiots, troughers and part timers.
          The second group is smaller, but still huge. Brown ensured mass state dependence. After all, if you force people to rely on big state they’ve no where else to go. He should, simply have cut taxes, but the Left wing mind is cunning in it’s vicious spite.

          The last two comprise those folk paying all the taxes. All of them. The workers are protesting by saying ‘sod it’ and leaving the economy entirely.

          That leaves us – the motivated. We are a small group and by nature, disparate. Against the mobilised, arrogant and treacherous statists the best option is to simply cut off their money.

          1. 369174+ up ticks,

            W,
            Much of what is in your post is fact but I see it slightly different,many of the party building blocks are already in place, the instruction manual is sitting between the dispatch box’s in parliament.

            First the councils will fall, the members are in hotels awainting the call, an islamic party is formed or comes into being via a lab/lib/con/ ukip chrysalis.

            Music banned, daughters, no rights, state property, in the main comfort items for the kapos until they are 15.

            I do believe desperation will bring unity of sorts and win the day.

            Far fetched ? they said that in the 30s.

      2. who nowadays has a VHS player?

        I do, along with a reel to reel Revox, Nakamichi Cassette Deck and transcription turntable with SME arm/Shure V15 IV.
        All in regular use.

          1. 🙂 no.
            This is not intended as sarcasm but: I assumed that if you recognised VHS player, you would have had some idea what the others were.

      3. who nowadays has a VHS player?

        I do, along with a reel to reel Revox, Nakamichi Cassette Deck and transcription turntable with SME arm/Shure V15 IV.
        All in regular use.

      1. Go to the bottom of the e-mail.

        There should be a (generally black) box with a down arrow in it.

        Click on that.

        Identify where you want to save it.

        Click on ‘Save’.

  55. And of course, the press have labelled the gun man who attacked migrants ‘far right’. Anything to smear and set the narrative. No doubt ‘Nazi memorabelia will be found next – ignoring that the Nazi’s were a vicious bunch of Lefties.

    ‘

    1. It is only because they are SO relieved he isn’t a slammer.

      Just imagine their twisted knickers had they tried to explain THAT away at Christmas…..

  56. Da ist eine NoTTLer wie echte name ist List

    You have my phone number, please text your pseudonym, as I’ve forgotten, though we talked earlier in the month

  57. Da sind eine NoTTLer wie echte name ist List

    You have my phone number, please text your pseudonym, as I’ve forgotten, though we talked earlier in the month

  60. Earlier this week, he boss has been told that she needs a new hip. The surgeon has delayed the surgery until early summer so that we can swan off to warmer climes this winter but we were given the pre/ post operative instruction books to read.

    What impressed me was the section where they talked about sex after the operation, their instructions are to lay on your back with a pillow between your legs.

    Something new to try over Christmas i suppose and it gives us time to work out which one of us follows their rule.

    1. Self-selecting – hardly objective.
      And that is a comment from a cynic who loathes the sainted war hero.

  62. Well, well. The dreaded Strep hits North Narfurk. A neighbour who was due to arrive here at 6 pm for a tincture, rang to say that on his trip eariler this week to Rome with some grandchildren – they all went down with scarlet fever. And passed it on to him….

    Must have been fun trying to get them on the plane – to infect the other 200 passengers…..{:¬((((

    1. I’ve heard that people have been hospitalised with it, after flights back from the UK. Not sure if they got it on the flight or during their visit.

  63. Well, so much for having food delivered! Last week we were expecting a delivery from Cote at Home, via DPD. Sadly DPD decided they weren’t delivering to our postcode; the tram [sorry – team!] at Cote were very good and rescheduled for next day – when DPD again failed. Today we were expecting a Fish for Thought delivery, via DPD who quoted a delivery slot of 1209 to 1309. I checked the tracking app at 1200 to see that the delivery was expected in 2 hours – driver on delivery 12, we were 62!! Since then the tracker isn’t being updated and we just get a message saying the driver is “a little behind but will be with you shortly”. No response from Fish for Thought to my requests for an update, and the phone number they quote is “not recognised” by BT! [It seems they left the final digit off all their messages!]

    I’m not sure I’d recommend DPD – they used to be better but this is the third time they have let us down recently.

      1. Bill, first you were David Cameron and now you are Marie Antoinette? How many tinctures have you been drinking today?

    3. I sent a parcel with DPD a few months back. Twice it was tracked out for delivery, next update was, returned to depot, ran out of time to deliver. No idea what was going on. Last year they lost a 4kg parcel completely, on claiming my compo, they asked for proof of non delivery. Apparently, their tracking system that showed it undelivered didn’t seem to be sufficient.

    4. Well, a sort of happy ending – the driver, bless him, actually kept going and did deliver, albeit about 6 hours late. I think the main problem is a combination of bad weather and unrealistic plans by the DPD managers – sometimes it’s impossible to complete the schedule! Now to re-jig the menu as we should have eaten the fish today – still, more traditional to have it on the Eve?

  65. I am signing off. As the drinks do has been cancelled- I shall have to make up for it on my own.

    Have a jolly evening. BTW – on Sleb UNIV Chal – it was a great boost to see the egregious Owen (spit) Jones fail to answer anything correctly!!

    A demain

    1. ‘Yes boss’ or ‘Yes guv’ doesn’t quite have the same ring either. The former would probably trigger a few lefties too. (slavery connotations?)

  68. Evening, all. Apropos the headline, there really is no challenge dealing with “complex history” unless you want to mess with it, re-rewrite it or deny it happened. On a personal note, I needed to go to Tescos for something only they stock locally – the place was heaving! To my disgust, I found the item that used to cost £1.00 now costs £1.25. Consequently, instead of stocking up, I only bought one. Next time I go to another town, I’ll check out the opportunities for savings.

      3. Not if you have to factor in the 26 mile round trip to buy them 🙂 Actually, it’s Radox bath salts. The places I used to buy them have either a) stopped stocking them or b) closed down.

    2. Here you are:-

      Christmas Review
      Those members who were unable to join the online Christmas Review last week can now watch it on our YouTube channel here (we’ve also posted some shorter clips on our Twitter page here, here and here). The FSU’s staff nominated their free speech heroes and zeros of the year and members then cast their votes. Candidates for heroes included Salman Rushdie, Elon Musk, the College of Policing, JK Rowling and her fellow “outspoken women of TERF island”.

      Twitter petition
      Spoiler alert! The free speech hero of 2022 – by popular acclaim – is Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla who bought Twitter for $44 billion earlier this year. He spent way over the odds for the company – in part, at least, so he could stop the social media platform censoring people who dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy on subjects like the Covid-19 vaccines, climate change and election fraud. Thanks to Musk’s release of the Twitter Files, we now know the extent of that censorship – far greater than most of us ever imagined.

      Last month, we started a petition urging Twitter’s new CEO to stop banning gender critical voices. He hasn’t yet restored all the accounts we named in the petition – so please do sign it if you haven’t already. But Wednesday brought the news that one of the most prominent gender critical feminists – Kellie-Jay Keen (@thePosieParker) – has had her Twitter account restored, and last night we learned that Graham Linehan had also had his account reinstated. A nice little victory to end the year with.

      Jeremy Clarkson targeted for cancellation
      The reaction to Jeremy Clarkson’s Sun column about Meghan Markle has been so over-the-top, it’s almost comical. The most ridiculous I’ve seen so far was that of Chris Packham, presenter of Springwatch and a long-standing opponent of Clarkson’s on everything from driven shooting to farming. He tweeted: “It’s hate crime, pure and simple. If there were any sort of justice there would be laws that would jail him. And shut down the publisher. Is this the country we want to live in? Is this what we should tolerate? We must ask ourselves – where is this leading? Nowhere good.”

      Does Packham really believe that Britain would be a better place if newspaper columnists could be imprisoned (and their newspapers shut down) for saying something offensive? Maybe he does.

      I can’t link to the column in question because Clarkson has asked the Sun to take it down (which I think is a mistake). But it hardly matters because it’s been reproduced everywhere, particularly by those who claim that the words Clarkson used are likely to inspire violence against women and girls. (If they’re really so dangerous, why keep repeating them?) Here’s the section that has caused all the controversy:

      I hate her. Not like I hate Nicola Sturgeon or Rose West. I hate her on a cellular level.

      At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, “Shame!” and throw lumps of excrement at her.

      This is an obvious reference to the scene in Game of Thrones in which Cersei is forced to do a ‘walk of atonement’ by the High Sparrow, but that was ignored by all Clarkson’s critics who reacted as if he had dredged up with this particular form of ritual humiliation from deep in his ‘misogynistic’ psyche. (Apart from David Baddiel, who got the reference but condemned Clarkson anyway on the grounds that the original scene was itself a “violent misogynistic fantasy”.)

      The number of people who interpreted Clarkson’s words, not as an attack on Meghan, but on all women, is quite something. When a female columnist fantasises about violence being inflicted on a man – Caitlin Moran once tweeted she hoped Germaine Greer would cut me in half with a sword – no one accuses them of misandry. But here’s the ex-Labour spin doctor Ayesha Hazarika giving her view on Clarkson’s column: “Many of us this week are reflecting on how misogyny has infected society and why violence against women is at such a frightening level.” That was also the view of Nicola Sturgeon, who described the column as “deeply misogynistic” – this was after a laughable bit of throat clearing in which the First Minister said she was a “passionate believer in free speech”! (Is this the same woman whose government passed the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act last year?)

      And it seems many members of the public shared their disgust. According to the Guardian, the Independent Press Standards Regulator has received a record number of complaints about the column – more than the combined total it received in 2021. (The number now exceeds 20,000.)

      Even Clarkson’s own daughter Emily condemned him, issuing the following statement on her Instagram account:

      My views are and have always been clear when it comes to misogyny, bullying and the treatment of women by the media.

      I want to make it very clear that I stand against everything that my dad wrote about Meghan Markle and I remain standing in support of those that are targeted with online hatred.

      That had the whiff of Mao’s China about it, but it didn’t stop numerous commentators praising her. Carol Vorderman, for instance, described Emily’s denunciation of her father as “wonderful” and went on to upbraid Clarkson for writing such a vile thing about “any woman”. Vorderman said in a follow-up tweet that she’d received “lots of abuse” about her condemnation of Clarkson, but didn’t mind because witnessing his demise – and seeing the ejaculations of anyone foolish enough to defend him – was “like watching the last death throes of the dinosaur age”. (Isn’t that a bit ageist?)

      Incidentally, Vorderman quote-tweeted a letter to the Chief Executive of ITV signed by 60 MPs, including some Conservatives, urging her to sack him as presenter of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? They, too, didn’t get the Game of Thrones reference – or pretended not to so they could work themselves up into even more of a lather. “Expressing a scatological, misogynistic fantasy that Meghan Markle might be assaulted with faeces is an insight into a disturbed mind, openly expressing violent hate speech,” wrote the letter’s author, SNP MP John Nicholson. He claimed he had “consistently defended freedom of the press” – oh really? – but Clarkson had “crossed a line”.

      The pile-on against the “old fart” is ironic, given that the people leading the charge claim to be concerned about the psychological trauma his words have caused Meghan. What about the psychological impact on Clarkson of being the latest victim of two minutes hate? It’s almost as if his critics are demanding that he should be stripped naked and paraded through the streets of every town in Britain while he’s pelted with excrement for daring to suggest that Meghan should be stripped naked and… etc., etc.

      Needless to say, far from being traumatised, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be rubbing their hands with glee over this row because it’s shifted public opinion back in their favour after the poor reception given to their Neflix ‘documentary’. Here, at last, is the ‘evidence’ they’ve been desperately searching for that the racist British tabloids turned on Meghan because, to quote John Nicholson’s letter, she’s “the only person of colour in the Royal Family”.

      How has Clarkson responded to all this performative outrage and opportunistic virtue-signalling? Alas, he has issued (sort of) an apology:

      In a column I wrote about Meghan, I made a clumsy reference to a scene in Game of Thrones and this has gone down badly with a great many people. I’m horrified to have caused so much hurt and I shall be more careful in future.

      Oh Jeremy! You should have reached out to the Free Speech Union, where we would have told you that apologising rarely succeeds in drawing a line under attempts to cancel you. On the contrary, it emboldens the mob who sense weakness and move in for the kill. When I stepped down from the Office for Students in 2018 and apologised for various sophomoric remarks I’d made on Twitter, the Twitchfork mob immediately tried to get me fired from all my other jobs and I ended up having to step down from five positions. And so it has proved to be in Clarkson’s case, with campaigns launched now to have him fired by Amazon, where he presents Grand Tour and Clarkson’s Farm, and various woke activist groups writing to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police urging him to “take action” against the miscreant. Thankfully, Sir Mark Rowley has said he has no intention of doing so.

      What’s my view of Clarkson’s column? Well, I wouldn’t have written those words myself, not least because – to paraphrase Ross Clark in the Telegraph – I wouldn’t have wanted to give “the entire liberal-Left establishment” an excuse to launch yet another attack on the “Right-wing press” or lend any credibility to Meghan’s ludicrous attempts to smear the British tabloids as racist. I think I also would have recognised that it’s a little tone deaf to confess to fantasising about inflicting a medieval punishment on a prominent female public figure, given the current campaign to criminalise ‘misogyny’. Such a law would pose a major threat to free speech because, among other things, it would almost certainly make it a criminal offence to say something ‘hateful’ against transwomen, which, as we know, includes saying you don’t think they’re women.

      Should it be against the law to write what Clarkson wrote? Absolutely not. Should he lose his gigs on ITV and Amazon? Of course not. Should he be sacked by the Sun? No. I’ve got nothing against people condemning Clarkson on Twitter and elsewhere – they’re as entitled to exercise their free speech as he is. But trying to get someone fired for saying something you find offensive – or, more accurately, pretend to find offensive – goes beyond vigorous debate and becomes cancel culture. That’s crossing a line, John Nicholson.

      Whenever anyone says they support free speech but draw the line at hate speech, the six million dollar question is: Who gets to decide what hate speech is? In today’s political climate, accusing the Royal Family of being a racist institution isn’t hate speech – even though it’s clearly intended to stir up hatred against King Charles et al – but saying you would like to strip the accuser naked, parade her through the streets of every town in Britain… etc. is the secular equivalent of blasphemy. Why? How did that become the rule? Because Chris Packham, Ayesha Hazarika and Carol Vorderman say so?

      To underline just how subjective the concept of ‘hate speech’ is, the same people who’ve condemned Clarkson never object when equally nasty things are said about Tories by members of their own tribe. I don’t recall David Baddiel piping up when Jo Brand joked about throwing battery acid in Nigel Farage’s face or Carol Vorderman reaching for the smelling salts when Angela Rayner referred to “all Tories” as “scum”. The author Sir Philip Pullman described Clarkson’s column as “poison”, yet three years ago he said: “When I hear the name ‘Boris Johnson’, for some reason the words ‘rope’ and ‘nearest lamp-post’ come to mind as well.” (See Ross Clark’s great piece on this hypocrisy in the Mail.)

      So, to be clear, the change to the law Clarkson’s critics are advocating would make it a criminal offence to say something ‘offensive’ about people on the same political side as them, but not about their political opponents. Apart from being illiberal, isn’t that a little short-sighted? Yes, they’re in the ascendancy now, but what if the fashion changes and their equivalents in 25 years’ time regard their speech as hateful? What principle will they be able to appeal to to protect their free speech, given that they’ve campaigned to criminalise the speech of their ideological enemies?

      As Ira Glasser, the ex-head of the ACLU said:

      Speech restrictions are like poison gas. You see a bad speaker out there. And you don’t want to listen to him or her anymore. So you get this poison gas and say, “I’m going to spray him with it.” And then the wind shifts. And pretty soon the gas blows back on you.

      FAQs about FoIs
      We’ve published a new set of FAQs, this time about how to submit a Freedom of Information request. The Freedom of Information Act has become a powerful tool for civil liberties groups like Big Brother Watch, but there are various pitfalls you should avoid if you’re thinking of submitting an FoI. For instance, if your request is too open-ended it can be turned down on the grounds that it would be too expensive to comply with. Carrie Clark, the FSU’s Research Officer, has produced this handy guide to maximise your chances of getting a response.

      The FSU Writers’ Advisory Council
      Since the FSU launched in February 2020, a growing number of authors have come to us for advice and support – Gillian Philip, Julie Burchill, Helen Joyce, Allison Pearson, Holly Lawford-Smith – and over 250 authors have joined as members. It has become increasingly clear to us that freedom of expression is under severe pressure within the literary world, with publishers and literary agents often failing to defend their authors when their speech rights come under attack.

      Some of the threats our writer members have flagged up include:

      Publishers including morality clauses in contracts.
      Sensitivity readers vetting manuscripts.
      Editors removing content to avoid giving offense (e.g. ‘cultural appropriation’).
      Bookshops refusing to stock books or, if they do, their employees refusing to display them properly.
      Authors being no-platformed from speaking events, such as literary festivals, at the behest of other authors, sponsors or venue staff.
      These issues are of great concern to the FSU, and not just because they directly affect our writer members. The freedom of authors to express themselves and of people to read their work without interference or mediation by self-appointed censors is a fundamental human right.

      To make sure we’re able to give these issues a proper airing in the public square – and that the speech rights of our writer members are protected, as well as the rights of authors more generally – we have established a specialist Writers’ Advisory Council that boasts a number of prominent authors, publishers and literary agents, including Julie Bindel, Jack Dee, Andrew Doyle, Matthew Hamilton, Alex Harwood, Helen Joyce, Bel Mooney, George Owers, Anna Pasternak, Gillian Philip, Andrew Roberts and Lionel Shriver. Our hope is that this will lend the FSU’s voice authority when it speaks out in defence of freedom of expression and comes to the defence of beleaguered authors.

      To better support our writer members, the FSU will:

      Ensure that a member of our case team specialises in protecting them from the kinds of censorship listed above and is always available at the end of the phone.
      Cultivate good working relationships with third party providers of specialist advice to authors on issues such as contracts, tax and insurance, all such services to be provided either pro bono or at below market rate to our writer members.
      In addition, any writers who join the FSU will have access to all the usual benefits, such as:

      Invitations to members-only events with people like Kathleen Stock, Jack Dee, Andrew Doyle, Graham Linehan and Helen Joyce.
      Discounted tickets to parties, conferences, and comedy nights.
      FSU weekly and monthly newsletters.
      Individually tailored advice from our two full-time case officers, two full-time lawyers and specialist media advisors.
      We hope that as many authors as possible will join the FSU, whether to protect themselves, to defend their peers or to build a public voice capable of putting the case for freedom of expression as robustly as possible. (To see the kind of help we can provide to writers, see this short testimonial from Holly Lawford-Smith.) If you know of anyone that might be interested in this offer, please do share this news with them – or, better yet, buy them the gift of FSU membership for Christmas (see below).

      Regional Speakeasies
      We will be kicking off 2023 with a new series of Regional Speakeasies around the UK. The events – in Cardiff, Manchester, Edinburgh, Oxford, Cambridge, Birmingham and Brighton – will be addressed by a senior member of Free Speech Union staff to discuss why free speech is worth fighting for. This is a chance to find out why the individuals involved in FSU are so passionate about defending free speech and how our work is developing across many different fronts, from case work to campaigns. It is also an opportunity for us to thank members in person for their continued support, as well as introduce others to the work we do and encourage them to join. There will, of course, be plenty of time for socialising with fellow free speech supporters.

      Speakeasies are free for FSU members. We encourage you to invite non-members who might be interested in finding out more about what we do. Please book your places as soon as possible via our Events page.

      Cambridge dictionary includes new definition of ‘woman’
      The Cambridge Dictionary has updated its definition of ‘woman’ to include anyone who “identifies as female” regardless of their sex at birth (Independent, LBC, Mail, Times). As well as “an adult female person”, the online dictionary now includes a supplementary definition: “An adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.” Examples of usage given include: “Mary is a woman who was assigned male at birth” and “she was the first trans woman elected to a national office”.

      Explaining the incorporation of this definition, a spokesman for the Cambridge Dictionary said: “Our dictionaries are compiled by analysing a large corpus of English texts (over two billion words in total) taken from all areas of writing and publishing… [and]… we regularly update our dictionary to reflect changes in how English is used, based on analysis of data from this corpus.” (Telegraph)

      Speaking to the Mail, I said I was disappointed to see identity politics creeping into the work of dictionary compilers, and suspected that this new definition “has been introduced as a result of lobbying by political activists, a slippery slope that no dictionary should go down”. (I reiterated that argument on GB News.)

      Naomi Firsht makes a similar point in UnHerd. “Of course,” she concedes, “language evolves and so dictionaries must update words and meanings once a new term has entered popular usage.” But even so, “are we really expected to believe that lexicographers at Cambridge Dictionary think the majority of English-speakers would agree to and use their new definition?”

      Criticisms of this kind are only half right, says Charles Moore (Telegraph). The key factor for lexicographers is not always popular usage, but current usage — which, in this case, is born of legal reality. The fact is that ever since the Gender Recognition Act passed onto the statute books in 2004, trans people can be, by law, the gender they say they have become by providing a relevant medical diagnosis, regardless of what it says on their birth certificate.

      That’s why the dictionary’s supplementary definition has that coy, almost Dickensian expression “though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth”, says Moore. Some people might think – and Lord Moore readily acknowledges that he might well agree with them – “that what has happened is an affront to biological fact and linguistic truth”. But the Cambridge Dictionary “is only doing its duty if it records a meaning which the law imposes”.

      Maybe so, but Brendan O’Neill was quick to spot the political ramifications of this ostensibly technical, lexicographic intervention (Spiked). The fact is that ‘woman’ has become one of the most problematic, socially contested words of our times. So when the Cambridge Dictionary decides to give the word a supplementary, transgender friendly definition, it is not simply “reflecting meaning imposed by the law”, as Charles Moore puts it, but also, and at the same time, taking sides in an ongoing and deeply divisive debate regarding the social, political and cultural importance of the biological reality of sex.

      It’s in this context that Naomi Firsht suggests the dictionary’s supplementary definition constitutes “the latest in a long series of examples that chip away at what it means to be a woman and often erasing women’s sex class in the process”. Back in July, for instance, Merriam-Webster also added a supplementary definition of “female” as “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male”. And in many public sector settings today, dehumanising terms like “menstruators”, “pregnant people”, “chest feeders” and “cervix-havers” are being used to re-classify biological women as just one type of incumbent of that now much wider category ‘woman’.

      The problem with these progressive attempts to broaden the concept of ‘woman’ to include trans woman, Naomi says, is that they are effectively denying women the language they need to campaign for their own sex-based rights. More specifically, if organisations and institutions are moving towards describing women in this way, then it will become even harder to maintain a legal definition of the word that allows for necessary female single-sex spaces, such as women’s refuges, changing rooms and prisons. She has a point – one only has to look at the backlash JK Rowling has faced for daring to launch a women-only support centre for victims of sexual abuse in Edinburgh to see how contentious this issue is becoming (Pink News, Independent, UnHerd)

      And what about the political campaigning necessary to maintain the current legal definition of ‘woman’? It has, for instance, become an act of feminist defiance to utter the old dictionary definition of a woman – witness, for example, the right-on fury that always greets Kellie-Jay Keen whenever she uses the standard definition of ‘woman’ – ‘adult human female’ – as a campaigning slogan (Mail). But now, thanks to lexicographers at the Cambridge Dictionary, campaigners like her will no longer be able to point to the dictionary and say: “See, a woman is an adult human female.”

      Are trans activists really attempting to remove the idea of a woman from our minds altogether – and are dictionary compilers complicit in that endeavour? FSU Advisory Council member Andrew Doyle certainly doesn’t seem in the mood to pass the episode off as an unfortunate case of bookish, other-worldly lexicographers inadvertently stumbling into a political minefield (GB News). “Just like publishing houses, libraries, museums, theatres, and other creative and educational industries,” he says, “online dictionaries have been ideologically captured.” The staff will “continue to tweak definitions, not to reflect common usage, but as a form of engineering – in the hope that by redefining words they can modify the way we see the world”.

      Laura Dodsworth thinks they may well succeed. In an unsettling piece, the author of A State of Fear reminds us that George Orwell’s 1984 is built around the idea that totalitarianism and corruption of language are intrinsically linked. “Language structures thoughts,” she says, “and if you control language you can control thought.”

      Give someone the gift of FSU membership for Christmas
      If you’re looking for the perfect Christmas gift, look no further! The Free Speech Union has created a gift voucher that grants the recipient one year’s membership of the Free Speech Union. You can find it here.

      Not only will the receiver get all the benefits of being in the FSU, but your generosity will also be contributing to the greater cause of protecting free speech.

      Once you’ve landed on the relevant page, just select the tier of membership you’d like to buy – Gold or Full – enter the recipient’s email address, your name, and a personalised message, not forgetting to say what time you’d like them to receive it. It can be Christmas morning if you like. To redeem the voucher, all the information the receiver will need is included in the gift email.

      This is the perfect Christmas present for politically correct children and grandchildren who imagine they’ll never be cancelled in a million years, only for their friends and colleagues to turn on them in one of those all-too-familiar, kill-the-heretic feeding frenzies that characterises the woke ‘community’.

      1. That was part 1; Here is part 2:-

        FSU debate on the limits to the right to protest
        If you buy someone the gift of FSU membership they’ll be able to come along to a debate we’ve organised on freedom of speech and the right to protest. This event will be taking place in central London and members can purchase tickets here. Members can also join online, free of charge, by registering here.

        This is an opportunity to explore in-depth, with an expert panel, the distinctions between speech and protest, the importance of both to democratic life and the role of the law and the police in balancing freedom of speech and the right to protest with the rights of citizens to go about their daily life. Is new legislation needed to deal with the latest forms of protest, such as those carried out by Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion? Do existing laws need more effective enforcement or are we in danger of accepting significant infringements on important democratic principles in the name of a quiet life?

        The panel features speakers from both sides of the abortion clinic ‘buffer zones’ debate – Ryan Christopher of ADF International (UK) and Ann Furedi, former Chief Exec of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. They will be joined by two FSU staff members to explore the broader speech and protest implications of the issue: Bryn Harris our Chief Legal Counsel and Case Officer Tim Cruddas. Tim served as a police officer for 26 years, working on many major public order operations including student riots, royal weddings and the Olympics. It should be a fascinating evening!

        Most controversial film of the year streaming now
        The Lady of Heaven, the controversial film about Lady Fatima, the daughter of Prophet Muhammad, which mobs of Muslim protestors prevented cinema-goers from seeing earlier this year, is now available to view on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Play and the Microsoft store. You can read a press release about that here and watch a trailer here. We’re hoping to bring a human rights case against various police forces for not doing enough to protect freedom of expression in this case next year.

        One final victory…
        Barrister Sarah Phillimore, who had been under investigation by the Bar Standards Board for tweeting about her gender critical beliefs, has had the allegations against her dismissed. Repeated and vexatious complaints have been made to the regulator because of Sarah’s perfectly lawful beliefs. In March 2022 the BSB upheld a complaint against her, despite the relevant tweets being clearly innocuous. With the assistance of the FSU, Sarah was able to instruct a leading discrimination lawyer to write to the BSB. The letter worked, and the allegations have been dropped.

        While Sarah ultimately secured a good outcome, we believe she should never have been put through such a process to begin with. The regulator’s willingness to indulge allegations that were transparently made in bad faith meant she had to endure a very stressful year. The BSB – and other regulators – must take into account professionals’ free speech rights from the outset, and not treat it as an after-thought to be considered on appeal. In doing so they will spare themselves, and people like Sarah, needless expense and anxiety.

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

        Merry Christmas!

        Toby Young

        General Secretary

    1. If more than half the species of flowering plants in Antarctica disappear then there won’t be any left as there’s only 2 of them.

          1. Loved the penguin joke that was on here earlier.

            Today I’m taking them to the beach. Classic!

      2. Have you looked for the Artic polar bears and the Antarctic penguins in the fridge, Bob3? Lol.

  71. Good one:

    “the influencers in the MSM
    That’s why they are known as The Misleadia”…..

  72. Moh has the lurgy , and our coal delivery , all paid for , has not arrived .. ordered on the 8th December ..

    No 2 son had an accident last week at London Bridge station.. he slipped down some steps .. needs his ankle operated on , plates and screws .. ended up in St Thomas’s .. overnight then had to get back to Worthing the next day..

    Our Neff dishwasher is playing up , and I feel exhausted emotionally .

    1. It never rains, but it pours, Maggie. As bad things come in threes, be thankful that you’ve had three misfortunes 🙂

      1. Nope ,

        Mike’s op is scheduled for after Christmas , the swelling has to subside , then plates and screws inserted , quite a nasty break .
        I have been nagging him for years to take out accident insurance , no one ever listens .

    4. Happy Christmas! Did some food shopping this afternoon and had my hair done. Then went to meet younger son at the station – then stopped at Waitrose for some beer & cheese. I don’t like driving in the dark.

      1. How is your dearly beloved , is he eating and exercising slightly?

        I was going to get my hair done this week .. I look as if I have been pulled through a hedge backwards , but will have to wait until the NY

        Shopping this morning .. fresh Turkey crown .. £25.. I nearly fainted … veg is a happy price , imported melons are cheaper than English apples ..and Weetabix has nearly doubled in price .. and own brands as well.

        1. I paid more than that at our local butchers about five years ago! Mind you, I cut it up, froze it and it did three Christmas lunches.

        3. Perhaps you should buy next Christmas’ Brussel Sprouts now. Who know what price they will be when you start boiling them in April 2023. Lol.

    5. Misfortune has perfect timing, doesn’t she. Hoping you don’t succumb to the lurgy too but it’s tough trying to stay resilient and KBO.

    6. The lurgy seems to be selective. I am just emerging on the other side of this truly awful bug, but poppiesdad has sneezed a few times, honestly nothing worse than that. So it may pass you by.

      1. I do hope so pm.

        Moh is shivering , coughing but no temp .. really strange . He is still eating , but is huddled up like a Victorian Scrooge .. I feel quite alarmed .. no sore throat or rash either .. and jabbed to the hilt !

        1. I have had worsening skin since taking the flu jab three years ago. Initially it was a rash over my entire back, far worse than the psoriasis I have occasionally on legs and arms.

          Accordingly I have since refused all jabs. My advice would be for everyone to avoid flu and supposed Covid jabs in the future. They do not work and are dangerous. I suspect the flu jabs are now containing some mRNA component of spike protein(s). These are not gene therapies but are poisons.

          1. The trouble, corimmobile, is that flu types mutate from year to year. So it’s a guess as to what they will mutate to 12 months from now. Yet to ensure there are enough jabs next year they have to make an educated guess in order to have time to produce enough doses for the following winter, which in turn means that it’s just a gamble as to whether the jab is any good. So my advice is to avoid both flu and Covid jabs when offered.

          2. The trouble, corimmobile, is that flu types mutate from year to year. So it’s a guess as to what they will mutate to 12 months from now. Yet to ensure there are enough jabs next year they have to make an educated guess in order to have time to produce enough doses for the following winter, which in turn means that it’s just a gamble as to whether the jab is any good. So my advice is to avoid both flu and Covid jabs when offered.

    7. I’m having a lot of trouble searching for the current coal imports to the UK. Apparently they’ve doubled this year, but I can’t find the imported coal source data by country. It makes me suspicious.

      1. Wherever it comes from, it’s filthy stuff that’s being burnt here in Wellingborough. There are a lot of old council houses near me that have open grates and the reek is awful. It wasn’t like this ten years or so past.

        1. Perhaps ten years ago they were using their central heating? Nowadays, with the cost of electricity and oil, coal (if you are lucky enough to have open fires) is a relatively cheap way of heating your home. Obviously, that is why the PTB are trying to stop it.

        2. I presume people are burning whatever they can to stay warm. This mild weather might clear the air a bit.

          1. As I’ve replied to Conway, these are properties that have been setting fires in their grates for a long time now but only in the last few years has the smell been so noticable

      2. We get anthracite from China and coal from Poland (according to my coal merchant). You can get Welsh anthracite but it’s much more expensive.

      3. Our last lot of coal was consisted of large shiny glossy lumps , it burned very quickly. It might be Polish

        Coal previous to that had matt black smelly stuff burned slowly but left lots of chunky ash in the grate . They hinted that it was American ?

    9. We had the same delivery issues but with kerosene. The first order with Boiler Juice (Certas) never arrived on the appointed day nor on the next given delivery date. We cancelled the order and reordered through Ukay Fuels who gave us a delivery date and improved on it.

      I believe some firms are accepting orders above the numbers they can fulfil. It is increasingly difficult to find companies able to provide a good level of service. When our governments exhibit such poor levels of service to us voters it moreorless follows that this lack of care attitude becomes pervasive.

      1. My mother always re-used Wrapping paper.

        With reference to her my father loved quoting a verse from William Cowper’s story of John Gilpin.

        John Gilpin kiss’d his loving wife,
        O’erjoy’d was he to find
        That though on pleasure she was bent,
        She had a frugal mind.

      1. Does anyone on here remember the airmail edition of the DT / Times etc

        When parents lived overseas , the newspapers were printed on such flimsy airmail paper , that all the expats trained their stewards to iron the newspapers ..

      1. Yes it’s good to see him – though he can be a bit prickly. The other one will be coming tomorrow, then we get a couple of days off while they go and see their father.
        I’m feeling quite exhausted already.

  76. Goodnight, all. Kadi is gradually being rehabilitated after having been in the doghouse all day; while I was out delivering presents, he managed to get the most recent card (it only arrived today) onto the floor and I found it in scores of pieces when I got back. He had a severe talking to and I ignored him for quite a time. He has previous – he tore up the letter from his previous owner to the ID base transferring ownership. I know it won’t be Oscar because I never had any such problems before I got Kadi. The card was from one of my Canadian friends with a personal, handwritten newsletter in it. Ironically, he was complaining about his government and things not working, but the card was promoting the (Canadian) Liberal Party! Maybe Kadi was making a political statement.

    2. Despite all 9f that the village idiot is talking of standing in another election. Media are delighted.

      Give Kadi a nice biscuit from me, he has impeccable taste if he destroys something liberal.

      1. I would have done, but I don’t want to reward him for destroying stuff. I did think he was on the right lines, though 🙂

    1. 369174+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Er og, me thinking QC meant Queens Councel

      when in his case it meant Queer ….

  78. Well, I enjoyed my Dec 23 film this evening. It was WHERE EAGLES DARE. Tomorrow’s (Dec 24) will be DIE HARD and then for Christmas Day it will be the Alastair Sim (1951) version of SCROOGE. In the meantime, a Good Night to you all – I hope you all sleep well and awaken rested.

    1. Goodnight Elsie, I enjoyed Where Eagles Dare, back when it was first shown at the local cinema, many moons ago!!

Comments are closed.