Friday 3 July: China has gradually become the greatest threat now facing the world

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be blacklisted.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/02/letters-china-has-gradually-become-greatest-threat-now-facing/

841 thoughts on “Friday 3 July: China has gradually become the greatest threat now facing the world”

    1. ‘Snot fair. You’re an hour ahead of us anyway.
      Good Moaning, Herr Oberst.

      1. True, but I go to bed earlier, and Geoff often puts up the new page late in the evening…
        Nah! Nah! nee nah! nah!
        :-D)

  2. Royal Shakespeare Company will tackle privilege and microaggression from audiences. 3 July 2020 • 12:01am

    The Royal Shakespeare Company has pledged to examine “white privilege” and tackle “microaggressions” minority actors experience from audiences on stage.

    In the wake of Black Lives Matter protests the thespian institution dedicated to the Bard’s work will “educate ourselves” and “educate our audience” about racial inequality.

    Morning everyone. Anyone who has seen any recent RSC productions will know that like the BBC it has been taken over by the Cultural Marxists and should be similarly avoided!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/02/royal-shakespeare-company-will-tackle-privilege-andmicroaggression/

    1. What priviledges? Being allowed to buy a ticket? Easy, ban audiences, or let them in free.
      See how that works.

      1. What are these ‘microagressions’ from audiences? Sounds to me like a buzzword with no meaning.

        1. Applauding? Coughing? Who knows?
          Easiest thing is to do away with audiences altogether.
          In another story in today’s DT, luvvies call for increased support for the arts – “The arts are dying” – I wonder why??

        2. There aren’t too many BAMEs in the audience ‘cos it’s nasty whitey who buys the tickets?

    3. How about all the macroaggressions perpetrated by the RSC and BBC in ramming their contortions of centuries old drama and history down their audience’s throat? I’m effing fed up, sickened, pee’d orff, and a lot more besides. being force-fed their Marxist crap.

      Morning Minty

    4. It’s never too late for a spot of wokery, even though the BLM bandwagon may be slowing down…

      ‘Morning, Minty.

  3. Good morning all.
    Up early for a run to Colsterworth.
    Plan dropping down M1 to Kegworth turnoff, then straight across to via Melton Mowbray.
    Good 1st letter on the dangers of China this morning.

    SIR – It is hard to believe, even with the distraction of Covid-19, along with the build-up to US elections and the last throes of Brexit, how little the world has focused on the actions of China in recent months.

    Leaving aside accusations regarding the origin of the virus and the delay in communicating details of human-to-human transmission, China has brazenly embarked on unilateral expansionist ventures in the South and East China Seas and on its border with India. There has been repression of the Uighurs and in Tibet.

    Furthermore, the introduction of unprecedented security powers in Hong Kong totally ignores the provisions of the treaty of agreement reached with the United Kingdom on the return of the colony to China.

    None of this is acceptable behaviour by any major power. But President Trump seems determined to put America first and thus abdicate from leadership of the Western world, thereby enabling China to pursue its policies with little interference.

    Covid-19 is not currently the greatest danger facing us all, nor is the cause of Black Lives Matter, or even climate change – China is the biggest threat to the world. It is time to confront the Chinese before it is 
too late.

    Brian Carmichael
    Belton-in-Rutland

    1. China is facing increasingly hazardous threats from nature to the point where it is starting to lose control of its provinces. The only way to cover its embarrassing situation is to attempt to strike out and increase its colonistic aims.
      There is a limit however to what it can get away with by distributing fake news.

      I watch Tiffany Meier on NTD’s China in Focus to keep abreast on how bad things are there:

      https://youtu.be/BKzxXsQVPts

    2. Don’t buy Chinese stuff.

      Ummmmm…..

      Oh…

      HS2
      5G
      Hinkley Point

      Why do politicos love China ?

      The Chinese can be very enriching !

        1. Peter Schweitzer told us how it’s done, and, lo, Boros and May, just like Biden, Kerry and Clinton have been right in there with the Chinese.

      1. I’ll confidently put my own up for a blind tasting against any of that vastly overrated stuff that Melton Mowbray can produce.

        1. A few days ago I made my first ever batch of raspberry jam. I’ve never tasted your own recommended brand (available from a roadside stall between Holt and Fakenham in Norfolk) which you said was “the best on the planet” but I reckon if mine doesn’t equal it, it comes a very close second.

          1. Well done, you.

            As a jam, raspberry (especially seedless) is a nonpareil. Unfortunately many commercial brands spoil the recipe by adding too much sugar and, thereby, overpowering the essential tangy, perfumed, sweet/sour balance of the raspberry.

            I once bought some raspberry jam from a roadside stall, at Barney, near Fakenham, and it was ruined by having too much sugar. That roadside place at Sharrington, on the Holt–Fakenham road, always has the balance just right.

            Only morello cherry comes close to raspberry jam for deliciousness.

    4. “None of this is acceptable behaviour by any major power. But President Trump seems determined to put America first and thus abdicate from leadership of the Western world, thereby enabling China to pursue its policies with little interference.”

      I’m trying hard to remember when he was elected to this lofty task.

  4. Following someone from Premier League finally getting round to checking BLM aims on their website and realising the catastrophic error in prostrating themselves before this toxic organisation, are they still requiring footballers to ‘take the knee’ before matches? Did any have the courage not to do this? Will any action be taken against those who gave the black power salute

    2. Lamborghini x 3, WAG 1 & 2 to support, His and Hers Ferraris, Taylor, Mason and Chardonnay’s school fees, Mock Tudor pile in Alderley Edge, multiple Caribbean holidays …….
      And all paid for by kneeling once a week on a wendyball field.

    3. 320878+ up ticks,
      Morning VOM,
      Seek justice via the turnstile, make them learn that
      appeasement comes at a cost, hit them / players in the wallet.

    4. I noticed that they were doing it at FA Cup matches too – which are not controlled by the Premier League. I hope the FA instructs players and officials not to perform this ridiculous act at the semi-finals and the final. No matter what people say to try to justify it, it is a political act.

      1. Well, just as long as they don’t wear poppies come November which is a very political statement (says the EU).

        1. The FA and the other home nations won that battle (against FIFA, not the EU) in 2017.

    5. I doubt they would try these gestures in front of a normal crowd of supporters.

  5. Thr only way to prevent transmission of Covid-19 according to a new regulation being promulgated by the Scottish Government is to wear a red plastic nose and a Noddy hat and hop on one leg.

      1. Where did you get that? Duncan’s been searching all week for his bunnet! 🤣

          2. ‘Fraid not Mr. Scheckter! From the Scotsman or Herald! Scary isn’t it? And we have to live with the divisive, squealing dictator since absolutely no-one challenges her or her ridiculous rules!

          6. If you stuff it far enough down the gullet – a bit like foie gras geese!

          7. Nae guid! It needs tae be ower thicker.

            [I can still hear the shrill and strident shrieking.]

          9. There’s only one thing (or two) that I like to stand oot like chapel hat pegs! 🤭

          17. 😉T’other day, my sister-in-law gatecrashed a What’sApp site strictly reserved for the use of my two brothers and me. Her text read, “I need some support.”

            Being me, I couldn’t resist the reply, “Have you tried Playtex?”, which, of course, set off a string of similarly-themed mickey-taking from her and my brothers.

          18. In Newcastle the House of Fraser store was called Binns and its name also created much hilarity with such jokes as “l’m looking for a good plus size bra” “Have you tried Binns?” “Aye, but they rattle!”

    1. Anyone would think the Times had it in for the elected President of the USA. Perhaps they are eager for Mr Biden to become the next President so they they can really polish their ‘satirical’ skills?

      1. Let’s face it, Trump is a pretty easy target for satirists. It’s what they do.

    2. Phew!

      For a minute I thought you’d said Kadeem Harris. Biden can’t have him, he’s needed on Sheffield Wednesday’s left wing.

  9. Good Moaning.
    I’m not a legal expert, but wouldn’t this comment by Bill Sweeney, a New York FBI chief, be counted as a trifle prejudicial?
    Hasn’t he given Maxwell’s defence an obvious target?
    “More recently, we learned she had slithered away to a gorgeous property in New Hampshire, continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims live with the trauma inflicted upon them years ago.”

      1. A sweeney that got results and would play merry Hull with their boss’s surname – well, their boss, full stop.

          1. “She’s a What?”

            I share their shock and surprise. No one, back in the mid-1970s, would have had the foggiest clue what a Common Purpose graduate was!

    2. Yes, my comment to the long-suffering Mrs HJ was along similar lines. Little prospect of a fair trial while the FBI (and others) line up to tear the arse out of it. Mind you, it’s going the same way over here.

      ‘Morning, Anne.

      1. Maybe he’s trying to make up for the fact that GM was fiendishly hiding in her own palatial house in his state.

    3. Travelling in the U.S. I watched alive new broadcast of police searching for a suspect. After an hour or so the suspect had been detained, as much as was known about him shared and the only thing left to be decided was the date of his execution.

    4. They do things differently there – the whole prosecution case has been set before the world. It wouldn’t happen here (or, once upon a time it wouldn’t – things are changing here, too).

      1. It struck me as the sort of remark we’d make on NOTTL, but would button up if we were in that situation.
        How are you feeling?

          1. At least you don’t have to get up on the roof.
            :-))
            I shall be up scaffolding all the week that comes, when(if) it’s not raining, doing housepainter work and fixing roofs/rooves.
            Problem is, put back out last night, so a bit stiff in the movements. There’s the odd screech, too, but that disappears with lubrication.

            Seriously, Bill, take a few days vacation somewhere and forget all the crap. It’ll still be there when you get back, but you should be refreshed. We’re away for a few days next weekend, in a mountain hotel. Missed skiing holiday this year, and don’t I feel it, a break is essential. Also, it’s 39 years wedding anniversary next Friday … to the same lady!

          2. For goodness’ sake, Willum, just take it easy.
            None of this up at sparrow fart watering plants or going to local markets.
            Just chill and take it easy. I won’t say relax, because you are probably as wound up by the Rule of the Numpties as I am.

    5. Good morning Anne and everyone. Compare and contrast the allegations made against Ms Maxwell with the situation in Rotherham, UK.

  10. Good morning, all. Not raining – just as well as the builder is coming to attend to the roof in half an hour…

    1. Morning all!

      It’s STILL raining here, and the central heating has kicked in. I have it set at 18 degrees. Long live the British summer!

      2. I started work in the garden and had to come in because it started hissing down.

  11. Oh dear, tough luck Maxy.. things are looking better…

    Donald J. Trump

    @realDonaldTrump

    There is a rise in Coronavirus cases because our testing is so massive and so good, far bigger and better than any other country. This is great news, but even better news is that death, and the death rate, is DOWN. Also, younger people, who get better much easier and faster!

    8:44 pm – 2 Jul 2020

  12. Mermaids: leading children up the trans path. Spiked. 3 July 2020.

    With the air of an evangelical preacher, Susie Green paces across the stage in her Dr Martens. She is explaining to the Ted X audience how her son Jack became her daughter Jackie.

    Green claims that Jackie had first requested sex-reassignment surgery (SRS) at six years old. Ten years later, Green took Jackie to Thailand for surgery, which it is now illegal to perform on those under 18. Jackie’s 16th birthday was spent undergoing the seven-hour operation. Green laughingly recalls in a YouTube video that the use of drugs to suppress puberty left surgeons ‘little to work with’ when it came to penile inversion – the process whereby a penis is cut and remoulded to resemble external female genitalia. Arguably, having set her child on the trans path, Green is personally invested in defending juvenile cross-sex transition.

    There’s something irrepressibly creepy here. You have to ask yourself how many 6 year olds even know about sex-reassignment let alone ask for it and then there’s the Mother assuming a central role. One is minded more to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy than Gender Dysphoria. Has this woman ever been examined or had her history researched?

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/03/mermaids-leading-children-up-the-trans-path/

    2. “TEDx is a grassroots initiative, created in the spirit of TED’s overall mission to research and discover “ideas worth spreading.”
      FFS

      1. I dont know much about TEDx but there are some very good lectures on TED.

        I can recommend Hans Rosling’s talks on population statistics.

      2. I dont know much about TEDx but there are some very good lectures on TED.

        I can recommend Hans Rosling’s talks on population statistics.

    3. I feel sick. Occasionally a person is genuinely evil: they’re rarer than we think, but this woman qualifies.

      1. Correct. Yet there is nota social services department anywhere in the country that would intervene. So the demented proceed on their merry way.

  14. If anyone blood pressure is dropping a bit low I can recommend a programme shown on Ch4 that will act far better than any medication in bringing it back up.

    “The School That Tried To End Racism ” (second part was on last night)

    1. A disgusting programme that used children to spread Woke propaganda!

    3. C4 is a non-channel for me. But at least it doesn’t use ‘licence’ money to make its programmes, unless you choose to buy the products in the ads. Whereas the BBC…

      1. I merely quote:

        “Channel 4 is publicly owned. It is commercially run which means it funds itself through advertising and doesn’t cost us a penny. In fact, Channel 4 makes up to £2 billion for the economy each year. Profitable and high quality – what’s not to like?

        Channel 4’s public service mandate means it must be innovative, stimulate public debate, reflect the UK’s cultural diversity, nurture new talent, and champion alternative points of view. This is a big responsibility and has been really successful, making Channel 4 extremely popular with young people and minority audiences”

  15. ‘Morning, all. Saw this a couple of days ago. It seems the Marxist-generated iconoclasm continues unabated in the US.

    The Boston Arts Commission unanimously voted Tuesday to take down the city’s historic Emancipation Memorial after activists demanded the statue’s removal.

    The memorial depicts Abraham Lincoln standing with one arm raised over a freed slave crouched on his knees. Broken chains are depicted around the black man’s wrists and the word “emancipation” is written at the statue’s base.

    The statue was funded largely by contributions from former slaves.

    https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/01/boston-arts-commission-vote-remove-emancipation-lincoln-statue/

    Here’s a thought – rather than tear down the statue, why don’t they take an angle grinder, cut off the heads of the figures and swap them around? Surely the sight of that notorious racist, Abe Lincoln, on his knees before a nigger would satisfy the most ardent BLM activist.

    1. A couple of black kids were spray painting their names on a wall. I thought i would join in but i only got to paint the first 3 letters of my name before they beat me up.

      I guess they don’t like people called Nigel.

      1. It’s an American word isn’t it?
        I never heard anyone saying it when I was a child in England.

        On the subject of BLM, earlier this year I was driving through Feldkirchen in Austria, and I saw a bus innocently driving around with the numberplate “FK NGG 2”
        Mind you that is the country that has a village named Fucking.

        1. We used to have a deep chocolate brown colour called ni33er brown (where 3=g) when I was growing up. One could go into a shop and ask for a jumper in that colour and nobody batted an eyelid.

    2. Up to now, one of the manifold delights of the NoTTL forum has always been the freedom from censorship we have enjoyed – no need for diacritics to disguise forbidden words! But now I see my comment has been quietly and anonymously edited because I used the ‘n’ word. I’ve used that word many times before here, so what’s changed?

      Whoever edited it, please take note. This is unacceptable. If my post offends, then just delete the whole thing – don’t edit it.
      :¬[

      1. Let’s see if this one gets edited..
        Why do ni**ers have 2 holes in their top lip? (my **)
        So they can see where they’re going when they’re whistling!

    4. I despair at the ignorance, stupidity, hypocrisy and downright moronic arrogance of these cretinous fools.

      The lot belong as slaves because they’re too damned dumb to think for themselves. Freedom has obviously been wasted on them.

    1. Can you imagine having to dance to Micron’s tune? No, neither can I.

      ‘Morning, Belle.

    2. Morning ,

      We had the sweep on Wednesday.. and he removed a huge spent jackdaws nest . If you look back on my Wednesday post , I put a photo on here of the nest which the sweep brought down into my hearth.

      He had to get up to the chimney by ladder to fit an anti nest thing on the stack, and he noticed the guttering below was FULL of cherry stones , he shifted them for us , which was kind of him. There are lots of cherry trees in the village and the jackdaws obviously ate the fruit then poohed the stones out as they roosted on the roof.

      The sweeps are very busy clearing chimneys, they are worried that there will be a second lockdown.

      1. My sweep will be coming in a fortnight’s time. He’ll have to remove a jackdaw’s nest, too. I’ve ordered an anti-nest cover to be installed at the same time. Because I don’t have fires in that room very often, the birds have been able to build nests undisturbed and it’s time to put a stop to it.

    1. No Kneed for sympathy eh.
      I still wonder if Epstein is actually dead.
      There was controversy about the ‘Body’ removed from the jail cell. some people said it wasn’t him but a stand it.

    2. keep an ey on the beaches.

      If you find her clothes… she may not have swam out to drown

  21. Morning all.
    How unhelpful is Virgin media ? Has any one else had issues with them ? They are impossible to contact unless you type a letter and post it. They have a brick wall around their misnomer ‘customer services’. 5 times I’ve tried to contact them on line filling in forms and i get this method is not allowed. after pressing 7 different choices on my phone key pad, they ask me for random numbers from a long forgotten password. They know who i am because i confirmed the phone number.
    I’m so frustrated with them i’m seeking alternative packages for BB TV and land line. Although in our last bill they charged us over 4 quid for a 20 minute local phone call ??? Whilst our friends in Oz pay about 5 dollars for 2 hour chat with us.

      1. Me too, no TV no sport just fibre unlimited broadband for £5 a month plus another £5 for unlimited mobile calls plus of course the line rental

    2. Usually landline calls & calls to UK mobiles is around £8 per month on top of your basic charge which is between £18 and £30 per month.
      I have a mobile – unlimited calss texts & 6 Gb data for £8. Never use the landline for calls – it’s incoming & BB only. Mobile is for outgoing calls.

      1. We pay under 20 a month for the land line rental but hardy use it we keep it mainly for incoming calls. Some older friends don’t have Mobiles or only switch on if they need them !! Hence the occasional calls from land lines. We receive calls from friends in Oz, 2 hours chats and it only costs them around 5 dollars a session. Not over 4 pounds as we were charged by VM for a twenty minute local call.
        My Vodafone sim only mobile only costs me around 10 pound a month, but it seems more recently my usage is being restricted but outside interference, things i am not in the least interested in. And today i am having a nightmare once again with virgin media who seem to have infiltrated my mobile with a page i cant get rid of after i tried to make a complaint to them about their useless customer service. I am going to contact the Ombudsman about them. They have built a brick wall around their camp.

        1. I speak to my Texas son 2/3 times per week using my mobile 30 mins per call – foc
          1) Facetime – iphone/ipad video & voice when in the house using the house wi-fi
          2) WhatsApp phonecall – voice only as my battery runs down too fast. It uses my data but I have more than enough data every month
          3) I never use the landline for making calls at all – all calls are from Mobile with unlimited calls

          I once hit dial Texas home over the mobile network £2.50 for 20 seconds.

          1. We are due for an upgrade in our communications set up i think we might buy a decent lap top and get rid of the desktop PC. Skype would be a better idea for our long s distance communications.
            I’ve managed to get stuck into virgin media this morning so hopefully they might become more accessible and more obliging to their long term customers.

  22. “An 18-year-old accused of pushing a statue of slave trader Edward
    Colston into Bristol Harbour is set to escape with a police caution – if
    he attends a meeting on other monuments, his lawyer has revealed.

    The
    bronze memorial to the 17th Century slave merchant was pulled down
    during a Black Lives Matter protest on June 7 and later dumped in the
    harbour.

    The teenager was interviewed under caution after going
    to a police station voluntarily following the toppling, which sparked a
    wave of attacks on other statues.

    But on Thursday his solicitor
    Mark Robinson claimed the young man has been offered a police caution if
    he donates to an anti-slavery charity and goes to a meeting to ‘discuss
    the future of all statues’ in Bristol.”

    Just Fluck Right Off !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e0416dd21de491c538c532c3ba13e88bc37732cf32d73db2f77353aa129284ca.jpg

    2. Quelle Surprise!
      No one really expected BLM to be associated with a criminal conviction did they?

    4. He will be instructed in where the Rogue (to BLM) statues still stand, by the Rainbow dressed plods,
      so he can go organise to get them down, when his course finishes

  23. 320878+ up ticks,
    May one ask how much, after years of unsuccessful successive
    lab/lib/con governance do the chinese own of this Sceptre Isle ?
    Keeping in mind the proven treachery past as shown by the lab/lib/con coalition party with the chinks owning 51% we could all very well be
    bloody chinese,

      1. 320878+up ticks,
        Afternoon PT,
        My belief is that the education system is geared in such a way that kids think that the Sunday joint
        is a product / creation of tesco, morrison etc.
        Energy starts at the light / power switch prior to that and it’s origins are in the capable hands of the politico’s, who know best.
        The chinese are brilliant at worldwide monopoly.

    2. How much of the UK is actually owned by the UK rather than overseas interests?
      Every industry seems to have been sold to EU companies as a sop to removing national ownership. Our Canada pension plan owns big chunks of UK real estate , I am sure that we are not the only ones investing this way.

      So really what is left?

      1. Not a lot.
        Though UK companies own other foreign companies…Couldn’t tell you which.

        1. Is bit presumptuous of me having never seen your house, but that is not much to build a country on is it?

          With few exceptions, mum and pop shops, chippies and real ale breweries. Utilities, manufacturing all gone overseas or owned overseas.

          1. 320878+ up ticks,
            R,
            The longest journey starts with…….
            We have one hell of a trip to escape the sh!te the
            lab/lib/con pro eu coalition party has laid on the decent peoples of these Isles.

          2. Totally agree. Have argued with MOH for years about this. I’ve been concerned for a long time that the rush to privatise industries left the UK wide open to foreign buyouts that haven’t been reciprocated.

    3. The spoils are split three ways, Ogga, between the Saudis, Soros and the Heathen Chinee! I jest of course, but there is a grain…

  25. 320878+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    I did ask long long ago who has the franchise for the button to the chin
    tunics, also on the other front who has the franchise for the
    burkas / prayer mats.
    Many of our problems are self inflicted via the ballot booth, this pattern of
    reshuffle the, in the main, same politco’s and re-deal has proved especially over the last two decades to be a complete failure.
    All the while, the electorate have been busy voting in a proven failed party to keep out another proven failed party.
    The only ones who can claim success covertly are those within these
    “in name only” parties & their followers who are hell bent on destroying
    these Isles as a democratic nation.

  26. Morning all. It’s all Chinese to me……

    SIR – It is hard to believe, even with the distraction of Covid-19, along with the build-up to US elections and the last throes of Brexit, how little the world has focused on the actions of China in recent months.

    Leaving aside accusations regarding the origin of the virus and the delay in communicating details of human-to-human transmission, China has brazenly embarked on unilateral expansionist ventures in the South and East China Seas and on its border with India. There has been repression of the Uighurs and in Tibet.

    Furthermore, the introduction of unprecedented security powers in Hong Kong totally ignores the provisions of the treaty of agreement reached with the United Kingdom on the return of the colony to China.

    None of this is acceptable behaviour by any major power. But President Trump seems determined to put America first and thus abdicate from leadership of the Western world, thereby enabling China to pursue its policies with little interference.

    Advertisement

    Covid-19 is not currently the greatest danger facing us all, nor is the cause of Black Lives Matter, or even climate change – China is the biggest threat to the world. It is time to confront the Chinese before it is 
too late.

    Brian Carmichael

    Belton-in-Rutland

    SIR – Fifty-three countries signed a joint statement at a session of the UN Human Rights Council in support 
of China’s imposition of laws on 
 Hong Kong.

    It would be interesting to know 
how many of them are significant beneficiaries of Chinese aid or investment.

    Nick Rose

    Selsey, West Sussex

    SIR – China may well now find it expedient to expel to the UK what they consider as three million potential troublemakers.

    Geoff Ludlow

    Hythe, Kent

    SIR – A vibrant Hong Kong is being subjugated to the requirements of a communist state. Let us welcome those residents who wish to further their entrepreneurial skills by developing a free port in Northern Ireland.

    Kester Clarke

    Woolverstone, Suffolk

    SIR – As a professional author and journalist, when I read about the new Chinese “national security law” in Hong Kong, I did a quick tally from books on my shelves. At least 50 per cent were printed in China. Children’s books and those published recently were the most likely to have been printed in China.

    Hypocrisy is an ugly word, but what could be uglier than an industry ever vigilant in burnishing its social-conscience credentials, which then quietly does high-volume business with the most repressive regime on the planet?

    Alexandra Seear

    Corsham, Wiltshire

    1. How many of those 53 countries are even democracies?

      The UN is a farce. A pointless, expensive, useless farce. We would be better off without it.

  28. SIR – In 1978 the Labour prime minister, James Callaghan, who did not altogether trust MI5, decided to appoint an outsider as its new head – the distinguished diplomat Sir Howard Smith, who at the time was the British ambassador to Moscow.

    Sir Howard was a very competent director-general and was well-liked and regarded. He certainly understood the Russians. So there is nothing new or inherently wrong in a government bringing in an outsider to the intelligence sphere in the form of an extremely able diplomat – Sir David Frost, for example, whose views are known to align with the Government on certain key policy matters.

    Theresa May’s attack (Letters, July 2) on Sir David’s appointment as national security adviser smacks of spite.

    Terry Smith

    London NW11

    SIR – Is Theresa May now Boris Johnson’s Edward Heath?

    Robert Freeman

    St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex

      1. She needs to be “disappeared”, as they would say during the cold war.

        Surely there’s some patriotic old colonel sitting in his armchair in White’s (Reform, Garrick, other clubs are available), puffing his Havana and sipping his Napoleon, who has the will (and the contacts) to “do what is expected for Queen and country”?

    2. “Is Theresa May now Boris Johnson’s Edward Heath” Yes, but without the charm and sunny disposition of the Grocer.

      1. How many little boys would testify to that “charm and sunny disposition”?

        1. ?
          Heath had the charm & sunny disposition of an old welly pulled from the canal.

        2. I understood his Closet Protection Officer swore he was White as the driven snow or words to that effect……

        3. G’Morning Mr Grizzly.
          Zero?
          I remember him speaking before a large audience at school once; he had a slight twang in his voice and I don’t recall being particularly impressed. His hobbies were music, sailing and himself.

          PS how is the weight loss progressing?

          1. G’day, Mr Tim.

            I jumped on the scales this morning (Friday is scale day) and I’m another pound (half a kilogram) lighter than last week. In 27 weeks I’ve lost weight on 25 of them, gained on one and remained the same on another. Progress is slower now that I’m on an OMAD (one meal a day) régime, but slow is good. I’m 16·5kg lighter than I was at the start of the year.

          2. Another 27 weeks and the only thing left of you will be your boots.

            Signed…A. Fatty.

          3. Excellent news. I have lost a bit of weight this lockdown, but still need to magic away another ** kilos. As Covid attacks fatties, that is quite an incentive. Remember, 95% of covictims have had an underlying condition, so if we can avoid diabetes, dementia and over-dining, we are in with a chance.
            The trick is maintenance; I know someone whose solution is to spend 40 minutes each evening on a treadmill while watching television. I envisage weight loss in terms of baked bean cans, or 2 litre mineral water bottles. Thus you are carrying 8 fewer water bottles and one less Heinz.

          4. My first 3 months were on the Ketogenic diet. I lost a lot of weight rapidly but the diet was terminally boring: no carbs or sugar whatsoever. I still eat much fewer carbs and sugar on the OMAD diet but I now no longer feel any hunger over a 22-hour period each day.

            Today, at 1:00 p.m., I had a fried ribeye steak and two fried eggs with a bowl of salad (red cabbage, tomatoes, celery and yellow pepper) drizzled with a balsamic and olive oil vinaigrette. This was followed by a large espresso coffee with double cream. I will not feel hungry again until the same time tomorrow. All I shall consume until then is water.

            Tomorrow’s meal will be some pork spare ribs that I pre-cooked last week then froze. I shall defrost them, smoke them on the BBQ, baste them with the reduced Chinese glaze I cooked them in last week, and serve with a stir fry of noodles, beansprouts, spring onions, garlic, ginger, chilli, bamboo shoots and pak choi. I’ll then not eat again until the same time on Sunday. And so it goes.

          5. Excellent news. I have lost a bit of weight this lockdown, but still need to magic away another ** kilos. As Covid attacks fatties, that is quite an incentive. Remember, 95% of covictims have had an underlying condition, so if we can avoid diabetes, dementia and over-dining, we are in with a chance.
            The trick is maintenance; I know someone whose solution is to spend 40 minutes each evening on a treadmill while watching television. I envisage weight loss in terms of baked bean cans, or 2 litre mineral water bottles. Thus you are carrying 8 fewer water bottles and one less Heinz.

          6. Another 27 weeks and the only thing left of you will be your boots.

            Signed…A. Fatty.

          7. I put on an old pair of bib and brace overalls this morning to do some cleaning. There was enough room inside them for a couple of others!

            I looked like Kevin Rowlands out of Dexy’s Midnight Runners.

  29. SIR – Why reopen pubs on a Saturday?

    I will run naked down Downing Street if this gross error of judgment does not produce drunkenness and violent behaviour. I feel sorry for the police and emergency services.

    Graham White

    Cambridge

    2. He has access to Downing Street? The rest of us don’t. Locked gates, armed guards.

        2. Aha! Mind, it would be amusing to see whether the poker faces of the No.10 guards would crack if confronted with a flasher?

    3. That’s right, Mr White. Keep pubs shut forever, then there’ll be no drunken-ness or violence, and the police will all be happy bunnies (probably wearing false furry ears, too).
      Idiot.

    4. To get out of his pledge to run naked down Downing Street, all he needs is one case throughout the land of someone getting a bit tipsy and arguing loudly.

  30. SIR – How does the Duke of Sussex reconcile his opinion that racism is “endemic” in society with the fact that, on the day of his wedding to the Duchess of Sussex in 2018, people across Britain joined their celebration, with many thousands cheering in the streets of Windsor?

    Tim Pope

    Weybridge, Surrey

    1. Mind you, you wouldn’t recognise her as anything but white if she didn’t harp on and on about it.

    4. Look closely at the photos of the time and you won’t see many black faces in those crowds and definitely no burkas.

      It’s the same when Her Majesty goes up and down the Mall in her carriage. All white British.

      1. Actually, the French interviewer managed to find two women who were as black as your hat and introduced them as “deux Londiniennes”. Only two, mind you.

    5. I was obliged to watch it (I was in France and my hostess is a full-on Royal-watcher, probably because the French got rid of theirs). I wouldn’t have if I had had the choice. Not because I’m racist (although I probably am by now), but because I have absolutely no interest in Brash and Trash.

    6. That’s simple – he’s lying to appease his wife who, despite enjoying tremendous freedoms, wealth and opportunity still hates everyone else because she is an egotistical, self righteous twerp.

  31. SIR – The singer Bumi Thomas claims that the badge of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George does not depict the Archangel Michael defeating Satan; rather, the “demon” is “a black 
man in chains with a white, blue-eyed figure standing on his neck” (report, July 1).

    If she looks more closely, she will see that the demon has green wings and tail. I hope she will then refrain from trying to sully such an honour with her flawed interpretation.

    Flt Lt Nick Hinchliffe RAF (retd)

    Haslemere, Surrey

    2. Why would anyone with a lowly rank such as Flt. Lt keep using it once they have retired? Hell, we’ll get letters from L/Cpl Jones (retd) next…

      1. Why the DT includes people’s professional titles at all is beyond me. If using titles, then Ms/Mr should be put on all the others as well.

      3. It’s to inform you that he’s fully qualified to judge whether the dragon has wings and that they are green..

      5. Of course, peeps could always become a German colonel when they’re not 😊

      6. That’s what surprised me. I suppose if army Captains are entitled to continue to use it, Flight Lieutenants feel they can, too.

      7. And it should only apply to officers of Field Rank – Squadron Leader in the RAF.

  32. Thought from the bath.
    It will be several months at least before a vaccine for Covid-19 is rolled out in large volumes. Maybe longer.
    By the time the vaccine is ready Covid-19 will have virtually disappeared.
    Use of cash for financial transactions has almost disappeared. (We have not used cash for three months – has anyone?)
    We are now putting in place a recording process for every social gathering place, pubs, restaurants, hotels, and then maybe libraries, sports facilities, night clubs and so on. By the time this moves from notebooks and pens to electronic scanning, Covid-19 will have virtually disappeared.
    Very soon travel will be restricted to those who have proof of a Covid-19 vaccination.

    So what is really happening?
    Covid-19 is released in order to create a worldwide demand for a vaccine.
    A vaccine is created. (It does no matter if it actually works on Covid-19, that’s not the point.)
    An electronic recording system is established to record the movements, timed and dated of everyone on the planet.
    Movement is controlled by means of a “Vaccinated” card. The same card (effectively an ID card) is used for recording in restaurants etc.

    We are then in a position where our access to money can be turned on and off.
    Our access to everything can be controlled by turning our new “Vaccination” card on and off.
    Our financial transactions are all recorded.
    Our movements will all be recorded.
    The final refinement will be a personal ID card that acts as a passport and as a finance card.

    This may all take place within 3 to 5 years. From the freedom of the 1960s to complete servitude in the 2020s.

    1. Which sounds like a conspiracy theory and unthinkable even just a few years ago (although something monstrous seemed to be coming into focus, just unsure what it was), but we’re well on the way to just what you’ve outlined, and others have warned about. It explains the confused and illogical reaction of our government better than anything else. Or maybe they simply are more incompetent and ludicrous than we realise or give them credit for.

    2. Which sounds like a conspiracy theory and unthinkable even just a few years ago (although something monstrous seemed to be coming into focus, just unsure what it was), but we’re well on the way to just what you’ve outlined, and others have warned about. It explains the confused and illogical reaction of our government better than anything else. Or maybe they simply are more incompetent and ludicrous than we realise or give them credit for.

    4. You paint a picture that is very much like the social paradise described in many science fiction novels where a well organized, sanitized good world exists above an undocumented underworld that has none of the luxuries that require official credits. The hero of the piece always has the bad luck to run up against a corrupt official who demonetises them.

      To think of all of the letters in the Telegraph where the writer vowed that they would not carry ID cards, they did not fight the germans to then be told what to do.

      I actually used cash last Saturday – don’t worry it has been sitting in my wallet, untouchedsince mid February.

      1. I’ve got a few quid in my wallet – untouched since February. Not sure when I’ll need it again.

        I don’t like the idea of ID cards with everything on them, but we already have bank cards, driving licence…….etc.

      2. I’ve not used by debit card for shop purchases for a very long time.
        I pay Cash or I walk out of the shop.

        1. I use my Visa card for almost everything, because of the ‘guarantee’ & I get a comprehensive summary of my purchases once a month.

        2. It’s quite the opposite here in Sweden. I’ve not had any cash in my pockets or wallet for three years.

        3. I paid a bill in cash today. I have bought stuff on the Internet (only because I tried and failed to get it locally) and used a credit card (for the security).

    6. This was obvious right from the start when they began with the disingenuous “Pay contactless”.
      If we give up cash, we will regret it big time.

  33. https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16182/overthrow-the-usa

    A Will to Overthrow the United States

    The statement “Black Lives Matter” assumes from the start that, for the police, the judicial system and everyone else, black lives do not matter. What is so conspicuous and tragic is that black lives only seem to matter if they were taken by a white person…. Sadly, when it comes to black-on-black violence, no one seems to care.

    Are the politicians who claim to want help distressed communities the very ones keeping the distressed communities distressed — and in a perpetual state of reaching out to those same politicians for dangled promises of help?

    The mob’s destruction or removal of statues appears an attempt to erase the history of the United States… What they are doing looks like just an old-fashioned power-grab. The first law of power-grabbers is that if no one stops them, they keep on going — often with catastrophic consequences.

    The recent damage inflicted on thousands of people who lost their possessions and businesses — as well as the many murders and assaults — shows what happens to a society with fewer police or no police.

    That the name Black Lives Matter is present everywhere, and that everyone seems to ignore or forget what the organization Black Lives Matter really is, shows that a violent, anti-democratic organization, which calls for the murder of police officers and accepts anti-Semitism and anti-White racism, can use threats, intimidation and destruction — and find public acceptance.

    “Their disruptive and violent behavior is happening because governors, mayors, and police chiefs have over the last decade sent the message that they will not respond with mind-concentrating force in order to restore order and hold rioters accountable….” — Bruce Thornton, Professor of Classics and Humanities at California State University and research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, June 19, 2020.

    The full article is available at Gatestone Institute.

    1. This is because blacks kill other blacks all the time. Admitting that fact would imply there’s something wrong with them, some inherent failing in their own community.

      Thus, like all good morons, they deflect and blame others.

    1. God forbit anybody should be capable at anything. What about listening? Will that be dropped as well?

      1. Listening was dropped in favour of hearing long ago, & that applies to many factors of life, not just languages.

    2. Wouldn’t the oral test be easy to implement online through a simple web chat? No unsocial distancing required.
      If you can confirm the identity of the student (simple with the new mandatory UPC code tattoo on the forehead), cheating can be all but eliminated.

    3. I did German ‘O’ level in 1987. I took it at the school my boys attended and sat with the boys (not mine) in the hall for the written papers. When I went for the Oral it was the first such test since I was at school in the 60s. At the the end, the teacher (who was later sacked for misdemeanors) said – “thankyou – that was much better than most of the boys” which was nice to hear as I’d been dreading making a fool of myself and was quite stressed out. I got an A and went on to do the A level two years later.

      However, my conversational German was never brilliant and most of it has rusted away now.

      2. To be good at conversational German, or any other language, you have to be exposed to it on a regular basis. I had the good fortune at school that the German teacher got us quickly to the stage whereby he could hold the lessons in German. Likewise the 2 Swedish teachers in Kiel, Germany. The only drawback there is that one gets used to hearing the language in one or two voices & when a stranger comes along & speaks it, it can be confusing.

        My U3A German translation group are all advanced level when it comes to reading off the page, but if I speak one sentence in German, they all look at me like cows in the meadow, but spoken German is not part of the programme. As for the conversation group, which I recently left, although ‘advanced students’, they couldn’t utter a single sentence without stumbling & stuttering & making my ears bleed. When we went ’email’ last term because of lockdown, the written German was absolutely & amazingly atrocious.

        Towards the end of the War my father was at Shafe HQ in Belgium. His main responsibility was translating & categorising French documents. One day a sheet of German landed on his desk. Not being sufficiently proficient in that language, he sent it upstairs to the Yanks for urgent translation. Hours passed & no sign, so he went up to see what was happening. There he found 2 Yanks poring over it with dictionaries & clearly struggling. He remonstrated with them, which riled them. “OK, Limey, we have something we were going to send down to you,” & they handed him a French document, whereupon he read it straight back to them on the spot. They were dumbfounded.

        Then there are those who claim to be fluent in a language when they are not; nearly always an irresistible challenge. On a train holiday to the Harz Mountains, I met a cocky young nerd, who told me he was fluent in German. On one excursion we went our separate ways for lunch. By chance we were first 2 back to the coach afterwards. As we took out seats on either side of the aisle, I asked him, “Nah, haste was Schönes auf die Gabel gekriegt?” (Did you get something good on your fork? = Did you have a good lunch?) He looked confused. I continued, “Du hast mir vorhin erzählt, dass du fliessend Deutsch sprichst, aber das scheint nicht so.” (You told me earlier you spoke fluent German, but that seems not to be the case.) Whereupon the coach driver spun round to me & said, “Sie, aber.” (But you do.)

        1. if you pick up German ” slang” they refuse to talk to you. We were advised by our German bank manager just to keep using you phrase book rather than be taught local slang. All the German people I worked with wanted to brush up on their English so that what we used. When the locals found out we were English and not American ( Bad Kreutsnach had had a very large American army base) They were totaly fine with us.

          1. I remember sitting in a business meeting with my accountant at the end of my first year in Germany, when he started chuckling. I asked him what was so funny & he said, “Your command of German is surprising, but you are using expressions which nobody has spoken for 30 years.”

          2. I don’t understand the aversion to Umgangssprache (slang). I find it most advantageous. These days I rarely use Hochdeutsch.
            I fully agree about the Brits/Yanks situation. When I met people in Chile, I was always taken for a Yankie gringo before I opened my mouth because of my height. I used to clarify the situation by saying. “Soy Inglès, no soy maldito Djankie!” (I’m English. I’m not a fucking Yank!) Always a winner.

        2. I was in the French and Latin class at school, so didn’t attempt to learn German till my thirties, when we had a German boy to stay and became friends with the family.
          Martin spoke excellent English, his parents not so much, so when we went to stay with them (several times over the years) it made me make the effort. At home they spoke Schwabisch, rather than Hochdeutsch so that loosened us up over a few bottles, especially after their choir practice.

          In an attempt to brush up our spoken German, we joined a class one year (about 25 years ago) which was supposed to be an intermediate class – ie, they had all been learning German for at least a year or two.

          When the teacher went round the room getting everybody to do their introductions, most could barely say who they were, and my OH introduced himself fluently and even I could say a bit, we were called over at the end and asked to leave as we were too advanced.

      3. German can be faked: speak English but growl the words, as if you’re gargling rocks.

    4. I remember my oral French test in the final year of Junior School. The teacher was most annoyed and told me with a sneer that my inability to converse in French would determine which stream I was placed in at Secondary School. I informed him with some pleasure that the Secondary Modern I was destined for didn’t actually offer any foreign language tuition at all. That made an already bad situation worse of course. Foolish child. I was never destined to be either a linguist or a diplomat, sadly.

      2. There aren’t many diplomats on Nottl but as you may know Sue there are plenty of cunning linguists….Just watch……

        1. Cunning linguist not I. I took Russian at school.
          Well just one lesson before I was thrown out of the class.

          Strange, I never got the hang of languages but name a computer programming language and I probably know it.

          1. I did Russian (from scratch) at university. The drop out rate in the first week was phenomenal!

          2. I won the sixth form Languages Prize for French and German. Never used either language until I was in my sixties!

          7. Objective-C. If you know that one, you can explain to me how to get stream event handlers to run on their own threads. An almost trivially simple task in any half decent programming language!!

      3. For far too many Britons they should probably master English first.

        Far too many don’t understand homonyms, plenty are ill, im or wonting and canting.

        It’s sad.

  35. Prince Andrew under pressure after arrest of Ghislaine Maxwell. Fri 3 Jul 2020 05.59 BST.

    Pressure on Prince Andrew to speak to FBI investigators was mounting after his friend Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and perjury as part of its ongoing inquiry into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

    At a press conference in New York in which prosecutors detailed the allegations facing Maxwell, they urged the Prince to come forward.

    “We would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk with us, we would like to have the benefit of his statement,” said Audrey Strauss, acting US attorney for the southern district of New York.

    It looks like Andy’s for the chop unless Mi6 can smear some Novichok on Maxwell’s cell door! Lol!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/03/prince-andrew-under-pressure-after-arrest-of-ghislaine-maxwell

    1. Arkansacide. But Ghislane is smart enough to have lodged the sordid details that the power-possessors are desperate to keep quiet in multiple safe places, just in case.

        1. How can anyone believe such a preposterous notion about this sweet woman (and very nearly elected President of the USA)?

        2. How can anyone believe such a preposterous notion about this sweet woman (and very nearly elected President of the USA)?

    2. £ to a Penny there is no way The Prince is going to the USA anytime soon….

      1. I remember in the days when Ian Hislop was funny (a long time ago) he lost a legal action brought by Ms Maxwell’s father against Private Eye.

        “If this is justice,” said Hislop, “then I’m a banana.”

        And when asked how much Private Eye had to pay he replied: “I can tell you it involved a very fat Czech. ”

        (Sadly, as far as satire is concerned Hislop is now about as effective as an overripe banana.)

  36. Good morning all. An interesting article in TCW which suggests that the Leicester ‘spike’ may be because textile and food-processing business were allowed to continue to operate (whilst claiming furlough payments) under the noses of the authorities:

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/leicesters-lockdown-keeping-us-cowering-to-cover-up-a-failed-coronavirus-strategy/

    We really do have a two-tier system of justice in this country. If you are white, the law is applied to you harshly. If you are not white, the law does not apply to you. So for example, 100 white people protest against the lockdown and are broken up and arrested. 10,000 black people protest against racism and the cops take a knee to support them. Fly a banner saying ‘White lives matter’ and you and your girlfriend lose your job. Tweet that white lives don’t matter and white businesses should be replaced with BAME businesses and you get a promotion.

    How long will white people put up with this? Have we been so conditioned with white guilt that we accept these blatant double-standards?

      1. If whitey continues to sit with his thumb up his arse, Hugh, then he will be committing suicide.

        Richard, Coeur de Lion, saw the RoP crew as a threat and not as an enrichment. He acted accordingly.

    3. Morning Kuffar. You are seeing the initial moves in the Genocide of the White Race!

    4. And there are no politicians in Westminster who dare to point out this very obvious fact.

      1. 320878+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        “Point out” they help create it urged on by peoples in a keep party in/keep party out mode
        even though both parties have time & again & again proved unfit for purpose.

    5. “How long will white people put up with this? “ – the result will be (is) increased racism and intolerance, leading to violence.

      1. And thus giving the black looters are mindless group even more ammunition as they perpetuate the very non-existent intolerance *they* are promoting.

    6. It’s the hypocrisy that bothers more than anything. The black looters matter are racists, but the state endorses that. Tommy Robinson flickers to tell the truth and is arrested and jailed.

      If the law does not apply equally to all, it does not apply at all.

    8. How long will white people put up with this?

      Forever under present management.

      1. If we were to protest you can guarantee the police would be out en masse with water cannon and rubber bullets.

        Can’t have the cash cow fighting back now, can we? All right for the violent thugs who no one cares about but if the people paying for it all get uppity…

    1. Canterbury Christ Church is a new ‘University’ – formerly a teacher training college.

    2. No surprise there then. Free speech is dead in this country except for BLM supporters.

    3. Shouldn’t have said “damn blacks”. He was on solid ground in discussing the meaning of genocide.

      2. I would guess that he was using the word ‘damn’ as emphasis, not pejoratively. But if so, it was a huge mistake.

        2. Incidentally, when the BBC radio played the clip last night, it gave a warning “This report contains offensive language…his comments were laced with bigotry…the clip you are about to hear contains racist language.”

          At about 17 mins if you want to listen:
          https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000kg41

          1. Talking Pictures have to display the disclaimer about language reflecting the attitudes of the time in front of pretty much every quality film or programme they broadcast.

          2. The worrying thing about those waring on TP TV is that although I’m listening out for the language concerned, I never seem to notice it. Do’t know what that says about me 🙂

          3. Me too. Occasionally Van der Valk makes a mildly disparaging remark about a homosexual character but if there’s more, it passes me by.

          7. We watched one the other day that contained the children’s rhyme with the ‘N’ word, which was carefully edited out of the sound track.

  40. A woman who plotted to set off a bomb in St Paul’s to kill all those around her, or instead on the Underground if that failed, is given a life sentence with minimum term of (only) 14 years.

    Members of Alan’s Snackbar do indeed lead charmed lives.

    1. As she was being led away, she gave the index finger ISIL salute, showing that she is unreformed and shows no remorse. I hope the parole board takes this into account in 14 years time, and will reject her application.

    1. 50 grand each?? And the rest! Then there’s the admin & overheads, employers taxes, NI, typically the same again as salary.
      More like £200k pa cost, each.

    2. Who is the CEO of the NYT? He used to be Chief Executive of the BBC and Director General of Chanel 4, otherwise known as Mark Thompson!

      In my opinion, he is personally responsible for much of the decline in standards in the UK over the last 20 years or so and is now doing his worst in the US. He is also the epitome of a champagne socialist, reaping in $multi-millions.

      With Thompson in charge, I hope the NYT goes out of business!

    3. “It’s the NYT’s job to be a skeptic”. Of course – oh, hang on, I thought he said septic.

    4. I don’t mind them chasing the same woke generation as the Guardian and the DT are chasing, just leave me a middle of the road news source that I can trust.
      Having Breitbart and the Western Journal do not make up for the missing central source.

  43. Cambridge fails again…..

    SIR – The fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, have decided to remove a stained-glass window that commemorates Sir Ronald Fisher (Letters, June 30).

    He was among the college’s most distinguished alumni and, from 1940 to 1956, was Balfour Professor of Genetics at Cambridge. I was one of the last to attend his course on genetics. His students were aware of his enthusiasm for eugenics and most disapproved, but to boycott a mathematician and scientist of such distinction was unthinkable.

    To this day, all those who research in fields such as social, biological, agricultural or medical sciences are beholden to Fisher’s unparalleled contributions to experimental design and statistical analysis. Many regard him as one of the greatest biologists since Darwin.

    If he is to be whitewashed for his beliefs, how about the Cambridge economist John Maynard Keynes, a co-founder with Fisher of the Eugenics Society? Where will this end? Who will be left?

    Surely, rather than removing the window, the solution is to place beside it a plaque providing a factual account of the life of this great but controversial man. If the University of Cambridge fails to protect academic freedom, many potential donors will be discouraged.

    Dr David Smith

    Clyro, Radnorshire

    SIR – There must be some other way that Caius can distance itself from Fisher’s unacceptable opinions.

    The window depicts a Latin square, a means of controlling variables in experiments, in recognition of his contribution to experimental methodology and his discovery of analysis of variance (for assessing the statistical significance of the results of experiments).

    Reliable research in biological sciences, medicine and agriculture is indebted to such insights. In particular, without them, increased understanding of the effects of psychoactive drugs on human behaviour, and the development of drugs for mental disorders, would not have been possible.

    Emeritus Professor Ian Hindmarch

    Deal, Kent

    1. I increasingly accept the validity of eugenics and the encouragement of its use.

    2. Think the final sentence of the first letter suggests a sensible course of action.

    3. He’s right about donors being discouraged. My annual amounts may be paltry but I’m waiting to see what, if any, stupidity my former college gets up to before I send in my annual cheque. Since leaving, I’ve only missed one year and that was when some idiot BAME was making stupid noises. I started again when the college finally distanced itself from some of the more outrageous comments.

      1. Maybe you should donate to Theresa May instead ?

        After all, she’s obviously short and is being forced into public speaking where she makes £120,000 plus expenses per speech.

        Thing is, all the speeches are free to attend.. and who is really paying is very open to question..

          1. Moi non plus, and as they’re all free, it shows there’s no genuine market among attendees.

            Consequently, it all looks a set up.

        2. What on earth has she to say, let alone that is worth hearing? She’s a grasping, politically grubbing statist.

    5. It’s starting to make me wonder if it isn’t the development of drugs to induce mental disorders.

  44. Some good lines here and BTL…

    Alexander Pelling-Bruce
    The Black Lives Matter movement is re-racialising society
    It is psychologically damaging to see skin colour as a component of all social interaction
    From magazine issue: 4 July 2020

    Every day I thank God for the British Empire. Without it I wouldn’t exist. My Gold Coast-born mother would never have met my English father. She herself is the descendant of a Scottish merchant called Bruce. Now she lives happily in rural Perthshire. She’s the only black in the village.

    Growing up in the 1990s, I faintly remember debate over whether non-whites could be British. Certainly the question had receded by the time Monty Panesar made his England cricket debut midway through the following decade. Meanwhile, however, Britain quickly became one of the best places for cultural entrepreneurs to promote the pernicious fallacy that we are best understood through the prism of race and culture. So we have ‘blackness’ and ‘black culture’ pushed by people and groups state-funded via quangos and academia, or propped up with charity money. These cultural entrepreneurs’ livelihoods depend on the continuance of grievance, so they encourage division between groups while suppressing diversity within groups. Black Lives Matter organisers are cultural entrepreneurs par excellence. They are re-racialising society along the lines of white history vs black history. In fact, the only time I’ve ever been told to ‘go home’ was last Christmas, by a Jamaican.

    I can see how some blacks might reasonably find a victimhood of blackness seductive, but it’s to their detriment. To see race as a component of all social interaction is psychologically damaging. It induces a conspiratorial mindset where every comment or gesture is decoded for racial bias. My favourite instance of many I’ve recorded concerned last year’s royal baby. I had visited my Afro barbershop. Inside, some men were hollering at BBC footage of Nicholas Witchell, accusing him of avoiding calling baby Archie ‘black’. I pointed out that ‘Anglo-American’ referred to his nationality as opposed to his race. The din immediately died.

    The other weekend I was peacefully subverting lockdown at a friend’s house when in floated a black life, fresh from the front line. He droned on about how wonderful it is that his white friends are now interested in listening to his experiences as an ethnic minority on a film crew. He was angry because one colleague praises his work less than the others. ‘But how do you know it’s because of your race?’ I asked. To my shock he replied: ‘That’s a fair point. I suppose I just assume it because I can’t see any other reasons.’ Perhaps the colleague just thinks he’s a total bore. But you can see how convenient the whole system is. You never have to face your flaws, let alone correct them.

    I’ve never understood how being defined by skin colour can be emancipatory. Isn’t that what the racists want? The opposite of racism is being colour blind. Blacks should uphold the idea of society as a shared common possession and support egalitarian measures that would actually improve the lot of impoverished people of all races. We can all refuse to complete ‘diversity monitoring’ forms. We can all refrain from using the word ‘community’ to describe anything non-geographical. We can expunge from our lexicon the dreadful term ‘BAME’, which lumps together a load of people in a way that has nothing to do with their own self-understanding. Identity is a lot more complex than the arbitrary categories used by activists and pundits.

    If we don’t begin to do some of this, there’s a danger that more and more people will also swallow the myth of the cultural separateness of blacks. And who — aside from self-flagellating diversity cultists — wants to hire activists? Who wants to work with people who possess inferiority complexes and are on constant watch for ‘micro-aggressions’? Who wants to feel nervous about being racist in a way they can’t even detect because it is apparently ‘unconscious’?

    It’s interesting to me that some of the most fervent white supporters of BLM are the same kinds of cosmopolitan people who previously marched for Remain. Then, they used a constitutional dispute to elevate themselves above their supposedly parochial fellow citizens. Now, they display their superiority by drawing attention to the sin of their own whiteness. Make no mistake, it’s essentially the same culture war.

    In response to the protests, the government has announced a commission to examine racial and ethnic in-equalities in Britain. Well, perhaps it’s an opportunity. It could begin from the premise that some disproportionate outcomes are fair, others unfair. And it could underline the fact that this country is the best melting pot on Earth.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-black-lives-matter-movement-is-re-racialising-society

    1. I know it is wrong to make generalisations but I wonder what would happen to a teacher if she or he read that out to a class of teenagers?

      1. During the school careers of my four children, two of their teachers have got sacked for wrong-speak.

    2. Spot on.
      Blacks often do not realise that they are not up to the job. When taken to task for their failings they fall back on the “you is against blacks”… mantra.
      (Never, of course, referring back to the fact that they got the job against competition that included whites.)
      I have met females with a similar attitude. They have turned on the tears when being chided for failing to successfully complete a task.
      Professionalism is sometimes quite rare.
      Yet, I’ve worked with blacks who were top-notch, as well as whites who were dreadful.
      The gross error is pigeon-holing. BLM are reinforcing pigeon-holing, rather than working to remove it. They are not suggesting that it is up to individuals to prove their worth, as necessary, whether black, white or covered in woad.

      1. I got talking to a youngish Black guy on a train in Allgäu 2 years ago. We started chatting in German but flitted to & fro between German & English.
        His German was faultless, he had been living near Lindau for a number of years & his English was accent-free. I asked him where he learnt the latter. “Back home in Nigeria”, he replied.

        1. We were on holiday in Namibia in 2001, a popular place for German tourists. At dinner one evening, we were all chatting, mostly in German, but also English The chap sitting opposite, whose name was Wolfgang, suddenly leaned forward and asked OH, “I can’t quite place your accent – where did you learn your English?”

          1. I’ve told this story before, but in a nutshell, I struck up a conversation in German with a tourist guide in Chile. After we had been chatting for quite a while, I asked her where she came from. “I’m English,” she said. Well, blow me down! She returned the question & I told her that I was English too. Her turn to be surprised. But we carried on talking in German for quite a while longer.

          2. We had a similar experience in Isère; the lovely hotel we were staying at had only had a 3 day booking free, so we took that, during which time we looked for another hotel or similar for the rest of the week. Our hostess had mentioned that a nearby Château had a really nice gîte and she would ring them to see if they were available. As it happened we were passing the place and called in – my very patient wife loves languages so happily spoke in French to the female owner – yes they could accommodate us, and we booked the place. Just in case there might be confusion we mentioned that the owner of the place we were staying might telephone asking about availability for two English guests; if so, that was us! At which point female owner switched to English and told us she was English too, married to a French dentist! “I thought I couldn’t place your accent” she said.

          3. Yes, it’s often the lack of a regional accent which gives a foreigner away. People can’t place me because I speak good, fluent French without an English accent, but I don’t have a regional accent, either.

        2. When I lived in Germany, I was once praised fulsomely by an American tourist for having such a good English accent.

    1. We’d still have it if it wasn’t for the ridiculous socialist government of Harold Wilson and the imbecilic MP Sydney Silverman who pushed the bill through.

      1. All the arguments about a civilised country not using such measures is bullshit. To remain a civilised country we need to remove those that want to kill us.

        1. The downside is that the ones doing the hanging might well be the ones that hate us….

          1. Yes, my reservation about reintroducing the death penalty is that it would be misused for political purposes.

          2. I have similar reservations about increasing funding for the police. Yes, we need more police. Just not those ones.

        1. Silverman’s Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Bill was passed to become the Murder Act 1965, a full eight years before the UK joined the EEC.

      3. Slightly tangential, but I was reading Molly Lefebvre’s memoirs the other day, first published in the 50s. I must say, I cannot share her evident relish for crime, bodies, morgues and everything associated with them.
        Anyway, she wrote that Britain’s last executioner came to see an autopsy on a man that he had executed once, to check that his work was performed to a high standard. It was a family profession – he had taken over from his uncle, and his family had been executioners for generations. Which leads one to wonder – what do they do now?

        1. That’s the Pierrepoint family, Albert was the last of the dynasty. His father, Henry, and his uncle, Thomas, were the official executioners before him.

          Albert’s character was played by Timothy Spall, a few years back, in an excellent 2005 film called Pierrepoint: The Last Hang Man.

        2. I have read Murder on the Home Front. I found it interesting. Pierrepoint, wasn’t it?

          1. I couldn’t finish it. The bits about wartime life were interesting, but it was a bit too gruesome. I read a Penguin true crimes from the 1930s last year, it was genuinely interesting. I think it is ML’s relish that gets me.

    1. No doubt, Jack & Jill will label this a CONSPIRACY THEORY about a very fine public servant.

    2. The German in the first line says: FBI arrests Epstein-confidante. She set the traps.

  47. Former Prime Minister May presented one of her approx $150,000 plus expenses one hour speeches at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island on March 4.

    Just by an unconnected random coincidence, who should be scheduled to show up to speak on March 19 ?

    None other than former President Bill Clinton, probably pulling in at least $250,000, or would have done if it wasn’t postponed due C-19.

    Bill Clinton brokered the conference between George Soros and Tony Blair in April 1996 at the Plaza Hotel, New York.

    May’s lectures have been postponed, but that doesn’t matter… she’s been paid anyway.

    Both lectures free to attendees. How many would show up if they had to pay even $25.

    Probably nobody for May, but a few for Clinton out of curiosity.

    I think lectures like these have no genuine market value.

    So what’s it all about ?

    Is it reward laundering for favors done while in office ?

    1. Why would any one with one brain cell bother to sit and listen to that pathetic daft old bat. Gordon Brown aka daft Vader, did the same.

      1. In the US, students don’t know she’s a ”pathetic daft old bat”…. until afterwards !

          1. I have noticed that Americans can have a very insular view of the world. I know that is surprising today seeing as how accessible news and information is from around the world, but it would surprise me that they have no idea what a useless PM she was.

          2. Just arrived back where I was 5hrs ago and noticed I should have written ‘it would not surprise me ….’ (I must remember to proof read my posts, I must remember…).

          3. 320878+ up ticks,
            Morning RE,
            But they do Eddy, mayday & her ilk cross party still have a following via the ballot booth.
            There does seem to be a political contest as to see if the successive PMs can outdo the last one on portraying treachery & anti UK actions etc,etc.

      2. Gordon Brown is a friend of Soros and David Miliband went to work for a Soros funded organization with a vast pay check.

    1. Very dark pictures on their website Phizzee. Do they have electricity? :-))

      1. When i first went 15 years ago the Gut was derelict. All refurbished
        now with Bars and Restaurants. The locals didn’t like it but money
        talks. Loudly.

        1. Ha ha it was ‘derelict’ when I went there (purely out of interest) in the mid 60s

          1. Smarter now.

            I bought a book on Malta. Namely about when the Allied forces rescued them. It had a chapter on the Gut. Very colourful. After the behaviour of a certain black American seaman they were never welcome again.

        1. Never had the time to go there when we staged through on our way upcountry to Kuantan in a Beverley from Changi

          2. My grandfather who was 54 at the time spent rather too many years in Changi, courtesy of his Japanaese hosts.

      1. That’s why i go in Spring and Autumn. Average temps 24c.

        Or did you mean there is an outstanding warrant for your arrest? 🙂

      1. They do – but so do other countries all around the Med. Cyprus for instance. North Africa. Alot of places use sticky stuff or nets. It’s no wonder our migrant birds are under such pressure and diminishing in numbers. Fortunately our swifts are believed to take a westerly route here. The two chicks in our only occupied nest box are doing well.

          1. No – it doesn’t. They are breaking EU law but that doesn’t bother them. Even Chris Packham’s publicity campaign made no no difference.

          2. Packham went to an easy country. I’d like to see him try the same trick in Libya.

          2. The countries where the land is very poor, I guess. Further west it’s all olives, figs, barley/oats/wheat and sheep – the land is very productive near the coast.

      2. Sick though it is there isn’t a country on the planet that you can go to where these abuses of people or wildlife continue.

        I have already had this convo with our esteemed twitcher and ringer of birdies. Mr Grizz.

        You will also find if you look closer that Malta is not the worst offender in this carnage by far. North Africa and France are by far the worst.

        There is so much bollocksing wrong in the world that i can do nothing about that i will do as i please.

        Thank you. I will enjoy my holiday.

        1. One of the reasons why I hate Africa.. really hate it

          We saw enough elephant foot stools, and Ivory ornaments and handbags and shoes and feather pictures , leather this that and the other, giraffe steaks , anything and everything, they value nothing , not even their primates , but how could they poison their elephants , how can they dare do these things.

          When I was a little girl I met George Cansdale who knew so much about all African wildlife , especially West African animals .

          The idiots will have nothing left .

          3. I take it you won’t be coming up to Scotland for the “Glorious Twelfth”, Plum?
            ;¬)

      1. A shame that they talked about remdesivir instead of jumping in and buying it. Our Canadian lot are worse, they are still talking about trials to test efficiency.

        Shades of those n95 masks again, bureaucratic inability to act.

  50. Water meters.

    My house has one but now Anglia Water has told me that they are going to ‘upgrade’ it. Have any Nottlanders had any experience of this?

    I’ve told my electricity supplier several times that I don’t want a smart meter but this is different. Is there a catch?

    Over to you.

      1. Not enough leaks are fixed, and no new reservoirs. The PTB want to “educate” the populace to use less by charging a lot more. Climate change and all that.

        1. No household meters in Scotland – cost of meters, meter maintenance, billing/ collection costs – no Scottish water shortages where I live. Huge water projects post war to supply factories – factories have closed so loads of water available
          Council collect water charges with Council Tax & pocket a handling charge.

          My Water & Sewage is £500 a year.

          What do meter users pay in your area.

    2. Lady on the same floor as me came out in her dressing gown complaining that the water had been cut off. We went outside to find a water company man changing her meter. Nothing wrong with it, phased replacement. So you’ll be replacing mine, then? (Looks at paperwork.) No. But it’s exactly the same age as the one you’re replacing!

    3. Yo WS

      Your updated Water Meter will now do your Electricity Usage as well

      Backdoor Smart

    4. Thames water introduced them to certain neighbourhoods. The flow of water turns what I presume is a small dynamo that charges a battery that powers the signal to a receiver that then produces a daily readout which can be accessed via your own computer (note there is a 3 day data lag). My one year experience suggests they are reasonably accurate – e.g. Showing zero consumption on the days when no one is at home. As it happens I saved a fair amount of money being metered compared with the previous blanket charge. The only potential fly in the ointment is the possibility of ‘surge pricing’ in times of drought. i.e Pricing water to eye- watering levels to encourage a reduction in consumption. Overall I’d recommend the upgrade . (Incidentally if the water meter is outside your premises you may not have much choice in the matter).

      2. The only potential fly in the ointment is the possibility of ‘surge pricing’ in times of drought…

        I had thought of that, though rather less of a worry than variable electricity and gas pricing.

    5. I’m with AW, but have heard nothing about upgrading my meter. A new neighbour works for them in admin, so I’ll ask him if I get the chance.

    6. When I lived in Norfolk they changed my water meter to one that could be auto read I lived in a very remote rural spot and i then never had an estimated bill but that was the only difference that I could see.

    7. We are with Anglian Water and our meter was upgraded a year ago. We did not have a choice. We were told that on a couple of occasions or so a meter reader had been round and he was unable to gain access to the meter because the side gate was locked. The gate was locked because we were in France. The installer said that the new meter would enable the meter reader to access the reading on the meter remotely, from the gate, regardless. I do feel that there is a catch, perhaps in preparation for something further down the line – or possibly they didn’t believe our meter readings being so low; we are careful with our water usage and for five-six months of the year we were not using it from our home address.

      We had to get the installer back twice to fix the installation as he hadn’t done it properly. So watch out!

    1. She’s mixed race but seems to have more of her father’s genes for skin colour.

        3. Hi Sue, many US citizens of African descent are effectively ‘mulatto’. It’s all quite tedious, this endless obsession with melanin levels.

          1. Haven’t there been complaints that some black actresses haven’t been black enough to play certain characters in movies??

          2. Didn’t slave owners do a bit of selective breeding between African slaves and Irish slaves?

            Maybe that Irish heritage is where all of the chips on their shoulders comes from.

      2. Since “black” is a synonym for “perpetual victim”, how can someone married to a Royal family and in line to inherit vast wealth, be a “perpetual victim”? Thus, she is white – and has enormous white privilege, much more than we paler folk.
        Edit: whiter -> paler

          1. With a melody stolen from J S Bach’s “Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major” (Air on the G string).

      1. That would be a pose. Try to float a Chinese ‘gold’ bar in your bath instead of a rubber duck.

  53. I don’t want to be a killjoy, but why the emphasis on the hospitality industry?

    The problems that the police have to cope with, smashed up high streets , drunken bodies , violence , car crashes, arguments… and the streets littered with piss and vomit .. is getting drunk a fun activity.. is booze necessary to create ambiance .

    The millenial generation as with previous generations create chaos when they are pubbing , they just don’t understand what being responsible means

    How are people going to cope with social distancing , no snogging blah blah.

    How are the empties collected , there must be some risk there.

    (Mum was killed whilst out in her car when a drunk drugged up car driver crashed into her car , she was only 60 years old).

    1. Good morning Maggiebelle

      How sad.

      I think it was easier in some ways for our parents than the the parents of today’s young yobs. If they try to punish their odious offspring then they are considered monsters

      When I was naughty – and believe me I was – my parents could always give me a good smacking and this continued when I was at Blundell’s – I was the most beaten boy in my house of my generation.

      When I was a child my parents left me with a maiden aunt for a couple of weeks when they had to be away. Of course I behaved badly and provocatively and my poor, lovely and very dear aunt was driven to distraction. Finally she said:

      “Richard, I am going to have to smack you!”

      “Will you smack me as hard as my mother or as hard as my father?”

      “As hard as your father!

      “Well, that’s all right then!”

      (Time for a quick Kipple: The female of the species in more deadly than the male)

    2. “The millenial generation as with previous generations create chaos when they are pubbing , they just don’t understand what being responsible means” – this contradicts reported statistics that Millenials are drinking less than their parents – and I see that here, youngsters don’t drink as much as middle-aged folk.

      1. Driving in the UK has deteriorated massively over the past 10 years. Roundabouts have become Russian roulette, our eldest was knocked off his motorbike twice on roundabouts. With two young children, he’s given up biking to work now. People pull out of side roads as you approach the junctions. And hardly any one sticks the speed limits, if you do you are tailgated.
        Our once sociable ordered cul-de-sac is being taken over by millenniums their loud partying is sometimes hard to bare. We have three sons who were brought up in this road, our home for 30 years. But now the youngsters mostly under 10 years old are very loud and continue to ride their bicycles up and down until nearly dark. Along with this we have a speed limit of 10 MPH no body except a few of the older generation adheres to it, more especially delivery drivers. My fear is a horrible or even fatal incident, it wont be an accident. And our middle son has just moved from one quite cul-de-sac to another.
        As i left yesterday another speeding delivery driver who cut across a blind corner almost smashing into our car, swerved and carried on at speed towards children playing.

      2. The difference is where they drink.

        Our lot happily quaff down 6 or seven bottles over dinner (I’m surprised at it myself as I don’t) whereas the ‘yoof’ drink in public until they are falling down drunk.

        1. The yoof also pre-load before going out with the intention of getting rat-arsed. When I was growing up it was a matter of pride that one could hold one’s drink.

  54. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-visits-mount-rushmore-1st-fireworks-decade-cancel-mob-homes

    Trump Visits Mount Rushmore For 1st Fireworks In Decade As Cancel Mob Hones In

    ….wherever Trump goes, triggerings follow.

    Native Americans, who reportedly plan to protest during the trip, have criticized Trump’s visit for increasing the risk of spreading the virus and for celebrating U.S. independence in an area that is sacred to them.
    The Democratic National Committee (DNC) tweeted at one point that Trump had disrespected Native Americans and that the event was “glorifying white supremacy.” It later deleted the tweet.
    Both Washington and Jefferson, revered for their roles in the founding of the nation, were slave owners.

    It’s an injustice to actively steal Indigenous people’s land then carve the white faces of the conquerors who committed genocide,” says Oglala Lakota Noation activist Nick Tilsen.

    Cheyanne River Sioux Tribe chairman Harold Frazier has called for the removal of Mount Rushmore, saying in a statement “Nothing stands as a greater reminder to the Great Sioux Nation of a country that cannot keep a promise of treaty then the faces carved into our sacred land on what the United States calls Mount Rushmore.”

    That said, as Fox News’ Rebecca Grant pointed out on Friday in an Op-Ed (which quoted Tilsen), nobody seemed to have a problem with the ‘racist’ monument ‘built on indigenous land’ when former President Obama and Hillary Clinton visited during their 2008 campaigns.

    “Candidate Obama and a bus of campaign reporters visited Mount Rushmore late on a Friday evening in May 2008. The New York Times covered it as an adorable moment with Obama’s “tie not a half-inch ajar” and Obama joking with park rangers that his ears were too big to carve on the mountain.”

      1. Scrambled.

        The Indian That Never Forgets

        A man was traveling through the west on vacation, when he saw a sign that said, “Meet the Indian Who Never Forgets, Next Exit”.
        Well, being curious, the man stops at the attraction to see the Indian. He asks the man, “What did you have for breakfast on June 9, 1978?”
        The Indian replies “Eggs!”
        Well, everyone has eggs for breakfast, this guy is a charlatan, the man thinks
        10 years later, the same man is on vacation again, and sees the sign for the Indian again. He thinks what the heck, I’ll stop in and see him.
        When the man approaches the Indian, he holds up his hand and says, “How!”
        The Indian replies, “Scrambled.”

    1. Perhaps we should have a “stupid tax” but that might bankrupt most politicians!?

      2. The reason it was naff is because it was a bloody WIG! The bald muppet admitted so many years later.

          1. I wasn’t having a pop at you. It does seem, however, that most of the commenters on this thread are unaware that the idiot was wearing a wig.

            I agree, though, that mullets were in fashion at a time when style went out the window.

      3. As I remember Cash after the winning shot climbed up into the stands forgetting to shake Lendl’s hand and leaving him standing at the net looking very pissed off.

        I have not forgiven Cash even though he might say, in mitigation, that it was not his fault as he is Australian and Australians cannot be expected to know how to behave and do not understand what good sportsmanship is.

        2. There is an Australian professor in the U3A German Conversation group & her manners are disgusting. Her German is bad too, but she of course doesn’t think so.

          1. My Aussie colleague has lived in Norway 15+ years, has a Norwegian wife & 3 little Norwegian girls, and has no effin’ idea of how the words are pronounced, nor what they mean… and I thought Brits were bad at Norwegian. (my boss, a Brit, has been in Norway 20+ years and can’t speak a word. Christ, it’s embarrassing… it’s equally bad when we all work for a German company, and the two of them can’t manage a Guten Morgen or Tchuss! to save their lives… :-((

          1. Nah — Scargill used Shredded Wheat.

            He later passed them on to Donald Trump.

          1. I think, with the present situation, we should not include any thick lipped mullet.

          6. I know they’re eaten and had a now deceased friend who swore by them,but you see them in such sludgy water sometimes that I wouldn’t try them.

    4. Mine was longish in the Eighties, but wouldn’t go so far as to call it a mullet. What remains round the back was getting quite long (or wide) in May 2020, until I bought some DIY clippers. Quite happy with the result, and don’t think I’ll be joining a Barber Queue for some time…

          2. I don’t think I was ever cool. You’ll be pleased to know I spared you from seeing the ‘sunbathing with Janet’ photo, if only because of the hideous whiteness…

  58. Putin Plots a Parallel Internet. July 3, 2020.

    The edict, an update to the Kremlin’s 2014 counterterrorism strategy, gives Russian authorities greater control than ever before over the dissemination of information on the Internet. The ostensible goal of the measure is to curb language that could incite hatred and violence along racial, ethnic, or religious lines. But the real objective, observers say, is to change the way Russia’s netizens access the Internet and interact online.

    In 2016, the Kremlin approved the so-called Yarovaya Packet, a series of laws that expanded the definition of “extremism” and allowed for the criminalization of a highly subjective range of acts. It also provided the Russian government with sweeping authority over the Internet, lowered the bar for what constitutes inciting or justifying terrorism online, granted Russia’s powerful security agencies full access to the private communications of citizens, and mandated that telecommunications companies store data and decrypt information at the behest of the state.

    My God at this rate they will have caught us up in five years!

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/russia-internet-vladimir-putin-tightens-grip-web-access/

    1. Yes, the Russian Government is attempting to control things in the interests of Russia, its ruling establishment, and maybe even its citizens.
      Here we don’t control it. We leave control to financial businesses, political puppets, interest groups, and Radical Marxists.

    1. Morning?? I had lunch nearly 2 hours ago!
      :-))
      Morning/afternoon, Peddy.

  60. Signing off, chaps. See the GP again a 3.30 (Dr Stupid, unfortunately).

    It seems the tablets designed to cure the chest are making me ill – so am going to get different ones.

    I’ll look in tomorrow, should I still be here.

    2. MB had the same happen some years ago when he got a minute thorn in his foot.
      It was the pharmacist who spotted the problem and made him stop taking the tablets immediately.
      Good luck.

    3. Oh dear, Bill – hope you get some that actually make you better, not worse.

      1. Metronidazole turned my teeth grey. Had to pay for bleaching. Also you can’t drink any alcohol. Not even one glass of wine.

        2. You can get away with a small glass of wine while taking Metronidazole, but more may make you puke. Never heard of it discolouring teeth in all my 40+ years as a dentist, except possibly in embryos & infants, who shouldn’t be given it anyway.

      2. These common side effects of clarithromycin happen in more than 1 in 100 people.
        …
        Common side effects
        feeling sick (nausea)
        diarrhoea and being sick (vomiting)
        losing your appetite.
        bloating and indigestion.
        headaches.
        difficulty sleeping (insomnia)

        Clarithromycin: antibiotic to treat bacterial infections – NHS

        Those adverse reaction could apply to any antibiotic. They do NOT indicate an allergy or poisoning.

  61. China has gradually become the greatest threat now facing the world
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/02/letters-china-has-gradually-become-greatest-threat-now-facing/

    Made in China
    Boycott Chinese goods…fat chance they make everything!
    China will replace the United States as the world’s dominant power. In so doing, it will not become more western but the world will become more Chinese.
    China’s ascendancy, showing how its impact will be as much political and cultural as economic, thereby transforming the world as we know it.

    I’ll get me sampan….

    1. They may not make everything but try to find anything without a Chinese component!

        1. I bought a Samsung last month – hopefully most of it made in S Korea, though the flap-over case I also bought was Chinese – didn’t notice till it arrived.

        2. I am currently adapting an app for iPhones, and got my first in depth experience of the whole mac/iphone planet. They are such a steaming pile of ****, I will never buy one.
          It’s impossible to carry out even basic tasks in a simple, intuitive way. The answer to everything appears to be “use iTunes (but sell us your soul and the rights to your first born child first)”

    2. There a plenty of quislings in America and Britain that want that to happen.

  62. Today’s Ponder

    In the way that BLM have decided to rip up the political history of the world and have it amended to suit their own political ends,
    are Extinction Rebellion going to do the same and attack memorials to

    James Watt

    Montgolfier Brothers

    Nicolaus Otto

    Samuel Brown

    Étienne Lenoir

    James Hoffman

    Frank Whittle

    Henty Ford

    Mr Benz

    Rudolph Diesel

    Mr Boeing

    Mr DeHaviland

    etc

    When the ER start messing with surviving Big Businesses, I do not think anyone will be ‘bending a knee’ to them and their ideas

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_internal_combustion_engine

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine

    2. Gottlieb Daimler (his daughter was called Mercedes, after whom he named the marque).
      Karl Benz.
      William E Boeing.
      Geoffrey De Havilland.

      Yo, Mr Final Effort.

        1. Don’t believe everything that Jim Capaldi, Dave Mason, Chris Wood and Steve Winwood tell you.

      2. Sir Frank Whittle…
        He & I graduated with Ph.D at the same ceremony.

  63. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/video/four-police-officers-dispute-employment-of-black-manager-in-london-store/vi-BB16iHUn

    This video clearly shows the shit that police officers have to put up with, daily, in this brave new world.

    During my service I attended hundreds of burglar alarms. In 99% of those cases the owners/managers of those premises were hugely grateful for my attendance. On a number of occasions I felt the collars of people who had no permission to be there.

    If this had happened in my day, the chap would have been asked twice to prove his identity. Failure to do so at second time of asking — regardless of his/her/its age, sex, race, colour, creed or identity — they would have been arrested as a burglary suspect. On top of that an order would have been issued for no future police attendance when the burglar alarm was activated, and their insurance company would have been notified of this decision and the reasons for it. The security of the premises would then be at the owner’s risk.

    Time is due, methinks, for a return to the old — tried and trusted — ways.

        1. Quite…
          One might have thought that instead of being confrontational the silly sod would have been pleased he got a prompt response.

          1. That is the normal reaction of 99·9999999% of business owners.

            The ‘item’ in the video bucks that trend.

    2. Kn*b.
      What makes me laugh is that he stated a dozen times that they couldnt ask for name and contact details citing data protection and GDPR, then post this video in which you can hear them clearly stated.
      Kn*b

      1. Complete utter and arrogant knob.

        He is the kind of cretin who would have complained about “racial profiling” if he’d called the police himself to report a burglary.

  64. Trial collapses of three Britons accused of aiding man to go to fight in Syria. Fri 3 Jul 2020 13.16 BST

    A controversial terror trial of three Britons accused of helping a fourth to travel to Syria to fight with the Kurdish YPG has collapsed at the Old Bailey after the Crown Prosecution Service abandoned the case.

    But after a short hearing at the central criminal court on Friday morning, Mr Justice Sweeney directed the court to enter not guilty verdicts on all the charges against Daniel Burke, 33, and father and son Paul and Samuel Newey, 49 and 19 respectively.

    Some rare good news. Had they been going to fight for the Jihadists the trial would never have been considered!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/03/trial-collapses-of-three-britons-accused-of-aiding-man-to-go-to-fight-in-syria

  65. Black Lives Matter: England players to have logo on shirts in series versus West Indies.

    But thankfully, no kneeling.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/53268920

    Meanwhile…

    Carlos Brathwaite (West Indies) says taking a knee is ‘cosmetic’ and legislative change is needed

    “The biggest change needs to be legislative and needs to be the reprogramming of the wider society.”

    Stick to cricket, Carlos.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/53258227

    2. Carlos Braithwaite should have a good long chat with some black conservatives, and get those chips off his shoulders.

    4. I shall now have to give up on cricket; I have already given up on football and since rugby has gone professiaonal and tattooed I am only holding on to that by my fingernails.

    5. How about we legislate against black single parent families? About black kids knifing one another?

      I won’t kneel to a bunch of savage fools who have been given everything I’ve worked for.

  66. Groan – another bloody clap for carers on Sunday 5th July at 5pm to mark the 72nd birthday of the NHS.

    1. I might give the publicans a smattering of applause on Sunday if all goes to plan.

      1. I still have to put up with the noise of clapping and banging pots and pans!

          1. Neither am I, if I have the windows and doors shut. But now in Summer, I have them open as much as possible.

        2. Get yourself a whoopee cushion, inflate it to the maximum, and press it firmly.

          It won’t drwon out the neighbours but it will make you smile.

  67. something has gone horribly wrong………… I didn’t win on the premium bonds this month. Shock horror. I bet Bob won though. 🙂

        1. Just one to win it. Go on……….you know you want to……. (devil face)

          1. In the early days, perhaps. The best I ever managed was four numbers / around £90. If the Almighty intended me to win, I’d have done so before now… :-((

          4. I once won ~ £1,000 on the pools. Early 70’s. It was a huge amount of money for us at the time.

            One of my sons won over £100,000 in a cookery competition. The strange thing is that the others were actually better cooks! He developed skills as the competition went along and now he is extraordinarily good.

          5. Back in the early 1970s I got eight draws on the football pools. It was on a ‘plan’ rather than full ‘perm’. I won six bob!

          6. We had a syndicate in the office. After a small win, the majority were all for ploughing our winnings back. But one of our number decided he would rather like a new lampshade…

          7. Won the office sweep on the World Cup 1990. Lots of amusement and abuse up front, until the handing over of the £15… won a fluorescent yellow tennis ball at Barry Island funfair in 1980, too.

      1. £175 last month. Still works out higher than most savings accounts over the year. of course it is digital money…a bit like Chinese gold.

        1. Absolutely. £100,000 in a Bank savings account yields £600 at 1.6% interest per annum. Premium bonds to the same amount pay out more with just average luck.

          You strike me as a lucky fellow.

          2. “Absolutely. £100,000 in a Bank savings account yields £600 at 1.6% interest per annum.”

            Are you sure?
            {;-))

    4. something has gone horribly wrong………… I didn’t win on the premium bonds this month lifetime. Shock horror.

      1. But, come on, how many do you hold?

        My Godmother held the maximum for many years and never won at all.

          1. My guess is that you have 5, bought as a Christening present or similar.

            In 1951, a fiver was a lot of money, probably enough to feed a family of four for a week.

          2. I remember getting 2/6d postal order(s) for a gift(s) a very few years after 1951. I would implore my parents to take me to WH Smith where I would spend a happy hour deciding upon which book to spend my largesse on. Being an only child I was a bookworm and I would retreat into an inner world of imagination.

          3. I used to spend my pocket money on books as well. I was devastated when the books I bought went up from 8/6 to 12/6!

          5. ‘In 1951, a fiver was a lot of money, probably enough to feed a family of four for a week.’

            Several weeks, I would have thought.

          7. My fathet was an engineer – when he died in 1953, he had been earning £12 per week, until he was too ill to work.

          8. I paid £18 per month for Bed and full board in a hotel in Cumbria in the early 60s. Shared small bedroom with another male colleague. No TV and no bar. My salary was £900 per annum with no annual increments. I managed to save money each month as I had no time to do anything but work and sleep.

          9. Five! Do you think our family were moneybags?

            Mum bought three each for my brother and me in 1956.

          2. Yep they moved it to the end of October, but that isn’t looking too promising now, at least I wont have to make a speech, I suppose

        1. For what it’s worth, I haven’t played for a single funeral or wedding this year. And I’m not likely to before some time in 2021.
          I’m in the bizarre position where what I do for part of my living is illegal. Until tomorrow, but singing is still banned, so no choirs for the foreseeable…

          2. Apparently, a single Cantor is allowed, behind Plexiglass screens. I’m sorry to say that, by the time either of my choirs are allowed to do their thing, most will have died. We lost our,longest-standing member last Saturday, aged 91.

  68. Back from my morning dog walk , Moh back from his game of golf, and I have just had to fiddle around with the fridge , soggy stuff in the veg drawer , carrots growing and new potatoes with eyes, and a yellowing cauliflower.. I have no idea why I forgot about those and feel ashamed.

    I read somewhere that to use the term blacklist will be banned , what about blackguard

    Blacksmith
    Blackmail
    Blackcock
    Blackcap( birds I saw on the heath this morning )
    Blackthorn ( my thumbstick )
    Blackberry
    Blackhead(Zit)
    Blackout
    Blackboard
    Blackfly

    I cannot find the reference to banning Black, perhaps it was on Twitter or somewhere else , but things are now getting very silly .

        1. “”I regret selling Green & Blacks to Cadbury. It was a mistake. A great shame. I can say that now that Cadbury has pretty much disappeared, bought out by Kraft and now Mondalez. I wish I’d kept hold of it.”

          Could have told them that. That’s what happens to smaller brands, they effectively disappear when they’re bought out. Ditto Cadbury, despite the name still existing. I never buy it now, on principle.

    2. Blackheads can be amusing/confusing in German. Blackhead = Mitesser.

      But if somebody who has had curry for lunch & approaches with strongly spicy breath, you might say, “Bor, du hast Curry gegessen. Ich kann es fast mitessen!” (Cor, you’ve been eating curry. I can almost taste it.)

        1. Bor is Ruhrpottdeutsch. The full expression is bor, eeeeeh. (bor aaaaay).

          I remember being in a U3A advanced German grammar group. One week we had a stand-in British teacher who was rather straight-laced. I saw my chance for fun & the answer I gave with Ruhrpott accent to a question to illustrate a particular point was, “Bor eeeeh, tut mir Leid, ich hab’ deinen Geburtstag total verpennt.” She glared at me & said rather icily, “That’s rather colloquial.”
          What the Hell did she expect?

  69. Evening, all. While China might or might not become a threat, islam is a greater and more pressing one.

    1. At least, the Chinese are civilised; whilst Islam is a profoundly alien culture …

        1. They’ve had longer to practise it than the Muselmann. I had not realised until I checked up on the spelling that Muselmann was the term given to concentration camp inmates who were at death’s door.

      1. I have a horrible feeling that we will end up allied to one, and fighting the other, and then we will have to let ourselves be conquered by our “ally” in gratitude.

      2. A G4 swine flu strain in China is causing concerns of another possible pandemic like COVID-19.
        The Middle East camel coronavirus MERS could still present a danger.

        How about sticking to Welsh lamb – may still have a trace of Chernobyl radiation but it will make the kids’ eyes light up!

        https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/06/emerging-flu-virus-chinese-pigs-has-pandemic-potential-researchers-say

        https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/middle-east-respiratory-syndrome-coronavirus-(mers-cov)

    3. Greetings, Conners.

      I agree. I’d much rather eat a lot more pork curry and fried rice, special chow mein, or sweet and sour king prawns than boiled camel and cous cous!

      1. …Bat soup?

        Couscous is actually really nice. And its origins are pre-slamic.

        1. I can’t stand cous cous. Nasty texture, taste and smell. And it gets in yer teeth.

          3. I’ll remember that remark when deciding what to do with this year’s truffles.

          4. Judging by the rooting around all my oak trees, my spreading of the spores worked.
            The Sanglier have really enjoyed them!

          5. Keep them to yourself why don’t you. It’s not like they grow on trees…..sheesh…

          7. If i send you an oak tree will you send me a truffle? You have to pay the postage on the oak…………….it weighs 2 tonnes.

          6. I thought Duran Duran committed suicide by shooting himself with a dum-dum bullet in Wagga-Wagga.

          9. The aye-aye lemur has an extended finger on each hand for poking into crevices to find food.

          11. I’ve tried very hard to like it Peddy. Different grains, different flavours, different cooking methods and still it has the texture of wet sand!

          12. Ah well. Perhaps you like quinoa*? I was introduced to it in Chile as a substitute for rice.

            *Pronounced key-noah.

          13. We first had that in Bolivia – can’t say I’m terribly keen, but it’s not bad if mixed with other grains.

          14. When I was in Chile I went through a phase of not being able to keep rice down, I don’t know why, because I’m not allergic to it. These days I tend to avoid it, except for risotto.

          15. I like rice – prefer brown or Basmati – risotto’s good.

            I’m not a great one for potatoes but we had some small ones this evening, with chicken in a lemon sauce with white wine.

          16. Can’t remember when I last had a potato. I have several tins of small potatoes in store, but I rarely use them.

          17. Those little tinned ones always remind me of my mother. She wasn’t a great cook, and after I left home she never bought another fresh potato – just the little tins for when we visited.

          18. It sounds as though nobody here is cooking or serving it correctly. The instructions on the packet are rubbish.
            The grains should be soft, not hard, and you eat them in soup.

      1. Oops. Cultural appropriation.

        Presumably there is a bronze statue of her in Liverpool, ripe to be deposed and slung into the Mersey.

  72. Good night all. An early night ‘cos I didn’t have a lunchtime nap.

    A 21st C. prawn cocktail for supper – 1 baby gem lettuce cut across into 1″ chunks*, I fat chopped spring onion, 1 red chili deseeded & chopped, 3 stoned & 1/2ed green olives, 3 1/2ed cherry tomatoes, 1 avocado cut into 1″ chunks, a pack of cooked giant prawns, crème fraiche & a good squirt of chili sauce, all stirred gently together, & a coriander naan on the side. Washed down with pomegranate juice.

    *I can’t stand it when a good lettuce is stripped down to individual leaves & washed.

    1. Lettuce was originally a green manure to be grown and then plowed back into the field. Only slowly did it develope into a salad veg

    2. Sounds good apart from the chillies, and I prefer black olives to green. I think that quantity would serve both of us!

      1. I agree black olives would have been better, but guess what?
        I didn’t have any.
        Green instead of black in tomorrow night’s supper too.

  73. “Researchers at the Henry Ford Health System in Southeast Michigan have
    found that early administration of the drug hydroxychloroquine makes
    hospitalized patients substantially less likely to die.”

    Pres. Trump correct yet again.

    2. It’s so easy for scientists and medical staff involved in trials to discredit the drug by doing trials with the wrong dosage, or giving it at the wrong time. Science is riddled with politics these days, since the left turned it into an alternative religion.

    1. First look at EastEnders’ £87million set: Aerial photos show revamped Queen Vic, terraced houses and railway line as all-new Albert Square begins to take shape
      EastEnders’ new set is beginning to take shape with aerial photos showing a revamped Albert Square
      Construction of the soap’s recognisable terraced houses, railway line and the Queen Vic is well under way
      The replica is already expected to go £27 million over budget – costing around £86.7million in total
      It is expected to be completed in 2023 – two-and-half years later than planned
      The current set was built in 1984 using steel frames, plywood and plaster brick panels
      It was intended to last only two years but is still in use over 30 years later
      The replica has been made after health and safety fears on the current one
      It will also be able to film the BBC soap in HD
      By CONNIE RUSK FOR MAILONLINE

      PUBLISHED: 15:46, 17 November 2019 | UPDATED: 18:07, 17 November 2019

          1. I used to be hooked, but when it went to more than twice qeekly, we couldn’t keep up, so that was it.

  79. Not long to go now, folks, soon President Trump will address the nation from Mt Rushmore.

    As Dems, rioters and protesters are screaming for statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln & Teddy Roosevelt to be pulled down, President Donald J Trump will stand in front of the biggest monument to the Founding Fathers & the foundations of our country & defend them and the United States of America.

    Have a Happy and Yuge Independence Day and a great Fourth of July !

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