Friday 5 January: There can be no further delay in justice for the Horizon scandal victims

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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579 thoughts on “Friday 5 January: There can be no further delay in justice for the Horizon scandal victims”

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story

    NEW WORLD-WIDE SECURITY LEVELS.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9672c7e61b8c82259ac3b023d2347a4bfb5bc86c48aaf0ef76610fa853135b4f.jpg We Brits. are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised our security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.” Brits have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to a “Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was during the great plague of 1666.
    The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country’s military capability. It’s not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert.
    Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout loudly and excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing”. Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides.”
    The Germans also increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs”. They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbour” and “Lose.”
    Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.
    The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.
    Americans meanwhile are carrying out pre-emptive strikes, on all of their allies, just in case.
    New Zealand has also raised its security levels from “baaa” to “BAAAA!”. Due to continuing defence cutbacks. New Zealand only has one more level of escalation, which is ‘Croikey, I hope Austrulia will come end rescue us.’ In the event of invasion, New Zealanders will be asked to gather together in a strategic defensive position called “Bondi”. The Maori HAKA, is also being reviewed to intensify its scaring ability
    Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be right, mate.” Three more escalation levels remain, “Crikey!”; “I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend” and “The barbie is cancelled.” There has never been a situation that has warranted the use of the final escalation level.

  3. Good morning, chums.

    Wordle 930 4/6

    Another 4 for me today:

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

    1. Good Morning Elsie

      Wordle 930 3/6

      🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜
      🟩⬜⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  5. There can be no further delay in justice for the Horizon scandal victims

    Their compensation payments are in the post

  8. Good morrow good people!
    Still a lightening sky outside, but a calm, dry, (at the moment at least) start to the day with 0°C on the Yard Thermometer.

  9. Cat killer suspect reportedly claims responsibility for at least 20 pet deaths. 5 January 2024.

    A suspected cat killer in western France who allegedly tortured and killed dozens of animals over the holiday period has been arrested, bringing an end to a month-long crime spree.

    For weeks, residents of Montreuil-Juigné near Angers have been reporting the disappearance of their pets.

    When the number of missing cats rose, the local gendarmerie launched an investigation, while the mayor and animal shelters issued alerts, warning cat owners to keep their pets indoors.

    Obviously not a Nottler.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/03/france-cat-killer-suspect-at-least-20-pet-deaths/

  10. Morning all – bit damp up here.
    Brief visit as off to Lochcarron for a gig provided roads aren’t flooded

    2. Enjoy and hope the roads are ok.
      I’ve a trip to Derby to take a load of t’Lad’s Christmas stuff in that would not fit onto his motorbike, do a tip run for him and bring S@H’s bike jacket back home.
      Might also do a bit of shopping.

  11. UK condemns Russia for using North Korean ballistic missiles on Ukraine. 5 January 2024.

    Britain condemned Russia’s decision to use North Korea-sourced ballistic missiles on Ukraine in recent attacks by Vladimir Putin’s forces during its continuing invasion.

    “The UK strongly condemns Russia’s decision to use ballistic missiles sourced from North Korea in recent attacks against Ukraine,” the UK’s foreign office spokesperson said in a statement.

    “We urge North Korea to cease its arms supply to Russia,” the statement said.

    One’s mind boggles at this infantile hypocrisy. The entirety of the Ukies arms are supplied by the West, not least UK anti-tank and cruise missiles.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/putin-north-korea-ballistic-missile-ukraine-white-house-b2473615.html

    1. I would like to know the proportion of heavy artillery (home-produced or imported) crossing national borders against those in self-defence in both the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and indeed Israel and Gaza.

  12. A day in the life, 2046

    Sounds like the nightmare that was always on the cards.

    Culture Wars A day in the life, 2046

  13. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d14170d94789cc2c967885fd65e282b1fac9e3ea3ebbe63d04b3f44cab1e50a8.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bc5d8385e9ab4e5583e90f9de127e9ec0e497b44fc1792f9e85d60e615ca4bfb.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89521d0753882627b752dc933a825053d8f616c736df2322cf5fa71cf093c2dd.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/10ca4775d5dfb811530fc03f605b0d851d269c256b6baf3621d408c4f4eb940e.jpg It is a lovely bright, sunny, cloudless morning here in Skåne with a crisp –15ºC freshness to the air.

    Yesterday morning was spent excavating the car from its icy cocoon, and shovelling soft snow which was between one and two feet deep on the level with drifts of between one and two yards in depth. Refreshing and exhilarating work. Such work would not be possible this morning since that snow is no longer soft.

    Yesterday, once the car was freed I managed to drive it across the road to the now-cleared driveway of my good friend and neighbour, Bengt, who then kindly used his tractor with attached snow shovel to clear my driveway of copious amounts of the vit skit. I shall repay him with some pengar for his diesel and a nice pork pie from my freezer.

          2. Good afternoon, Alf. They are the best investment I’ve made. In the spring I am replacing the two large garage-style doors with a brick wall and a normal door. That will increase the energy-saving even more.

      1. Admirably well. The entire open-plan, triple-glazed, insulated-walled house is toasty-cosy.

  15. Good morning all,

    A fair dawn at McPhee Towers and a cloudy day with sunny periods lies ahead. Wind in the North-West but cool at 4→6℃.

    How to wreck the reputation of a formerly highly-regarded academic institution.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8267a159ec5b50b553af067fd7cf9e56749e58d702141b550b70e5a280d7663e.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/01/04/claudine-gay-dei-diversity-hr-madness-affirmative-action/

    As has been revealed in other reports, this fraud is to be allowed to slip sideways into a professorship which will pay her over $900k per year! How much were they paying her during her brief tenure as president?

    Other American universities are just as bad or even worse.

    Are they paying attention in the SCRs in Oxford and Cambridge? Somehow I doubt it. They’ll go on as they are until one of their own unexploded bombs suddenly goes off.

    1. As per the President of Penn U, the headline is that she has ‘stepped down’ from her presidential post but fails to mention that she also remains on the same pay and conditions whilst filling another role in the university. Therefore, the DEI push can continue whilst all that changes is the nameplate on the president’s desk. Much like John Lewis et al on this side of the pond.

    2. Good morning Frisky, and everyone.
      Less of an ‘unexploded bomb’ and more a handful of acorns. White collar careers will be devastated by the growth of Artificial Intelligence. No one knows know when AGI will appear, if ever, but whoever controls AI will soon dominate the world’s economies. Why should students become endebted for University degrees that could be completed online for a fraction of the cost? Hasta la vista Harvard baby, except for networking and sports. Ryanair pilots currently earn little more than senior London Underground train drivers; what was a fantastic career, with enjoyable long haul stopovers, is now an ordinary job, and that is before AI can operate a Boeing. (edited)

    3. Good morning Frisky, and everyone.
      Less of an ‘unexploded bomb’ and more a handful of acorns. White collar careers will be devastated by the growth of Artificial Intelligence. No one knows know when AGI will appear, if ever, but whoever controls AI will soon dominate the world’s economies. Why should students become endebted for University degrees that could be completed online for a fraction of the cost? Hasta la vista Harvard baby, except for networking and sports. Ryanair pilots currently earn little more than senior London Underground train drivers; what was a fantastic career, with enjoyable long haul stopovers, is now an ordinary job, and that is before AI can operate a Boeing. (edited)

    4. What is an SCR? I hate it when people use unexplained abbreviations, expecting every one to know the answer.

      2. I heartily agree, Tom. There is a fortune to be made by someone who compiles an encyclopaedia of TTFAs (Two, Three and Four Letter Acronyms). It would sell like hot cakes.

  16. 381385+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    The RESET brigade are taking the piss now in great abundance
    in arasing “hearts and ships of oak”

    In regards to us being an Island, and the defence of the realm we are witnessing “pretence of defence of the realm”

    Be no surprise to me for the political overseeing enamas to start a recruitment drive for those with seafaring experience
    from among the daily Dover intake.

    As a fighting / peace keeping maritime nation we have, via the voting pattern, become a woke joke.

    In voting in many cases for the “best of the worst” a sure fired way proving a failure, witnessed as a nation shortly to be shaking hands with Davy, Jones that is.

    Navy has so few sailors it has to decommission ships
    New frigates unable to be manned unless two existing warships are taken out of service

  17. SIR – Oliver Brown (Sport, January 3) says darts is not sport – distracting from the extraordinary achievements of an otherwise ordinary 16-year-old, Luke Littler, who lost in the final of the World Darts Championship on Wednesday.

    Sport is about entertainment, and Luke gave us plenty.

    Peter Breen
    Cranleigh, Surrey

    Entertainment is merely a by-product of sport, Pete lad, for those paying to watch it. Sport is competition between the strongest, the fastest and the fittest (the Olympic motto is: Citius, Altius, Fortius: Faster, Higher, Stronger). Sportsmen train physically and their bodies are honed for competition. They do not “train” on beer, fags and pizza!

    Darts is a pastime in the same manner that draughts and ludo are. Yes there is a good deal of skill involved, but no physical endeavour.

    1. There was a TV show a while back whereby athletes competed in disciplines other than their own – runners playing tennis, rugby players weightlifting and so on. Most intriguing was watching the darts players competing in field sports.

    2. There was a TV show a while back whereby athletes competed in disciplines other than their own – runners playing tennis, rugby players weightlifting and so on. Most intriguing was watching the darts players competing in field sports.

    3. It depends where you draw the line as to what constitutes a sport.
      Pistol shooting, rifle shooting, archery?
      Dinghy sailing, tobogganing, horse dressage?

      I tend to regard darts and snooker and billiards as borderline, but I certainly wish I had the hand-eye co-ordination of the top players.

      1. I think maybe our weather once might have been responsible for the game of darts. Indoor archery 🎯

        1. There are other similar sports/pastimes which could be regarded as spin-offs.

          Skittles types: bowls crown and flat, curling, ten pin bowling; all of which might be considered sports by their adherents.

          2. “Synchronised” Swimming

            Lagging slightly behind watching concrete setting in my list of boring events to avoid.

          3. Two more that I dislike intensely, but they need extraordinary levels of physical ability to do well.
            One might argue that top level competitive dancing is a sport.

            I used to swim to a reasonable standard and we had a coach who thought it was the bee’s knees.
            Damned hard work but a waste of time as far as my competitive swimming was concerned. The school got rid of him as a coach fairly quickly, thank goodness.

          5. I regard lawn bowls as a sport. It takes a lot of practice and skill to be good. At club level matches can last up to 2..5 hours and 30 ends. The green is about 40 metres long. Top players will probably play 5 times a week. Good exercise and social contact for, predominantly, elderly people. We’re playing the indoor version tomorrow.

          6. I totally agree, but at the occasional playing level it could be classified as a pastime.

          7. We have a playing membership of 93 and nearly all play some more than others and some play in National and County competitions. Last year vw got through to the 3rd round of the County Champion of Champions as she was club Ladies Champion. The woman who beat her went on to the National final of the competition.
            Yes to some it’s a pastime by that can apply to every sport.

            Edit – very to every

          8. I expect indoor rowing and running machines, even exercise bikes might be included as a sport soon.

          10. Indoor cycling, where the cycles run on rollers, is already a sport and has been for a very long time.

          11. Never heard of that Bob, I meant exercise bikes.
            Just being awkward
            I suppose some of them might want to include dancing as a sport.

      2. I can certainly attest to the fact that dinghy sailing is a sport – it requires impressive levels of fitness if you are racing, especially in stronger winds!!

        1. I agree, but that’s at the highest levels. At my level it’s a pastime and the wind is doing all the work.
          The very top darts and snooker players have to put in a Hell of a lot of practice to get to the level they are.

      3. I have always taken the simple view that if physical exertion is required it is sport. If not, it is a past-time. Some activities can be both, for example, angling. A carp fisherman sitting in the same spot under an umbrella watching a float for several hours is indulging in a past-time. A game fisherman climbing in and out of a river, scrambling over the rocks and wading in the pools of a fast flowing stream, covering a couple of miles or more of riverbank in a day’s fishing is indulging in sport.

      4. I have always taken the simple view that if physical exertion is required it is sport. If not, it is a past-time. Some activities can be both, for example, angling. A carp fisherman sitting in the same spot under an umbrella watching a float for several hours is indulging in a past-time. A game fisherman climbing in and out of a river, scrambling over the rocks and wading in the pools of a fast flowing stream, covering a couple of miles or more of riverbank in a day’s fishing is indulging in sport.

    4. ‘Sport is about entertainment’, obviously Mr Breen has never watched my efforts at walking football or golf. As for darts, in my younger days it provided a good excuse to visit various pubs I’d probably never visit otherwise.

    5. I wonder who we were entertaining when I played football for our school team or ran at my athletics club or played squash ? I seriously can’t remember if, or any single person paid to watch, apart from othe participants. But that was only known then as sport eh !
      Sport is when people train and actually move physically often breathing hard. Not stepping up to the oche but playing it.

      1. If all the year were playing holidays,
        To sport would be as tedious as to work;

        [Prince Hal in Henry IV Part 1]

        If sport is relaxion or change from work then if your work is doing it then professional sport is an oxymoron.

        1. The curse of many pensioners, particularly those who try to recreate their happiest childhood days by retiring to the seaside.

    6. I regard fishing as a sport but wouldn’t pay to see someone drowning a maggot. There are many branches of fishing and there are anglers and danglers.

        1. Done that but wouldn’t want to do it again. Lure fishing, preferably for bass, is my favourite kind of fishing. We’ve got giant bluefin tuna shoals off our SW coast, big game fishing is picking up in the UK.

    7. …no physical endeavour.

      Lifting all those full pint glasses isn’t easy, you know. Then there’s all that walking back and forth for refills!🙄

  19. Morning all 🙂😊
    It’s considerably calmer out side this morning. I expect some poor people will have been flooded after so much rain.
    Justice for the Horizon scandal victims ?
    Never, it will emphasise how useless our civil service and our government actually are. But I think most people already know that.
    “Everything they come into contact with they eff it up and big time”.
    Next……..

  20. Morning all 🙂😊
    It’s considerably calmer out side this morning. I expect some poor people will have been flooded after so much rain.
    Justice for the Horizon scandal victims ?
    Never, it will emphasise how useless our civil service and our government actually are. But I think most people already know that.
    “Everything they come into contact with they eff it up and big time”.
    Next……..

  21. Good morning, all. Overcast and damp here. I’ve picked up the sneezing, runny nose and cough lurgy. Looks as though I won’t be attending tomorrow’s surprise party for one of my sisters.

    Some truth in this although, ‘the times, they are a’ changin.’ On these issues maybe, but…

    https://twitter.com/juneslater17/status/174264078105015915

    https://twitter.com/ActivePatriotUK/status/1742847874751242539

    https://twitter.com/ActivePatriotUK/status/1742835804525764855

    1. And what local people think and want is irrelevant?

      Just as Trump got elected on the banner of “America First” might not a British politician gain votes by prioritising the indigenous British people (or at least those who are already here!)

      How about:

      BRITAIN AND BRITONS FIRST?

      (and how about actually meaning it?)

      2. Richard, Trump’s slogan was MAGA (Make America Great Again). And I think that the Reform Party’s current slogan is “Make Britain Great Again”.

    2. Good luck with the cold, we’ve had something foul since before Christmas and every time it seems to going it returns.
      Nothing serious, it’s just very unpleasant and debilitating: energy/enthusiasm sapping.

      1. We’ve had it as well.
        Its first manifestation is a tickly cough.
        Then a few days where, apart from tiredness, you think you’ve got it beat.
        It then returns as a classic cold; sneezing, streaming eyes and nose.
        Then returns to cough and weariness.
        We are at stage 3.

        2. I must be at the in between stage then – cough not as bad now but not gone. I had no runny nose or streaming. We’ll see. OH had the full works and coughed all night.

          1. That sounds like what I had in August. It was a persistent hacking cough which kept me awake at night – at least three – unless I sat up. The cough eased after that but lingered for about two weeks. There were no other symptoms to speak of. My breathing was clear, as were my eyes. It might have been Covid but I didn’t bother to take a test.

          2. I can’t really grumble too much as neither of us has had a cold since January 2020, though I did have a sore throat in August 22, which didn’t develop into anything. We haven’t bpthered with any tests.

      3. Thanks, sos. Nasty phlegm along with blocked ears are the worst of it. Yesterday, sinuses were playing up giving a headache but today they appear to be OK. Hope it goes away soon as I hate feeling lethargic and not able to get on as normal.

        1. I’m sorry to suggest it, but you should assume at least three weeks; judging from our experience, and it still seems to try to come back.
          I find fresh air helps a lot, but energy levels for doing heavy work are very low.

        2. I’ve had blocked ears since I had a head cold before Christmas. Nothing I do seems to clear them, although they are not now quite so bad as they were.

  23. Navy has so few sailors it has to decommission ships

    Me, ex RN with 28+ years service, realise the that the First Sea Lord must be “as thick as two short planks” not to realise that the RN require more personnel, not fewer ships

    Back in the 1950. we had 9 Aircraft carriers: now we have Two In Name Only.

    When they go to sea, the aircraft and manpower are from the RAF and USN, not the Fleet Air Arm.

    Money will be a basic cause of the problem: look who the fathered Mr Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor of the Exchequer since 2022. He would not be a ‘Happy Bunny”!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/04/royal-navy-few-sailors-decommission-ships-new-frigates/

  24. Navy has so few sailors it has to decommission ships

    Me, ex RN with 28+ years service, realise the that the First Sea Lord must be “as thick as two short planks” not to realise that the RN require more personnel, not fewer ships

    Back in the 1950. we had 9 Aircraft carriers: now we have Two In Name Only.

    When they go to sea, the aircraft and manpower are from the RAF and USN, not the Fleet Air Arm.

    Money will be a basic cause of the problem: look who the fathered Mr Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor of the Exchequer since 2022. He would not be a ‘Happy Bunny”!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/04/royal-navy-few-sailors-decommission-ships-new-frigates/

  25. Here’s an interesting podcast from Tom Nelson with Katie Spence, a real journalist at the Epoch Times. She first became sceptical when she investigated Tesla.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlEdi1hXqG4

    Epoch Times is certainly one of the places to visit for truth seekers. A full subscription is £38 for the first year then £168 a year after that. Perhaps a bit steep. Some articles are free and if you are a paid subscriber you can share articles with others. I’m registered with it but don’t pay so I get its morning bulletin every day.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c4d2c62a34591c0230bf5dd6f2aeafd279cb502fef050580d3bb6c6f5f6b68c6.png

  26. Here’s an interesting podcast from Tom Nelson with Katie Spence, a real journalist at the Epoch Times. She first became sceptical when she investigated Tesla.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlEdi1hXqG4

    Epoch Times is certainly one of the places to visit for truth seekers. A full subscription is £38 for the first year then £168 a year after that. Perhaps a bit steep. Some articles are free and if you are a paid subscriber you can share articles with others. I’m registered with it but don’t pay so I get its morning bulletin every day.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c4d2c62a34591c0230bf5dd6f2aeafd279cb502fef050580d3bb6c6f5f6b68c6.png

  27. Stephen Hawking: how the ‘flawed genius’ wound up in the Epstein files
    The celebrated cosmologist had ‘human weaknesses’ as well as his ‘more obvious almost supernatural gifts’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/05/stephen-hawking-jeffrey-epstein-island-files-new-york/

    BTL

    The Court of Public opinion now takes precedence over the Presumption of Innocence which should apply unless and until the case against a person has been proved one way or another in a fair, impartial court.

    Stephen Hawking seems an unlikely paedophile and Prince Andrew may be guilty but he has not been proved guilty in a fair, impartial court. However he has been found guilty in the court of Public Opinion stirred up by the MSM.

    Recent cases in the USA suggest that the jurisdiction in that country is anything but fair and impartial.

    1. We’re seeing this more and more often. Russel Brand, for example. The Left wanted him gone as he threatened their narrative so they destroyed him through ‘character assassination’. It needs no annoyances like courts, laws, convictions, evidence.

      1. The comments are still there – I have just added mine to a string of BTLs:

        Mo Bass:
        The reports all seem to allege that anyone who associated with Epstein did so with the sole purpose of engaging in underage (in the US) sex.
        That Epstein used young women – most of whom appeared to be quite willing at the time – to attempt to coerce influential people into his circle has been established.
        I haven’t read anything that convinces me that Andrew, Trump or Clinton actually engaged in sexual activities with the young women.

        Reply to Mo Bass by M Round:
        I don’t think it matters whether they did but whether it was consensual

        Reply to Mo Bass by Moirelyn Jewula
        Perhaps Hawking just wanted to discuss the universe with Epstein?

        Reply to Moirelyn Jewula by Richard Tracey :
        He may have been a dyslexic genius who thought he was travelling in a time capsule to visit Einstein rather than Epstein?

      2. The comments are still there – I have just added mine to a string of BTLs:

        Mo Bass:
        The reports all seem to allege that anyone who associated with Epstein did so with the sole purpose of engaging in underage (in the US) sex.
        That Epstein used young women – most of whom appeared to be quite willing at the time – to attempt to coerce influential people into his circle has been established.
        I haven’t read anything that convinces me that Andrew, Trump or Clinton actually engaged in sexual activities with the young women.

        Reply to Mo Bass by M Round:
        I don’t think it matters whether they did but whether it was consensual

        Reply to Mo Bass by Moirelyn Jewula
        Perhaps Hawking just wanted to discuss the universe with Epstein?

        Reply by Richard Tracey to Moirelyn Jewula:
        He may have been a dyslexic genius who thought he was travelling in a time capsule to visit Einstein rather than Epstein?

      1. My word not only terribly unimaginable but also terribly racist…..writing on a black board !
        I would imagine most people of reduced structure would be bored with that.

    4. In his defence Clinton is alleged to have said, that he only popped in to see what was going on.

  29. 381385+ up ticks,

    Politics latest news: Starmer wants early election because ‘things are getting better’ for Tories

    Sir Keir Starmer is pushing for an early general election because he knows “things are starting to get better” for Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives, a senior Tory MP has claimed.

    Thank heavens for that, that will set many off at a gallop for the polling station.

    Sarcasm fully intended.

  31. That a load of cut firewood shoved over the top of the Hollybush stack for the pantry stack and Graduate son told to drag his arse out of bed and get it stacked.
    Planning to head off into Derby about 11ish so might do a ½ hour’s chopping after I finish this mug of tea.

    Trying to resist eating at the moment as I’ve put on over ½ a bloody stone over the 2 weeks before Christmas period and want to get back down to under 14 stone!!!

    1. All that lugging and chopping and you are still fat ? !!!
      I lost half a stone but then i didn’t eat anything over Christmas. :@)

        1. Once you have cut the grass on your sit on lawnmower you could go over it again with the hand push roller and blades. Good bit of easy exercise. And a nice walk.

          1. Rastus is the proud servant of moles.
            They leave his patch looking like a lumpy field and pushing such a mower would be next to impossible.

          2. As there is no sure way of getting rid of moles there are several ways suggested – but none of them work.

            And neither diesel nor petrol fumes work. I attached a hose pipe to the exhaust of my car (petrol) and put the end of it into a mole gallery; when this didn’t work I attached it to my minibus (diesel) and did the same but the moles loved it as much as the Rolling Stones loved their drugs. Indeed Keith Richards will probably outlive many of us who have never touched either recreational hard or soft drugs!

          4. My moles must be doing piecework, given the number of hills they produce.

            I’ve just returned from yet another bout of log shifting. I arrived at the bottom of the garden to go into my bit of forest only to discover the blasted Sanglier have been busy rooting up all the footpaths that I had been using to push the laden barrow along.
            What was merely a heavy chore has been turned into very hard work, pushing through the sodden mud.

  32. ‘Morning All

    Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e384321f6ea46bed61dc2c69ec0bc649a121e1027e06cebec2876ac6bf81991f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d573a087fb71f5a245fd27fe2c67dc7f7b5f42e5d3b4042be9cb95f298e27f4f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/56bbb48cc676f6521e112953b02c66a5a66728a982be833c58f1c3f3af8c8f58.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e78b27d8d7867400921e6e501b90e27bd442abe6dc5d3158de51cc3543c70c3e.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/830358982d78d2edc57ab1238e6df37381cfe6c595d932e7ff4fdce91036dd71.jpg

    https://twitter.com/nickrolfe64/status/1741904133030879687

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e7a32119dedb86463d69744878e9f065f4e805366c3e2158650c07e92e2ebc5.jpg

    1. Yo Rik,

      With regard to the New Border Security patrol

      When in Florida, a few years ago, I visited an Alligator Park, ie a very large enclosure surrounded by 3ft high wall.

      I was dressed for warmer climates, ie shorts and T shirt.

      I was watching the keepers were feeding the beasts, when something ‘brushed’ the back of my bare leg. Alligator came to mind

      I did a standing vertical jump of 20ft, then saw this toddler run to catch up with his parents.!!!!!

  34. Losing the will to live here……just spent an hour of my life on the BT messaging service. We have a landline and use it for calls. I dislike using my mobile for calls, though I’m happy to use it for internet or messages.

    Landline stopped working a few days ago and engineer was booked for this morning. He arrived about 8.30am today. I saw the Open Reach van outside on the drive. He rang my mobile. I missed the call. He went away. Why couldn’t the guy just come to the door like anyone else? I’ve now had to waste half the morning rebooking the call. How am I supposed to know what kind of socket connection we have? I know these people are typing from a set text but why would I be expected to know that?

    I suppose when they disconnect the landline system and force us onto Digital Voice we’ll all have to change the way we live.

    1. I’m blowed if I am forced to change the way I live.
      Whist BT gave me no option, when I cancelled Friends and Family option on land line, other than to take out a two year subscriptton to FTTHome optical Halo I not only kept my other existing landline with Fax machine but invested in an alternative VoiP phone that connects directly to G4 Mobile. I make outgoing calls on G4 VoiP with a £10 p/m SIM subscription and make free calls and faxes on landline. Incoming calls are forwarded by BT’s Halo Router via green socket to the legacy four radio handset domestic installation which identifies registered callers.

      The network reconfiguration now makes things easier by separating i/c, o/g and digital/voice traffic.

        1. Life was simpler before the internet and microprocessors.
          There was a time when you could get the attention of the operator by keep pressing the rest on the phone.

    1. Perhaps it wasn’t the marriage that was the problem, it was his failure to convert to Islam.

  36. By seeing an advertisement I have just been reminded of a joke.
    A man pulls into a garage to fill his petrol tank. A Bentley parks behind the opposite pump. The chauffeur gets out and the guy says to him, blimey who’s that in the back of your car. The chauffeur says oh that’s the chairperson of a shipping line. Oh says the guy it’s alright for some eh !
    Well says the chauffeur, she works for Cunard……. So do I says the guy, but I couldn’t afford a car like that.

    2. Wayback when, when the RN had proper flying warlike jet aircraft, Rolls Royce ‘lent’ our Phantom Flying Training Squadron, a posh Roller.

      It could be hired by anyone over 25, who had a clean licence.

      One weekend, a CPO ‘hired’ to go to Portsmouth.

      Pulled into a Filling Station, paid attendant, correct money

      Sat and waited, little man came out cleaned car windows

      Sat and waited, man came out and said, what are you waiting for, you are blocking the pump

      Chief say My Greenshield Stamps</spoiler

    2. Still waiting to hear about ours it’s been more than 28 days from the alleged offence. They are supposed to have replied by now. But I expect their excuses will be Christmas.
      Seeing that we could have been starring in the mail. I might even write to them to get a reaction..

      1. It is NOT an “offence”. It is – if anything – a “civil debt”. Just saying.

        1. On the fine document it states ‘Failed to make a valid payment’. We have the ticket that ended up under the drivers seat due to a sudden gust of wind as the car door was closed.

          1. If I were you I would be economical with the truth here, and suggest they must have missed it.
            Do they have photographic evidence?

          2. Photographic evidence of what Sos ?
            They sent us photos of the front and rear of our car showing the registration.

          4. No it shows a distant dash but not highlight of an empty dash or perhaps a missing ticket. It might have been and automated shot, But the rear shot looks as if the break or rear lights are on. If it was taken as my wife left the car park they should have stopped her to point out the possible error.

          6. I have a Norwegian woollen winter hat. It has the red cross on its blue background. 🇮🇸
            Brought on a trip to the Fjords and back from Southampton.

          8. But how did ‘they’ know we didn’t have ticket on the dash ?
            It was registered and pay accepted through the ticket machine.

          9. Did they know you didn’t have a ticket on the dash?. The ANPR only reads the number plate and you have supplied evidence of payment. Don’t get yourself in a stew. You have answered their question.

          10. They just take far to long to reply.
            But dish out the punishment very quickly indeed.

          11. If the time limits are the same as speeding offences, of which I have greater knowledge, if caught on camera they have 10 days to issue a ‘notice of intended prosecution’. You then have, I think, 28 days to appeal.
            That’s where I think you are at the moment. Is that reasonably correct?

          12. They could say you had a friend in the car park at the same time and it is their ticket.

      2. Don’t correspond with them any more. You’ve done your bit by providing them with evidence of payment.

        If you write again you will only be feeding the hand that wants to tie you in knots.

        Being over 28 days is their problem, they knew Christmas was coming. If they’re over that time that should put you in the clear.

        1. Thanks for the advice .
          I’ve sent and email to the Daily Mail reporters as well.
          We will see what happens.

  38. Raising babies on a plant-based diet can cause ‘irreversible damage’ including ‘more fractures, nutrient deficiencies and being shorter’, nutrition experts warn after Lucy Watson announces she’ll bring her child up vegan

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12904327/Nutrition-experts-warn-raising-babies-plant-based-diet-cause-irreversible-damage-including-fractures-nutrient-deficiencies-shorter-Chelsea-star-Lucy-Watson-plans-raise-baby-vegan.html

    1. So, an idiot Greenie vegan ‘reality’ TV influencer, who had mahoosive problems conceiving, decides to bring child up a vegan? What could possibly go wrong? 🤦🏻‍♀️

          2. Please no! The blurb on the stupid b*tch says she grew up on a farm, so she saw first hand the animal cruelty involved!! Written by PETA I think!

          3. I saw a man in a US steakhouse wearing a tee-shirt with PETA on the front. I think that he was about to get some aggro from some of the diners until they saw “People for the Eating of Tasty Animals” on the back of his tee-shirt.

        2. Apparently ITN also employ her as a journalist. I no longer watch what now passes for their news output so hadn’t noticed.

        1. Ahem! That was the other up-herself moron, Emma Watson! Lucy was a ‘reality’ TV ‘star’!

    4. Why don’t these people stop and think….why do they not understand why the infant mortality rate was so high in previous years.
      People couldn’t afford to feed their children properly and diseases were rife.
      I hope Lucy make sure all her veg is washed and inspected for transmittable’s.
      At least meat products will have been cooked.

      1. Three of my mother’s cousins died of diptheria in the early 20th C. They were well to do families. Two of them were young brother and sister who died within days of each other in July 1908. Diptheria was a real killer but unheard of now.

        1. I remember the posters in post offices reminding mothers to have their young ones vaccinated against it.

        2. It amazing how all the vaccines we had as youngsters worked for so many years. Unlike the covid jabs.

      2. Three of my mother’s cousins died of diptheria in the early 20th C. They were well to do families. Two of them were young brother and sister who died within days of each other in July 1908. Diptheria was a real killer but unheard of now.

      3. You only have to look at people in old photographs to see that they were smaller and punier than today’s folk on the whole. It’s the relative size of the head to torso and height that provides the evidence. All down to availability of protein.

    6. Eat meat: remain an Alpha predator animal at the top of the food chain.
      Eat vegetation: become a vegetable.

  41. Ah, that’s better. I can hear clearly now. Just done a DIY ear-wax removal since ‘our’ NHS no longer does it and all the nurses who used to do it have set themselves up in private practice charging £50 for one ear and £80 for two or thereabouts. Sod off.

    2. Bic biro tops are excellent for emptying ear’oles. Good scrapy edge, bend the tip up a bit & drag the rest out.
      Bliss!

      1. Didn’t your Mummy tell you never to put anything smaller than your elbow into your ear?

    1. Those two jets were close to each other, that must have been illegal I thought air traffic set laws of at least one mile apart.

      1. Depends on the height:

        “Commercial aircraft flying below 29,000 feet must maintain a vertical separation of 1,000 feet. Any higher and the separation increases to
        2,000 feet, except in airspace where Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) applies. RVSM approval allows aircraft to fly with a vertical
        separation of 1,000 feet reduced from 2,000 feet between FL290 and FL410 inclusive. Over the ocean, beyond radar coverage, the vertical
        separation minimum can be a little as 1,000 feet.”

        https://baatraining.com/blog/how-close-can-a-plane-fly-to-another-aircraft/

      2. 381385+ up ticks,

        Afternoon RE,
        It could be there’s a clause that if you ate a private owner of a jet you are above the law.
        (in the very,very,very small print)

    3. Now you are likely to be run over by a JCB while it digs foundations for a thousand little boxes.

  43. Yesterdays floods were horrendous, not just surface flooding but mostly caused by river banks busting.
    I feel so sorry for all those people whose homes have been effected. It must have been horrible to stand and watch the water pouring into their homes.
    I wonder how much of this has been caused because the EU Mafiosi banned and even fined one farmer for dredging the rivers.
    Or some of the causes could have even been our experts recent efforts at ‘re-wilding’ and beaver dams.

    3. They are putting the bends back on many rivers to slow the flow and flood more areas in the re wilding nonsence.

      1. On a walk today we couldn’t cross our river the Ford was completely flooded, stopping access to the footbridge.

    4. Don’t forget the building of houses on flood plains. That’s what water meadows are for – to take the excess water when the river floods.

    1. He writes some very sensible articles. He would be a big improvement on the current and recent incumbents.

    2. Because he is a Conservative, and they are not welcome in the conservative party.

  45. Whatever you think of Wales, Welsh language revival and Welsh nationalism you have to admit they’ve got some good songs. This one, ‘Yma o hyd’ (We’re still here) by Dafydd Iwan presses the right buttons, harking back to the days before the Anglo-Saxon migration when Britannia was ruled by Macsen Gwledig ( Magnus Maximus). English sub-titles are provided. Far better than that frightful dirge Flower of Scotland which we Scots have to put up with.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkBQAvAFjus

    3. Thank goodness for modern DNA records. Anglo-Saxons only make up between 10 and 20 per cent of the English. And the Welsh are not one people, but two, as distinct from each other as from the other peoples of these islands. The whole Welsh nationalist thing is based on a retro-fitting of modern imagination of previous persecutions. No mention of the Welsh occupations of parts of what is now England…

      p.s. The Welsh national anthem knocks spots off this!

        1. Those are the ones. In fact, Welsh was spoken in parts of the North-East and North-West into the 20th century, but that was due to later industrial-age migrations. 😉

      3. Possibly true.
        But if the allegations are false, presumably he could and should sue for vast damages for defamation.

        I feel much sorrier for those who are getting pulled in merely because they knew Epstein or visited any of a number of places he “worked”, including the Island.

    2. What price The Presumption of Innocence?

      The Court of Public opinion now takes precedence over the Presumption of Innocence which should apply unless and until the case against a person has been proved one way or another in a fair, impartial court.

      Prince Andrew was advised not to appear before an American court and recent cases in the USA suggest that the jurisdiction in that country is anything but fair and impartial.

      1. In theory? I agree totally.

        But in this case, squeal about him as much as you wish, that bastard is almost certainly guilty and I actually hope he gets prosecuted here and in the USA and is given his opportunity to prove whether he’s innocent.

  47. 5th January was a good day for the merchant sailors of World War Two as no vessels were sunk by U-Boats on this day during the entire war.
    5th January is virtually unique in this regard.

  48. 5th January was a good day for the merchant sailors of World War Two as no vessels were sunk by U-Boats on this day during the entire war.
    5th January is virtually unique in this regard.

  50. Pushing New York as a sanctuary city has backfired on NYC Mayor Adams. Poor dear wants to sue bus companies for $Milions. Be careful what you say if you haven’t got the wherewithal to back up your words.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3c64664daba8fbe0a7a4b621bd7f7252c6bffbb3488fd3a8f4f53cde674088a8.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fc789e2baf9c4d60baee6242fe373eccdb628140c33e78c2838b579c4c8b8dbc.png

    The Hill – NYC Mayor Adams’s Lawsuit re Migrant Bus Companies

    2. But what could make a Sanctuary City happier than busloads of people seeking sanctuary.

      1. Busloads of taxpayers using those same buses to escape, so that the city becomes so much of a pigshitistan that not even asylum seekers want to go there?

          1. Strange place New York.
            I loved working there and visiting but it must be nearly 30 years since I’ve been.

    3. Sensible New Yorkers should sue him for being an utter wazzock and landing them with even more illegals. Does he think that these illegals won’t make their own way to New York, anyway? That’s where many want to go, and they’re given a free pass once on American soil.

    1. Wasn’t that bad when we collected our car a few days ago, but there’s been plenty snow since. -17c on the way to work this morning…

      2. Sorry, I tried to upload a video, which conveys much more, including the howling wind ..

  53. Ref the PO scandal docu there seems to be one campaigner for the poor sods who has been airbrushed from the scene……

    One MP that seems to be on OUR side on many issues

    Andrew Bridgen

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pbp3lb53Zs

    Talking of airbrushing………..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ddebf9a4ebca2ac672812c849d53c3f8e2ffeac712394266a77d2b4d98f1aba3.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0539c91d6a1be4fb516a3b0a954d6b231a27a5fce1fe82b1354a21dbf5c1adee.jpg
    The stench gets worse………

      1. Not forgetting a good selection of Fujitsu staff! I would like to see both Venal [sic] and co, plus Fujitsu, have their assets seized and used for compensation, before they are deservedly sent to prison!

          1. Over 494 thousand signatures.

            Expect to be ignored by the Government.

            Is Ms Venal a member of Common Purpose, she appears armour plated.

          3. Does being a priest make you impervious?

            It certainly discourages the DPP from investigating your misdeeds..

          4. Wholly unnecessary to ask!! Just look at her fellow devilish “priests” – Welmeaning, the Fishwife…..the end is listless.

          8. Stripped of her CBE?
            How about stripping her of her clothes, tying her to a lamp post and covering her with tar & feathers?

        2. As i understand it, every click on a digital system leaves a trail. They should be able to see who accessed records.

          1. If the software was properly designed. I suspect that it was contracted out to a far off country, so nobody really had a handle on it.
            I was contracting for Fujitsu for part of the time this was going on I think – our team was German, and extremely competent. They did get stuff developed in other countries though.

      2. Not forgetting a good selection of Fujitsu staff! I would like to see both Venal [sic] and co, plus Fujitsu, have their assets seized and used for compensation, before they are deservedly sent to prison!

    2. Someone should ask a previous Director of Public Prosecutions, Cur Kneel Stammer, what he would charge them with and should any ‘honours’, in the very loosest of senses, like CBE be withdrawn.
      I do like to see people like him and them squirm.

    3. Someone should ask a previous Director of Public Prosecutions, Cur Kneel Stammer, what he would charge them with and should any ‘honours’, in the very loosest of senses, like CBE be withdrawn.
      I do like to see people like him and them squirm.

      1. Revolving doors I think they call it. From one catastrophic failure in public office to an even higher paid one and guaranteed failure again. Should be barred from any public office or directorship in ant private, state or company.

    5. Vennels must be a diversity hire, she’s so incompetent. Either that, or else they always need to have someone like her around to be the fall guy.

      1. Did you ever see Bob Kerr’s Whoopee Band which was in the same genre as The Temperance Seven and had band members from the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band in it.

        I saw them perform at the Queens College May Ball at Cambridge in 1969. There was a remarkable player of the Spoons who was described as being the ugliest man in the world!

        1. At that time I was the father of two with an enormous mortgage. Going out was NOT an option!

  55. Well, that was a pleasant trip back from t’Lad’s in Derby.
    Just pulling on to London Road when R3 began playing Tchaikovsky’s 1st Piano Concerto No.1 and it lasted until I started the descent of Cromford Hill.
    Very nice!

  56. Wandered down to look at the River Avon which is in flood (approx 10 feet above normal). The Toll bridge is closed to traffic and the Bathamton Mill looks like it is going to be closed for some time. It has only recently re-opened after being flooded last year…..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9e7cfafbbc34df3d7c102b54f1a73b1b3a05790569033658c6f49342f47a1d49.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/adc6d6e938b4127a17f7f9d2b712f21055e9ed75672c6269a5f6e3ccd70a3b14.jpg

      1. That I cannot do – The River Kennet is in Flood so if I were to try to exit the marina a) I wouldn’t have an insurance cover and b) There’s a good chance the boat would be swept over the weir and both hands (mine) lost!!!

      2. That I cannot do – The River Kennet is in Flood so if I were to try to exit the marina a) I wouldn’t have an insurance cover and b) There’s a good chance the boat would be swept over the weir and both hands (mine) lost!!!

    3. There was a bridge known as The Old Bridge across the Avon at the bottom of Southgate Street. The bridge is illustrated on a painting by Thomas Girtin in the City Art Gallery. It was demolished and the crossing replaced for years by a temporary metal Bailey Bridge.

      The area of Southgate regularly flooded and raised boardwalks were installed to enable passage. The removal of The Old Bridge, the installation of interlocking sheet piling to the banks of the river and the replacement of The Old Weir were all part of the flood prevention scheme of the sixties.

        1. I am a Bathonian and retain fond memories of the place still. Regrettably many parts of Bath have been lost to crass developments and road schemes.

          Thousands of artisan dwellings were demolished in the sixties. My Art Master at City of Bath Technical School, Peter Coard, published sketches of many of the buildings lost in a book entitled Vanishing Bath.

          2. Sorry Bill, the purchase of a property in Whissonsett fell through. Our buyer pulled out after three months and the builder of the Whissonsett property had an alternative buyer.

            We resolved to stay in Ashen and make improvements to our house both for utility in old age and to make it more saleable when market conditions improve.

            Property prices in Bath are now out of our reach although I would have liked to return.

          3. I see. Lot to be said for staying put, these days. I am staggered by the cost of moving house.

          4. Just the cost of removal for a fairly modest home can reach £10,000 if traveling across country….

          7. My first move in 1970 cost £13 by the Co-op, 2nd move was paid by the company I worked for, my move to Scotland cost £700 in ’93 and my last move I did myself using my Toyota estate

          9. £840,000 for a 1400 sq ft terrace ‘Georgian style’ town house less than 50 yards from the A36 and with first floor bedrooms at road level! (Holcombe Park development)

          11. I went to St Christopher’s School in North Road which folded in1959 and the house and grounds were bought by King Edward’s School. Many of the pupils went on to Kingswood but I went to Blundell’s in 1960. My father also went to Blundell’s but he finished his schooling at Monkton Combe before going to fight in The First World War. My wife, Caroline, went to Bath University and one of my best friends used to run a stall in the Guinea Lane Antiques Market.

            I too have some fond memories of Bath though St Christopher’s was pretty dire.

  57. First puzzle of the year completed. A really delightful one.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d1061703853f192f12e7e5e3c9326faa7733bd5941d3d520f2c8451a53e028d5.jpg

    The small red shop front a few inches from the bottom was Fred Collins Ironmongers, Earlham Street WC2. Just round the corner from 65 Monmouth Street where my first wife’s family lived. Her father was a shoe repairer.

    We knew Fred well. He came to our wedding. The shop is now yet another clothes shop. The shoe repairs one is also. Shame, really.

    2. Whitfield Partners Architects, for whom I worked for many years, restored the Seven Dials Monument. I knew the area well. The foundation system for the stone column was complicated by the number of buried services at the confluence of the streets.

      1. Interesting. My father-in-law was killed by a a gas leak when the Victorian cast iron main outside the shop fractured in January 1968. While “attending”, the NTGB wankers managed to put their drills through the adjoning water main…. and had the nerve to tell us (dealing with grieving widow, children etc) that it “Was not our day”…..

        I almost hit the man with his spade.

  58. Just back from weekly grocery shopping, brrr it’s cold out there! but it’s good to see the main roads have already been treated, before snow arrives tomorrow morning. Made a big pot of beef bourguignon yesterday, some to freeze and some to consume, with sufficient quantities of red wine tonight. Hope the rain stops for all of you affected by floods, some of the photos I have seen look pretty horrendous, take care

  59. ‘Night All

    I leave you with a long Bob Moran

    There’s a very worrying and ignorant narrative trying to take hold
    regarding the injections. Many late-to-the-party critics of the jabs
    completely fail to acknowledge a fundamental truth. Because it exposes
    how morally reprehensible all of them are. To their core.
    Their
    position is that IF everything we had been told about these injections
    being necessary, safe and effective had been true, the situation would
    have been fine and their promotion of them would have been acceptable.
    Only
    in hindsight, with revelations about how ineffective and dangerous
    these drugs are, do they have anything to apologise for. And only with
    the benefit of that knowledge should any attempt be made to stop them.
    This is complete nonsense.
    Let’s ignore the fact that it was
    BLINDINGLY obvious that these products were unnecessary, ineffective and
    dangerous from about January 2021 onwards. Let’s also assume that
    everything the manufacturers and advisory committees claimed about them
    had been true: They were absolutely essential to address a genuine
    emergency, they were as safe as could reasonably be expected, and they
    worked as advertised.
    Absolutely none of those things would have excused anybody promoting or supporting the rollout of these drugs.
    Here’s
    why: In 2020, governments all over The West had taken the barbaric and
    illegal decision to remove basic rights and freedoms from their
    citizens, in the name of public health policies. The implementation of
    these policies was understood, from the outset, by those who enacted
    them, to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
    If they didn’t kill
    you, they were likely to make you poorer, devastate your mental health,
    destroy your business, deny you access to health care and more besides.
    Nobody, anywhere, was unaffected by lockdowns.
    These injections were
    presented to the population as a CONDITION for these tyrannical,
    murderous, completely unnecessary restrictions on freedom being lifted.
    For some people, it was implied that they could lose their ability to
    earn a living, travel abroad, receive medical treatment or participate
    in free society, if they refused to take the jabs.
    You cannot, ever,
    offer a permanent medical procedure to people under these conditions.
    No matter how safe or effective said procedure might be and no matter
    how severe the illness it is supposed to address.
    The only way in
    which this would have been approaching ethical acceptability (again,
    assuming the drugs were not, in fact, designed solely to cause injury
    and death) is if all restrictions on freedom had been lifted prior to
    anyone getting a shot and absolutely no link had been established
    between the uptake of the drug and the future implementation of lockdown
    policies.
    As a doctor, or politician, or broadcaster, your ONLY
    obligation was to state unequivocally that nobody could be offered these
    procedures under such coercive conditions because it totally violated
    fundamental medical ethics. You didn’t need to see any studies or graphs
    or models. You didn’t need to trawl through all the trial literature,
    underlining stuff with your stupid red biro. You just needed to say,
    “No. Not like this.”
    Failure to take that position demonstrated a
    completely unacceptable disregard for the moral principles that should
    govern our approach to healthcare and the role of medical professionals
    and government.
    Believing all the obvious lies you were told about
    these drugs at the beginning was not, and is not, an excuse for your
    endorsement of their roll out. There WAS no excuse for this.
    If we
    fail to understand this truth, we set a very dangerous precedent for
    what could happen in the future. We also allow certain figures to
    maintain positions of authority and leadership who have demonstrated an
    astonishing lack of moral understanding, not to mention common sense.
    You
    were wrong. And you weren’t wrong because you were lied to. You were
    wrong because you’re incredibly bad people whose opinions and advice on
    all matters should now be regarded as irrelevant trash.
    Never forget,never forgive

    1. 381385+ up ticks,

      Rik there should be no cap on the number of upticks this post deserves.

    2. And never again trust doctors when they tell you that a proposed jab or medicine is ‘safe and effective.’

      1. That is quite possibly the worst aspect of this whole affair, the almost total loss of trust.

        1. Not that most of can get anywhere near a GP since the great covid shutdown.
          In contrast, my hospital consultant is an absolute star – apart from the fact he will be retiring in about 3-4 years.

  61. My shambolic Bogey Five!

    Wordle 930 5/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩
    ⬜🟩🟨🟨🟨
    ⬜🟩🟨🟨🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Yep, it got me today too!

      Wordle 930 5/6

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

      1. Four here..
        Wordle 930 4/6

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

    2. Not far from normal, par.

      Wordle 930 4/6

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

    3. Been to the 5 o’clock club at the pub.
      One I made earlier. All a question of lucky first go.

      Wordle 930 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
      🟨🟨⬜⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Your Dad had a similar one – called “Esquire Within”. Kept it out of your reach!!

    2. In 1988 at the beginning of our marriage Caroline acquired a copy of Enquire Within Upon Everything by Moyra Bremner which was first published the same year. It has proved to be a marvellous fount of practical common sense and good tips. The Way Things Work by David Macaulay and Neil Ardley is another good source of information for the dilettante.

        1. Ah, that reminds me of a Robert A Heinlein novel. In one of his post apocalyptic novels, I’m sure that was one of the books the father of a surviving family had tucked away in the underground shelter.

  63. That’s me gone for this bleak, chilly and very breezy day. No rain for the next few days, I hope.

    Have spiffing evening. I wonder whether there really WILL be any real action to help the poor, cheated postmasters. I expect all the “outrage” caused by the telly play (very good it was) will all be forgotten in a couple of weeks.

    A demain.

    1. Given how hard the PTB fought to defend the PO system is it any wonder that people still think that the Biden voting machines were crooked?

      1. It’s not always the system.

        Sonny boy is responsible for a system that is used to assess credit worthiness of customers. He gets at least a call a week from the outlets where someone is challenging the denial of credit. The system has been live for several years and every challenge has been rejected.

        I also remember presenting the prototype of some HR analysis system to the HR VP where she jumped all over me because I was showing a shop floor worker with an incompatible wage grade.
        Clicky click on the online system resulted in Ah, we had best buy the system then!

        1. I worked for a banking group that was proposing to instal a completely new accounting system across the entire organisation. The consultant was an international accounting group, one of the best in the world allegedly. They became famous for failure.

          For the test run they chose the most incompatible part of the entire organisation and it was a complete and utter disaster.
          I was brought in to try to discover what had gone wrong and being audit, to bayonet the survivors. General managers were fired, the consultants were fired, and it ultimately cost me my job for a completely different reason.
          The local Head of audit was involved and at the “out meeting” I was explaining what I considered had happened, why, and what they should do about it.
          He kept interrupting what I was trying to put across. The CEO told him very loudly and rudely to STFU and let the guy who knew what he was talking about to continue.
          Total silence, a few embarrassed coughs, a very red face on the Head, and I continued.
          Unfortunately the local Head became Group Head of audit and by very unpleasant means he got rid of me.

          1. As a head of internal audit, I feel for you.

            I used the expression “bayonet the wounded” only earlier today.

            NB. This is not my modus operandi. We have a situation…which I am attempting to negotiate. At the end of the day, we are one team.

            Kumbaya etc

            Edit: we don’t have a Post Office situation. This was public knowledge 10 years ago – well, at least, the last time I trusted Al Beeb to tell the truth.

  64. Completely off whatever topic is current.

    We stayed in a hotel in Ottawa on Wednesday night. All was fine until we wandered into the breakfast room on thursday morning. OK this was a premier inn level not a Marriott but really we had a hard time stifling the laughs.

    There before us was a young couple wearing identical pyjama outfits, even down to matching slippers. What a pair of morons, didn’t they look in a mirror and ask themselves what they looked like?

    2. They must be on the way to Tesco afterwards. Or whatever the Canadian equivalent is!

        1. I’m sure even Waitrose is graced by pyjama shoppers. It’s just that their pyjamas have embroidered initials on them!

          1. Just some cartoon character on the back of their sweaters. It matched them quite well.

    4. And as you walked up to the mirror in the breakfast room and you were woken by laughter, you suddenly discovered you were sleep-walking?

  65. Last post – really. I have been thinking a lot about the Post Office debacle. The poor people needed really high powered, experienced lawyers – rather than pathetic saps who told them to plead guilty..

    Rather that stripping the vile, lying Vennals of her gong, I’d rather see half a million (and then some) signatures on a petition to force the government to force the PO to settle all claims in the next three months. In full. Or else.

    1. I haven’t really been following this programme but if these people were supposed to be creaming off money then they would have had to transfer it somewhere, there would be a trail that wouldn’t be hard to trace

      1. One thing that really bothers me is the lack of an evidential paper trail of financial transactions.

        I was accused of failing to pay my required payment to our local village services management company.
        I had actually paid the fee in person by bankers card at the specified due date and had the paper invoice with ‘PAID’ together with the organisation’s official stamp on it.

        Later, after receiving a demand for an increased sum for failure to pay on time I found it difficult to convince the company that I did in fact have an authentic validated receipt for the original payment. It took a lot of convincing the company that their internet based accounting system was deficient.

        I think that this is now the end of the matter but I was prepared to take legal action with the evidence I had to hand for the amount of harassment I received.

        1. My father in law, an eminent barrister at the time, was sent a very unpleasant and totally inaccurate letter by the tax man to his chambers’ address. It claimed he had not paid his tax and that he was to be prosecuted.

          He took the letter to the tax office and asked who had sent it, who had signed it and who had authorised it. Upon getting the information, he then said that all letters to his chambers were opened by the secretaries who read the content. They were very amused.

          In this case the letter was defamatory, had been seen by third parties, to his potential detriment, and he would be suing all those involved.
          Much consternation at the tax office!
          He got a written apology there and then and much grovelling.
          He tore up the apology and left with the parting shot, “be more careful”

          3. Assuming you pay tax to the UK’s Inland Revenue, those of us who continue (God knows why?) to live here are extremely grateful for your contributions. Keep them coming…..

          4. We don’t.
            One of the reasons we live here, high tax though it is claimed to be, is that the ability to combine our tax-free allowances actually makes us much better off than we would be in the UK.
            Being a boozer wine aficionado, the cost of living is much lower.
            When one looks at quality of life, let alone the almost infinitely better health services it’s a good place to be.

      2. A point raised by one of the persecuted post mistresses.
        Nobody would answer her question
        “Where has the money gone?”

        1. When I was involved in such things, in internal fraud investigations that was generally the starting point!

    2. The problem with settling the claim Bill is the British taxpayers will have to cover the costs. The usual AHs always get away with it.

      1. The guily have probably retired on full pensions or been promoted to where they can cause more damage.
        No bonuses will have been lost due to this debacle.

      2. Time to change the rules, as in directors are personally liable for any losses? Same for councillors.

        1. Thank goodness my parish council has a surplus! We are not putting up the precept this year (0% increase), but only because we have had a 3.1% increase in households paying council tax.

      3. The public will pay anyway – if the PO are fined the cost of stamps will rise to cover it. The best compensation will be paid out of the execs pockets

        1. I was at school pretty well 24/7.
          Boarding school. Parents in Nigeria. I started aged 8, never really resident at home after that. Parents much relieved…

          1. I only boarded for my last two years at school and mostly enjoyed it, bits weren’t great.
            Same place BT boarded, and which I get the impression he did not enjoy.

          2. From 8 to 18 for me.
            Didn’t enjoy it much, but it was all I knew. Made me independent, and a royal pain in the A, since I could fend for myself, and hold my own opinions separately from the family.
            A rather impermanent life – longest place I ever lived is here in Norway, and this house specifically.
            Weird, that.

          5. It’s very clean and smart in the student’s house – but to be honest our own living quarters are a bit scruffy and could do with a thorough Spring clean. Some of the dust is more like top soil!

            One of our friends has a sign in her kitchen saying :

            “Only boring women have immaculately clean and tidy houses.”

          9. HG couldn’t ever get used to the fact being moved was in my blood and my family weren’t even services personnel.
            I must have lived in 10 places before I was 8.
            She and I lived in 6 places before we had been married 10 years.
            Two of the last 4 cover nearly 40 years and have been easily my most settled.
            I still have a hankering to move to Australia.

          10. Only ever visited Perth and Freemantle.
            Great place. Aussies are good people.
            My favourite location: 2-lane drive-through bottle-shop! Sigh…

          11. Not been to either. I’ve really only done the Cairns to Adelaide stretches, it’s a HUGE place.

            My grandfather was born there and had the rules not been changed I could have qualified. Two of my children are now citizens, so I’m hoping that I qualify under family connection now.

            Bizarre to think that had I been an international sportsman they would have taken me like a shot under grand-parentage yet would refuse me as a bog-standard Brit.

          12. We’ve only lived in 5 houses in our, near, 56 years of marriage and it will be 28 years in this house in March, 3 days after our anniversary. I only lived in 2 flats from birth to getting married aged 21.

          13. This one is our second longest, but probably happiest.
            Being very nearly Heaven on earth, one can understand why.

          20. During my marriage I only ever lived in two houses (42 years). The most I ever moved around was when I was a student; I had a different lodging every year in and around Colchester – 4 year course – and I moved twice when I did my PGCE and twice when I did my MA.

          21. From 8 to 18 for me.
            Didn’t enjoy it much, but it was all I knew. Made me independent, and a royal pain in the A, since I could fend for myself, and hold my own opinions separately from the family.
            A rather impermanent life – longest place I ever lived is here in Norway, and this house specifically.
            Weird, that.

          22. Same as Jack, but the northern branch of MT, which apparently no longer has boarders.

          24. How is he? Prospering quietly, I hope.

            He no longer posts, but I presume he keeps a wife to do that sort of thing for him.

            You may be unsurprised to find HG gets fairly cross when I suggest to her that I keep a wife to do “that sort of thing for me”

            I hope all is well and that he has a plentiful supply of vinegar and brown paper.

          25. Living on top of a 100ft cliff, vinegar and brown paper ain’t gonna do it if you fall….
            and I am with HG, I too, would be somewhat cross to be referred to that way!!

            Have a lovely evening.

    4. My husband and I met him at Schipol airport! He was charming and chatty, but very drunk/hungover!

  67. Slightly off topic
    It’s always interesting to read of Nottler’s experiences meeting famous/well known people.
    I wonder how many of those famous/well known people remember meeting the Nottlers.
    I know several of Rastus’s friends will recall him, but playing “top trumps” no not you Donald, I wonder who has the best name to drop?

    2. The most charming celebrity I met at work was the Blue Peter dog, a golden lab. Moira Stuart and Joanna Lumley both seemed nice ladies though. Neither have any reason to remember their brief conversations with me.

      1. Both of them come across as pleasant people.
        Joking aside.
        If still alive, I would bet that the dog would remember.

      2. Diana Rigg used to shop in Mothercare in Stirling when I worked there. She was absolutely stunning, and lovely to talk to! She was married to Archie Stirling then.

          5. I read her book. That is one lady i would have liked to have met over a drink in nice cocktail bar.

      2. Ian Lavender used to come into the pub owned by my ex’s parents in Barley near Royston, I think it was when they were filming Dads Army near us at Honington

      3. Nicholas Ridley and Christopher Chope and their beautiful wives at the opening of my building Richmond House Whitehall. I designed much of the building but the senior partner took all of the credit and the knighthood. (Listed Grade II *).

        Earlier Queen Elizabeth and Duke of Edinburgh at the opening of my building for the Crown Estate Commissioners which sits over Pimlico Underground Station and follows Rampayne Street. Again senior partner took all credit and a CBE but I am mentioned in the Listing (Grade II).

      4. I was on the Waverly doing the Jurassic coast when Timothy and Pru came into the bar. Most people knew who they were but didn’t hassle them.
        Now. If we are talking about Nottlers !
        Geoff, Citroen, Garlands, Nags, Alfthegreat, VW, Harry Kobeans and his lovely wife Alison, Katy, BB2, Sue Edison, SeanStanleyAdams, Rik, StorminaDcup, Hertslass.

    4. When we were anchored in one of the Gocek bays the boat moored next to ours belonged to Michael Buerk. He and his wife invited us over for a drink and we got on very well with them but Caroline had no idea who they were as she never watched BBC News programmes. She asked Michael what he did, he replied that he worked for the BBC, she said in what line of work are you and he replied I am a news reader!

      A couple of weeks later he spotted my elder son, Christo, aged 11, in Bozburun and called out; “Hello, it’s Christopher Tracey!” Christo had absolutely no idea who he was!

      1. I can sympathise there.

        I have almost total facial dyslexia, Oliver Sachs could have written his book about me.
        I sometimes don’t even recognise her, out of context. I have to try to remember what she is wearing.
        HG tells all our friends that if they want to speak to me (few ever do) that they have to tell me who they are.
        All joking aside, it isn’t funny and it causes me a lot of embarrassment.

        1. I have similar problems. If people take a coat or hat off, I’ll never recognise them even if we’ve spent ten minutes together chatting before the change of clothing!

        2. Lol me too. Is it an audit thing????

          Edit. I literally cannot recognise myself, or my children, or hubby even, in photos. It’s a work nightmare.

        3. I have similar. It was worse as a child. People thought i was taking the piss. Often ended up with me being slapped around.

      2. I converted a farmhouse for the Egeskovs a couple of Danish millionaires who acquired 1500 acres of Grade I Arable near Foxearth in Suffolk.

        I was invited to supper by the Egeskov’s and sat next to the TV war correspondent Julian Manyon’s charming French wife. Manyon himself was an interesting character but he probably judged me an idiot when I thought he had worked for the BBC.

        The Manyons lived at Borley, famous for its haunted Rectory, at one of the extents of the farmland.

      3. I converted a farmhouse for the Egeskovs a couple of Danish millionaires who acquired 1500 acres of Grade I Arable near Foxearth in Suffolk.

        I was invited to supper by the Egeskov’s and sat next to the TV war correspondent Julian Manyon’s charming French wife. Manyon himself was an interesting character but he probably judged me an idiot when I thought he had worked for the BBC.

        The Manyons lived at Borley, famous for its haunted Rectory, at one of the extents of the farmland.

    5. Stephen Hawking. I used to work four or five doors down the corridor from him. I regularly had to change course as he and his wheelchair came trundling towards me.

        1. The corridors in the old building were narrow and he regularly had a ‘comet’s tail’ entourage of medical equipment, medical staff, personal assistant, research staff and students following on.

    6. I once attended a reception pre horse trials at which Princess Anne was guest of honour (and I was an also ran – I wasn’t even competing). Don’t know if that counts.

    7. Ahh well we have had Jolie Pitt living opposite us then Tom Cruise and then Denzil Washington and there is someone down the road called Rudd (?) who is apparently some kind of “star”. When we were in Sheen//Barnes, we had every two-bit “star” going, yawn.

    8. Ahh well we have had Jolie Pitt living opposite us then Tom Cruise and then Denzil Washington and there is someone down the road called Rudd (?) who is apparently some kind of “star”. When we were in Sheen//Barnes, we had every two-bit “star” going, yawn.

    9. I was asked the directions to the Albert Hall by Rolf Harris. I had just emerged from the pedestrian tunnel which runs from South Kensington Underground Station parallel to Exhibition Road.

    10. Not a good name in these parts but many years ago I did have lunch with Bill Gates.

      He was just a rich kid in those days and quite keen to talk about PC techie stuff.

    12. On a rare occasion, when my sister asked if I’d collect her son from school as she had been detained elsewhere, I met Barry Norman, the film critic. He was collecting his grandson while I was waiting for my nephew.

  68. Chris Skidmore quits to leave Rishi Sunak facing another by-election
    Former energy minister’s decision sets up by-election in Kingswood, south Gloucestershire, where he had a majority of 11,220
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/1/5/rishi-sunak-byelection-conservative-chris-skidmore-quits/

    Good riddance. He is clearly no loss to the Conservative Party as he has swallowed the Net Zero Scam hook line and sinker. Does he now go and join the Dimwit Davey with the Lib Dumbs?

    “Mr Skidmore, who described Mr Sunak’s relaxation of net zero targets as “the greatest mistake of his premiership”, said he could no longer support a Government committed to a course of action that “I know is wrong and will cause future harm”.

    The MP, who signed next zero into law as Theresa May’s energy minister, said he could also not support the legislation before Parliament next week allowing new oil and gas licences.

    2. Skidpatch should be committed to a mental asylum. There was such at one time near Wells named Mendip Hospital.

      I recall the name because my father was committed there a few years after the War having served in Burma.

    1. FFS, moving to the Ultra Bright Green Party presumably, or the JSO.
      Where, and on what effing planet, do these people who supposedly represent their constituents come from?

          1. Thank goodness for that.
            The squirt from a two ton sunfish would leave a nasty splatter …

      2. I think you’ll find that in Bristol most of the local populace have ‘Net Zero Now’ tattooed on their hearts……

          2. I once saw a Bristolian girl wearing a Tea shirt with the image of the Clifton Suspension Bridge lifting her Bristols. It was long ago before smart phones so no photo regrettably.

    2. I have said this before and will say again. I know not the man. But my in-laws know his parents and him. The diagnosis is not positive. Essentially he is a spoiled brat with no self-awareness and an ego the size of a house. My in-laws speak as they find.

  71. This report is on the BBC News home page.

    BBC correspondent Sean Dilley has been getting to know his new guide dog, also called Shawn. The pair have been learning to live together – walking, taking public transport, drinking coffee and even playing the guitar.

    Sean, who was born with congenital blindness, has used guide dogs for nearly 25 years.

    His previous dog, Sammy, retired after eight years. Sean had to wait 16 months before his new guide dog arrived, during which he used a white cane.

    “Spending time with Shawn is the best feeling in the world,” says Sean. “He is my independence and I have got my life back.”

    A few points. 1 Does the dog know how to spell its name? 2 Does it know the difference between Sean and Shawn? 3 When did it start playing the guitar and drinking coffee?

    1. All true, but bee (ho ho) fair; don’t spoil a good news item, there are far too few about at the moment.

    1. Hmm. Everyone should read Orwell’s “A Clergyman’s Daughter”* (as I am); that will learn ‘em.

      *other novels available, e.g. How Green was My Valley (read when I was 13 but on my list to read again) and Love on the Do.e which I read in my Manchester misery phase (1985-1989).

      1. I am reading The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

        I tried with difficulty to understand it years ago but now find it a perfect novel for our times with its play between Russia and Jerusalem.

        Quite extraordinary and as great a novel as any from the West excepting Middlemarch but that was another century ago.

        1. Brilliant, brilliant book. I need to re-read it. Not sure I can remember all my Russian, though…

          1. 🙂 My Niece read French and Russian at St. Andrew’s and spent her third year in Odessa learning Russian.

          2. In my time, Oxbridge had a ballot system for spending a year in Russia (no idea why). I was bitterly disappointed at the time to miss out, but seeing as many of my friends ended up near Chernobyl at the wrong point in history, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing…

    1. To be fair, it’s true, but how many women’s FA cup wins are equivalent to the male version?

  78. Evening, all. Wet, wet and more wet again today. I think I am developing webbed feet 🙁

    1. Our tree has been undecorated and now awaits carrying up the “garden” to await it’s next turn of duty in 11½ months time.

      1. When you collect it again – check it for Critters. One Boxing Day our living room became infested with creepy crawlies from the Christmas tree that had spent a year in our garden. I think they had decided that at 21oC Summer had arrived 6 months early. Tree bedecked with ornaments hastily plonked outside!

          1. I left ours for a couple of days in the rather cool ground floor bathroom. Didn’t notice anything crawling out. I keep it in a tub with a couple of inches of water in the bottom, don’t know if that helps.

      3. A couple of years ago our daughter, lives in Dubai, put her artificial tree on a 1st floor balcony. When she got up the next morning a swarm of bees had made it home.
        A beekeeper came and collected them.

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