Friday 31 January: The folly of fixating on Heathrow expansion when better options exist

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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529 thoughts on “Friday 31 January: The folly of fixating on Heathrow expansion when better options exist”

    1. Well, done, Sue Mac. In my haste to be first, I kept on mis-spelling words and having to re-write my post. The final correction I had to make was to change "First!" to "Second!" – Lol.

  3. Morning, all Y'all.
    By God, but it's dark this morning. Have I really opened my eyes?

    1. Getting lighter here, but when I opened the bathroom window to look out just before 7 there was scarcely a glimmer of light in the sky.

  4. Tenth of farmland to be axed for net zero
    Solar farms, tree planting and wildlife habitats to replace food production as Labour deals fresh blow to rural life
    As I keep writing, this is OK because, as any fule no, food comes from Tesco (never mind the huge increases in population, and think of all that lovely CO2 related to flying and shipping in food from abroad – all assuming it's available, of course.)
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/31/tenth-of-farmland-to-be-axed-for-net-zero-steve-reed/

    1. I sense the WEF has instructed Sir Keir & the rest of the rabble to gear up for "precision fermentation technology".
      A venture capitalists wet dream.
      Bye bye cows. Bye bye green pastures. Hello Barrett Homes.

      1. Fair play.. Ange thinks that Barrett Homes are dead posh, and her voter base don't do countryside.

    2. The approach was made to the northerly runway (01) and switched to the nw runway (33). So the airliner was doing a 'circling approach' as planned. Im not sure what their procedures are for deconfliction, you would expect the helo to remain v low or maybe he should have been further to the east where the airliner would be higher.

  8. It’s time we all stood up for the right to ridicule Islam. Spiked. 31 January 2025.

    That a man appears to have been put to death for expressing his dislike of a religion is exceptionally serious. It is an outrage against liberty, against Enlightenment itself. It matters not one iota whether you approve or disapprove of setting fire to books. It is immaterial whether you consider it fine or crass to put a match to a holy text. All that matters here is that a man was slain, it seems, for giving voice to his irreligious beliefs. For exercising that hard-won and essential liberty to demur from ‘holy’ orthodoxy. If Mr Momika was indeed executed for his ‘profanities’, it is as repulsive, as shaming to humanity’s moral conscience, as when ‘deniers’ of Christ were strapped to the stake in the Inquisition.

    Much Sound and Fury but the reality is that the Political Elites have already surrendered to Islam.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/01/30/its-time-we-all-stood-up-for-the-right-to-ridicule-islam/

    2. Salwan Momika shot dead in his own apartment.
      This is/was a common practice in Isis controlled Iraq & Syria. Plenty of CCTV video clips showing very young innocent looking assassins nonchalantly approach targets as they go about their everyday life. Tap tap.. gone, forever. The crime? A mere perceived quibble of the Quran by some Cleric.

  10. Gee Whiz Angel ·

    This is being taken down by social media…so needs sharing far & wide!
    NURSE IN GERMANY SENDS A MESSAGE TO THE WORLD
    "Yesterday, at the hospital, we had a meeting about how the situation here and at the other Munich hospitals is unsustainable. Clinics cannot handle the number of migrant medical emergencies, so they are starting to send everything to the main hospitals.
    Many Muslims are refusing treatment by female staff and we women are now refusing to go among those migrants!
    Relations between the staff and migrants are going from bad to worse. Since last weekend, migrants going to the hospitals must be accompanied by police with K-9units.
    Many migrants have AIDS, syphilis, open TB and many exotic diseases that we in Europe do not know how to treat.
    If they receive a prescription to the pharmacy, they suddenly learn they have to pay cash. This leads to unbelievable outbursts, especially when it is about drugs for the children. They abandon the children with pharmacy staff with the words: So, cure them here
    yourselves!
    So the police are not just guarding the clinics and hospitals, but also the large pharmacies.
    We ask openly where are all those who welcomed the migrants in front of TV cameras with signs at train stations? Yes, for now, the border has been closed, but a million of them are already here and we will definitely not be able to get rid of them.
    Until now, the number of unemployed in Germany was 2.2 million. Now it will be at least 3.5 million. Most of these people are completely unemployable. Only a small minimum of them have any education. What is more, their women usually do not work at all. I estimate that one in ten is pregnant. Hundreds of thousands of them have brought along infants and little kids under six, many emaciated and very needy. If this continues and Germany re-opens its borders, I am going home to the Czech Republic. Nobody can keep me here in this situation, not even for double the salary back home. I came to Germany to work, not to Africa or the Middle East!
    Even the professor who heads our department told us how sad it makes him to see the cleaning woman, who has cleaned every day for years for 800 Euro's and then meets crowds of young men in the hallways who just wait with their hands outstretched, wanting everything for free, and when they don't get it they throw a fit.
    I really don't need this! But I am afraid that if I return home, at some point it will be the same in the Czech Republic. If the Germans, with their systems, cannot handle this, then, guaranteed, back home will be total chaos…..
    You – who have not come in contact with these people have absolutely no idea what kind of badly behaved desperados these people are, and how Muslims act superior to our staff, regarding their religious accommodation.
    For now, the local hospital staff have not come down with the diseases these people brought here, but with so many hundreds of patients every day of this is just a question of time. In a hospital near the Rhine, migrants attacked the staff with knives after they had handed over an 8-month-old on the brink of death, who they'd dragged across half of Europe for three months. The child died two days later, despite having received top care at one of the best pediatric clinics in Germany. The pediatric physician had to undergo surgery and the two nurses are recovering in the ICU. Nobody has been punished.
    The local press is forbidden to write about it, so we can only inform you through email. What would have happened to a German if he had stabbed the doctor and nurses with a knife? Or if he had flung his own syphilis-infected urine into a nurses face and so threatened her with infection? At a minimum he would have gone straight to jail and later to court. With these people so far, nothing has happened.
    And so I ask: Where are all those greeters and receivers from the train stations? Sitting pretty at home, enjoying their uncomplicated, safe lives. If it were up to me, I would round up all those greeters and bring them here first to our hospitals emergency ward as attendants! Then in to one of the buildings housing the migrants, so they can really look after them there themselves, without armed police and police dogs, who, sadly today, are in every hospital here in Bavaria."
    Is this "situation" coming to your country?

    1. Good morning ,

      If that email is true shouldn't it be forwarded onto the media, Rupert Lowe , local MP, anyone ..

      After I had finished reading that , and if anyone else reads it , it is an early warning , a terrible situation is revealing itself , and the UK must stop pretending to ignore the huge influx we are experiencing .

      Damn it , we are an Island , if we can protect our country against RABIES , why can't we do the same re the influx of unwanted trouble makers?

    2. 'Many migrants have AIDS, syphilis, open TB and many exotic diseases that we in Europe do not know how to treat'.

      That doesn't ring true.

      1. I think what she's saying/implying is that in addition to the first three nasties, which they do know how to handle, that they are also seeing other things which are come across far less frequently in Europe.
        I suspect it's one of the reasons the WHO are so very twitchy about things like Ebola breaking out in Africa. I do wonder if there might be the equivalents of "Typhoid Mary" in and amongst these migrants carrying God alone knows what exotic diseases.

    3. Oh this is frightening, what have all of our political idiots done to us. To anyone who hasn't been to an A&E in recent years. I can confirm all of this.
      And if a child is ill (they are given priority) but the whole family seems to arrive as well. I had also noticed a lady who appeared twice with different patients during my last 14 plus hour wait for attention, then three years ago.

    1. Reform need to remember: There's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip.
      Let's hope they succeed. Politics needs renewed, it's badly broken. Stage 1: Trump has already landed.

      1. It's the "real change" bit that worries me Oberst. Does Nigel have the cojones to do what Trump is doing?

        3. Let Farage be in charge of whipping up enthusiasm but make sure that it is Rupert Lowe who does the nitty gritty and takes the decisions.

        4. It’s quite different in the USA though. Presidents have a lot more power than our PM, witness the sweeping changes Trump has already made, that can’t be done here. Reform would need a big majority to push through anything the public want done. And that’s before all the eco activists, XR, JSO and the like start demonstrating.

          Rupert Lowe would be excellent as the leader of Reform. Is Nigel big enough to let that happen?

      1. Reform needs those elections to form a broader political base. Without such, they are not guaranteed to win a general election. Of course, that is why Starmer has cancelled those elections with. a pathetic excuse.

        1. In fact, I have made way for an older man. But I'm stull up for the Counties. Earlswood & Reigate South, here I come!

      3. Particularly in counties like Essex where both Labour and Conservatives will get a good kicking.

        1. I’ve just been informed that Surrey’s CC elections will go ahead. Lots of people round here voted Labour at the general, where will they go now?

  14. Trump is a genius, to be fair, he only had to infer that DEI could have been a factor and the whole of the TDS mainstream media goes into meltdown, thus getting the issue far more coverage than could have been achieved in any other way, through mere conjecture, lefties fall for it every time in fanatic attempts to bring him down using trial by media.
    I hope they keep it up, this is going to be a wonderful four years.

  15. Good morning all.
    Overnight rain has stopped, but scarcely a glimmer of the approaching dawn. A bit warmer than yesterday morning with 4.3° on the thermometer.
    Minimum was 01.° with a max of 7.3°.

          4. Difficult to be sure at the moment but Google AI says…

            Yes, magnesium can help you sleep better. It can help you relax before bed, fall asleep faster, and sleep longer. Magnesium is also associated with less tiredness during the day.
            How does magnesium help with sleep?

            Calms the central nervous system
            Magnesium helps calm the nervous system by blocking some neurotransmitters that stimulate the body. It also increases levels of neurotransmitters that have a calming effect.

            Impacts chemicals in the brain
            Magnesium may impact how certain chemicals in the brain act, such as GABA, melatonin, renin, and cortisol. These chemicals may affect how relaxed or tired a person feels.

    1. I thought it looked very grey here but the sky is clearing and there's a layer of fog in the valley. It might brighten up.

  18. More Policing?
    I flicked on BBC Radio 4 at about 07:40 and heard Nick Robinson (spit!) interviewing haranguing Diana Johnson, the new Policing Minister.

    She was bragging about starting the process of implementing Labour’s promise to recruit another 13,000 police. Robinson pointed out that several major police forces services were having to shed police numbers.

    He was giving her a hard time (good!). When she started waffling on about improving efficiency and he asked her what the police should stop doing, I was shouting at the radio: “Ask her why so many police are turning up in pairs or more to investigate Non-Crime Hate Incidents instead of stopping shoplifting and violence”. Her boss, Mrs Balls, seems to want MORE, not less, investigation of wrong- think. Lord help us.

    1. Just when I start feeling sorry for Mr Balls I see him making an ass of himself on TV and I stop feeing sorry for him – he fully deserves the wife he has!

  19. Good morning all,

    Fine sunny morning , rain has gone through 7c.

    Moh , eager and enthusiastic , has just gathered his bits and pieces together , and now off to golf .

  20. Yo and Good Moaning from a Dull, Dank, Dark and cold C d S

    Even the Solar Panels have not come out to play

    1. One of my former pupils at Allhallows, who was a very good cross-country runner, joined the Royal Marines and trekked the whole way across the Falkland Islands.

    2. I volunteered to go but the M.O.D. refused to take our unit because the equipment would take up too much ship space – one days worth of beer rations for the fleet – and many men died for lack of our reconnaissance expertise. What with the BBC giving advanced notice of our troop movements and the M.O.Ds ignorance of our unit's capability it is a miracle that it was successful, that and the proficiency and the fortitude of the troops.

  22. Apart from the fact that this is an important wildlife site, there is the small matter of the sunken Second World War munitions ship, SS Richard Montgomery, with its still-intact cargo of several thousand tons of high-explosive ordnance. This wreck is considered so dangerously unstable that it has been left in place.

    Build the new Airport/Runway here, for the exclusive use of Two Tear and his fellow politicians and their private jets!

  23. In Extremism and the Home Office FSB looks at what the Home Office is supposed to do and compares it with what it actually does and concludes that it is a far-Left extremist organisation intent on promoting terror.

    Directly related, Clive Matelas’ article UK may be a Muslim state in the near future, analyses one of the consequences of Home Office policy.

    Energy watch 08.30. UK generation: 41.241 GW. Supply: Hydrocarbons 51.9%; Wind 14%; Imports 14.9%; Biomass 5.6% and Nuclear10.4%. Solar: 0%.
    We are importing – very expensively –14% of our demand for electric power, more than wind is producing.

    Reform is pushing a petition to demand that all the local elections they want to cancel, often in Reform supporting areas, be re-instated. Please sign.

    https://letthepeoplevote.com/

    2. I loved this comment on the DTLetters.

      Grumpy OldCow
      1 hr ago
      When is the vicious, stupid government going to realise that unchecked immigration is threatening our infrastructure, more people eating, washing and excreting. At the same time the Crazed MilliMuppet is making energy less affordable and less responsive to demand. Now he is talking about taking 10% of farming land out of production, in addition to putting solar parks in which only generate 50% of the time, on a good day! We need to be able to grow our own food or be held to ransom by others.

      This is all Marxist ordure, look at the famines in Russia after the farmers were displaced, plenty of tractors but insufficient food.

      I was banned years ago by some woke miserable bod all because I aired my grievances .. and now readers are saying exactly what they want , but sadly there is no way back for me .

      1. When is the vicious, stupid government going to realise that unchecked immigration is threatening …

        They realise alright – it’s exactly what they want.

        1. Yes, you're right – but why? It is surely madness to hate your own antecedents and lineage?

          To borrow from the Duke of Albany in King Lear:

          That nature that condemns its origin cannot be bordered certain in itself

          1. Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past. (To borrow from Orwell)

            They are trying to control our future.

        2. Yes, you're right – but why? It is surely madness to hate your own antecedents and lineage?

          To borrow from the Duke of Albany in King Lear:

          That nature that condemns its origin cannot be bordered certain in itself

  24. Morning all 🙂😊.
    Back to normal outside grey wet and 6 degrees, 'spring' is in the air 😆
    With three other runways surrounding and one already in London there is no obvious reason for another one at LHR. The traffic on the surrounding roads leading to and from is already horrendous. But it's a convenient political announcement for our present government, As they childishly appear to be rather enjoying winding up the British taxpayers.
    This fake project will help them to cover up amultitude of their future sins.

      1. Yes nobody with a milligram of common sense would allow or even encourage this to happen……Oh hang on a mo……🤔

  25. MS

    SIR – The main problem with expanding Heathrow Airport (Letters, January 30) is not the building of another runway.

    Bigger problems include: moving many people into, and out of, the airport; doubling the number of trucks delivering and collecting cargo; and the fact that the area is already saturated with traffic, the public transport options are only useful for people coming from London, and there would need to be huge new parking areas designated.

    Better use of regional airports could mitigate these problems, and people would not need to drive so far to catch a flight. It would also cost less.

    Gillian Courage
    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    The comments are interesting ..

    Martin Selves
    1 hr ago
    As an ex Airline Pilot, on the surface having another runway at LHR makes sense until you look at the detail. It would bring London to a halt for a decade or two, it would cost an enormous amount of money, and the Country would get no benefit until it became operational. RAF Manston or Biggin Hill could be enhanced to take ALL the freight out of LHR, and this would cost a fraction of a LHR upgrade. Other RAF Airfields, closed and open, could be a better choice. The 20mph ULEZ drive into London would drive many into insanity.

    Someone has done the work already on this, and even Boris Johnson had a practical idea by building a runway in the London estuary. I think our experience with HS2 would be replicated in a LHR upgrade, causing 10 years of transport disruption to millions of people every day, and this just doesn't cut it with me.

    On a pessimistic note, in 10 years time we might have reached 3rd World Status, and no one would want to come here anyway. edited

    1. Nobody can argue with the problems a third runway at LHR would create, and worse, exacerbate the current problems. The idea is fantastic, in the sense of being strange/imaginary/unreasonable. It flies in the face of everything Miliband advocates and the plans Khan – co-chair of the C40 Cities project – has for Londoners. Therefore I'm tending to believe this is imaginary, a false prospect floated by government in an attempt to bolster Reeves's similarly imaginary declarations of growth, despite her current policies that are on target to do the opposite.

      This idea is up there with the 1.5 Million homes in 5 years pledge. Seven months in and has a sod been turned or a foundation poured on our green and pleasant land? The latter is, if the Telegraph's report put up below by OB is to be believed, to become areas of wilderness separated by swathes of Chinese solar panels.

    2. This Government isn't even consistent when making proposals in the same speech.

      If the area between Oxford and Cambridge is to be redeveloped into a powerhouse superhighway, with upgraded transport links, housing for incoming migrants, their extended families and their lawyers and personal security cells, and exciting business opportunities for foreign buyers to enjoy growth, then surely the place to build a hub airport is Luton, not Heathrow.

      Heathrow has become a horrible place since they upgraded it – arriving there makes one feel like a criminal not a citizen.

  26. 400804+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Really tis a win double along with HS2
    in making sure the English Coffers stay VERY empty.

    Air travel to be curtailed in regards to the masses.

    A highly functioning shipping service, seen to be a daily success plying betwixt calias and dover.

    A road system consisting of potholes with tarmac surrounds.

    The saddest moment of ALL is using the polling stations in such a dangerous manner as in, flood the country with dangerous foreign activist, greatly endanger the children / elderly in a continuing manner
    ALL done in the phony name of a political party.

    The BIGGEST sadness is a nationwide ples for President Trump to help sort out our self inflicted problems.

    Friday 31 January: The folly of fixating on Heathrow expansion when better options exist

    1. HS2 is the model for "growth". 20% voted to divert public money to such infrastructure projects, even if this means hard decisions for everything else.

      They do it because they can.

  28. Today's MRD

    Samantha Edwards

    Director, Communications and Engagement, UK Covid-19 Inquiry

    London W2

        1. I don't know about roads, but I do know that I am racist and I firmly believe that everyone else is racist in that everyone notices colour or accent or manners or dress and it affects interactions. It doesn't matter whether one is black, white or any other type.

          It doesn't mean that one is automatically unpleasant nor does it necessarily mean one is racially prejudiced, although I suspect most people are, albeit unconsciously.

          2. Racism !

            My dear father was a Protestant , my mother came from a good Roman Catholic family .

            My parents met each other when they were serving in the RN during the war .

            They fell in love .. Her parents excommunicated her, rejected her . Her male relatives were Jesuit priests , her father and mother were well known , her mother's uncles were also well known during the uprising in Cork , her late uncle had trophies named after him ..

            When I was born in 1947 my maternal grandparents refused to see my mother father , and me . I have cousins whom I have never met .

            Decades ago but months after my mother mother was killed in a car crash , my sister and I visited the area where mother was brought up and schooled .

            The convent she attended was still full of nuns who remembered her , she excelled at school.

            They implied though that it was God's punishment that mother was wiped out in a car crash in SA, but they were pleased that mother had borne 4 children , and had given three of them reasonable Irish names .

            My sister and were blessed , and the nuns prayed for a conversion to RC for redemption.

            What is racism.. it is a none word .. we all have divisions and and different interactions .. a bit like U and non U.. it happens everywhere .

          4. The question I have is.. how did the South Cork based family celebrate yr mother joining the RN?

      1. I have an open mind as to what Donald Trump is suggesting about the cause of the crash.

        It seems that it was caused by controllers ordering the plane into a collision course with the helicopter in order to approach the runway at the right angle.

        Either the airspace around the airport was too crowded, in which case there might have been management pressure to cut corners in order to speed up throughput, or some air traffic controller did not bother to look at which way the runway was pointing and order the helicopter away from any approach to the runway.

        Whether this breakdown of competence is down to faulty selection criteria when recruiting staff, I leave to the investigators.

        Trump may well turn out to be right.

        On the other hand, American pilots are not required to obey orders from ground control; they are expected to use their initiative. If some squaddie is so stupid not to check on his radar or look out of the window when passing over a runway approach, then perhaps we could blame a contestant for the Darwin Award for the crash?

    2. Strange as it might seem, at our airports we already seem to have hundreds of the same sort of people checking the arrival and departure of the obviously British passengers to and from foreign countries. Not too long ago the same people, now checking were probably the main suspects in the queues. Just sayin'.

      1. The grinding and groaning face recognition machine at Heathrow could not even recognise me as human, let alone British.

    3. I watched a video of 'Captain Steve' talking through the incident, including access to the ATC communication to all aircraft in the area. The helicopter (manned by an experienced crew undertaking nvg refresher training) was advised of incoming aircraft approaching the shorter runway 33. The crew acknowledged that they had the aircraft on visual, but it seems that the aircraft they spotted was the larger aircraft lining up for the main runway, not the smaller aircraft on a different angle of approach.

      By acknowledging that they had the aircraft on visual the helicopter crew were responsible for any avoiding action. That they appear to have had a different aircraft on visual was human error.

      Trump's mentioning of DEI hires has ensured this accident was in the headlines, and opened a wider conversation about such DEI policies. Something that the MSM would have gladly overlooked for their paymasters.

        1. I’d been flipping through a few sites and forgotten where I’d seen it. Doh!

          He seems quite confident in laying out the incident, and his views on the crash seem plausible.

      2. The pilot, a transwoman, possibly bent on suicide, probably acknowledged seeing it but deliberately ignored it – twice.

  31. 400804+ up ticks,

    One step forward,
    rhetorical statement,
    One step back,

    Treat with great caution ANYTHING political currently
    from HOC/HOL.

    Nigel Farage
    Five years on, we still haven’t taken back control. Let’s get it done
    Reform will execute the policies that the British people want

  32. Dammit Jim, I'm not a Doctor. (Star Trek)

    I am prescribed Vitamin A and Thiamin. Don't know if they are beneficial or not.

    I know the Fybogel works !

  33. ‘Diversity hiring cost me job at FAA, a crash was inevitable’, claims whistleblower after accident
    Aspiring air traffic controller speaks out following deadly collision between American Airlines flight 5342 and helicopter in Washington
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/01/31/diversity-hiring-cost-me-job-at-faa-a-crash-was-inevitable/

    BTL

    And don't forget the RAF did not want white people to join the force.

    Martin Luther King famously said the you should be judged on the quality of your character rather than the colour of your skin. He might have added that you should also be judged on the level of you competence.

    The Left now pour scorn on Martin Luther King and say he was a racist!

    1. There is a published collection of JFK's correspondence, including letters exchanged between him and MLK. MLK refers to the rights and situation of "the Negro" as a generic term. People who quibble about language tend to ignore meaning? The triumph of form over content. These two men made a real difference in improving the lot of black Americans and they can now be dismissed for using the wrong words.

    2. It turns out that the married Martin Luther King Jr, preacher. According to the dossier that has just been released, was a philanderer with at lest 65 mistresses and he was a communist. So sure, lets judge by the content of character.

    3. It might be staff shortages added to that, apparently only 19 controllers on staff instead of the mandated 30!

  34. 400804+up ticks,

    David Frost
    Brexit wasn’t a failure. It liberated us from the declining, dictatorial EU
    We can govern ourselves perfectly well. We just want to be left to do it

    Former part of statement true,
    Latter part of statement untrue.

    For the last forty years it has needed a serious coating of looking at, you would think that looking back at a failure would teach a lesson when going forward, NOT SO, voting in the lab/lib/con coalition party guarantees failure as has been proved time & time again.

      3. And it's long been recognised that since the Brits left the area the locals have never been bothered (too lazy) to continue the wise old traditions of dredging the rivers. Which controls the flooding.

    3. "Biologist and experts flocked to provide context to the sky of spiders, divulging the droves of insects were on a very large web, mating in a ritual 'orgy'."

      'insects' FFS, what sort of education do these writers have?

    1. If disasters like Argentina and El Salvador can do it, so can we. The USA is well on the way. Trouble is we lack revolutionary fervor and we lack people with courage. They are locked up as political prisoners or have left the country. We are led by spinless muppets.

  37. Morning all. Hard work this. Do not read if you don't want a clue: Includes same letter twice.
    Wordle 1,322 3/6

    🟨⬜🟨⬜🟩
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Morning Phil. Have you heard from Michael lately? He doesn't seem to have posted for ages.

  41. 400804+upticks,

    Morning JR,

    Precisely,for that we have to cast further afield than the lab/lib/con anti Brit. close shop.
    No right minded person can be unsure of the coalitions REAL intentions now.

  42. How we lifted the lid on China’s Covid cover-up. 31 January 2025.

    The CIA announced last week that it believes a lab leak is the most probable explanation for the origins of Covid-19, more than five years after the pandemic. The lab-leak theory was once dismissed as ‘misinformation’ and even a ‘conspiracy theory’, although I and other amateur investigators began uncovering the evidence for it back in 2020.

    Pathetic. They could all have saved themselves sometime and read Rik’s posts on Nottl. Of course at the time they were all denying it.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/01/30/how-we-lifted-the-lid-on-chinas-covid-cover-up/

  44. 'Morning All
    So that's it then a few days outrage at the mass rape of our children and we're back to business as usual.No national enquiry no-one to be held to account nothing to see here move along I bloody despair sometimes…….
    Gloomy Medley
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/41fbcb5090ad70abd20cf4f6ab1719488c92007a4a5d754ab2f5006dd75a9f1e.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b01c8356bec26acf07e29d39b44b246ee0fc9b2ee25e2ee1dd6965cc13a6cc1a.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a11e59c14da3e7888c7c868b770a094cb247618669aed97cc0ec32c94ac3e745.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b47b6c3922d047612fbfcdc67fd69264dae1be2ecd468899da95d955a5e797ec.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/efd9de1f3c87a673840407830ab82f5d94f7e172e29a10c800b5cc9012c85b0d.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/862c79a0b1b3cf36eb98d3fe463bcfeb60f858f84abca1429bc24738496fc2de.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fd6f5d699b8330585d4d073e38488fc08e375122dfca466ee218d44c52d6086e.jpg

    1. Ex-Halton apprentices of the late 50’s and early 60’s will recall that the Station Warrant Officer (SWO) was one Joe Bollard. He struck fear into us when we were marching to and from workshops and school and, at reunions, is still spoken of with awe and, to be honest, a little affection as his terrifying presence belied a decent and honourable man.

  47. Bureaucratic failure number xx

    Ontario government tried bribing us with a $200 handout before calling an election. Chinese, not going to change many votes but typical of our ruling classes. Cheques finally started rolling out last week.
    This week we start hearing stories of these government cheques bouncing.
    Now the banks are off having a mea culpa moment but it sure ruins the moment.

    1. Brainwash them when they're barely out of nappies then yell, "Born that way"! Freud believed that the born that way illusion came about because the infant trauma that was the real cause happened very early.

    3. My wife says: "These people are perverts and we mustn't forget it." and she's not wrong.

  51. As there weren't any excess deaths in 2020 and no evidence of a pandemic, the lab leak story really makes no more sense than the wet market. The application of Remdesivir combined with ventilators murdered large numbers of people but the lethal agent developed in the labs was the vaxx not the virus.

      1. Exactly. In the US, pneumonia was given the Remdesivir+ventilator treatment and the patient inevitably died. In those few days in December that I spent as a patient in St Mary's, most of the other patients on my ward had breathing difficulties with severe coughing fits and were frequently given oxygen. As serious as their condition was, they were not hooked up to ventilators.

    1. No he wouldn't be so unkind. Our own government are in charge of the invasion of our Islands.

      1. 400804+ up ticks,

        Morning RE,

        Unkind RE ?

        I believe he would be greeted as a friend by the biggest fifth column
        of indigenous peoples unified in usurping a political arm of the mafia.

    2. 400804 +up ticks,

      O2O,
      Let us pray he has a success regarding the invasion, because left to our own devices our last unsoiled child in the country will be soiled via sexual depravity before any protective steps are SEEN to be taken
      FIRST, then a very,very express in depth inquiry into pakistani rape and abuse gangs and political involvement.

  57. I think that history, if written honestly, will show that JKF achieved very little in the way of improving the lot of black Americans and that it was the much-derided LBJ who did most.

    1. Point taken. The groundwork was begun in the short time granted but the real achievement came later.

  60. From The Conservative Woman today:

    ACCORDING to a report in the Telegraph Make exams easier to boost diversity, say lawyers the board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) say that a number of lawyers and training providers have voiced concerns that black and Asian candidates’ lower pass rates in the Solicitors Qualifying Exams threaten to undermine their quest for greater ‘diversity’ in the profession. They recommend easier questions for black and Asian applicants including multiple choice.

    Making exams easier for ethnic minorities reminds me of what Trump is saying about Air Traffic Controllers.

    And while we're at it why not bring more witch doctors into the NHS to replace the brain surgeons?

    (Typo Tasteyed)

    1. It's just racist: The dark-skinned ones are too stupid to pass exams that Whitey can pass, so we gotta make it easier for the poor dears.

    1. If you sell knives that are blunt, then the PTB will have to sponsor a new pressure gang, let's call it 'Just Stop Oilstones'.

    2. Had to check this one.. what a bell*.

      "The truth is that kitchen knives are perhaps 25% of the knives used in most of the terrible crimes. That's one of the stats in the film.

    3. Please spare us from actors, actresses, slebs and the like from pontificating on the problems facing the U.K. they seem such idiotic numpties.

      (Anyone know what a numpty is?).

  62. Unfortunately seems harder to do at present, if I were a SBO I'd likely only employ family I could trust. Politicians a different breed, revolving door etc..

  63. How will this work they don't have any form of obvious visible identity, none of them would have any public liability insurance.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/cyclists-to-face-penalties-for-ten-new-riding-offences/ar-AA1yakfm?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=f67107acb2aa4124c5b304ec0eb4d1a5&ei=28

    I spent many of my early years cycling to school each day, back and forth to work in the summer. And have enjoyed many days out with friends on our bicycles. I'm not opposed to cycling but a lot of these people now, have no obvious respect for any one else, especially on public footpaths, where cycling use to be banned.
    It's about time they were forced to comply with certain sets of expectations and rules of the road.

    1. Cycling has also changed somewhat from the one with oldies and a basket on the front. I was in the city last night driving at 30 and passed by a darkie on the inside on an electric bike, he then continued on the pavement. They still haven't got around to understanding they now inhabit a country that has rules.

      1. From a program I saw recently on TV, it seems that most electric bike are illegal in one way or another.

        1. It is one of the very annoying things about this country that I discovered after coming back here from California. Almost anything new is immediately banned. It hardly encourages entrepreneurship. Segways, for example, are great for people of limited mobility who don't need a wheelchair. You mean it's useful? Ban it!

    2. Cyclists need to be registered and held accountable. They needn't be charged more than a small admin fee but they shouldn't be anonymous. One day I saw a woman riding up a cycle lane on Wood Lane (A219/A40) in the wrong direction. People on e-scooters use the same lane. I hope she didn't come to grief but it was her own fault if she did. The behaviour of cyclists in Oxford Street W1 is reckless to say the least.

  64. I don’t know , the strength of overpowering disapproval for Protestant .. was probably their attitude to the loss of several RC members of the South Cork based family in the Easter uprising .

    Religion accounts for many of life’s problems as we are all experiencing now, re the importation of millions of Muslims , they don’t fit in.

    1. There was an old joke about a nun asking girls what they aspired to be when they left school and when one of them said, "A prostitute, sister", the nun fainted and when brought round with smelling salts, asked the girl to repeat her answer. "A prostitute, sister". "Thank God!" said the nun. "I though you said, A Protestant".

  65. Norway has boarded the ship Silver Dania, suspected of damaging an undersea fiber-optic cable between Sweden & Latvia on Jan. 26.
    Norwegian police are collecting evidence & interrogating the crew which is all Russian. The vessel operates btw St. Petersburg & Murmansk

    Sweden & Finland now officially the Baltic Masters.. first time since 300-500 years. Now add Norway.

      3. O;Hara was crew chief but possibly not in control at the time of the crash. A male by the way.

        It is reported that trainee pilot Joe Ellis was at the controls. He was born a man, but then decided to become a woman. It is possible that he managed to arrange a plane crash only on the third attempt.
        There is a theory that Joe committed suicide.

        The channel's author also added that Joe Ellis had posted his "manifesto" online the day before the disaster. In addition to moaning about the multitude of plastic surgeries, the life difficulties of a man in a skirt, and the misunderstanding of others, there is a protest against the decision of US President Donald Trump to remove perverts from military service.

        2. I wondered how much plastic surgery he'd had. He did actually look feminine, which trannies rarely do. I assume there was still a masculine voice. Castratos were always mutilated before puberty.

    3. Dreadful thought:

      If this isn't fake, and he/she deliberately crashed the helicopter, Trump will get the blame.

      1. I don't think so, she/he had taken responsibility for collision avoidance visually but she/he was looking at the aircraft which was behind the one she/he hit (whose lights may have merged with the background)

        1. I’m sure you’re correct and I hope the black boxes do not suggest anything untoward.
          But as I posed the question, who will be blamed if it was deliberate?

  67. Well done you…..

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/labour-civil-war-brews-as-mp-slams-keir-starmer-over-reckless-heathrow-expansion/ar-AA1y8Hz3?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=f67107acb2aa4124c5b304ec0eb4d1a5&ei=100

    "In 2018, the Prime Minister opposed a third runway at Heathrow.

    "Now, in the middle of a climate emergency, his Government is backing it.

    "A complete U-turn at the expense of local communities and the planet.

    "Reckless, short-sighted and indefensible."

      1. I thought that as she is MP in Coventry……….we shouldn't be able to hear her at all 🙂

    2. There won't be any runway built. Just as there'll never be an HS2 railway. But a lot of money will be splurged into dodgy accounts and pretend companies. It occurs to me that if the waste monster is to be taken down in a peasants revolt, it will be necessary to immediately close the airports and shut down the BACS and Swift banking systems in order to prevent these people stealing all the money and absconding.

    1. Same old, same old. UN, WEF, WHO, George Soros and Bill Gares for starters. Western nations in debt.

  71. The earlier thread about the Lammy lookalike CEO of an American airport.

    Just had a thought. Does such a person REALLY need to know how aeroplanes work? Surely his job would be to ensure easy access to the airport, that parking is straightforward; that the shops and facilities are well managed; that the landside part of the airport runs smoothly; that security and fire fighting is properly organised and staffed….

    The chap cross-questioning him was no doubt out to make HIS point about DIE – but it could be – looked at dispassionately – that the applicant might have met the criteria I set out above.

    Just saying…

    1. My thought too, but I suspect that he should know enough to know who on his staff he should be quizzing if there are problems.

      I wouldn't mind betting that the interrogator had a research assistant/s who had prepared the questions as well as a cheat chart for the answers and that the politician too knew SFA about the detail.

    2. I remember a reporter asking a politician, actually a senior politician but can’t remember who, years ago if he knew the price of eggs or something. Just trying to score a few points.

          4. Me too. I notice the total cost of my food bill steadily rising but not necessarily the individual items.

          5. It depends so much on where they are sold , in what quantities, the size, the provenance, the type (free range eggs/jersey milk etc…) …. that it is a damn stupid question

        1. I don't suppose Samantha and…err…would it have been Frances or Thea, would know either.

  72. I suspect that LBJ was able to achieve so much because he was owed so many favours from Congressmen and Senators (or had the dirty on them) that he could get his wishes actioned. As you say, though, he picked up the baton from RFK and ran with it.

  74. Gosh, I can see a bit of blue sky peeping through. Only 9°C but dry and a bit brighter. Every so often in this very large open plan office building where I work, we have a game of musical chairs. There isn't any obvious reason for the frequent reshuffles but we've had two in the past few weeks. I'm the only member of the team with whom I sit to actually come in to the office Monday to Friday instead of "hybrid working" therefore the building management team allocate a desk for me on a "permanent" basis in their booking system. This time they've given me a desk in a quiet corner next to a window. Nice of them and I'm not complaining. I'm facing the "Kids & Family" area so looking at posters of Bluey and Duggee but I can live with that.

    1. 52.9 % Gas
      7.5 % Wind
      6.4 % Solar
      15.0 % Imports
      81.8 % Total

      So from where's the other 18.2% coming?

    2. Could the imports be all the tree trunks cut down here and we have sent abroad to be processes into chippings to be burned on our green energy furnaces ?

      1. On the one hand we have wood fuelled furnaces in the interest of the environment; on the other hand our wood-burning stoves are bad for the environment.

        Is this a paradox or is it sheer balderdash!

          2. Not too far back in our history he and his terrible hate filled vindictive colleagues would have been dragged out and executed. That’s how our islands have survived in tact for centuries. The damage over the past 30 years our political classes have done is irreparable.

          3. This latest act certainly. Imagine Trump chuffed to bits. Not to mention returning to EU, by the back door – no-one’s noticed that, yet.

    1. Since I'm an utter lady dog, I find that degree of perfection extremely irritating.
      At school, she would have been asking to have her plaits dipped in the ink well.

    1. ooh…Can i have your autograph?

      And any old cheque books you happen to have laying around…

  78. And another thing (Friday is my day for being controversial)…..

    The fact that the pilot of the US military helico was a man pretending to be a woman (or the other way round – I am quickly lost about trans theory) does not OF ITSELF mean that he/she/it/they was an incompetent pilot.

    It would otherwise if he etc been given a licence without bothering with training etc simply because he etc was a they etc.

    If you see what I mean.

    1. Wrong transgender..
      Transgender servicewoman Jo Ellis has been falsely named as the co-pilot of the US Army Black Hawk helicopter

  81. How Do They Know!?!
    Returned home with 4 humungous bags of shopping. Spartie hung around until he realised the meat was going straight into the fridge; he then retired to the sitting room.
    I had bought a very silly toy from ALDI; I took it into the sitting room and immediately Sleeping Beauty rose from his bed and shot across the room. How Did He Know it was for him?

    2. They should claim asylum in Belarus. They're always banging on about how terrible democracy is.

    3. "It's a complicated issue". Is that all that they can say in the commentary? If they try to enter Poland illegally, then they deserve to be shot. and, by the way, the soldiers' response seems to be to push them back using water cannon.

  83. Hi I'm Jackie Jackson Director for People and Culture‘.. I'm a smug Leftie activist snug as a bug as an independent regulator with limitless cash to spaff on awareness. We've got 2,883 staff at the Care Quality Commission.
    Here's my latest Press Release wot I rote using Ai.

    “World Holocaust Day not only commemorates the millions of lives lost during one of history’s darkest chapters, but it also acts as a reminder to us all to reflect on the lessons of the past and reaffirm our commitment to standing against hate, discrimination, and prejudice in all its forms.” You know what’s coming next…

    “The Islamophobic events that have recently taken place in the UK are a sobering reminder that hate, discrimination, and prejudice remain real challenges in our society, and it is our collective responsibility to stand against racism, Islamophobia and Antisemitism.

    Islamophobia is connected to and can be rooted in racism, in that it disproportionately impacts people from ethnic minority backgrounds, even though not all people who follow Islam are from ethnic minority backgrounds.
    .
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5ca94be63966054721d5e371e4e4123cb323eb67a278a8bbc8ac1bdee5f0d9c6.png

    1. Isn't Islamophobia generated by Islamic terrorism?

      And isn't this why Starmer bends over backwards to say that the Stockport murder was not a terrorist attack when, on far less evidence, the murder of Jo Cox was a right wing terrorist attack.

    3. Would you think like that Jackie if your little girl was slaughtered by an Islamic maniac? It's not the first time little girls have been sacrificed on the Altar that you and people like you are propping up.

    6. I noticed they all neglected to mention that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem supported Hitler and tens of thousands of Muslims fought with the Nazis. The number of Muslims who perished at Auschwitz Birkenau is 5.

  84. Brexit wasn’t a failure. It liberated us from the declining, dictatorial EU
    We can govern ourselves perfectly well. We just want to be left to do it
    David Frost : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/31/brexit-liberated-us-from-the-declining-eu/

    The failure of Brexit – or rather very limited success of it – was due to:

    i) An abysmal deal sacrificing Northern Ireland and British fishermen;

    ii) The fact that Johnson did not have all pro-Remain Tory candidates deselected before the 2019 general election;

    iii) Johnson's refusal to work with Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party.

    With a majority of MPs, members of the House of Lords and the civil service all determined to cripple Brexit a better deal and a purge of remainers in the PTB was needed.

    1. I bet there will be no oversight to ensure this money is spent wisely, which is even more tragic.

    2. The late Prof Richard Lynn ranked Tunisia at number 24 in the world IQ table, with an average score of 83. £5m isn't going to make a blind bit of difference to that. They'll send us their detritus and use the money to benefit their own corrupt politicians.

  88. Here we go again…..more hype.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/log-burner-row-erupts-as-households-swerve-300-fines-despite-hundreds-of-complaints/ar-AA1ybfnu?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=f936b8da585042d0853bdbe5600669d2&ei=50

    Nothing is and never will be as bad as it was in the 50s when people were all burning coal. But what seems to be overlooked as with all light weight gases and substances that rise in the air, it will all blow away, it always does. Just Stop bloody moaning !

    2. Well done Rene – it looks like a tale of two starter words here.
      Mine came up trumps again and, surprisingly, despite a good time spent I could only come up with one viable option – so it has to be said, a fairly straightforward Eagle!

      Wordle 1,322 2/6

      🟩🟨🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Well done. I'm on eagles' wings at the moment. It's knowing previous answers that helps a lot and not repeating them.

      Wordle 1,322 2/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  90. I'm bloody knackered!
    A bit of sawing with the electric saw, plus a bit of log splitting and hence to Matlock for a replacement chain sharpening file.
    And yes, it was certainly needed.
    The tree lads have had a rather serious sized tree chipper with a hiab arm to feed the full sized tree trunks into it, but they did have a leave a few bits which fell out of reach.
    So, after sharpening the petrol saw with the new file, I've just been out to test it and it's cutting much better! Sharpening saw chains, because the teeth are a rather hard grade of steel, a sharpening file very quickly loses it's edge.
    Got some nice sized lengths of 4 to 6" diameter which will be going for t'Lad and a couple of bits for Welder son to take to his place.
    Knocked it on the head for the night as I ran out of petrol!

    Will be off to Step-son's tomorrow with a couple of birthday presents for him and I must remember to fill the 2 x 5l petrol cans I've got in the back of the van.

    1. Well done, BoB. Did you also get them to sharpen up the original file to serve as a back-up should the new replacement chain give any problems in the future?

  91. Well, Mrs Bee made the final journey today. A very moving and thoughtful eulogy (partially written by me) and a wonderful poem originally written as “He was my friend”. Thanks to Sue Mac for making the journey.

    2. Thank you Eric. It was indeed a very moving service and your poem was beautiful. Your family and friends made me very welcome, and I know that Sandra was much loved, and will be sorely missed.

      1. The poem, Sue refers to was a three verse poem originally written by Walter H Bonn, “He was my friend”. I changed to pronouns and prefaced it with two verses of my own.

        She was my friend, my lover, my life long partner.
        When she walked in the room, her smile lifted my mood.
        Her infectious enthusiasm made life a joy.
        To be with her made life worthwhile.

        She was my friend, my rock, my everything
        Without her there is a void
        An emptiness that can only be filled
        by kind memories of wonderful days gone by. Eric D Brown

        She was my friend. Her presence was to me
        Like perfume from a cherry-blossom tree,
        Her voice brought calm,- it soothed like tuneful chimes
        A-playing slowly, sacred peaceful rhymes.

        She was my friend. Her handclasp steadied me.
        Her grasp drew me there where I longed to be.
        Her thoughts entwined with mine in rendezvous
        Like mated stars in yonder peaceful blue.

        She was my friend, a friend worth more than gold,
        More than the stores of fabled Croesus hold.
        She brought me faith, contentment, hope and cheer.
        When she was here, then too, God’s love was near.

        Walter H Bonn

        2. At first, the pain is like a sharp dagger in your ribs, but it will change over time to a dull ache. That ache will never leave you, but it will be bearable, and you can carry on with your life.

    4. I'm glad it all went well, Eric. I'm lousy at funerals. Me and the current wife keep arguing about who will go first. Family history and statistics say it's me, and I hope that will happen. We've been arguing (with each other) about everything you could possibly imagine for more than 44 years. Well done with the poem and stuff, make sure you look after yourself and don't stay depressed.

    3. I honestly don't blame them. I'd do the same.
      Shine a light on the f**kers that set it all up.
      You'll probably find it's the same lot that plonked a tranny in the pilot's seat.

  93. That's me gone for this cold, grey, dreary, miserable day. Same tomorrow, apparently. I'll never get the various wisterias pruned at this rate.

    Have a jolly evening keeping warm.

    A demain.

      2. Try not to get it stuck between your teeth, Phizzee recommends that you sieve it before serving.

  99. What – and wash off the smell of chainsaw oil and metal filings???

    :shakes head:

  100. This afternoon in the back scrubland garden: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d8a60b6b640651158f6f37165a49d7febea5582ef283186ca1527914b1149a52.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/696e1f203b1e63383ba3f34d244ae355c7499a22662beea33d5287dad6b61618.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1066a2cef69b3cb70ed3cc048837ddeb3ebc40c7b4e8a6843bbe1f4d560b1322.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9ca30cbf8800c1dae848d40de1f33af542e441174f57f92be8c7e97cb0595dee.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/409123ef0c7e2485713f949beca64b70119dc4921fdaf27f4e831401841ddf32.jpg

      1. Evening Audrey. Yes the crocuses must be an early variety as the did this last year.

        1. They’re lovely GQ. Always Terpsi to you when here , I just chose a different picture of my heroine Audrey Hepburn. If I feel brave enough one day I’ll put up Terpsichore ‘s original picture but I prefer to be know to most as this for now . Btw I always remember your dislike of mushrooms and find I eat less of them these days:-) I do love your garden, thank you for the photos .

          1. Terpsi it is, and as for mushrooms it would be better to give them up gradually now rather than wait until I’m in charge and have to go cold turkey when I ban them.

    3. Heart lifting. I've hated this winter and I'm not sure exactly why, it could be something that happened in early July last year.

    4. My snowdrops are just bursting into flower. It will be a month before my crocuses emerge. My winter aconites are showing well though.

  102. Today's church is Wimborne Minster. A good root around after prayer for those as need them:

    The Minster is dedicated to St Cuthburga, sister of Ina King of Wessex. She founded a Benedictine Nunnery here around 705 AD; there may also have been a monastery. Nuns from Wimborne were sent to Germany with St Boniface of Crediton (c. 680-755) to help convert the pagan tribes. As a result, Wimborne still has a special link with the town and Benedictine nunnery of Ochsenfuhrt. In 871, Alfred the Great buried his brother Ethelred here (not the later King of England Ethelred), after a battle near Cranborne. The Nunnery, possibly already in decline, was destroyed in a Danish raid in 1013.

    In 1043 Edward the Confessor founded a college of secular (non-monastic) canons to live and worship here. The greater part of the church as we see it today was built by the Normans between 1120 and 1180, to support these canons. It was flourishing in the 13th century, when a spire was built and in the 14th century an early clock installed. Around this time St Margaret’s Chapel and Almshouses were built, and services are still held at the Chapel. In 1318 Edward II declared the Minster a Royal Peculiar which exempted it from all diocesan jurisdiction. The choir used to wear scarlet robes, a legacy of this 'Peculiar' which lasted until 1846. The spire collapsed around 1600 and was not rebuilt.

    In 1496 Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and mother of Henry VII, founded a small chapel in the Minster and the priest attached to it was required to be in permanent residence and 'to teach grammar to all comers'. This was the seed of Wimborne’s Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, now Queen Elizabeth’s Upper School and still a church school. Lady Margaret’s parents are buried near the high altar. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c492ccd37c958e57285f9ae165248ae783a932916fbe7e5196da5afc15dcb8c1.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/51764c3c542f5e3d8140fa428123edc4af554c682e35c8f2e477b7a6d4585be2.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5be9e2e459e30feb83eab134135913e676acf2aa08a83fe6942b39c3411a6683.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/98ce61cff29422c0d79128eaeb91cf1c1ac2df971716c0feb9532d7f07de388d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bca79f85d272579b031b932894e204cf400e5926dbdb9c770c2e7d7ad398fb7b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8df328d10ac98103e67b042d39fc7ddb750174610e2cd2c8f912b5d335ad6443.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/947b6e448881fbd8146cbe75999cef001efcc1bd92911d7a0c55ee07f1ecf233.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a3bdb0ebf820ddb9371f4278890a98e0ae8ec855e10feb51741299bfc386d3d6.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4c0dcc9346a2a5b4b473152e90fc35a29182c180d587cdf4238c674f8c6ca23a.jpg

    1. Wow , wonderful pics GQ

      Moh has an ancient relative buried near the organ .At least that is what he says , because the stone has the family name .

  103. Just watching Great British Menu where the banquet will be held this year at Blenheim Palace. Celebrating great Britons.

    The guest judge for the North West is Margaret Aspinall who campaigned for 30 years to get the Hillsborough ruling of accidental death overturned.

    She eventually succeeded against an ingrained bureaucracy where at first point they lied to protect themselves.

    Sound familiar?

    Blood scandal.

    PostMaster/Mistress scandal.

    Pakistani rape gangs.

    1. Supporters were not to blame for the dangerous conditions and those killed were mostly faultless, but I still think that crowd pressures were a significant contributory factor.

      I've been in a massive crowd where I've been totally out of my own control thanks to crowd pressure. Had I fallen over I would be dead.
      And that was merely standing in the stands when a goal was scored.
      I no longer attend large events.

  105. Today I shall be mostly finding out whether Mrs DC can tell the difference between venison braised in red wine, and venison braised in chicken stock cooked by someone who has drank the red wine.

      1. I may get away with this one (he says with a soul full of hope despite prior similar hopes turning to dust).

        There's enough left in the bottle to give her a glass when I serve it. The connection between brain and eyes is complex, as is the art of kitchen deception. I have skills in this ….

        Oh who am I kidding, I'm fucked.

    1. What? You mean amplified click-bait grifters on social media got it wrong?

      Say it ain't so!

  107. Attended my BiL's cremation service earlier today.

    You would never guess in a Million years what the final piece of music was. I can tell you it wasn't 'Smoke gets in your eyes'….

    It was a song that my BiL sung along to to strengthen his vocal chords when he was losing his speech…. Nellie the Elephant sung by Mandy Miller

  108. "Venison soaks up more red liquid than you might think."
    "This oven is on the blink and runs too hot, it's evaporated the wine."
    "No, we used most of the red in the Bolognese the other night."
    "That's the problem with Canadian Niagara VQA's – they can taste like chicken stock."
    "I thought you might fancy a change."
    "Your palate clearly needs improvement."

    I've got this.

      1. @GBSW:disqus will have a laugh at that, given he knows she's an ex-Olympic pistol shooter. Not as big a laugh as me on skis mind you.

        So, arguments are unconvincing? I shall endeavor to persevere. How about:

        "What do you Canucks know about cooking anyway – your national dish is chips covered in cheesy gravy?"

        2. Run away.
          Under no circumstances attempt to ski away, although a falling moving target is more fun.

    1. I don't think she is going to lap that one up unless you can smear the dregs around the pooches whiskers!

      1. Genius!

        Who would have thought that it all comes down to catching a Jack Russel and pouring alcohol onto its head.

  112. “I’ve got this, all I need to do is jump back on the snowmachine and get home, she’ll never know. I’ll drink to that!”

    Fuck.

  114. A few years ago at this time on a Friday evening I would have been off to the local for a few beers and to meet some good friends. But sadly it ain't gonna happen.
    After an unusually bad night's sleep I feel like turning in.
    So good night folks 😴

      1. I read that as "Just turned myself in."

        That's what happens when you converse with Phizzee.

      2. And spreading it through innocent homosexualist jacuzzi/Turkish bath sex parties. Even such blameless orgies are now unsafe, hence Social Media must be policed and censored, through new draconian laws, in response. The entire population must be, by law, injected with experimental pathogens. Thus Spake 2tiercrucifyya..

  118. JD Vance has mocked Rory Stewart for not being as clever as he thinks he is during a spat with the former Tory MP on social media.

    Mr Stewart, the former cabinet minister and host of podcast The Rest Is Politics, hit out at Mr Vance after the US vice-president discussed religion in a recent Fox News interview.

    Mr Vance spoke to Fox News about the “Christian concept” of an order of love that comes before prioritising the “rest of the world”.

    Rory Stewart is not as clever as he thinks he is, JD Vance says
    US vice-president said former Tory MP ‘has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130’ during spat on social media

    “There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritise the rest of the world,” he said.

    Mr Vance added that this concept had been “inverted” by the far-Left.

    Writing on X, Mr Stewart warned of the dangers of politicians interpreting religion, saying that Mr Vance’s comments were a “bizarre take on John 15:12-13 – less Christian and more pagan tribal”.

    “We should start worrying when politicians become theologians, assume to speak for Jesus, and tell us in which order to love,” he added.

    The Bible passage in question, John 15:12-13, is about the love that Jesus commands his followers to have for each other.

    The passage reads: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

    Mr Vance retaliated by recommending that Stewart look up “ordo amoris” – a term that refers to a hierarchy of love – and added that “the idea that there isn’t a hierarchy of obligations violates basic common sense”.

    “Does Rory really think his moral duties to his own children are the same as his duties to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away? Does anyone?” he added on X.

    “I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: the problem with Rory and people like him is that he has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130. This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years.”

    The ‘Narcissist in Chief’
    Mr Vance’s comments follow Donald Trump’s policy focus on domestic needs first, with an isolationist approach to foreign aid.

    One of Mr Trump’s first moves as president was to suspend all foreign aid provided by the US, by far the world’s biggest aid donor.

    Republicans have argued that Washington carries too much weight compared to other Western nations, footing a bill of around $70 billion per year.

    Mr Vance has previously said that foreign policy “starts at home”.

    Weighing in on the debate, Alistair Campbell, a former Labour strategist and co-host of The Rest is Politics, said: “Very odd that the vice-president of the US has nothing better to do than troll my podcast partner Rory Stewart … perhaps he has not been given a proper job by the Narcissist in Chief.”

    Mark wright
    56 min ago
    Its true Rory Stuart is insufferable, Alistair Campbell not much better, both make their living by criticising other politicians and generally being so clever that they must think a lot of themselves. JD Vance on the other hand is an elected politician who is telling a simple truth most people can understand, even Rory and Alistair shoud they want to "wind their necks in"

    Comment by Dino Saur.

    DS

    Dino Saur
    1 hr ago
    Rory Stewart of the Desert Sands is a nutjob.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/01/31/jd-vance-rory-stewart-donald-trump-rest-is-politics-aid/

    1. Dino is quite right – anyone who wants to share a podcast with Campbell, a man who should be behind bars, is obviously a nutjob!

    1. It's ironic, nay heartbreaking to see how much green land he"s turning black to pretend to go 'green'?

          5. Honey, your hair looks great. Did you try something new whilst I was cooking the venison? It’s almost so distracting that I might have forgotten about the red wi….

            Nope.

    3. (I love arriving in the middle of an utterly incomprehensible thread!)

      Are you Being Creative With Cocktails again?

  125. For those wondering why there is a red wine/raspberry thread running, let me explain:

    I couldn't catch the Jack Russell.

      1. Into the blender. All the experts agree that blended raspberries can be a passable alternative to red wine in a sauce.

        :whistles innocently:

  127. 400804+up ticks,

    Pillow Ponder,

    I truly cannot see any mass of thanks coming from our kids, kids for the legacy they have been left.

    This foreign odious invading force didn't even need a bleeding wooden horse they were actually aidid & abetted by the indigenous peoples electing politico's who in turn went forth to foreign climes and invited
    en masse, troubles to the United Kingdom.
    The trouble entity is now showing its thanks in the way of asp to breast.

    https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1885317113692270761

    1. 400804+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Good man and party taken down, todays replacement are tory, whatever name MK 2.

    1. Well to be fair he can't be trusted to get on the right commercial flight.
      Lord knows where he'd end up.

  131. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Oh dear. In his never-ending desire to appear clever, it seems that Rory Stewart has slipped up again. You might have thought that after his poor predictions of a Kamala Harris landslide, the former Tory MP might be taking a break from super-forecasting and philosophising. But no, undaunted by past humiliations, ‘Florence of Belgravia’ seems unable to break his addiction to social media, weighing in on each and every matter on both sides of the pond. Today it’s an interview which J.D. Vance did with Fox News in which he declared that:

    There’s this old school – and I think it’s a very Christian concept by the way – that you love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that, you can focus and prioritise the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that.

    This prompted a righteous retort from Stewart. He quickly told the Vice President that his comments represented, ‘A bizarre take on John 15:12-13 – less Christian and more pagan tribal. We should start worrying when politicians become theologians, assume to speak for Jesus, and tell us in which order to love.’ Vance shot back by suggesting Stewart look up ‘ordo amoris’ and ‘the idea that there isn’t a hierarchy of obligations violates basic common sense’. He then added the final coup de grâce:

    I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: the problem with Rory and people like him is that he has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130. This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years.

    Questioning the effortless superiority of Balliol Man? Emergency podcast incoming:

    Steerpike
    Written by
    Steerpike
    Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike
    @spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

    1. Keep your cup full, and give from the overflow.

      Or, keep your cup full and do what the hell you want with it.

      1. They haven’t let me open that one
        but I found another on the Daily Telegraph

        JD Vance’s triumph over Rory Stewart is a humiliation for centrist Dads everywhere
        This was a battle for the ages, between populism and elitism – and it was a joy to watch

        Brendan O’Neill 31 January 2025 11:50am GMT
        A Balliol man picked an intellectual fight with an American “hillbilly” yesterday, and guess who won? Yep, the “hillbilly”.

        It was a showdown between JD Vance, the new American Vice President, and Rory Stewart, a podcaster.

        It started when Vance gave an interview to Fox News in which he outlined his Christian belief in a hierarchy of love.

        He said: “You love your family, and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then after that you can focus [on] the rest of the world.”

        To all normal folk who have not partaken of the Kool-Aid of globalism, this will sound perfectly reasonable. Of course we love our own children more – incalculably more – than the children of far-flung nations.

        A Christian can feel love for those he does not know. But it will pale, if not into insignificance then at least into smallness, in comparison with his love for his kin.

        Stewart wasn’t having it, though. The co-host with Alastair Campbell of The Rest is Politics – the podcast loved by smug centrist dads – just had to weigh in.

        With superb haughtiness, he took to X to accuse Vance of misunderstanding the Gospel of John. Vance’s order of love is “more pagan tribal” than Christian, he pronounced, like some pope of correct-think. We should worry, he tweeted, when politicians “assume to speak for Jesus, and tell us in which order to love”.

        Vance fired back, and it was glorious.

        “Just Google ‘ordo amoris’”, he advised his pompous interrogator. He was referring to St Augustine’s philosophising on the “order of love” from some 1,600 years ago.

        “Does Rory really think his moral duties to his own children are the same as his duties to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away?”, Vance asked.

        Of course Stewart doesn’t think this. I expect he’d walk through fire for his own kids, but not so much for the children of those he doesn’t know from Adam.

        But he could never admit to such a commonsensical feeling, for it would undermine his sainted role as The Sensible Tory who converted to the kumbaya cult of post-borders claptrap.

        In the moral universe of the preening centrist, truth plays second fiddle to performance.

        Then came Vance’s coup de grâce: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the problem with Rory and people like him is that he has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130.”

        It is this “false arrogance”, he said, that drove “so much elite failure over the last 40 years”.

        Oof. Vance is so right about Stewart. Rarely has there existed a man whose arrogance is so out of proportion to his intellect.

        It has been surreal to watch him morph from a former diplomat and MP into the chief sage of Britain’s liberal middle classes.

        To a certain kind of Brexit-hating Guardianista, Stewart is a centrist god. He’s their Lawrence of Remainia. They hang on his every podcasted word. They worship him as a truth-whisperer. He’s “too good for politics”, Rorymaniacs gush. The adoration is entirely incommensurate with his wisdom.

        This is the man who said Kamala Harris would “win comfortably” in the presidential election. And now he’s getting into spats over Christianity without seeming to know anything about Augustine of Hippo. He’s quite important, Rory.

        The Vance-Stewart clash was more than a Twitterspat. It was a face-off between populism and elitism.

        These men could not be more different. Vance comes from a poor, broken background, as told in his memoir Hillbilly Elegy. Yet he dragged himself up through Yale and the corporate world to become VP at just 40.

        Stewart, in stark contrast, is the son of a spook who breezily waltzed through the establishment. Eton, Oxford, a brief stint as the deputy governor of a province in Iraq – truly he’s the anti-Vance.

        A self-made leader of the free world taking on the “intellectual idiots” of the old guard? More, please.

    3. What a boat race he has. He is quite spectacularly ugly.

      Forget Helen of Troy – he could be used as the face that will sink a thousand immigrant dinghies.

  132. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    01 Feb 2025
    Coffee House
    SteerpikeSteerpike
    Trump: Diversity hires to blame for Washington crash
    31 January 2025, 7:37am

    While the investigation into the Washington air crash has only just started, already President Trump has hinted at what he considers is to blame. His conclusion? Diversity hires.

    The horrific crash took place on Wednesday evening when an American Airlines flight carrying 64 people collided with a Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac river, a short distance from Ronald Reagan national airport. There were no survivors – and both aircraft remain in the river as the recovery operation continues.

    Speaking to reporters in the White House press room, Trump insisted: ‘We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas.’ Not skipping a beat, the Republican was quick to launch into an attack on previous administrations – under both Barack Obama and Joe Biden – suggesting that their diverse hiring policies could in some way bear responsibility for the accident. ‘I put safety first,’ the new President fumed, adding:

    Obama, Biden and the Democrats put politics first. Their politics was horrible and their policies were even worse.

    Ouch. Batting away questions about evidence for his theory, Trump – who on becoming president immediately put all US government diversity staff on leave – told reporters he’d reached that conclusion ‘because I have common sense’. It’s hardly the most scientific of methods…

    Steerpike
    Written by
    Steerpike
    Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

    1. "It’s hardly the most scientific of methods…"

      That DEI is a very unscientific way to run a business, I think he can't be on the wrong track.

    2. A change to my philosophy

      If you can: Do
      If you cannot Do : Teach
      If you cannot Teach: become a Consultant
      If you fail as Consultant: Change 'gender' and blame the world

  133. Now would be a perfect time for Ontario to turn off the power to 2.5 million American homes and businesses.

    I mean, he likes people who bargain and can do deals, right?

    3. Egyptian doctors did a good job on me in Jeddah some years ago after peritonitis set in after a burst appendix.

    1. Thank you for your concern. I have 2 hours left at most. I have mixed all the red things into a sauce which I believe will be my salvation.

      1. Well if you get kicked out you can always throw yourself on the mercy of the Salvation Army. Good luck – May the Shiraz be will you!

      1. Oh, I dont know, Dupont was moving at least as well as the lassies above…..plus it's always good to see the Taffs get a good hiding….

  137. Evening, all – at last! I'm back online. It only took four "agents", none of which was English, to get them to reconnect me when it was their fault. I can't wait until I am out of contract. If I gave my full name, mobile number and email once I must have given it four times and I kept having to explain the same thing over and over again. Plus I had to go to my bank and get information from them because the standard receipt and statement I had didn't have it. At least I had the paperwork. "Do you have internet banking?" "No, but even if I had, I wouldn't be able to access it because I HAVE NO INTERNET". Unreliable internet is the main reason I don't have internet banking!

    How long I shall keep the connection remains to be seen.

    1. I am so confident in my decision, that I require life time immunity.

      See also 100 years on Dunblane.

      1. Have a word with Tony 'king Blair about all the 'D' notices he set up and issued during his time as pm.
        Only our grandchildren will find out what he'd been upto.

  140. Tomorrows letters page is already up

    The headline:

    "The most important reason why Britain decided to leave the European Union "

    Would the DT like to define what this 'country' of Britain exactly comprises

    We have Great Britain and the United Kingdom

    1. How the hell would the DT know the most important reason why Britain left the EU?
      The DT cynically removed BTL comments from all articles about 3 months before the vote, because they knew their paying subscribers wanted to leave. At that point I unsubscribed and haven’t paid them a penny since.

  142. Night-night everyone. I've not felt too good today, perhaps I overdid it on Wednesday, but it was such a lovely day. I tried a repeat because yesterday was even better but I couldn't sustain the effort as far so we returned. I think I am also brewing a dodgy tooth.

    This is delightful, and humbling. It puts everything in perspective.
    https://x.com/1hakankapucu/status/1884920335746609636

    1. What an amazing and heart warming moment. Animals in general will be far better off without us. I know they eat each other, but they do it without hate.

  143. 400804+ up ticks,

    Suella Braverman
    The special relationship has expired
    Keir Starmer is miles apart from Trump on almost every major issue

    If this is so then so has the one main hope we as a nation had for survival,leaving us with just two options,
    FIGHT or FLIGHT.

  144. Well, chums, it's bedtime for me. So, Good Night all, sleep well and I'll see you all tomorrow.

  146. Goodnight, all. The Rayburn is stoked and I'm about to fill the hot water bottles and retire to bed.

Comments are closed.