An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.
Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story
What’s Yours Is Mine…
A woman was out golfing one day when she hit her ball into the woods. She went into the woods to look for it and found a frog in a trap. The frog said to her, “If you release me from this trap, I will grant you 3 wishes.”
The woman freed the frog and the frog said, “Thank you, but I failed to mention that there was a condition to your wishes (naturally) whatever you wish for, your husband will get 10 times more or better!”
The woman said, “That would be okay,”
For her first wish, she wanted to be the most beautiful woman in the world. The frog warned her, “You do realise that this wish will also make your husband the most handsome man in the world, an Adonis that women will flock to.”
The woman replied, “That will be okay because I will be the most beautiful woman and he will only have eyes for me.”
So, KAZAM – she’s the most beautiful woman in the world! For her second wish, she wanted to be the richest woman in the world. The frog said, “That will make your husband the richest man in the world and he will be ten times richer than you.”
The woman said, “That will be okay because what is mine is his and what is his is mine.”
So, KAZAM she’s the richest woman in the world! The frog then inquired about her third wish, and she answered, “I’d like a mild heart attack.”
Moral of the story:Women are clever bitches. Don’t fuck with them
The version I heard years ago was that the husband’s heart attack was 10 times milder.
Good Morning Folks
Overcast humid start here
NatWest has made enemies of customers with its political maneuvering
Is NatWest behaving like a Nationalised company or a Globalised company?
It will also have won admiration from people who hate Nigel Farage with a passion, applauding those who, at worse, merely inconvenience him and cheering from the rafters for those who utterly wreck his life.
Morning everyone.
So we went from Global Warming and then changed it to Climate Change when the weather wasn’t conforming.
Now we have Global Boiling when people weren’t noticing much Climate Change
Whatever will they come up with next?
I wonder whether the people behind this all belong to the same group as the boards of Coutts and NatWest
Of course they do!
Another little scam of theirs is the Global Methane Hub.
In May this year, a bunch of meat-producing countries including Spain and Germany silently signed up to reducing methane caused by farming.
So that’s the next global famine planned then.
What do they intend to do about the 78% of nitrogen in the atmosphere?
No idea, I suppose they have not yet thought of a way to use it to control people, so they are not interested in it.
That’s not correct bb2.
Trudeau has produced some law in Canada reducing the amount of fertiliser that farmers are permitted
to purchase in order to reduce the amount of nitrogen.
That’s runoff into waterways. So many people need so much more food produced, the farmers are using so much more nitrogen-based fertilisers, the plants don’t take it all up. So, some runs off into waterways, promoting algal growth. Same with Netherlands, and other places.
Interesting Herr Oberst.
You infer that farmers are wasteful.
Or at least, Trudeau believes so.
It’s not an easy thing to do, put just the right amound of nitram or kaynitro on the ground. And then it rains, or growth is reduced and the crops don’t take it up as quickly as expected because it’s cooler, or… or… the spreader got a bit over-excited, or the tractor was moving slower… or Jeremy Clarkson was driving.
I tried to do this way back as a 19-year-old, workig a mixed dairy & arable farm. And who knows exactly the right dosage to begin calculating with in the first place?
Least wasteful group of people on the planet, farmers.
It must be an easy thing to do, Trudeau claims to be an expert.
I bet they didn’t consult with their people. Spaniards to give up Jamon or get it but a highly inflated price?
I note that is hasn’t been hot everywhere.
The BBC hasn’t been mentioning how much colder it has been for the UK summer this year.
Instead there was news yesterday that it was last year when there were record highs.
Also there was an article that suggested that.the Gulf Stream could cease flowing sooner than expected.
Ironically, although this event could plunge the UK into a disastrous cold era, it was mooted that this could also exascerbate global warming.
As Eric Morecombe would say “The world is experiencng all the right weather – but in the wrong places!”
If the gulf stream did divert then that would kick off another ice age, so they needn’t worry about warming so much
Many geologists are of this opinion.
https://www.facebook.com/trigteq/videos/climate-change-driven-by-the-sun-prof-ian-plimer/1269051846521320/
The mini ice age is coming anyway due to sunspot activity. I suspect that is why they are so keen to tie us down in a world dictatorship, because the planet is about to get less productive.
It is well known that we don’t understand the complex behaviour of the ocean currents and that we don’t fully understand how unstable the jet streams are. One of the jet streams in the Southern Hemisphere has completely disappeared (I don’t have the reference to hand) and this is bound to be disturbing the previous accepted global balance of eather patterns.
It may have disappeared but as the planet has been here for so long i would expect it to rebalance itself. If until then we get some extremes of weather we do what we always do. Adapt.
20-25 years ago, we had summers here in Southern Norway where it was so hot we slept outside on the balcony and the weather forecast was endlessly banging on about “tropenatt” where the temperature doesn’t fall below 25C.
This year, I wear a jumper when not under the duvet. I am fcuking freezing, barely have worn a tee-shirt as it’s too cold.
Boiling, my left testicle. Who believes this hysterical crap?
I have an electric blanket which covers the bottom half of my bed. I had to switch it on last night my feet were so cold. I also switched the dog mats on too.
So that is how TPTB are going to explain away our entry into the Maunder Minimum period.
Good morning everyone. 20 C here today, overcast dull. Hint of rain.
They’ll say, “Look at how all the CO2 reduction measures have reduced the climate overheating!” whilst everyone walks across the Thames, ‘cos there ain’t no transport any more. And freezes to death, ‘cos it’s damned cold and food doesn’t grow any more, windmills can’t turn because their blades are iced-up and there’s no electricity.
It’s a natural progression rather like what is unfolding in Europe:
Common Market → European Economic Community → European Community → European Union → United States of Europe → Purgatory → Hell.
Morning, all Y’all.
Overcast & cool. What summer??
Look out of the window, can’t you see that the snow is boiling?
Or something like that.
Good morning! Not particularly warm here either.
‘Era of global boiling has arrived,’ says UN chief as July set to be hottest month on record. 28 July 2023.
The era of global warming has ended and “the era of global boiling has arrived”, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said after scientists confirmed July was on track to be the world’s hottest month on record.
“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning,” Guterres said. “It is still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C [above pre-industrial levels], and avoid the very worst of climate change. But only with dramatic, immediate climate action.”
He’s lost his marbles.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/27/scientists-july-world-hottest-month-record-climate-temperatures
Its all lies.
‘Morning, Minty. Yes, he’s completely barking, as is the rag in which this appears. At least the Grauniad is making a healthy loss, so it’s not all bad news:
https://order-order.com/2023/07/27/15-million-loss-for-guardian/
374899+ up ticks,
Morning AS,
Will the frogs be outside looking in?
So it’s acknowledged that the temp was rising pre -industrialisation (1.5d eg)
If we banned all oil, coal etc around the world, it would still get warmer but not so quickly.
That’s if you believe the rise in co2 is a driver on climate. I think we just go through many layered cycles that humans are too short lived to notice. From ice ball to tropical.
The Mayfly, if it could think in such terms, would think the world was about to burn towards the end of its life. It would be wrong.
I’m undecided. Warming and cooling cycles have occurred any times but have revolved across a scale of geological time.
The worry is that the temp is increasing more quickly than previously as measured in the rock and fossil record.
A lump of coal traps millions of years of the sun’s energy – releasing that energy in an hour’s burning surely creates an imbalance.
They say that the power stored in the battery that powers your smartphone is about the same as that in a hand grenade. I’d imagine the power stored in an EV battery to be somewhat more than that.
Should keep the M25 nice and toasty in winter.
That’s what I used to think. But the big picture is this:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7d41a8a942b25a68c0a0dd7bf256c7fbd6ec40f02e6c699b56dc36c4326f9c0e.jpg
Plus we are about to go into a mini ice age due to the sun spot activity cycle. So I don’t think we should worry about releasing a bit of trapped energy.
Reality is that Saudi isn’t going to be producing less oil – they will simply be selling it to China rather than the west, while we gullible suckers are supposed to believe that the planet is frying.
We are talking fractions of a percent here. The world has had more free CO2 in atmosphere in previous cycles there were virtually no deserts.
“The worry is that the temp is increasing more quickly than previously”
First it isn’t, the figures have been retrospectively ‘massaged’ to fit the narrative. Second it wouldn’t be true anyway. I think the temperature changes around the boundaries of the Younger Dryas were just as quick if not quicker.
Climate warming, climate emergency, climate genocide, climate catastrophe, global boiling. They’re running out of scary words.
‘cos nobody is scared.
Plenty of people are, I’m afraid (excuse the pun).
I know what to do to stop ‘Global boiling’.
Convert all private jets to battery power. Cut their wings off and make them use the roads to their many conferences.
It’s Global Warming/Climate Change/The CLIMATE EMERGENCY!/A CLIMATE CATASTROPHE!!!!!/CLIMATE CLIMATE ARMAGEDDON!!!!!/GLOBAL BOILING!!!!!!/{insert latest panic & scare mongering catch phrase here}
Global meltdown?
The Cpl. Jones of the UN.
Surely the wrong man? Cpl Jones’s catchphrase was “Don’t panic!”. Maybe you are thinking of Private Fraser “we’re doomed, I tell ye, doomed!”.
But Jones jumped about all over the place in an increasing panic, whilst telling Mainwaring not to panic. I see that more characteristic of these climate clowns, rather than a dour “doomed!” from Fraser. One got the impression from the characters that Fraser would be the better man to be with when it all kicked off.
It was the contradictions in character that made the series. Jones was one of the older characters played by one of the younger actors. Wilson was a minor aristocrat, whereas his superior was lower middle class.
Excellent programmes, available on YouTube.
Pity nobody makes cheap TV of that quality any more. It’s all so expensive now the effects have to compensate for the lack of characterisation and storylines.
The BBC were quite imaginative in keeping their icon series to a tiny budget.
There was the famous scene at the Coliseum in ‘I Claudius’ where Caligula gets assassinated. Hollywood would have splashed out millions building a grand stadium with thousands of extras, but the BBC had to make do with a run-down studio somewhere in North London. Everything was done using sound – they doubled and redoubled background crowd noises until they reached the scale one would encounter in ancient Rome, and then played it against the main actors, who were on a tiny cardboard set representing the podium. The rest was done by acting grand. Marching soldiers were the same half dozen extras (most of them production crew) repeatedly marching in front of the camera. They were carefully concealed using armour, so the audience wouldn’t twig.
One of the most epic scenes in ‘Blackadder’ occurs right at the finale of ‘Blackadder Goes Forth’ where all the main characters are killed off. Budget could only extend to one take, which was ingloriously hammed up, and I believe Baldrick came back to life after being shot, and everyone made the most of their death scene. It was grotesque and quite unusable. Only the first three seconds of it was any good, so what did they do? Replayed the three seconds in slow motion and then faded to a field of poppies. It was a masterpiece in cheap cinema.
Art and talent trumps budget every time.
Good morning (just) Minty,
I would say he has used the most exaggerated hyperbole but the definition of the word is “exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.” I reckon he intends for the masses to to take his wording literally and be scared witless, which many people will be.
Good morning (just) Minty,
I would say he has used the most exaggerated hyperbole but the definition of the word is “exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.” I reckon he intends for the masses to to take his wording literally and be scared witless, which many people will be.
‘Morning, Peeps. After a full 24 hours of much-needed rain the garden is looking a lot happier, as were the vast number of slugs and snails that were on the move when we turned in. Our weather today is forecast to be mostly dry, and up to 20°C.
Here are the first three of today’s letters. I must say, the first of these really appeals as I opened a Natwest account back in March and would like to indulge in some bank-baiting…but that would mean joining Basefook and that would be a step too far:
SIR – I have closed my two accounts with NatWest before it closes them, as my political views are on the same page as Nigel Farage’s.
Angela Kelly
Blundellsands, Lancashire
SIR – I am inclined to open a Facebook account so that the banks can monitor what I really think about them.
John Smith
Great Moulton, Norfolk
SIR – Can we assume that the behaviour of Dame Alison Rose does not meet the values of Coutts, and that therefore she will be debanked?
Ian Blackburn
Heathfield, East Sussex
Incidentally, did anyone else watch Farage from Bury, Lancs yesterday? He was greeted like the conquering hero!
He is a conquering hero doing far more than the whole of the government.
It is a tragedy for the UK that he did not stand up to Boris Johnson in 2019 and demand something in return for his support.
As many people, believe without the support of the Brexit Party and its decision not to contest seats held by remainer Conservative MPs the Conservatives would not have won their 80 seat majority – indeed they may not have won at all.
You could argue that allowing Conservative remainers to keep their seats has actually destroyed Brexit because these remainer MPs have joined with the civil service, the House of Lords and the other political parties in Westminster to make sure that Brexit is not properly implemented.
Only time will tell.
SIR – Can we assume that the behaviour of Dame Alison Rose does not meet the values of Coutts, and that therefore she will be debanked? (Ian Blackburn)
Never mind Coutts – now that she is in the dog house does she meet the values of Crufts or does she need to be de-loused?
The values of Coutts?
Don’t forget that they were fined millions for money laundering.
SIR – Can we assume that the behaviour of Dame Alison Rose does not meet the values of Coutts, and that therefore she will be debanked? (Ian Blackburn)
Never mind Coutts – now that she is in the dog house does she meet the values of Crufts or does she need to be de-loused?
Don’t heed warnings of Day After Tomorrow ocean collapse, says Met Office. 28 July 2023.
“As far as we’re concerned in the Met Office, the paper is far too simplistic,” said Richard Betts, the Head of the Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre.
He added: “There’s still no evidence that we’re kind of past the point of no return in terms of devastating impacts.
“On the basis of one paper, don’t despair.”
Others said the paper was a stark reminder of the risks if the world continues to increase fossil fuel use.
Well he’s a goner!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/27/amoc-ocean-collapse-dont-fear-met-office-gulf-stream/
374899+ up ticks,
Morning Each,
In the case of current United Kingdom politics, the better is guaranteed.
https://twitter.com/miss_anthrop75/status/1684711934858252288?s=20
“The only constant is change”
(c) someone or other.
Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, is quoted as saying “change is the only constant in life.”
A chatty chap was Heraclitus!
As was Bob Dylan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90WD_ats6eE
“Change and decay in all around I see.
Oh Thou who changest not, abide with me.”
David Harewood on [The Black and White Minstrels] How was this grotesque act on TV until 1978?
Outcry if a white person imitates a black person yet the Beeb thinks its OK for a man to impersonate a woman. I hope sometime in the near future there’ll be the same retrospective glance at e.g. Dick Emery and then Mrs Brown’s Boys and other shows will be thrown in the bin.
I used to watch it in black and white back in the 60s
I remember watching it.
My grandmother used to be proud of having met their lead singer, Dai Francis (no relation)
Does anyone else have a problem with this?
Climate and migrationSIR
– What Lord Frost doesn’t quite get is that if temperatures are rising
in the UK, they are rising around the rest of the world, too (“Hotter temperatures could benefit UK, says Lord Frost”, report, July 26).
When temperatures (and associated humidities) in the tropics and
subtropics rise to the point where deadly heatwaves become commonplace,
people will have no option but to move to places with more benign
climates, such as the UK.
Lord Frost is concerned about illegal
immigration now. Well, this might be nothing compared with what may
happen later in the century if we abandon our goal of net zero by 2050.
Professor Tim Palmer
Royal Society research professor
Department of Physics
Sounds like he is stretching a point to validate another.
Answered elsewhere.
Good morning, all. Cloudy but dry.
Good morning. I have the heating on. So much for Summer.
It is not cold here – shorts + T-shirt.
Is that normal for Norfolk or are you reliving your teenage years?
Teenage years? I was born aged 24.
Not cold here, either. A largely dry day in prospect with a chance of a shower or two. Haven’t had any heat on since early May.
Good day all,
A liitle bit of the blue firmament visible above McPhee Towers at the moment but it’ll soon turn grey again for the rest of the day. It’s not supposed to rain today. Wind West-Sou’-West, 16℃ with 20℃ the forecast top. The hottest July ever continues.
Instead of a doom-filled talking point to start today, here’s a lovely video of an old BBC programme which was made before the age of politicising everything. I thought I’d pop it up after referring to the enjoyable chat I’d had with the keeper on the Avon where I go trout and grayling fishing. It’s about the life of a river-keeper on the Hampshire Avon and it’s roughly 50 minutes long so you might like to save it for later. Here’s Tom’s River:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXfldauWuXE&t=2602s
I watched that a while ago. Very well made.
I will watch later, thanks.
I didn’t know that I have a river.
Good morning all. A bright start with a light overcast and 11°C outside.
And, we are actually forecast a DRY day!!
David Harewood on Blackface, BBC Two, review: how was this grotesque act on TV until 1978? 28 July 2023.
Explain The Black and White Minstrel Show to anyone under the age of 50 – anyone who didn’t grow up watching it on the BBC – and they will find it grotesque. It’s astonishing, really, to think that a show in which white performers blacked up to perform song and dance numbers was still on television until 1978.
Not to me. Quite frankly I would welcome it back now. The present neurotic obsession with race and identity has not simply denigrated the innocence of the past but actually increased division in the now. We are achieving what the Marxists totalitarians of the last century dreamt of: the death of what makes us human.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2023/07/27/david-harewood-on-blackface-bbc-two-review/
Not sure if those song and dance shows would be as popular today as their are so many other ways for people to amuse themselves.
I remember ‘The Good Old Days’. Watching with my parents. It may have been nostalgic fun for them but i didn’t have a connection to it.
Good morning.
Aah. Whatever happened to ‘shiny floor’ shows?
Probably because of safeguarding issues with all the paedos in TV.
Tiswas was quite popular. Very silly i know but children enjoyed it.
“Good Old Days”? Too many associations with slavery…
It was very boring.
Dressing up and nostalgia. It was an undemanding way of passing the time and did have some entertaining old-school stars such as Les Dawson, Ken Dodd and Hylda Baker. If it were revived it would have Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Adrian Edmondson and Leo Sayer on it.
Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.
Never liked the B&W Minstrels. Too much like musical numbers and big band, not my thing.
And we all then knew they were white guys made up with black, to sing songs like “Mammaaaay”, and nobody cared. Why is it suddenly an insult?
And – can we reverse it and complain about black people playing white characters on TV and in movies? Surely that’s just as bad
Al Jolson made a good living doing it until he was booked for a KKK party
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIaj7FNHnjQ
A remarkable man, Al Jolson. Born in Lithuania 1886, then in the Russian Empire. Read his Wiki entry if you have time. We could do with more people like him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jolson
I would like a sensible black person like Thomas Sowell to explain it to me.
People like The Abbot and Lammy Show don’t shed any light just by calling it racist.
Never liked the B&W Minstrels. Too much like musical numbers and big band, not my thing.
And we all then knew they were white guys made up with black, to sing songs like “Mammaaaay”, and nobody cared. Why is it suddenly an insult?
And – can we reverse it and complain about black people playing white characters on TV and in movies? Surely that’s just as bad
I once appeared in black-face – wearing bright blue trousers and a red shirt, shod in Purple Shoes with Crimson Soles and Crimson Linings and carrying a green parasol – at the St Mawes Carnival in 1952. I was playing the part of a well-known literary figure.
I won Third Prize – pipped at the post by an odious little girl disguised as Snow White and a snotty, fat, little village oick with a cigar stub and bow tie disguised as Winston Churchill.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c6547381516061b1014d1da0bfcfcd77522028eb6e6a349fa228d19add9042c5.png
These slings and arrows never leave us do they Rastus.
Actually I think it was a compliment to black music.
Letters: NatWest has made enemies of customers with its political maneuvering
Tut tut DT.
Here in Blighty, its ‘manoeuvering’
Is ‘manœuvering’ acceptable?
Not every computer user has or knows where to find diphthongs.
I didn’t, but I had enough curiosity to find out.
…and me, Charmap on a Microsoft.
Well, at least it works both ways:
Anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller is seeing a bank account for her political party being closed without explanation. Monzo initially refused to tell Ms Miller why her “True and Fair” party account would be closed in September. After the BBC contacted the bank about the case, it said it did not allow political party accounts and had made a mistake in allowing it to be opened. Monzo said it recognised the experience would have been “frustrating for the customer and we’re sorry for that”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-66328098
Who would bank with an outfit with a name like that?
Why do banks feel the need to deny customers business – rise of the Activist Bank? Control the money and you control the person?
Oh how sad – couldn’t happen to a nicer person.
The banks are full of the activists churned out of universities with useless humanities degrees over the last 25 years or so. There’s your explanantion.
Only 25y? More like 60!!!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0ad71da9b1f09b3e84b3441f0efcce5af45af20fd8c2c077e346a63f8ca3e26b.jpg
40C!
Huh.
We might reach 14C here, if we’re lucky.
374899+ up ticks,
A court appearance is sorely needed , say this morning or latest this afternoon,
https://twitter.com/BladeoftheS/status/1684522948072177664?s=20
Indeed.
A minister over here bought shares in Kongsberg Gruppen the day before the government awarded a contract to Kongsberg Gruppen, for a lot of money. He was pushed on to his sword. Sleazy insider-trading barsteward.
Hancock should be persecuted.
He did not award a PPE contract to his sister’s company. The NHS did without his knowledge. His failure – a technical breach – was not to declare it, and that would assume he was aware of it when not declaring it. There’s no suggestion in this Sky News report of two years ago that he denied it when confronted and attempted to cover it up.
https://news.sky.com/story/hancock-committed-minor-breach-of-ministerial-code-when-covid-contract-awarded-to-sisters-company-12319324
A ‘ lack of knowledge ‘? He was the Minister as well as a major shareholder in the company. Does he not talk to his sister?
He should know what’s happening. The report was a whitewash.
374899+ up ticks.
Morning DW,
He, they would say that wouldn’t
they ?
Especially if it were true. Can you always tell the difference between telling lies in self interest and telling the truth? I can’t.
Blades of the Sun tweets a wild and unsubstantiated accusation and I’m supposed to swallow it without question?
374899+ up ticks,
DW,
So in reality it could very well be a lab/lib/con coalition politico .
It appears that I seem to be persona non grata on the Daily Telegraph letters page (where each missive is required to begin with a grovelling, cap-doffing ‘SIR —’). No such injunction, though, is a requirement on the more human Sports pages of that once-vaunted broadsheet, where such a servile genuflection is neither required nor demanded.
Prioritise ‘proper’ cricket.
In view of the fourth-test washout at Old Trafford, which allowed Australia to retain the Ashes, is there any logical reason why one-day cricket’s Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method of calculating a result cannot be used in Test matches?
A Grizzly B,
Onslunda, Sweden
I wonder if our very own Duckworth-Lewis could provide an answer.
That idea did occur to me – but are not the vagaries of chance and the weather an integral part of test cricket however frustrating this may be?
Indeed Richard (good morning) the weather plays a large part in the effectiveness of our seam bowlers with regard to ball movement and I don’t mean within the box
Remember Bob Massie? There was an extraordinary one off because of freak humid weather at Lord’s.
No Bill, any link?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_mAF2-PKew
Thanks – nice to see no reviews and no fist pumping or high fives. If the umpire stuck his finger up you walked – no argument
This might interest you.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/ecb-chair-flexibility-test-schedules-avoid-future-wash-outs-1389587
I’ll quibble about one point: “… the hours of play are determined by the home board, rather than the governing body.”
That’s true but is the ICC’s playing conditions that determine the number of overs in a day and the adjustments to that for time lost.
It appears that I seem to be persona non grata on the Daily Telegraph letters page (where each missive is required to begin with a grovelling, cap-doffing ‘SIR —’). No such injunction, though, is a requirement on the more human Sports pages of that once-vaunted broadsheet, where such a servile genuflection is neither required nor demanded.
Prioritise ‘proper’ cricket.
In view of the fourth-test washout at Old Trafford, which allowed Australia to retain the Ashes, is there any logical reason why one-day cricket’s Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method of calculating a result cannot be used in Test matches?
A Grizzly B,
Onslunda, Sweden
I wonder if our very own Duckworth-Lewis could provide an answer.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12346355/Tony-Blair-warns-Britain-stop-climate-change-Ex-PM-suggests-costly-green-policies-futile-UKs-emissions-dwarfed-Chinas-makes-break-Labour-policy.html
The rest is usual Blair
He’d probably have been jailed if he hadn’t ‘revised’ the UK treason laws.
Climate change is a tax scam designed to frighten weak people while the state robs them blind.
Has anyone highlighted this yet? The Voldemort of British Politics, The Dark Lord, is out of the shadows:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/27/tony-blair-preparing-to-rule-britain-again-starmer-let-him/
Have you missed Tony Blair? It’s been 16 years since he walked off the political stage and started a new life advising Kazakhstani dictators. Unkind souls said his post-No 10 career was a study in venality compared to the normal prime ministerial afterlife. Margaret Thatcher went off to work on her memoirs. John Major rented an office with a view of Westminster and sat there harmlessly. Gordon Brown lives in obscurity in Fife, writing books. David Cameron divides his time between the Soho Farmhouse and charity work. But Blair? He has always had far bigger ambitions.
His first outfit, Tony Blair Associates, was dissolved seven years ago having served various emirs, oligarchs and despots. It left him with £8.9 million which he said he’d put into his “not-for-profit” activities – but didn’t say more. Now, we have a clearer idea: the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which has 750 staff meddling in 40 countries. Its offering is fairly simple: Blairism for the planet.
It prides itself on power and influence, saying 100 of its staff are currently “embedded” in governments around the world – and not in the back office, either. A promotional video trumpets the position of the new Blairites “at the centre … whether that’s the president’s office or prime minister’s office.” They have been active in Nigeria, Rwanda, San Francisco, Serbia, Togo and many more. But there is one country that has, so far, resisted his clutches: his own. That may now be about to change.
The Tony Blair Institute has embarked upon an audacious new project: “The Future of Britain”. Last week it had a new asset to parade: Keir Starmer, a key speaker at its conference. The event was the usual platitudes – diversity, technology, clean energy, stability – but what it’s really about is networks, power and people. Starmer doesn’t have very many ideas or contacts, and Blair stands ready to oblige. We can expect to see a good number of these Blairite staffers and allies transferred into a Starmer government. Some have started work already.
Blairites are understood to have been instrumental in the process for selecting Labour MPs – perhaps the most profound means of shaping the next parliament. It’s not so much a Blairite restoration but regeneration. Take Hamish Falconer, whose father, Charlie, was Blair’s onetime flatmate and Lord Chancellor. He has been selected to stand for Labour in the very winnable seat of Lincoln. Blair-era donors – Lord Levy (remember him?) and Lord Sainsbury – are also back, paving the financial road back to No 10.
Blair is now openly mulling “the best role for me to play” when Labour returns to power. His empire, he says, will of course be at the disposal of the Starmerites to “be used however they wish it to be used, in the sense of advising and introducing and all of that”. Should Prime Minister Starmer get bored in Chequers, he’ll find Blair set up in the nearby mansion of South Pavilion, just 15 miles away. Aides say that he is now back in his old habit of composing long Sunday night memos, with the Thoughts of Chairman Tony sent out to courtiers in the evening. Just like the old days.
The TBI’s last accounts show revenue doubling to £60 million in 2021 and the headcount growth suggests it has doubled yet again. Which leads us to the more sensitive question: who is providing all this money? It’s suspiciously unclear.
Blair does publish an edited list of his benefactors. Mainly foundations: Bill & Melinda Gates, the African Development Bank, the Digital Impact Alliance etc. But why do these well-heeled outfits need him? Why don’t they use their own people? “A number of organisations do help governments,” one of his colleagues explains, “but they tend to shy away from the politics.” Blair knows no such boundaries. His people get stuck right in: that’s their forte. Which makes it all the more important that the citizens of the countries know where Blair’s funding is coming from.
So far, Britain’s think tanks have tended to be modest, with laughably frugal budgets. I’m involved in two: the Centre for Social Justice and the Centre for Policy Studies. The idea is to write up policy ideas and let them float like a message in a bottle, hoping someone will find and open them. It can happen (welfare reform, the modern slavery agenda) but does so rarely.
Blair is doing it bigger and better, on a scale seldom seen in Britain. Michael Bloomberg’s aides followed up his New York mayoralty by offering services to cities like Lima and Bogotá. Bill Clinton trotted the globe as an adviser and speechmaker. But for Blair to come back offering government services and “introductions” to a UK government – as he would a struggling African regime – is a bigger, more audacious move.
If this was the return of old-school Blairism, it might not be so worrying. Choice in schools and hospitals empowered parents and patients at the expense of institutions and unions: these small reforms were expanded upon by the Tories. But Blair has a different game. He seems more interested in hawking products like digital identity cards (there are Blair Institute memos boasting about their success in getting this past Boris Johnson, in the form of vaccine passports). Is he supported by any firms who would benefit from this? We have no idea.
Starmer is more Brownite than Blairite: a machine man, who climbed to the top of the government legal bureaucracy. He’s good at this job, having vanquished Corbynism and established complete control over his party machine. He needs to reassure business, so spending time with Blair helps. “We were at Davos together,” Starmer told him during their on-stage chat, a sentence Jeremy Corbyn would never have uttered.
Theirs is an alliance of necessity, not a union of minds. Blair’s interests have so far been cosying back up to the EU, the regulation of artificial intelligence and dreaming up new ways to divert people’s pension funds – and we’ll see how many of these end up in the Labour manifesto. There is not much in the way of competition. Blair was quite right, last year, to complain about the “gaping hole in the governing of Britain where new ideas should be”. If he wants to fill that hole, he’s now in the perfect position.
The man who did more than anyone else to wreck the Britain we knew and loved now wants to finish us off. I think we know who’s financing him. Apart from Gates his biggest benefactor is Soros. Will he be the puppet master or will he be more open? Look out for his elevation to the peerage if Starmer wins the next election. Broon of Kirkcaldy too. Both will be brought back into government.
Get a hold of a download of this and read it. Written by Broon of Kirkcaldy it’s what they will do to us. If we let them.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/db1f81dd65b301be94fd4083eeae3f4f60c0ce049a83ffbb53ce6099627eb117.png
374899+ upticks,
Morning FM,
Lest we forget Bow street court, he is still the pogger of peoples penises in park public toilets good old anthony charlie, lynton.
We suspect that he’s now wealthy enough to buy in those services.
374899+ up ticks,
Morning
J JH,
Sort of like in place of a gym, a Jim
within a replicated park public toilet
built in-house
In point of fact replicated six times.
We don’t want a new Britain, we want the old one back from before Blair and Brown wrecked it.
I would imagine that the Telegraph’s motive for publishing the above is to scare the pants off anyone who’s contemplating not voting Blue Labour at the next election.
I would happily have Blair shot. If we were to rebuild our democracy then the 30 million incomers would be disenfranchised, the welfare classes expelled and the entire edifice of the sate made some 3 million bodies smaller. This is the damage Labour did to this country, all to force socialism. It’s made this beautiful country awful.
Restoration will start when Blair, Mandelson, Neather, Campbell walk up a gallows in rags, having been flogged and are then hanged by the neck. I’d then do the same to every MP who sought to undermine Brexit.
Then I’d start on the remoaners. The Home Office staff would be summarily sacked and charged with aiding and abetting crime.
Is that your pitch for the position of Home Secretary?
I agree but you are too lenient
Morning all 🙂😊
Back home yesterday, after my dear wife’s exhausting day Wednesday she over slept and waiting tk be collected, I had to sit listen to and people watch for four hours in the lower ground floor of St Barts. There is a coffee shop and many seats, its was quite comfortable. Our number three son was on a working mission not far away and pick both my wife and I up from outside the hospital. And drove us home. I went to bed and slept for 3 hours. I’m not going to show you the huge bruise in the right side of my groin where the expert surgeon entered the vein and carried out the procedure from. But having been laid flat and clamped in to position for around 3 hours was quite daunting. I had to wear an oxygen mask and my mouth was so dry my tongue was sticking to my teeth.
But thank you wonderful NHS front line, your marvellous. But a whole host of forgien accents. But I’m certainly not complaining. They were all fantastic.
So glad to be home and resting at last.
Just take it very easy, Eddy. No golf today!!!
Thanks. Will do, it’s an order.
Despite the bruises, I still have a bag of balls with my old putter. 🏌
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAuhhWYhitc
Anywhere’s a golf course if you want it to be!
Interesting, I believe there are drivers you can alter now.
I do hope the procedure will have worked for you.
So do I Ellie, two years was a long time to wait..but it took a paramedic to sort it out in the end. My gp was toooo busy. As was the cardiology department. I expect them to be reflecting on the glory of their own far weaker contributions.
It is totally unacceptable that so many people are being brushed off by GPs and even hospital consultants. From my many dealing with paramedics when my dear Mum was still here, they are the real heroes, every single one of them. Knowledgeable, kind, thorough and patient.
Totally agree MIB. I don’t know if you saw the lead up to my Op, but I had to see a paramedic minor injuries lady because I had gout, my GP wasn’t available for (possibly taken on too much private work) three weeks and i know he wasn’t on holiday. I had previously, in April been told by the cardiology consultant to book my own appointment for the Op at the hospital and had, had no luck with it at all , I found I was being put off. I sat with the young lady for 20 minutes and told her the whole story of how I had reach the medical position I was in and she was appalled at how long I had been waiting for treatment, which was two years. She told me she was going to get in touch with the hospital booking department. And something I had never expected happened the next morning. I had a phone call confirming the appointment. I sent her a thankyou letter of much appreciation posted by hand in the surgery. It was quite funny because she is a large young (rugby build) lady not over weight and I thought she might have been to the hospital and ‘sorted them out’. 😂😉😊
I think i’ll send her another note next week to thank her once again and maybe some flowers. Or a John Lewis voucher.
Thank goodness for that young lady. Another of the NHS unsung heroes.
Now for a speedy recovery.
Thank goodness for that young lady. Another of the NHS unsung heroes.
Now for a speedy recovery.
Over all not a bad experience once they got round to it. Glad you’re home.
If you show me yours i’ll show you mine. :@)
Yes Phizz i can’t tell you how relived I am right now.
Glad it went well for you, Eddy. I believe it’s allowed to take a day of rest after such experiences… !
Thanks Obs, I’m not allowed to to anything, but I did water the tommies in the green house yesterday.
Lifting a cup of hot to the face is surely allowed? Followed later by a glass of cold?
Got to keep somewhat active, don’t you know?
😉
Not being allowed to do anything means others must be at your service. Make the most of it. Joking aside, I’m more than happy your procedure went well. You’ve had a prolonged period of anxiety waiting for this. The tender bits will mend themselves before long. 😉
Pleased to read you’re done and dusted for the time being.
Keep it Steady Eddy…
Oh I nearly forgot to mention, according to the weather ‘Experts’…..we can’t get away from them. It’s going to be very hot next month.
And your washing on the garden line could self ignite so don’t leave it in the sun. 😉😊
July 2023 could be hottest month in 120,000 years. 28 July 2023.
July is set to be the hottest month on record and possibly in 120,000 years after heatwaves on three continents, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has said.
How can he possibly know this?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/27/july-2023-could-be-hottest-month-in-120000-years/
They have been looking at back numbers of The Times…..!!
‘Could be’. And hottest ignores the increment. It also ignores the mean and media and mode.
In the dead of Winter, when it’s 1 or 2 degrees, the hyperbole of ‘yesterday was hotter than today’ when it’s 1.1’c today and was 1.08 yesterday is simple scaremongering – which is all the lie of climate change is,
Because the WMO is a part of the UN and Antonio has told them what to say.
Because the WMO is a part of the UN and Antonio has told them what to say.
Ignore the annoying america:
https://youtu.be/UHj8Cq2EcTo?t=13
Lady T, summing up eloquently, beautifully everything wrong with where we are today.
How the country needs her now!
It would be interesting to know what Margaret Thatcher would make of Rishi Sunak, Kier Starmer and Nigel Farage.
Mincemeat, probably!
She would have sacked wishy-washy, laughed at kneeler and knighted Nigel.
I wonder if Sunak has the political acumen to know that knighting Nigel Farage would give a very positive boost to his own popularity?
Mind you, he is so in thrall to the remainers in his party (some of whom owe they jobs to the fact that Farage stood down his candidates against them in 2019) who would not be at all happy if he did.
The other question is: “Would Nigel Farage accept a knighthood from Sunak?”
Nope. Nigel would not want to be pushed into the same bunker as Sir Keir, Sir Blair, Sir Jimmy Savile, Sir Fred Goodwin, sir J Major etc etc.
I don’t think you appreciate how despised Nigel Farage is. I reckon Sunak would receive a great deal of abuse were he to recommend Farage for a knighthood. Farage is a bogeyman, a bugaboo, to both fearmongers and the afeared.
Ignore the annoying america:
https://youtu.be/UHj8Cq2EcTo?t=13
Lady T, summing up eloquently, beautifully everything wrong with where we are today.
A good article from today’s business section:
“Britain has, unknowingly, become a nation of dependents. New data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that more than half of the population (53.8pc) now receives more from the state than they contribute in taxes.
In 2021-22, 36m British adults lived in households where cash benefits and what the ONS calls “benefits in kind” – the imputed value of government spending on health, schools and so on – were higher than the taxes they paid. What’s more, for only the second time ever, middle earners now receive more from the state than they pay in taxes.
Last year, the top fifth of earners paid an average of £33,579 more in taxes than they received in benefits and contributed half (49.4pc) of all tax collected by the Government. The top 10 per cent pay a third of all tax. For income tax, the contribution of the well-off is even more startling: the top fifth of earners now pay two-thirds (67.7pc) of all the Government’s income tax receipts.
It is true that Covid and the Government’s response to it are largely responsible for this spike in the “net recipient ratio”. Immediately, before the pandemic, the proportion of households receiving more in benefits and benefits-in-kind than they pay in taxes was 47.5pc. It then shot up to 55pc after the first year of lockdowns, as support measures, vast increases in NHS funding and a collapse in consumer spending leading to reduced VAT receipts all significantly impacted dependency on the state.
This impact would have been even higher had furlough payments been treated by the ONS as a benefit, not as household income.
There are many worrying trends hidden in this latest data. Why has the net recipient ratio fallen by such a tiny amount, from 55pc to 53.8pc, since the economy reopened? The latest figure is the second highest, and coincided with the end of lockdowns and a return to relative normality. Remember the optimism that our economy would bounce back stronger? These figures show just how misplaced it was. We are a long way from clearing the economic damage.
If you exclude retired households – who understandably pay relatively little in income tax – it becomes clear that middle-earning households are net recipients. The amounts may seem small – £563 last year – but as recently as in 2016-17 middle earners paid over £3,300 more in tax than they received from the state.
How has this happened? The biggest difference is in the value of the benefits-in-kind they received – up in nominal terms from £7,605 per middle income household in 2016-17 to £13,272 last year, an extraordinary increase of 74.5pc. Can anyone say that our hospitals or schools have seen commensurate improvements? Such is the wait for treatment that there are now 400,000 more people not in employment or looking for employment than there were during the pandemic.
We are now in a vicious cycle; NHS spending is increasing, but the marginal gains are minute. The benefits bill is soaring (£298.7bn in 2021-22 – up from £168.7bn in 2017-18) as fewer people work and more claim welfare.
The pandemic may be in the past but the Government is still putting its arms around us, with an Energy Price Guarantee worth hundreds of pounds for every household in the country, and inflation-linked increases in pensions and disability payments.
How long can this go on? Should we expect the ratio to fall in the future, or are we relaxed about more and more households receiving more from the Government than they pay in tax?
The rich’s pips are squeaking as the middle classes become increasingly dependent on the state. Look at the recent anti-work movement characterised by the rise of quiet quitting, “bare minimum Mondays” or “acting your wage”. Consider attendance levels across Whitehall, or recent reports that British employees spend an average of 1.5 days a week working from home, compared with an international average of 0.9 days.
The latest ONS figures raise big, almost existential, questions. Is it sustainable in the long term for a growing number of people to “receive” more from the state than they “contribute”? Does this – albeit inadvertently – give strong incentives to the electorate to favour ever higher state expenditure, particularly as the top fifth of earners pay half of all tax meaning that, for most people, someone else will pick up the bill? Above all, is the founding principle of the welfare state of a generous safety net for all now out of control? Are we not at risk of trapping people in welfare dependency?
It doesn’t need to be like this. The net recipient ratio can fall – as it did between 2010 and 2019 when it dropped from over 52pc of the population to under 48pc. Moreover, that fall happened when, just as now, the average age of the population was increasing significantly. An ageing population does not necessarily mean that the net claimant ratio will increase. But it does require tough controls on spending.
It is time for this net recipient ratio to be part of the fiscal conversation. That most people receive more from the state than they contribute in tax cannot continue to be brushed under the carpet.”
It’s my belief that welfare “dependency” is deliberate. Universal income beckons. The fact that U.K. is bust is irrelevant, the Great Reset plan is working.
A good article from today’s business section:
“Britain has, unknowingly, become a nation of dependents. New data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that more than half of the population (53.8pc) now receives more from the state than they contribute in taxes.
In 2021-22, 36m British adults lived in households where cash benefits and what the ONS calls “benefits in kind” – the imputed value of government spending on health, schools and so on – were higher than the taxes they paid. What’s more, for only the second time ever, middle earners now receive more from the state than they pay in taxes.
Last year, the top fifth of earners paid an average of £33,579 more in taxes than they received in benefits and contributed half (49.4pc) of all tax collected by the Government. The top 10 per cent pay a third of all tax. For income tax, the contribution of the well-off is even more startling: the top fifth of earners now pay two-thirds (67.7pc) of all the Government’s income tax receipts.
It is true that Covid and the Government’s response to it are largely responsible for this spike in the “net recipient ratio”. Immediately, before the pandemic, the proportion of households receiving more in benefits and benefits-in-kind than they pay in taxes was 47.5pc. It then shot up to 55pc after the first year of lockdowns, as support measures, vast increases in NHS funding and a collapse in consumer spending leading to reduced VAT receipts all significantly impacted dependency on the state.
This impact would have been even higher had furlough payments been treated by the ONS as a benefit, not as household income.
There are many worrying trends hidden in this latest data. Why has the net recipient ratio fallen by such a tiny amount, from 55pc to 53.8pc, since the economy reopened? The latest figure is the second highest, and coincided with the end of lockdowns and a return to relative normality. Remember the optimism that our economy would bounce back stronger? These figures show just how misplaced it was. We are a long way from clearing the economic damage.
If you exclude retired households – who understandably pay relatively little in income tax – it becomes clear that middle-earning households are net recipients. The amounts may seem small – £563 last year – but as recently as in 2016-17 middle earners paid over £3,300 more in tax than they received from the state.
How has this happened? The biggest difference is in the value of the benefits-in-kind they received – up in nominal terms from £7,605 per middle income household in 2016-17 to £13,272 last year, an extraordinary increase of 74.5pc. Can anyone say that our hospitals or schools have seen commensurate improvements? Such is the wait for treatment that there are now 400,000 more people not in employment or looking for employment than there were during the pandemic.
We are now in a vicious cycle; NHS spending is increasing, but the marginal gains are minute. The benefits bill is soaring (£298.7bn in 2021-22 – up from £168.7bn in 2017-18) as fewer people work and more claim welfare.
The pandemic may be in the past but the Government is still putting its arms around us, with an Energy Price Guarantee worth hundreds of pounds for every household in the country, and inflation-linked increases in pensions and disability payments.
How long can this go on? Should we expect the ratio to fall in the future, or are we relaxed about more and more households receiving more from the Government than they pay in tax?
The rich’s pips are squeaking as the middle classes become increasingly dependent on the state. Look at the recent anti-work movement characterised by the rise of quiet quitting, “bare minimum Mondays” or “acting your wage”. Consider attendance levels across Whitehall, or recent reports that British employees spend an average of 1.5 days a week working from home, compared with an international average of 0.9 days.
The latest ONS figures raise big, almost existential, questions. Is it sustainable in the long term for a growing number of people to “receive” more from the state than they “contribute”? Does this – albeit inadvertently – give strong incentives to the electorate to favour ever higher state expenditure, particularly as the top fifth of earners pay half of all tax meaning that, for most people, someone else will pick up the bill? Above all, is the founding principle of the welfare state of a generous safety net for all now out of control? Are we not at risk of trapping people in welfare dependency?
It doesn’t need to be like this. The net recipient ratio can fall – as it did between 2010 and 2019 when it dropped from over 52pc of the population to under 48pc. Moreover, that fall happened when, just as now, the average age of the population was increasing significantly. An ageing population does not necessarily mean that the net claimant ratio will increase. But it does require tough controls on spending.
It is time for this net recipient ratio to be part of the fiscal conversation. That most people receive more from the state than they contribute in tax cannot continue to be brushed under the carpet.”
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/68af0d3beb7fcf7c35af26b4a3239bfe12c827a92a27d594f197d0c91e369992.png
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/27/labour-cardiff-council-diesel-generators-electric-lorries/
A BTL from a chap called Mr Lush
Cost twice as much as a diesel bin truck, can only work a third as many hours in a day, has 35% lower payload, so is ~15% the efficiency of a diesel, so every kg of waste collected costs the taxpayer ~ 900% more money.
Using batteries made in China, in factories powered by coal burning power stations, made of Lithium and Cobalt mined by child slave labour.
How much crack was smoked by the imbeciles that made this procurement decision??? ‘For environmental benefits…’
Even Beelzebub Blair is beginning to realise that nobody is going to win many votes by pushing the green fraud too hard
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d1a0049b65eab25ef7b61e6dbd9b5fa1ee2047e9a86470c5a68da41ed933b1b9.png
Dear Mr Blair you effed up now eff off. Says it all really.
BLiar, like so many politicians, is only changing what he says because he sees which way the wind is blowing.
From the Letters today:
Climate and migration
SIR – What Lord Frost doesn’t quite get is that if temperatures are rising in the UK, they are rising around the rest of the world, too (“Hotter temperatures could benefit UK, says Lord Frost”, report, July 26). When temperatures (and associated humidities) in the tropics and subtropics rise to the point where deadly heatwaves become commonplace, people will have no option but to move to places with more benign climates, such as the UK.
Lord Frost is concerned about illegal immigration now. Well, this might be nothing compared with what may happen later in the century if we abandon our goal of net zero by 2050.
Professor Tim Palmer
Royal Society research professor
Department of Physics
University of Oxford
Well, ‘Professor’ Tim, first of all temperatures in the UK are not rising. They are in fact falling, recent aviation-venue-related spikes to 40℃ notwithstanding. Second, if they were rising in the UK it does not follow that they would be rising everywhere (middle of the Pacific Ocean? Antarctica?). Third, we know that when the planet does warm it does so in the temperate, sub-polar and polar zones, not in the tropics. That warming is the result of heat transfer from the tropics to the temperate and polar regions. Fourth, since all weather is a product of differing moisture and heat content of different air masses, the greater those differences, the more extreme the weather. Therefore if the temperate and polar regions warm up there will be a less steep temperature gradient across the latitudes and the result will be less extreme weather not more so. Fifth, who is to say that the climate of the UK will continue to be benign? When we move into another glaciation cycle it won’t be. That will happen; it’s not if, it’s when. And sixth, you can stuff net zero 2050 where the sun doesn’t shine.
I wondered if he was something to do with UK Fires:
https://ukfires.org/about-us/
He doesn’t seem to be but he probably sips latte with them.
BTL: Immigrants are already coming to Europe but for the benefits, not the shade.
I’m not getting emails from disqus to tell me about replies/posts any more. Anyone else?
I switched on that setting once. I soon turned it off.
Found it. I hadn’t switched it off. I didn’t know it existed. Anyway, I don’t need an email, I can just click on my username to see if there are replies.
Or look at “Notifications” = see little red button top right.
‘Morning All
This will be interesting I don’t think the Stradley Park protesters will go quietly
https://twitter.com/ActivePatriotUK/status/1684605309564616705?t=1mbrXKuuYCz9nx20IAbk3w&s=19
Rest of the medley
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/080e62127960a7e299d2e7d4580a5b2c7a572a0de2f15b21ed0ea7e2dd395217.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cc34b6155e540e6581f22a9cfb5cbaf3c09f84ed957603f2ca576bb241583ba5.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f067d435639ab6e7f5dcf4f7b286e507e02c8399bcfecb6815ca96682fae725e.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/17d05821f7c70bca749b9ca3724de09cbe2bbf20f3008422a18f3ddffd7d59b0.jpg
“Become ungovernable”
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/701b7457b4c8724bd4cc99c7f9f4164e14e4afd77719c25521a265b0d8106f2a.jpg
I guess the police will do something about taht kind of protest but nothing about the sit-down-in-the-motorway type.
My suspicion:
https://twitter.com/truthbeforepc/status/1684857501789929472?s=20
The only thing to do with a hot potato is pass it on.
You’re right Lewis. It was only AFTER the news that Farage had been debanked that Dame Alison
was awarded the Co-chair of the Energy Efficiency Task Force.
I can’t imagine why Sunak later changed his mind?
Morning all! All ideologues are one-dimensional thinkers, aren’t they? Blair and his ilk should be sampling the view from London Bridge.
Bugger!!
https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1684857196612358145?s=20
Cue widespread camera destruction.
The Grimes has FOUR pages devoted to the “brave, heroic living (but now dead) saint”…
Some sense of proportion would be appreciated.
Who dat?
George Alagiah?
Daily Mail story today:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac72a005352c329b0a6f9873b6496acf436fba6ac320ed22f83e6097e5f045d7.png
Mass civil disobedience with people refusing to pay their charges and the fines and prepared to go to prison must now be the only solution.
No to Bureaucracy
Yes to Anarchy
Another nail in the coffin of democracy!
Democracy? You mad or suffin’?
Who got asked their opinion?
For mass civil disobedience to work, some will have to martyr themselves. Only when punishment of early offenders fails to deter others will authorities revisit the regulations they’ve imposed.
Wreck the cameras. Wreck GLC vehicles. Burn their garages.
Linked-arm demonstrators walking slowly ahead of traffic queues seems to escape much punishment. As efforts to stop it are largely facilitated by law enforcers, I assume it’s a form of protest which meets with tacit approval.
The row over the recording of temperatures is warming up.
False claims of bogus heatwave spread online
Even if the BBC is correct, its headline is a disgrace. The claim is not that it’s a bogus heatwave but that it’s been exaggerated and presented as unprecedented.
Here’s a DT letters page comment from Edwin Pugh
The row over the recording of temperatures is warming up.
False claims of bogus heatwave spread online
Even if the BBC is correct, its headline is a disgrace. The claim is not that it’s a bogus heatwave but that it’s been exaggerated and presented as unprecedented.
Here’s a DT letters page comment from Edwin Pugh
The row over the recording of temperatures is warming up.
False claims of bogus heatwave spread online
Even if the BBC is correct, its headline is a disgrace. The claim is not that it’s a bogus heatwave but that it’s been exaggerated and presented as unprecedented.
Here’s a DT letters page comment from Edwin Pugh
The row over the recording of temperatures is warming up.
False claims of bogus heatwave spread online
Even if the BBC is correct, its headline is a disgrace. The claim is not that it’s a bogus heatwave but that it’s been exaggerated and presented as unprecedented.
Here’s a DT letters page comment from Edwin Pugh
A UK rail freight operator has taken its electric locomotives out of service and replaced them with diesels because the cost of electricity is too high.
DB Cargo UK grounds electric fleet following rocketing electricity prices
Dear oh dear – I hope they don’t go anywhere near the Caliph’s ULEZ area….!!
What a surprise. Not that reality will stop the lunatic agenda, even if TPTB delay a few ‘targets’ by a few years.
Cue legislation to outlaw diesel locomotives.
There’s quite a determined effort to impoverish the populace.
Want to rejoin the EU? You won’t if you read this.
No
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-eu-a-gdp-graveyard-still-want-to-rejoin-read-this/
Good to see that the Daily Mail has put a really competent a serious climatologist and a competent scientist on the case!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e7bf314228776d0085384148840322b58d05c2aa878ea5ff5d4352b5473aada6.png
Ah, the old “hottest July EVER” ploy – how can that be proven?
Just e-mail a caveman.
July didn’t exist when the planet was hotter. It was created with the Julian calendar of 45BC. The present day July came with the Gregorian calendar of 1582. Perhaps that’s as far back as Ever goes.
The drip-drip of propaganda has worked well on her then. Stupid woman.
Well, at least she’ll get her teeth into the ishoo.
George Orwell — ‘The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.’
I detect a note of realism. If hotter summers – and milder winters – are the new normal, getting used to them is a more pragmatic suggestion than moving heaven and earth to moderate, halt or reverse them.
Humanity has always thrived during the earth’s warmer periods. I do not understand the hysteria.
Street-Porter? It would be better for everyone if that were her job and not her name.
She already represents the TVs top gob job.
It really is laughable now.
She, being trained in meteorological sciences, knows all this, naturally.
Only ignorant plebs don’t know that when the weather is cold it is irrelevant as far as global warming is concerned; but when the weather is hot it is clear evidence of man-made climate change.
Hot weather is measured in degrees fahrenheit (scary stuff) – cold weather is measured in degrees centigrade for obvious reasons.
On this morning’s Sky Business News Harriet Baldwin MP pointed out that Dame Alison Rose had broken the law and should go, to which
the riposte by Ian King was “but don’t you have sympathy with Dame Alison?”
Surely a multi million payoff is sufficient sympathy for Dame Alison.
If any off us committed an illegal act at work and were fired, would we get a multi million payoff?
Or is Ian King just a wannabe member of Common Purpose?
King is just another leftie.
Is that the well-known FCU King?
Probably, but being a financial reporter why would he ever want leftie policies in this country?
Soome people believe in having a big state to do everything.t it take all sorts.
Any news of LOTL, Ann and/or Maggie True-belle?
Not here.
Quite anxiety-making.
According to the local weather forecast the pollen count in this area is (dangerously?) high. I have ventured out and, if true, I never knew that pollen could swim. What a load of bow-locks!
374899+ up ticks,
The real terrifyingly thing is it is done seemingly with peoples consent, as with the rape and abuse of underage maidens, and the parties responsible still finding support & votes it has now been extended to a once green & pleasant land.
https://twitter.com/LeilaniDowding/status/1684858396376190976?s=20
I lifted this from the Scottish Parliament’s website.
https://www.parliament.scot/about/how-parliament-works/devolved-and-reserved-powers
Does Yousaf have anything to say about these, any policies for them, or is everything tickety-boo?
Schoolboy error,quick flip around waitrose in only a tee-shirt on top the whole store is absolutely freezing now back home fleece on hands wrapped round a hot coffee trying to get the chill out of my bones
Their air con bills must be huge
One would think they would make their aircon reactive to outside temperature. Obviously the freezer aisle is always going to be cold.
It’s an evil plot to make the outside world feel hotter than it really is. It happened to me upon leaving an ice rink. The exterior felt much hotter than upon my arrival.
Why the Hunter Biden scandal matters. Spiked 28 July 2023.
All it took was for a judge to ask a few simple questions, and Hunter Biden’s cushy plea deal with the US government blew up right in the middle of a courtroom.
On Wednesday, Judge Maryellen Noreika refused to accept an agreement worked out between the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and lawyers for Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s troubled 53-year-old son. Normally, judicial approvals for plea deals are perfunctory, but Judge Noreika smelled a rat. She variously described the deal as ‘not standard, not what I normally see’, possibly ‘unconstitutional’, without legal precedent and potentially ‘not worth the paper it is printed on’.
If anything shows us the true rottenness of the present political system it is surely this. All of Hunter Biden’s criminal activities were known prior to the last Presidential Election. There was nothing secret about them. You could read about them in the greatest detail on line. If memory serves me I myself posted on this blog about them. The only place where you couldn’t was in the MSM. The FBI actively prevented any investigation. The rest of the Security Services were complicit in this deception. The UK need not get sniffy about this. Its own record is far from pristine. The vast sums stolen during the Covid Con will never be recovered. Foreign Aid is simply a scam. We are living in a failed society that is tottering to its doom.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/07/28/why-the-hunter-biden-scandal-matters/
Hunter Biden “Troubled?”
That’s like describing King Herod as “thoughtless.”
Why the Hunter Biden scandal matters. Spiked 28 July 2023.
All it took was for a judge to ask a few simple questions, and Hunter Biden’s cushy plea deal with the US government blew up right in the middle of a courtroom.
On Wednesday, Judge Maryellen Noreika refused to accept an agreement worked out between the US Department of Justice (DoJ) and lawyers for Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s troubled 53-year-old son. Normally, judicial approvals for plea deals are perfunctory, but Judge Noreika smelled a rat. She variously described the deal as ‘not standard, not what I normally see’, possibly ‘unconstitutional’, without legal precedent and potentially ‘not worth the paper it is printed on’.
If anything shows us the true rottenness of the present political system it is surely this. All of Hunter Biden’s criminal activities were known prior to the last Presidential Election. There was nothing secret about them. You could read about them in the greatest detail on line. If memory serves me I myself posted on this blog about them. The only place where you couldn’t was in the MSM. The FBI actively prevented any investigation. The rest of the Security Services were complicit in this deception. The UK need not get sniffy about this. Its own record is far from pristine. The vast sums stolen during the Covid Con will never be recovered. Foreign Aid is simply a scam. We are living in a failed society that is tottering to its doom.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/07/28/why-the-hunter-biden-scandal-matters/
“The reason I made the decision is because our air in London is a killer. There are children with stunted lungs. It was a difficult decision [to extend the zone], essential but vital. Four thousand people die prematurely, linked to air quality.”
Khan, today, the leading story on BBC’s 1pm news.
He also managed to link cancer, dementia and heart disease to air pollution. How about poverty and ignorance as a guarantee of a poor quality of life, especially when you’re keen to cram into the city as many immigrants as possible?
Even Rachel Reeves (Labour shadow chancellor) has criticised it. Yet…there are too many diesel cars on the road, largely a result of the 20-year-old lie about the efficiency of diesel engines and the VW scam. Nevertheless, this is the environmental movement at its worst – get rid of the bad things without viable replacements while ignoring the immediate consequences.
Those who do not like unladylike language, please look away now.
Khan is an absolute f kh.
Apologies for my rude language but i have to get it off my chest.
Edit. I cannot work that spoiler thing to work.
Hit the eye with the line through it and that will bring up the spoiler.
Apologies for my rude language but i have to get it off my chest.
Edit. I cannot work that spoiler thing.
Apologies for my rude language but i have to get it off my chest.
Edit. I cannot work that spoiler thing.
Apologies for my rude language but i have to get it off my chest.
Edit. I cannot work that spoiler thing.
It could even be smoking in one’s early years.
I have heart disease and COPD both of which I attribute to heavy smoking for at least 55 years.
He didn’t mention the extra £260million that the BBC estimated that he’d get in the first year?
How strange.
I understand the ‘four thousand people die prematurely’ is from a model by our famous Imperial College. Backed up by a single case where the coroner suggested air pollution ‘played a factor’. Whatever, the £12.50 fee (£3,000 per year is) does absolutely nothing to reduce the pollution in itself.
Ah, the infamous Ferguson modelling method. Take a sample of 2,500 people where air pollution might have contributed to one death and it therefore follows that in a city of around 10,000,000 there must be 4,000 cases, because 10,000,000 divided by 2,500 equals 4,000.
Children with stunted lungs! Oh cry me a river. What nonsense!
Little snippet of news from RFK Jr on Twitt:
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr
@RobertKennedyJr
Since the assassination of my father in 1968, candidates for president are provided Secret Service protection. But not me.
Typical turnaround time for pro forma protection requests from presidential candidates is 14-days. After 88-days of no response and after several follow-ups by our campaign, the Biden Administration just denied our request. Secretary Mayorkas: “I have determined that Secret Service protection for Robert F Kennedy Jr is not warranted at this time.”
Our campaign’s request included a 67-page report from the world’s leading protection firm, detailing unique and well established security and safety risks aside from commonplace death threats.”
If RFK Jr was assassinated right now (which I sincerely hope will not happen), they would blame Trump.
So brazen. Even now that we know the CIA murdered his uncle and probably his father too, they’re still openly trying to set him up. The Devil knows no shame.
Even bad weather is blamed on Trump.
Not Brexit?
Every other day.
Only fair.
No chance of the real public enemies being bumped off.
Perhaps we could organise some practice in the UK.
Why should he get protection more than any other ex- president’s relatives?
Because he is running for President. The protection is given to candidates on the campaign trail.
Off to see Nurse – yet again. My in-house nurse tells me that the wound really IS starting to heal well. Then to B&Q – what a full life we lead.
Play nicely. Toodles.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/28/the-once-great-british-middle-class-ridded-with-entitlement/
Articles like this are stupid. They assume that the tax payer wants the services it is forced to pay for and receives value from them. If the net cost is £5000, but the net return £500 (which is about right for government spending value ratios) then people are paying ten times as much for something that, given the choice they may prefer to gather from the private sector.
A huge, obese state machine can argue that it provides lots of welfare and education and so on, but in reality… wouldn’t people just prefer to pay less tax, be able to change job more easily, have that job command higher wages (due to a low supply of labour) and generally to be left alone with their own money?
Another Australian omelette has fallen. :-))
Uh?
They’re now called batters and as that one’s cooked I thought I rename the stupid name they now use.
The correct title is batsman.
As sure as iggs is iggs.
Crikey!
Crike
yt!Fixed.
Higgs and Snow once put on 128 for the last wicket – 1966 England v W Indies.
England were 166 for 7 – then Graveney and Murray put on 217 for the 8th and then Higgs and Snow’s valiant effort made the final score 527 all out. The Windies were miffed – to say the least.
Yawns…
To win a test match, by an innings and 34 runs, against a team featuring Conrad Hunte, Easton McMorris, Rohan Kanhai, Basil Butcher, Seymour Nurse, Garry Sobers, David Holford (Sobers’ cousin), Jackie Hendriks, Charlie Griffith, Wes Hall and Lance Gibbs was no mean feat.
The term batters is fine – consistent with bowlers and wicketkeepers.
And consistent with pancakes.
How are you keeping? We’re OK M is playing a lot of bowls and I’m playing fewer game as my knees are really cranky but nothing life threatening apart from getting older. :-))
Que?
See reply to Ndovu.
Sera Sera…
What do all you keen cooks make of this?
https://twitter.com/anne_limartin/status/1684908067048042496
I live in Woking, where the Martians landed in H.G, Wells War of the worlds.
I think they must be revisiting for a lark and have taken over bodies of the most useless individuals to have a joke with us.
Just another way to emphase how useless and stupid our political classes are. Perhaps we should vote to stop them stuffing their fat bank accounts with taxpayers money, they call expenses.
Haven’t MPs got anything better to do?
…I think I’ve just answered my own question.
I’m off soon for the remaining half tin of consomme which I shall drop a raw egg in and cook in the micro until the egg is poached.
And I have a small jelly trifle made for me by a lady upstairs.
Followed by cheese and biscuits.
Both were good, I’ve still to do the cheese and biccies, together with the last of the Sauvignon Blanc I’ve polished off. That’ll do for supper since I cannot have what I really want….
Just make food very expensive such that only the wealthy can afford to consume more than meagre portions of boiled cabbage.
What am I thinking? Boiling contributes to climate catastrophe. Raw potatoes it is.
Potatoes are for the elite, we proles will have to survive on the peelings.
As I mentioned yesterday the DT censors are as hot as mustard at the moment – a fairly mild comment of mine about a model in a tight dress, Kate Moss, showing a bit of camel’s toe was immediately taken down.
But an enterprising BTLiner has managed to beat the system by describing Dame Alison Rose as an absolute bonus hole!
I hope people will now also apply this term to the chancellor of the exchequer and drop the clichéd rhyming slang.
The older I get, the more those who populate the pop charts become a mystery to me. I’ve noticed that a similar fog is enveloping the members of the Cabinet and Parliament in general. Without a Google search, I cannot recall the Chancellor’s name nor many others occupying the front bench. Of those I do recall, such as Gove, I no longer know what they do.
It’s not age, Stig: it’s the insignificance of the individuals holding the posts. Were once, they showed mastery and took action, now they just blether about crap, in the press and MSM.
Jeremy Rhyming Slang for the(ha ha) Chancellor.
So it is. I could recall his face but not his name.
Very clever!
I see that pos git kahnt with the help of Dopey Wokey wealthy and out of touch with reality judges. Has now been able to get away with the expansion out side of the London area of his remit and of his great British rip off scheme to steal more money from hard up motorists.
Only up to the limits of Greater London, surely. Expect to see a glut of older second-hand vehicles for sale outside London.
It’s the precursor to 15 minute cities – they’re just marching in lockstep with the great reset.
When will the majority realise what these morons are doing to our culture and social structure.
Just so’s you know…
https://twitter.com/TerraOrBust/status/1684697490308681729?s=20
The ‘B’BC have been harping on about this all day… Oh, wait….
I’ve not yet noticed an increase in the consumption of olives and retsina.
There is nothing new under the sun.
https://twitter.com/DrBenTapper1/status/1684936535576047618?s=20
Could be a very clever fake, of course. (Think Mr Cholmondeley-Warner)
One or two anachronisms in that cartoon e.g. “Weaponised”, (I’m sure that word wouldn’t have been used in the 1930s) and a mis-spelling “Euthaize”. I smell something fishy.
Fishy?
Good for the sole.
This is not the plaice for more fishy puns…
That’s just damselfish of you, Jill.
That’s codswallop……
Bit bleak.
Pish fun
No! No more fish puns!
I like fish buns. Their fingers are best.
Bill has tipped the scales in favour of them. I just wish they would come to an end – or fin, as the French would say.
Tune echoes of St James’s Infirmary.
https://www.facebook.com/100079975617665/videos/louis-armstrong-st-james-infirmary-blues-the-best-version/751355392055735/
Th-th-that’s all, folks!
It all sounds too familiar, Mum.
How’s the little chap blending in?
He is a little horror….. a typical lad. Tonight he tried out his new teeth on my arm with a quick nip….. and then sat back with what I can only described as undisguised pleasure to watch my reaction. For one who is only 13 weeks old he shows remarkable cunning. Here he is a few days ago watching us from the arm of the sofa in the kitchen – he doesn’t like to be left alone even though he can see us, he complains vociferously! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/93ab22c04e0954e8b471ddc054a959b48df1530352a964aabe731751d595d835.jpg
Oh dear, some strict training seems in order, so that he knows and understands his place in the family hierarchy
I shall have a squirty water-filled bottle for this evening. He is very hyped up in the evening.
Try and discover what hypes him up in the evening. It may be the root of the problem and, if removed, could make him more obedient.
Maybe a long tiring walk may calm him down.
Do you have some local youngsters who might take him for such a walk?
I think evening is when young domestic pets get an attack of the ‘zoomies’ – they go rushing around the place and are generally hyped up. I am viewed as chief playmate by Rico and he is goading me into corresponding play. Poppie viewed me as best friend, which is different. He is subdued this evening and curled up next to me. He drank some rainwater from somewhere it would ave been better not to drink yesterday evening and I think it has upset his stomach. He is a dear little thing but somewhat over-exuberant.
https://media.sailthru.com/composer/images/sailthru-prod-577/editor_images/EScom280723.jpg
Completely OT – we have had discussions here about Own-brand v Branded groceries. There is also a C4 tv prog next Wed (I think) about this.
I am very partial to McVities ginger nuts. £1.50 for 250 grams = 25 biscuits per pack.
Spikey swears by Lidl. Bought a Lidl packet today. 50p for 300 grams = 30 biscuits a pack.
The MR arranged a blind tasting. Once I had found the plate (blind geddit?) I plumped for what turned out to be the Lidl ones.
And so farewell McVities….
You could always get the live-in staff to make them for you…
La vie soit trop courte!
C’est vrai.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5304d32b658a700ce7cadcae25f9ed5344643e1b02ec6bb8917f4fbcb8f7f3d6.png
Love it!!
Trouble is, I’d have to wake them first…
You see what I mean – taken two minutes ao……
GUS
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a719b31191bf6a11c3d0c18312162312f747b4d56257c0afe363cc83dfc105f2.jpg
PICKLES
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/169770c46d2ec6e0aa5febb4f961823d8d4b3389f86f8598db6e935e87f9feeb.jpg
Since our SiL had his stroke, our daughter has been replacing all his full-fat stuff with the ‘healthier’ versions! He hasn’t noticed anything at all, but his BP has come down!
Tesco’s plain chocolate digestive biscuits are indistinguishable – to my taste anyway – to McVities’.
Another Lidl convert. I would say it goes for most brands seeing as they are all made in the same factories.
Sometimes but not necessarily, vieux haricot.
I know Lidl and Aldi source things from Europe as well but they are very good on price and there is nothing wrong with their food.
They also do knockoffs/copies of some things which really pisses of the corporations who have paid millions in advertising. And i won’t shed a tear about that.
No Aldi or Lidl close to Moffat – it’s either – Lockerbie,Annan or Dumfries, I despise the latter place.
Jaffa cakes for me or Cambazola on Tuc biscuits.
Can’t beat a Jaffa cake.
Can’t beat a bag of pork scratchings.
Hog.
Ohhh yes you can.
Wanna bet?
Ritz are much nicer than Tuc
Not as big.
Have two 🙂
Ritz are much nicer than Tuc
Excessive biscuit consumption may lead to plumping.
I am very circumspect. Two biscuits – two squares of Lidl 74% choclate……
Every two minutes?
.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6cbb893b0500224b4db52ef31e5832c041a8abca1ce57bd352801e6cd95164c7.jpg
Weekend you say………..
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99d46d04eb562590c14cf8d35ad82ed70bb8b80aba359ad931aaca6c6dd9c774.jpg
No messing eh.
Another Birdie today.
Wordle 769 3/6
⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Me too.
Wordle 769 3/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Me three
Wordle 769 3/6
🟨🟨⬜🟨🟨
⬜🟨🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
How twee!
Slow start and par for me.
Wordle 769 4/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩
⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Just read an item in the Guardian, (yeah, I know) saying the latest status symbol in UK is the not so ordinary bog roll!! Is Anne Allen on board with all this?? At least, it’s free reading!
And yes, it is a bit warm over here in WV…
I wipe my a**e on their status symbols! Oh, wait…
Tony Blair is playing a blinder: dismissing pursuit of ‘Zero Carbon’ as futile.
As both Sunak and Starmer are playing for Professor Millipeede’s team, Blair may well be onto a winner.
Should someone create an ‘Affordable Energy Party’; he or she could well dominate the next parliament . . .
Blair just wants to pull the strings – and his are pulled by the WEF.
From https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/07/27/the-fall-of-meghans-media-empire/
When Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, first appeared on the world stage, she felt to many of us like a bi-racial breath of fresh air, beloved by all but the most stuffy among us. That was until ‘Megxit’ in 2020, when she left the royal family at a trot, dragging the hapless Harry behind her, to spend the rest of her days in a gated community in California. Deals with Netflix, Spotify and book publishers flooded in soon after. Apparently, there was a huge, lucrative market for Harry and Meghan’s ‘insights’.
It now turns out that H&M may have just had their last big pay day for some time. The Telegraph reports this week that streaming service Spotify has made a £34million loss from its podcasting division. Among its biggest flops was its ‘high-profile tie-up with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’.
Last month, Spotify and Archewell Audio, Harry and Meghan’s podcast-production company, tore up a £16million deal they had signed in 2020, after the Sussexes reportedly failed to meet performance targets. Archetypes, the only podcast that Harry and Meghan made for Spotify, was cancelled after just one series. ‘We overpaid relative to what we should have done’, admitted Spotify head Daniel Ek. Bill Simmons, an executive and podcast host at Spotify, was less diplomatic about the Sussexes. They’re ‘fucking grifters’ was his verdict.
For the past two years, Markle and her russet lapdog have mercilessly monetised their emotions – some genuine, some less so – in interviews, documentaries and books. Their marketing strategy was to anoint themselves as the wounded prince and princess of moral superiority. They have portrayed themselves as victims of racism and press intrusion, ‘hurting’ all the way to the bank.
After all, sadness – rebooted as ‘vulnerability’ – is to the 2020s what happiness was in the 1960s (peace-and-love happy) and the 1980s (sexy-greedy happy). Sam Smith and Adele are the Romeo and Juliet of the crying game, monetising their weepiness into vast fortunes. Kim Kardashian’s tears and troubles were as important as her bum in turning her into such a global phenomenon. Reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians drew in the vital female audience who wouldn’t have identified with someone who was merely a wealthy star of a sex tape. Showing sorrow in sumptuous surroundings has always made the rich look relatable, going right back to Dallas and Dynasty.
My bold.
One lives in hopes….
Where was Bill Simmons when the deal was done? Someone at Spotify must be responsible for greatly overestimating the revenue-generating powers of the Sussexes. The blame by no means lies entirely in their hands.
Which reminds me; we haven’t heard from Lady Colin Campbell for some time.
She may be long winded, but she’s merciless.
From https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/07/27/the-fall-of-meghans-media-empire/
When Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, first appeared on the world stage, she felt to many of us like a bi-racial breath of fresh air, beloved by all but the most stuffy among us. That was until ‘Megxit’ in 2020, when she left the royal family at a trot, dragging the hapless Harry behind her, to spend the rest of her days in a gated community in California. Deals with Netflix, Spotify and book publishers flooded in soon after. Apparently, there was a huge, lucrative market for Harry and Meghan’s ‘insights’.
It now turns out that H&M may have just had their last big pay day for some time. The Telegraph reports this week that streaming service Spotify has made a £34million loss from its podcasting division. Among its biggest flops was its ‘high-profile tie-up with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’.
Last month, Spotify and Archewell Audio, Harry and Meghan’s podcast-production company, tore up a £16million deal they had signed in 2020, after the Sussexes reportedly failed to meet performance targets. Archetypes, the only podcast that Harry and Meghan made for Spotify, was cancelled after just one series. ‘We overpaid relative to what we should have done’, admitted Spotify head Daniel Ek. Bill Simmons, an executive and podcast host at Spotify, was less diplomatic about the Sussexes. They’re ‘fucking grifters’ was his verdict.
For the past two years, Markle and her russet lapdog have mercilessly monetised their emotions – some genuine, some less so – in interviews, documentaries and books. Their marketing strategy was to anoint themselves as the wounded prince and princess of moral superiority. They have portrayed themselves as victims of racism and press intrusion, ‘hurting’ all the way to the bank.
After all, sadness – rebooted as ‘vulnerability’ – is to the 2020s what happiness was in the 1960s (peace-and-love happy) and the 1980s (sexy-greedy happy). Sam Smith and Adele are the Romeo and Juliet of the crying game, monetising their weepiness into vast fortunes. Kim Kardashian’s tears and troubles were as important as her bum in turning her into such a global phenomenon. Reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians drew in the vital female audience who wouldn’t have identified with someone who was merely a wealthy star of a sex tape. Showing sorrow in sumptuous surroundings has always made the rich look relatable, going right back to Dallas and Dynasty.
My bold.
The prog about”Own-brand v branded” is on Channel 4 on Monday 31 July at 8 pm.
(There is no charge for this useful information…)
Just deserts?
https://twitter.com/DVATW/status/1684952582039433216
Very rough justice.
https://twitter.com/DVATW/status/1684279908632076290
Excellent! And her hair fell off as well!
‘Twas a bloke dressed up wasn’t it?
Yes. I saw through the disguise straight away. The way he was walking. It’s how a man thinks a woman walks.
Oh how sad.
Here, the bus driver would be arrested.
Just popping in- today has been horrible and I’ve spent most of it in bed. I finally have an appointment on Tues with consultant to be looked at and to sign a consent form for the drug therapy- god knows when that will start.
Of course, my husband has a procedure on Tues also but at a different hospital.
It is all getting me down and I am not sure how much longer I can stand this.
Thank you all for your good wishes and kind thoughts.
KBO, Lotty!
Glad to see you posting! Hold in there, Ann.
Sending hugs, love and prayers.
You should not be suffering like this, Ann. Even your short breaks from NTTL are giving cause for concern. Tuesday cannot come fast enough. 🙏🙏🙏
We’re all hoping things will improve for you both, Ann.
Good to see you back, even if you’re still not feeling well.
Let’s just hope that Tuesday Appt does something in at least relieving the pain and allowing some deep sleep.
As Lacoste says KBO, we’re rooting for you!
We certainly have been worried by your few days absence.
Hopefully the NHS can get something right at last.
Just remember, Ann – that, for what it’s worth – you have chums here rooting for you – though we can do SFA.
When you are at the horsepiddle – if the whited coated start to be condescending – SHOUT at them. (A lawyer writes…)
Just this morning, I was asking if anyone had any news about you.
If only there were other Nottlers living close to you, I’m sure you’d have lifts and lots of help.
Typical that both you and your husband have appointments at different hospitals.
Once you’ve signed those forms, the drug therapy should be very soon.
Take care, Ann
All the very best Lottie
And prayers, Big Sis. KBO…
I don’t have anything useful to say or add, but I did think of you today and wondered how you were.
Hang on in there and make them help you.
Sending best wishes and my thoughts to you both, Ann. I can only reiterate what all the Nottlers have said, and add my voice to say KBO!
Hang on in there, Ann. A long time colleague of mine, a freelance film researcher, has cervical cancer. Her op was last week, poor thing. I haven’t heard yet but hopefully it was successful.
I’ve been wondering how you were. Good to see you today anyway. Best of luck for the appointment.
Glad to see you’re hanging on there. I do hope things improve soon.
Good to see you still keeping an eye on us.
I’ve forgotten where you live Lottie but I have a week off next week with no plans and so if you’re anywhere near me, I could come and ferry you around.
I hope when you’ve seen the quack that there’sa good plan in place to get you over this.
Very kind but I think we’re too far apart.
Storm could have a visit with me then continue on to you. Don’t forget storm knows her way around hospitals. Might come in handy.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5aa53ef992c2f631b9a7249fc3730b7324137a25005641f2451af5bfb04eee36.png
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/28/natwest-cant-move-on-sir-howard-davies-charge/
A couple of BTL Comments:
“Stand not upon the order of your going
But go at once.”
He should follow the advice Lady Macbeth gave to her guests after the appearance of Banquo’s ghost had rather ruined the party.
Reply.
Or as Oliver Cromwell said to the parasites in parliament:
“In the name of God, GO!”
The fuckwit will never go – unless he is, er, sacked by the big shareholders (including HMG)
On a trivial matter, why has Elon Musk replaced the blue bird Twitter logo with a stylised X? It seems like a pointless change. A small bird silhouette conveyed the notion of tweeting, a form of microblogging in which short bursts of brevity are required.
Got banned from twitter years ago, probably a good thing really
Mr Musk has some vague idea about creating a 360 degree application that everyone will use everywhere, and he referred to his concept (AFAIK) as a Project X. The billion dollar mistake is that the letter ‘x’ is already in use on the web as a symbol whose function is to close the page.
I preferred the bird motif too. There’s been an improvement in the standard of discourse permitted though.
Brands are often renamed when there are distasteful associations to them.
Twitter was being run on woke ideology until he stepped in.
That’s me for today. Useful stuff achieved. Nurse did her stuff. Vert patient, gentle and caring. For a girl of late 20s – an old-fashioned “proper” nurse in the making. Next apptmt next Friday..
Cats did their NON-STUFF by sleeping from 9 am until just before 6 pm!
Still very surprised AND pleased by the Lidl own-brand test. The MR invested in their washing up liquid – again for a trial.
Rain held off. Heavy topsoil shifting tomorrow to level up the trench made when the new oil tank was installed.. But we will EACH be sensible and not do too much.
Cod for supper plus COBRA beans – and a few potatoes. And, I am told, some WINE.
Have a spiffing evening
A demain – prolly.
Last weekend a teenager was stabbed at a party in the Horsham area of Sussex. Tragically, the young man died of his injuries. Another youngster, aged sixteen, was charged with murder and has appeared in Crown Court today, where he pleaded guilty.
I am aghast that the criminal justice system can work so fast, and gobsmacked that the lad was allowed to plead guilty to murder rather than being given the opportunity to admit to manslaughter. The report states that the killer did not take a knife to the party, and had consumed a lot of alcohol.https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/28/boy-plead-guilty-charlie-cosser-death-triplets-party-sussex/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr
No mental illness excuses??
Was he white?
If you watched and enjoyed ‘Tom’s River’ which I put up this morning, here’s another for you. ‘Salmo the Leaper’ written and directed by the late, great Hugh Falkus in 1977. It’s worth watching for his demonstration alone of how to survive falling into a deep, fast-flowing river fully clothed with waders on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCZnM09goYM&t=112s
Why a bottle of wine is about to get more expensivefrom 01 August 2023.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/why-bottle-of-wine-expensive-tax-ukraine-war/
Hallo! Long time no see?
Hello, are you promming it up?
No, I bought seat tickets this year. Proms passes are now digital and require daily authentication. I won’t do digital ID. Not keen on sitting on the floor these days either. The sciatic nerve complains!
Good job I’ve stocked up recently.
The last budget.Delayed increase till 1st Aug.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/34f4f2704f001bdcc35aadd1dd25f46f783a219c26423cf7f330487df7f58f7f.jpg
He could have bought a house for 4 grand in the 1930s.
And a lot more recently than that, too. A reasonable three bed semi could be bought for about £3,000 round here in the mid-sixties.
More like £300,000+ in rural Wiltshire today, I’d imagine.
At least. We sold two houses to buy this one in 1995 and we certainly couldn’t afford it today.
Shoulda spent it on his own kitchen
I would have. Over the years I have designed many things including large restaurant catering kitchens.
I was employed on projects where the kitchen operations were visible to the customers. This required better attention to detail and appearance than the stuff you buy from the big standard outfits. Bespoke stainless steel fabrications were often key along with the detail and heating/lighting of serveries.
I dream about designing my own bespoke kitchen.
Good Evening.
T. Defarge (Mrs) popping in quickly; doesn’t time fly when you’re oiling tumbrel wheels and sharpening the prongs on your pitchforks?
Oh, all right; so I tell lies. Food shopping, sorting out dog prescriptions and ordering curtains.
Saved £150 by choosing pencil pleats rather than pinch pleats. Who would have thought bunching up material into tiny little groups of three pleats would use up so much more material?
That has doubled my knowledge of pleats.
Feast your eyes on this lot.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0274/6659/6485/files/200713_-_PleatTypes_large.jpg?v=1594697967
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a3565ea41fecfc62b3cb0bd348c9defb2931bd91819d256408b022902195de60.png
He managed my club for a while.
Who he?
Are you talking wendyball or a Gentlemens’ club?
David Pleat, managed Grizz’s club Sheffield Wednesday for a while. Er.. Association Football
Eyelet or box pleat, I’d choose from those.
Good taste, madame.
But what do I know about curtains was much more interested in mini-skirts a decade before the 70s?
Pencil pleats sound nice. My living room curtains are somewhat unevenly gathered. I bought new ones ‘cause I didn’t like what was already there but still shoved them on the hooks left by the previous owner instead of starting from scratch.
Pencil pleats became popular in the 1970s when pelmets went out of fashion.
The pelmet was a very nice idea – the shortest of mini-skirts with knickers, suspenders and stocking tops on display.
My favourite era and mode.
Then came bloody tights and midis. End of an era when women enjoyed being women and displayed la difference.
I learned that the hard way when I bought curtains for a small bedroom window about four feet wide – was that it needed about ten feet if material. Young and trusting, I was persuaded. Never have liked pencil pleats since.
Oh dear. Terribly sad.
https://twitter.com/DrHoenderkamp/status/1685006936964530176?s=20
Ha bloody ha
And is the corrupt little shit going to be charged?
Private Michael Wilson Heaviside VC (20th October 1880 – 26th April 1939), 15th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry.
He was 36 years old, and a Private in the 15th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry, British Army during the First World War at the Battle of Arras when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.
On the evening of 5th May 1917, the battalion returned to their barricades on the Hindenburg Line, near Fontaine-les-Croisilles, France. Only one hundred yards separated the British and German positions but the terrible fighting of the preceding days had died down. Snipers and machine gunners were, however, still active and any movement attracted deadly fire. Then about 2 o’clock the next afternoon, 6th May 1917, a sentry noticed movement in a shell hole about forty yards from the German barricade. A wounded British soldier was desperately waving an empty water bottle. Any attempt to help this soldier in daylight would result in almost certain death for the rescuers. Michael Heaviside, however, said that he was going to try. Grabbing water and a first aid bag, the stretcher bearer scrambled over the barricade and out into no-man’s-land. Immediately, he came under heavy rifle and machine gun fire from the German positions and was forced to throw himself to the ground. He then began to crawl sixty yards across the broken ground from shell hole to shell hole to where the wounded soldier was sheltering. One eyewitness later wrote –
“We could see bullets striking the ground right around the spot over which Heaviside was crawling. Every minute we expected to be his last but the brave chap went on”. As he crawled closer to the German lines, the firing increased. –
“The enemy seemed to be more determined to hit him, for the bullets were spluttering about more viciously than ever”.
When Private Heaviside reached the soldier, he found the man nearly demented with thirst for he had been lying badly wounded in the shell hole for four days and three nights, without any food or water. Michael Heaviside gave the soldier water, dressed his wounds and then promised that he would return with help. That night, Michael Heaviside led two other stretcher bearers out across no-man’s-land to the wounded soldier and carried him back to safety. Without doubt, he had saved this man’s life. The London Gazette announced the award of the Victoria Cross to Private Michael Heaviside on 8th June 1917 for his “most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty”. He was the third soldier of The Durham Light Infantry to gain this award during the First World War.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f1/Michael_Heaviside_VC.jpg
That’s me off to bed.
A couple of hours helping set up for the carnival tomorrow then a bit of tidying up at home.
G’night all.
Saturday 29th July, 2023
Lewis Duckworth
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5812e8974bd8a04e9aa5bc757bf78d46bf2974f99e65f39b41dad17d35ed205c.jpg
and many more statistically satisfactory returns
With very best wishes,
Caroline and Rastus
Happy Birthday, LD; have fun!
I’ve been told to take things easy.
I throughly enjoyed watching two 6 year old episodes of Doc Martin. ITV 4. I hadn’t seen either of them previously.
I go to bed now with a smile on my face.
Good night all.
Good night. Sleep well.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6d567874948f746951baf4915352695c257273b7d640c428ee2394a70c8ed8c8.png
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/28/chris-hale-consultant-natwest-law-firm-brexit-tragedy/
Hoodagestit?
This is like Jimmy Saville being asked by the BBC to investigate paedophilia in the BBC or getting Harriet Harman to chair a committee judging Boris Johnson’s truthfulness.
The article:
A senior consultant at the law firm hired by NatWest to investigate the closure of Nigel Farage’s account has described Brexit as “a tragedy”.
Chris Hale penned an opinion piece in which he referred to the referendum debate as a “disturbing mix of xenophobia, racism and nostalgia”.
Mr Hale, who was described by the industry magazine that ran the article as a “pro-Remain lawyer”, works for Travers Smith.
The leading legal firm was on Friday appointed by NatWest to review Mr Farage’s case and to look at how the bank handles the closure of accounts.
Mr Farage said the latest revelations raised questions over whether the outcomes of the independent investigation can be taken seriously.
They come after Howard Davies, the NatWest Group chairman, described the bank’s former chief executive Dame Alison Rose as a “great leader”.
His comments, which come after Dame Alison was forced to resign over the institution’s handling of the case, sparked consternation amongst MPs.
Mr Farage tweeted on Friday: “NatWest Group have chosen establishment legal firm Travers Smith to investigate my account closure.
“The chair emeritus and senior consultant, Chris Hale, is a “pro-Remain lawyer” who said Brexit was “a tragedy”.
“He wrote about “xenophobia, racism and nostalgia” during the Brexit debate… These are the same words used against me in the secret Coutts dossier.
“How can anyone take seriously anything this review will say?”
Mr Hale made the remarks in a column published by the Law.com website on the evening of June 24 2016, the day after the Brexit referendum result.
‘Result of vote is a tragedy’
In the opinion piece he wrote that “the result of the vote yesterday is – for liberal, cosmopolitan Londoners like me – a tragedy”.
Praising the EU for bringing peace to Europe and creating jobs, he added: “A detailed examination of the economic, political and security arguments pointed in one direction – Remain.
“The debate, though, was conducted publicly in emotional soundbites and the disturbing mix of xenophobia, racism and nostalgia for a Britain which never existed, underlying much Leave campaigning, adds to my unease as I absorb the result.”
Mr Hale was at the time a senior partner at the firm. He is now listed on its website as its chair emeritus and a senior consultant in the private equity and financial sponsors group.
There is no suggestion that in his current roles he would be involved in the review of Mr Farage’s case or would seek to influence its outcome.
NatWest initiated the internal investigation after the furore over the decision by Coutts, which it owns, to “de-bank” Mr Farage over his political views.
The scandal has already claimed two bosses’ scalps with Dame Alison having to resign after it emerged she leaked the former Brexit Party leader’s banking details to the BBC.
Peter Flavel, the chief executive of Coutts, has also been forced to quit over his handling of the affair, with Mr Davies also under growing pressure.
The two-part review will look at Mr Farage’s case specifically, including whether the bank broke data protection rules by briefing the BBC that he had fallen below its wealth limit.
Independent lawyers will then look at a sample of other account closures at Coutts over the past two years to assess the reasons behind them.
Jesus. The stupid woman, Dame Alison whatever, lied. There is no need to waste shareholder (taxpayers) money on any investigation.
The dreadful Dame Alison lied. No further discussion needed apart from criminal charges remaining to be brought to put her majestic presence in jail.
I find it repulsive that folk would defend this behaviour, that such a stupid person would be valued at a salary of £5 millions with a presumably larger pension and golden goodbye pay offs, from a failed bank 48% owned by the poor bloody British taxpayer.
With government holding these values, the values of third world dictatorships, I truly fear for the future generations.
Worse, everyone with a personal, non-tax-payer funded pension will find whatever fund they have it invested in will have exposure to Nat West shares.
So not only are they sneering at the “little people”, they are fleecing them too.
“In the opinion piece he wrote that “the result of the vote yesterday is – for liberal, cosmopolitan Londoners like me – a tragedy”.
Arrogant, pompous or what?
He probably is a liberal, cosmopolitan Londoner. His sort typically see Brexit as a tragedy. I expect I’d see it as a tragedy, too, if I were like him. My views would be shaped by my circumstances, as they are now, albeit very different from his: a provincial small-c conservative – with a libertarian streak – of modest means.
I hope he gets mugged for his rolex by a machete wielding immigrant.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6d567874948f746951baf4915352695c257273b7d640c428ee2394a70c8ed8c8.png
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/28/chris-hale-consultant-natwest-law-firm-brexit-tragedy/
Hoodagestit?
This is like Jimmy Saville being asked by the BBC to investigate paedophilia in the BBC or getting Harriet Harman to chair a committee judging Boris Johnson’s truthfulness.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6d567874948f746951baf4915352695c257273b7d640c428ee2394a70c8ed8c8.png
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/28/chris-hale-consultant-natwest-law-firm-brexit-tragedy/
Hoodagestit?
This is like Jimmy Saville being asked by the BBC to investigate paedophilia in the BBC or getting Harriet Harman to chair a committee judging Boris Johnson’s truthfulness.
D’oh.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/zzQzaH3zz1I
Are they sheep really? 😂😂😂. How funny they all did it. How’s things btw, don’t see you here very often these days.
374899 + up ticks,
Pillow ponder,
https://twitter.com/ABridgen/status/1685011348772487168?s=20
Good move.
Good morning, all – Saturday’s new page is here.
Thanks Geoff
‘Morning, Geoff, and thank you.
Good morning and thank you.
Error – Reposted on Saturday morning!
Morning, Rastus.
My normal position – in error… 🙁
Error