Friday 31 December: Britain cannot afford to depend on an inadequate testing system

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

993 thoughts on “Friday 31 December: Britain cannot afford to depend on an inadequate testing system”

  2. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    A couple of letters to start with. The second of these, from Alan Ripley, is I think particularly apt:

    SIR – I had a late Christmas gift on Boxing Day. Having been transferred from a failed power company to one of the Big Six, I was notified that my monthly direct debit had risen from £80 to £167. We have not had severe weather conditions in my area, so my usage has not changed much.

    This does not bode well for next year, especially for the poor and pensioners like me.

    Peter Williman
    Chatteris, Cambridgeshire

    SIR – Green extremists have shut down our coal power stations and stopped fracking, and would like to ban new projects in the North Sea.

    We are to pay astronomical bills when we still have plenty of indigenous fuel.

    We know that electric vehicles are coming, but surely in the interim it makes more sense to use our own fuel, rather than paying exorbitant prices for imported products.

    If only those in power would stop virtue signalling and show some sense we could at least keep our energy bills at a reasonable level.

    Alan Ripley
    Polstead, Suffolk

      1. I pay quarterly in arrears as I have always done for 50+ years. None of this messing with DD so the power companies can benefit from interest. I pay for what I have used, plus the ridiculous ‘green’ levies forced on all of us.

        1. I get a discount for DD and for paperless bills. I make more from them than they do from me as I have solar panels

      2. Lucky chap…my gas has gone up by 32% and electricity by 38%. Further increase due when the cap is raised again.

  3. In archived documents, Tony Blair’s ruthless political instincts are as clear as ever. 31 December 2021.

    Most of the focus so far has been on revelations that Blair disagreed with his home secretary, Jack Straw, about how the Government should respond to the conclusion of the Macpherson inquiry into the racially-motivated death of Stephen Lawrence. As well as responding to the report’s recommendations, Straw wanted a ten-year action plan, a public commitment to place racial equality at the heart of policy-making and a wide-ranging inquiry into relations between the police and Britain’s ethnic minority communities.

    No disagreements about War Crimes and the Destruction of the British People by the process of Mass Immigration then? There’s no doubt that Blair is the Great Unsung Monster of the UK’s history. Everything he has touched has turned out to be a disaster. He has almost certainly done more damage than any other of its past leaders; he has actually destroyed the Country itself!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/30/archived-documents-tony-blairs-ruthless-political-instincts/

  4. Good morning to everyone.

    Message for POPPIES MUM. Please look at my late night (Thursday) posts as there is an important message for you.

  5. TROLL ALERT: A post from Lainey has just appeared. Could the first Mod to read my post please deal with this?

  6. SIR – Madeline Grant’s excellent article on the pettiness and stupidity of the devolved governments – and particularly the Welsh one – raises profound anxiety that Michael Gove is about to make this bad situation even worse.

    Rumour has it that he will define “levelling up” with the introduction of a Bill to establish elected mayoralties and “governorships” throughout England. This, I fear, would mean levelling down.

    The last thing this country needs is more Sturgeons, Drakefords, Burnhams and Khans. There is no popular pressure for further devolution, and previous polls have mostly rejected the idea. We should be abolishing police and crime commissioners instead.

    I hope the rumour is wrong. Otherwise, God help the Tories.

    Professor Alan Sked
    London School of Economics

    Quite so, Professor Sked. So-called local democracy is, in my view, just an illusion – just take a look at what the government has tried to do to local planning – and yet it persists in the belief that devolution is a good thing and apparently would like more of it. All I see are power-mad, grandstanding no-hopers, accompanied by vast expense brought about by duplication of effort.

    1. More (and very expensive) layers of bureaucracy. Just like the Police and Crime Commissioners that no one wanted.

  7. Economy Always

    After 53 years of marriage, Solly Weintraub sadly passed away, leaving a grieving widow.

    Among all the other arrangements she had to make, she thought she ought to place an announcement in the Social and Personal section of the local Jewish newspaper.

    So she called them up and asked how much it would cost. “Five dollars a word,” said the clerk in the advertising office.

    “Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Weintraub, “that’s rather expensive and I don’t have a lot of money. Better just say, Solly Weintraub died.”

    “Actually,” said the clerk, “our minimum charge is thirty-five dollars, so you can have seven words for that price.”

    Mrs Weintraub thought for a minute, then said, “All right then, put ‘Solly Weintraub died. Buick Skylark for sale.’”

  8. SIR – How many have had Covid and didn’t take a test? The answer is unknown, but must be very high.

    How many required to take a home test before going to work have simply binned the kit and reported negative? The answer is unknown, but could be very high. Unless everyone tests, the whole system is rendered pointless.

    Having already spent billions of pounds on this scheme, the Government must end it now before even more money is squandered.

    Ministers need to apply some common sense in the way they proceed with Covid management. The disease is not the mass killer it was once feared to be. With the wonderful work done on vaccinations it’s time to end testing, get people back to work and the country back on its feet.

    Nick Hazelton
    Wimborne, Dorset

    As usual, Carolyn Bates’ BTL contribution puts it far better than I could:

    Carolyn Bates
    1 HR AGO
    In response to Mr Hazelton of Dorset.
    I agree, it is time to get back to normal and put an end to this insanity that testing is promoting.
    Boris Johnson has now clearly lost control of the entire Covid debacle and, one must question why all this fuss is being made about testing when Omicron is such a mild variant, which will ensure more people are exposed to it, leading to immunity.
    It seems that science has gone out of the window and a form of desperation has taken over in SAGE and Government, in an effort to keep the crisis going, for some unknown reason. Yes, case numbers are high, but crucially, hospitalisation and deaths are low, which means nature has provided us with the answer to bringing this to a close.
    Why then, do we find ourselves in a situation that resembles chaos and a shambles of epic proportions, when the science is pointing us in a completely different direction?
    It is inexplicable, but a cynic might think that we are being deliberately deceived by a leadership that finds itself in political danger of being removed particularly after Graham Brady of the 1922 committee changed the rules on letters of no confidence ensuring MPs could now send emails of no confidence over the Christmas break.
    The amount he has already received is of course unknown but we know many backbenchers are furious with the Prime Minister, and who can blame them.
    It can no longer be acceptable to anyone, after two years of misery, that we are to face the dawn of yet another year with no transparency or common sense: for how much longer are we to be treated as fools and watch as the country we love is destroyed, both socially and economically for a virus that is now harmless?

    1. Like Parliaments of old (The Rump, The Long, The Short) this one will most likely be remembered as The Diseased Parliament.

      1. Time to repeat a politician who could string words together:

        “It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice. Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government. Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

        Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?

        Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

        Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?

        Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.

        Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.

        I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.

        Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

        In the name of God, go!”

        1. I would applaud and say good old Nell but I am at heart a Monarchist and would have been Cavalier in those days.

          Indeed I found in my Family tree a Sir Timothy Feathestonhaugh (unknown – 1651) (Fanshaw) who was captured and beheaded at Chester.

          1. So was I in my childhood. As I get older, I can see the upside of Old Noll and can understand why he had support; though not the government that took matters to such extremes that the Restoration became inevitable. I suspect the Interregnum was uncomfortably like the Woke regime that we are currently enduring.

    2. Having already spent billions of pounds on this scheme, the Government must end it now before even more money is squandered.

      Is Nick Hazelton mad? Money Squandered? It’s an extension of the PPE saga, essential for the government’s levelling up of the few, not the many.

    3. The disease has never been a mass killer (more than 99% survival rate). That was all government propaganda to get Project Fear on the road.

  9. SIR – How many have had Covid and didn’t take a test? The answer is unknown, but must be very high.

    How many required to take a home test before going to work have simply binned the kit and reported negative? The answer is unknown, but could be very high. Unless everyone tests, the whole system is rendered pointless.

    Having already spent billions of pounds on this scheme, the Government must end it now before even more money is squandered.

    Ministers need to apply some common sense in the way they proceed with Covid management. The disease is not the mass killer it was once feared to be. With the wonderful work done on vaccinations it’s time to end testing, get people back to work and the country back on its feet.

    Nick Hazelton
    Wimborne, Dorset

    As usual, Carolyn Bates’ BTL contribution puts it far better than I could:

    Carolyn Bates
    1 HR AGO
    In response to Mr Hazelton of Dorset.
    I agree, it is time to get back to normal and put an end to this insanity that testing is promoting.
    Boris Johnson has now clearly lost control of the entire Covid debacle and, one must question why all this fuss is being made about testing when Omicron is such a mild variant, which will ensure more people are exposed to it, leading to immunity.
    It seems that science has gone out of the window and a form of desperation has taken over in SAGE and Government, in an effort to keep the crisis going, for some unknown reason. Yes, case numbers are high, but crucially, hospitalisation and deaths are low, which means nature has provided us with the answer to bringing this to a close.
    Why then, do we find ourselves in a situation that resembles chaos and a shambles of epic proportions, when the science is pointing us in a completely different direction?
    It is inexplicable, but a cynic might think that we are being deliberately deceived by a leadership that finds itself in political danger of being removed particularly after Graham Brady of the 1922 committee changed the rules on letters of no confidence ensuring MPs could now send emails of no confidence over the Christmas break.
    The amount he has already received is of course unknown but we know many backbenchers are furious with the Prime Minister, and who can blame them.
    It can no longer be acceptable to anyone, after two years of misery, that we are to face the dawn of yet another year with no transparency or common sense: for how much longer are we to be treated as fools and watch as the country we love is destroyed, both socially and economically for a virus that is now harmless?

  14. Britain cannot afford to depend on an inadequate testing system

    But Shirley the testing system is the key to extending the reality pandemic in perpetuity. I thought.

    2. Does anyone remember that song which the BBC banned: Je T’aime Moi Non Plus recorded by Serge Gainsborough and Jane Birkin? Private Eye in the days of Richard Ingrams and Auberon Waugh produced a spoof of this on a gramophone record given with the Christmas edition of the paper. The male singer was named Surge Forward – Boris is obviously thinking of the sort of surge in his hubs.

        1. Didn’t the B side have the music played sans commentary & heavy breathing?
          The music by its self is actually rather pleasant!

      2. As a direct result of it being banned by the anally-retentive pinstripes at the BBC, that single got played over and over on other (notably, ‘pirate’) radio stations. I listened to Radio 270, anchored off Scarborough, and it was played there countless times, daily.

  18. Germany approx = 71% jabbed.
    The disgusting midget, Fauci, lets slip on the “vaccine” creating problems.
    How much longer will this foul government keep up the, “Safe and effective,” mantra in the face of the mounting evidence to the contrary?

    A pre-print medical report indicating the growing problem with myocarditis resulting from the jab.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/34ff9645a06d792fa72be71bde83354bdc5c1bef3afe47e76df20c6a1b185f66.png

    https://twitter.com/HezMureithi/status/1476638404188200961

    https://twitter.com/hughosmond/status/1476661687067492353

    2. I have posted this before.

      Three boys from a leading public school, one of whom came on a course with us in October, were given the second jab in order to be allowed to travel to Europe where teir parents lived. All three of them ended up in hospital with Myocarditis.

      You read it here in Rastus’s Ramblings – but did you hear anything about it in the MSM?

    1. There is something very disturbing about how this case was reported.

      If it was “abuse” rather than sordid, but consensual sexual activity among the libertarian rich, then why did these women go back to him, a hundred times or more? If they were in any traumatised, surely they would have tried to escape? Even that infamous photo with the prince did the young woman appear in any way unwilling. Apparently she was even willing to cross the Atlantic to be with the prince. Like the editor of a popular newspaper run by an Australian American with the same initials as the defendant’s father, Maxwell was only giving what she wanted, so it is argued.

      I actually find the values of all those involved in their tasteless and loveless exploits rather unpleasant, but it’s not for me to act as moral uplifter at other people’s parties, any more than it is right for them to judge me for my lack of material wealth or power and therefore my attractiveness to the opposite sex.

      There are Age of Consent considerations too. Feminists are pushing for 18, and would no doubt prefer that all heterosexual interest shown by men be considered “abuse” and heavily punished and the perpetrator excluded for life from any situation where women or children may be present. However, it has been 16 all my life, and is 15 in France. There were some pariahs who once argued that consent should be given or withheld at any age, but a Twitter storm awaits anyone who might suggest that today.

      However one may regret one’s choice of sexual partner later in life, borne of youthful foolishness, consent given is just that. If “yes” means “no” when it goes to court, then how on earth can anyone know whether one is engaging in a happy relationship, or whether one is unwittingly raping someone?

      1. How do the grooming gangs in this country get away with what they do, and does anyone investigate underage marriage amongst Muslims and other religions?

        What is the truth about sugar daddies who finance students at university?

      2. Apparently teachers are now not allowed to have any social contact with their former pupils for some years.

        This is absurd. Many of our former pupils have become our friends and have come to stay with us here in France and before that I used to take former pupils sailing with me during the summer holidays – indeed one of my former pupils spent a year with me on my boat sailing to the Caribbean and back. The lovely girl he met at university is now his wife, and is now a great friend of Caroline’s and the husband of one of the girls who came sailing with me has also become a close friend of Caroline’s.

        There was no abuse, no sexual impropriety – just friendship.

      3. Where were the parents of these girls?
        Maybe my sons are a smidge old fashioned, but they would be worrying (i.e. grounding) a mid-teenager flying hither, thither and yon in the company of rich old men. They would certainly notice that they were missing from home for days or even weeks at a time.

        1. When the composer and concert soloist Alma Deutscher was jetsetting around the world (for example to the USA for a concert purely of her own music at Carnegie Hall in 2019, to San José in California in 2017 for a seven-show run of her opera ‘Cinderella’, to Beijing to lecture the Chinese on “telling a beautiful story” during their Belt & Road Festival, and in her adopted home Austria, to perform an adaptation of ‘Moscow Nights’ for Vladimir Putin, to accompany the Vienna Boys Choir for a Remembrance Gala, and to attend a large formal debutantes’ ball at the Imperial Palace, dancing to her own waltz, she did this all at a younger age than Victoria Roberts was when she met Prince Andrew. On her way, she charmed quite a few rich old men, including Zubin Mehrta, David Packard, Stephen Fry, Roger Moore and Stephen Hawking.

          Her father Dr Guy Deutscher, stuck to her like glue!

          1. Ms Robert’s name was the inappropriate Virginia.
            A state named after King Hal’s feisty younger daughter.

      4. Just a bunch of teenage goodtime girls looking for a midlife payout.

        Problem for HRH is that the young lady was allegedly 17, and 18 is the lower age limit in UK for that sort of work. Or so I am told.

        1. It is now, but at the time of the offence, before the sexual offences legislation was reformed, the age where a person could engage in prostitution was the same as the Age of Consent, 16.
          That reform took place about two or three years after the alleged act.

    2. There is something very disturbing about how this case was reported.

      If it was “abuse” rather than sordid, but consensual sexual activity among the libertarian rich, then why did these women go back to him, a hundred times or more? If they were in any traumatised, surely they would have tried to escape? Even that infamous photo with the prince did the young woman appear in any way unwilling. Apparently she was even willing to cross the Atlantic to be with the prince. Like the editor of a popular newspaper run by an Australian American with the same initials as the defendant’s father, Maxwell was only giving what she wanted, so it is argued.

      I actually find the values of all those involved in their tasteless and loveless exploits rather unpleasant, but it’s not for me to act as moral uplifter at other people’s parties, any more than it is right for them to judge me for my lack of material wealth or power and therefore my attractiveness to the opposite sex.

      There are Age of Consent considerations too. Feminists are pushing for 18, and would no doubt prefer that all heterosexual interest shown by men be considered “abuse” and heavily punished and the perpetrator excluded for life from any situation where women or children may be present. However, it has been 16 all my life, and is 15 in France. There were some pariahs who once argued that consent should be given or withheld at any age, but a Twitter storm awaits anyone who might suggest that today.

      However one may regret one’s choice of sexual partner later in life, borne of youthful foolishness, consent given is just that. If “yes” means “no” when it goes to court, then how on earth can anyone know whether one is engaging in a happy relationship, or whether one is unwittingly raping someone?

  20. Warning up to 40% of COVID vaccine appointments are no-shows. 31 December 2021.

    Health leaders have warned that up to 40% of vaccine appointments are no-shows, as the government claimed to have met its coronavirus booster jabs target.

    The NHS Confederation said it was “encouraging” to see people coming forward and getting their COVID-19 jabs.

    But it said it had heard reports that some sites were only a third full, despite cases of the Omicron variant continuing to rise “rapidly”.

    It’s not just the non-attendance or the Vaxxed who are dropping like flies but you can see it in people’s body language and attitudes. The games up. You’ll still get plenty of stuff like the second paragraph but I’m afraid they are onto a loser, word is seeping out!

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/warning-up-to-40percent-of-covid-vaccine-appointments-are-no-shows/ar-AASics0

    1. …as the government claimed to have met its coronavirus booster jabs target.

      Clearly propaganda.
      Weren’t the government claiming that everyone had to be jabbed by end of next month? With threats/promises of fourth, fifth etc jabs to follow; net protection time span of 7 – 8 weeks; more information on the lack of effectiveness; more people appreciating that the jab causes serious injury and death, it’s clear that this nonsense must come to an end soon. Only the serious believers in government propaganda will continue with the jab-fest. Sadly, I know a few and I am not sure that they will ever believe the truth: this government has turned those people into “vaccine” junkies.

  21. Good morning all.
    It’s a dull, damp & dismal Derbyshire today with 8°C.

    The past couple of days have been productive.
    A big pan of Apple, Mango & Pineapple chutney made on Wednesday and a load of pulses put on to steep overnight.
    Yesterday the chutney put into 12 jars and the pulses were added to the ham stock from Christmas day together with a load of veg to make a pan full of my traditional New Year Broth.

      2. I received a “Joyeux Noël” card from one of my French friends this morning! I suspect that Toy Boy kept it back out of spite 🙂

    1. That’s where the oaf is taking us. Add in council stupidity – I mean, honestly. It’s not sodding complicated. The high street is dying, councils are killing it. What do they do? Hike taxes even more to ‘make up for the loss of revenue’. It makes you want to grab them by the throat and crush until those useless fools stop breathing.

    2. I sang it a few years ago in the Church of the Ascension in Malvern, which has a five second echo.

      Written for eight choirs of five voices, it was a real devil to sing, knowing one’s place as everyone syncopates around you, whilst at the same time blending all forty voices together. Also, unless the choir is very big, it’s one to a voice. Five of us turned up for the last rehearsal, and three did not arrive until the start of the performance and were sightreading it.

    3. No, but now you mention it I shall fish out a recording to paint to this morning. Glorious work – I can always feel my mind expanding past its limits as it tries to hold all the parts. Thank you.

  26. Biden and Putin exchange warnings during phone call amid rising Ukraine tensions. 31Deecember 2021.

    Thursday’s talks, requested by Putin, were the leaders’ second conversation this month but, the White House said, consisted of both men restating their positions – including Biden warning of severe consequences if Putin decides to invade.

    “President Biden urged Russia to de-escalate tensions with Ukraine,” said Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, in a statement. “He made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine.”

    In a conference call with reporters, a senior administration official added that Biden had laid out “two paths”: one of diplomacy and deescalation, the other of deterrence “including serious costs and consequences” such as economic sanctions, strengthening Nato’s force posture and military assistance to Ukraine.

    This was just a delaying tactic on the part of the Americans. Vlad must now decide whether to act. My guess is that he will seize enough of Ukraine to make it unviable as a NATO glove puppet and sod the consequences!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/30/biden-putin-call-russia-us-ukraine-tensions

    2. Half of Ukraine actually founded Russia. If Biden arms the wrong half, he might not be able to guarantee which side they fight on. They tried the same thing liberating Iraq – what became of American military hardware there?

    7. He is a busted flush. Why should anyone pay any attention at all to this mendacious buffoon any more? Why is he so eager to push us to take a vaccine gene therapy that requires not only a second dose followed by who knows how many boosters because it wears off in a matter of months, does not stop people getting Covid, does not stop passing it on and does under-reported damage to some people?

      My doctor has advised me not to have the vaccine gene therapy but if I want to go to my elder son’s wedding in the summer I might have to have it. If the Rastus comments stop appearing on the Nottlers’ forum you will know why!

      1. IMHO your second question is one he is incapable of answering: simply because he doesn’t know the answer. All he knows is that he has been
        told to have everyone jabbed. The people running this show wouldn’t let a clown like Johnson have access to the real data.

      2. IMHO your second question is one he is incapable of answering: simply because he doesn’t know the answer. All he knows is that he has been
        told to have everyone jabbed. The people running this show wouldn’t let a clown like Johnson have access to the real data.

    10. Walpole? You are not!
      Pitt the Younger? You are not!
      Peel? You are not!
      Gladstone? You are not!
      Disraeli? You are not!
      Lloyd George? You are not!
      Churchill? You are not!
      Thatcher? You are not!
      Utterly Clueless Clown? You most certainly are!

      1. Oh, I don’t know. Lloyd George was a thoroughpaced crook and Not Safe In Taxis. In many ways, the model for Alexander Prataturk.

        1. Maybe he was. Maybe a lot of the freebooters were.
          He was, though, still a hugely better PM, in all respects, that the current post-holder.

      2. Elder son was out with his chums a couple of mights ago and the conversation turned to the most famous person any of them had ever met.
        Sonny Boy said “Margaret Thatcher”; the general feeling that he had won game, set and match.

        1. I chatted on the telephone to Lord Snowdon, when I worked at Raleigh Cycles in Nottingham. The MD had promised him a bike and the Earl rang up, very late one evening when everyone had gone home, to chat to him about it. He had to speak to me instead. I also escorted the Duchess of Kent (my all-time favourite Royal) at her opening of a refurbished site at the same company. She thanked me and shook my hand when she left. I have also been personally thanked, in person, by Prince William, at Norwich airport, for “looking after him” on one occasion when he flew in from Edinburgh.

          1. The Duchess of Kent should be a role model for all the younger Royals on how to live their lives in service to others.

    11. Gosh, he is desperate, isn’t he. Last week he invoked Jesus to tell us to get jabbed, this year it’s new year’s resolutions. Is he on piece-work?

      1. Black balls score more in snooker than brown ones, whereas the white one is four points to the opponent.

        3. Unless, of course, the white fouls on a blue, pink or black, then it is five, six, or seven points to the opponent.

  30. Why warmer days in Alaska are not a sign of climate Armageddon. 31 December 2021.

    It’s climate panic again. This time, under headlines such as ‘Baked Alaska’, we are informed that the most northerly US state has experienced ‘absurd’ temperatures for December. ‘In December when temperatures would normally be well below zero,’ states the Independent, the town of Kodiak has registered a temperature of 67 degrees Fahrenheit (19.4 Celsius).

    ‘In late December I would not have thought such a thing possible,’ a climatologist is quoted as saying on CNN. ‘When smashing a temperature record it’s normally by a fraction of a degree,’ tweets the Met Office, ‘not by 20 degrees. But that is what happened in Kodiak, Alaska.’ The subtext, as ever, is that this is yet more evidence of what some newspapers and TV stations have taken to calling ‘climate breakdown’.

    Or maybe not. The temperature recorded at Kodiak on Sunday was unusually high but it is untrue to say that temperatures in this location would normally be well below freezing at this time of year. The town of Kodiak sits on an eponymous island off the southern coast of Alaska under the moderating influence of the Pacific Ocean and its climate is therefore in no way representative of that of the interior of Alaska — most of which indeed is usually frozen in December. In fact it is relatively rare in Kodiak for the temperature not to rise above freezing in December — in December 2020, for example, it happened on only three days.
    That hasn’t changed much over the years, either — in December 1932, right at the beginning of the town’s climate records, it happened on only two days.

    Moreover, Kodiak sits at the northern end of its island just to the north east of a 3,000 foot range of hills and is thus primely placed for a phenomenon known as the Foehn effect. This is when a moist wind drawing warm air from southerly latitudes blows over high ground, shedding its moisture on the way. The air then descends to sea level, warming up as it does so. Because it is now drier, it can reach impressively high temperatures. It is the same phenomenon which often gives towns on the North Wales coast the highest temperatures recorded in Britain in winter.

    On Boxing day, Kodiak was in a strong south westerly airflow, with conditions perfect for the Foehn effect — which is why temperatures suddenly soared by 20 degrees Fahrenheit in the space of half an hour. It was an acute case of microclimate. But to say that it broke records to the tune of 20 degrees Fahrenheit, as the Met Office asserts, is somewhat misleading. That was just the margin by which it beat the record for 26 December. Moreover, 67 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded at a tidal station, out at sea. More relevant was the 65 degrees Fahrenheit recorded at Kodiak Airport, which can be compared with records going back to 1931. The previous highest for December was 56 degrees Fahrenheit on 22 December back in 1984 — which it broke by 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 Celsius), not by 20 degrees.

    But this is just for one location. Alaska is no stranger to wild swings in temperature. In Fairbanks, deep in the interior of Alaska which really is usually below freezing throughout December, the temperature reached 58 degrees Fahrenheit on 5 December 1934. That was far more dramatic in its own way — but happened long before the world became obsessed with climate change. The highest recorded in Fairbanks in the month’s warm spell is 41 degrees Fahrenheit on 26 December.

    None of this means that there isn’t a general upwards trend in temperatures in Alaska — the state is gently warming along with most of the Earth’s surface. But no, this week’s freak temperatures are not a sign of climatic Armageddon.

    More COP26 Myth busting!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-warmer-days-in-alaska-do-not-constitute-climate-armageddon

    3. We even have a microclimate with our garden.
      There is a secluded area leading to the dining room French windows that is sheltered and warmer; we use it for delicate plants that cannot cope with Norf Essex chills.

          1. Er….no.

            There is a disused railway embankment behind and behind that the South Downs. Then in front of me is the Isle of Wight. When a storm hits it misses me.

            Summer temps of 37c in my back garden are not unusual. And i grow grapes.

    2. Received Pronunciation, OLT, as was de rigeur on the BBC – a neutral Oxford accent, no dialect or local accents.

      1. Sung English is notoriously difficult to master adequately.

        Some classical singers insist on singing it like Italians, with just five vowels sounds. This is why so much classical opera is unintelligible to an English audience, and why they prefer to sing in Italian or German. English, however, has around fifty, and each subtlety gives away class, age, region, ethnicity, but above all class. Get one diphthong slightly wrong, and one is lampooned as a Dick Van Dyke Cockney.

        Even Queen’s English has changed radically over the generations – Prince William speaks quite differently to his grandmother (it is much softer and less clipped), although both have “posh” accents compared to the ugly (to my ears) tones of Estuary or South London black gangsta rapspeak.

        Nevertheless, if one wants a neutral accent that is pleasing in most circumstances, one cannot go far wrong adopting that of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

        2. In my yoof, even the Essex rural accent varied enough for me to tell whether the speaker came from the area around Braintree, Halstead or Colchester.
          My late mother-in-law (born 1905) still used the old word ‘clout’ for ‘cloth’. When she mentioned a ‘dish clout’ I was transported back to the classroom and our history teacher explains what Cromwell meant when he described the Spanish empire as “a Colossus stuffed with clouts”.

          3. When our relations were at their most fraught, a birth well into the future would have been a darn good idea.
            Moral of this story: do not marry the only son of an ageing mother.

          5. I once sang this splendidly ethnic Magnificat, written and sung by a native of Dagenham, that could only be done in an Essex accent. “from naah on, orll the whereuld will call me blehst!”. Another from his nativity cycle was “We’re ‘Erods’ ‘eavies; we do ve necesseries…”. I wonder what the Huddersfield Choral Society would make of it.

          6. Still the same up on Northumberland. The differences between Ashington, Rrrrothburry, Bellingham, Wooler & Berwick are VERY noticeable, even to a cloth eared Southerner!

      2. When our boys were little they were very polite and spoke clearly, confidently and without any noticeable regional accent. Some people remarked how posh they were. Do people agree that there is far more inverted snobbery around nowadays than traditional snobbery? In fact I am greatly in favour of regional accents which are often very attractive – but these have been horribly plebified especially when you hear them on television.

        1. I recall many years ago the well-spoken David Gower (remember him?) suddenly torkin’ eschuary – for some reason.

        2. As long as I can understand what is being said I couldn’t give a damn about accents.
          It’s the mumbling and poor diction that drive me to distraction.

        3. Good morning Richard

          Families are very strange , my father had a delightful Yorkshire accent . My mother had a pretty RP voice, my siblings in South Africa are very South African , my own voice is RP.

          My muchly missed late parrot delivered RP words .

          Moh can sound like Peter Sellars holding his nose more often than not , years of talking into a cockpit microphone , that sort of thing . Bit whiney , actually.

          1. I don’t remember if my father had an accent – he died when I was four; my mother didn’t have one although she was an Essex girl; I probably have a slight Glawster one.

        5. When we took our boys camping in the Lake District, they played with children from Birmingham and picked up the accent.
          We kept very quiet, so as not to make the speech pattern something forbidden and exciting. Within a fortnight of returning home, the Brummie whine had gone.

          1. When my Happy parrot died last year , I was offered a rescued African grey.

            OMG, when I was invited to visit the bird , I was horrified, it had an accent , and it had a very rich expletive laden repertoire of words .

            I gave my apologies and declined the offer of the bird , I just couldn’t cope with language like that .

            My late bird was polite and had a brilliant classical repertoire of tunes , Largo New World symphony , bit of Mozart , Beethoven no 6 beginning of the Pastoral, dogs names , sons, me, husband etc, smoke alarm etc etc.

          2. Our late, lamented Oscar inevitably picked up the Eff word.
            We ignored it; like a naughty child he lost interest when he realised it produced no reaction.

          3. I remember a parrot that used to imitate a ringing telephone. The owners got accustomed, but neighbours and people outside were sometimes a bit confused.

          4. Ours used to mimic the microwave and me answering the phone.
            The blasted thing also copied my words when I was running round the house trying to track down MB.
            As himself said “NOW I know what you say behind my back”.
            The bird was lucky to live long enough to drop off the perch.

          5. Ex-husband’s aunt had a budgie – and a little poodle. The budgie did a good impression of the little dog barking at passers by.

        6. I’m fortunate, Richard, having started out in School, to mimic teachers for a laugh, I joined the Royal Air Force as a boy aged 15½ and was billeted in a hut with other boys from Scotland, Wales, NE England, Birmingham and found that I could mimic them as well.

          It probably all kicked of when I was at Primary School in Norfolk, I was ribbed for my “Posh” accent, so I soon learnt to lapse into the local Norfolk dialect. This did have a detrimental effect inasmuch that returning home and asking “yar orl roight” resulted in a clip round the ear and the admonishment “In this house, you’ll speak the King’s English.”

          Nowadays I can understand (and speak a little) Geordie, Brummagem and even the Doric in Aberdeenshire and Banffshire

    3. Morning OlT

      The BBC has adopted a patois of it’s own . None whites are running the show courtesy of all the white elderly TV licence payers.

    4. The writer is not alone. The current announcer on Bbc is obviously effnic with an estuary twang. Gets on my nerves when he drops aitches left right and centre.

          1. He and George Alagiah have ‘bottom’.
            I wonder if the later Romans were saying the same thing about the descendants of the people they had absorbed into their empire?

          3. I think he is still alive, but a few weeks ago there was news that the cancer had returned.
            A very sad case; I can think of many other telly presenters whose absence would be more welcome.

  34. Good morning dear Nottlers

    Mild breezy 13c here this morning , raining and Moh was up early to play golf in the Friday rollup.

    Just wondering if any of you watched BBC1, 8pm last night , fossil hunters unearthing Mammoth bones from a quarry in Somerset , David Attenborough was attending , and how he enjoyed watching experts unearthing huge tusks , jaw bones of bears , bones of large oxen etc . Victims of many mini ice ages and / or hunted to death by primitive man .

    Yep, he discussed all the many mini ice ages and climate change that happened thousands of years ago.

    Funny really.

    Oh, the irony.

    1. It’s the “thousands” that is the important word here – what’s spooking Attenborough is all the changes happening in his lifetime.

      2. 1921 (Annual):
        Lowest PRECIPITATION TOTAL in any calendar year recorded at a station in Margate, Kent: 236 mm [ but note possible gauge error ]. Part of the notable DROUGHT of 1921: one of the longest of the 20th century, lasting for almost a calendar year. In east Kent, barely half of the long-term average fell; however for western Scotland it was an unusually WET year.
        In the EWP series, this was the DRIESTyear in the 20th century, with just 629mm of RAIN. (The driest in the entire series is thought to be 1788 with 614mm — so this is the second driest in this series. However, note that this year was a ‘true’ anomaly in that the rest of the decade had average or above-average PRECIPITATION.)(see also 1714, 2003).
        > The 17 month period August 1920 to December 1921 (which includes the whole of 1921 of course) is regarded as the second-DRIEST (or second ‘most-intense’ DROUGHT) across the ‘English lowlands’ (after that of 1995-1997/q.v.) [Kendon et.al., ‘Weather’/RMetSoc/April 2013]

        1922 (January):
        A SNOWSTORM affected northern parts of Scotland between 3rd and 5th January, then another HEAVY SNOWFALL occurred just over a week later on the 15th January, affecting a much wider area of Britain. WIDESPREAD BLIZZARD conditions (GALES & HEAVY SNOW) in this latter event, again particularly SEVERE in Scotland.
        1922 (Summer):
        A notably COLD summer using the CET series (began 1659). With a value of 13.7degC, it was (as at 2013), one of the 10 or so COLDEST by that measure. July was particularly COLD, being in the top-10 such COLDEST named months.

      3. What’s spooking Sir David’s conscience is that in the past he was able to discreetly mention habitat loss due to population increase in developing countries, but now the left calls the problem ‘climate change’.
        Edit: when Sir David was born the world population was less than two thousand million, now there are close to eight thousand million.

    2. I saw a second or two while warming up the TV set prior to watching something we had recorded. I assumed that they were digging his grave…..

        1. Metaphorically. Most of what we look at is recorded on a “Humax” which does take about 90 seconds to come to life. Can’t for the life of me understand why!

        1. What I didn’t realise about him, until now, was that his full name was Dennys Jack Valentine McDonald-Hobley and that he was born at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands.

          1. Amazing what you learn on this site, Grizzly. (Although I guess you found out that tit-bit from Wikipedia.)

    2. Old McDonald was omnipresent on the telly in the 1950s and early 1960s. He had the most avuncular, comforting presence, not possessed by modern-day presenters.

        1. Do I, Auntie Elsie? I watched that as well as many other superior programmes in that era.

          I also remember many long-forgotten children’s telly gems on the 1950s, including:
          Billy Bean and his Funny Machine.
          All Your Own.

          And the Watch with Mother weekday shows:
          Picture Book (Monday)
          Andy Pandy (Tuesday)
          Bill & Ben (Wednesday)
          Rag, Tag & Bobtail (Thursday)
          The Woodentops (Friday).

          3. I used to refer to our neighbours in the last place as The Woodentops. No prizes for guessing why;-)

          7. I certainly do, Sue Mac, and I remember most of the show’s title song: “Torchy, Torchy the battery boy. He’s a walkie, talkie toy.”

          10. Indeed I do, Mrs Macfarlane (Good morning to you too). I could tell you a funny (and embarrassing for me) story when I was, temporarily, given that name, whilst a young probationary bobby!🤭

      2. As we didn’t have a telly when I was growing up I never had the pleasure……… my mother refused to have a telly at all till the end of her life.

        1. My father refused to have one at home; every time he visited my brother or me, we couldn’t prise him away from the idiot box.

          1. My uncle eventually caved in – and in his later years shouted at it – I especially remember the air was blue when Maastricht was a thing and I was visiting at the time.

      3. Good morning Grizzly

        Did you see this article in the DM yesterday?

        The year was 1980. Margaret Thatcher was in No. 10 and Jimmy Carter was in the White House. The Cold War was bracing and the Iron Curtain frozen shut. The Empire Strikes Back was packing out cinemas.

        On a wet road in West Yorkshire, early in the morning of November 28, a policeman, coming to the end of his night shift, received a report from Todmorden, a small market town in the Calder valley, where people were complaining that a herd of cows had escaped from a field and were wandering around their gardens.

        The officer in question was PC Alan Godfrey, then a 33-year-old married father of two, based at ‘Tod nick’. He set off to take a look. As he turned his Ford Escort panda car into Burnley Road at about 5.15am, he saw what he thought was a broken-down bus, blocking the road. Only, it wasn’t a bus. ‘As I inched closer, driving at a crawl, I saw a diamond-shaped object, about 20ft wide and 14ft high, literally hanging in the air about 5ft off the road.

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10354033/When-PC-Alan-Godfrey-close-encounter-branded-crazy-fallout-cost-job.html

        1. Good morning, Maggie.

          I don’t read the DM so I didn’t see that article. I am aware, however, that the local Theakston’s Old Peculier ale is strong enough to give one hallucinations. 😉

        2. In the article, it said that other strange lights had been seen in the area. I wondered if it was that funny lighting that hovers over trees in a ball, can’t remember anything else about it.

    3. Thank you for that post, True_Belle. How wonderful to see and hear him once again. I recall a Saturday early evening programme he hosted in the late 1950s called “Holiday Town Parade” (for ITV, I think). It was a summer variety show of sorts, which came each week from a different seaside resort. Each week it ended with the chosen town’s brass band marching and playing and, just before they started MacDonald Hobley would always say his parting phrase which – as I near as I can recall – went “Next week we shall be visiting xxxxxx. So don’t be late, tune in at eight, for Holiday Town Parade”.

    4. Thanks for that Belle. It almost brought a tear to my eye! It’s something from another world! One that was at ease with itself! Inconceivable now of course. Today he would be Black, Gay and Female.

          1. Blimey; even the sex museum in Amsterdam doesn’t have a wheelchair with a penis.
            (In actual fact, the museum does what it says on the name above the door, and once you’ve seen one representation in a vitrine, it becomes very monotonous.)

    2. One of the strongest vaccine-pushing lines has been “vaccine side-effects are less than covid side-effects because you get a smaller dose of the spike proteins”.
      It’s good to see research that casts doubt on that line. The vaxx companies really are just making it up as they go along, but my impression had been that more myocarditis was coming from the vaxxes. It wasn’t an issue until they started vaxxing.

  37. Good Moaning.
    Had to rearrange a weekend dinner at Allan Towers as a guest shoved a cotton bud up his nose and tested positive. The guests are a sensible couple, so I suspect it is his employer being a rich, bedwetting company who can afford such luxuries as staff being off with a cold they didn’t know they’d got.
    On a more positive note, the patient from Hull can now move his arm and I have been demoted to merely being the Beast of Belsen.

    1. Glad to hear the patient is recovering……… in other news, next door neighbour now has the lurgy – she must have found a LFT somewhere.

      1. Oldest grand daughter has tested positive, which has put the kibosh on her NYE.
        However, as she is a recovery nurse at Great Ormond Street, there is a reason for her regular testing; just as you would keep away from such vulnerable patients if you had a sniffle or a dry throat.

    4. It must be catching as MH’s small cut has healed and as a result, the whingeing has ceased.

  38. The warden at Brother’s housing unit is going in for an operation. He’s told brother, they’ve met the new person.

    However.

    The new person has asked (entirely sensibly) that she meet me and brother together as well. And has set out ‘a schedule’.

    Now, the old warden is a dapper fellow, but he is consistent – in everything, dress, name badge location, everything – poor fellow has the same trousers, socks and shirt since i met him. Same routine, same times, everything, down to the cloth used to wipe his glasses. This new one seems a lovely lady – a bit matronly but lovely – and hasn’t set those routines. As for turning up to see brother outside of hours… well, that’s never a good idea. It ruins his day entirely.

    Deep breaths folks!

  39. Morning all.
    Think of us on Mud Island I said to and old friend who with his wife is right at this moment is on the way to the Caribbean.
    Think of us when the temperature in the UK gets back to normal (freezing) next week whilst you complain about 35 c in your shaded Dandenong garden Bruce.

    1. Watch they don’t go down with the lurgy then! People on the Diamond Princess nearly two years ago were safer then than the massed jabbed are now.

      1. He’s ex Met, London disguised Plod.
        They’ll know to keep away from any docks and flash in the pan tourists.

    2. I know the Dandenong well, having lived just South of it for a year, in The Basin, a suburb of Melbourne for those that don’t know, and it’s not part of the lavatory.

      1. I remember you mentioning it previously Tom, they are moving to Monbulk ASP, buying a plot and building from scratch.
        They have a 3 way share in a wonderful property on the beach at Phillip island that’s going on the market soon as well.
        I was hoping to win the lottery here so i could buy it.
        Last night on BBC 4 they had a prog about Oz and they featured a beach at Philip Island where the Little penguins come ashore each night. We did that just over 6 years ago they didn’t mention the pong though.
        I loved Philip island my kind of paradise. The road is called Silver Leaves, Golf course within walking distance of the property offers around 2 mill dollars.

  40. I smell bullshit.
    More likely ordered too many doses in expectation of jabbing everyone in the UK. The number of the now, “unvaccinated”, by the definition that the unboosted are no longer accepted as “vaccinated”, added to the non-vaccinated must be creating a sizeable total. Little wonder the desperation from Johnson & Co evident in their constant, “get boosted,” cry. It’s replaced, “Build Back Better,” as their rallying call.

    https://twitter.com/BareReality/status/1476676883852972035

    1. They are probably nearing their use-by date like the ones that went to Nigeria and were ditched there.

      1. 343346+ up ticks,

        Afternoon C,

        Could he be type selective, have you tried cross dressing, the merest hint of make up ?

        1. I think it’s more that he’s a rescue dog and didn’t get any affection before I took him on 🙂 He really hasn’t got a clue what it means! At least he doesn’t try to bite me – that’s progress 🙂

  43. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/cruise-ships-exposed-covid-fearmongering-deception-2020-and-expose-vaccine-efficacy

    Back in March of 2020, when the coronavirus fearmongering from politicians and big money media was taking off, an
    outbreak of coronavirus and several deaths on the Diamond Princess
    cruise ship was among the examples used to stir up dread of coronavirus
    among the American populace.

    However, people who looked
    critically at the Diamond Princess situation realized that it suggested
    coronavirus did not pose an especially great threat.

    1. Absolutely. In spite of being confined on a ship with plague-ridden fellow passengers, the ‘deadly’ disease did not infect a majority of passengers or crew. Suggests many people have a natural immunity.

      1. I’m still pretty confident I had the bug in January 2020. I think it was widespread here that winter before all the hype we’ve seen since.

    1. We used to stay in a Quinta that overlooked the harbour. I loved it; it was like an English country house with much prettier tiling.

          1. He adds to the flavour, same as when they used to add a chunk of beef to the cider barrels in the west country.

          2. Acksherly, it is a myth about the drowning. More likely that he was given enough plonk to drink himself either to death or into a comatose state; if the latter, he was then probably smothered.
            His daughter, Margaret Countess of Salisbury, always wore a cork from a Malmsey butt around her wrist in memory of her father.

          6. Indeed it is. She refused to submit saying she had done nothing wrong…but in the Tudor era simply being a Plantagenet was crime enough!

          7. Thankfully I don’t live in the Tudor era, I’m descended from quite a long line of Plantagenets – Henry III through to Lionel of Antwerp.

          8. I identify as a Plantagenet and would certainly have been in peril in Tudor times. My ancestors were fairly humble folk so I might have been OK.

        2. We went round the Blandy’s distillery. MB described it as like walking into a Christmas pudding; the scent had seeped into the very fabric of the building.

  45. A comment on a piece in the Mail:
    Back in the spring, the gov was advertising for a communications tsar: “You will primarily be responsible for delivering a communications strategy to support the EXPANSION OF ASYMPTOMATIC TESTING, that NORMALISES TESTING AS PART OF EVERYDAY LIFE.” Read that again. They want the New Normal to involve daily testing for all. This is insane. There are multiple, nefarious agendas behind this, and none of them are for our benefit.’

    2. Scots wa hae? Scotland the Brave?
      And for those coming in from Wales…Men of Harlech, Land of my Fathers…

    4. I do own a kilt and a couple of sporrans, but somehow I can’t see myself getting into the kit for tonight.

    1. I suspect many have been flogging them at extortionate rates on Ebay. But of course , we must all test frequently, symptoms or not, otherwise we are a selfish threat to all the ‘sensible’ people.

  49. Bungling police officers smash car window to rescue baby left on its own in a booster seat while its parents are out shopping – without realising it is a £60 ‘realistic’ doll
    Cleveland Police said that they would pay £264 to repair Amy McQuillen’s Nissan
    Amy McQuillen from Thornaby, Teesside, and daughter Darci left doll in the car
    They propped it up in booster seat in the back and had left it there for 15 minutes
    They returned to find two officers next to the smashed window along with crowd

    The 36-year-old from Thornaby, Teesside, and her ten-year-old had left the figurine in the vehicle after the youngster had enough of carrying it around shops.

    They propped the ‘reborn doll’ up in a booster seat in the back of the car and left it there for 15 minutes.

    But they returned to find two officers next to the smashed window along with a large crowd.

    The mother claimed police said they were probing a report of child neglect when they broke into the car.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10358077/Bungling-police-officers-smash-car-window-rescue-baby-without-realising-60-doll.html

    I don’t want to appear judgemental , but , well it is an odd story .

    I certainly didn’t play with dolls when I was ten years old !

    1. That first paragraph reads like the script from an episode of Line of Duty, where such a scenario took place.

    3. Ah, Belle! It’s Thornaby! Where I met my old man many moons ago. I was assistant manager in the Golden Eagle (nicknamed Golden Budgie by the inmates!) in Thornaby, and Alan complained! And, reader, I married him!

    4. Maybe Darci is retarded – or possibly the doll is a must-have Christmas present status symbol (like those creepy cabbage patch dolls some years ago).

    2. How long before she commits suicide?

      What we don’t know about this case is probably far more grubbly than what we do know and there must be a great number of passengers on the Lolita Express who will be happier and feel more comfortable when she has done so.

      Why are so few Americans named and shamed? Why just the two British people: Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell?

      1. I refer you to a comment I made a day or so ago. She will be found dead in her cell and the body will be removed. The guards will be asleep and the security cameras will malfunction. Ghislaine will be spirited away to join the awful Epstein, who I am sure is still live. It will be another phony “suicide” and they will be promised lifetime safety if they keep their traps shut.
        Just another so called news story which I do not believe one word of.

      2. When they removed a (his) body from the cell a few years ago, it didn’t have much resemblance to him at all. But I honestly think it was very strange that it was allowed to be seen on TV at all as the face covering conveniently fell away. I would say he’s hiding away some where, he was far too wealthy and influential to have killed himself in a police cell and if so what with ?
        She’ll be in jail for about six months and never be heard of again as she also disappears.

  54. Back to the weather again .. overcast here , windy showery and 15c . Warm .

    Have a look at this

    1752-1840’s According to Lamb, this period (though with a ‘lull’ from 1783-1802) was “extraordinary for the frequency of explosive volcanic eruptions, which maintained dust veils high in the atmosphere & may have contributed (perhaps significantly) to the reversal of what otherwise would have been a noted climatic recovery from the late 1600’s onwards. Some of the more notable events were:
    (a): 1783 – Iceland, Japan.
    (b): 1812 – St. Vincent, West Indies & Awu, Celebes.
    (c): 1814 – Philippines.
    (d): 1815 – Tambora, East Indies. (Lamb/CHMW) Optical effects recorded by observers of the time, along with some famous ‘sunsets’ in paintings by such as Turner.
    [ see details against the particular years – where available. ]

    https://premium.weatherweb.net/weather-in-history-1750-to-1799-ad/

      1. To the committed warmists, it wouldn’t matter if it were. For them, the Little Ice Age was caused by volcanoes.

        1. I presume you’re aware of the theory of low sunspot activity coinciding with an increase in volcanic activity?

          1. I vaguely remember reading something on the subject that was considered rather fanciful. I definitely remember reading of warmists attributing the cooling to decades of fierce volcanic activity and dismissing the influence of the sun.

  56. Medical science says that having sex on a regular basis helps keep your
    memory intact. I’d like to wish everyone on Nottle a happy and
    prosperous 2013.

    2. I sailed to Funchal in 1984 en route for the Caribbean. We anchored outside the port and it was a bit choppy so we were happy to go into the harbour and lash alongside other boats as there were no marina berths or facilities at the time. We also spent a few days in Port Santo to the North East of Madeira Island and I went swimming off Islas Desertas and found a seal was swimming alongside us!

      1. Poor chap was probably looking for a place to land and sunbathe, and couldn’t find a way up the cliffs. Apparently the only life on the island there is rat on rat and some venomous spiders.

        1. There was a team of academics from Oxford University camping on the island while they did some scientific research because it was very rare to see seals of this particular species in the Madeira Islands.

  60. Hi NoTTlers…computer …aarrghhh

    Playing with my spare computer Systems Restore has been running for three hours..
    Should I turn it off or wait…..?

    Any advice welcome…thanks.

    1. It can take a very long time. Leave it overnight, if it’s still stuck in the morning, give up, reformat the drive and install a new copy of the OS. operating system.

  63. PEDDY

    Just to say – I called over to see his Peddy late this morning. He is fine, no problem except that his wi-fi is down and his phone is on the blink. He had an uneventful Christmas which turned out to be nice as well. He is ok, and will be back with us when he can.

    1. Oh Thank god. Thanks Poppiesmum, you have put my mind at rest and several others I bet. Thanks again! Happy New Year to you and yours.

      1. Thank you Lotl. I have just replied to Ndovu in more detail if you want to take a look. I am just pleased I am able to put people’s minds at rest on the last day of 2021. Happy New Year to you and your too.

      1. Yes, he was a little surprised… it is always difficult when you see someone out of context, especially when you don’t even ‘see’ them but just read them. I did have his email address, we have corresponded briefly in the past on a couple of occasions so I wasn’t a completely unknown quantity but I didn’t have his home address so I hope I haven’t got ‘someone’ into trouble on here as he wondered how I knew where to come! I was so relieved when he came to the door, I could feel my eyes welling up; I was preparing myself for the worst on the journey over. I had also prepared a letter for each of his neighbours on either side in case the door wasn’t answered (and in case his neighbours were out) for them to contact me. In the end, all’s well that ends well.

        1. Thanks again. Peddy and I also email from time to time but this is the longest gap we’ve had. So relieved he is OK. You’re today’s star!

        2. Top Brownie points for initiative and thoughtfulness.
          Well done PM.

          None of us know , but we all act on good instinct .

          That is exactly how I found 86 year old elderly friend a few years ago, unheated home , confused and down with pneumonia .

        3. If he’s on the electoral register (even if he’s opted out in the most recent years) it’s possible to find someone on there if you know they haven’t moved lately.

    5. Whew!
      Was getting a bit concerned there.
      Thanks for going round and finding out, PM!
      Big hug for New Year!

    11. Please pass on good wishes and Happy New Year to Peddy, and thank you for being so thoughtful!
      Beat wishes to you and have a great time!

      1. Thank you, Sue.

        It was the least I could do, I was just so relieved he was ok, especially after Missy had travelled to that Rainbow Bridge. Our furry life companions mean so much.

    12. Bloody well done, Mum.

      Good to know the old pedant is OK and plans to return as soon as he can put a shilling in the meter.

  65. I promise I am not making this us:

    “Are we on the brink of OVER-vaccinating in the fight against Covid? Experts warn dishing out fourth jabs in spring may be unnecessary – and Omicron may be world’s ‘natural’ vaccine that finally ends pandemic”

    Over-vaccinating, eh? Who would ever have thought it…?

    Going for a walk now.

      1. What a lovely video. There is something wonderful about animals just being themselves.

        The roller blades would be too much for me – but when it is drier, I’ll be back on my bike!

          1. Our previous cat, Mousie – 17 yrs and still going strong – has half inch tufts on her ears. A local cat expert told us it was a sign that she came from a line of wild cats.

        3. No, it’s a bit weird. Same on east US coast; even in CT it’s so mild my mate there is wearing a tee shirt and in GA they had all the doors and windows open while they were cooking.
          I have experienced both. A warm Xmas in CT where everyone went out and washed their cars and a boiling day in NC. I’d bought a bright red sparkly sweater to wear on 25th but it was so warm I wore a tee shirt. It snowed two weeks later!

    4. Caroline read the same story in the French papers (France Soir) today that Israel has decided to not go ahead with the fourth shot as it is likely to do more harm than good. If you ask me the politicians have conspired together internationally to ruin our lives as much as they can.

      Will there ever be a politician with the honesty to admit that the vaccination policy has been a dud?

      2. I asked my oncologist yesterday about a fourth does and he replied cryptically: “Wait and see if we need it”.

    5. Non-vaccinated of N Essex ponders: who are these experts finally being listened to?

      One expert, Dr Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA process, was kicked off of Twitter only yesterday. His crime was to not follow the narrative.

      A cynic may opine that maybe the dead and dying would start piling up too quickly to be explained away after a fourth jab.

    1. An elderly uncle worked as a steward on cruise ships and he went all over the world. After a visit to Oz he came to see us and gave me a beautiful toy Koala which, when you wound it up, played Waltzing Matilda. It was truly lovely and I cherished it.
      When my son was born, I passed it on to him and he loved it too. When we emigrated to the US we were allowed 800 lbs of air freight and the rest went by sea. All my son’s clobber went by air and was duly delivered to our first residence.
      The bastards in the US customs had slit along two paws of the koala, presumably thinking it was full of drugs. It was stuffed with sawdust stuff as I then found out. The stuff constantly leaked and the bear was ruined. To say I was angry is an understatement.
      I found out later that they always search children’s backpacks and cases because they assume that’s where people will hide illicit things.

      1. Next door neighbour went to Peru some years ago and bought some hand-made dolls for her grandaughters.

        She flew via Los Angeles and was upset to find her cases had been searched and one of the dolls was missing. I think they open everything – definitely not safe to put stuff in the hold that you value.

      2. I bought a stuffed koala toy when I went to Oz. Fortunately, it arrived home safely with me and I still have it.

        1. Lucky you. This was realistic, from across the room you would swear it was the real thing. And the fur was so soft.

          4. As is possum fur.
            I used to hand feed a possum that had taken up residence in a rented house and it eventually became tame/bold enough to beg and sit on my lap to be stroked.

          5. I had a pair of possum and merino gloves once – until Charlie decided that they would taste good 🙁

  67. I have just been reading comments in the DT letters about the latest kiddie murders in London.

    In another world but also involving mainly black victims, Washington State has been suffering a lot with drive by shootings this year. Their solution is to reduce penalties for drive by shooting because (as always) the law penalizes the mainly black criminals

    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/12/29/washington-state-democrats-want-decreased-penalties-for-drive-by-shooters-because-aw-you-guessed-n1545145

    Do you think this approach will work in london?

    2. Zero tolerance (together with being colour blind as to the perpetrators) is the only policy that actually works.

      1. Giuliani seemed to follow that mantra in New York when he as mayor, it worked – but why learn from others experiences..

    1. Perhaps he isn’t aware that it is still around, mainly in Muslim countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan for example.

    2. Left to its own, smallpox would eventually achieve herd immunity, but it would wipe out a fair percentage of the population, hence the need for vaccines.

    3. Left to its own, smallpox would eventually achieve herd immunity, but it would wipe out a fair percentage of the population, hence the need for vaccines.

    1. It’s far more important to declare a state of emergency because of a ‘flu or cold virus doing the rounds. Knife crime? Machete wielding gangs? So unimportant. What a bleedin’ arse that person is.

    3. I wonder how many of those victims would have grown up to be killers, drug barons, robbers and rapists themselves.

      When BLM and their ilk and the white apologists for the behaviour are telling blacks that everything is down to racism and white people and that white men’s laws don’t really apply to them then this is going to increase. Until BLM start telling them that it’s they who have to sort themselves out and the politicians and police start cracking down very, very hard on knife crime, it will carry on.

      1. Stop & search was quite effective in preventing these things by taking knives and the wielders off the streets, but it had to be stopped itself because, shock! Horror!, those being stopped and arrested were the blacks who are committing the crimes.
        So, if you aren’t allowed to do anything but wring your hands, then young kids will keep on being killed. Simple as.

        1. The perlice are so anti motorists as well and they predominately stop Whitey.

          AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH you say, but as most drivers are white by population %, so they are more likely to do naughties when driving

          As most knife crimers are b,a,m,es, using the same logic, why cannot we Stop and Search the most likelies

    4. Mayor Khan! Bring back the GLC,London was a better,happier and safer place in those days..
      This is only the third mayor London has had.Just rid ourselves of this Scam,now…..

        2. Dick Whittington was the Lord Mayor of the City of London….a different entity.
          The Mayor of London is the rotten Ken Livingstones revenge on Real Londoners.

          1. My dad used to take my brother and me up to the Lord Mayor’s Procession every year. It was a treat.

          2. My mum used to wheel me down, in a pushchair, to Ludgate Hill to watch. Probably 1949/50. It was on a Wednesday in those days.

          3. I suspect that when we went it was on a Saturday but can’t really remember. My mother worked for the Corporation of London post war and once went to a bun fight at the Mansion House.

          6. I spent the first 19 years of my life in the flat I was born in, 2 years in another flat 100 yards away before vw and I married.

          7. My cousin lived in Cupar.Unfortunately he’s passed away…
            When I moved I lost my address book I found out through the local
            paper.I had many happy times in Scotland and won’t here a bad
            word said about Scotland or the Scots.

  72. Afternoon, all. Britain cannot afford to keep up the scandemic. We need to stop testing and start living! Happy New Year, by the way.

    1. Conway, I echo your thoughts! Do you think the shortage of test kits is a deliberate ploy to slow up the testing, which proves absolutely nothing?

        1. N-d-n must have found one somewhere as she tested positive yesterday and hadn’t any last weekend so she went out and spread it.

      2. Because I am a cynical ole ratbag I think it is a deliberate ploy to encourage people to go out, those who may have been encouraged to stay in should they get a positive test on NYE, and the build-up to NYE. Johnson needs everyone out, celebrating, to spread the infection far and wide. He needs an emergency because: the Coronavirus Act is coming up for renewal in March 2022, it has outlived its almost-automatic renewals. He needs to get it through the Houses of Parliament which won’t happen without an emergency at this stage (the back-benchers are becoming rebellious). To achieve this, Johnson needs everyone untested pouring over the borders into England’s pubs n’ clubs. Thus the Welsh Misery and the Wee Krankie appear to be in cahoots by shutting down their nation’s pubs n’ clubs.

        2. Nikeliar and Drakesarse are just thick-headed, joyless, humourless Marxists! They hate everything Boris does and go out of their way to do the opposite. I hope they get every bit of sh*t that gets hurled in their direction, but given their brainwashed, sheeple cult, I may be disappointed. They are English-hating basturds!

    2. I could not agree more, Conwy. No test = no problems.

      Enjoy your réveillon. I hope Oscar takes pleasure in it, too.

      1. Merci, Guillaume. Oscar is flat out, snoring his head off (no doubt gathering strength for welcoming in the New Year with an impressive display of barking). His favourite watering hole is closed until 4.1.22 so we had to go to a pub today to have a coffee. He was not impressed – no flapjack and he’s not allowed any mince pie.

        1. G & P are at present asleep – having, between them, polished off six mice. They leave the guts on the mat in the porch. SUCH fun at break of day when going to pick up the paper!

          1. They are your presents for giving them house room (and also proof of what mighty hunters they are, so deserving of your praise) 🙂

          2. Up to a point, Lord Copper! We have realised over the last 12 months that they are really feral cats who are prepared to share their lives with us – so long as there is a tin opener, a few comfy chairs and some warmth when it is very cold outside. They are NOT lap cats – rather to our disappointment. They will not sit on ones lap unless firmly held – and one can sense them just waiting for the moment when they can leap off!

            They spend a lot of time in the porch (which is closed off from the house. There is a hole in the wall, as Pickles refuses to use the cat flat now permanently opened. Indeed, they often choose to sit, lie and sleep in the porch when a nice warm house is on offer.

            Their ways are now set, I think. Just watching them gives much pleasure, as you will know.

          3. Their development reminds me of our thug cat. They are still young, only just into adulthood, they are fledgling adults. Our thug cat, who went by the beguiling name of Sooty, became more affectionate as he got older (several years older); he decided that a softer lifestyle wasn’t all that bad. In his youth we would see him hold down next door’s cat, paw on his chest, trying to strip Norman of his fur. Then he would saunter into our house with an ‘aren’t I the man, then’ swagger with ginger (sorry) hairs protruding from his mouth.

  74. Has been mild , but a big but , windchill factor and misty weather was rather off putting when giving the dogs a run on the heath.

    Loads of lycra shorts and racing bikes out and about , and sturdy striding types of all sexes .

    Got home , unloaded dogs and a bit of shopping and some birdfood, Moh back from golf, cup of tea slice of cake . Son had to move my car , and bang … graunch … spring went in the front left . Drat and double drat .

    So the car has now trapped the front two cars which are side by side in the driveway.

  76. Just done a guilt trip – I texted N-d – n this morning but didn’t pick up her reply – she’d asked me to get her some bread, milk, etc – so I walked down to the shop – nearly dark when I got back. Anyway, although her chap was there and has recovered from the OMG bug, she was grateful for the supplies.

  77. Off topic
    HG is punishing herself watching the year of Top of the Pops New Year special.
    Good grief…
    I’ve heard more melodious lavatory cistern fillings than some of the “musick” on offer.

    2. Happy New Year to you Plum. I will cross my fingers that you find the perfect canine buddy in the new year. Have a good one X

    3. All good wishes to you, Plum. Thank you for all your funnies and have a good New Year! May you find your canine partner in crime!

      2. Along with ‘Keep the home fires burning’. My aunt used to play all these WW1 songs on the piano, and family had to sing along. It’s what we did. Can you imagine today’s generation…? Happy New Year, Sue, to you and yours.

  83. Yesterday, there were some photographs in The Grimes showing “climate change” causing “devastating flooding” in England. One of them pictured Cambridgeshire “under water”. A gentle reproof appeared today in a letter:

    “Sir, The photograph used to illustrate flooding in Cambridgeshire (news, Dec 30) shows a system of water management started in the 17th century, working as well now as then. Excess water is held between the Old and New Bedford Cuts in the Hundred Foot Washes, until tidal conditions allow the sluices at Denver to open and release it.

    When it freezes the area is able to hold ice skating. The flow in the New Cut also allowed us to continue training for the Boat Race during the 1960s, when the River Ouse at Ely had frozen. A quite amazing yet so simple feat of water engineering.

    Dr David Earl”

    One weeps for the ever lowering standards of journalism…

    1. MSM blindingly follows the mantra of ‘never let the truth get in the way of a good piece of agenda-driven lying.’

    2. It seems our council has rejected plans for the 2,000 acre tweely, cuddly named ‘Mallard Pass’ solar farm near to us. Only a matter of time before the appeal to government is waved through in the name of net-zero.
      Much as knowing any energy produced might be used locally might soften the blow of having such an obtrusive, unsightly and destructive eco-loon development on one’s doorstep, I would still not be in agreement. So much high quality, productive farmland would be destroyed. Have the eco-green-zealots not considered the extra ‘carbon footprint’ would be created in importing all the extra food? (I don’t hold with the ‘carbon footprint’ nonsense but the greenie-crazed, net-zero idiots preach all about it.

      1. I pass one such on the way to the stables; it got approval on the grounds that it would be supplying electricity to the local town. Not that such supply has been in any way discernable.

        1. There’s one just outside Cirencester as well – and another one on the A38. No idea where the power goes from them.

      2. Instead the green energy will be channelled 120 miles to London’s Square Mile where it will power office buildings such as the Gherkin and the Guildhall.

        Last year the City of London Corporation, which runs the capital’s financial district, signed a £400m contract with French energy firm Voltalia.

        The authority agreed to fund the construction of the solar panels in Dorset in return for all the electricity they produce.

        Dorset Council gave the project the go-ahead and construction is now well underway.

        But the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), an environmental pressure group, has taken a stand against the work.

        Brexit has proved to be an utter Dodo

        1. So not only will electricity generated by the Dorset blot be sent to London, profits will be taken by the Frogs.

      3. Why do us peasants suffer from the delusion that we deserve to eat food ? In the minds of the M25 overlords, rustics have only one virtue, that their hovels can be seized for modernisation and their corpses can be composted for use as organic fertiliser. OK, that’s 2 virtues.

      4. Why do us peasants suffer from the delusion that we deserve to eat food ? In the minds of the M25 overlords, rustics have only one virtue, that their hovels can be seized for modernisation and their corpses can be composted for use as organic fertiliser. OK, that’s 2 virtues.

    3. I used to go through Spetisbury, turn right and travel on to Studland towing the dinghy for a days sailing many a time. Why do they want to spoil such a lovely part of the area with all those solar panels, fit them on government building roofs, shopping centres, hospitals etc, anywhere already built, not bloody farmland.

      1. I know , I know , it is all too much .. they have built them here as well .

        I am sure the heat bounces off them and makes everthing evenhotter , you know , similar to a hot sandy beach .

  85. That is me for this year. Time for a glass of suitable medicine.

    I hope you all have a splendid evening celebrating the END of probably the worse year I can remember. Greet the new year for me – I’ll be fast asleep!

    With luck, I will see you all

    A demain.

    1. Sending very good wishes to you, the MR and your glorious cats! Have a wonderful New Year, sent in the knowledge that it’s got to better than the one we have just endured!

          3. “Peel’s vue halloo would awaken the dead and the fox from his lair in the morning.”

          5. Bob, I love the Sea Songs by Charles Villiers-Stanford. Peter Dawson’s version of Drake’s Drum is very good but, to my mind, there are newer somewhat better versions. However, I do love that song.

  87. Breaking News: Tova Noel and Michael Thomas will be made to guard Ghislane Maxwell as part of their 100 hours community service punishment for failing to stop Jeffrey Epstein being murdered.

    1. Ghislaine Maxwell is safe enough at present. She has undertaken never to release the names of royals and senior politicians listed in the infamous Little Black Book.

      Of course, as with Obama’s Birth Certificate (born in Mombasa) copies have circulated on the web already. There really is no hiding place nowadays.

  88. Wishing you all a happy new year, thank goodness 2021 is coming to the end and 2022 is not a leap year, only 365 days to have a booster.
    My saying to the gullible for next year “Have A Booster With Boris, Why Don’t You”
    🤧😷

    1. A very happy new year to you VVOF and to your lady wife also. I cannot wait for this year to be over! And not just because of covid.

        1. We have had one hell of a year and covid was only a part of it. I really think the worm is turning and people will not put up with this BS any longer.
          Take note Boris- we, the people- have had enough.

          1. Boris Johnson has been completely rumbled.

            Nobody believes in his pronouncements on Covid and everybody knows that Brexit has been completely bungled.

            If he wants to regain any credibility he must scrap the NI Protocol. remove the pernicious presence of the ECJ in our affairs and unbetray our fishermen!

          2. He was rumbled by Nottlers first I suspect.
            There is so much he could do to regain any credibility but he won’t, his paymasters will not allow him.
            Happy New Year to you both.

          3. He was rumbled by Nottlers first I suspect.
            There is so much he could do to regain any credibility but he won’t, his paymasters will not allow him.
            Happy New Year to you both.

          5. Happy New Year to you and Caroline and I pray that we will have better fortune in 2022.

            The past two years have been dire but thankfully I still have pension income and savings to compensate for the destruction of my normal workload.

            I worry that Johnson will exit Stage Left only to be replaced by that viper Gove. Gove is a super globalist and will have us back in the EU in no time and carrying EU vaccine passports.

          6. Ours started with a midnight dash to A&E on 2nd January……… I have to say OH has had very good care from the GP surgery, four hospitals, three consultants, two scans, two lots of surgery………… he’s well and raring to get back to playing sports again after the Christmas break.

            Covid has been the least of it – but the lockdowns last winter were dire.

      2. Thank you, what with Mrs VVOF’s health issues which fortunately looks like they have been overcome, next year can only be better, especially if we have a change of leader and direction.
        I wish you and yours all the best for 2022.

  89. Neighbours seem to have started celebrating the New Year early! I can hear the El Alamein barrage limbering up in the distance. Thank goodness Oscar isn’t bothered.

    2. We’re starting to get bangs & booms from outside now.
      Our wee display, LOTS of powder, saved for 24:00.

    4. Happy New Year Conway.

      No fireworks here just yet thank God. Living under straw thatch is a nervous existence at this time of year. I blame the Chinese who make the damn incendiaries.

      1. Happy New Year, corim. I feel for you and fireworks given your thatched roof. They are the work of the Devil in my view. I have found rockets buried inches deep in my garden before now. I dread to think of the damage they would have caused if they’d landed on my dog when he was out for a late-night wee. Those and Chinese lanterns cause havoc with livestock.

        1. We have pub smells here – Firstborn is brewing an ale, to be fermented then stilled to a homemade whisk(e)y in 2022. Smells all warm and malty! Quite nostalgic, so it is.

          2. Oh no they’re not. One pair on me face and the others on my desk beside me- so there 😉

      1. On frequent business trips to London from Scotland in the ‘Seventies and ‘Eighties, I would pop in to F&M to buy cheese …

  93. Goodnight one and all. Happy New Year, and may it be happy and healthy for all of us with hope of fewer pointless restrictions. Cheers!

  94. Happy New Year all!

    I still feel crap but I’ve got a heap of medication and I’m told it might take a week! Someone downvoted me last night so I won’t bore you any further.

    Have a great evening!

    1. Blobby fingers, Sue! Hope you feel a lot better soon and take care. Happy New Year, when it comes (as they say up here!) and bless you.

    5. Happy New Year Sue. I expect the downvote was accidental. I frown at downvoters (now thankfully rare on this forum).

      Like you I am taking medication but for chronic sinus disease and what feels like COPD. I sleep at night seated in my wingback armchair otherwise if lying horizontally I sound like the Iron Lung.

      Illness always visits me at this time of year. We all have to hope for better in 2022.

      I truly hope that more are awakening to the evil enterprise of the Johnson government and of other ‘world leaders’ with their wicked ‘Build Back Better’ mantra. Better for whom we might ask?

      1. Well, certainly not Better for Us, corimm. More likely better for them. It has always been ever thus. Nevertheless, Happy New Year – we can live in hope.

          1. There are more all the time joining the ranks of the vaccine-free. We will grow and grow in number.

    6. Happy new year, Sue, and get well soon. I strongly suspect that John’s downvote was in error. Tablets plus fast fingers are always risky. Take it easy, and compliments of the season… :-))

    7. Your downvote was probably an error, it is so easy to accidentally downvote. Oh, I hope it wasn’t me….

  95. Happy New Year everyone, I wish you all well and good health.
    Me and the cat are now off to bed to watch a couple of episodes of my boxed set of Bergerac – a demain

      1. Optimist! We just had a toast for the new year, and the hope that it might not be as bad as we fear!
        and yes our glasses were half empty!!

        1. Ha! If we have no hope, we have nothing. It is the last thing in that box! Let’s go forward and be as stubborn as we can! Happy New Year, bb2!

    3. Good evening, Alec. I trust that you have set your alarm clock for 11.55 pm so that you can pour yourself a wee dram at midnight to see in the New Year. And then pester the neighbours by visiting them with a lump of coal.

      Lol.

    4. Good evening, Alec. I trust that you have set your alarm clock for 11.55 pm so that you can pour yourself a wee dram at midnight to see in the New Year. And then pester the neighbours by visiting them with a lump of coal.

      Lol.

  96. My sincere thanks to poppiesmum for driving to Peddy’s to check up on him. I am so pleased to hear the good news that he is well, and that the only “problem” was that his wi-fi is down. It reminds me of all of our NoTTLers’ concerns about Anne Allan’s sudden “disappearance” some years ago when I drove to her house to discover that she had accidentally spilled coffee into her iMac and it had been taken away for repair. All of this shows us that we NoTTLers care about our own.

      1. This site is quite bizarre – we veer from deep historical discussions and political rants to silly cartoons and a wide range of music – but …. IT WORKS.
        Long may it continue.

        1. Very English – not taking things too seriously!
          (Other irreverent nationalities are available, and welcome!)

    2. And thanks to you Elsie for guiding the investigation. I know we are all relieved that Peddy is OK and will be back soon. What a time of the year to lose internet etc.

    1. Sorry, blackbox2, but I don’t know who Betty White is. Was she one of “our” fellow NoTTLers?

        1. The script was wonderful, but the ‘girls’ were so together! It was/is an absolute joy to watch!

      1. Geoff

        You deserve a medal and more for giving people like us the ability to challenge the ludicrous vanity of all political parties including the opposition and the government in power.

        Thank you so much for allowing us a voice against the repressive press and general media .

        You have had a lousy frustrating few years healthwise , but have been strong enough not to have allowed life to have flattened you , and if that is not true, we know that you have kept many problems hidden .

        As we approach the dying hours of the old year, I am certain the collective strength of this amazing group will buoy us all up if and when times become challenging again.

        Sorry I have waffled on , consider yourself hugged with loads of New Year wishes for 2022.

        2. Mags. I created a monster, but this remains a great place. Health wise, all is well. The amp. thing was a good decision. It has helped enormously in terms of quality of life. I’m unlikely to run again (but I rarely did before). Organ pedals are mostly out of reach, which saddens me, a bit. But I can work around it. It was more worrying when two fingers of the right hand became completely numb, almost certainly as a result of the AZ vaccine. Hand is almost back to normal. I have nerve conduction studies on 4/1/22.

          So, all is well. My best wishes to you and yours, for the New Year and beyond…

          1. No, Geoff. You did not create a monster….far from it. It is a place for some of us in foreign parts to feel the pulse as it were, of people and places we used to know well. Thanks so much for keeping it going, cheers, both Jack and I will drink a toast to all Nottlers later on

          6. For me it is a zone of sanity and brings me back to earth when my imagination takes off and scares me stiff, which it does frequently, these days. I appreciate this site more than I can say. Happy New Year, Geoff, and thank you, and to everyone who contributes on this site, and to those who lurk (we know who you are, GCHQ will be on to you….); come out into the open and give us the benefit of your life experiences and wisdom. May 2022 bring resolution.

          7. This forum keeps me going – and everyone who keeps it a lively place. HNY – it’s got to be a better one for all of us.

  98. I’m just off for a stroll up the hill to my hostelry. There’s a band on who are local and good, not sure how long I’ll stay though. Just a question of whether I feel like getting into a cheerful mood.
    Anyway, Happy New Year to one and all. Gawd (any god will do) bless us, every one.

    2. Have a good time Mola and have a pint of Guinness for MH. If you don’t return to this page, a very happy new year to you and your family. X

  99. One of my New Year Resolutions is to clear out a lot of stuff I no longer want or need. At the back of a shelf in the workshop/shack, I found a complete set of Bbc tapes of the Navy Lark! I also discovered in a box – albeit, not the original box – a tape/CD player. When I get it up and running, I’m in for a few laughs in the New Year. I’m filling up the space left with books 🙂

    1. Me too, Conners. I got rid of a great deal of stuff last year, in the process of moving from a 3-bed detached house to a 1-bed retirement bungalow. But there’ still a lot to get rid of. It prolly (©BT) doesn’t help that I’m accommodating the Parish Photocopier, and a full-size church organ console. But I did manage to squeeze a Christmas Tree in this year, even if I have to sleep in the garden…

      1. I managed a Christmas tree in all the downstairs rooms bar the cloakroom and kitchen 🙂 Next year, I’m planning one for the hall and one either side of the front door 🙂

        1. Went and bought a Christmas tree from the nursery.
          The man who sold it to me asked “Are you going to out it up yourself?”
          “No”, I replied, “in the sitting room!”

        2. All my rooms are downstairs nowadays. I worked out that I could fit a tree in, if I moved the telly onto the wall. If I put one in the Hall, I’d have to use the back door. What’s a cloakroom? :-))

    2. I loved the Navy Lark…somewhere in the depths of the basement, I have tapes of I’m Sorry I’ll read that again, treasures of real humour!!

        1. ISIRTA (and Round The Horne) were rebroadcast on BFBS radio in the late 70s so I grabbed as many tapes as I could. I’ve since downloaded most, if not all of them, from Torrent sites.

  101. Has anyone else noticed, this week the birds started to sing as though it was spring?
    It is mild, but I’ve never noticed them doing this before Christmas. It’s almost as if they know the days are getting longer!

    2. It’s been something birdie – robin? blackbird? – that has been waking me for the past few mornings.

  102. Godt Nytår/Happy New Year everyone, I’ve a bottle of Bunnahabhain 18 Year Malt whisky that is calling, a gift from my daughter Freyja and her other half.
    Hope tomorrow is the start of a brighter future, 2021 has certainly not been !

    2. Daughter has excellent judgement! Just finished one of those, and moved to The Glenlivet 12 yo. Bunnahabhain is better!

      1. They also sent me Harviestoun Brewery ’18 Ola Dubh’ beer which is like Old Peculiar (before it was messed about) on steroids.

      1. Eich iechyd da. is as near as I can get,
        If my memory serves me well, its been a long time since I heard anyone wish me that in Welsh.

    6. As it happens, certain Nottlers procured a bottle of 18 yo Ledaig. I agreed to re-subscribe to The Speccie for £12, including a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, but tonight will see the grand opening of the bottle from Tobermory. Slainte!

      1. Ha, a good dram comes from Tobermory, haven’t had that since I left Lossiemouth in 1982.
        Your good health sir.

          1. That and ‘now you see me now you don’t’ kit. Not to be confused with a certain Ape 😎

          3. I did get associated with them but only in the dark.
            Not that I am being rude about them.

        2. Visited the distillery a few years ago. Tobermory is good, Ledaig is brilliant, but far from cheap. Fortunately, I can make a bottle last for nearly a year…

      1. Well actually I needed an early night, so I decided it was midnight! Woke up briefly when fireworks went off, then back in the land of nod. Am off to paint a waterfall today, so needed my sleep.

  104. Happy New Year in advance to all in NoTTL Land. I am now about to watch La La Land, then see the New Year in with a wee dram, and finally go up the stairs to Ga Ga Land (bed). See you all next year.

    3. Ye gods Plum….thank goodness we just opened a bottle of good red.
      What a horrid creature he is… scare, threat, scare, more threats ad infintitum.

      1. Glad I don’t have to put up with him on the nightly news…..I suppose we have our own prophets of doom!!

        Happy New Year to you and yours..

        1. And to you and Jack. I can’t wait for this year to be over, it’s been horrible and not just bloody covid.
          MH and I wish you and yours all the very best for 2022. X

    5. Goodness me, Plum, did you have to? We haven’t watched the news on tv for nearly 2 years and we’ve still seen too much of that!

      1. It was my misfortune to see him on tv last night round about the time of the news. We seldom put the tv on, we haven’t watched the news for years, but p’dad wanted to watch the footy. On came Whitty. Blimey. His voice was so evenly hypnotic it was almost like being, well, hypnotised… he was psychopathically calm…. “….so go and get your booster tomorrow….” I can quite understand how people, if they watch this stuff all the time, or worse, use it as a wall paper or chewing gum for the mind, end up being subliminally persuaded.

  106. Toodle Pip, 2021.
    Goodbye. Good riddance. Not missing you already. Don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out.

      1. No need for charm when you’re dealing with a year of woe, caused by the tossers to whom we will be happy to say, “Good riddance to bad rubbish!” in the very near future.

      2. 🙂 I never need a charm pill on account of being naturally sweet natured.
        Blast – my nose is growing.

  107. LAST POST in 2021

    Can’t wait for Witless and Unbalanced and the Mad Woman to tell us that:

    “Vaccination is extremely dangerous – and you should only be vaccinated agains well-established and highly contagious conditions.

    Ignore all calls by GPs and the NHS for any new vaccinations against the harmless cold virus.

    THIS IS AN ORDER”

    TTFN HNY

  109. Here’s a toast to Geoff and his flock. Thanks for all the thoughtful comments, wonderful cartoons and dreadful puns (no I’m not taking the Piscium). Happy New Year to all you delightful Flockers!

      1. We couldn’t do it without you, Geoff! Thankyou for keeping us going, through bad times and good.

        1. Thanks, Jools. Someone had to do it, and the current DT Letters comments are pretty dire. And were shot down in flames yesterday by the mods. If life was normal, we wouldn’t need to be heading towards our sixth birthday.

          1. I bet the mods would be shooting us down most days if they had the chance………. this site is a beacon of free speech in a sea of PC and wokery.

          2. No indeed! May I wish you a very happy new year?
            I have made some unlikely pals here and I am not as right wing as many, although what is going on here in UK right now is pushing me slightly in that direction.
            I hope 2022 is a good year for you as I hope it is for us all.
            Happy Hogmanay Geoff. X

          3. If we had the same opinions, it would be awfully dull.
            Don’t change, Lottie! We love you as you are!
            :-D)

          6. They always say the facts of life are conservative (= “far right” in today’s parlance), LotL 🙂

        1. I’l be in bed by then but still awake – there were some fireworks earlier on, but I expect there will be more.

          3. If you is referring to the gin- I doesn’t like it. Now I will be having a small Grouse at midnight with ice and maybe a splash of soda.

  111. Watching a film about the Bee Gees.
    I never knew they were British! Born on Isle of Man, grew up in Manchester (you can hear the Mancunian in the voices), now there’s only one left. Their early music quite similar to early Beatles… guess they had a bit of a style shift. Bowled me over, all I knew was “Massachusetts” and similar from late-ish 70’s.
    I’ll have to do some serious study tomorrow.

  112. Orl rite, which of you sneaks disclosed my grooming habits to the Xmas cracker manufacturers? Xmas day I got a pair of tweezers as my prize and today I got a small set of nail clippers!
    Mind you, MH is not happy- he got a star shaped cookie cutter;-)

  113. Well, that’s me off to bed.
    A happy New Year to everyone and thanks to Geoff for giving us this platform.

    1. What the flipflop for? War crimes? Services to the arms industry?

      The verminous scum needs exterminating

      1. Ah, I see! Her Majesty is brilliant.

        When she goes to lay the sword on his shoulders, she’ll sweep it sideways and decapitate the scum. The cheer will rock this nation.

    5. The Devil is in the ascendancy at this moment. This marks the end of the disreputable honours system surely?

      Edit: Possibly the end of the Monarchy too.

    7. Well Hamilton has got one, they are giving them away to anyone these days, as long as they’ve done their bit to destroy Britain.

  115. Time to go out & make firework noises, and shoot lots of heavy metals into the atmosphere.
    Read you later!

  116. If I go out scaring children and old people, then I too can get a knighthood or damehood? Time for this bloody system to be revised. What about the bin men and all the shop workers? Our mate Ashish in the corner shop has gone above and beyond for the last two years.
    I am disgusted by all this bollocks, I really am.
    Also, my apologies…this last couple of years has not improved my language 🙁

      2. Our next neighbour received a MBE this year. She’s 81 and has worked tirelessly for athletics both local and National all her life.
        A well deserved and well earned award.

    2. Stuff bin men and shop workers. I’ve excreted more worthwhile checmical composites than Blair.

      Yet another clear example of the pointlessness of this government. If you’re disgusted, I’m desperately trying to hold back. The scum needs a bullet put through his head.

      1. I was referring to Lizard Man and his cohort- Vallance I believe. If Blair is to be knighted then HM has been coerced into it. She has consistently refused to give him a knighthood for various reasons- mainly because she cannot tolerate him, I strongly suspect.

          1. Well, she has resisted for many years thus far. As I said, the whole system needs to be overhauled. It is a joke.

          3. Or in place for ordinary hard working people- not oily govt or civil service oiks who do bugger all, unless it enhances their careers. God, I am a cynic but it’s the only way to be right now.

    4. Totally agree with you Lotl. Too many people get awards just for having done what their job was. Longevity alone should not be a qualifier – exceptional service should be the only measure.

    7. I could not agree more. Idiots and imbeciles are temporarily in charge but the tables are turning. Many of us ‘normal’ folk are sick to the teeth with this Wokery nonsense.

    8. I could not agree more. Idiots and imbeciles are temporarily in charge but the tables are turning. Many of us ‘normal’ folk are sick to the teeth with this Wokery nonsense.

  117. Some may recall the debacle of the Imperial War Museum’s Remembrance Day service:

    ‘We read the reviews of the Second World War displays and having arrived in
    time to observe the Act of Remembrance stood with others in the main
    hall. The entire event became horrendous with the inclusion of a Rap
    which was nothing more than a vile attack on (among others) Churchill
    and a rant about race. Both are legitimate subjects for debate, but NOT
    on Remembrance Sunday. My wife who served in the RAF was deeply upset by
    such a disrespectful charade. We spoke to a member of the staff who was
    clearly as shocked as we were and said they would pass on our
    reactions. We left without viewing the exhibition. The whole episode
    making us question the wisdom of the organisers.’

    War Museum Director-General, Diane Lees, has just been awarded a Damehood in the New Year Honours.

  120. Goodnight and God bless to all NoTTLers. I’m away to join Best Beloved for libations at Midnight, therefore I wish you all the very best for 2022 with very special thanks to Geoff for his sterling work in starting, facilitating and keeping this wonderful site open.

    See you all again next year. Hugs.

    3. Happy New Year to you and Best Beloved.

      I would say ‘things can only get better’ in 2022 but might revise that to ‘things cannot possibly get worse’ in 2022, given the provenance of the former phrase.

  121. Whoosh! Bang! whistle! Rattle… not too bad, that.
    Much quieter than 2019, when the artillery barrage went on much of the night – I guess the minimal socialising means less part, fewer fireworks. It’s sad, really… joy slowly but surely draining out of life.
    Hope all Y’all have a good 2022, stay healthy, and keep posting on NTTL. Special hat-tip to Geoff for facilitating …

  122. On a town twinning trip to yer France a few years ago I stayed with a hosting family who served a wine at dinner that was a rose with a hint of grapefruit. Ive never seen it here so every time I go to France I buy a case to bring back. Not having been to the continong for a few years I thought I’d try to buy some over the tinternet but I and no idea what to look for (the bottles I have bought in France have been supermarket plonk)
    Anyway, I googled, ground something and bought four bottles that arrived last week. I opened one tonight – horrible 😫

  123. My predictions for 2022:

    Compulsary masks and only allowed to breathe once a day.

    Then it’ll be vaccine passports, which will become enforced to shop, eventually to become a control system to be shown when buy shopping. If you don’t buy ‘approved’ food, you’re penalised and fined stolen directly form your bank account.

    Owning second homes will be made illegal to resolve the ‘housing crisis’. More gimmigrants will pour across the channel reaching over 250,000 by next December. Government will encourage the tide while pretending it can’t do anything.

    Gas will become unaffordable to the majority. The state will proclaim how glorious the green revolution is – while people die and unemployment soars and industry decamps.

    Taxes will go up because the amount raised will fall – we’re so far over the Laffer curve it’s comical.

    The state will continue to expand and achieve nothing except waste. The NHS will still be overwhelmed next winter. Trougher salaries will be even higher.

    The government will be planning it’s election strategy which will include ‘tax cuts’ – which will be a farce of robbing from somewhere else.

      2. To you as well – Junior’s bored, Mongo’s asleep and the warqueen is on her second bottle.

        More sensibly, if things do improve I will eat my slippers – and post the image.

        1. The more I hear about the War Queen, the mor she goes up in my estimation!
          HNY to all of you… would the slippers be best eaten with brown sause, or ketchup? Asking for a friend…

      1. I used to look forward to it. I was, at one point an optimist.

        Then the rape figures would be published, the stabbings, the murders and I realised that nothing changes. It’ll take drastic, punishing change to force government to restore sanity.

        1. It will take the plebs to realise they are in chains and to wake up to the fact they can actually do something about it. I see no sign of that happening so far, unfortunately.

          1. Conway, you’re assuming the proles don’t know – they do, and they like their chains. It means someone else can tell them how to live and take away responsibility for their lives

          2. I am not so sure. I see an awful lot of unthinking people who want more of the same, yet more and more of my friends are starting to realise just how much they have lost. I am fermenting rebellion when I walk Oscar 🙂

    3. I just finished watching the film, Don’t Look Up, the one where the planet is destroyed so your post is looking a bit optimistic to me.
      Happy New Year to you!

    4. Bleedin’ ‘ell. It’s being cheerful wot keeps yer goin’…
      How about: The peasants, fed up with all the crap, revolt, burn the houses of parliament (with the mps inside), and many bodies are found strung up on lamp-posts. Boris is found disembowelled, his entrails being chewed on by cats. Somebody has pi$$ed in his mouth… SAGE have been made to eat pigshit and are dying of swine erisipelas. Geese have pecked out Ferguson’s eyes, but he isn’t dead.
      The BBC has been defunded, and there are only a few effective employees left (many of whom are called Sue…) – woke broadcasters have been fired, so there’s still plenty of money available for quality programming. Andy Pandy has signed for a new series. Mayors have joined the ranks of MPs in becoming late, the Police have discovered that to do real policing, arses need properly kicked, and there’s no place to worry about offending people.
      Universities are back to teaching stuff worth learning; the student loan has been kept, but is tax-deductible (like any investment).
      Coffee has regained flavour, and a Yorkshireman is required to play for Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
      On Tuesday…
      ;-))

      1. It’d be a start.

        Although I don’t wish Boris harm – I do want him to be a blasted Conservative.

      3. Bloody hell, that was excellent! Whatever you have been imbibing- can I have some, pretty please. Although, not Andy Pandy, I would rather have Rag, Tag and Bobtail;-)

          2. Not sure about that… certainly dafter than you!
            Don’t forget Bagpuss… and Roobarb & Custard!

          3. No, not my era at all. I am for another week 67…how’s about you?
            And you are not daft at all; like MH you are an engineer and scientist – baffles me so it does.

          4. Calendar says 60 in 2021 – not so different. Mentally, about 12 (farts are still funny).

  124. Staying up until midnight but in case I get a bit tiddly…unlikely I know, here is a short poem for New Year….

    Come children, gather round my knee;
    Something is about to be.
    Tonight is December 31st,
    Something is about to burst,
    The clock is crouching, dark and small,
    Like a time bomb in the hall.
    Hark! It’s midnight, children dear.
    Duck! Here comes another year!

    Good Riddance, but now what? By Ogden Nash

  125. Good night dear NoTTLers and thank you for all the support you have give vw and me this last 6 weeks. You have all been wonderful.
    I wish you all a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2022 and a release from the grip of this tyrannical government.
    I raise a glass to you all. 🥂🍸🍺🥃🍷🍾

    2. And to you. It’s important to remember the rela problems aren’t world shattering chaos but the real life every day survival of family and friends.

  126. Happy New Year dear NoTTLers one and all.

    I feel sure that most us will be glad to see the conclusion of 2021!

  127. Happy new year folks. See you on the flipside.

    We could race to see who’s first to the first post of 2022.

    1. Ah… whose 2022? Harry got there 2 hours ago, and Grizz & I an hour ago.
      You Brits just can’t keep up!
      ;-))

      1. My chum in the People’s Republic Of New Zealand is long abed and woke me up with her celebrations.

        Blasted planets. They’re too big.

        1. I’m way behind you…..even so….hic! Happy New Year to you again. Can’t believe the so called honors list…..Blair?? Words fail me!!

          1. It all fails me Jill. The undeserved get rewarded and the hard workers get ignored. I honestly don’t know how I would feel if I was still in the US; I really don’t.
            Here, I am so disgusted by this govt and the so called NHS, Police, Social Services & etc that I cannot put it into words- well polite words anyway.
            If I haven’t wished you a Happy new year, then I shall do so now.

          2. How do I change the government on to a rational course of action. Yes, blowing it all to hell appeals.

    1. The noise and flash is supposed to drive away the evil spirits. Need plenty of that.
      HNY, Stormy!

      1. Ah, so that’s why that sad excuse for a “mayor” cancelled the fireworks. Might have had a bad effect on him!

  131. Happy New Year everyone!!! Thank god 2021 is over. We shall see how this new one turns out. Boris, you have been bloody warned!

        1. So do I. I really have had enough of the negative world.

          Our bars have to stop serving drinks at 10pm, no more consumption after 11.

          You are up late.happy new year.

          1. You too Richard. Some nights I have real trouble sleeping and tonight is an excuse to stay up a little later, so I will see if ZZs follow.
            Am listening to Scots pipes and bands right now…it is Hogmanay after all.

  132. Happy New Year, folks! The barrage has started again here. I’ve stoked the Rayburn (nothing ever changes in the winter!) so I’m off to first foot (or whatever the metric equivalent is) and then to bed. Goodnight, all. May the coming twelve months be a lot better than the last lot!

    2. I love those first few weeks after new year, the regulars hang around in their well worn bedraggled day to day gym gear watching the resolution keepers in their brand new washed and ironed(?) designer outfits.

      A few hang in and join our merry band but most end up at the doughnut shop.

      1. All the salad is sold out in the supermarket near my work the first two days. By day 3, it’s back to normal, and there’s salad again. No kidding.

  134. Mng & HNY all. Pole sana, not long back from south Sudan shenanigans and NTTL site here seems to be on the “monitor/ control list. Caught up online birefly with RR yday, who requested I post this from TCW nailing some reality on here https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-have-we-doctors-been-silent-2/

    Trust all are keeping well. Nothing much here other than, was informed, Uhuru smelt the coffee and removed the overnight lockdown on Mshula day. Not that it made any difference to people here.

    1. Have a great year, Geoff and thank you for this wonderful place.
      HYN and KBO to all Nottlers.

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