1,007 thoughts on “Friday 24 January: The BBC is an expensive cup of coffee when it’s not your cup of tea”

  1. Wonderful English from Around the World

    In a Bangkok Temple:
    IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ENTER A WOMAN, EVEN A FOREIGNER, IF DRESSED AS A
    MAN.

    Cocktail lounge Norway:
    LADIES ARE REQUESTED NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THE BAR.

    Doctor’s Surgery, Rome:
    SPECIALIST IN WOMEN AND OTHER DISEASES.

    Dry cleaners, Bangkok:
    DROP YOUR TROUSERS HERE FOR THE BEST RESULTS.

    In a Nairobi restaurant:
    CUSTOMERS WHO FIND OUR WAITRESSES RUDE, OUGHT TO SEE THE MANAGER.

    On the main road to Mombasa, leaving Nairobi:
    TAKE NOTICE: WHEN THIS SIGN IS UNDER WATER, THIS ROAD IS IMPASSABLE.

    On a poster at Kenco:
    ARE YOU AN ADULT THAT CANNOT READ? IF SO WE CAN HELP.

    In a City restaurant:
    OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK AND WEEKENDS.

    In a Cemetery:
    PERSONS ARE PROHIBITED FROM PICKING FLOWERS, FROM ANY BUT THEIR OWN GRAVES.

    Tokyo hotel’s rules and regulations:
    GUESTS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO SMOKE, OR DO OTHER DISGUSTING BEHAVIOURS IN BED.

    On the menu of a Swiss Restaurant:
    OUR WINES LEAVE YOU NOTHING TO HOPE FOR.

    In a Tokyo Bar:
    SPECIAL COCKTAILS FOR THE LADIES WITH NUTS.

    Hotel, Yugoslavia:
    THE FLATTENING OF UNDERWEAR WITH PLEASURE, IS THE JOB OF THE
    CHAMBERMAID.

    Hotel, Japan:
    YOU ARE INVITED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHAMBERMAID.

    In the lobby of a Moscow Hotel, across from a Russian Orthodox Monastery:
    YOU ARE WELCOME TO VISIT THE CEMETERY, WHERE FAMOUS RUSSIAN AND SOVIET COMPOSERS, ARTISTS AND WRITERS ARE BURIED DAILY, EXCEPT THURSDAY.

    A sign posted in Germany ‘s Black Forest:
    IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN ON OUR BLACK FOREST CAMPING SITE, THAT PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT SEX, FOR INSTANCE, MEN AND WOMEN, LIVE TOGETHER IN ONE TENT, UNLESS THEY ARE MARRIED WITH EACH OTHER FOR THIS PURPOSE.

    Hotel, Zurich:
    BECAUSE OF THE IMPROPRIETY OF ENTERTAINING GUESTS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX IN THE BEDROOM, IT IS SUGGESTED THAT THE LOBBY BE USED FOR THIS
    PURPOSE.

    Advertisement for donkey rides, Thailand:
    WOULD YOU LIKE TO RIDE ON YOUR OWN ASS?

    Airline ticket office, Copenhagen:
    WE TAKE YOUR BAGS AND SEND THEM IN ALL DIRECTIONS. (Just Like British
    Airways!!!)

    A Laundry in Rome:
    LADIES, LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES HERE AND THEN SPEND THE AFTERNOON HAVING A GOOD TIME.

    And finally, the all-time classic, seen in an Abu Dhabi Souk shop window:
    IF THE FRONT IS CLOSED PLEASE ENTER THROUGH MY BACKSIDE.

    1. TAKE NOTICE: WHEN THIS SIGN IS UNDER WATER, THIS ROAD IS IMPASSABLE.

      Might be useful for Fords in the UK. Most Motorist ignore the depth marker

    3. The old story (before one of the few benefits of terrorism) British Airways: “Breakfast in London, Dinner in New York, luggage in Bermuda.”

  2. Fourteen people in Britain tested for coronavirus as universities put on high alert. 24 January 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/67cbb6b08c0108a6cddff60c9c868d06d725f1c5cdfe4d21ee09ad493a4c2630.jpg

    Fourteen people have been tested for suspected coronavirus in the UK with five confirmed negative and nine still awaiting the results, Public Health England said on Thursday night.

    Officials said there had been no “confirmed cases” of the disease and stressed the risk to the public remained low amid increasing fears the virus may have spread to Britain from China. Five people are being tested in Scotland and one in Northern Ireland.

    Morning everyone. Everything is OK. Nothing to worry about! The government is onto it!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/23/britain-braced-killer-coronavirus-says-health-secretary-infection/

    3. A GP has just contacted LBC’s Nick Ferrari with advice to people who think they are infected. Do NOT go to your doctor’s surgery or to A&E; do NOT use public transport; stay at home and contact the authorities who will come to your home where they will perform the necessary triage.
      Sensible advice to contain any infection but with the number of people who call 999 on the most ridiculous of pretences the service could be overwhelmed by people with a runny nose. Surely a better idea would see the Government setting up a unique helpline for people who think that they have been exposed to a risk of infection and therefore try and prevent the 999 service from being compromised.

      1. Good morning KK

        What sort of treatment is available .. and can the beleaguered NHS cope .. I don’t think they are doing very well at the moment , 2 week wait in these rural parts to see a doctor.

        A unique helpline would be preferable .. and emergency measures put into place.

        All old traditional facilities for helping in a crisis have been demolished .. Years ago WRVS and Red Cross etc were on the ball .. Systems that worked for neighbourhoods , even the amount of district nurses are as rare as hens teeth.

        1. ‘ere my dear, I don’t think I want ole doctor looking at my rural paarts – now if thet’s that pretty nurse, then yew can cum and ‘ave a gander.

      2. “where they will perform the necessary triage” after nailing up and painting a red cross on your front door….

      3. This is where the NHS could use the internet. Let us know the symptoms, the incubation period, is the condition transferable during the incubation period, what can be done to prevent infection, what treatment can be done at home, which vulnerable people should phone the doctor when they notice symptoms. All this information should be on the news and internet and updated regularly. Don’t keep us in the dark.

        1. Good idea, clydesider. Coupled to a unique help-line the other emergency services shouldn’t be overwhelmed by increased call rates for this one concern.

      4. Because of all the fuss and furore over the past few days half the people with the mildest of sniffles will be convinced that they are about to die in the next two days and so must dash off to the doctor’s waiting area to infect as many people as possible with their incurable infection.

        It’s a waste of time going to a doctor with a cold anyway. They don’t have a cure for that either. Take some aspirin and lie down until you stop feeling sorry for yourself is the best treatment.

        2. With the severe cough and respiratory problem which is prevalent in the UK at the moment and persists for weeks, I think there will be many people wanting triage. I am still suffering residual symptoms after 4 weeks but never had a fever.

          1. I had a cold about three months ago, I felt really ill for a couple of days, but the cold symptoms vanished more quickly than normal. The dry chesty cough that came with it lasted about two months. No point in going to the doctor with the likes of that. Doctors’ surgeries will be full of people needlessly coughing their germs all over the place in pursuit of a non-existent cure for their cold in any case, without more panic.

      5. Well given the symptoms are pretty much the same as a cold what do you do. A helpline would not be able to diagnose

        2. The 999 operators will not be able to provide a diagnosis and the 999 service is there for much more than medical reasons: it therefore has to be protected.

    1. I guess his fate is to be regarded as the runt of the litter or something close like that…..

    4. I do hope Corbyns last f**k you to the people in proposing him is soundly rejected for all time.

    1. Good morning DB

      It’s currently cloudy in Wareham, Dorset. The forecast today shows a high of 8° and a low of 4°.
      Dryish and the birds are singing!

      1. Morning, Belle. Overcast and dank here and the only bird in sight is a male blackbird rooting around one of the borders. I’m keeping a look-out for the long-tailed tits that have become regular visitors over the last few weeks. This winter has been noticeable for the lack of birds, except the long-tails, arriving to feed. Perhaps there’s plenty of food in the fields and woods nearby.

        1. Hello again KK

          Just the same here, a song thrush singing, a few black birds , many sparrows and delighted to say, long tailed tits feeding off the fat balls . Our wren is back to scurrying through the rockery cover , and some very plump woodies are hunting for twigs to rebuild their nest in the hawthorn tree.

          We have also had a lesser spotted woodpecker demolishing the suet and peanut butter feeder.

      2. Be I Hampshire, be I buggery? I come down from Wareham
        I’ve got a girl with calico drawers and I’m a gonna tear ’em.

        (Looking at the Internet I find that there is some dispute as to whether the song involves Berkshire or Hampshire or Fareham – I have always preferred Wareham)

          1. Oh, Mags, our Mr Richard don’t need no directions, he’s already galloping down with his knicker-rippers in hand.

  6. Sussex becomes first council to ban fishing along coast to cut greenhouse emissions

    Trawlers though do not normally come close to shore they are deep sea even less so if where is sea weed the last thing they want is their nets caught up in that. Inshore fishing has no real impact on the sea bed. The sot of fish trawlers are fishing for as well are deep sea fish

    2. So those things with the sandy mottled back, a barbel under the chin, a white lateral line, three dorsal fins and huge eyes that I catch by casting out from the beach and close inshore on my mate’s boat aren’t cod after all?

      Could have sworn they were.

      Or aren’t commercial boats after cod these days?

      1. They are but they don’t normally come that close to shore with trawlers. Most of the code are in deep waters not a few miles off shore. They would have a problem now with all the offshore wind farms. It is the wind farms damaging the sea bed. Strangely they don’t mention that

    3. ‘Morning, Bill.

      First, the article:

      https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/23/sussex-becomes-first-council-ban-fishing-along-coast-cut-greenhouse/amp/

      As dodgy headlines go, this one is pretty bad…it is ‘only’ from Selsey to Shoreham, thankfully not the entire Sussex Coast. And I have no idea who or what “Sussex Council” is ‘cos we don’t have one of those. With Saint Greenie of Attenborough involved it is surely only a matter of time before Saint Greater of Thunderbox appears on the scene, and the presence of either will be causing the Hastings beach fleet much consternation:

      https://hastingsfish.co.uk

      I shall refrain from comment on how this restriction is going to save the planet…

    4. I don’t like what bottom trawlers do to the seabed. Stopping them trawling almost anywhere is a good thing, why can’t they just do these things without the ‘carbon offset’ bullshit and razamataz.

      1. It’s not just the round fish, dragging prawn trawls caused immense damage too, stopping regeneration of growth. And despite what some might say, it’s not restricted to deep water. If it were, most of the North Sea would be clear of fishing, given its overall shallow nature. Even five miles offshore here the sea is only a hundred feet deep, and a mile off might be not much more than 20-40 feet, some deep holes, but generally very shallow.

      2. It’s not just the round fish, dragging prawn trawls caused immense damage too, stopping regeneration of growth. And despite what some might say, it’s not restricted to deep water. If it were, most of the North Sea would be clear of fishing, given its overall shallow nature. Even five miles offshore here the sea is only a hundred feet deep, and a mile off might be not much more than 20-40 feet, some deep holes, but generally very shallow.

      3. It’s not just the round fish, dragging prawn trawls caused immense damage too, stopping regeneration of growth. And despite what some might say, it’s not restricted to deep water. If it were, most of the North Sea would be clear of fishing, given its overall shallow nature. Even five miles offshore here the sea is only a hundred feet deep, and a mile off might be not much more than 20-40 feet, some deep holes, but generally very shallow.

        1. It’s the Dutch electric fishers that need to be stopped. It appears that, after their electric trawl has passed, there is not one living thing on the sea-bed.

        2. Yup, very shallow, I’ve been over quite a lot of it during marine seismic surveys. Always nicer going to warmer waters.

  9. The Davos crowd could learn a thing or two from Boris’s new liberal Conservatism

    And from this, a new type of conservatism is emerging. Earlier this week, the Prime Minister told a conference of African leaders that the new post-Brexit immigration system will make it easier for their citizens to work in Britain. He’s reversing the crackdown on foreign students, giving them two years to find work. The current (outrageous) demand for non-EU migrants to earn at least £30,000 looks set to be abolished. The notorious Tory target to cut net migration to the “tens of thousands” was torn up on the PM’s first day.

    All will be deeply confusing for those who thought that Brexit was all about making life harder for immigrants. You can trace this down to the standard Davos diagnosis: that the choice in politics is between globalism or ugly nationalism – and that those who dislike the EU probably dislike foreigners in general.(WRONG) A great many European politicians had generally assumed that Johnson was in the latter category, a populist – albeit one who can recite The Iliad in ancient Greek.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/01/23/davos-crowd-could-learn-thing-two-boriss-new-liberal-conservatism/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget

    1. Even though my father got a better degree in classics at Cambridge than Johnson’s degree at Oxford and was probably just as capable at reciting The Iliad in ancient Greek I still think that Shakespeare had rather more to say to us.

      .

    2. Morning TB,
      Rhetoric, rhetoric, & more rhetoric is the opium of the lab/lib/con members
      along with a large dollop of hope is the way I read it.
      Wait until the final curtain drops before judgement & realisation kicks in, then
      either cheer in jubilation or weep copiously on finding hope to be fickle
      & only fools would depend on when regarding the future of a nation.

  10. Good morning Fellow Nottlers

    Now that Boris Johnson’s ‘brilliant deal’ has cleared its parliamentary hurdles shall we now be able to subject it to proper scrutiny even if it is too late to do anything about it?

    1. Good morning Richard ,

      We are being kept in the dark , will the deal stand up to scrutiny and has ir just been waved through.. I guess what we think doesn’t matter a jot!

      1. I suspect the EU and the Remain colluders may have one desperate throw of the dice before next Friday night.

    2. Morning R,
      The very question I have been asking
      time & again, why has the future of the Country and the legacy of youth been
      left to “hope” he does the right thing.
      It cannot be nationwide trust in the man,so I strongly assume it must be
      the best of the worst choice parties as it has been for many a year.
      We could not have got into such a sorry state of a country without the lab/lib/con continual input.
      As with the cry that rend the air in 2016
      “victory is ours, leave it to the tories”
      will we now hear if johnson goes crook we will get our own back
      the party will be no more, do the current members think in such a situation that the political perpetrators
      would give a sh!te ? they would have
      moved on to the place of the golden trough.

    4. He may try and bullshit us but many of the electorate are more than capable of spotting a bullshitter and he will suffer if he tries to go down that road. A sell-out will become apparent e.g. if he caves in on our fishing grounds after all his rhetoric on that subject, he will be done for.

  11. New Green Problem

    Scientist have discovered that vegans and veterinarians emit far more CO2 emissions than non vegans and vegetarianism and that they are increasing the CO2 emissions

    1. Moring Bill – Has your spell checker let you down – the 7th word looks out of place.?

      1. No – That James Herriot and his like traversing the countryside lancing cow’s stomachs to release the bloat gasses have a lot to answer for,

  13. Coronavirus ‘could have started at market where koala, snake and wolf meat sold

    The Chinese food market at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak has been found to have been selling live koalas, snakes, rats and wolf pups to eat before it was shut down.
    The Huanan Seafood Market in the central city of Wuhan is now under scrutiny after Chinese officials said the coronavirus originated for wildlife sold illegally at the food emporium – now labelled as “ground zero”.
    Photos taken before its closure in December show a price list of 112 exotic animals – from snakes to civet cats – were available for sale, says the South China Morning Post.
    Related: Fourteen people tested for coronavirus in UK
    The list included live foxes, crocodiles, wolf puppies, giant salamanders, snakes, rats, peacocks, porcupines, koalas and game meats.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/135a2147d1b1b24cc09c496221e10076b58c38aa9b12ded4d9e7f35f11cd6595.jpg

    1. Do the blighters eat babies as well..

      When I was a child , well you know what children are like , apart from the usual stories about different races of people and cannibals , we wondered whether the Chinese ate their children .. Maoist habits .. just the same as the rumour that neighbourhood cats ended up as a stir fry!

      1. I understand over the centuries the Chinese have experienced many devastating famines so it’s not surprising that their current range of ingredients is much, much wider than that on offer in Tesco…..

      2. Just as it was widely believed in this country that during WW2 & rationing thereafter cats were sold as rabbit.

        ‘Morning, Belle.

        2. Morning Peddy,

          That was how rumours started..

          Not far from here is a pub that according to my elderly friend , during WW2 rationing, used to serve up Badger ham hocks .

      3. It makes sense, especially during the One Child policy. Shame to waste all that protein, and nobody would know once they’re sliced up and thrown in the wok.

      4. Looking at the list makes me feel they are fully deserving of corona virus – just don’t spread it to the rest of us.

        1. OK smart-knickers.

          Who goes out to sea, lassoes a seahorse, then breaks it in at the rodeo? Nah! Got you there, dearie.

          1. Well, not Hopalong Cassidy because he’d have trouble swimming.
            Damn – have to rake out all the old Christmas cracker joke slips.

    3. Related: Fourteen people tested for coronavirus in UK
      The list included live foxes, crocodiles, wolf puppies, giant salamanders, snakes, rats, peacocks, porcupines, koalas and game meats.

      & humans?

    2. Once upon a time it was the Ebola type viruses spread from Monkey Mountain (but of course later alleged to be spread by the CIA… ) but now we seem to be oputsourcing to China where most of these things come from these days… Bird Flu etc. I just worry about their quality controls and the fact that so many food products seem tainted… just how do they make money out of shipping cheap chicken meat around the world? (remind me never to go on an all-inclusive holiday, apart from them spreading economic devastation wherever they set up id do have concerns: … how they can provide unlimited food and drink at 5Euro per head per day is beyond me….)

  16. Three Russians are charged with attempting to poison an arms dealer in Bulgaria in possible Novichok attack linked to Skripal poisoning in Salisbury. 23 January 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7b0a0436997bccaf9626af5f63d773c391c4fa97a3351a52061374fff34541f6.jpg

    That’s just in case you dullards didn’t know what he was doing in the picture. Lol!

    The great thing about this story is that, incredible as it may seem, it is even more ridiculous than the Skripal Saga as may be witnessed by the comments section.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7921507/Three-Russians-charged-attempting-poison-arms-dealer-Bulgaria.html

      1. Morning Anne. If it’s a disguise it’s a failure and if it’s his own he needs a new tailor. Lol!

  17. On Gridwatch today, solar contribution to power demand is zero, and wind is 6%.
    Again, all those massive wind farms everywhere, damaging sea beds and coastal views, are producing just 6% of our current electricity demand.

    https://gridwatch.co.uk

    Renewables overall are providing a massive 15% of our total demand.

      1. That’s not accurate.

        People do want immigration to sstop the problem is government doesn’t.

        1. W,
          Who elects the government, ? how long have we had to suffer mass uncontrolled immigration, how many GE elections have we gone through ?
          Which party has ever called for controlled immigration ?
          Which part of my post is not true ?

  19. Britain’s smallest birds have been boosted by the mild winter, the RSPB has said, as they launch their annual Big Garden Birdwatch survey.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/089bcfda0ebb5d6d029e1c44f28539a8350ae57b9b7ab23260c229c4c9d198b8.jpg
    People taking part in the count, which has been going on for 41 years and is the biggest wildlife survey in the world, are likely to see coal tits, blue-tits, long-tailed tits, wrens and gold crests. I recently saw a dozen long-tailed tits on the birdfeeder and two wrens in the winter jasmine….househunting maybe.
    Some birds have declined in our gardens over the decades. The songthrush has lost many of the hedgerows where it likes to nest and by last year, numbers of song thrushes seen in gardens had declined by 76 per cent.

          3. I’ve seen a few in the UK, Sos, but they are quite scarce. The technical term for those white “eyebrows” is supercilia (plural of supercilium).

          4. We are extraordinarily fortunate here in terms of the great variety of different birds we see.

            We live on the edge of forested areas, pine and deciduous, above a river valley, which has water meadows which flood but never too badly and with lots of open agricultral land around, much of which is left fallow on a regular basis. We have heather, gorse, broom and plenty of fine ground cover, so game birds of many varieties appear. Raptors galore.

            Being under migration paths adds to it too.

          5. My small village is in farmland but we don’t get the same number and variety of birds that you enjoy.

            Tree sparrows, a rarity elsewhere, are my most common garden species. I also get house sparrows, greenfinches, chaffinches, blue tits, coal tits, blackbirds and robins on a regular basis. Red kites are in the air constantly and I also get common buzzards regularly. In spring and summer, willow warblers, lesser whitethroats, blackcaps, yellowhammers, great spotted woodpeckers, pied and spotted flycatchers visit the garden. During autumn migration I get bigger numbers of those species as well as marsh tit and nuthatch. Black woodpeckers, lesser spotted woodpeckers and hen harriers have visited the garden and, in winter, rough-legged buzzards, fieldfares, redwings and (occasionally) waxwings have dropped in. In autumn 2018, I had a “resident” nutcracker in the garden feeding on my hazelnuts for a few weeks. This was a one-off though.

            This mild winter has been very disappointing with many winter visitors, such as dunnocks, redpolls, siskins and bramblings being absent.

          6. All is quite silent in our garden because in the winter, the beech hedge turns brown and all the chattering and quarrelling sparrows desert it to await the green leaves of spring.

            The only other birds I see regularly are pheasants (both cock and hen) the occasional partridge, rooks on the ploughed fields and yesterday afternoon, a moor hen scuttling across the track and into the hedge to escape the car. Ah, there’s a blackbird perching on the gate – he’s now checking out the drive for anything edible.

            Altogether it’s a very grey and overcast day. We have a quiz in the church this evening to look forward to.

          7. Rooks! I forgot rooks! How could I? The bloody things fly over in their thousands and come into my garden trying to nick the food I put out for other (smaller) birds; however, I’ve foiled them with my cage. I also get smaller numbers of jackdaws, magpies and hooded crows (no carrion crows here).

          8. Apart from red kites (we get black ones), the lesser whitethroats, which I’m not certain I could identify, and the flycatchers, we get all of those.
            I’ve counted well over 100 different species here. One aspect I find interesting is quite how “wild” they all are. Far, far more wary of me than they were in the UK.

            We had a very keen birdwatcher staying in the cottage and he commented that it was one of the most prolific sites he had ever been to and he was only here a week!

            The only feed I put out is peanuts, which attract a wide variety of visitors. I only feed between roughly October to Feb/March, we get through about 100 kg a year; more if it is particularly cold.

          9. Glorious .. how lovely .. and really rare

            When I was a child ..and staying with relatives in N Yorks , I was lucky enough to see Red backed Shrike .. and Flycatchers ..

            We hear so little of birds like that these days .

          10. I get a fair number of red-backed shrikes, pied and spotted flycatchers here in spring. The last confirmed breeding record of the red-backed shrike in Britain was around 1985. Not long after, the BOU (British Ornithologists’ Union), the authority on bird status in the UK, declared them extinct as a breeding species in the UK. Whether or nor successful attempts at breeding have been made by any of the few visiting individuals, since that declaration, I do not know.

          12. I’m sure one pair of red-backed shrikes bred in the UK a couple of years ago, but I can’t recall the details at the moment. Another once-common bird being wiped out by complacency. Flycatchers are another species in serious decine in the UK, partly because of what is happening here, but also because of problems in their African wintering grounds.

            They have to put all those new Africans somewhere.

          13. “Flycatchers are another species in serious decline in the UK.”

            Which one, Bass? There are currently three species which regularly visit the UK: Pied, Red-breasted and Spotted.

            Mugimaki and Brown are two rare vagrants that have been recorded within the past couple of decades.

          14. All of them. Red-breasted are only occasional visitors on migration, usually juveniles in the autumn. The ‘common ones, spotted and pied are no longer common.

          15. I’ve only seen three R B Flys: the first two at different locations on the same day! I saw the first at Kilnsea at the top end of the Spurn Head peninsula; two hours later I saw a second on Filey Brigg. The third was seen at Watermill on St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly a few years later.

          16. I don’t know what Disqus did there Grizzly. I wrote one post, but it didn’t appear. I refreshed and it still didn’t appear. I thought I must have messed up the posting, so I wrote the (longer) replacement. Then ages later the lost one has appeared and I’ve got two!

          17. Both of them, pied and spotted, the breeders. These ‘common’ ones are no longer ‘common’ in placeswhere they were almost unavoidable 20 or 30 years ago. Red-breasted are only occasional visitors on migration, usually juveniles in the autumn.

            My use of the term ‘another species’ clouded my meaning. I should have said ‘other species’.

          18. Do you get many woodpeckers in Skåne, Grizz?
            Edit: Answered before I asked, below.
            :-((

          19. I was sitting in the garden a couple of summers back, in the shade of the cherry tree, just relaxing, when a small bird shot past my head and landed on a bough. I turned around to see an adult lesser spotted woodpecker feeding a young one. I watched them for a full ten minutes before they flew off, never to return. A case of being in the right place at the right time.

          21. I don’t think we had shrikes in Norfolk when I was a lad but I do remember the game-keepers trophy fence with dead magpies, jays, crows and other raptors hanging on it (as a warning to the others, was the thinking) he’d shot while protecting his own birds.

      1. Just been outside to place glass & tins in the recycling bin and listened for a few minutes to a woodpecker drumming in a tree a 100yards or so away.

        (No Ginger Baker or Buddy Rich jokes please….)

    3. The problem I see with Garden Birdwatch is that it skews perception. ‘Good news, the blue-tit numbers are up this year’. In the gardens maybe, but what about the important bit – the bit where all but a small minority of these ‘garden’ birds live – the wider countryside? And what of the pipits, larks and yellowhammers that don’t appear in gardens and don’t register on the public mind until somebody goes out of town and realises that they’ve not heard a lark or yellowhammer singing for years?

      What the general public thinks of as ‘garden birds’ are usually birds that are actually open woodland or forest birds. They don’t see birds in gardens that are adapted to open ground living – the’ farmland’ birds that are under even greater threat. The woodland birds are suffering too, of course, due to habitat destruction, not of the trees (which everyone is so keen on planting) but of the essential understorey and brush growth (which everyone is so keen on cutting down and tidying up) that give most of these birds nesting and foraging opportunities. The fact that these forest edge birds might be doing well in gardens, which overall are a tiny part of their habitat can obscure the fact that they aren’t doing nearly so well in their proper range.

      Habitat destruction and over-use of pesticides will never be cured by bird tables.

      Garden Birdwatch, might instigate interest, but that interest usually stops at the bottom of the garden and cures nothing

      1. These days, with the majority of farmland rendered sterile by pesticides, gardens are probably a better habitat for the common species that most people see. Sadly the larks, pipits and yellowhammers will continue to decline.

        1. It’s not all about what people see and what they enjoy, though, is it? The planet isn’t just there for us and we have no right to drive to destruction the species that cannot share our urban sprawl just because they are out of sight, out of mind.

          That is one of the major problems with this scheme. It gives comfort to the complacent and hides reality and the damage being done.

          1. No – but the BGBW is about the birds that people see. We certainly should not be driving any of our wildlife to destruction.

          2. People can see them all if they get off their backsides. This scheme is just window-dressing.

          3. Of course it is, but it’s to get people looking, who aren’t necessarily bird watchers or have any knowledge.

          4. It’s to raise the profile of the RSPB and get them more membership funds.

            Marketing, no more, no less.

      2. The bird table isn’t a cure but a joy when I see various birds visiting in the winter months.

        Are you suggesting we don’t put food out for the birds….?

  21. SIR—Am I the only one confused by the necessity of calling actresses actors while the English female footballers have called themselves Lionesses?

    Caroline Lord
    Altrincham, Cheshire

    Reply:

    SIR—Actresses will insist they are “actors” (Letters, January 24) until they are nominated as “Best Actress” in a leading (or supporting) role at the Academy Awards.

    A Grizzly B
    Onslunda, Skåne

    What perplexes me most is the fact that many (if not most) women have a distinct desire to deny their essential femininity by slavishly following this modern obsession of adopting masculine names for themselves.

    They want to be known as: “Actors”, “Managers”, “Conductors”, “Hosts”, “Stewards” and “Chauffeurs” amongst many others that are, essentially, male-named professions. Perfectly decent female alternatives abound, all of which celebrate femininity.

    Also there is a growing tendency for women to adopt masculine first names, such as: “Sam” (for Samantha), “Charlie” (for Charlotte), “George” (for Georgina) and “Jo” (for Josephine) as well as other male-sounding names like “Lennie”, “Peta” and “Billie”.

    Of course, a lot of this is driven by hysterical idiot-sheets—step forward The Guardian—whose idiotic obsession with “gender-neutral terms” and “male-female stereotypes” reinforces the irrebuttable fact that the idiots have taken over the cutting room floor.

    What the hell is so wrong with being a woman, rejoicing in that fact, and having a female name or job title?

    1. Good morning Grizz

      I suppose HM .. our Queen would be renamed a King if these feministas got their way .
      A cow , a bullock, a hen a cock, oh, hasn’t it all become rather silly..

      I suspect many women have wobbly identities .. probably no adoring fathers in their lives.. OR they suffer from penis envy ..

      There are many things I don’t understand , nor do I wish to .

      1. ‘Morning, Maggie.

        “…they suffer from penis envy …”

        What about those confused young men who think they are women and wish to “transition”? Are they guilty of “clitoris envy”? :•)

          4. Why not? It is just the animal kingdom adopting the modern self-determining gender rights… we have Eco-sexuals (they love to make love to trees or something ) and some woman who wanted to marry either a vase or the aspidistra in it, I forget which…..
            Won’t be long before we are banned from using gender specific terms for animals, especially after the woke media feeding frenzy over the gay penguins who kidnapped (peguin-napped?) someone else’s baby penguin…. funny how because they were gay it was considered so OK for them to take some other, normal, penguins offspring…. Oh rats, I just realised i wrote “normal” perhaps abnormal mixed sex parents would be more appropriate?

      4. ‘Morning, Maggie.

        “…they suffer from penis envy …”

        What about those confused young men who think they are women and wish to “transition”? Are they guilty of “clitoris envy”? :•)

          1. That makes sense, Spikey.

            Before I was a pensioner mine watched me shave. Now it just watches me tie my shoelaces!

            [Yup, the old ones are the best!]

        3. I was sitting in the pub with my mate one night, just having a pint or two, when he began commenting on the unfairness of life.

          ‘All those fannies in the world, billions of them, and the women have got the lot’.

          1. Perry is not a trannie per se. He has a wife and children.

            In his case it is just a marketing gimmick to sell more pots.

        1. Slightly off topic, but have you noticed how the actions of Princess Anne’s children are suddenly being used to ameliorate the public’s perception of the Sussex’s commercial proposals?

          4. At least Zara managed not to mow anyone down.

            This chap got a driving ban too.

            A driver who mowed down an elderly pedestrian and condemned him to

            die a ”broken man” has been spared a prison sentence after he argued

            that speeding was ‘something that happens’.

            Businessman Arif Ali,

            42, had been travelling at 44mph in a 30mph zone when his VW Passat

            knocked over 80-year-old Akbar Niazi as the elderly grandfather was

            crossing the road.

            The victim was left with a broken neck

            following the impact and was subsequently paralysed from the neck down.

            He was unable to eat by himself and less than two months later passed

            away after choking on food he was unable to swallow.

            https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/driver-who-left-80-year-17617928

          6. Oh dear. How confused the courts must have been when their wokeness was denied an outlet…. obviously not a White British driver but spared that in that circumstance it was not a white British victim.

            OK best to forget all about it. Nothing to see here. Move along please.

          7. What? And all credit to her if she resisted the “Karen” temptation to complain “Do you know who I am?” a temptation lots of minor officials fall for or the “My husband is a friend of the Chief of Police ” etc etc.
            Nor, one supposes, did she claim her husband or borther was driving and not her…… We should applaud Zara…. even though she has been gifted with a woke name… or what would today be a wome name. AT least it isn’t Kyle or Moonbeam or something.

          8. Yes, they’re suddenly front page news.

            Good spin – for 30 years ago but since ‘a good day to bury bad news’ th epublic are sharp to this sort of lark.

        3. In my younger days I was slightly confused by a locomotive name in my Ian Allan combined volume.

          The Stanier Princess Royal class of express locomotives of 1933 carried names of various Princesses, from 46200 ‘Princess Royal’ and 46201 ‘Princess Elizabeth’ (Named after our present Queen and now back on the tracks earning money on special trains after an overhaul) through to 46210 ‘Lady Patricia’, 46211 ‘Queen Maud’ and 46212 ‘Duchess of Kent’.

          The one that caused me confusion was 46207 ‘Princess Arthur of Connaught’, an unfortunate locomotive that was involved in at least two accidents that resulted in large numbers of passenger fatalities. I understand the reasoning these days, but it was a puzzler.

          2. I’m against the (outdated) convention of a woman using her husbands name. SWMBOs paternal grandmother (dies aged 105!) always wrote to her (in the most beautiful copperplate handwriting), addressing the letter to Mrs Oberst Leutnant, rather than SWMBOs given name, Mrs SWMBO Leutnant.

          3. My mother’s cousin (b 1898) always wrote to her as Mrs Peter W. even though my mum was a widow.

          4. Well the ignorant among us were surprised to discover the naming protocols such as Mrs Husbands first and last names when he was alive but by Mrs her first his last when he was dead…… I bet this is something not taught ever in school and today the woke snowflakes would have kittens.
            Er, In Iran the wife gets to keep her maiden name, if she wants….How curious.

          5. How she (Princess Michael) used to be criticised for her over;y Regal attitude….. but now that we have Princess Pushy she shines…..

          6. The LMS Turbomotive was based on the Princess Class and later rebuilt to conventional form and named Princess Anne. Sadly it was destroyed in the Harrow smash.

          7. The next entry in the Ian Allan combined volume (1953 edition) is the Stanier Princess Coronation class, which lists 46220 Coronation, followed by two Queens, Two Princesses, ten Duchesses, twenty one Cities (of the UK), in the middle of which is 46244 King George VI, followed by 46256 Sir William A Stanier F.R.S.

            Princess Coronation Class? Would this suggest that the His Majesty and Sir William were a couple of cross-dressers?

    2. Hear, hear, Once again, and Good morning, George, I am in complete agreement and have been banging on in the same vein, ever since ‘Our Cilla’ was introduced as the ‘Host’ of Blind Date.. Only God knows how long ago that was.

    3. There is everything wrong with being a woman. No other species leaves me so helpless, powerless and incompetent when they’re around.

      1. But logically we can at least be sure God is NOT a woman…. if he were a she (or transgender) he would surely have designed them better, taught them how to use the thermostat, made them cold in winter and hot in summer and not the other way round, wouldn’t have inflicted PMS on them, mood swings, lack of logic or reason and obsessed with Jimmy Choos…..plus they would long ago have been in charge… not just in the matriarchal and matrilineal societies but everywhere…. oh wait, they are. OK so fell down on that one.

    4. I put something up at ten o’clock last night on this topic ( although not in such a classy way) but nearly everyone was in bed by then so only the two sues upvoted me.
      ” I liked the girl’s long tresses ” has now become ” I liked the person’s long tors “

      1. Or “I liked the girl’s long stresses”? St Greta was it? Or that girl in the Guiness book of records (how come they can name a book of records after an alcoholic drink in our modern good for you diversive, sorry, diversity culture? Surely it offends far too many people?) with her hair down to her ankles and takes her two hours to wash because of the drying time? Certainly not a Karen.

    5. Er, is not Peta a genuine Irish girl’s name and not simply a masculinisation?

      The name Peta is a girl’s name of Spanish, Greek, Native American origin meaning “golden eagle, or rock, stone”. which is more than I had remembered.
      So while some of the names are indeed as suggested, or so it seems, a masculinisation, it is not always the case.

      Mind you I wonder how many girls would take the most popular boys name in the UK these days… (Google and ye shall find” but I don’t need to be banned just yet for saying so up front what that name is. A cvlue: an English Nurse/teacher got in terrible trouble for naming the class guinea pig or teddy bear or something with this name.

      1. Oh, ‘Morning, J, I thought the …en made it feminine as opposed to the …an in “…my fried, Sandy.”

        1. Well, it does, but it means I have the name of a French man. My parents named me after a Belgian girl, but decided to”Anglicise” it.

        1. Oh dear, I remember seeing that with my parents when a child at one of the two town cinemas (both gone now)

      1. Of course the EU are happy. This is the deal that their lawyers wrote to hamstring the United Kingdom for years to come, regardless of the length of the transition period, 1 day or 1 year. There were minor changes around the Northern Ireland border, that the EU later said were no effective changes at all. Boris said that traders would get documents sent to them if their goods crossed the border, but they could throw them in the bin. This was gently corrected by an official after the EU commission gave him a dirty look.

        The “backstop” position was removed, but that was not part of the EU’s deal to trap the United Kingdom in the first place. Theresa May bolted that backstop on afterwards, just so that it could be unbolted again to make our government look “tough.” The provision that gives the European Court of Justice supremacy over the rights of EU citizens in our country, which overrides the United Kingdoms courts, for 8 years after the transition period ends is still there. We will also continue to be making payments to the EU every year, but they won’t call it a membership fee, they call it “outstanding commitments” instead.

        This is the same deal that was rejected by Parliament 3 times because it was so bad for this country that only a nation that had lost a war would agree to its terms. Jacob Rees-Mogg said that it made the United Kingdom a vassal state of the EU. Before someone says “You don’t know what is in the agreement” yes we do. The minor changes, that were made around the border, almost delayed progress because even that fiddling with words took days to put into legally binding text. The vast majority of Theresa May’s defeated deal was untouched. This was pointed out by some in the EU who were obviously taking an interest:

        “…this Tweet is from the EU Commissioners, dated 19th October, 2019, and proves that what Boris is offering is not Brexit at all. It’s just BRINO Mk.II:

        “The revised protocol responds to the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland with the aim of protecting peace and stability. All other elements of the Withdrawal Agreement remain unchanged in substance, as per the agreement reached on 14th November, 2018.””

        That message was from the EU, so of course they are happy. This deal is theirs and they took 2 years to prepare it for us. Now we will see just what damage they manage to do to the United Kingdom in the next 12 months. Damage that did not need to happen at all.

  23. Coming soon to an over-crowded city near you:

    3 JAN 2020 “China’s pork crisis piques interest in dog and cat meat, as animal activists raise the alarm over illegal slaughter”

    — Some regions of China have a long tradition of dog meat consumption, but African swine fever has boosted interest in an alternative source of protein to pork

    — Animal rights groups claim that as many as 10 million dogs are eaten each year, claiming that many are stolen or poisoned

    https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3044526/chinas-pork-crisis-piques-interest-dog-and-cat-meat-animal

    2. “African swine fever has boosted interest”
      Didn’t Robert Mugabe die of African Swine fever ?

  24. SIR – Claire Cohen (Comment, January 22) writes that the recovery of any contents, however valuable, from the wreck of the Titanic would be totally wrong because it is a grave site and so should be left in peace.

    In 1982 the wreck of the Tudor warship the Mary Rose was raised from the Solent after having sunk in 1545. It contained the bones of 179 people. Likewise, in 1961, the wreck of the Swedish warship Vasa, which sank in 1628, was raised from Stockholm harbour. That ship also contained skeletons.

    Both ships were time capsules just like the Titanic. Their many artefacts have been recovered and put on commercial display, as have the ships themselves. When is a grave site not a grave site?

    Simon Bathurst Brown
    Camberley, Surrey

    1. The answer is – when it is called archaeology. Graves are desecrated every day in the UK in the name of “science”. But that’s OK because the graves are old and the people breaking into them are professors. How would it be if I took a spade to the nearest graveyard (100 yards) and looked for something interesting from 100 years ago? I’d be put in jail.
      There is no difference between those “tomb robbers” in the Valley of the Kings and foreign archaeologists. Both lots desecrated graves and stole the contents.

      1. Our little 13th Century church is having a kitchen and toilet extension built on the North side but we have the Archaeological Society on our backs all the time, even though it’s been shewn that the exterior walls miss a set of very old, unmarked graves by a couple of feet.

      1. Exactly , so why is HS2 going onwards..

        The UK is a historic country , and it is being destroyed and plundered so quickly the way that Isil destroyed Syria and Iraq countryside and artefacts .. The cradle of civilisation!

        1. TB,
          In many respects we have become the cradle of the
          LMF brigade, and most certainly the incubator of treacherous politico’s.

        2. 60,000 dug up near Euston, including Matthew Flinders who once circumnavigated Australia. I expect they’ll find a consecrated skip to dump the bodies.

          If they do enough damage right now (and contractors aren’t too fussy about whether the nature reserve they turn up to is on the route; they just chop down the trees anyway), then nobody will mind spending the extra money just to get it done, at least the profitable bit of it.

  25. Co-op faces equal pay claims from shop workers

    A shop floor job and warehouse job are not the same at all

    More than 400 employees have launched an equal pay claim against the Co-op supermarket chain in the latest retail pay battle.
    The Co-op shop workers, mostly women, say they are being underpaid compared with warehouse workers, who are mostly men.

    2. Why don’t they just apply for a job in the warehouse?

      Or are the working conditions there not to their liking, and maybe why warehouse workers are paid more than shop assistants?

      1. If it is a proper warehouse as well they need to use mechanical handing equipment as well as a forklift and may need to work at height
        They fail to mention that female warehouse staff gets the same pay as men

  26. On lighter note, the number of suspected cases of Coronavirus in Edinburgh has risen. One has been asked to stay at home in voluntary quarantine. That’ll work, until they need to buy something from the supermarket.
    No tests for this virus can be carried out in Scotland. The samples have to be sent to London. So there is a minimum delay of 24 hours, for transport and testing. Of course, as the number of suspected cases rises inexorably the lab in London will become backed up with tests.
    With impeccable timing TripAdvisor have sent me this, for Chinese New Year, I suppose;
    https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurants-g186525-c11-Edinburgh_Scotland.html

    1. Swiss hospital drones to take off again

      Drones grounded following a crash near a child’s play area have been given the go-ahead to take off again.

      The incident, in May, was the second in a year and prompted an independent safety investigation.

      Swiss Post and start-up dronemaker Matternet had been working together to carry lab samples between hospitals.

      The first incident, in January last year, saw a drone make an emergency landing on Lake Zurich, following a GPS hardware error.

      In the second, more serious, incident, the drone’s parachute malfunctioned and it crashed yards away from an area where young children were playing. There were no injuries.

      At the time, Swiss Post asked Matternet to make several changes:

      reinforce parachute ropes with metal braiding
      have two ropes instead of one
      make a whistle alerting people to its presence louder

      1. H’mmm …. wait for the first drone carrying a small pox virus sample to crash in a High Street near you.
        (And no, I do not believe that small pox has been eradicated. It is lurking somewhere, probably in an African bushmeat market.)

    2. Morning HP,
      Trip advisors advice should be, stay away from lab/lib/con in the polling booth to maintain a good standard of health & safety
      Submission, PCism, Appeasement can & will kill.

    3. ” No tests for this virus can be carried out in Scotland. The samples have to be sent to London”
      And they still wan to be independent ?

      1. Well, some rearranging will be required. The big stumbling block is the dire performance of the Scottish Government.

  27. Tesla overtakes Volkswagen as value hits $100bn

    Could be another dot com type bubble. Tesla has a higher valuation but does not sell many cars and makes a loss

    It is quite a risk, You could make a a small fortune but equally you could lose your shirt

    1. Chap down the way bought one of those model X jobbies. As he showed it off I thought… is that a smear? No, the paint was rubbing off. One of the doors fits tighter than the other. As he closed the boot, the door dented – fractionally – where his fingers had pushed on it.

      It’s a nice enough motor but for the price of a house? His charges cost him about £30 a month, my motor does 450 miles to £40. Is it really more economical considering where the energy comes from?

  29. Increasingly likely there will be cases of Chinese corona in the UK, I would say that was a ricin bloody certainty.
    What leads me to believe so is the evil consequences
    as witnessed via mass uncontrolled immigration, ie
    paedophilia rape & abuse etc,etc, as seen by all but the three monkey fans.
    A decent nation would have channel patrol vessels in operation NOW, not awaiting the dead count to start & mount.

      1. I hope those aren’t pee samples. Second from left is a little dehydrated but far right is a goner!

      2. Limeade, Lemonade, Orangeade, Cherryade, Cream Soda, Clarona, Cydapple, Cola, Dandelion & Burdock, Ginger Beer, Orange Tango or Lemon Tango.

          1. Shirley you jest! I would rather drink rat’s piss (or even Whitbread’s).

            [And I suspect Yo would too]

    2. Maybe people are slowly reducing their expenditure on luxuries? Like, not shopping so much, and not eating out so much.

    3. There is saturation coverage of Curry Houses as well as people moving on to other cuisines

      If you look at you average High Street it is hard to see how all these food outlets survive

  33. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/66ea021765d638fe76d7317ba5d560c63f606ce960f48fe8f339d6cf36f79b16.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/66ea021765d638fe76d7317ba5d560c63f606ce960f48fe8f339d6cf36f79b16.png I just hope that the human detritus, that formed this jury, never have to discover that one of their children has died or has been maimed by this scum (or someone similar) hacking at them with a machete!

    The world has truly gone down the lavatory.

        1. I don’t see the logic at all. Clearly he had the machete, and cutting someone in the head is deffo attempted murder.
          The officer should have shot the b*stard.

          3. From the news report that I watched last night he was shot once, but the Taser failed to activate or “go off” so then he was shot a second time, where it worked. With the camera footage of the attackers complete contempt for our rule of law, I would have kept the Taser on until he was “well done.”

          4. “Put your tasers on tickle”, must not do any actual harm and no doubt the attacker will get public funds to sue the Policeman for the trauma of being tasered… and win…..
            there have been a very few unfortunate incidents with Tasers and he might use that to claim self-defence and that the policeman tried to murder him.
            By the way, was he right that the van was not insured? if so that makes his crime even worse….. or it used to.

          5. It was probably attempted manslaughter in UK law it has to be premeditated to be Murder

          6. That’s BS – Murder is the unlawful taking of life – pre-meditated or otherwise, it’s still murder.

            Don’t try and excuse the scheiße.

          8. How much fucking premeditation do you need to swing wildly and repeatedly at the head of a police officer with a long sharpened machete, you utter clown?

            I just hope that if I am ever on trial, for whatever, in a British there will not be any halfwit chumps like you serving on the jury!

          9. You don’t have to premeditate a murder. It’s enough if you have a general intention to cause serious harm.

            Completely edited.

          10. There is a fine line between murder and Manslaughter. If what you were saying were correct then Manslaughter would not exist

            murder is generally defined in law as an intent to cause serious harm or injury (alone or with others), combined with a death arising from that intention, there are certain circumstances where a death will be treated as murder even if the defendant did not wish to kill the actual victim. This is called “transferred malice”, and arises in two common cases:
            The defendant intended serious harm to one or more persons, but an unintended other person dies as a result;
            Several people share an intent to do serious harm, and the victim dies because of the action of any of those involved (for example, if another person goes “further than expected” or performs an unexpectedly lethal action).

          11. That’s where the evidence regarding possession of the machete within such a close distance, comes in. It would fit in the transferred malice category. Also the number of times the machete was used.

          12. And they believed he had the machette to cut brambles? Really? O bloke was arrested in scotland and charged for carrying a pototo peeler…. ok, so he was white, but still….. but I expect this was the bit they didn’t want the jury to hear, that he had used a machete before and not for cutting brambles.

          13. He could have used a good pair of gloves and secateurs to cut brambles, but I suppose a pair of snips doesn’t carry much street cred when you start waving them about on a London street of a night and you’re trying to impress your bruvs.

          14. Actually using a machete would be more dangerous to him than the secateurs….. I know from making that mistake with a bill-hook (soon to be renamed a gender-neutral-hook. I used to prefer the Sussex version but not sure if that is PC these days given the current owners of the “Sussex” name…..

          15. That’s where “beyond reasonable doubt” comes into it. Unfortunately juries aren’t allowed to know previous.

          16. This was Leyton, in East London, not the wilds of surrey…. so just how widespread are Brambles and how necessary that a “member of the public” needs a machete with him at all times? Are juries these days really that simple? I guess so. Not, maybe, as bad as US Juries with their riduclous belief that Mc Donalds is responsible to its idiot customers who don’t realise that (a) fresh coffee is hot and (b) the dashboard is not place to put it when driving out through one of those Strom drains…. and award her millions in damages.
            Of course, today, fresh coffee is never hot from Mickey Dees but then it was never really good coffee either.

          17. I agree. I was simply saying how such a verdict could be reached, with good Counsel for the defendant. And perhaps some not-too-bright jurors?

          18. What the hell is ‘attempted manslaughter’? Attempting to unlawfully kill someone by accident?

          19. That idiot proves to us, hourly, that he has no knowledge of any subject whatsoever. He goes through life reading idiotic publications and printing their vacuous bilge on this forum.

      3. How is this not attempted murder?

        This incident, copmlete with body cam should ahve been enough, all by itself, to justify such a charge with or without prior convictions being brought up before the jury. Yes, i can see the dangers of this but hopefully they very much will be taken into account in sentencing…. but with our Bliar style woke judicial system, who knows?

      4. It does highlight the situation that our politicians of both parties have put our country into over the past 22 years, and even before that. If this can happen to a Police Officer doing a simple vehicle stop, and the attacker is cleared of attempted murder, then what chance do the public have?

        We are being deliberately led down a very dark path, as is most of Europe, and by the opponents of President Trump in the USA.

        1. MM, the good people of this Country are being sacrificed on the altars of mass immigration from the Third World, multiculturalism and diversity is our strength bullshit. Sadly, all major politicos are entranced by these imaginary improvements to our culture and only the people are capable of taking back control. I don’t think that I’ll live to see the revolution but I do believe it will happen.

          2. Meanwhile in Sweden the reports are that the authorities are deliberately mis-reporting crimes such as Explosions…. (loud bangs? nor just muffled pops are they now?

      2. Out in 8 and free to commit more murders.

        Bring back capital punishment for both murder and attempted murder.

    3. This verdict caused a very lively debate on Nick Ferrari’s LBC programme this morning. While Ferrari and most callers were appalled by the jury’s decision there was one caller who stated that as the people complaining weren’t in Court they didn’t know the details sufficiently well to make a judgement.
      Another caller stated that the police officer attempted to stop his attacker from driving off after the latter had been pulled over for a possible insurance infringement. The claim was that the officer grabbed the driver by the throat in his attempt to stop the driver pulling away and this action caused the attacker’s reaction i.e. slashing at the officer’s head with a large bladed weapon to stop the officer from doing his duty. A very poor attempt at mitigation IMHO but it appears that it may have influenced the jury. Good to hear that the PoS got a longish sentence but will he be out early? He has the right name for easy punishment and early release.

      1. Approximately ten years or so ago I was called to jury service. To cut a long(ish) story short, before we were sent off for our final deliberations, the judge gave his summing up. During his speech, the judge manipulated the way he thought the verdict should go. We thought otherwise of his views, and returned a different verdict from his opinion. At his final summation, before bidding the jury good-bye, the judge graciously acceded to our differences, saying there was no better system than ‘twelve good men and true’ to evaluate their peers*. It was about the time there were voices being heard about the perpetrators of crimes being judged by a panel of professionals. As a jury, we were on to our second and third criminal event of the two week obligatory stint and we were not going to be pushed around by a judge. We learned very quickly ‘wot was wot’. Had it been the first case that we heard the result might well have been different. We must never forget the presiding judge’s influence in these cases.

        * This is all very well if the population is sprung from the same culture…..

        1. Having a vast catalogue of experience of giving evidence in Crown Courts, I would have relished the opportunity of serving on a jury. Unfortunately I am disqualified from jury service having once been a serving police officer. The thinking behind that is that I may, somehow, be biased and struggle to refrain from shouting out “Hang them!” after every conviction!

        2. I was on jury duty once where a gang had robbed a house and were caught in the process.
          It was organised so that some were in the house passing stuff out to those outside who were loading it in a car. The defence lawyer for those outside sought to get the charges against them reduced from burglary to receiving stolen property.
          We would have loved to give our opinion but one of the legal geniuses managed to fall foul of some earlier court direction and it was then a mistrial and they had to start all over again without us…. I have no idea of the final outcome…..but did see just how corrupt the moral compass of some legal tupes could be.

    4. If that same detritus found their children being murdered by a machete wielding psychopath, I’m sure they would find him not guilty of murder but just guilty of being a ‘very naughty boy.’

    4. Judging by the failure of the South African quicks in the test today it was probably a mistake to leave out a recognised spinner. Root and Denly can bowl spin but not to the same standard and with the guile demonstrated by Bess.

    5. Surely it depends on the wicket? If it is likely to not favour spinners then you don’t select them.

      1. .Having spent more days at Wanderers than I can to recall over a thirty year period, there were very few occasions when the wicket took spin – it used to be a seamer’s paradise. That said, the last time I was sitting at the Golf Course end was over 20 years ago so matters may have changed.

        On a slightly different note, I would have loved to hear the views of Charles Fortune (1906-1994) – SA’s answer to John Arlott – on the modern game. I suspect it wouldn’t be entirely positive.

        PS I have some mp3 files of his delightful commentary which I’d have liked to upload here but Disqus seems unwilling so to do. Does anybody know how this might be accomplished?

  36. Crime figures: Theft ‘decriminalised’ as police fail to pursue all prosecutions. 23 JANUARY 2020.

    Police and prosecutors have been accused of undermining justice as it emerged some forces are not charging any thieves.

    The failure of the police to successfully pursue criminals emerged as Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police commissioner, warned the latest crime figures exposed a “perfect storm” of rising offences and falling prosecutions overall.

    There are regional and local variations but essentially the Criminal Justice system, Police, Prisons, Courts, Whatever, has collapsed. This is not to say that those cases in the Public Eye will not be tackled for the purposes of concealing reality, nor the pursuit of Thought Crime which provides a cheap (both in cash and manpower terms) illusion of a Law and Order presence.

    Justice is not alone here, the NHS, the Military, pretty much any publicly funded National Institution you care to think of are moribund.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/23/crime-figures-theft-decriminalised-police-fail-pursue-prosecutions/

    1. Morning AS,
      The whole infrastructure is, if not sagging due to overload in places, is totally missing or broken in other places due to those following the
      submissive, PC / Appeasement route.
      As I posted yesterday more patients,
      welfare dependants are crossing the channel as we type & not one of the governing parties have tried to stem the flow yet.
      Rhetoric plus more rhetoric seemingly calms the herd, I do
      believe we have more to suffer before countrywide enlightenment takes place.

  37. In parliament yesterday they said that there had been no cases of the Corona Virus in the UK, but he never said if anyone had yet been tested for it.

  38. The Guardian view on the licence fee: the BBC will not be the BBC without it. Editorial. 24 January 2020.

    The BBC is the glue of the nation, bringing people together with its sports coverage and landmark dramas and documentaries. It seeks to reflect the UK’s identity and is a vital cog in the economy. It is admired globally, notes media analyst Claire Enders, for retaining Britain’s cultural sovereignty. Yet ministers wonder why the BBC shouldn’t adopt a subscription model like that of Netflix, forgetting that the latter floats on a sea of debt. The BBC might do very well under such a system, but it would not be the BBC that we know. Currently, it is a universal service, paid for by all with a licence fee meant to guarantee independence.

    As always it is how the BBC ought to be not how it actually is! It doesn’t bring people together. Like the Labour Party it hates the indigenous population and seeks to “Reform” them with its PC multicultural, LGBT agenda. Where is this “Global Admiration” that is touted to justify UK licence payers subsidising foreign viewers? It does not exist! Pride and Prejudice does not a foreign audience make!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/23/the-guardian-view-on-the-licence-fee-the-bbc-will-not-be-the-bbc-without-it

    2. SIR – Gwyneth Dear (Letters, January 23) asks what all the fuss is about, as the BBC licence fee equates to the price of one coffee a week.

      If a brand of coffee consistently raised my blood pressure unduly I’d be stupid to keep drinking it. The BBC regularly pushes mine to danger levels with its unrelenting political bias, not helped when spokespeople show their contempt for fee payers by denying it. I can opt not to pay for a coffee but not the BBC licence fee.

      Colin Drury
      Dinas Powys, Vale of Glamorgan

    5. The BBC is a cog only in the sense that it stops free motion of the engine by diverting resources away from where they could otherwise be used. It’s like the government in that way.

      1. The guardian exists due to a massive grant from an investment fund sited offshore to avoid tax.

        Odd that this hard Left, big state, pro regulation, anti capitalist rag exists only because of the cash that investment fund gives them.

        They are the epitome of hypocrisy.

    8. I watched part of the re-run of the BBC’s last version of Pride and Prejudice on the Drama channel over Christmas. It was true to the book and true to the period. Not a single black one-legged trans-lesbian in sight. The decline has been quite rapid.

      BBC Studios is already a commercial entity, divided between Studios Productions which is now a production house for hire and Studios Distribution, whose function is self explanatory. I think Studios would survive a move to subscription funding. Even my boss, a self-confessed Marxist, believes it would survive but in a scaled down version.

      I wonder though whether Boris threw in the possibility of decriminalising the licence fee as an election sweetener, instantly forgotten once elected?

    9. Is the Guardian being on their side likely to help the Beeb or will it do a Bliar to them? His intervention in Brexit was a godsend.

  39. Here is Sherelle’s latest article from the DT (I also post a comment underneath it with which I agree):

    My heart fell when Johnson refused to have anything to do with Farage – this showed that Johnson was more prepared to lose the general election than give us a proper Brexit.

    My heart fell again when Farage caved in and withdrew TBP candidates from seats already held by the Conservatives because I was sure that Johnson would give absolutely nothing in return.

    All our eggs are now in one basket – of Johnson proves untrustworthy then we shall have lost Brexit.

    As Whitehall plots to crush Dominic Cummings, prepare for a dirty anti-Brexit war
    SHERELLE JACOBS
    DAILY TELEGRAPH COLUMNIST
    Follow 24 JANUARY 2020 • 11:47AM
    Save
    179
    Dominic Cummings
    The road to reform is booby-trapped at every turn
    The PM’s aide can checkmate the Establishment if he avoids the “management trap” and doesn’t succumb to ego
    How to take Dominic Cummings’ war on Whitehall. A devastating anti-bureaucratic revolt planned meticulously for years by an “evil genius”? Or the doomed pipe dream of a tortured managerialist?

    This is the most important showdown of Mr Cummings’ career. The Vote Leave mastermind knows that the task before him is no mere swift, brutal campaign battle. In order to push through Brexit and ensure the working-class heartlands’ revolt against Labour is permanent, he must lead a ruthless guerrilla war.

    Mr Cummings has no choice. He and his small team of insurgents are grossly outnumbered. The old cliche is that the British government is creakingly unproductive. In reality, it is a bilgeing slime of over-professionalised bureaucracy. Whitehall systemically favours oleaginous mediocrities who can slick to the top, by honouring an administrative code of stagnant protocol.

    The PPE-nurtured generalists who sit atop will do everything in their power to preserve their meticulously corrupt system. And, struck down with impotent official syndrome and snot-nosed with London anti-populism, their rank-and-file pen pushers are only too happy to help their masters jam the levers of Brexit.

    It’s too early to tell what the outcome of this showdown will be, but Mr Cummings’ job advert for “weirdos and misfits”, which has since been thwarted by Government bureaucrats – and gently ridiculed by pundits for its William Gibson cyberpunk references – is a sign of the tedious, sniggering battles ahead.

    The failure to challenge Whitehall’s assertion that the next ambassador to the United States must be a civil servant is also disturbing. Not least because they will be revilingly ignored by Trump’s anti-apparatchik advisers. The appointment of Mark Carney as the PM’s new green adviser last week signified another despicable win for the Blob (as my colleague Tom Welsh argues here).

    The road to triumph is booby-trapped at every turn. For starters, there is a risk that Dominic Cummings’ affection for whizzy Silicon Valley concepts makes him eminently beatable, as far as the Blob is concerned.

    While Whitehall will happily absorb his bad ideas, using them to multiply its layers of bureaucracy, it will endlessly reject the good ones that threaten real change. It is not hard to envisage a scenario in which Dominic Cummings’s vision of building a powerful new department of data scientists to make Brexit policy making more innovative and long-termist is scuppered, but his dream of turning No 10 into a Nasa nuclear plant-inspired “Seeing Room” is embraced with deckchair rearranging zeal.

    Mr Cummings will need an appetite for big wins and an ability to starve his ego of low-hanging fruit if he is to push through with his most meaningful reforms.

    He will also need to avoid “the iron law” of bureaucracy. Namely, that attempts to remove dead weight often merely yields more target setting and paperwork. Even Margaret Thatcher failed to avoid this in her attempts to roll back of the state. The danger is that, even if Dominic Cummings does succeed at, say, recruiting a “new generation” of Python-fluent physics graduates to build the kind of interstate wars predictive models that could help post-Brexit Britain be more nimble on the global stage, he may still find himself in a bureaucratic trap.

    What is to say that a “new generation” of parasitical project managers will not also be required to recruit and assimilate these Python-fluent physics graduates – whether this is because Whitehall insists upon this, or because existing middle-rung employees are stubbornly uncooperative? What is to say that a Dominic Cummings at his wit’s end won’t resort to hauling in expensive consultants to diagnose the office tumours? This is, of course, a pointless exercise, when the cancer engulfs the entire government corpus.

    Then there is the risk that Whitehall’s retrograde forces succeed at reducing Mr Cummings’s brilliantly sparky ideas to rhetorical hot air. It is not beyond the movement’s capabilities to absorb the data visualisation techniques and computational models championed by the PM’s adviser into its ooze of technocratic blather. After all, the managerialist caste justifies its existence by way of esoteric technocratic skills and command of machinic language.

    The final big risk is that the war on Whitehall becomes a psychologically nourishing displacement activity – or worse, a vanity-feeding PR stunt – that prevents Mr Cummings and the PM confronting their side’s own shortcomings.

    Behind the scenes, Brexiteers were horrified by No 10’s slowness to support the United States after its attack on the Iranian general Qassim Soleimani. They were also frustrated by its initial reluctance to negotiate a US trade deal parallel to the EU trade deal (to speed up progress with the former and lay the law down about the latter). MPs are also going into meltdown at the Government’s cowardice over scrapping the HS2 white elephant. A Whitehall revolution is pointless if No 10 has neither the stomach nor the conviction to carry out a proper Brexit, and make a strong case for conservatism in the North.

    The euphoria of December’s historic election result has subsided. For Brexiteers, it has given way, not so much to a hangover, as a foreboding nausea. As the battle lines for the long war are drawn along the threadbare carpets of the corridors of power, I’m afraid it’s time to hold our breaths once again.

      1. Indeed, but only if they are banned from taking up consultancy jobs anywhere in the Public Sector.

    3. R,
      Try, the johnson / farage was a successful joint effort with the endgame being “we hope the PM does the right thing”

    1. The supply frequency has to be maintained at 50Hertz plus or minus a small tolerance by law.

      1. Is that so old analogue electric clocks can use the mains frequency to maintain the time? I seem to remember watching them move their hands at around midnight to correct for any errors.

        1. Part of the reason. A synchronous motor’s speed of rotation is governed by supply frequency, but many domestic appliances (and industrial for that matter) rely on stability of supply. That includes voltage, frequency and the wave-form of the AC supply which should be a sine wave.

      2. But will there be a bill going through Parliament that addresses the cost of the fork handles needed when the power fails?

    2. No worries. Just listened to a Scientist bloke from Rolls Royce who are designing mini nuclear reactors which can serve cities and localities.

      1. Gonna be needed – the so-called renewables just don’t cut the mustard. A complete waste of time, materials and fortunes. But we’ve gotta keep green – and paying for it!

      2. Not such a bad idea.
        Nuclear generators have been used to power unattended navigation buoys.
        A fishing vessel crew came across one that had slipped its mooring and their eyes lit up when they realised they could warm themselves up on it

    1. Morning Anne

      I don’t understand why the Saudis wanted to hack, and if they are so bored rich and wealthy, what do they to gain.. and if bods have been hacked like Amazon, , what does that say about their security?

      1. That is the base of the joke.
        If the boss of Amazon is unaware of the risk, then there is no hope for the rest of us.
        p.s. look up Brooks Newmark as a terrible warning. (Unless his entry has been removed by that helpful EU privacy thingy.)

    2. A rather sobering missive from Littlejohn Anne, though well worth the reading. I don’t have a smartphone!

      1. I have one, but I’m not using it all the time like most people seem to these days. I don’t like apps that demand access to all your contacts and photos and files.

    3. Some of those delivery vans had a lot more character a few years ago. Instead of the one-shape aerodynamic boxes they have now. This first one may have been an early warning sign of future obesity. That is a sizeable delivery for someone with a sweet tooth, in what appears to be a private residence.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e8618e1c210d4b6f73a3c8401d52804a0d156b71861343b5851d6cf0a2f4dd5d.jpg

      Having meat products delivered to your door is an idea that should never have gone away.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5f2b408ae3a57f825ee564f2d463134a24e017bf8c5cf5a1c8e4c9db918718ea.jpg

      Although they might need to change the name of some of their tobacco products.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ec108bb7e76848d91b78ff17548999d1f6f945d5c7f08125421d1993bec516f8.jpg

      1. That’s when vans were vans – another reason why my model railway layout is based on the 1950-60s era.

      3. That first picture shows a British Railways van, the Bensons thing is just an advert!

        1. (You may be missing the point of the pictures. 🙂

          (Edit, i.e. just for nostalgic enjoyment.)

  43. ‘Six dead’ after shooting in town in Germany

    Six people are said to have died after a shooting in a town in Germany, according to reports.
    German news agency dpa reported that several others had also been injured in Rot am See, northeast of Stuttgart.
    Police said a suspect had been arrested, and that the incident “in a building” may be connected to a “relationship”.
    Initial information suggests the suspect and the victims knew each other, officers added, saying there was no evidence of further perpetrators.
    German newspaper Bild said the suspect was born in 1983, and that the dead are family members.

    3. You can almost set the scene: “Innocent person who believes the media propaganda that all religions can live happily together in a sweet coffee-coloured alliance says:

      “I don’t feel comfortable with you seeing my daughter alone at nights.””

      Recent arrival does not like to be told what to do by one of the “expendable kuffar” and shoots the entire family.

      If it hasn’t happened yet, it can only be a matter of time.

  44. Israel accuses the BBC of ‘belittling the Holocaust’ on eve of major Auschwitz ceremony
    The BBC has been accused by Israel of “belittling the Holocaust” on the eve of a major ceremony to remember the liberation of Auschwitz. Jewish leaders suggested a report on the News at Ten had fuelled antisemitism by appearing to link Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the Nazi murders of six million people.
    Erm, the Ten O’Clock News shurely, or do they mean ITN and not the BBC?

        1. Neither is right. 10pm is when the spinning globe is screened whilst the intro. music is played and a voice-over announces that “This is the BBC News with Hugh Edwards” (or whoever the duty evening newsreader is). The News then follows at 10.01pm.

          :-))

          1. Correct timing is a thing of the past with digital broadcasting being at least half a second behind real time. The pips on the hour are now meaningless.

    3. This is the Sinn Fein & PLO / Hamas loving scumbag BBC reporter Orla Guerin
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/23/israel-accuses-bbc-belittling-holocaust-eve-major-auschwitz/

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2020/01/23/TELEMMGLPICT000000924997_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqILVW0RXZ3wCP2MAFKk47V1oty6MAGXVPto-leuAmMrI.jpeg?imwidth=1240

      Ms Guerin, 53, has won multiple awards since joining the BBC in 1995, but has previously faced accusations of pro-Palestinian leanings.

      While she was working as the BBC’s Jerusalem correspondent in 2004, the Israeli government accused her of displaying a “total identification with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups” and “a deep-seated bias against Israel” over a report on a 16-year-old would-be suicide bomber. The complaint was later said to have been discussed by then-director general Mark Thompson with the late Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.

      In 2015 Ms Guerin faced further accusations of “directly misleading” viewers by failing to acknowledge the involvement of militant Palestinian groups in a spate of stabbings. On both occasions the BBC defended her coverage.

      The BBC appointed Malcolm Balen, a former editor of the Nine O’Clock News, to produce an internal report in 2004 examining whether the corporation was biased in its coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It then spent £200,000 on a successful eight-year battle to suppress the report’s findings.

      Personal Note re: Orla Guerin I recall she was quietly expelled from Israel later in 2004 after the BBC & the Foreign Office put pressure on the Israeli Government not to arrest her for transporting PLO officials banned from entering Jerusalem into the city using her Foreign Press accreditation from Israels Foreign Ministry which allowed her , her TV crew & vehicle to pass unchecked through police / military check points . This vile terrorist loving anti-Semitic low life trash should never have been allowed back into Israel & I consider it a shortcoming of my government not to have jailed her for aiding & abetting PLO terrorists posing as Palestinian Authority officials even if it meant a severe diplomatic row between the UK & Israel !

      1. Note that the lying cow is wearing a bullet proof vest whilst posing on the roof of a hotel or other building in Jerusalem to add to the fiction that she is in a dangerous war zone!

      2. Orla Guerin, Lyse Doucet and Jeremy Bowen. All three of them terrorist loving scumbags? Funny you should use that word – a friend posted this story on Facebook earlier today and that was exactly the term I used in response.

  47. I felt like ET’: UK man describes surreal coronavirus quarantine

    When Michael Hope returned to the UK from Wuhan in China and started to feel unwell, his first thought was that he was suffering from jet lag.
    Four days later, struggling to breathe and coughing continuously, he was urged to seek medical advice by his concerned family. From the moment the art teacher picked up the phone to his GP, his experience went from mundane to surreal.
    The 45-year-old would end up in quarantine for 28 hours, kept in a sealed room and being tested by medics in what he described as “spaceman suits”.
    “I felt like ET, to be honest,” he said. “It was totally, totally surreal.”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8161889b907bb95edd199823724a9f8c2530ca5712b0ab1a5f50f3e55040d776.jpg

    2. If ever there’s a word that’s overused these days, it’s ‘surreal’.

      Oops, forgot ‘iconic’.

  48. Police investigating after man’s remains found at farm

    An investigation has been launched after human remains were found on the Suffolk/Essex border.

    Police found what is understood to be a human skull on land off Middleton Road, near Sudbury, on Wednesday.
    Witnesses reported seeing a heavy police presence in the area with forensic officers spotted searching a nearby farm.
    An Essex Police spokesman said: “We were called shortly before 3pm on Wednesday 22 January with reports that what were thought to be human remains were found on land near to Middleton Road, Sudbury.
    “Further searches and examinations were carried out and initial indications show that the remains belong to an adult man.

  49. ‘Store closing’ signs appear in Palmers windows

    Store closing signs have gone up in the windows of a historic high street shop.

    With ‘everything must go’ and ‘all stock reduced’ posters appearing alongside the ‘store closing’ signs at Palmers in Lowestoft town centre, it comes as owners Beales collapsed into administration this week.

          1. The fishing fleets at Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft are not as big as they once were but fish are still landed there.

  50. A new study found that people who take their coffee black are more
    likely to exhibit psychopathic traits.
    And people who order a quad shot, non-fat, vanilla soy, extra foam,
    light whip with caramel drizzle are more likely to be their victims.

    1. Nice. I am in between… a spectator perhaps.
      This has all the silly hallmarks of a Lancet article.

  51. Hawkin’s Bazaar toy chain collapses into administration

    Toy chain Hawkin’s Bazaar has become the latest retailer to collapse into administration, putting nearly 200 high street jobs at risk.
    The Norwich-based chain has suspended its website but its 20 stores, which are already running clearance sales, remain open. Gift cards will only be accepted for a limited time after administrators were appointed.
    Tom Straw, a partner at administrators Moorfields Advisory, said it had been a challenging Christmas for the toy trade. The small business, which employs 177 people, has struggled to compete with Amazon and others.

  52. Deliveroo fees to include customers with ‘free delivery’ subscription

    Is that legal ?

    So the so called Free delivery subscription now seems to mean you will be charged £0.49P . Still it may have some health benefit people may cut back on fast food

    Sill lots of takeways used to have misleading delivery information. They would claim to have a Free Delivery Service but you got 19% off if you collected it so the Free delivery was actually a 19% charge

  53. The strange logic of the PC brigade

    An Englishman could play a Welsh part or an American part but woe betide him if he plays an African part

    2. Africans are in what should be English parts, e.g. Artful Dodger, Vikings (Dr. who), Mary Poppins Returns.
      Leftists: thy name is Hypocrisy.

      1. Just waiting for the Hollywood remake of Gone with the Wind. Whoopie or maybe Halle Berry is to play Scarlet (though the name will have to be changed and anyway, the name and Irish family ought to have seen Vivienne play with Red hair but that was woke even then) and Meryl will play Mammy. Possibly Benedict Cummerbund (how does he succeed in the US with the name Benedict, by the way, what was his agent thinking of??) is woke enough and democrat enough to play any part he likes in whatever colour he likes…..
        Er if you google American model actress James bond Google gets its emphasis in the wrong place and shows :under “People also ask”
        “Who was the black actress in James Bond?”
        Google ignores Halle Berry and replies:
        Naomie Harris, OBE, is an English actress …..
        er, they :

        1) ignored Halle Berry
        2) put the emphasis on Actress and not actor……… oh dear,

    3. And look how many Australians have played Robin Hood…. or Mel Gibson… oh, wait he wasn’t supposed to be playing himself but some Scottish reever or something….. and who can forget Dick van Dykes’ cockney accent?

  55. Vegan magazine closes after three years

    A glossy monthly magazine aimed at the UK’s vegans and others interested in learning about a plant-based diet has closed after three years in print,

    Vegan Living was launched by Select Publisher Services in October 2016, but it closed last month after 37 issues.

    1. There’s only so much you can say about not eating meat, then it starts repeating.

      That’s veg for you.

    3. There’s only so much you can say about not eating meat, then it starts repeating.

      That’s veg for you.

  56. News websites will have to ask readers to declare age or comply with new code, watchdog confirms

    News websites will have to ask readers to verify their age or comply with a new 15-point code from the Information Commissioner’s Office designed to protect children’s online data, the watchdog has confirmed.

  57. A mild winters day yet Renewable s are only supplying 12% of our energy needs and Solar is a farce. It costs a fortune and we get almost no energy from them

    1. Renewables are not designed to satisfy energy needs, they exist to satisfy investor profit requirements and therefore all is well in Renewables Land.

      1. Formerly a mermaid but now Equality Act compliant and gender neutral going forward.
        Joined Jan 24, 2020

        Is that you again Polly reborn as a Mermaid instead of a Parrot ??

          2. My good friend has an African Grey that’s about 40 years old now, at least.

            Smartest dang bird I’ve ever seen.

            He once overheard my friend in an argument with his girlfriend. He still cusses like a sailor today lol

            They had his cage near a table game, it was Gorgar, and he can reproduce all the electronic sound like that game.

            It’s an amazing breed of bird

          3. There is a story that has been around for a long time about one of those parrots, which may be true or not. It has certainly been about for years.

            There was a man who had owned an African Grey and who loved cinema and watching films. When he died one of his friends who owned a pub said that he would look after it, as it might be an attraction to customers. After a few weeks he was forced to give it to another friend to take care of though. The parrot had been saying several well-known lines from films, which was fine apart from one. Whenever a black person came into the pub the bird would eye them and then screech “Zulus! Fhasands of ’em!”

            Even if it is not true, it is still quite a good story. 🙂

    2. Plans to become 100% reliant on renewables should be posted in a place where the sun don’t shine.

    3. Wind generation is down to just 3%…
      I bet we won’t hear any announcements about that from any government minister.

  58. Meghan and Harry’s bid to trademark Sussex Royal blocked by Australian doctor

    Earlier this month it was revealed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were seeking to register the brand as a global trademark for a range of items and activities including clothing, stationery, books and social-care services.

    As well as the application to register Sussex Royal, which is also the name the couple use on their Instagram account and their website, one request was also made to register “Sussex Royal the Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex”, according to The Guardian

    .
    However, they’ve now hit a stumbling block after an Australian doctor, Benjamin Worcster, from Victoria, Australia, launched a legal opposition against their bid.

    1. If Harry and Meghan want to break with the Royal family then surely they should drop the term royal and not use the name Sussex.

      It is people like these two shysters who have given people in trade a bad name and show why snobbish people in the past used to look down their noses at ‘people in trade who are common’ .

      1. They certainly should not be using it for commercial reasons. I doubt Harry is behind this . IT is I would say Meggan

  59. Time for a good laugh:

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/24/delingpole-george-soros-donates-1-billion-to-combat-authoritarianism-seriously/

    Delingpole: George Soros Donates $1 Billion to Combat ‘Authoritarianism.’ Seriously?

    Financier and “philanthropist” George Soros is giving $1 billion to “universities to stop the drift towards authoritarianism.”

    According to the Guardian: In what he hailed as the “most important and enduring project of my life”, Soros said it was important to fund institutions that would help resist the drift towards growing authoritarianism in the US, Russia and China. He also launched a fresh attack on Donald Trump, calling the US president “the ultimate narcissist”.

    Really?

    Isn’t this like King Herod setting up a charity for the defence of the first born?

  60. Coronavirus outbreak: Hospital to be built in five days as death toll rises

    More like 5 years in the UK

    China is building a new 1,000-bed hospital in five days to treat victims of the new deadly coronavirus.
    Work has started on the building in the central city of Wuhan – the epicentre of the outbreak – in the style of a facility Beijing constructed during the SARS epidemic 17 years ago.

    Machinery including 35 diggers and 10 bulldozers arrived at the site on Thursday night, with the aim of it being ready by Monday.

    1. All of those diggers did look impressive, but it did have the look of a “keep calm – we are doing something” piece. I have heard people say that it takes concrete 30 days to fully harden when it is used as a foundation. So this might just be a very well-equipped triage centre. It is better than nothing for those living nearby obviously, but if it has spread all over the place already, they are going to need quite a few of them.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/53811f46826ad29c48b537b7976e0bf774247e492d0850eb4690b6e8b8028aa5.jpg

      1. 35 diggers and 10 bulldozers might sound impressive to the uninitiated, but it’s nothing, and as you say, reinforced concrete takes a month to cure after it has hardened and until then it cannot be subjected to working loads. Accelerators can be added, but they don’t get you a hospital in a weekend.

        What 35 diggers and 10 bulldozers (No dumptucks?) will get you is a levelled area to build some prefabs and some tents, maybe big enough for a thousand beds. The sewage arrangements should be interesting.

    2. They build hotels these days from modules constructed offsite and slotted into a steel frame. Maybe they will conscript enough modules from those that are already made. No need to comply with an encyclopaedia of EU regs and H&S, just bang it up.

    2. I’m assuming the “iron-y” is on.
      They are rats, pure and simple, they eat bird’s eggs, baby birds and if they can get them adult birds too.

      1. So do crows, magpies and other predators eat baby birds, eggs etc…it’s what they do…

        1. Indeed, but nowhere near on the scale of the grey tree rats in the UK.

          We’re lucky here, because the balance is much better.
          1) No grey squirrels. We have reds but they are nowhere near the top of the predator tree.
          2) Lots and lots of predators here that eat crows, magpies, jays and even red squirrels etc.

          What the UK needs is several of “my” top predators, martens, other mustelids. large raptors.
          The problem in the UK is that too many of the higher predators have been killed and that the greys have created a niche out of all proportion to their “natural” habitat.

          3. St Greta will tell you but she will probably say its the oldies that should be culled. Unfortunately there are many more youth than young these days…..

      2. I have seen a grey squirrel leap several feet off the ground to catch a blackbird on take-off from our garden. I am glad to say it missed. They are not just harmless nut-eaters. We bought some perspex upturned bowls to keep the squirrels off the feeders. It was amusing to watch them sliding off these defenders, and equally amusing to watch them working out a plan of action which never actually succeeded. They are cunning, clever little bu**ers.

    3. No cause for delight there. These imports are solely to blame for the fact that our native red squirrel is rapidly heading towards extinction in Britain and will soon be under threat in Continental Europe as the descendants of three grey squirrels released in a park in North-eastern Italy by some US servicemen just after the war, which have spread over the whole of Northern Italy threaten to expand their range north of The Alps.

      I was talking to a friend just yesterday on the banks of the river that passes the village, commenting how if we’d been sitting there just 5 years ago it would have been hard not to see a red squirrel. Since the greys arrived around that time the local reds have been wiped out by squirrel pox and are threatened throughout the county, which was one of their last strongholds in England.

      The best thing for a grey squirrel is a .22 calibre injection of high speed lead. https://www.rsne.org.uk/threats

      2. On Christmas Day my wife and I were on Mersea Island en route to friends for the seasonal lunch. As we drove along East Road on the island a squirrel ran across the road. “Did you see that,” I asked my wife, ” A red squirrel just ran across the road.” Another one was sitting on a wall a few hundred yards further on. Later I mentioned that event on here and I think it was Anne who confirmed that the island had been repopulated. Here is a link to a short BBC story on the attempt at re-population.

        BBC – Red Squirrels on Mersea Island

        1. There was a white one recentl;y spotted in Dorking’s main church…. don’t know if he is still there or been hounded out by now?

        2. I did wonder if it were a trick of the camera but at the same time the basket catapults, the cat in the window flinches and flees!

          1. It looks to me like a hand and a pair of scissors…. someone called the RSPCA yet? Animal rights?

          1. credit: Jimmy Cagney?
            Oh sometimes I hate wiki for debunking some famous mis-credited quotes….

          1. Yep.
            Big, plump, tasty.
            Yum yum.
            Nothing like the scrawny UK version

            All praise la Palombière

        3. Can you be a bit more specific?

          “Pigeon”: wood pigeon, stock dove, rock dove (of which feral pigeon is a type), collared dove, turtle dove?

          “Seagull” (detest that non-word): great black-backed gull, lesser black-backed gull, yellow-legged gull, herring gull, glaucous gull, iceland gull, thayer’s gull, common gull, black-headed gull, bonaparte’s gull, slender-billed gull, caspian gull, franklin’s gull, audouin’s gull, mediterranean gull, sabine’s gull, ross’s gull, ivory gull, ring-billed gull, laughing gull, little gull?

          Come on, we must be told how many of these species you wish to exterminate.

      6. It’s called evolution… survival of the fittest.

        I don’t care what colour they are I’m not racist! They are a joy and I love to see them take peanuts an bury them in my pots of bulbs for a late supper.

          3. Oh I don’t know…. it upsets squirrel lovers and cat lovers alike… fancy showing the bad behaviour of k=just one cat as if it represents the whole cat population…..

        3. It’s not called evolution at all, nothing to do with evolution and it’s not survival of the fittest. It’s environmental vandalism. It’s a result of a misguided deliberate introduction of a foreign species that has no place in a European ecosystem and it is causing immense and measurable harm.

          It’s as natural as the devastation caused to Australia by the equally misguided introduction of rabbits, ie completely un-natural.

          Nothing to do with colour, nothing to do with race. They are a serious problem caused by man and that problem should be solved by man. I’d tolerate a rat sooner than I’d tolerate a grey squirrel.

          https://www.rsne.org.uk/threats

          1. “a misguided deliberate introduction of a foreign species that has no
            place in a European ecosystem and it is causing immense and measurable
            harm.”
            ….ouch…I nearly used the ” M ” word…..

          4. I suggest you catch one, put it in a sack and smack it on the head with a hammer. Problem solved…

            My motto live and let live….they are a joy to behold.

          5. Plum – I don’t know why, but I thought that it was the Romans that brought the grey squirrels over. I must be getting them mixed-up with one of the other species that the Italians introduced into our country 2,000 years ago. It turns out that it was the Victorians bringing them here in 1876. So they have spread fast in only 143 years.

            They do damage to trees and wildlife, it is true. I would prefer the Red Squirrel given a choice, although I am unaware of what level of damage those ginger’s do, when left to their own devices.

            I do feel that Plum-Tart is being treated a tad harshly just for posting a picture of one. It was not Plum who released them from a concealed bag in the middle of the night.

          6. The Romans used to eat them.
            The red squirrel isn’t entirely innocent he’s not averse to a bird’s egg or a fledgling or two…

          7. Rabbits, you are thinking or maybe? Or was that the Normans and their warreners? No, the Romans brought the doormouse…. apparently a delicacy in honey, poor little blighters and much victimised by feline domesticus. Along with all other small animals and birds… a much better metaphor these days than squirrels….there are stats somewhere which reveal just how much damage moggies do to the wildlife.. and pretty alarming too.

          8. Er,……You are still talking about the squirrels? It is easy to feel offended these days and I just need to know so I can report someone to Sher Khan’s thought police….. or some University dean for which i understand there is good money on offer.

          9. Given the chance and sufficient years on earth I would happily smack every one of these pestilential rodents that is on this side of the Atlantic Ocean over the head with a hammer. Without the sack would be fine. They are dangerous to wildlife and misdirected sentimentality is harming our own wildlife by encouraging them.

            They are officially a pest, to the extent that if one is captured it is actually illegal to release it into the wild again.

          10. Er they are often referred to as “tree rats” and yes, they are cute enough in their own right but it would be so much better if the eco-loons recognised the rights of the indigenous red over the imported grey… oh, wait, we are talking about animal diversity here, aren’t we and the greys are probably needed to provide pensions for the reds… if they could ever do anything but nick other animal’s nuts…..Oh good lord, we can’t even talk about squirrels without the woke getting after us can we? Are we allowed to ask how many gay squirrels there are? There was a big fuss and rejoicing in the woke community when a gay pair of penguins nicked a straight pair’s baby……

        4. We have two large walnut trees in our grounds – one to the north if our house the other to the south. Each walnut tree house a red squirrel. They seem rather shyer than their grey cousins who have not yet reached our part of France.

    2. Chamberlain signed the agreement and gave the UK time to re-arm

      France signed it as the price of White Flags had increased rapidly

      Italy wer for it, while they converted their Military Vehicles to One Forward Gear Seven Reverse

  64. Government calls Cobra meeting on coronavirus after health watchdog says it is ‘highly likely’ in UK

    Cobra; A cronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A

    Dr Cosford said anyone returning from China who experienced symptoms should avoid ‘pitching up’ at hospitals or their GP, and instead contact NHS 111.

    But he said that the majority of people would probably recover if they contracted the virus.

    “Coronavirus is a very broad Church of viruses, from the common cold on one hand two sides on the other,” he added.

    “The people who have died are large the older people with other illnesses that they’ve got. And as I say that the majority of people. It does look as if they’re making a full recovery.”

    I would have been happier, if English was/were the first language of Dr Cosford

    Edit

    Dr Paul Cosford, who is also Director of Health Protection, said that five suspected cases had now been cleared, but several suspected cases are still ongoing with results expected today.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/24/coronavirus-uk-highly-likely-says-phe-nine-people-now-tested/

    1. The virus is reported as coming from a snake sold in a Chinese food market.
      The report does not say if the snake is a Cobra.

      1. Given the the virus is reckoned to have come from a fish market the Chinese are treating the suspected source of Corona Virus as being a red herring.

    3. The alternative translation of the acronym is Clots (or any other pejorative term starting with ‘C’) Of Brains Requiring Analysis.

    4. Locusts: UN calls for international help in East Africa

      The UN has called for international help to fight huge swarms of desert locusts sweeping through east Africa.

      A spokesman for the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), called for aid to “avert any threats to food security, livelihoods, malnutrition”.

      Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are all struggling with “unprecedented” and “devastating” swarms of the food-devouring insects, the FAO has said.

      The agency fears locust numbers could grow 500 times by June.

      Ethiopia and Somalia have not faced an infestation on this scale for 25 years, while Kenya has not seen a locust threat this size for 70 years, the FAO said earlier this week. South Sudan and Uganda are also at risk if the swarms continue to grow and spread.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-51234135

      3. 360 billion locusts. A local farmer asked plaintively how he was going to feed his 8 children. I would have thought the answer was obvious.

      4. I think we have our own plague of locusts to contend with. We should send the greater majority of them back, to feast on the EU, from whence they came.

      5. They can avert any food crisis by eating the locusts. Weren’t some ‘woke’ greeny PC types sasying recently that we had to give up beef and eat insects etc instead.

  65. Borehamwood Crown Road: Residents’ uproar at ‘atrocious’ container-style houses for homeless families

    Someone is making a lot of money out of modified Portacabins

    A total of 28 shipping container-style houses have caused uproar in one Hertfordshire town.
    Modular homes have been coined one answer to the UK’s housing crisis, with councils in Reading, Bristol and Brighton using them to provide a ‘quick fix’ for those who need a roof over their heads.

    Known as ‘prefab’ housing, the structures are created off-site and placed by crane into the approved location.

    Here are the key facts for the ongoing development:
    A total of 28 housing units will be built
    The plans include 18 two-bedroom properties and ten one-bedroom properties
    The whole project will cost around £2.5 million
    A maximum of 102 people could be living across the 28 units at one time
    There will be 22 allocated parking spaces for residents
    Work is set to be completed by spring 2020, after being approved in February 2018

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2909d36cfac8b7ea34c2b85c6012a9ea7392819a37da133df774ee44a72af29c.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d0cff45d984ac00044782ebe8b8eed0787f2a73eecc9053d19842e42c18b9964.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/591158b3046865842ea6e639157bc6af2e98e9013c8bee25fb111eddc5a7da4c.jpg

    1. BJ,
      Sardine villas, quite luxurious to the ones of the future if the electorate keep condoning mass uncontrolled immigration via the ballot booth.
      The future ones will introduce vertical
      sleeping, hot bedding sleeping racks,
      three 8 hour shifts 27/ 7.

    2. What a bloody awful mess. It’s clear that ordinary decent people just do not matter. Pay your taxes and get dumped on from a great height. Council tax discount on the cards?

    3. 28 housing units (is this woke speak for something other than “home”?) and only 22 parking spaces? Is this John Prescottism at work? So where will they abandon all their (wrecked) cars? on the street?

    4. Of course, the idea of pre-fabs is not new. In the post war UK many “pre-fabs” were built and proved home enough that many who lived in them really liked them. I think there was just such an estate in Reigate once..

      ….160,000 were thrown up in a hurry after the Blitz, and expected to last a decade. Long past that lifespan, a sword now hangs over the Excalibur. Lewisham Council plans to demolish the prefabs and build new homes.”

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1347259/Britains-prefab-estate-residents-battle-save-homes-built-10-years-ago.html

      They were not, perhaps pretty at first but those who lived in them soon saw to that and battle to save them…. maybe these containers could become much loved?….. if the people who are housed in them are of that blitz spirit type…. oh. Well, slums in a few months is probably what we should expect.

      Of course, once full and the fami.y at home revert them to shipping containers and ship them all back to the Mid east?

        1. Kilburn? Was it still German in those days or was it into its Irish phase by then? My great grandparents lived in Kilburn …. in the German Era.No idea what it is now….

          1. I suspect Irish, but as I had recently returned from Canada it was my accent that was the wrong ‘un.

      2. When we lived in Bow, there was an estate of cardboard-looking prefabs behind our block. Looked insubstantial, but were over 40 years old, so must have been ok.

        1. They knew how to build them with some pride back then. There was one new set of houses that were built while I was living in Oxford. They were very nice looking houses, and quite expensive. They still sold like hot-cakes, even in that city.

          These were brick & mortar houses but within 5 years of them being built you could see cracks on some of the outside walls, and spaces where there were holes between the bricks that you could slide a pencil through. I would not hold out much hope for any durability of modern portacabins compared to those pre-fabs from after the war.

          As others have pointed out, someone is making a lot of money somewhere.

          1. That sounds like some modern houses built by construction companies that didn’t have to live in them…. cheap and shoddy materials…..”utilitarian” (manic depressive) architecture…..

          3. Happy memories !! Barratt and Wimpey !! No, never lived in one – but they were the in thing in new-builds fifty years ago.
            You want damp ? We can give you damp !! They were new, so they sold like hot cakes.Not sure if they are still standing.

          4. When I was a manager of a building society branch I was required to attend all repossessions.
            We took in a Barrat home “semi” where the walls had separated.
            If in bed I suspect that one would have been able to look into next door’s bedroom.
            It would not have been a particular problem because the floor sloped away from the crack and the bed would have rolled into the far corner.

          5. The houses were actually very pretty. They looked like something you would find on a chocolate box, with nice alternate colouring of bricks, and aches over the porches and doors to the rear gardens. But it appears that they were held together with marzipan.

          6. Cameron’s dad in law and his wife? Oh but that is green belt land they had and he relaxed the planning regs for….

      3. Evening J,
        The council came to dismantle one in Kent and it had
        disappeared, probable still down the coast as a chalet.

  66. The top political eu mafia dons looked far to complacent
    & happy at the signing.
    As if everything has been settled to their satisfaction, all done & dusted.

      2. Boris has a chance to do the right thing. Although more than a few of us would point out that the “right thing” to do would be to stop this Withdrawal Agreement process in its tracks and just leave now, at the end of this month. Nothing could stop him. Certainly not the European Union. They could whine all they like, but they need a trade deal FAR more than we do and they will come begging when the money tap is turned off.

        We could then get on and make deals with the rest of the world, instead of being under EU control for the next 12 months with no MEP’s at all. Our American cousins fought a war against us with the cry “No Taxation without Representation.” We won’t have any say in the EU laws passed in the next year, but we will be forced to obey them.

        If Boris does screw this up and delivers a trade deal that leaves us just where we are now, then that is 5 more years with nothing changing. That will be another 1.5 million “new arrivals” and no matter what happens after that, we will not get our country back without it getting very, very nasty. So if Boris does not deliver, then here’s to having God strike him down, or another Conservative who WILL take us out of the EU kicking him out. If we are lucky we will have one more election to get it right, if Boris does go all “EU lover” on us.

        He could start by being nicer to the United States and President Trump for beginners. Drop-kicking that Chinese company from building our network infrastructure would be a good first step. Theresa May only embraced that idea as a way to drive America away as an ally and force us closer to the EU anyway.

        1. Evening MM,
          After all the treachery you still say ” another conservative”
          The time to leave was
          on the 25/6/2016 NO LATER.

        3. MM, if Johnson, either by design or incompetence, screws us over Brexit the goodwill he won, especially from the ‘Red Wall’, will evaporate like dew under a warm morning sun. He really is on notice after all the ‘positive’ sounding rhetoric leading up to the election and after. No amount of big spending within the UK will ameliorate the feeling of betrayal if he fails to deliver on all of the big talk.

          1. Korky – unfortunately, if Boris is a globalist then the idea of “losing goodwill” or being re-elected will mean nothing to him. It meant nothing to Theresa May as she begged the Labour Party of all people to help her get this Withdrawal Agreement through. Even promising them a 2nd Referendum if they backed her.

            The problem that we face now is much bigger. The existence of our country and democracy itself if we have another 1.5 million people arrive who hate our way of life. The same thing will happen here as is happening in other countries and there won’t be any Conservative or Labour parties at all in the future. The churches will be bulldozed or converted into mosques. All of those wonderful murals painted over and lost. This is far closer than some people think. Most were not even aware that it was a possibility at all 2 years ago.

            There was a quaint idea that there will “Always be an England” and I believe that there will be, but we will have real violence in order to save our country if we don’t stop the invaders arriving now. We have fought for our countries survival before, and it has been 1,000 years since we were last invaded. The last time our parents had to fight was 80 years ago. Now that time is coming again if Boris does not get us out. I have hope for the future and I think we will win, but I have no illusions about how evil some of our opponents are.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7a6660024a3e194aaed43bc737affe6ddd707746d25b0dd7fbeff1ff584a7974.jpg

          2. If the Tories and Johnson want another 5 years after this Parliament then keeping us tied to the EU is not the way to go about it. The election showed that more people are aware and concerned with what the EU is about and what the ramifications for this Country will be if we are tied to their rules – fishing being given away, tax harmonisation, ever increasing payments, the City being hollowed out, industries being closed and more.
            The Tories would be finished and very likely a new patriotic party would arise. I am of course looking at this scenario with what I consider some logic and with the good of the Country at heart, that’s not to say that the politicos take the same view. If they are rabid globalists then, as you intimate, they will not be able to help themselves and will be content to ruin the Country without a thought for the consequences to their own position. A kamikaze approach to governing?
            As for immigration, that is the next big battle whether or not we’re completely out of the EU. The current main parties appear wedded to this stupidity and it’s looking more and more likely that only the people will be able to stop it. It could get very messy.

          3. But he is only ever going to worry about us if there is a credible electable opposition waiting in the wings for their chance…. and since the Lib dems are an endangered species in the commons, if not the Lords, and labour just jumped off a cliff, he is safe to ignore us and do as he damn well pleases for about a decade yet. Becka Long barrow etc are not exactly going to put this right. In fact they signal that having hit the ground at the foot of the cliff quite hard they are now digging deeper.
            I do not trust Boris to do the right thing for us. our only hope is that when he does what is in his own self-interest it might just be aligned with what we also want… but a soft Brexit is probably good enough for him and a Trade deal worse than WTO and far short of the Canada Plus he was once banging on about.

      3. Many of us knew we would be back in June 2016 on hearing
        with much dismay the cry,” victory is ours, leave it to the tories”

  67. Article 13: UK will not implement EU copyright law

    Universities and Science Minister Chris Skidmore has said that the UK will not implement the EU Copyright Directive after the country leaves the EU.
    Several companies have criticised the law, which would hold them accountable for not removing copyrighted content uploaded by users, if it is passed.
    EU member states have until 7 June 2021 to implement the new reforms, but the UK will have left the EU by then.

    Kathy Berry, a professional support lawyer at Linklaters, welcomed the government’s stance on the law, claiming it will “allow the UK to agree to more tech-friendly copyright provisions in free trade deals with other countries”.

  68. May one ask,
    We will be out of the eu on 31st Jan 2020 but will we have left our wallet behind ?

      1. And underpants.

        Go Commando

        That is what Boris has in store for us

        Those who voted against the EUSSR, ie Brexiteers WILL be punished

      1. Or just pull out your machete and attempt to decapitate them!

        [Apparently the carrying of and use of such an implement to maim people has now been given the green light by a court]

          1. I know not why his risible excuses were considered acceptable but we don’t need machete in the UK for gardening purposes. A hand scythe is good enough.

            Did they choose the Jury in the same way as the audience of Question Time is chosen?

            Someone hacking at your head with a machete is trying to kill you !!!

            Previous convictions for rape and extreme violence and he will be out in five and a half years.

            I hope when he gets out that his next victim is the Judge that ………oh i give up.

          2. 10/10.

            That bastard should have been in prison instead of on the streets.

            Ideally, I would hang them.

            And when someone quotes Timothy Evans; I’m sorry, I would prefer one innocent to hang than several thousand innocents be raped, or killed by creeps who were released early.

        2. There was a case caught on camera a few years ago when the police were actually trying to do something about an islamic protest march. There was a man who was around 60 and he was waving his walking stick at a policeman and then he smashed the policeman across the face with it, drawing a lot of blood.

          He was arrested, but at the trial he was let off with a fine (or released) because the judge said that he had been “an upstanding pillar of the community” before that. The hate in the mans eyes on camera suggested something different. There were lots of online messages though after that verdict, from people saying that they were good members of their communities so did they now have the right to start beating up policemen?

          Obviously the answer was no.

          1. Mania in the eyes. Madness even. And we give these people houses and full benefits for nothing in return we get destruction across our culture.

            I remember as a child 50 years ago my elders referring to Paki Bastards and i cringed. They were right.

          2. How right they were. ‘P*k* B*shing’ of the 70s and early 80s was never about racism. It was all about the fathers and brothers of young indigenous girls sorting out a problem the police and other authorities would not address. We all know what that problem is now. But the press then – presumably at the behest of their political masters – chose to present it as Ooooh ! Shock !! Horror !!! – and use it as an example of in all instances yes, you’ve realised – RACISM !!!!

            I fear our sons are going to learn the hard way that their parents were correct.

          3. The majority of curry houses were Bangladeshi and were good. A rhetorical question….How many Pakistani restaurants are there?

          7. If I knew I wouldn’t have bothered with the caveat. The caveat was to show exactly that, that it was what i had been told but didn’t actually know.
            Its the sort of post one makes in the hopes someone who does know will respond to not someone getting their knickers in a twist.

            I am pretty sure some others post what they think but don’t know without that clarification. So which do you prefer?

          8. I don’t know, but I can’t imagine that a Pakistani tastes good, so there won’t be much demand.

          9. Nope, our daughters and granddaughters are already learning the hard way that their parents were correct.

          10. Ironically many of those who grew up in the UK before the Bliar/EU madness would have been horrified at any suggestion of racial intolerance but the sheer numbers today and their behaviour is creating an intolerance, mostly understandable to an extent, that was never there before.

          11. I remember some 30 years ago or so a progenitor of the woke species, a young lady teacher, in a greengrocers asking the greengrocer where the apples came from.
            “South Africa” he replied.

            “Oh. The I won’t have any thank you” (Apartheid days)
            An old lady in the queue behind her said, very sympathetically, “Oh I quite understand, dear, all those black hands handling the fruit.”

            PS that she was against apartheid is commendable but she was well on the way to wokeness in all things….just caught out by the times…..

        4. Pity the poor bloke in Dunfermline street arrested for carrying a potato peeler in a public place…….

          https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/16197023.man-in-court-for-having-potato-peeler-in-public-place/

          Of course, Defence solicitor Selina McKay said her client “suffers from significant learning difficulties which have been lifelong”.
          A bit desperate and only acceptable had he not had a name like Scott Walker but what else could she try? (Scott? a man (assumed) named Scott in Scotland? I wonder if Brit Spears ever visits North of the border?)

        5. Further to reports earlier, the PoS was allegedly a gardener and such an implement is a legitimate tool of that trade – useful for clearing undergrowth although any sensible person would have a heavy duty strimmer for that job. However, why the weapon was in the front of the van and ready to hand and not locked away in the back of the van with the rest of his tools is a question that doesn’t appear to have been asked.

        6. Not if you’re indigenous, you’ll find. Only if you come from a people who are more than happy to use such an implement.

      2. Evening P,
        Sad to say there are many of this nation who found it unacceptable to walk away on the 24 / 6 / 2016 so the thought of running away would be out of the question.
        Let us face the fact that up until the 24/6/2016 the lab/lib/con
        politico’s were voluntary eu rubber stampers who would still IMO prefer staying & paying.

      3. Er, always carry a cheap spare wallet filled with monopoly money and incomplete store cards …. by the time they have picked it up you should be long gone…. but don’t get caught. Tormenting muggers is frowned on by our woke police.

        1. I use the same, but with lots of real but very out of date notes.

          I’ve never had to do it and I hope I never will.

        2. Mine was the quick version! I was trying to point out that the eu were the muggers in this instance, we have to take our opportunity and run.

  69. Who was responsible for giving johnson a pen, that is on par with giving B,Bunter the keys to the tuck shop.

      1. Year of the Rat will be more lucky for some than others….

        Rats symbolise wealth, intelligence, success and wisdom to the Chinese. In terms of the Yin and Yang theory, they are the yang and signify the beginning of a new day.

        3. I didn’t know the Chinese were that fond of politicians, least of all in Hong Kong these days.

    2. Apparently the year of the Rat is doing very well even though 50 million people are unable to go to market to buy them for their buffets.

    1. Apologies …….I posted late last evening…..I can’t erase it from my thoughts.

      Time doesn’t help…..

      1. Hi, P-T, I’ve been to Dachau, a very sobering experience and a classic example of man’s inhumanity to man.

          1. It is still happening now, but in a less organised way. Every few years someone decides to mention some genocide somewhere, with stacks of bodies in the fields. They rarely report it, obviously, if it is done by those that the media calls “friends.”

            There are those who would like to see us like this on the streets of every Western city, town and village. They won’t have any regrets or remorse when they do it either. Even during World War 2, some of those SS units, who were about as bad as it got for atrocities, were appalled by the things that they witnessed them doing.

            It is easy to forgive those otherwise “good men” on the Allies side, who caught those responsible and shot them on sight.

        2. Been to Auschwitz, Birkenau, Sachsenhausen, and they fitted the music to a T. Intense, and very moving. Especially the poor, broken shoes, and leather cases with the owners name and address painted on…

          1. Been to Auschwitz & Theresienstadt (the “Model Jewish Settlement” much filmed for propaganda purposes) near the western Czech border.
            I was given “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” for Christmas. It was so gripping I read all 300 pages in 2 nights.

  73. “His [Karl Pilkington’s] decision to only play characters to whom he is similar helps him avoid criticism from those who say that straight, white actors should never play minority roles, as happened to Scarlett Johansson, who was accused of “whitewashing” when she accepted the role of an Asian character in Ghost in the Shell in 2017, and Eddie Reymayne, who was criticised for playing a transgender woman in The Danish Girl.
    “Now I think people are going against that a little bit, [they’re] like, ‘Why you have got an English person playing an Irish character? Jack Whitehall played a gay person or something, and everyone got upset going, There’s enough gay actors, get a gay actor. Me being me, no-one can argue with that. If anyone’s got permission to be me, it’s me.” “

    It’s called acting FFS

      3. I do think they have a point. Only black actors should play the parts of black people. Martin Luther King…check. The Black Panthers…check. The terrorist and his wife, Nelson Mandela…check. The Colour Purple…check. (I liked that one). And of course ROOTS………. Looks like lots of films on slavery are about to be made.

    2. That’s Damian Lewis and the like on the dole queue then.

      Half of America is convinced that he’s a Yank.

      1. Didn’t Hugh Laurie get the part in ‘House’ because no American actor would touch the role, lest it damage their image, and that nobody on the casting committee had seen him in Blackadder or playing Bertie Wooster?

    3. It could end Russel Crowes career, and Mel Gibson’s, palying Robin Hood and Braveheart…… but then,…..

    3. Given your Cartoonograph i would actually like to see the both of them Ski Corbet’s Couloir, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA. …

      1. We went there [Jackson Hole] years ago – took the lift up to the couloir, had a good look at it and … ran away! Ye gods, it was cold when we went – the planes were grounded on the day we were due to leave after a major power failure meant they couldn’t de-ice the aircraft – we were lucky to make our connections!

  76. Whoopee.

    Coronavirus is confirmed just down the valley.

    Oh, Happy days.

    Hardcastle Craggs, are you still with us?

    I reckon it’s 50/50 which of our villages gets it first.

    3. Soho, the most ‘Chinese ‘ village in UK

      (or spy base: every ‘armed forces establishmenr; had a Chinese Cafe nearby

  77. EU names first post-Brexit UK ambassador

    Portuguese diplomat Joao Vale de Almeida is set to
    serve as the EU’s top envoy in London after the UK leaves the bloc, EU
    authorities have said. The diplomat has represented the EU in Washington
    and at the UN.

      1. back when I was at school there were no knives or drugs, or security – they didn’t need security when you considered some of the teachers especially one on duty keeping order in the dinner queues…. and the bullies relied on Chinese burns and dead legs for their “terror” campaigns, those few there were, and, regrettably perhaps, few bothered me more than once. I had a very peaceful life at school…. and the educational standards were far above now, not that it did me much good or as much good as they might have done.

          3. Yes. I somehow managed to pass the 11+, to the surprise of my primary school, and once in the grammar stream at a bi-lateral (my choice, no idea why now, and for some reason parents listened) they never managed to get me out…. but still, when they wrote, as they often did, “Tries hard. Could do better.” I suspect that ought to have been the comment levelled back at them.

          4. I wrote my entry exams for the 11+ just before we emigrated to SA. Never did find out if I passed or not …

          5. WE had to buy our books (exercise and text) at the beginning of each year. There was a thriving trade in 2nd hand text books with the parents of children in the year ahead.

  79. DT Article

    Prince Charles delivers a strong message of support for the plight of the Palestinian people

    Yesterday he was sucking up to Greta Thunberg.

    Tomorrow will he be saying that he supports Pakistani rape gangs?

    O judgement thou art fled to brutish beasts
    And men have lost their reason

    [Shakespeare: Julius Caesar]

    What can one say? Do we really want this idiot as king?

    2. The Royal Family has been blessed with two court jesters / fools – Charlie & Harry !
      Flook the damn Fakestinian’s !

      The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.

      A quote by Zuheir Mohsen (1936 – 25 July 1979) who was a Palestinian leader of the Syria-controlled as-Sa’iqa faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) between 1971 and 1979.
      https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zuheir_Mohsen

    3. Let’s hear what he has to say when the so-called Palestinians start another murderous intifada when they hear Donald Trump’s peace proposal.
      Honestly, could he have chosen a timing for his support for the jihadists any worse than this ?

    4. I wonder if he’ll be the royal who converts to I s l a m, as per the L an caster plan, which I posted a link to yesterday.

      No. I don’t want him as king.

      1. It would not surprise me to learn that he has already converted. He wants to keep his head on his shoulders, the previously reigning owners of his name had form. About him being King? Sadly I fear we will have to take the rough with the smooth.

    5. Does he really want to be king? He is going the right way about skipping a generation….. I only ever really sympathised with his views on modern architecture.

  80. Kings Cross Station Closed this weekend

    Major track renewal and reopening the abandoned tunnel; I assume it fell into disrepair and they did not ned the capacity. What condition the tunnels is who knows , they are very old. I assume they have done a survey to try to see what work is involved. Once reopened it gives another two track out from King Cross

    1. The tunnels should never have been closed in the first place.
      A totally short sighted decision made by bean counters.

        1. I don’t think the dear sweet man realises how much we suffer without him. He is part of my life.. I remember listening to him on the wireless with Jimmy and then Alan Titchmarsh and Pebble Mill and now………..nothing.

        1. Some bastard in the neighbourhood used to leave them in any one of my wheelie-bins, but not for a while now. Never did catch the bugger red-handed, although I had my suspicions.

    3. “I see Sir David has already been filming in this wood – the animal life here must be really wild!”

      1. I’d be mad too if that charlatan came round my woods…. to think i once respected him but falsum in unem, falsem in omnibus…. or some such.

    5. Came home on one of the new extended guided buses. It was ghastly (Deliveroo-green) & not at all orientated for the disabled. The stop request button was to the left of my knees (aisle seat) & the window-seat passenger, in all probability a complete stranger, would have to grope down there because there was no button in front of him/her..

      What I was leading up to, was that a young woman of substantial build came to sit in a nearby seat. From the moment she sat down she fed herself with sweets from a big packet in her shopping bag, unwrapping the next as soon as she had stuffed the first in her mouth at the rate of 3 per minute. The wrappers she folded up & placed in a box, which looked as thought it had once contained sweets, in her shopping bag. This went on in a continuous process all the way from Longstanton to St Ives, where she changed seats & I could no longer observe her feeding habits.

  82. A double dose of Heaven.

    I’m currently nearly halfway through this Slow TV production by David Johns on the Macclesfield Canal on full screen. I chose to open a second window to play a fine selection of Russian Orthodox Choral Music in the background. I should warn you that not a great deal happens on the canal journey a few on-coming boats and a dog cocks its leg on the towpath. Sublime. Enjoy if you can…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhSUZRZPHp0
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLsSan9koAU

    1. A couple of winters (Xmas’ but we cannot say that now) ago they showed a sleigh ride which was long and magical…. no cgi, no car chases, no aliens, just laps and their reindeer…… and a lot of white stuff that “Masks the true extent of global warming”. Forgotten what its called now, but the name is something to do with that lady with the 7 speakers?

      1. Indeed. These slow TV programmes started with a 40 minute canal trip along the Kennet and Avon Canal from Bath to Dundas Wharf and it attracted 750,000 viewers. The next was the Reindeer herding in Lapland. Only a week or so ago there was a 2 hour journey by train boat and car from New Zealand’s North Island to the southern tip of South Island. It’s still available on BBC4 iPlayer.
        The journey on the Macclesfield is a single handed production by David who lives on his boat. He has produced TV programmes in the past and over 200 short films @ http://www.cruisingthecut.co.uk. He has around 100,000 subscribers to his channel and is wowing audiences around the world.

        1. Many many years ago there was a TV show on the canals which features some Africans spoofing the old days of the Brits in AFrica.

          As they were cruising along in their narrow boat they came across some old duffer in his folding chair fishing. He had that “old Colonial” look about him and they called out to him to ask how the fishing was, or some such, but in Swahili. They were stunned when he replied in fluent swahili. It was throughout a good program but that was the highlight….

    2. Used to go canal cruising at college. First a warm up from Goldaming doing the London Ring then another longer cruise round the Coventry loop I think…. but that was a mistake. Some of those invited to make up the numbers for one of the bigger boats proved to be a couple so obnoxious we actually walked more than we cruised just to get away from them.
      This was one where some idiot had left the gates open somewhere and drained down a whole section leaving us stuck in the mud. We all lined up on the roof and chanting “Heavy…. Light…. heavy …. light” rocked it from side to side to try and break the suctions (didn’t think to try reverse and drive the water under the hull). Of course, all we did was stir up the sediment in the fuel tank which required the operators to send us an engineer.
      This is also the occasion of a witty repartee by yours truly. Someone called out “How deep is it here” to which I instantly replied, surprising all including me, “Half way up a ducks back!”
      I was once part of the working party working on the Deep cut locks but much more recently went for a nice cuise on a friends narrow boat. He had a magnet on board and we fished up a number of lock handles dropped by the lock gates….

  84. New evidence of Bercow bullying; Black Rod strikes a blow against Bercow’s lordly ambitions …

      2. Are you from Bath, Barth, or Baaaath? :•)

        I’ve met different Bathonians who have, variously, used all three pronunciations.

        1. I remember going to the Bursar’s office at Sheffield University to collect my grant cheque. The lady at the counter did not understand my pronunciation of Bath and after a bit of toing and froing I realised that I had to refer to my Council as a shortish pithy ‘Bath’.

          I suppose my stress on the letter ‘a’ was the thing that Initially threw her. Only Somerset yokels would include the letter ‘r’ because we were thought to be posh in Bath.

          Bath in my youth was referred to as The Queen of the West.

          1. In my youth I met the Queen of the West.

            I never hung around with him though, nor my woodwork teacher!

          3. Southerners say ‘drawring’. That should exclude them from any discussion regarding correct pronunciation.

          6. You’re the one that put the ‘R’ in there. Just because when you hear it pronounced correctly and you hear the extra RRRR’s. You blame others for your inability to speak properly. :o)

          8. Ignore the fuckwit below.

            I lived in Bromley for a while before it got all stabby. I must admit that at its best it was dull. Probably why it was appealing.

      3. Donald Tusk is one of the most charmless and ignorant member of the EU mafia no matter where you were born.

  87. Phew! That feels better!
    Up to the King’s Head for a pint, then up Ember Lane and drop down to Matlock Bath.
    Visited the Tipsy toad, the Old Bank and the Rose Cottage before heading back up the hill and dropping down home again.
    A quick bath and light snack and I’m just about ready for bed!

    I do hope everyone has been behaving themselves in my absence.

        1. Iain Sutherland (writer and recorder of this superlative version of his own song: I will brook no arguments!) actually died on November 25, 2019, and his obituary has only appeared in this rag today!

      2. Amazingly, I remembered both Iains, the “Sutherlands Law” and the Singer! SWMBO couldn’t recall either, and she knows everything!
        Red wine clearly helps the memory.

    3. Obituary.

      Scottish musician best known as one half of the Sutherland Brothers

      Born: November 17, 1948

      Died: November 25, 2019

      IAIN Sutherland, who has died aged 71, was a Scottish musician, singer
      and songwriter who was most well-known for his work during the 1970s as
      one half of the Sutherland Brothers. A duo formed with Gavin,
      Sutherland’s younger brother, the Sutherland Brothers were famed – with
      the band Quiver as credited co-players – for their 1976 top five UK hit
      Arms of Mary.

      Written by Iain, Arms of Mary was a plaintive and radio-friendly
      folk-rock ballad in which the narrator reminisces over the woman he
      first made love to. It was successful across Europe, particularly in
      Ireland, the Netherlands and with Flemish-speaking Belgians, where it
      was number one, and it represented the main gravitational pull on the
      Sutherland Brothers’ career as recording artists. The album from which
      it came, 1975’s Reach for the Sky, was a UK top 30 hit, and Secrets, the
      lead single from ‘76’s follow-up album Slipstream, was their only other
      UK top 40 hit.

      The Sutherland Brothers’ other major claim to fame was as the original artists behind Rod Stewart’s 1975 international
      hit and enduring signature song, Sailing. Composed by Gavin, the track
      was first recorded by the brothers (Iain played harmonium) and released
      as a single in 1972, when it failed to trouble the charts.

      Yet when Stewart’s then-girlfriend Dee Harrington saw the pair perform
      on the Old Grey Whistle Test the same year, she recommended them to
      him, and Stewart went to check the group out at the Marquee Club in
      London.

      There followed support dates on the Faces’ final tour, with Gavin
      occasionally filling in on drums for the headline group, and the
      brothers wrote songs with Stewart. Apparently two were completed for his
      1975 album Atlantic Crossing, but not used, and the master tapes have
      since been lost; yet Stewart also recorded Sailing because it fitted
      with the album’s theme – it coincided with his emigration to America –
      and was talked into releasing it as a single.

      Sailing went on to be a number one hit around the world, including the
      UK, where it was in the charts for more than 30 combined weeks.
      Ironically, however, despite the theme of the album which it
      accompanied, Stewart’s version of the song was not a big success in
      America.

      The Sutherlands’ (I Don’t Want to Love You But) You Got Me Anyway
      remained their biggest and only US hit, at number 48 on the Billboard
      Hot 100 in 1973. The 1975 single Ain’t Too Proud, meanwhile, featured
      guitar from Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour.

      In 1977, after five years, the Sutherlands and the Cambridge-based
      Quiver – who originally teamed up in order to combine the former’s
      ability as songwriters and the latter’s skill as players – discontinued
      working together, and in 1979 Iain and Gavin released their final
      collaborative album, When the Night Comes Down.

      Iain released the solo albums Mixed Emotions (1983) and Fandango
      (1985), with the more recent recording Back to the Sea being a tribute
      to the Scottish landscape of his youth.

      Iain Sutherland was born in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, in 1948, and raised
      in Peterhead, where his father played in a Scottish country dance band.
      In his teens the family followed his father’s work to Stoke-on-Trent,
      and upon leaving school both Iain and Gavin moved to London to play music.
      They recorded their first single, Smokie Blues Away, in 1968 as A New
      Generation, and played a John Peel session, while their first single as
      the Sutherland Brothers Band was 1972’s The Pie.

      In later years settling into rural life and occasional songwriting in
      Shropshire, Sutherland saw Arms of Mary and other compositions of his
      recorded by artists including the Everly Brothers, Keith Urban, Boyzone,
      Merle Haggard, John Travolta and Joan Baez. A husband, father and
      grandfather, he died peacefully at home after illness.

      DAVID POLLOCK

      RIP

      2. I will always associate “Sailing” with the TV documentary series about HMS Ark Royal, in the days before successive governments destroyed our Armed Forces.

        1. Reminds me of the US admiral who thought a good idea to encourage recruitment would be to adopt !I am sailing” as a theme tune in their recruiting campaigns…. until someone told him about Village People…. he was probably just a bit before his time…oh, my bad it was “In the Navy” not Sailing….

          In 1979, the United States Navy considered using their single “In the Navy” in a television and radio recruiting campaign.

  90. Who’s deleting AC’s messages? We should at least be allowed to disagree with him!

        1. You removed this: “Take more water with it, Phil – and learn to chill.”, but left his response: “Fuck off.”?

          I think Andy may have a point!

  92. Gawd, I feel ill.
    Made sticky toffee pudding for the first time. Superb recipe (a Tesco recipe on the interwebby).
    However, I’ve just finished up the left over sauce – waste not, want not and all that – and now feel rather nauseous.

    1. If you have any left, mix Four Dessertspoons of Connie Onnie into it

      Then auction it off on here

      1. It was the tray bake version. I was rehearsing for a family meal on Sunday.
        A mixture of freezing and MB heroically hoovering his way through it should avoid waste.

        1. You should have baked some Bramley apples ,added some mixed spice and sweetener .. and nice creamy custard .. delicious .. easy and good for you .

        2. What would you wimmin do without husbands to hoover up the by-product?

          I’m a lucky-hubby, HG experiments with recipes; I act as judge and jury.

          If you saw the number I release into the yummosphere you would think I was a leftie juror trained as a human roits jerdge.

    3. Now make a cake and clean out the bowl of all the leftover cake mixture, that should kill or cure you. LOL

      1. 🙂 Never read the Grauniad and the telly’s only on because MB watches it. The only Beeb programme I actively watch is The Repair Shop.

          2. i thought that’s How Bill’s recipe for non-stick sticky toffee pud starts.

            Anyway as everyone knows PTFE is Plumbers’ Tape For Everything…

  94. I have become slightly hooked on a TV series and that has not happened in a while. I watched 4 episodes in a row last night, just to see what would happen next, before sleep forced me to stop. It is called “The Expanse” and is one of those on some online subscription channel I think. I just bought the first 3 series blue-ray box set so that I could watch them whenever I wanted, and the detail on the spaceships is extraordinary.

    It is a futuristic detective / cold war thriller set a few hundred years from now where man has colonised Mars and is in the Asteroid Belt as miners. This is enough to attract me anyway, but I love the realistic physics in it as well. If a ship is travelling to a destination and you want to go somewhere else, you cannot just turn the ship and find you are moving that way. You send out the alarm to the 150 crew who scramble to the acceleration couches to strap themselves in and take drugs to prepare them for what is about to happen. Then the ship flips about its axis and burns hard at 7G’s for an extended period of time to actually slow down, then turns to begin accelerating in the new direction as the crew recovers.

    I like attention to details such as that. That is a long way of recommending that series and saying I’m off to watch more of them now. Have a good night. 🙂 (Here are some more rather dark views on Sesame Street cartoons:)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7c477f018a1695c9ce7948f4eb47dd8638efbd2e0265c2c223c74aa4e1d88d11.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76f3564d9c26f8dd41f802e77899132b01115a5e7856adff5c9b37ebd5f1233a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/900e6cdb658afb207482ed9ceb15f848171b99c89f5e70dadd98d21c86931d02.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4f90bbf68665a9c649aad12cda7114d1060e0cd7802681e7bdc0f76c30e28272.jpg

    1. Reports are that Star Trek Discovery and the soon to be released Start Trek Picard are so Woke, much like the current Dr Who series. I have read several comments that The Orville and The Expanse are some SiFi series worth viewing. Your comment seems to confirm this and I will have to give them a try.

      1. The Expanse is definitely worth it, so far. The Orville is 50 / 50 for me. It has been okay and quite middle of the road mainly, with a couple of very good episodes. But there are some grim ones, and there was one where I thought “If there is another one that disgusting then I’m not watching any more.” That is rare for me as I’ll watch anything sci-fi. 🙂

        I have just downloaded a black and white series from 1954 on youtube called “Rocky Jones: Space Ranger” but I have only just started watching them. Here is a link to all of the episodes in order:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Hf-9wHA0I&list=PLVEWZwj8PW_AfB0QDadQcwSd29auAVOTM

        1. I have read ‘The Expanse’. I think Space Opera is becoming like everything else now. Confusing and idiotic.

      2. Stand by for Trekkie rebellion that the enterprise will have to put down…. I wonder, out of curiosity, just what demographic Trekkies fall into…. are they a “cross-section” predominantly trumpers or democrats, or what?

        Always a danger announcing your woke intentions only to discover you don’t have quite the woke audience you thought or because you think this is your chance to convert them to wokeness forgetting they are not “compelled” to watch when there are so many box sets of pre-woke series that can be watched time and again.

      3. Well at least the current Dr Who shows that we don’t care one way or the other about the doctor being a man or a woman. What people care about are the pathetic storylines

        1. Only a man or a woman? thursdays one and fridays another? They don’t have any ethnics? transgender Drs? What has gone wrong at the Beeb? Or does it have some sort of preservation order on it? Can’t be long before the Doctor is an alien and it is the White British (and AMr=ericans) that will be the villains and the daleks are actually misunderstood from the planet of…. well, non-agression and it has just been forced on them by bad doctors….

        2. I keep it simple, I wish to view TV programs and films to be entertained or informed, not lectured on Woke issues.

      4. Er, bring back Blake’s &… complete with its occasional very slight, unnoticeable to most, suggestion of SM….Dr Who was good in the beginnings bit haven’t watched for some time, since they tinkered with the theme tune from the radiophonic workshop, or earlier perhaps. It would not surprise me if it was all about diversity, positive discrimination and AGW these days given the Beebs penchant for using anything and everything (except maybe Antiques Road Show) for propaganda.

    3. Sounds a bit like a Murray Leinster story… Miners of the Asteroids….crossed with some of those Asimov SciFi mysteries….. I love old fashioned SciFi, not sapce opera stuff, not sword and sorcery, not “modern” sci fi (a bit like the Beeb’s “Modern Comedy”). The Gateway series… Larry Niven… for accurate science….

      1. I have to agree with you there. Asimov stories just stretched scientific fact, these modern SciFi stuff is all dragons and weird creatures.

    2. Do they think that if A&E is closed demand will disappear, they might not have thought this through.

    1. Only 7 ? They’re not trying very hard are they? They should be looking for the other 300 that came across the most watched and busy waterway today. And the other 3,000 in trucks.

  97. If any of the mods are still around, may I suggest that this thread be closed.

    At least for tonight. It could be opened again in the morning. i.e. at daylight.

    2. In days of yore, Corona was delivered to your door, as was milk

      Us Oldies remember Davenports ‘Beer at Home’

    2. It’s easier with two mirrors when you are not doing a headstand? Other than that ask a Quantum Physiscist. Or even ask one how to spell it.,..pfft.

  102. Right. That’s it – I’ve had enough. All hell broke loose on this site last night, and now one of the offenders has the temerity to blame me. Some of us sleep at night; other Mods were run ragged trying to put a lid on things. I’m closing all open pages to comments. Have a taste of life without NoTTL. It might return in due course, but don’t hold your breath.

Comments are closed.