Friday 29 March: The collapse of primary care has left patients with little faith in the NHS

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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873 thoughts on “Friday 29 March: The collapse of primary care has left patients with little faith in the NHS”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story

    NOT CANCER

    Dear Sir,
    The results from the laboratory confirm that the red ring around your penis was not cancerous. It was lipstick.

    We apologize for the amputation.

    Yours sincerely
    Dick Less, MB, FRCS.

      1. Used to be called drizzle but that’s too technical these days and deserves a trigger warning.

  4. ‘Growing up in Bradford, I saw Islamic extremists target children as young as 13’. 29 March 2024.

    The hatred, extremism and division coursing through the UK as a result of the Israel-Gaza conflict did not come as a shock to Dame Sara Khan, the Government’s independent adviser for social cohesion. She saw the consequences coming as soon as Hamas launched its bloody rampage on October 7, and thinks ministers should have too.

    “It was pretty obvious that it would have a radicalising effect, that it would feed hate crime and growing levels of extremism in our society,” she says. “And when it did there was no infrastructure in place to deal with it.”

    Once you accept the principle of Multiculturalism all this becomes inevitable.

    No Comments Allowed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/28/dame-sara-khan-radicalisation-post-october-7-hizb-ut-tahrir/

    1. “I MAGINE the scramble at Westminster City Hall yesterday morning as officials hunted for Easter eggs big enough to fill one of the building’s ground-floor windows.

      The problem at the council started on Wednesday evening, when The Telegraph approached with a complaint from one of its most senior councillors.
      “Why,” Paul Swaddle, the leader of the minority Conservative group, wanted to know, “was there a Ramadan celebration in the window of Westminster City Hall” but not a corresponding display for Easter?

      The query, it now appears, set minds racing in what is probably the most high-profile local authority in the UK: its main offices a stone’s throw from Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament.

      “I am sure we will be doing something,” a source at the Labour-run council replied on Wednesday night as it dawned on officials that Easter, the holiest of Christian holidays, had seemingly been forgotten.

      By yesterday morning, the council appeared to have begun an operation to prepare an Easter display hastily. Another council source declared: “We had some Easter stuff planned. There was consideration that we should ‘Easterise’ the building. There will be additional focus this afternoon.”

      At lunchtime, however, there was still no sign of the display. Timings were getting tight. Council employees were starting to depart for the long Easter weekend.
      The council assured The Telegraph the display was being prepared. “The facilities guys,” it became clear, “tend to do their work at the end of the day,” a source said.

      By 3.30pm, the council was issuing an official communiqué. “The council celebrates Easter every year. A window display is being installed today,” it said in a statement.

      Then, at 5pm, came the miracle of Easter. First, a table appeared in the empty window to the left of City Hall’s two revolving doors.
      Then came the bunting, which was followed by some multicoloured eggs and a couple of cut-out rabbits.

      The final piece in the display was two posters, wishing the public a happy Easter, depicting a giant golden egg wrapped with a red ribbon and superimposed on what looked like the fountain at Trafalgar Square.

      Tate Modern, it is fair to say, is unlikely to acquire the piece for its public collection. Mind you, the council’s Ramadan display, which is visible in the window to the right of the revolving doors, is – if anything – even less sophisticated.

      The spat over the Easter – or lack of Easter – display followed the appearance of an array of Ramadan lights which have been installed at prime spots in Oxford Street and between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square after winning approval from Westminster city council.
      The display was switched on by Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, at the start of the holy month of Ramadan.

      The lights have been funded by the Aziz Foundation, a charity founded by Asif Aziz, a billionaire property developer, and at no cost to the taxpayer.

      Mr Swaddle, the leader of the minority Tory group, had said that while he supported the Ramadan street lights, he had been dismayed that the council had seemingly forgotten to celebrate Easter.

      He said on Wednesday: “Easter is one of the most important Christian festivals of the year, but what are they [the Labour council] doing to celebrate it? I am not aware they are.”

      The period of Ramadan occurs at a different time every year because the Islamic calendar is aligned with the Moon.
      Easter falls within the month of Ramadan this year, as it did in 2023 and 2022. However, up to 30 years can pass between the two coinciding.

      The Ramadan lights were the brainchild of Aisha Desai, who was inspired by the festive Christmas lights in central London.

      She initially crowdfunded to bring lights to her local community before securing funding for the central London display.
      “It’s spreading awareness in such a nice way through art and light installation,” she said.
      “It was the idea that came from me but I encourage Muslims and people from other faiths to continue on and do it.”

      Christian Concern, a group which promotes Christian values, is now planning to submit a number of applications for Easter decorations, but only in time for next year.

      Meanwhile, the council pointed out it supports festivals for all the major faiths, while Mr Khan’s spokesman said he was “proud that as mayor he’s stood up for Londoners of all faiths, taking part in a host of festivals and celebrations, including around Easter”.

      Westminster City Hall’s display of Christian and Muslim unity will warm the cockles of all but the most secular of hearts.
      Just don’t expect them to win any art prize”

      1. Easter eggs are not Christian symbols, but capitalist ones.
        Where are the crosses in the display?

      2. Easter eggs are not Christian symbols, but capitalist ones.
        Where are the crosses in the display?

      3. Ramadan is an alien “festival”. It has no place in a Christian country. We should not be supporting it.

      1. Morning Bob. I’ve noticed that they sometimes open them later when the inhouse trolls are available to counter the comments. This is becoming increasingly difficult. The threads are becoming infested with views that would not be out of place on NOTTL! You can almost watch it in real time as posts are deleted under the pressure.

  5. Good morning all.
    A dull by dry start after yesterday afternoon’s rain and still a bit chilly with 1°C on the Yard Thermometer.

    Not a lot planned for the day except getting a load of logs chopped and persuading Graduate Son to stack the bloody things.

  6. To prove it’s not just us who are bonkers. Nigerian woman faces jail for rotten review of tomato puree.
    “ A PREGNANT Nigerian businesswoman is facing up to seven years in prison after she shared a negative review of a tin of tomato purée.
    Chioma Okoli, 39, was arrested and held in a police cell after she told her 18,000 Facebook followers there was too much sugar in Nagiko Tomato Mix.
    The brand’s manufacturer, Erisco Foods, accused her of making the claim to “maliciously kill the product and run us out of the market”.
    The mother of three, who runs a business importing children’s clothes, is now being prosecuted and sued in a civil court over claims she breached the country’s cybercrime laws.
    On Sept 17 Ms Okoli shared a picture of an open can of tomato purée, saying it was too sweet and asking for her followers’ opinions on the product.
    One user told her to “stop spoiling my brother’s product”, to which she responded saying it was “pure sugar”.
    A week later she was arrested by undercover police officers while she attended a church service. Ms Okoli is also being sued in a separate ÂŁ2.8million civil case brought by Erisco.
    Eric Umeofia, the company’s founder, previously told Arise Television he would “rather die than allow someone to tarnish my image I worked 40 years to grow”.
    An Erisco spokesman said he would not comment on an ongoing case.”

  7. A Letter and BTL Comment:-

    Army weakness
    SIR – So there you have it – from no less an authority than the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff: our “weak Army” would not last two months against Vladimir Putin (report, March 27).

    This is a somewhat unsatisfactory return on the many billions of pounds lavished on the defence budget since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, when our experts widely predicted that Russia was unlikely ever again to be a threat to the West.

    Tony Stone
    Oxted, Surrey

    R. Spowart
    1 MIN AGO
    Message Actions
    Tony Stone raises a good point.
    As part of the “Peace Dividend” at the end of the Cold War, MOD emptied out the vast bulk of its Ordnance and Engineer Stores Parks, selling off for a pittance a huge amount of material ranging from armoured vehicles and Bailey bridge sets to clothing and barrack furniture whilst at the same time selling the land off for development.

      1. In the late ’90s I was looking in Anchor Supplies in Ripley and was astounded at the amount of ex-Army hand tools they were selling off.
        This was just after the closure of CEP Long Marsden and the various Engineer Stores Parks round the country.
        A short while after that we had the Cockermouth flood where the Sappers didn’t have emergency bridge sets available to provide temporary replacement for the destroyed bridge in the town.

  10. The collapse of primary care has left patients with little faith in the NHS

    Lots of negative publicity about water companies at the moment, I wonder what this is building up to.
    Lots of talk of renationalisation as if that is the answer, I don’t really get it, just look at the NHS if you want to understand how good nationalisation is.
    Looking forward to having intermittent water supply when they are all on strike in a few years

  11. https://thecritic.co.uk/christianity-can-only-save-western-civilisation-if-it-is-true/
    Good morning on this most profound of days. The storm has passed over and the Sun is out.
    The article is one of the most profound about Christianity I have read, and in a way reflects my movement from hardcore capitalist conservatism to Christianity informed by conservatism and free market economics, something experienced by the writer as she left the Radical Left for a transcendent Christianity informed by collectivism. Ultimately it’s about the transformation of Christian reflection if we allow it, if we open the doors of our hearts to the knocking Christ.
    I had no idea that Ayaan Hirsi Ali had abandoned Atheism for Christianity, something I did over thirty years ago.

  12. Good morning, all. Blueish skies. No rain at present. Any slammer uprising reported?

    1. I dare say a load of Christian churches in Africa will be murdered but who cares – they’re only Black Christians and not Hamas supporting Palestinian mass murderers…

    2. The Grimes answers your wish…

      Armed guards at French schools after headscarf-row terror threats

      Dozens of French schools have been placed under armed guard after more than 130 received Islamist terrorist threats amid fresh resistance to the ban on religious clothing in schools. The Jean-Perrin LycĂŠe in RezĂŠ, near the city of Nantes in western France, was evacuated on Thursday…

      1. I read that. Apparently, the French PTB are “determined” not to let the slammers win. On verra.

    3. The Grimes answers your wish…

      Armed guards at French schools after headscarf-row terror threats

      Dozens of French schools have been placed under armed guard after more than 130 received Islamist terrorist threats amid fresh resistance to the ban on religious clothing in schools. The Jean-Perrin LycĂŠe in RezĂŠ, near the city of Nantes in western France, was evacuated on Thursday…

    1. They’re always upset anyway. Their Satanic religion of hate drives them mad with rage.

      1. Especially as their extreme version of Lent means they spend daylight hours suffering from low sugar levels and dehydration.
        (Remember that when you book a taxi.)

  16. Both just demonstrate that monopolies, whether state or private, don’t work and abuse their captive consumers and funders. Blair allowing monopolistic utility providers to be taken over by foreign asset strippers like Macquarrie was criminally reckless.
    Monopolistic utility companies should all be customer owned mutuals with the state owning golden shares.

    1. The government still has too much say over the water supply.
      It’s the government that’s refused permission for new reservoirs, and the government that wants to put fluoride (a neuro-toxin) in the water.
      Studies from the US show a small but consistent drop in IQ for children in fluorided states vs those whose water supply is not contaminated with fluoride. I also remember reading studies in the New Scientist in the 80s, when it still reported science and not propaganda, that discovered that too much fluoride causes dental caries. The body does not need fluoride for anything apparently.

      There is a consultation up at the moment – I will fill it in, but I daresay they will do what they want regardless of what people think.
      https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/community-water-fluoridation-expansion-in-the-north-east-of-england/community-water-fluoridation-expansion-in-the-north-east-of-england

      1. A golden share, not the appointment of directors, would prevent demutualisation and takeover.

        1. A golden share, nit the appointment of directors,

          I presume you mean “NOT”?

          2. I try not to refresh the page through the day so have not seen the new version.

      2. The EU banned the construction of reservoirs in the UK. There is now no reason for not building more.

  17. This is how nuclear war would begin – in terrifying detail. 29 March 2024.

    What would happen if a nuclear power station in California were hit by a nuclear weapon launched by North Korea? Many people within a nine-mile radius would be vaporised or burnt to death, and the reactor would melt down, causing a lethal rain of radioactive uranium shards. And, in this imagined chain of events, that’s just the beginning. Another missile heads towards Washington DC. Images of a mushroom cloud cause panic on social media. Then again, as the Pulitzer-finalist journalist Annie Jacobsen observes in this book, the destruction of the Californian plant would also have the effect of permanently taking the social network formerly known as Twitter offline. So it’s not all bad news.

    Well that sinks it straightaway. Why would North Korea attack a Power Station? There is also the point that the missile would have to traverse the Pacific and would almost certainly be shot down by US defences. If that were not enough the United States has the resources to survive such a strike and would have the leisure to decide how to respond. This would almost certainly involve the destruction of North Korea but it is difficult to see either the Russians or Chinese sacrificing themselves on the pyre of North Korean stupidity.

    Much more likely in my view is a gradually creeping escalation that founders on some minor move that invites the suspicion that such a strike is being planned. Response then becomes inevitable.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/review-annie-jacobsen-nuclear-war-scenario/

    1. It reads like a long winded swipe at Twitter. The Leftwaffe have never recovered from the balance restored since Elon Musk took over and binned half the staff.

    2. A nuclear weapon launched by north Korea would get as far as mainland China before failing. Their equipment is antique.

      North Korea is no threat to anyone. Isolated, alone, overmanned, starving, impoverished – like all communist countries it rattles the sabre every now and again because the rest of the blade is rust.

  19. Birdie three today

    Wordle 1,014 3/6

    🟨🟨⬜🟨🟨
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    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. #metoo.
      Wordle 1,014 3/6
      ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
      🟨🟩🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. The same to you, Michael.
      We’re at Firstborn’s farm. Too much snow on the ground to do anything useful outside, so indoor work only – preparimg parts of the barn for demolition (internal concrete feeding troughs & retaining walls) and planning renewal of floors.
      Followed by a jar or two of last year’s cider… ;-))

    3. Having a lie in then getting to work on finishing my essay for my nightclass credits.

        1. The course is The Geology of the British Isles and we could choose our own topic. It’s taken me ages to decide. First, it was goingto be the formation of the chalk cliffs in Kent but too much of what I could find was focused on the French side, then I was going to write about Jurassic Coast ammonites but I got bored with that. I settled on writing a out the Great Glen Fault although I wish I hadn’t.

          3. Argh! Too much material… I always hated that, shortening it made everything disjointed or left crucial information out. Wish you luck with it!

    4. Just about to go and swing my axe!
      I’ve a load of logs to be split and stacked.

  22. 385142+ up ticks,

    Friday 29 March: The collapse of primary care has left patients with little faith in the NHS

    Could it be the electorate that since one anthony charlie lynton lifted the latch on the entry gate as a ” nose rubbing exercise ” has continued to vote such odious treacherous creatures back into power again,again,& again.

    Are the majority of the electorate so blind as NOT to see they are on the winning side every time as in getting precisely what they are voting for, this is borne out by the fact that if they were not then surely, being of sound mind, they would NOT adhere to the same voting pattern as in over the last three plus decades.

    Well meant advice,
    Link the stopping of the politico’s taking further actions, with banning the MRNA jab TODAY NO if’s or buts, TODAY, third action house incarcerate
    ALL RNLI personnel on state security grounds,
    put road blocks, patriotic people manned, entering exiting DOVER.

  23. Violence is everywhere in crime-ridden London. Sadiq Khan is to blame. 29 March 2024.

    As a black man, I am always asked how I can be pro-police, in favour of stop and search, and supportive of ways to crack down on crime over a “soft engagement” approach. Having been a youth worker myself, I know that community work is important – nobody doubts that. More work also evidently needs to be done to restore trust between the police and the public – something Sadiq Khan has consistently failed to do over the last eight years.

    But more, better policing is the answer to this problem. For we cannot pretend that a soft approach alone is going to stop the stabbings. We need our police officers to be tough, authoritative and respected.

    Well as a Black Man he was almost certainly complicit back in the day at the destruction of the Police. To wish now that they should be restored to their former selves is foolishness. They will never be what they were. Indeed they will like the rest of the States Institutions deteriorate further. It is best to avoid any contact with them and concentrate on your own safety. This is irritating and time consuming but alas necessary in a changed world.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/28/london-crime-stabbing-tube-sadiq-khan/

    1. Just because he’s a Black man doesn’t make him guilty of or complicit in the crimes of others. So you are saying all of those committed Black church going Christians in London are also culpable? The biggest victims of the collapse of law and order will be the poor and vulnerable of all colours.
      The people who’ve destroyed law and order in London are overwhelmingly white liberals and one Pakistani Muslim, ie Khan.

      1. As a Black Man he is much more likely to share the views of his fellows than not. This also applies to others, Christian or no. There has been no Black Movement to counter the destruction of Law Enforcement that they see to be counter to themselves.

      2. Those black churches are happy clappy. And although the congregants may be OK their children are those hooded youths who are generally carrying daggers.

        1. They’re Pentecostal, but while their means of expressing their faith may differ from Anglicans and RCs, I don’t doubt their faith. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ as St Paul taught us.

    2. I can see no reason why he mentioned the colour of his skin, the fact that he was a youth worker is far more pertinent. As he presumably has experience of mediating between the police and some of the scallywags formerly under his care.

      In a strange parallel, regarding police behaviour, Democrat run cities in the US are experiencing man power problems, retention/recruiting, in the very police forces they were in favour of defunding only a few years ago. Sad Dick and Rowley haven’t defunded the Met Plod but they have certainly demasculated them.

      Those same mayors/city councils are now concerned that this self-inflicted manpower problem has allowed crime levels to escalate.

  25. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/163d36b19a265c56403b1052e8f3e65b6102e0c4/0_0_4032_2419/master/4032.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=66f3fdf330fe3f9bf0fbc58be7b06871
    Lake Bohinj, Slovenia

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a0a369bdb999be34dce8012b4b41dffeb59222d4/0_124_3858_2315/master/3858.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=4222ba7d0ebaf0c56cd84637bbfb9259
    Varanasi, India
    ‘The marriage procession for Lord Shiva on Maha Shivratri.’

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1ffa4863fca91d542daa010bfbc4205a7396aaf0/0_0_1600_960/master/1600.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=7c12de31f1a9b48ca5fe68c2f56e7afa
    ‘The Millennium Bridge looking towards St Paul’s Cathedral.’

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2d60039215cad5ce051387bdf9941f0746718a07/0_365_7503_4503/master/7503.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=a8fc4e056e15bb7c321a89a726a2b883
    ‘Low Hauxley, near Amble, Northumberland.’

  26. Good day all, 77th included,

    Wet at Castle McPhee, wind in the Sou’-Sou’-West, 7℃ rising to 10℃ perhaps.

    What can be done about Thames Water?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/385ab243ab630a5a86c87df077618acebbdd5e64da7ce94a910e6b1bf04ded2f.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/28/how-shareholders-sucked-billions-pounds-out-thames-water/

    The foreign share-holders set up a holding company, Kemble Water, which borrowed billions against the income from Thames customers’ bills and used it to pay dividends leaving Thames with the debts. That seems to me to be seriously criminal and redress is due.

    It brings into question the whole business of allowing any foreign interests to own any part of Britain’s infrastructure.

    1. Lots of financial engineering, not so much of the other sort. May I be struck by lighting for heresy, but I remember the pre-privatisation water industry working quite well.

      1. We never really had a proper debate about the re-organisation of local government in 1974, where the Heath Government eliminated the concept of municipality in favour of corporate managerialism.

        It cut both ways. The old councils were largely responsible for the horrors of comprehensive redevelopment and compulsory purchase, where they ran roughshod over local feeling, and could be horrendously corrupt. However, they also had a pride in their towns and villages that went way beyond Best Practice. They did not burden the countryside either with urban problems, nor diverted money from country folk, poorly-paid but relatively self-sufficient, to pay for urban social care and infrastructure.

        I saw this change repeated in South Australia. When I first stayed there for a month in 1991, Stirling District Council served this small market town and a couple of suburbs adjoining it, and revived the sort of cosiness I felt was lost in Britain. When I revisited the place in 2004, Stirling and the other market towns were amalgamated into Adelaide Hills District Council, run as a business, and robbing these little places of the identity and municipal pride. The new library, a contemporary statement of glaring clunky white concrete and glass was horrible, compared to the brick-and-wood 1980s building alongside the park, which was swallowed up by the designer product.

    2. I agree.
      Privatisation is understandable to anyone who remembers the nationalised version.
      However, these assets should not be sold to foreign investors.

      1. Sad thing was that domestic investors did not have enough money. We welcomed the influx of foreign money at the time.

          1. Folk refuse to understand how malevolent the Left are and how much damage that cretin did.

      2. There was a “Golden Share” held by the Government to prevent that happening.
        Guess who sold that off?

    3. They are now saying that they shall not co-operate with measures to provide clean water or to avoid polluting rivers and beaches unless there are huge hikes in charges to pay shareholder and director market bonuses. Isn’t this what privatisation was for? Tell Sid.

    4. The same farce is happening with windmill subsidy. The state doens’t care.

      As it is, the fundamental problem is EU law – namely that the state continues to enforce a water policy designed for the EU. That was one of the 4000 (add another zero to taste) EU laws the state refuses to repeal.

      Then there’s the fines for dumping sewage vs the cost in energy of cleaning it. Simply put, because of the insane green agenda, it’s cheaper to dump it.

      That’s the insanity of the green agenda.

  27. Where have the West’s liberal values gone? 29 March 2024.

    But still, the question remains: should the West, preening itself on past glories, continue to crow about its ‘universal liberal values’ and be quite so complacent about their appeal to other cultures? And, in time of war, would any young person honestly put themselves on the line to defend these principles, when the adults they were raised by – in classrooms and on TV screens, in lecture halls and parliament – have failed so catastrophically to show them how to do it?

    No. The West is finished. It is a decadent and corrupt parody of its former self. You are more likely to find its values in Russia than anywhere else.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/where-have-the-wests-liberal-values-gone/

  28. Morning, all Y’all. Late, slept in, only woken by the smell of bacon and coffee leaking up the stairs!
    A few days at Firstborn’s place, always get a really good zed.
    Oodles of snow still, and generally overcast. Plus 6 outside!

    1. Blame the SNP for choosing this twat as leader – the people of Scotland played no part in it

      1. 385142+ up ticks,

        Morning FA,

        As with England the acceptance comes with continuing membership / support, surely.

    2. Did the Scottish get a say in whether the SNP went into bed with the greens? We were not when the Tories made an alliance with the lib dems.

  30. Good morning
    Hot cross buns for Good Friday breakfast, home made and bearing a small pastry cross.

  31. “If there is hope it lies in the proles”.

    Rachel and Corrinna, the ladies at Colchester Council Watch are doing a sterling job in educating their council but Rachel does admit that it’s an uphill struggle. However, these two fellows in Gloucester, a plumber and a brickie I believe, take it to a new level and show us what can be done.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-oAVWOYNY0

    1. We wonder whether something similar will happen in the Wealden Council over a “highly controversial” application

      for a large development on Green Belt land near Rotherfield?

    2. Disrupting a public meeting? A group of people who are there at public expense, to serve the public think that the public can be removed from that meeting?

      Frankly, council staff need to be reminded who is master – for their info, it’s not them.

      However, the entire state machine is devoted to the state machine itself. Courts, law, police – it’s all designed solely for the state machine’s profit, not the protection of the public.

  32. Good morning, all. Bright overcast with the prospect of rain later. Oh, goody!

    The Highwire this week opens with an interview with Catherine Austin Fitts, not unknown on this site. The interview topics are USA centric but some are applicable to here. CAF is well worth listening to.

    Further on Jefferey Jaxen, a genuine investigative reporter, exposes the current medical fear porn in the USA, measles.

    The CDC, equates to our MHRA, are stirring up concerns with the number of cases:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5edea79ba815d874d92ebee193b82de1ca3f61bf3b48699aa76f53c516c7db9b.png

    However, putting the current figures into a timeframe commencing in year 2000 exposes the CDC’s attempt at exaggeration:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9494a4f6f491674aed3e97a9d0ca853475a6b8584f5faa2e9180a84328800192.png

    The final chart shows the decline – in cases per 100,000 – of measles before the vaccine was introduced. A dramatic fall likely caused by improved diet, sanitation etc.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a0b98155917e6a3a778ae6ab34dc15c276a46a1aac8615d16f6e124342bd029d.png

    The Highwire

    1. On the year scale measles chart – looks like the number of cases fell as Covid was around and people stopped coughing into each other’s faces.

    2. Most reduction in disease is due to improved living standards. Over medicating now seems to be reversing that trend.

  33. Wordle 1,014 4/6

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    Good morning, chums, back again this morning. I got today’s Wordle in four but, in moving the first line up, the cursor suddenly jumped to the end of the fourth line and I ended up deleting the last two letters which of course were green. Now, yesterday someone told me that Wordle eats up the memory on my iMac, so I should “remove” them after posting. How do I do this and yet still let you all see my results. Do you mean I should delete my post completely at the end of the day? Some help and advice, please.

    Now for more news on yesterday. I spent the entire day in London and didn’t return until very late, so I read several emails and then headed to bed for a very long sleep. Now I need to catch up with Sir Jasper’s joke, a few more posts, then back to today’s chores before taking Good Friday off. All the best for this special day, chums.

  34. Army allows beards as it ends 100-year ban
    New policy will come into effect on Friday so that those on Easter leave have time to grow facial hair
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/28/soldiers-beards-allowed-100-year-ban-overturned/

    BTL
    In the days when soldiers had to be soldiers and get dirty the rules on short haircuts and the beard ban were in place to cut down on nits, lice and infections caused by dirt.

    No wonder we got such a bad Brexit deal and gave Northern Ireland away to the EU! The UK surrenders on absolutely everything.

    My view is that they want to recruit more Muslims into the army.

      1. The only person in the battalion allowed to wear a beard is was the Assault Pioneer Warrant Officer. Another tradition lost.

      2. We don’t need gas masks any longer as we have those splendid surgical masks which magically protect us from all pathogens. (Or so we are assured by governments around the world.)

      1. How many remember the archetypical WRAC Scammel Driver?
        A stumpy looking 5’6″, short hair and, in civvies, wearing a Ben Sherman Shirt & Wranger jeans?
        With a very pretty and feminine looking girl-friend in tow!

        2. My first ever Christmas (1975) in BAOR was spent with my sister (Ex QA) and her husband (RCT) in Rheindahlen. He took me to 68 Sqn bar where I met some err rather butch Scammel Drivers. Quite an eye opener for a lad.

    4. Your view would be correct. All to force the diversity.

      However, would you want a muslim beside you in combat given who the aggressors are in this world?

    1. We shall plant our potatoes before lunch. Though only drizzle around then is forecast.

      2. Did you time the potato planting for when the moon was on the wane?
        I planted two onion sets just after the last full moon. It is said to encourage them to put down better roots, whereas if the nights are getting lighter, they’re encouraged to put up more foliage. Once they had got over the shock of the cold, wet earth, they seem to be doing nicely, and are just showing now.

        1. Dunno – just because I have planted potatoes on Good Friday since God was boy (or a girl, of course – or trans)!!

          1. Easter is related to moon phases, isn’t it? Is Good Friday always at the same point of the moon’s phases?

  36. I stumbled across this 18 minute video this morning. It is grim, but important to know about, especially as organ donation is opt-out rather than opt-in in Britain these days.
    The concept of brain death was made up by a committee in New York to make transplants from living humans legal, and did not derive from a scientific discovery. It just gets worse from there onwards.

    “The speaker, Dr. Paul A. Byrne is a Board Certified Neonatologist and Pediatrician. He is the Founder of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis, MO. He is Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at University of Toledo, College of Medicine. He is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He is author and producer of the film “Continuum of Life” and author of the books “Life, Life Support and Death,” “Beyond Brain Death,” and “Is ‘Brain Death’ True Death?””
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQUlbVI9Ig4

    1. “Brain dead” has become a casual insult. I haven’t time to watch the video this morning as church beckons but surely when the brain shuts down, the body dies. That’s why Alzheimer’s is fatal.

      1. Some sufferers from Alzheimers live with it for many years becoming progressively more unable to communicate or do anything but the body meanwhile lives on. It takes a long time to become fatal. A minor infection often deals the fatal blow.

        1. Our middle sons MiL has been in a terrible situation for at least three years. She is totally incapable of doing anything at all for her self. Poor old hubby will not give her up to carer’s. He’s on duty 24/7/365.

          1. Mother is on that route. A care home (absolutely wonderful – they also post daily on Twitter pictures of the inmates activities – just recently, there was the making of Easter bonnets (inmates are almost exclusively female, the old males have all died), but it costs ÂŁ500 a week. Mother is now so afflicted that she doesn’t feature in the Facebook pictures.
            I’d be upset, but Mother is Mother’s body that moves around, not really Mother at all.
            It’s still pretty hard.

          2. Very wearing for him. My m in law had it and OH’s father wore himself out looking after her for years till eventually he was persuaded that she needed a care home.

  37. Don’t ever say that newspapers do not inform you. In “today’s events” in The Times today, there is the line:

    “Good Friday – the Christian Festival”.

    Do you know, I have lived 83 years and NEVER knew that. I am just so grateful to Mr Murdoch.

      1. There was a deeply depressing article in this month’s “The Critic” about the almost universal ignorance among school age children of the origins and purpose of ecclesiastical buildings and their contents.

        1. You can’t know what you’re not taught by your parents or teachers.
          It’s all to ensure we die versify

        2. Even when I was at school in the eighties, we didn’t get any kind of education about the Church of England. Our R.E. lessons were exclusively Bible stories, and then at a certain point the curriculum changed, and after that we only ever learned about Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and ethics.

          Anything I know about Church of England services I have picked up since. It’s far worse nowadays…

          1. “Anything I know about Church of England services I have picked up since.” That could have been said by any of the last three rectors in this village…!!

          2. Caroline is beginning to wonder how many French teachers – even those is the best independent schools – have any grasp of French grammar at all.

            The situation has now become so bad in France that children’s books are being edited to remove the past historic tense and the subjunctive. This has been going on for some time and Christo (who was and still is a bit too precocious) did not make himself popular with his primary school teacher when he corrected both his grammar and his pronunciation.

          4. I don’t think the wrecktorette even picked anything up about CofE services, judging by the “make it up as you go along” character of some I have witnessed. She didn’t appear to understand the BCP services.

          5. We didn’t do Comparative Religions when I was at school – we did Scripture.

    4. I’m so grateful to Mr Murdoch for ‘sponsoring’ Tony Blair that I’ve steadfastly refused to buy any of the products of his empire….

      Morning Mr T and all…..

      1. I know what you mean. However, I have read The Times almost every day since 1954 – ad it is pure habit that I have it delivered every day. Mainly for the crossword.

        1. Ah ha, I also do the Times crossword. I’m getting quite good at it.

          I fill in the spaces with words that match in the right places.

  39. As I have just mentioned, later this morning, the MR and I will plant potatoes.

    When we lived in Laure, our Spanish neighbours – ace gardeners the whole family – were AGHAST that we should plant or sow anything on a Friday – but to do so on Good Friday was the ultimate transgression.

    I was never able to work out why they objected. Must go back eons … they were from Valencia!!

  42. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d4bc9ccb64355fd74672c33d885ae8c99debee635d862b55e38b5fa9ede63211.png This plateload of abomination; is what Eleanor Steafel, the DT’s little girl “food correspondent” thinks what an “Easter lunch” should look like! Let me educate her: since she clearly is clueless!

    Where is the fat and crispy skin on that lamb? Where is the thick, unctuous, onion gravy (that teaspoonful of limp, watery slurry is not gravy!)? Half an over-roasted banana shallot does not constitute a vegetable. Where are the rest of the roast spuds? Why are they adorned with a bunch of weeds? Where are the mushy peas? Where is the mint sauce?

    The sprouting broccoli looks fairly OK but those carrots need topping, tailing, washing, peeling and boiling and seasoning before they are plated.

    My Easter dinner will look a lot more presentable and be infinitely more delicious and nourishing than that idiotic joke of a plateful.

    1. Don’t be SO dogmatic, Grizz. Each to their own. Easter forbearance, and all that.

        1. I would eat it politely if I were a guest and it was offered, but I wouldn’t cook it like that, no.

      1. Good Grief, Our Susan – that would suppose that the writer knew about Christian customs.

      2. Nothing whatsoever for me, today, Sue.

        Friday is one of my three healthy fasting days each week (along with Monday and Wednesday).

      3. Indeed. Give the poor lamb of God enough time to hang before ending up on the plate. Best served as bunny substitute on Easter Sunday.

        I often wonder about the significance of those little round things they say are made of chocolate, or how they manage to lay eggs.

        1. We’re having roast beef on Easter Sunday at the farm, as my daughter thinks it’s a bit weird having lamb when it’s lambing time! There may well be an orphan lamb by the range in the kitchen!

          1. But the meal of lamb comes from the Passover – lamb roasted over a fire, not boiled.

      4. We used to have baked cod as we had to ‘suffer’ according to my Dad! I loved it!

      5. Bah, yuk.

        Nah. For lunch to day there will be an ambassador’s reception style plate of sausage rolls.

    3. You know what’s really wrong with it, from a contemporary viewpoint. The plate should be square and there should be enough space for a designer squiggle of ketchup.

      1. Reminds me of Bernard Cribbins’s Hole:

        Don’t dig there, dig it elsewhere
        Your digging it round and it ought to be square
        The shape of it’s wrong, it’s much too long
        And you can’t put hole where a hole don’t belong

      2. Ketchup? KETCHUP! Abomination except on chips, and even then can be easily replaced by maionnaise…

          1. Hugh Griffiths was also splendid in the BBC’s adaptation of Gabriel Chevallier’s Clochemerle.

    5. My good lady purchased a fine leg of English lamb. It will be served at Sunday lunch for the whole family.
      (After the grandchildrens Easter egg hunts).
      With garlic and Rosemary. And veg.
      And of course red wine.

      2. Here’s another tip for roast lamb courtesy of Monsieur GuĂŠrard of Eugenie-les-Bains fame. When you insert the garlic and rosemary into the joint add a rolled up tinned anchovy, then pour the oil from the tin over it. Don’t ask me how or why it works but it does. It really brings out the flavour of the lamb and adds and extra something to the gravy as well. Bon appetit!

        1. I’ve seen that version of the recipe.
          Although I do like anchovies, I’m not sure on this occasion.

          1. You don’t actually taste the anchovies and nor is there any “fishy” taste, the flavours just sort of blend. Try it, I really don’t think you will be disappointed, but maybe not on Sunday in case you are!

          2. I agree that the anchovies are added to hopefully enhance the flavour. I’ve used them before …. but i can’t take a chance, I would not like to see a lot of lamb left on the plates. Pub o’clock already. 🍷

          1. My (French) cooking bible is Robert Carrier’s “Entertaining”, out of print now but you can still get copies in the second-hand market. It does everything for you but cook it!

    1. If he was a Remainer he will certainly be amidst the sulphurous flames in the pit which is bottomless. If I see him in heaven I’ll know he was a sound chap who probably voted Reform.

  44. OT – I still subscribe to the far-left Spectator magazine. Pure habit – I have read it since 1954. It arrives by post on a Friday (most weeks – sometimes not until Saturday or Monday).

    There is no postal delivery today. In today’s pagan world, Good Friday is still a day off. So no magazine will arrive.

    One would have thought that the woke, eco-freak, leftie teenage scribblers who now run the magazine would have KNOWN that and arranged for delivery a day early this week. Grrrr.

    2. I always used to get the magazine and its arrival was one of the highlights of the week. However, when it went digital the print copy price included digital access, but as I live in France the magazine never arrived before Tuesday while the digital version was available from Thursday. Net result, by the time the print copy arrived I had read most of the articles which rather spoiled it and it isn’t worth paying the price for the print copy. I do miss it though.

      1. I punish myself by NOT reading the magazine content online. Hence my fury when extracts appear here!! Often on Thursday. Grrrrrr

        1. I have a friend who does the same. Although 90 she is very computer literate but has steadfastly refused to register her subscription so that she can read the digital version. She has much more will-power than I do 😁

    3. Somethig I would genuinely like changed is for direct debits and standing orders to go out on weekends and holidays. It’s an anachronism from the days when banks physically transferred money amongst themselves.

  45. Nothing to sing about – lyrics ‘dumber’ than in 1980s

    Streaming and shorter attention spans mean musicians are striving to make ever-catchier tracks

    MODERN songs have been dumbed down and made more repetitive than they were in the Eighties, a study has found.The dominance of streaming platforms and the short attention span of the modern public mean musicians and producers are trying to make ever-catchier music that stops listeners from skipping to the next song.

    In previous decades, the need to purchase a physical vinyl, tape or CD meant this was less of an issue, and artists could spend more time crafting intellectually stimulating music.

    Previously, artists relied on radio plays for exposure, and therefore had to rely on gaining fans through creating memorable tunes that prompted people to go out and buy their records.

    Analysis of 12,000 English-speaking songs released between 1980 and 2020 reveals a trend across genres towards simplification of lyrics and an overuse of choruses. The vocabulary range has also shrunk and the structure of songs made more predictable, data show.

    The authors of the study say Bruce Springsteen’s 1973 song Spirit in the Night is a good example of 20th-century enamoration of complex writing that told a story, whereas Miley Cyrus’s 2019 song Slide Away is a case study for the more predictable.

    Scientists from the University of Innsbruck looked at a host of song lyric traits and found the ratio of choruses to verses increased for all five of the main genres of music since 1980.

    Pop, rock, rhythm and blues, rap and country all saw an increase in this ratio, data show, with it being strongest in rap music and weakest in R&B.

    “This implies that the structure of lyrics is shifting towards containing more choruses than in the past, in turn contributing to higher repetitiveness of lyrics,” the scientists write in their study, published in the journal Scientific Reports. Other trends the study identified were an increase in anger across all genres, only rap music had more positive words, and all genres got more emotional and personal.

    “The changing music landscape plays an important role here,” said Dr Eva Zangerle, an assistant professor in computer science at the University of Innsbruck and lead author of the study.

    “In the past 40 years, we have witnessed a change from buying records in the store to being able to choose from hundreds of millions of songs on streaming platforms on the phone.

    “This has also changed the way music is consumed on the one hand, and produced on the other hand, e.g. making sure that the song is convincing enough to not be skipped within the first seconds.”

    She added that there was a trend towards more passive consumption, such as for background music while working or doing chores, where complex and nuanced lyrics are perhaps less appreciated than in the past.

    Rap has staved off the decline in creativity more than most other genres, the study authors say, probably because the writing is integral to the art form.

    “Rap is historically centred around lyrics, for instance, also more complex rhyming patterns, also shown by verbal games or other competitions, increasing the lyrical complexity,” Dr Zangerle said.

    The songs came from the platform Genius and analysis also revealed how popular songs and genres were over time. People look up the lyrics of older rock songs more than the newer options in the genre, data show, whereas newer country songs are more popular than the old-timers.

    This could indicate that rock listeners prefer lyrics from older songs, the scientists say, while country listeners may prefer lyrics from newer songs.

    Dr Igor Grossmann, a professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, who was not involved with the research, said modern songs are following the “mere exposure” marketing principle, which posits that a person will enjoy something more if they listen to it more.

    “This was established in the early Seventies and from that moment on, executives in the music industry pushed for more repetition because songs were more catchy and popular,” he said.

    It pays for the powers-that-be to keep the young stupid, gormless and compliant.; that way they are more easily manipulated. They achieve this by feeding them a never-ending diet of sugar, seed oils, processed food and carbohydrates to atrophy their brains. This is assisted by having them stare for hours on end at moronic messages on hand-held devices; or playing banal and dimwitted ‘games’ on computer screens. Those enfeebled brains than cannot assimilate anything — musically — more elaborate or sophisticated than a repetitious tribal chant of grunts and Americanese slang. Result: a fully compliant moron.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQoWUtsVFV0&list=WL&index=45

    1. I used to write song lyrics in the 60s and 70s. Mostly they were satirical about things such as the effect of women’s lib on the libido or a populist prime minster from a minor public school but sometimes they were about complicated relationships. In both cases the words were rather too convoluted.

      You can have my affection but don’t ask for something more
      Or you’ll get my rejection and end up outside my door
      For I don’t know what words like love mean
      And I don’t think it’s really my scene
      For I’m only a jack or a knave so don’t try to be queen

      Though I do want you near me I don’t want you under my skin
      So don’t try not to hear me and don’t try to take yourself in,
      For I want you to know where we stand
      And I don’t want to be underhand
      And I don’t want you finding I’ve shattered the dreams that you planned.

      I don’t know why you want to be bothered
      When you’ve heard the hopeless terms I have decreed
      I cannot understand why you should place your hopes me
      I can’t see that I’ve anything you need
      If you think that given time that I shall change my feelings for you
      Then please I beg you think again
      For I cannot give you what I know I haven’t got to give you
      And I really do not want to cause you pain.

      You can have my affection but don’t ask for something more
      You can have my affection but don’t ask for something more

        1. The Women’s Lib song was about the damaging effect of women’s lib on the male libido in which the singer sends up both women’s lib and himself. Caroline is always at pains to point out that the song was written before she met me and that the Sue in the song is a fiction!

          Women’ Lib’s Destroying My Libido : Richard Tracey

          Women’s Lib’s destroying my libido,
          And I just won’t stand for it any more!
          My macho’s getting mangled; my morale is sinking fast;
          My self-esteem’s not been so low before.
          I used to wear the trousers in my happy little home;
          I used to rule the roost in kingly style;
          But Women’s Lib’s destroying my libido:
          And I find it hard to even raise a smile!

          I married Sue: a perfect little angel –
          She cleaned my house and cooked just like a dream.
          When I came home from work I’d find my slippers by the fire:
          No effort was too great so it would seem.
          She used to say that I was all she wanted out of life;
          I had her adoration and respect.
          But Women’s Lib’s destroying my libido.
          And playing havoc with my intellect.

          Alas, one day I was too democratic –
          I said: “My love you really should unwind.
          The local tech is putting on a social science class –
          Why not sign on: it might improve your mind?”
          To please me she set off at once and that’s where things went wrong:
          Her tutor was a lesbian feminist
          Who told her she’d been cheated and degraded
          By a churlish and a shallow chauvinist.

          Women’s Lib’s destroying my libido:
          The home is now a woman’s place no more;
          My wife now feels exploited when she’s told to wash the stairs,
          Humiliated when she scrubs the floor.
          She says she’s found her real self and that she now can see
          That cooking for a man is infra-dig.
          So I get spare ribs from the local Chinese take-away.
          For she won’t pander to a pompous pig.

          Women’s Lib’s destroying my libido.
          I don’t know if I’ll get it back again.
          At first my wife had headaches every time we went to bed –
          In retrospect that wasn’t so germane:
          Her headaches soon gave way to a voracious appetite,
          Demanding that the earth moved twice a day;
          I lost two stone; my hair fell out; I grew extremely pale –
          I felt inadequate in every way.

          Women’s Lib’s destroying my libido.
          I can’t stand for it as I did before.
          My wife has got a job and earns three times as much as I –
          She doesn’t need my money any more.
          She won’t be known as Mrs – she prefers to be called Ms
          I once was virile, butch and quite all right.
          But Women’s Lib’s destroying my libido
          And my ardour’s growing softer every night!

    2. Modern kids are thick. Modern songs are repetitive, boring and empty, usually comprising the same two lines, then the same word repeated 5 times.

      It’s akin to why modern TV shows are so simplistic. People are dumb. What’s worse? They *like* being dumb.

      1. I assume that you’re using the Yank meaning of “dumb”, not the English. Stupid of me, but then…

    1. This ongoing invasion must have been planned many decades ago. Even before the government of the day removed publuc access to fire arms.
      In certain areas, the streets of old England would have been littered with dead bodies.

    3. It was notable that as soon as a quiet seaside town was forced by the council – after doing a deal with Birmingham – to take in 50,000 odd gimmigrants that rape, assault and murder became weekly events rather than the once a generation occurence they had been.

      The fact is – they’re the problem. Not us.

  48. I don’t doubt that. You are, of course, much younger – and never fell off a ladder.

  49. I once dropped down a faulty basement floor window (hitting my n*ts on the pavement) outside a shop in Sheffield!

    It injured my leg ligaments, ripped my trousers and smashed my watch. But, hey-ho, I successfully sued the shop.

  51. Morning all 🙂😊
    Still blowing hard out there, not warm and still grey and more rain likely.
    From my recent personal experience I wouldn’t blame primary care for the NHS problems
    Front line staff are under an enormous amount of pressure. Especially A&E. Paramedics and ambulance crews have been and are a breath (literally) of fresh air in rather demanding and desperate circumstances.
    It seems to be admin, the absences of GPS (now in private practices) and aftercare where its all going wrong. It now seems to have come down to the old adage, survival of the fittest.
    Once an easy to contact department such as previously very helpful PALS now seems to have been told by the ‘regional directors’ to make it difficult for distressed patients.
    Email contacts and phone numbers have been shut down. And there is only one reason for this and it’s not lack of primary care.

    1. Sunny here for a change. I haven’t been outside to check if the snow is still on the mountains yet.

  52. ‘Morning Alec! We’ve already had 3 seasons here since I got up horribly early! Now it’s dull but not too cold!

  53. Now, I’m partial to an occasional glass Of Taylor’s Late Bottled Vintage Port but I’m not convinced that Essex Police Service will stock up in the event that I or another member of the public would like a tipple to celebrate something or other.

    This Country really has lost the plot. And idiots like this lot have the nerve to publicise their subjugation.

    https://twitter.com/DVATW/status/1773642540584968286

      1. Some sherries go well in the same manner, Johnny.
        A sweet sherry, from the fridge, over ice, is excellent on a hot day.
        Dry sherries the same, but of course befpre dinner rather than after.

        1. I do prefer port to sherry. I ones had rathe too much Dry Sack many years ago that put me off for a time.

    2. I’ve had the Moseley & King’s Heath Police X original timeline up since I posted the comment. I opened the M&KH site on a new tab a few minutes ago and the post in question has been deleted.

      I have screen shots of both sites taken hours apart so clearly the original timeline was M&KH’s and not a spoof timeline. Now, was their timeline hacked and the post inserted by the hacker or was it a genuine post that has since been deemed to not be the sort of item to be publicised?

      Surely the hacking of a police service X timeline is not something that should be easy to do.

    1. He should countersue for her wearing ‘whiteface’. Hair that colour is not a characteristic of negroes.

        1. One never knows these days! Also “Jeniffer”? Were her parents unlettered?

    2. I hope they awarded costs against her, although given the boss and employee are civil servants I suspect that the taxpayer will be picking up both tabs.

          2. Woops, sorry didn’t see yours – some people do seem to pick on race as a means of trying to get a bit of money and/or attention, don’t they?

      2. Why isn’t straight blonde hair on a black person deemed cultural appropriation in the same way as cornbraids and dreadlocks on a white person?

    5. The arrogance of it. Trying to conflate attractiveness, exciting looks and all the other things associated with the word “glamour” with a racial characteristic. No wonder the racism aspect was thrown out. She needs to be told there’s absolutely nothing glamorous about her at all.

    6. These days you don’t say anything – anything at all. Comically, all those women who thrive on how they look then get annoyed and often the first to squeal. You can’t win because common sense has vanished.

    7. If a barrister doesn’t know that the word “glamorous” had nothing to do with race, then I certainly would not want to pay her to represent me. Perhaps “race-baiter” would have been more apposite.

      1. The article says she is black but judging by her hair and make up she’s trying awfully hard not to be.

        1. A bit like someone married to one of our former working Royals, who is black when it suits them, but does everything to negate any evidence of that (apart from tanning lotion).

      2. The article says she is black but judging by her hair and make up she’s trying awfully hard not to be.

    8. “Glamorous” isn’t the word that came to mind.
      “Tart” or “Slapper” maybe .
      If she’s so obsessed with race – or making a fast buck – them why does she lighten her skin and bleach her hair?

  57. That’s the 1st lot of chopping done!
    A very light drizzle when I stared but turned heavier as I worked.
    Ready for stacking by Graduate Son, but that is not going to happen until the weather clears up.

    My next task is to get the next lot of chopping done, up the “garden” this time.
    Forecast predicts sunshine & showers this afternoon.

          2. People like that are spookily inconsistent, but we (on the other hand) have to swallow their every inconsistency as valid.

    2. Why-aye, Pet. You’ll not throw a wobbly or Sue me (‘Sue me’? Geddit?🤣) if I call you “Bonny Lass”?

  60. 385142+ up ticks,

    89 million pounds to Sudan, why the Sudanese cannot wait until they get to Dover one knows not.

    All the while nellie & willie are awaiting hip replacements, and waiting, and waiting.

  61. One never knows these days! Also “Jeniffer”? Were her parents unlettered?

  62. This is a strange one for me.
    This institution has a long history as a school of journalism and I doubt they need publicity.

    The image was appalling and the circumstances deplorable, but it brought the world’s attention to the atrocity.
    I see it in the same light as the picture of the napalmed children fleeing their village during the Vietnam war.
    It hammers home what was happening.

    I can understand why her relatives are so upset.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13251559/Shani-Louk-ap-photo-journalism-prize-hamas-israel.html

    1. The slammers will love it. The wanqueurs who “march” and obstruct London streets will claim that it is a fake (but secretly be delighted).

      It shows that any concept of humanity is almost completely lacking everywhere these days.

      2. But as I noted, the napalm picture became a focal point for worldwide condemnation of what the Americans were doing
        The more the world is made aware of what Islamic Jihadists find acceptable, the better.
        These bastards would happily do the same at Glastonbury and the more who are awakened to the threat, the better.

        1. Of course, ‘god made them do it’. They’re barbarian savages and should be treated as such.

        2. Pedant alert: The napalm in that case was dropped by the South Vietnamese Air Force, not the USAF, though I take your point about the wider conflict.

          1. Exactly.
            A similar thing over the photo of the ARVN officer blowing the brains out of a terrorist during the Tet Lunar Offensive. The man being executed had been caught in the act of murdering the wife and children of a fellow officer which, under the circumstances, merited summary execution.

        3. Which is ironic as the bombs were actually dropped by the South Vietnamese Air Force.

          3. And in all probability the planes were being flown by American “advisors” training the SVAF.

      1. As I say, it’s a strange one for me.

        These prizes, and there are numerous categories, have been awarded for over 80 years.
        When it originally appeared in the papers I thought it was dreadful, but it certainly showed what had happened.

    3. The human sewage seems to be stacking up and up. They’ll be claiming Oscars for their repeated horrendous vile deeds soon.

    4. What’s frustrating is despite Hamas starting this, despite hamas continuing it, somehow it is Israel’s fault.

      The muslim must be held accountable and if that means a tank shell to the face, so be it. Their will to fight must be broken, permanently.

    5. “Sick” is the word I’d use.
      Well, several others come to mind, but they’d get me banned.

  63. Well, that’s the potatoes in. Variety = Charlotte. The rain may well hold off until after lunch, so feel rather virtuous. Fifteen minutes were spent searching the garden for the MR’s favourite hair grip thingy. Which was found in the porch….. Women, eh!!

      1. That is so typical! Bloody global warming never comes when it’s needed.

    2. I have been looking in vain for Jersey Royals. Is there some kind of potato famine in the Channel Islands?

      1. I hate to have to tell you this, but the potatoes from the island of Noirmoutier, just off the VendĂŠe coast, knock spots off anything from Jersey! I doubt you’d find them in England though, they are hard enough to find here, but when you do they are well worth the rather steep price.

    3. I love Charlotte potatoes. I know they are most prized as salad potatoes but actually, you can do anything with them.

          2. Brilliant! The French take their potatoes seriously 🙂 I have to admit that when I first arrived to live in France I found the choice quite bewildering as it was far wider than it was then in the UK (1997), but even in the supermarkets they tell you what each potato is best for.

          3. Unlike apples! The concept of an “eating apple” is unknown. There are just “pommes” variĂŠes”…!!

          4. ?? I’m not sure that is true either, though I agree, they don’t actually advise what to do with apples, just what variety they are.

          5. Grand Frais now makes a fairly good attempt at describing what one is getting, much better than when we first arrived
            I find that most modern strains are bland.

          6. We used to take our English ones down with us. The natives were astonished at the range and different flavours and textures.

          7. I do wish the French would get the hang of Bramleys. It isn’t that long ago that they discovered Granny Smith’s!

          8. We took a sapling and planted it – quite high up in the Montagne Noir – but it never really “took”.

          9. My late companion and his wife planted a Beauty of Bath here when they first arrived in 1987 which did very well indeed, but it died about eight or nine years ago.

          10. Brilliant! The French take their potatoes seriously 🙂 I have to admit that when I first arrived to live in France I found the choice quite bewildering as it was far wider than it was then in the UK (1997), but even in the supermarkets they tell you what each potato is best for.

  64. I’ve made up my mind on the acute issue of assisted dying
    The issue involves a clash between two of the most fundamental values of humanity, but in some cases it is morally justified
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/28/lord-sumption-medically-assisted-suicide-moral-dilemma/

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11c4993f74ebe975fb47ac4ed152a5d2372e4c85772e1664e9d9039b5bb732b6.png

    Lord Sumption’s conclusion that assisted dying should only be applied in the case of terminal illness

    BTL

    Abortion was once a crime – now it is a right written into the French Constitution.

    1. Life is a terminal illness and it’s sexually transmitted.

      [John Cleese, Life and How to Survive It]

    2. Why not? The Left are forcing a dystopian 1984 style future on us, may as well go the whole hog with Logan’s Run.

      Of course, who will the brat kids then have to blame for their failures?

    3. I have to say that overall I was inclined to agree with Lord Sumption’s conclusion. Modern medicine means that today we can extend life well beyond what nature would ever have intended, and in all too many cases nature is more merciful.

  65. A glimmer of hope? Prolly not:

    “A clergyman who called the Church of England’s first trans woman archdeacon a “bloke” should not be punished, a disciplinary tribunal has ruled.

    Brett Murphy was an Anglican priest when he posted comments to his 14,000 YouTube subscribers in which he commented on the appointment of Rachel Mann as the archdeacon of Bolton and Salford last year.

    Murphy said that Mann was “in fact, biologically, a bloke, who identifies and lives as a woman”. He also described Mann as a “fella”.

    At a first hearing last year, the Bishop of Loughborough, the Right Rev Saju Muthulay, rejected the complaint, but the issue was reopened after the original complainant requested a review.

    But this week David Turner KC, deputy president of the church’s disciplinary tribunal, ruled that Murphy had no case to answer.”

    4. This is insane. The trans should be told to keep quiet and tolerate other people’s views. They can’t though, can they. They have to be pandered to or else, mainly because they demand other people’s acceptance to confirm their own, they’re that mentally ill they don’t even believe the lie they want to live.

  69. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e6c4f4526af82ba10467a77a562ac741b3c48cb92fe3caec82b2ed37abdd93d0.jpg

    Varghese Malayil Lukose “Saju” Muthalaly (born 1979) is an Indian-British Anglican bishop. Since 2022, he has been the Bishop of Loughborough, a suffragan bishop in the Church of England’s Diocese of Leicester.

    Muthalaly is married to Katy; together they have four children. In his spare time, he is a keen cricketer and has represented the Canterbury & Rochester (Rocherbury) Diocesan team and West Farleigh CC where he has shone as a big hitting all-rounder.[8] He captained the Diocesan team to the Semi Finals of the Church Times Cup in 2017

          1. Actually it stayed dry for a couple of hours – a bit of sun and a gale-force wind did the job.

  72. Replying to Sosraboc, from Wednesday (only got the notification through today, too late to comment on weds page)
    (“Is she really worth the hassle?
    Assuming her parents are still around, have you considered speaking to them about it?
    ” I say old beans, do you find my son as difficult as I find your daughter?”
    You might just find that you have unlikely allies.    “)

    If only.
    From what I can tell, I think the daughter takes after her mother, both hard and cold, so no hope there. I have no doubt that she, on numerous occasions over the years, has bad-mouthed me to her parents anyway. “Woe is me, the eternal victim.” They seem to think the sun shines out of my son’s rear end.

      2. I always try to. I’d go as far as to say that I go out of my way to be nice, but it doesn’t work when you have a controlling, disrespectful, arrogant woman who seems to enjoy being confrontational and provoking.

    2. It was notable that our respective fathers got on very well because they were similar in character. The mothers didn’t for the same reason.

      My Dad was a gentle, intelligent, quick witted chap. My mother is a bitter, spiteful narcissist.

      1. You asked the other day if the Muslims had attacked anyone recently.
        Give it time.
        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13251719/ISIS-calls-lone-wolves-carry-Ramadan-massacre-Christians-Jews-Europe-Israel.html

        A top ISIS spokesman has called on ‘lone wolves’ worldwide to slaughter Christians and Jews en-masse in a chilling new declaration of terror.

        In a 41-minute-long recording to mark the 10-year anniversary of ISIS declaration of a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, Abu Hudhayfah al-Ansari declared Ramadan as the ‘month of jihad’ and urged extremists to launch attacks in the United States, Europe and Israel.

        He went on to urge Muslims to leave their homes and migrate to join up with jihadists and strengthen their ranks.

      2. Yet Junior manages this by playing rugby after school with the rest of his friends.

    2. That’d be because they’re all black and admitting that far too many of them are the brats of welfare addicted illiterate, uneducated wasters brought in by Labour to keep it in clover would – for some reason – not be fair.

    5. I remember when walking up Gilpin Avenue to Shene Grammar school without the school cap on, would get you a serious clip around the ear.

      2. Oh. I thought play hockey there on Saturdays. It’s called “Richmond Park Academy” now.

        1. Just google mapped it, and yes, so I see. The rugby pitch is still grassy and I see the netball court is still there for the girls’ school on Hertford Avenue. They used to watch us a bit and we used to watch them. Chemistry was fun as the lab was in the girls school.

  74. True, but she doesn’t have to speak to the adults. It seems to me that the son and D-i-L will use them as a bargaining chip anyway.

      2. If the message is encouraging then I will listen to it. Not everyone was sufficiently fortunate to have a 1950s education followed by grammar school and university. Don’t be a spelling nazi.

          2. Now you are going to tell us that they are called Fee, Fi, Fo, & Fum….and we won’t believe you.

          3. Many of them are called “You bastar* spiky c**t”! Especially when they get inside the protective clothing…

  79. French schools are placed under armed guard after more

    than 130 received Islamist terror threats amid rising anger over

    classroom ban on religious clothing

    France has raised its terror threat level in response to Crocus atrocity in Russia .

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13251797/french-schools-armed-guard-islamist-terror-threats-classroom-ban-religious-clothing-anger.html

    Afghanistan is once more a hotbed of terror after

    October 7 mobilised Islamists on an unprecedented scale…as ISIS-K plans

    to bring carnage to the non-Muslim world, experts warn

    An emboldened Islamic State-Khorasan is consolidating its power in the region.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13252077/Afghanistan-hotbed-terror-October-7-mobilised-Islamists-unprecedented-scale-ISIS-K-plans-bring-carnage-non-Muslim-world-experts-warn.html

    Thousands arrive every week and we allow them to settle here. The UK will begin to resemble Afghanistan before long.

    3. Even in a fairly small town like Bergerac the Allahu Akbarriers are in place outside colleges.

      2. So I should hope. You don’t want the slammers to have to mingle with kaffir children.

      3. We have our own, ready-made one outside our church in Pau in the form of the main Gendarmerie Nationale 😁

        1. One of the local Eglise Evangelique churches has taken to locking the doors during services, having been advised that there is Muslim social housing close by.
          Purely as a precaution, of course.

          2. I remember a few years back after the first attack in a church we were advised to lock the doors when everyone had arrived and the service had started, and also issued with a warning notice to put at the entrance to the church when services were in progress. We still use the notice but don’t think we locked the doors after the first couple of weeks because we always have some late-comers! As far as I know most of the social housing in Pau is on the outskirts, though of course that wouldn’t stop villains with evil intent coming in to the centre, though I imagine they would avoid close proximity to the main police station! !

          3. It must be so comforting to have such things. Police Stations! Officers enforcing law and order. How lovely it must be to have that. I feel deep nostalgia

          4. The French police are OK, not perfect, nothing is, but they are at least respectful and polite – just so long as you are!
            When church services were first allowed in France after lockdown there were quite a few restrictions – limited numbers, mask- wearing, social distancing etc. and while hymn singing was not banned as in the UK, it was “not recommended”, though choristers separated from the congregation were fine. At our first service back, with a couple of choristers, we quickly threw caution to the wind and joined in the singing even through our masks. During one of the hymns a couple of policemen appeared quietly at the back of the church. At the end of the hymn they just as quietly left. We couldn’t work out if they were checking that we were following all the other regulations (which we were) or just wanted to listen to the hymn :D!

          5. I won’t forget the complete joy felt by all at the first funeral where we were allowed to remove our masks and sing our hearts out for our departed friend. i don’t think it was generally approved by the BritStasi, but a genuinely Christian vicar was presiding and he overrode the dictats of the time

          7. Our wrecktorette proudly told me how she’d stopped the relatives touching the coffin or trying to put flowers on it during a covid-time funeral. I was not impressed, but it proved a harbinger of things to come.

    1. Loosing.
      To unfasten, let go.

      Loosing is the present participle of the verb ‘loose’, meaning to unfasten, let go, or release.

          1. I find one has to be careful Googling things. Factual information can usually be obtained quite easily but when it comes to spellings and usage I try and ensure I am using a source I trust such as the OED.

            Does anyone else call you Minty, btw, or is that just me? Every Araminta I have met irl has been a Minty.

          2. I make no demands. The name is derived from The Star King a Sci-Fi novel by Jack Vance. Araminta serves in the tavern run by her father on Smades Planet. The family are the only inhabitants.

  82. 385142+ up ticks,

    This I believe applies mainly to the political class,
    being free again to offend, post general election
    guaranteed, without fail.

    Prolific criminals should be in prison, not free to offend again
    The tail is now wagging the dog: our lack of prison capacity is dictating our approach to crime

    All coalition party and supporting fools, should go for really, is a chain of hotel / prisons
    In reality as with many issues Dover dictates our
    incarceration,education,medication, accommodation needs on a daily basis.

    I do believe they get the daily tally from Dover then send out indigenous cancelation, knock back letters to all departments concerned with housing / health.

  83. Police are on standby as thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters are set to converge on central London this Saturday to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.

    Deputy Assistant Commissioner Andy Valentine said “swift and decisive action” will follow any criminal activity at the march which starts in Russell Square around midday and ends at Trafalgar Square.

    The Crown actor Khalid Abdalla and comedian Alexei Sayle are expected to deliver speeches.

    An extensive policing plan has been put in place across London over the Easter bank holiday weekend to ensure religious, sporting and protest events can take place safely, whilst causing minimal disruption to local communities.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/metropolitan-police-pro-palestinian-protests-london-easter-march-b1148455.html

    I wonder whether the organisers will draw the crowd’s attention to the ISIS call for lone wolf attacks on Jews and Christians.

    1. “…swift and decisive action...” Also known to the Muslipolitan Police as “standing about watching”.

      1. Unless you are pointing out the truth of what happened, and the hypocrisy of the marchers, in which case watch out for police brutality.

      2. And kneeling. Don’t forget the kneeling.
        I suspect MetPlod will forgo the pink tutus and dancing on this occasion.

  84. More than 40 people killed in Israeli strikes on Syria’s Aleppo. 29 March 2024.

    Israeli air strikes on Syria’s northern province of Aleppo have killed more than 40 people, most of them soldiers, according to news agencies and a war monitor.

    The fatalities included five members of Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group confirmed.

    It’s Spreading. Enjoy the Summer.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/29/more-than-30-killed-in-israeli-strikes-on-syrias-aleppo-reports

    1. Ooooft. The cartoonist missed out Gender-woo, Anti-Racisit racism and fentanyl.

  86. Illegal immigrants still come in their thousands. This will be the end of Rishi Sunak. 29 March 2024.

    I know it is up against some pretty strong competition from HS2 and the like, but has this or any government wasted so much money to so little effect as the millions Rishi Sunak has shelled out to the French supposedly to stop migrants crossing the Channel? The number of migrants arriving in Britain in small boats has hit a new record in the first three months of 2024. Over 4,600 have somehow managed to evade French patrols. When the weather warms up and calms down we can expect many thousands more.

    It will be more than the end of Rishi Sunak I suspect. It is difficult to see how it can all end without oceans of blood eventually being spilled.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/29/illegal-immigrants-still-come-in-their-thousands/

    2. Sunak won’t give a t*ss – it’s not the end of him – just his career as British [sic] politician and PM. He will be off with his rich wife to the USA.

  87. Polish fighter jets scrambled to Russian missile attack on Ukraine. 29 March 2024.

    Poland has scrambled fighter jets after Russia launched a barrage of drone and missile strikes into Ukraine.

    The Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces said “allied” aircraft joined the response to 99 Russian drones and missiles striking targets including thermal power plants.

    This is the sort of thing that will set it all off. Forever pushing the boundaries. Eventually there will be a direct clash and then Goodbye Vienna.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/29/polish-fighter-jets-scrambled-to-russian-missile-attack/

    2. State-run RT has also sought to emphasize this in relaying Putin’s words in the following:

      F-16s flown by Ukrainian pilots but based in third countries will nevertheless be legitimate targets for Russia, Putin added.

      “Of course, if they are used from airfields of third countries, they become a legitimate target for us, wherever they are located,” he said.

      Beginning last summer the Kremlin began highlighting that F-16 fighter jets are capable of carrying tactical nukes which are in select NATO countries’ possession. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for example at that time explained, “Moscow can’t ignore the nuclear capability of US-designed F-16 fighter jets that may be supplied to Ukraine by its Western backers. He went so far as to say that it will be seen as a threat from the West “in the nuclear domain.”

  89. Aramanta referenced this article earlier.

    Growing up in Bradford, I saw Islamic extremists target children as young as 13

    Dame Sara Khan, the UK’s adviser for social cohesion, explains how the extremism she witnessed as a child has gone mainstream

    Khan has been trying to put the brakes on hatred and division within British society for a long time. As a young Muslim, growing up in Bradford, she was shocked by the way the recently-banned Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir tried to radicalise girls and boys as young as 13.

    “My father used to come back with leaflets from the mosque from Hizb ut-Tahrir, saying ‘This is a really toxic organisation – they’re completely the opposite of everything I’ve taught you about being patriotic and contributing positively to this country’,” she recalls.

    Khan’s father had emigrated to the UK from Pakistan in the 1960s, initially working in a grocery shop before moving into insurance, and instilled in his four children “a real opposition to Islamist extremism and the dangers that it posed”.

    When Khan was growing up, she saw teenage girls in her community being forced into marriage. “That just does something to you,” she says.

    She was working as a hospital pharmacist when London was bombed by al-Qaeda-inspired terrorists on July 7 2005. That attack – the deadliest Jihadist assault in British history – was a “defining moment” and she pledged, from that moment, to dedicate herself to countering Islamist extremism.

    “The idea of young British Muslims carrying out a domestic attack and murdering fellow citizens was just absolutely horrific,” she says. “My professional life in this type of work started from that point.”

    Now 44, she has been fighting extremism for almost two decades, having co-founded the women-led charity Inspire in 2008. Its mission, to combat Islamist radicalisation and gender inequality, appeared uncontroversial but drew hostility from extremists.

    “We got an incredible amount of abuse,” she recalls. “I was living with daily threats and it was predominantly coming from Islamist extremists in this country, and people who are sympathetic to those narratives.”

    Khan, who had two young children at the time, was advised by police on security measures including changing her routes to work and school and coming off social media.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/28/dame-sara-khan-radicalisation-post-october-7-hizb-ut-tahrir/

    Khan was born in 1980 so would still have been at primary school at the time of the Salman Rushdie affair. This was when the UK’s Muslims ‘discovered’ their identity, especially those languishing in northern England’s broken mill towns. I have written before of BBC Radio 4’s series ‘Fatwa’. This described at length their ‘awakening’.

    There are Muslims who regard their faith as simply a personal guide to consideration for oneself, for family, for strangers and more, to live a good clean life. You can also find this in Christianity. It amounts to little more than look after Grandma, help children cross the road safely and don’t forget the Right Guard but as long as there are copies of the Koran to be read, there will be ‘extremists’ who regard it as their truth of the world. No amount of wailing about the peace of Islam will save anyone from its inherently violent nature.

    Sophocles: “You can kill a man but you can’t kill a idea.”

  90. Checked the beehives just now. Although mostly buried in snow, the clever FLIR camera in the phone shows them to be quite a lot warmer than the surrounding snow (which is up to the roof), suggesting that there is a live colony inside all three.
    That’s a relief.
    We’ll get some feed into the feeders shortly, hopefully giving the little buzzers an early start to the season.

    1. With just the substitution of two letters, your last sentence could be applied to Westminster following the Easter recess…..

      1. Bees are great! Not only honey, but much pollination, and as a society, they are pretty clever. When you open a hive and see a heaving mass of buzz, they almost look cuddly… but I don’t advise it, they can get pretty spiky.

        1. Do you have an epipen to hand, just in case? My father kept bees, and just blithely ignored being stung, until the day when he suddenly went into massive anaphylactic shock and nearly carked it.

          1. Can’t get close enough to see the logo, though. Judging by the spiky response, they aren’t very woke.

          2. Just sent the link to a couple of friends who are holed up for Easter with a corker of a cough, cold and general bloody awfulness.
            I felt “Stayin’ Alive” might give them hope.

          3. It defies you to be fearful! “I’m as cute as can be! – won’t you come into my parlour?”

          4. I do have a very serious spider problem. but my daughter sent me a video of this creature some years ago and it is soooooh cute and engaging. I also am awed by the mimicry of much larger memes. It is very, very weird (but luckily also tiny). If anyone thinks that such things evolve by accident (rather than, say cosmic entertainment) they really do need to check their mathematical probabilities.

          5. I can just about manage small spiders, the larger ones are in another league. It’s when you see, out of the corner of your eye, a little body scurrying across the floor for the safety of the space under the sofa. You get down on your knees to check, and see two eyes – on stalks – peering back at you. Worst of all is going into the bathroom and finding something black with legs, the size of the palm of your hand in the bath….

          6. I know. And a visit to Australia reveals further horrors, more like small furry animals than insects – plus the most poisonous creatures know to man.

          8. I have a horrible feeling that the (relatively drab with one of those huge, sinister, pointed arses that some spiders have) female is all set for a jolly and then will eat the poor little sod.

  92. Angela Rayner’s Thatcher hypocrisy

    Labour rejects Thatcher’s politics of aspiration, even when its own frontbenchers benefited from them

    TELEGRAPH VIEW • 28 March 2024 • 10:00pm

    Labour launched its local election campaign under the tagline “Britain’s Future”. Voters might be forgiven for taking a keener interest in its deputy leader’s past. Sir Keir Starmer has backed Angela Rayner amid allegations that she may have been liable for capital gains tax on the sale of a property in 2015, which she maintains was her primary residence and thus exempt.

    Sir Keir says he supports Ms Rayner’s decision not to publish the tax advice she says she sought on the sale. “Are you going to be calling,” he asked, “for Tory ministers to publish all their legal and tax advice going back over the last 15 years?”

    Such deflection is unlikely to wash with an electorate frustrated by the perception that different rules always seem to apply to politicians. At the very least, Ms Rayner needs to be more transparent about what happened. She should recognise that the public is entitled to ask questions of a politician who, within just a few months, could hold one of the highest offices in the land.

    But at the heart of this story lies a separate apparent hypocrisy. Ms Rayner benefited from the landmark Right to Buy programme, brought in by Margaret Thatcher to enable council tenants to become homeowners and pave the way to Britain becoming a property-owning democracy. Millions of people took advantage of the scheme, breaking their previous dependence on the state.

    Perhaps for this reason, the Left has long opposed the policy. Labour has suggested that it could tighten Right to Buy by slashing the discount offered to tenants who purchase their council-owned properties, raised to up to 70 per cent by the coalition government.

    More generally, Labour shows little enthusiasm for the kinds of aspirational policies that Mrs Thatcher’s governments promoted to such great effect. Its attack on private schools is likely to result in fewer opportunities for bright children from poorer backgrounds, if it leads to a reduction in scholarships and bursaries. Labour’s tax and benefit plans remain cloaked in mystery, but they are unlikely to reward people with multiple homes by lowering their capital gains tax bills.

    Last week, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, seemed to praise Mrs Thatcher, while rejecting her economic philosophy in its near-entirety. This is hard to square with the improvements in living standards enjoyed by millions – Ms Rayner among them – thanks to Thatcherite policies.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2024/03/28/angela-rayner-thatcher-right-to-buy-tax-scandal/

    1. Labour hates the working class to get on; once they are educated and have risen out of welfare dependency they tend no longer to vote Labour.

  93. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d5caa6fc00a971a064caf8c05346bdbece92fb0f56519146984bf3c5ea94daeb.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de1f7baebbf06b8303e7e0bda5468c026ed7950ac00d38930318dbdce20e15f3.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/72cee55708a7c5fb933e398c7e7db80eeb465e4744adcc718da8b6acf5df3d71.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40014595e94820f2cda6c9ccd02290a0642e5568051c4e3ceaf8d48d062c02da.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/05e9a04582f76f0478b1bb5c02c29e94fe71f7642f6699749d162a1158304ae4.jpg

    1. The last one has been developed from Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Story: The Cat Who Walked By Himself.

          1. He has pigeons in the loft and runs with the whippets. He’s looking forward, nay, licking his lips at the thought of this evening’s pork scratchings.

    3. First photo – of course, were it to happen, the first thing you do is find your ‘phone/ camera to take a photo’.

    1. I think that depends entirely on who is setting the definition of “something to hide”.

  99. I’m aiming for grumpy old bat status, so I’m not going to validate her, or anyone else who whinges!

  102. ‘Afternoon All

    Very Belated Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f54f4565de1efabc0561ca4677c9177f84c50f96110e4b4fe92da4a0983193f8.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5ca9298b1218f2cec6d169d100b2d94ade7f3501a1f1e33b3a540b44aa0c72be.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/db16713d7a5f39e1b7d15591cfbe44408d34776a9d7f201aa18e2b9567bfe2b9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bcb2b77627ddc3b878f7a1e75a179b7dc2f7d580f6f76892d6a1e186a2eb5e5c.png

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7b6545cc567b209b436244ae32bde08c7cb62275addd29953a60c37c0d293bdb.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3dbaa610bbd49c765e6cfb62f0187318947cfbd34898ed81587d029259b49d85.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de1e1da742e5f15937fa1bf8a4e9073063359bdffeb9836fe7fbed5d4eb7b132.png

    1. The mail in ballot led to Pennsylvania electing a man who was dead by the time of the supposed election date.

  104. It is only fairly recently that I realised just what a beautiful building Wimborne Minster was, so that’s where my bimble took me:.

    The minster is dedicated to Saint Cuthburga (sister to Ine, King of Wessex and wife of Aldfrith, King of Northumbria) who founded a Benedictine abbey of nuns at the present day minster c. 705. Saint Walpurga was educated in the monastery, where she spent 26 years before travelling to Germany, following the missionary call of her mother’s brother Saint Boniface. Leoba was also educated in this place. A monastery for men was also built around this time, adjacent to the abbey. Over the next hundred years the abbey and monastery grew in size and importance.

    In 871 King Æthelred I of Wessex, elder brother of Alfred the Great, was buried in the minster. Alfred was succeeded by his son Edward the Elder in 899, and Æthelred’s son, Æthelwold, rebelled and attempted to claim the throne. He seized a nun, probably of Wimborne, and made a stand there, probably because of its symbolic importance as his father’s burial place, but he was unable to gain enough support to fight Edward and fled to the Vikings of Northumbria.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/20d870ac6a03ea461fb5e42cf8c77c6dfd4e854073ec50de3e69ccc6ef9cfdc4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/629d63cf2059bb6849e3a1846357f22e008dfebe540d83807b9ff1c7ab74484c.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3871a5906841054c3aca954d25c9fd2a092e74a80aa66e637573ccb758269f6d.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b68ba834613e7ef8f2e9b60cc393c78ba97c1fd571d69abf5319233ffe8c30a3.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a42bc5623191034fd4c96fb70ff49ad03f365092bbecad60fce9077e3530f16c.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/efef424148c127f67a1aba8ab302214b8f1c316d37ad9f83378a7326e9798a3b.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ea28546d9bbde783d091fdc6ca0786b05b11e76792998b287c325104df1af9dc.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/755511b1ccc23b264906a4fe2ab0659fc2c7770cbb91552f972322c5990c3e64.jpg

    1. Our organist and choirmaster who was with us in the 90s was organist at Wimborne Minster. It is a beautiful Minster.

    2. Beautiful. It’s interesting that many aristocratic ladies of the golden age of Northumbrian Christianity chose to be nuns in preference to being wives and mothers. They were educated. One could see them as prototype feminists though it seems unlikely they’d understand the concept.

        3. An old tradition which continues to this day vide the current Archbishop of Canterbury.

          2. I did thank you. I still hold out hope they will appear in my local supermarket soon.

      2. Some women weren’t given much choice as to whom they had to be married…some may have seen the life of a nun as preferable? I also understand that pressure was put on women to become nuns (as with younger sons) so as not to be a financial burden on the family, but still have some influence in the Church.

        1. Thank you, Stephenroi. Very beautiful and not something with which I am familiar. Enormously peaceful.

          2. As a matter of interest (and I know there are very many proper musicians on here, including you) would this be classified as Plainsong, despite the female voice?

        1. #metoo! Unfortunately my occasional and most wonderful gardener (who is 20 years younger than me and able to perform tasks that I now find nigh impossible) disagrees. It’s like the fridge in “The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul” (recommended if as yet unread)

    4. There are beautiful churches all over the UK reflecting the incredibly rich history of this island. It is sad that this heritage, stretching back 1400 years or more will, if governments and special interest groups get their way, disappear after just a very few years.

      1. The special interest groups include Welby and the Bishops who have a list of 1000 churches targeted for closure and flogging off according to Save the Parish.

        1. Are you a “Friend of Unloved Churches”, JD? There are several by yer. It is criminal theft the way the hierarchy is behaving.

          1. No Opo, but I’m spending hours and hours each day trying to fight the Diocese’s attempts to wreck our parishes with their ancient churches. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you the latest.

        3. The archdeacon assured me that the church I’ve left (possibly for ever) was not on the list for closure. I asked if the Diocese was going to pour money into it to save it – answer came there none.

    5. A relative of Moh’s is buried under the flagstone near the organ .. as you go into the Minster on the left hand side , there it is in writing .

    6. The central tower (spire?) has Romanesque arched windows.
      Is it older than the rest of the minster.?

  105. Yo and Good Afternoon (& Good Moaning)

    Just had to renew the insurance on my Disco: 39.23733333333333 times the price of my first car

  107. Never say that the government don’t support seniors –

    Starting April 1, eligible Alberta seniors over the age of 65 will automatically receive a 25 per cent discount on personal registry services including birth certificates.

    I am sure that many seniors will take advantage of this.

      1. Of course, and the instructions on how to apply for MAID are included free of charge 😆

          4. Sign on, Sign on
            With no hope in your heart
            And you’ll never get a job
            You’ll never get a job!

    2. Are there hordes of would-be Charlie Chaplins amongst Alberta’s senior citizens?

  108. Unbelievable! You wait and wait for an appointment with the cardiologist, then suddenly on Good Friday you get a call from the hospital with a 12.45 appt. on …Easter Sunday! My husband is delighted to be seen but it doesn’t half mess up the family day! Good job they’re heathens up here!

  109. Russia to call up tens of thousands more soldiers . 29 March 2024

    Russia will begin a conscription drive next week calling up tens of thousands soldiers to replenish its reserves.

    “The spring draft will be held from April 1,” deputy head of the defence ministry’s mobilisation department, Rear Admiral Vladimir Tsimlyansky, said in a briefing on Friday.

    Vlad’s getting tooled up. I think he suspects a NATO attack!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/03/29/ukraine-russia-war-news-latest-poland-power-plant/

  110. A Provincial Par Four!

    Wordle 1,014 4/6
    🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Par here too.

      Wordle 1,014 4/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
      ⬜🟨🟩🟨🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Fluky birdie for me today!

        Wordle 1,014 3/6

        ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
        ⬜🟨🟨🟨🟩
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. Wordle 1,014 5/6

          🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
          ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
          ⬜🟨🟩🟨🟨
          🟨🟩🟩🟨⬜
          🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Late on parade here.

      Wordle 1,014 4/6

      🟩🟨⬜⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  111. ‘Night All

    Are we feeling enriched yet………..

    The guy who was arrested for the train knife attack was given a 6 month sentence last December for carrying a knife on a trainJailed

    on 19th December last year for 6 months, automatically eligible for

    release after serving half as is the standard in this country,

    https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1773511920060153902?t=KKtC7vIerHI8V4mnoX3ZBQ&s=19

    https://twitter.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1773697159449239658?s=20

    https://twitter.com/peterstopcrime/status/1773540719291953409?t=0DQnoKFkCmNKoa00yaSN2g&s=19

    3. On the “churchyard rape”: One of the very brave and articulate victims of one of the many Muslim/Pakistani rape gangs dotted around the UK mentioned that, over and above the most appalling physical torture she endured, far worse, for her, was the spiritual abuse. I think this was on a Mark Stein interview on GB News. But if we are talking blasphemy then I think we need look no further. These people are the epitome of evil, and if there are good’uns amongst them, as we are repeatedly told, then they need to stand up and be counted.

      1. There is a very articulate young lady from Telford who talks a out this. I want to say her name os Samantha something, but I could be wrong. She’s been on GB News a few years ago now.

    4. And when are our divots in parliament and ‘white’ hall going to take some positive action ?

    6. It needs mentioning with this sort of thing, run the metrics the other way around. What sort of reaction would that elicit?

  112. Ireland’s latest grandstanding shows how provincial it really is

    It is now levelling spurious accusations of genocide against Israel based on a narrow interpretation of its own history

    MICHAEL MURPHY • 28 March 2024 • 11:01am

    Ireland has joined South Africa in its genocide case against Israel, nailing its hatred of the Jewish state firmly to the doors of The Hague. The Irish government says it felt obliged to intervene to put a stop to Israel’s “indiscriminate use” of explosives in populated areas, “collective punishment” of Gazans, and an impending famine.

    Ministers say they carefully pored over the evidence and didn’t take the decision lightly. But it seems likely that Ireland has rowed in behind South Africa less from the evidence of genocide in Gaza, which is sorely lacking, but for reasons closer to home. The Irish public have long been among the most hostile in Europe to Israel. This is because Ireland has for decades viewed the Israel-Palestine conflict as a rerun of its own bloody struggle with Britain. “We see our history in their eyes,” Leo Varadkar said of the Palestinians in the White House earlier this month. “A story of displacement, of dispossession and national identity questioned and denied, forced emigration, discrimination, and now hunger.”

    Ireland, in other words, views the plight of the Palestinians solipsistically – as a recapitulation of its own victimhood, not a unique tragedy in its own right. This has too often spared the Irish public from feeling the need to wrap their heads around the particulars of this messy conflict, more than 3,000 miles from its shores, which are wholly different from Ireland’s fight with Britain.

    While the IRA wanted land, and was eventually willing to compromise, Israel’s antagonists have far grander ambitions – Hamas has made clear in its charter and public utterances it wants to kill not only all the Jews in the Levant, but worldwide. October 7 was effectively a dress rehearsal for how Hamas and its Iranian patrons would like this genocidal crusade to take shape. Short of horse trading in the death of Jews, it is unclear how Israel could meet Hamas halfway, or tolerate having such people as sovereign neighbours. But Ireland will forever be unable to comprehend this if, deep down, they see in the likes of Yahya Sinwar a kind of Michael Collins, or even Gerry Adams.

    The analogy further implodes given that, despite Arab hostility, Israel has agreed to the formation of a Palestinian state no fewer than five times since 1937. All of these offers – several of which would have left Palestine with the vast majority of the land – have been rejected. Ireland, on the other hand, took Britain up on the offer of home rule in 1922, deciding wisely that an imperfect state was better than none. The Palestinian leadership have for a century arrived at the opposite conclusion, to the great detriment of their people.

    A vague impression has also coagulated among the Irish that there’s a moral parity between the English plantation of Ireland and the arrival of Jewish settlers in Israel in the 20th century. But this doesn’t hold water. The English were sent to Ireland over the centuries as an instrument of English power whereas the Jews fled to their ancestral homeland from persecution in Europe – in the aftermath of the pogroms in Russia, the Dreyfus Affair, and, finally, the Holocaust.

    Ireland, with its genuine compassion for refugees, has a glaring blind spot when it comes to the series of cataclysms which drove Jews to found the state of Israel. The final vindication of this instinct for self-preservation came, paradoxically, with the founding of the Jewish state in 1947 when yet another wave of pogroms swept across the Middle East and North Africa. This caused an exodus of a million Jews, who have never returned (or been offered a “right to return”) to their homes.

    In near total ignorance of this history, the aperture of Ireland’s much-cherished empathy has narrowed to exclude Israel. It is ironic that as Ireland projects its cookie cutter Anglophobia onto a conflict where it has no place, its skies and seaways are guarded by the RAF – a luxury Israel does not have, widening the gulf between what Ireland can understand of a country under constant threat and which is also responsible for its own security.

    By grandstanding on the international stage, and levelling spurious accusations of genocide against the Jewish state, the Irish government has shown little more than how utterly provincial it is.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/28/irelands-grandstanding-shows-how-provincial-it-is/

    1. Good article but when there was a similar discussion btl on the Speccie I really copped flak from the Irish there for saying I’ d always been shocked by the extent of anti Semitism amongst most of the Southern Irish folk I’d known, even worse than the Germans and Poles.

      1. Yes, they were very much purged from Ireland during their goose-stepping phase. I do recommend “A Star Called Henry” to anyone wishing for an insight into the mindset, harrowing though it is.

          1. Ambiguous. Do you mean Jews or Irish? When I said “purged, I meant Jews. When I said “goose-stepping” I meant a certain faction of Irish. I assume you mean the latter!

          3. Yes. Sorry, it should have been : ) These days nothing is as obvious as it should be

      2. The next major conflict in Ireland will be caused by resentment to the hordes of invaders now loafing about the river front in Dublin swilling cans of beer and behaving in a threatening way to the locals.

        The Southern Irish gave assistance to the Germans in allowing U-Boats shelter in its ports.

        1. Au contraire; During WWII Ireland was a ‘pro-allied’ Neutral Nation.

          All downed Allied Airmen were delivered to the north within twenty-four hours.

          All downed German airmen were interned in the Curragh POW Camp. None chose to escape(!)

          Irish military intelligence (G2) shared information with the British military and even held secret meetings to decide what to do if Germany invaded Ireland to attack Britain, which resulted in Plan W, a plan for joint Irish and British military action should the Germans invade.

          Following the outbreak of war, Irishmen join the British Army in large numbers. Ultimately, around 200,000 – all of them volunteers – serve in the conflict and around 30,000 were killed.

          The only time U boats docked on the Island of Ireland was at the end of the War when the German U-boat Fleet surrendered.

  113. 385142+ up ticks,

    The Tories would be extremely lucky to lose by 4 points
    Even a turnaround on this scale would not be enough to enable Rishi Sunak to keep his fingernails on the reins of power

    The undenying fact is that whoever of the cartel wins the decent indigenous peoples will lose out once more with odious additives, I see this continuing in the same vein until each family loses a member courtesy of some governance department with a RESET agenda ,or the mullahs call a halt on take over.

    1. When things turn, they turn quickly, which is why in part I’m still hopeful. That, and I see no point in the endless doom-mongering that some on the right of politics seem to enjoy engaging in. I think that we’re still maybe another election away from real change, though.

      1. Exactly – like a shoal of fish, they all turn together, no stragglers doing their own thing. They move as one, turning on a sixpence.

          1. Me too. I try to take my inspiration from the natural world when feeling in despair. All things are possible; backs are not yet against the wall, a majority are still largely unaware although they may be having uneasy feelings and muttering ‘why doesn’t somebody do something?’ – it just hasn’t dawned that the somebody is ‘them’ and all of us, yet. All it takes is 10% to ‘do something’ and we do have a major advantage – we are on home territory and ‘they’ will be playing an away game. This country and its history is in our genes.

          2. Thank you, and I hope that you optimism is justified. I do believe (have faith deep down) that good will always triumph over evil. It’s just that present circumstances – the takeover of our country and our church by stealth – do make me feel very jittery. Sometimes they make me wonder.

          4. Don’t know what happened to the r. There’s always one letter that let’s you down

          5. I recently read ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ by Viktor E. Frankl and ‘The Master and Margarita’ by Mikhail Bulgakov. Taken along with C S Lewis’ ‘Mere Christianity’, there is always hope.

            The good will always defeat Satan.

          6. I recently read ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ by Viktor E. Frankl and ‘The Master and Margarita’ by Mikhail Bulgakov. Taken along with C S Lewis’ ‘Mere Christianity’, there is always hope.

            The good will always defeat Satan.

      2. I agree that when political sentiments shift they do so rapidly.

        The most positive development for those of us who wish to retain our nation state and historic cultural values is the imminent defeat of the globalist ambitions in Ukraine. Those ambitions were to use Ukrainians in a proxy war with Russia but the ultimate aim was to break up a defeated Russia and seize its assets. Ukraine was already sold to Blackrock although that little aside is now on the skids.

        Despite applying economic sanction upon sanction and arming Ukraine to the teeth it is apparent that the collective west completely underestimated Russian industrial strength and resolve. Russia is winning. We are winning.

  114. Right, that’s me done for today. A chilly morning turned into quite a pleasant afternoon. The grass has been cut. My planned garden work was thwarted because the MR came across a very large dead branch that had snapped off a tree and had fallen among some of the hydrangeas. So plenty of saw work was called for (but no ladders) – producing two barrow loads of useful crap wood to keep the stove going.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

  115. There are some utter bastards in the world. Who would even suggest this, let alone do it?
    I hope the boss of the company fires everyone involved, only publishes the complete photographs AND doesn’t charge for them.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13252529/Boss-photo-firm-offered-delete-disabled-children-school-class-photo-says-devastated-holding-crisis-meetings-discover-happened.html

    A boss of a photography company that left mothers ‘devastated’ by offering to delete disabled children from class photos described the offer as ‘unacceptable’

    Terence Tempest, 70, revealed ‘heartbroken’ bosses were locked in crisis meetings to discover ‘what the hell happened’.

    It comes after three children at Aboyne Primary School in Scotland were removed from images sent via an internet link, giving parents the option to order a photo without them in it.

    AND anyone who ordered the redacted pictures instead of the complete ones should be named and shamed.

    1. This could be a classic DM hit job. It seems that the disabled kids belonged officially to another organisation? If you read the article, it says that they do everything together with the other kids. Hard to tell from just the text, but it could be an administrative thing, and they were offered a photo with just their class in.

      2. Either way it’s mean, but if you’re correct the parents involved should have had that made clear.

    1. What an absolute, total Satanic arsehole is this man (sorry to be crude). WTF is he doing in such a position of power, dismantling centuries of Christian tradition and leaving those that do have faith absolutely unsupported.

      1. Where’s the positive message of hope, rebirth? Man’s supposed to be the leading Protestant in the UK, but instead he’s an asshole.

        1. I don’t like him, but Good Friday is when Christ is killed, the world looks lost, he descends into Hell.

          Doesn’t the message of hope and rebirth come on Sunday?

          2. I listened to the St John Passion while I was cooking dinner and then eating it. Such a terrible story but very uplifting music.

    2. The abandoned. That would be the British underclass, produced by welfarism, spat upon by their creators.

  118. For our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, isn’t there SOMEONE out there with knowledge of p hotoshop who could turn those ‘Happy Ramadan’ lights into ‘Harry Ramsden’? Jesus was well into fish and Friars have long been part of the Church.

    1. Excellent – I’m in full agreement apart from one – I’m an inbred criminal from Lancashire, but I’ve never been jealous of Yorkshire – being so effortlessly superior!!

      1. But of course we are…. it really does come with the territory. Someone, when I was at university was saying “what is it about people from Yorkshire, they all have this… this… look at her, even she’s got it (she was looking at me) ask her where she’s from, it’s “I’m from Yorkshire”.” I suppose we say it with a certain ĂŠlan…. legends, we are….

        1. I didnt mean you lot, I meant us Lancies!

          Nonetheless, being a big cricket fan, it doesnt get much better than Sir Geoffrey Boycott – the epitome of Yokksher!……

          1. Not to mention the greatest fast bowler of all time, FST.

            If there had been as many test matches then as there are now, and they had been against essentially very poor opposition that many modern teams play as “test” matches, he might even have eclipsed the dodgy actioned spinner Muralitharan’s total

          2. FST, whilst undoubtedly a legend, is only the greatest fast bowler of all time in the eyes of FST!

            Not sure he’d have got up there with ‘Mutti the Chucker’ but he’d certainly given Jimmy A (cracking Burnley lad!!) a run for his money……

          3. Joking aside, watch his bowling action, there is nobody close to the power and the economy of movement. Larwood may have been more controlled and accurate, but for all round aggression, and accuracy FST is the king in my view.

            He may well not have been fit enough physically to put in the years the modern bowlers can, he played in fewer than 70 test matches; those above him in the England rankings apart from Willis had far more caps.

            He would have had to cut his run in the modern game too.

            Top England bowlers:
            Anderson 3.74 wickets per test
            Broad 3.62
            Botham 3.75
            Willis 3.61
            FST 4.58

          4. I think I’m violently agreeing with you, Sos – but you’re right to point out the differences with the modern game, I also think the pitches now are far more controlled and docile than they once were.
            Freddie’s stats are impressive but I’m still with Jimmy on this one!

          6. Point taken about the quality of opposition, although there are no rabbits in Jimmy’s number (perhaps Zim and Bangladesh but there’s only 20 wickets there).

            I guess these are the sort of arguments that will run and run – suffice it to say that they are both legends (and crap batsmen!)…..

      2. Yorkshire folk, like Scotsmen, but with all the Scot’s generosity and humour removed?

    2. When I followed cricket, the Roses match was always the best of the season and we Tykes were mad keen to beat Lancashire.

      However, If Yorkshire were not in the competition, we always supported Lancashire.

  120. That’s me for tonight.
    Nice dinner out at a local restaurant run by a young French chef and his Norwegian lass – always a pleasure! He can even make boiled potatoes taste exciting, and that’s quite some talent!
    ‘Night, all Y’all. Until the morning’s light (+ some, ‘cos I’m a lazy bugger…).
    😉

      1. If they are nice enough potatoes with fabulous butter and just the right amount of seasoning you sure can, 2 horses. New jersey Royals are close to heaven. I note in the potato conversation below no-one mentioned Anya, which are the long, paper skinned, nobbly ones that you don’t peel. My goodness me, they are delicious.I believe there is a similar variety called something like pink firkin (cannot remember) – anyone know? Clearly myriad potato officionados here

        2. Sorry O, I’m a straight up and down chips man myself (hard to believe, I know!).

          4. I was going to go for that. is it better than the trusty King Edward, would you say?

          6. Come now, Alf, isn’t it how rather than who? They certainly need to be cooked in animal fat if they are to be at their best

          7. I think it’s both. Beef dripping at the right temperature is the how and who.

          10. I know why you say that and I am somewhat resistant to boiled potatoes myself. But when they are boiled just long enough they are delicious.
            Here in Spain a popular first course is green beans boiled with potatoes and then covered with salt and abundant olive oil.
            Not an exciting first course, but very tasty. The remaining olive oil is mopped up with bread.

          11. Bizarrely, Rob (I think I remember you from the Speccie?) boiled potatoes seem to lend themselves better to Mediterranean cuisine – judging from the comments below!

      2. Break them up a bit then toss in olive oil and lemon juice with capers and chopped parsley and leave for 10 minutes before eating.
        I think it was Nigel Slater (master of all things yummy and fattening) who was the source of that. Adding some chopped anchovies is a great variation.

        1. Now that sounds interesting Lola, but only because I love anchovies! Doesnt swing it for me ultimately, however… 😉

  123. 385142+ up ticks,

    Allowing beards ‘won’t fix Army staffing problem’, says Ben Wallace

    Former defence secretary thinks overturning the 100-year ban isn’t a ‘quick fix to recruitment challenges’

    WRONG benny boy, I believe that islamic fighters
    favour the beaded look come the takeover……

    1. We will not profit one jot from altering our national security arrangements to accomodate those who hate us and who revile our way of life

  125. My daughter is looking for a place to live in after she graduates later this year. We have been looking. Out current favourite is right next to an electricity sub-station and the is worried about any potential health side effects for living so close to such a thing.

    She is doing some research and has come across some research into the effects of mobile phones on the health effects of EMF (electromagnetic field). She is horrified; of course, this was all talked about a long time ago but I haven’t heard it mentioned for a very long time.

      1. Southampton. I am horrified at the quality (or lack thereof) of accommodation.

    4. “A 44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off, you’ve gotta ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk?”

  127. I have been popping in to look after Sparky, my daughter’s family cat, for the last two days. He is very shy and cautious with strangers; such a contrast to Bobble. Purrs are rare and are reserved for my daughter’s family’s return today: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cf384cec37022a2b67af9b86bc9fae4310a631b5cfb6cc983a18f4e8d19cb372.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9bf0b9cab6c471e1a0cc86c0bfabcd344be8deb9eebdf43bbce495f1a3349241.jpg

  128. Evening folks,

    A few nights ago I posted a couple of favourite poems, starting with John Gillespie Magee’s ‘High Flight’. Well, it seems poetry really was young Magee’s thing, having decided while he was at Rugby School that he wanted to be a poet. The war and joining the RCAF was merely something which would have just got in the way for a few years had he survived. He has a very interesting Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee_Jr. where I came across another flying poem he wrote, the one which is thought to have been the last he wrote before his untimely death in a mid-air collision. Here it is:

    Per Ardua

    (To those who gave their lives to England during the Battle of Britain and left such a shining example to us who follow, these lines are dedicated.)



    They that have climbed the white mists of the
    morning;

    They that have soared, before the world’s awake,

    To herald up their foeman to them, scorning

    The thin dawn’s rest their weary folk might take;

    Some that have left other mouths to tell the story

    Of high, blue battle, quite young limbs that bled,

    How they had thundered up the clouds to glory,

    Or fallen to an English field stained red.
    
Because my faltering feet would fail I find them
    
Laughing beside me, steadying the hand

    That seeks their deadly courage –
Yet behind them

    The cold light dies in that once brilliant Land ….
    
Do these, who help the quickened pulse run slowly,

    Whose stern, remembered image cools the brow,

    Till the far dawn of Victory, know only

    Night’s darkness, and Valhalla’s silence now?

    John Gillespie Magee Jnr.

  129. Evening folks,

    A few nights ago I posted a couple of favourite poems, starting with John Gillespie Magee’s ‘High Flight’. Well, it seems poetry really was young Magee’s thing, having decided while he was at Rugby School that he wanted to be a poet. The war and joining the RCAF was merely something which would have just got in the way for a few years had he survived. He has a very interesting Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee_Jr. where I came across another flying poem he wrote, the one which is thought to have been the last he wrote before his untimely death in a mid-air collision. Here it is:

    Per Ardua

    (To those who gave their lives to England during the Battle of Britain and left such a shining example to us who follow, these lines are dedicated.)



    They that have climbed the white mists of the
    morning;

    They that have soared, before the world’s awake,

    To herald up their foeman to them, scorning

    The thin dawn’s rest their weary folk might take;

    Some that have left other mouths to tell the story

    Of high, blue battle, quite young limbs that bled,

    How they had thundered up the clouds to glory,

    Or fallen to an English field stained red.
    
Because my faltering feet would fail I find them
    
Laughing beside me, steadying the hand

    That seeks their deadly courage –
Yet behind them

    The cold light dies in that once brilliant Land ….
    
Do these, who help the quickened pulse run slowly,

    Whose stern, remembered image cools the brow,

    Till the far dawn of Victory, know only

    Night’s darkness, and Valhalla’s silence now?

    John Gillespie Magee Jnr.

  130. OT, and out of prurient speculation: anyone have any idea what that DUP Lord is supposed to have done with his 57 year old female accomplice? I am intrigued. It reminds me of the time that a complete nut job claimed that she had been raped by the Hamiltons. Anyone know? We can’t possibly be in West country, can we?

    1. He’s probably an utter toad, but I do wonder why there are so many instances of women, and for that matter men, suddenly coming up from the past to bring accusations, I do wonder about the timing of these things.

      Why don’t they do it the instant the person they are accusing gets into the public eye, let alone before they do?

      Perhaps they are seeing pound signs if they leave it a bit longer.

    2. Didn’t a close relative of Jerry Adams have his paedophilia covered up so as not to upset the image of Sein Fein?

      1. OMG. Why are all politicians such sexual perverts. In Scotland it is now completely overt.

      1. Licensed trades with permission to practice granted on the basis of religion. No thanks.

    2. I don;t mean to be mean, but this man is and has been an absolute disaster for our capital, which is now a muslim, knife wielding, terrorised, drug addled shithole. I wish something would get rid of him – maybe the next election (if only they outlawed postal votes)

      1. It’s news to me that they have to prove it at the moment. Clearly the threshold isn’t high.

        1. I don’t think they have to prove anything, do they? They just apply, in bulk, for postal votes and they are given them.

          1. I was referring to cab drivers there.You may have been spared in the green spaces of Pembrokeshire or Caredigion.

    4. Oi!

      I cannot walk far, so a postal vote is all I have but they need to be better controlled.

  132. WEATHER
    Sick of all this rain? You should have seen 1872
    You’re not imagining it: England has just endured some of its wettest twelve months in 150 years. But it seems we’re moaning a lot less than the Victorians

    By December 1872, after 12 months of continuous rain, conditions in England were little short of apocalyptic — at least according to The Times. In the fields, rats “as plentiful as hares” ravaged the cabbages. In Cambridge, rowers practised in railway ditches.

    After a year of what the newspaper called “atmospheric caprices”, much of Surrey lay under water, Ely was an island again and rivers flowed into the cellars of Leicester. The Archbishop of Canterbury was leading emergency prayers for blue sky.

    How much rain did we have in England that year? Roughly the same as fell in the past 12 months.

    The Environment Agency has said that England just went through its wettest March to February on record. With 1,154mm, rainfall matched the soggy heights of 1872. Yet it did so with a lot less complaining.

    Unlike then, when The Times recorded — possibly over-enthusiastically — that rain fell in “literal torrents”, and when a slot on the letters page was titled Floods and Floods, this year our upper lips have been not only damp, but stiff.

    This is perhaps not surprising, said Professor Ed Hawkins from Reading University. “Overall we have seen a large increase in rainfall in the UK over the last century, especially in winter,” he said.

    There were two other comparably wet 12-month periods, in 2000 and 2012, he said. “This is due to climate change. We are living in a warmer world, and a warmer atmosphere is more humid, meaning that when we get heavy rainfall, it rains more than it would have done a century ago.” We have, in other words, got used to it — even if we don’t like it.

    The French artist Gustave DorĂŠ captured destitute men in London looking for shelter from the rain of 1872

    According to the latest statistics, river flow is now “exceptionally high” or “notably high” in half the rivers in the south of England, and most reservoirs are at capacity. The Environment Agency has 24 flood warnings — where flooding is expected — and 162 flood alerts, where flooding is possible. The agency does not expect this to improve soon.

    According to the Met Office, heavy showers are expected over the weekend. For those seeking a ray of literal and metaphorical sunshine, the organisation says that on Saturday “some areas in the east will remain dry through the day”. Unsettled weather, though, is expected into April.

    What is to be done? In 1872 some took the conditions stoically. One correspondent felt moved to write to The Times after being struck by lightning. “Sir,” began George Wyld. “As I was walking across Wimbledon Common in the midst of a deluge, I suddenly received an electric shock to the left temple. I was carrying overhead an umbrella.”
    “These facts,” he added, “may be of interest to some students of electricity.”

    Others were less prepared to tolerate the year’s atmospheric caprices. On December 24, the nation alighted on a desperate solution. That was the day when the Archbishop of Canterbury realised the Church had, embarrassingly, dropped the ball. Chastising his archdeacons, he said: “I have heard, with some surprise, that the clergy have not used the prayer for fine weather which our liturgy prescribes in case of excessive rain.”

    This mistake was rapidly remedied. Across the country, parishes read the prayer. “We humbly beseech thee, that although we for our iniquities have worthily deserved a plague of rain and waters, yet upon our true repentance thou wilt send us such weather as that we may receive the fruits of the earth in due season.”

    What happened next? 1873 became one of the driest years on record. It is, at least, something to note 150 years on as, amid a plague of rain and waters, the Most Rev Justin Welby prepares to lead the faithful in Easter Day prayers.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sick-of-all-this-rain-you-should-have-seen-1872-w02l9n26d

      1. I feel a tad guilty – I purchased and installed two water butts last summer…….

    3. So are you saying, Maggie, that all this Global Warming started on 1873 after the then Archbishop of Canterbury with his Archdeacons and the clergy prayed for better weather at the tail end of 1872? Lol.

          1. Fattist comment – I thought we’d been commanded not to do that after the “Manchester Muslims with Moobs” video

    2. Thanks. PM. I did have an old photograph of one of the survey vessels I worked on where we had a 500kg Mola mola (sunfish) pulled on to our gundeck by our towed equipment. It was dead unfortunately.

      3. Asking for my old man. Which vessel were you on? He was on HMS Fox and Fawn!

        1. Sorry, Sue, I appear to have confused people by referring to the ‘gundeck’ of the vessels that I worked on. My last 20 years of occupation involved marine seismic survey, oil and gas exploration. We worked for whatever petrochemical company that hired us. The ‘gundeck’ was the deck we kept and deployed our air guns from, huge steel beasts that fired in perfect synchronisation under water to generate the energy to create a pulse to the seabed and the the strata beneath that.

          1. Ah! Thank you! Husband worked for Decca on the RN vessels of Trinidad and St. Kitts, back in the 70’s!

          2. Ah, when I first went to sea we used Decca and Loran positioning systems which required fixed positions to give us our own position. We used shore based stations and/or fixed oil rigs. Mid ’90s we moved on to GPS positioning which allowed us to work anywhere offshore. I moved from the onboard geophysical interpretation to the data acquisition positioning side. All sounds a bit weird but you do see some wonderful things at sea.

          3. Alan worked for Decca Survey and used a system called HiFix which was much more accurate than Decca Navigator. It was the RN Hydrographic fleet and they did positioning for oil rigs etc.

  134. They say that anyway, whatever happens, only the correct terminology is “climate emergency”. Do keep up!

  137. The quiet ‘Blair seats’ that hold the key to a Labour majority
    new
    They backed New Labour then turned to David Cameron. Now exclusive polling shows these traditional bellwether constituencies are considering Keir Starmer at the next UK election

    Sir Keir Starmer is becoming a familiar face in Stevenage. Since he launched his campaign for the Labour leadership there four years ago, he has visited half a dozen times.

    This town in the Hertfordshire commuter belt is one of dozens that will be pivotal at the next election. Starmer’s path to No 10 runs not only through the red wall of northern seats won by Boris Johnson in 2019 but also through these “Blair seats”, constituencies that Labour won in 1997 but lost in 2005 or 2010.

    Labour believes they could be the difference between a hung parliament and an outright majority. “We do need to move beyond the red wall. The path to a majority lies outside it,” one shadow cabinet minister said.

    A joint analysis by The Times and YouGov has identified 65 such seats, held by Conservatives but first won back from Labour under Michael Howard and David Cameron. Some have had a Labour MP for a period since but all are at present Conservative-held seats. The real number of seats in this category will in fact be higher, as only those seats largely unchanged under new constituency boundaries at the next election are included in the analysis.

    Labour believes the 65 Tory-held “Blair seats” could be the difference between a hung parliament and an outright majority

    The seats are not alike. They are geographically spread, many of them in the Midlands and Anglia but some in Wales, London and the north.

    Plenty are Leave-voting “Tory towns”, including Ipswich, Nuneaton, Corby and Swindon. Some are nicknamed “Thameslink Tory” seats, so called because of the commuter railway network: Stevenage, Dartford, Chatham, Peterborough, Welwyn Hatfield, Hendon and Hemel Hempstead.

    Senior Labour sources said these are similar to the seats targeted under Ed Miliband’s leadership at the 2015 election. “He spent a lot of time in these, especially the flank of those you might broadly label southern precariat seats,” one said. The word, a portmanteau of precarious and proletariat, describes lives lacking predictability, security or material welfare.

    According to the latest YouGov MRP model — a statistical method that looks at the relationship between demographic information about voters and is generally considered more accurate than conventional polling — Labour is forecast to win the vast majority of these 65 seats. The Conservatives are predicted to keep 12 and Labour to win 53.

    That one in four of these seats are in the Midlands will be of particular concern for Tory MPs as they grapple with the threat of Reform UK, which according to this week’s YouGov poll for The Times is now neck-and-neck with the Conservatives in the region, on 21 per cent. Reform is also narrowly ahead of the Tories among voters in the C2DE social classes, by 23 points to 22 — although the lead is within the poll’s margin of error — and in the north of England by 21 points to 18.

    Danny Kruger, co-chairman of the New Conservatives group of right-leaning MPs, who has been critical of Rishi Sunak’s leadership, said in a leaked recording obtained by The Daily Telegraph this week that the Tories “need to take the voters back” from Reform, which he said was “absolutely killing us”.

    Patrick English, director of political analytics at YouGov, said: “While both parties will say they are fighting for every vote, Labour and the Conservatives will be paying special attention to these seats because they are the ones which will ultimately determine if Labour are successfully able to oust their rivals from No 10 for the first time since 1997.

    Starmer has visited Stevenage six times since launching his campaign for the Labour leadership there

    “Starmer needs the red wall back in Labour hands as part of a winning coalition, and will be looking for a strong Scottish recovery and continued success in Wales, but how Labour perform in these marginals and bellwethers of old will determine if he becomes prime minister this year or not.”

    Voters in Stevenage, the first of the postwar “new towns”, have been represented by an MP from the governing party for more than half a century. Last year the Starmerite think tank Labour Together told senior Labour figures that “Stevenage Woman” — broadly defined as socially conservative — would be key in this election. Of the first 11 new towns, eight are on the list of key battlegrounds.

    William Roy Thompson

    SIMON JACOBS FOR THE TIMES
    Campaigning from both parties is ramping up in Stevenage. Richard Holden, the Conservative Party chairman, visited this month and Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, attended a recent Glitter Ball to raise money for the Labour candidate, Kevin Bonavia.

    William Roy Thompson, 83, backed Tony Blair in 1997 but has backed Conservative candidates in recent elections. Outside the shops in the New Town, he said he had not decided how to vote this time. “It’s a sort of wait and see,” he said. “Hopefully come the general election I’ll have a better idea — probably stay the same, or not, I might change.”

    Starmer will be working exhaustively, in this totemic seat and elsewhere in the disparate constellation of quiet bellwethers, to ensure that he does.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/seats-keir-starmer-win-labour-majority-uk-election-2024-zl9ts7pvv

    Shaun Nelson
    17 MINUTES AGO

    Tony Blair and Mandelson recognised the aspirant working class and retained the Enterprise allowance scheme post the Thatcher reforms.

    Starmer supported the Corbyn manifesto of the Marxist state including the Nationalsation of the Internet through BT Openreach.

    Starmer is a complete charlatan and NOT to be trusted.

      1. I doubt I’ll bother though I’m supposed to have a postal vote, in which case I may vote Reform.

          1. Don’t have an Imam and if I discovered one, I’d happily kick him all the way back to the sh*tehole he emanated from.

          3. Don’t hold back, Tom. Insult the Imam fully and call him a Very Silly Sausage. Lol.

  138. McCains French Fries are the nectar of the Gods!………done in the Air Fryer and crisped to perfection…. mmmmmmm………

    1. Pancreatic cancer finished my mother off in much less time than two years……….. her Gp was treating her for indigestion……

      1. Hello J, and that is my worry re my pain which is persistent and strange ..

        I hope they have got the diagnosis right re gut pain, which is quite pronounced this evening .. I feel all in .

        3. I don’t mean to pry, Belle, but as a newbie here I don’t know what is your illness (and want to wish you well and shove in any penny worth that might help)

  144. Yes, it is a shark, it seems to have landed or been caught in the net and deposited with the catch, which it is trying to consume. They are trying to lift it out and sharkey is doing its utmost to carry on gorging… eventually the fishermen succeed in getting it back over the edge and returned to its natural habitat. I don’t know if you have access to, or are familiar with, Twitter (X), if you tap or click on the blue circle with the white arrow you should get the whole little video cameo. (My apologies if I am telling you ‘how to suck eggs’!)

    1. Bless you PM, am not on twatter X or any of those things and have no wish to be. I will miss out!

      1. I didn’t access Twitter until early 2022 when I felt like a social pariah for not accepting the so-called vaccine – 93% of the population in my neck of the woods took the first one and 89% the second one. I logged on to Twitter and was greatly consoled and supported to find so many others with the same thoughts and observing so many red flags surrounding the event. It strengthened and renewed my resolve, not that I was ever in any danger of capitulating. Twitter is probably the least censored of social platforms in these difficult times although I agree there is a lot of dross which I simply scroll past.

  145. I once did in 1966 when my old Mum (God rest her soul) served up boiled potatoes and cabbage (we were very poor) to celebrate England’s World Cup win – never again! (that’s the boiled potatoes, not the World Cup win..)

    1. My mother’s favourite was cabbage boiled with bacon ribs, she said it was a traditional Irish dish. Something indescribably horrible.
      When we were grown up she used to make it in bulk and invite my brother and sister to dinner. Luckily I lived abroad and only had to listen to the description on the phone.

  148. What have they said? Did I miss it?
    My Mum complained of “back ache” – of course it was an internal pain – he gave her Gaviscon and Zantac. She couldn’t keep any food down.

  149. Evening, all. I didn’t get chance to go to church because I had to wait in for a delivery (I only ordered it yesterday and wasn’t expecting it until Tuesday!). It served me right because everything I tried to do went wrong; I broke a drill bit trying to fix a wall cupboard and then couldn’t put the screws in very far, when I tried to fix the bolt on the garage, part of the front fell off and had to be put back (the bolt fixing didn’t go well, either). I gave up on that so planted the last of the shrubs I bought earlier in the week. One of them came out of the pot minus most of its roots!

    I was only thinking this morning about the difference between trying to see my GP and ringing the vet; the vet answers first or second ring and I can get an appointment within a couple of hours the same day. The surgery doesn’t answer the phone and when I go to the surgery in person, I’m lucky if I get an appointment within six weeks.

    1. Sorry to hear that, Conners. I hope you can now relax, put your feet up, have a glass or two, and then head for bed with Kadi joining you a little later to sleep on the duvet by your side. Sleep well, my friend.

      1. Kadi sleeps in his own bed (or rather, in Oscar’s old bed). I have had a glass or two.

    2. I know what you mean. Repeat prescriptions from the doc, seven days turnaround; from the vet, next day.

    1. https://youtu.be/Tu6yiS1Q3dA

      I didn’t realise that the Monteverdi choir one (which I like better) was just the first bit. Am posting a whole one, because you do need the “Et in terra pax” directly after the first bit 🙂

  155. Just home from the Wigmore. Four Mozart violin sonatas played by Isabelle Faust, accompanied by Alexander Melnikov on fortepiano.

    Melnikov spoke beforehand to apologise, “for the way we look”. They’d booked to fly to London yesterday but flight cancellations meant they actually arrived straight from the airport and worried that they wouldn’t make it in time. The music wasn’t affected, though they must both have been very stressed.

    My enjoyment was only marred by cramps in my right leg. It happens sometimes.

  157. Another day is done so, I wish you goodnight and may God bless you all, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen frĂźh.

    1. God bless you, Sir Jasper, and all the other lovely nottlers. Wishing you all the very sweetest of dreams and a refreshed, rejuvenated awakening on the morrow

  160. Well chums, just one more day until the start of British Summer Time. I am off to bed now. Sleep well and awaken refreshed.

    1. Black August is an adventure novel by the British writer Dennis Wheatley. First published in 1934, it is set in about 1960, when an economic and political crisis causes a collapse of civilization.[1][2]

      It was the first (in order of publication) of Dennis Wheatley’s novels to feature the character Gregory Sallust. He wrote several more Gregory Sallust novels, most of which were set in earlier periods.[2]

      Background
      Creation of the novel
      After the success of his novel The Forbidden Territory, published in January 1933, Wheatley wrote his next novel Such Power is Dangerous in about a fortnight, and it also sold well. However, writing Black August occupied him for forty weeks. In the novel he introduced the character Gregory Sallust, largely based on Gordon Eric Gordon-Tombe. Gordon-Tombe, whom Wheatley first met in 1917, introduced him to a hedonistic lifestyle, which they enjoyed together for a few years. Involved in illegal activities, Gordon-Tombe was murdered in 1922.[3][4]

      Historical setting
      1934, when the novel appeared, was the time of the Great Depression in the United Kingdom, part of a worldwide economic depression. It had caused a political crisis and the formation of the National Government in the United Kingdom in 1931. The British Union of Fascists was formed by Oswald Mosley in 1932; their members were called “Blackshirts” after Benito Mussolini’s followers in Italy.

      Fictional setting
      A world is imagined a few years on from 1934, in which conditions have become more severe. “America had been driven more and more in upon herself, while Europe rotted, racked and crumbled….” America was now “prohibiting all further export to bankrupt Europe which could no longer pay, even in promises….” There was “starvation rampant in every city in Europe… Balkan and Central European frontiers disintegrating from month to month, while scattered, ill-equipped armies fought on broken fronts, for whom, or for what cause, they now scarcely knew….”[5] In Britain, the United British Party is in government. There is seen to be a threat from Communists. The Greyshirts, an organization seemingly like Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts, become prominent.

      During the story, the Government decide on a moratorium regarding outstanding business debts, to prevent the London Stock Exchange failing; but this causes a run on the banks. There is confrontation between Communists and the police, and there is sabotage of communication infrastructure by the Communists. In central London, public transport ceases, troops take positions, and people leave the city if they can. The Government resigns, and the Communist minority in the House of Commons makes a bid for power.

      Technology
      The use of new technology in the near-future is mentioned but not described in depth. Television is mentioned once (when, at a Cabinet meeting, ministers view the conditions in various parts of the country). One of the characters (Kenyon Wensleadale) has a private helicopter, though this has been commandeered and does not appear in the story. There are electric trains. Vehicles are powered by gas cylinders, referred to as “E.C.G.”

      Does that sound slightly familiar?

    2. Yes. This man needs to be exposed and dealt with , as do so many other of the thieves that are stealing our freedom. If only we had an operative system of fearless, unbiased investigative journalism. I reckon this guy’s Nazi credentials might well knock those of even the palindrome into a cocked hat.

    3. This fucker spouts his hateful speech from Davos beneath The Magic Mountain. So I can only suggest all now read Thomas Mann’s great book entitled ‘The Magic Mountain’. All will become clear.

  164. Do you know, you could be spot on Elsie , brilliant deduction .

    Yep, I will go with that.

    The Times sometimes gathers some thoughtful articles!

    1. I suppose it’s a matter of opinion. I thought it was awful. But it didn’t seem to bother my brother and sister.

      1. It might have tasted good, and if she removed the bones (which i hope she did) before serving it might have been delicious? Mind you, we have also been subjected to alleged Irish delicacies in my family, hence my sympathy

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