Friday 6 May: An automated voice is no comfort to a widow faced with soaring gas bills

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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639 thoughts on “Friday 6 May: An automated voice is no comfort to a widow faced with soaring gas bills”

    1. ‘Morning Minty! Mild, wet and windy here! Our beautiful cherry tree is being battered as well as the clematis Montana! Pink blossom everywhere! How are you?

      1. I’m OK Sue. My Diabetes 2 is improving by increments. The weather not so much!

    1. Good morning, breezy and aquatic here. This afternoon’s invite up to Kilmarnock Barassie GC may need to be postponed.

  3. Morning, all Y’all.
    Sunny.
    Day off to prep for SWMBOs birthday tomorrow, buy timber for the fence, do some admin for Mother, and drink beer.
    Utterly worn out from work, so taking it easy – the problem with a stroke is that it kills a lot of brain cells, meaning that the remainder have to work harder. In my case, that results in physical tiredness, and my eyesight becomes claggy (like looking through very dirty spectacles). Been like that a while now, compensating for a klutz of a manager, so day off to unwind, and he can fuck it up on his own.
    Started with breakfast in bed – now you see how lovely SWMBO is! After 40 years of marriage, I reckon she’s a keeper… :-D)

    2. Sympathies. I’m sure you’ll manage to make your wife’s birthday lovely.

      1. She bought her present from me… so I have organised a surprise pressie too. The boys are making supper, I’m getting the Prosecco, flowers, today.
        Then the ritual 6 weeks of jokes about how much older than me she is (61 tomorrow, me 61 in 6 weeks time).
        :-D)

          1. Yup.
            Struggling to get past 12, mentally… still finding fart jokes hilarious!

    3. Moh told me it was our 42nd anniversary on the 1st of May. I asked if she was sure, as we’re not married and so we have no paperwork to be certain. I said it seemed longer.

  4. Britain faces recession and 10pc inflation as interest rates rise. 6 may 2022,

    In a bleak economic forecast as voters went to the polls for local elections, the Bank predicted that inflation would surge above 10pc later this year, its highest since 1981, while the economy will shrink in 2023 following a downturn beginning in the final three months of this year.

    Above? Yes. That’s right. Way above This will make the seventies look like a joy ride. Thirties might be more appropriate. I actually caught the Governor of the B of E on TV trying to make out that all this has something to do with Vlad and Russia. It doesn’t! This is those numpties in Westminster with their Covid 19 measures. Ukraine will impact later this year with sanctions jacking up prices exponentially.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/05/interest-rates-set-rise-election-day-first-time-18-years/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    1. Has anybody said how they are trying to minimise the fallout? Shit like that, can’t start too soon.

      1. Morning Oberst. Been a couple of things said but no action. The chooks are all coming home to roost now!

        1. Problem is, said chooks will be crapping all over you. That’s not good. Boris & Rishi have more money than Croesus, so it’s no problem for them.

      2. The only thing they are interested in minimising, is the possibility of riots on the streets and crowds with rope heading for Westminster.
        Us suffering and dying? Fine by them, just so long as they are safe.

        1. Good morning all.

          I actually think they are driving the country towards rioting n. And that would be just the excuse for them to introduce martial law and more lockdowns. And then they would just tighten the vice.

      3. All I think we can do is cut out unnecessary spending. School trips and things for Junior won’t change, but the Warqueen is looking to see if she has time for her interests or else reduce them.

        Government is moronic. They destroy our wealth – ‘levelling down’ to give our earnings to wasters (apparently this is ‘fair’) and so we spend less. With our spending less there’s less real cash inn the economy at the level it’s needed to generate new wealth rather than where a welfarist would spend it on booze, a tattoo or cigarettes.

    3. What galls me is the way that headline spins out to mislead. It is subliminally suggested that 10pc inflation is matched by 10pc interest rate. The truth is very economised.

          1. Has she missed the irony that her very statement *is* by definition, disinformation?

            Do these people huff their own farts or something?

          3. If they fit a turbine to George Orwell’s grave, that should produce enough energy to power the country.

    4. I have read from economist bods who follow these things, that small interest rate rises are only fuelling inflation, and that they will start printing (creating) more money in the summer in order to make it look as though they have things under control.
      Expect a lot more asset inflation.

      Interest rates have nothing to do with why the prices of sunflower oil, petrol and meat are rising. Cutting off the supplies by means of various devious, dishonest and violent strategies is the cause for this.
      “Bird flu” is being used as an excuse to close down poultry farms in the US, and to ban the sale of chicks to home poultry owners.
      Purely coincidentally, bird flu has been extensively researched, including in Ukraine.

    6. Two years of crashing the economy, on the back of 12 years QE. Stevie Wonder could have seen this coming in March 2020.

      We ‘conspiracy theorists’ mooted that Ukraine was a timely squirrel as the politicians/snivel serpents/SAGE/the communist cabal of iSAGE/the supine meeja all sought to divert attention from their machinations.

      With the Pfizer ‘dump’ of documents – barely mentioned in the media as they were so ‘distracted’ due to a ‘leak’ in the US Congress and a ‘party’ in Durham – finally laying bare the lies of the ‘experts’, heads will roll.

      It is worth noting that none of the Pfizer employees subjected themselves to their own company’s untested goop. All of those ‘experts’ pushing pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers to relent to the goop will be thrilled to find that the only trials for women in their position was tested on 27 monkeys in France.

      I expect Whitty, Vallance, Ferguson, Michie, Handcock and so many others are looking to m’learned friends for protection.

  5. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – My wife and I have a friend who is a widow in her 80s. Recently we found her in a distressed state. She said that her gas bill, normally about £30 per month, had gone up to £170.

    She does not bank online and her bank has recently closed its branch in the nearest town four miles away. She tried phoning her supplier, British Gas, only to be told by an automated voice on each attempt that the wait time was “more than an hour”.

    So distressed has she become that she has had to visit her GP, who suggested that she was suffering from anxiety brought on by the situation with her gas supply. She is now taking anti-anxiety medicine and has managed to get her bill altered. I can only say that this is a disgraceful way to deal with any customer.

    David J Hartshorn
    Badby, Northamptonshire

    SIR – Gillian Courage (Letters, May 5) writes of her energy supplier’s grab for more money. The same applies to our long-term supplier, Ovo Energy. On Wednesday we received two emails, one complaining about a lack of meter reading and another telling us that, based on our smart meter reading, we had to increase our direct debit.

    We had been concerned about installing a smart meter for fear of this type of surveillance, but in January we agreed to it and used it to reduce our usage by half. We have been cold.

    The second email disingenuously added our usage before and after the smart meter installation to forecast an annual deficit, although we are currently within budget. On telephoning we were told it was likely we would be sent an email threatening to increase the direct debit within 10 days, whereupon our remedy would be to lodge a complaint.

    I do hope Ofgem is paying attention.

    John Hanson
    Canterbury, Kent

    SIR – I live in a relatively modern, well-insulated house. I needed a new boiler, and consulted a heat pump specialist. The cost of installing one and changing all the radiators was nearly £30,000.

    I use roughly 21,000 kWh of gas each year at 7p per kWh, which comes to £1,470. Heat pumps are said to be about three times more efficient and therefore would use, say, 7,000 kWh of electricity at 27p per kWh, which comes to £1,890. I fail to see how a heat pump would save me money. I settled for a new gas boiler at £2,400.

    Michael York
    Holmer Green, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – It’s a bit rich of the Government to propose penalising those of us with older houses, for which it is notoriously difficult and expensive to reach an energy performance certificate rating of even a C, while at the same time building thousands of new houses with no solar panels, no heat pumps, and probably a gas connection.

    David Statham
    Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire

    And this is just the start…come October and even an average winter I would expect poverty and hardship on a scale not seen in this country for a very long time. Add to that the bullying energy companies…

    1. I would expect poverty and hardship on a scale not seen in this country for a very long time.

      Morning Hugh. Yes.

    2. Mr York, a heat pump is not more efficient than a gas boiler. It is vastly less efficient.

    3. When are you supposed to know what is happening with your bills? I’m with Octopus Energy and I’m still paying the same amount as I was last year. So when does the other shoe drop?

  6. More on the Exocets:

    SIR – While researching my book, Exocet Falklands, I studied the Exocet saga (Letters, May 5) in as much detail as was possible, including transcripts of telephone conversations between Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand. There is absolutely no doubt that France supported Britain at the highest level, further confirmed when Mr Mitterrand embargoed the transfer of 10 Exocets to Argentina, despite them having been paid for.

    The team of engineers already in Argentina fitting the first five missiles to the Super Étendards were brought home, leaving the Argentines to work out for themselves how to marry the missiles to the aircraft. I discussed this aspect with a number of their pilots.

    The French also sent fighter aircraft across the Channel to practise air interception with ours. None of this suggests an unwillingness to help, or that there was skulduggery involved.

    Lt Col Ewen Southby-Tailyour RM (retd)
    Ermington, Devon

    All a bit vague for my liking, and no reference at all to our requests for information about the kill-switches.

    1. Southby-Tailyour was a Bootneck, IIRC, and was a junior officer on the ground in the Falklands.

  7. SIR – Regarding Linda Read’s letter (May 5), I fear that it would now be the Enid Blyton book covered with the Lady Chatterley’s Lover dust jacket.

    Jonathan Mann
    Gunnislake, Cornwall

    Lol!

  9. BBC are saying only modest gains for labour in the local elections.
    I bet they are annoyed after all the hard work they put in on cake gate

  10. SIR – Regarding Linda Read’s letter (May 5), I fear that it would now be the Enid Blyton book covered with the Lady Chatterley’s Lover dust jacket.

    Jonathan Mann Gunnislake, Cornwall

    This must be the letter of the year, so far and completely sums up life in Wokist UK, 2022

    2. Yo, Mr Effort.

      I remember once reading a (someone else’s) copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and I can recall no mention, anywhere in that book, of golliwogs!

      2. I enjoyed the Spoonerised title of the novel:

        Lady Lovely’s Chatter

        1. But is it a book that you would wish your wife, or your servant, to read?

  12. Wealthy Russians flee to Dubai to avoid sanctions. 6 May 2022.

    Dubai has emerged as a haven for wealthy Russians fleeing the impact of western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

    Russian billionaires and entrepreneurs have been arriving in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in unprecedented numbers, business leaders told the BBC.

    Property purchases in Dubai by Russians surged by 67% in the first three months of 2022, a report said.

    This is the result of stealing people’s private property under the guise of sanctions. These people are almost certainly former customers of the UK’s financial industry and probably have a fair few non-Russians among them. Along with the seizure of Russia’s foreign holdings this is probably the most egregious example of self-harm in the whole sanctions regime which is saying quite a lot. Looking at them one concedes that they might damage Russia but at a cost to us that far exceeds it!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61257448

    2. Tbh, I won’t miss the Russian mafia, and Putin’s occasional assassination raids. Wish we could get rid of all the rest of the filthy money in the UK too.

      1. Morning BB. That filthy money has helped keep the UK afloat for the last twenty years. There’s nothing to replace it!

    3. Yes, it is not unexpected. Liz Truss is dangerous because she seems to be very stupid* and has no control over her mouth.

      *Academic success, career with Shell, accounting exams, de-a de-da…this country would be better off had she become a costermonger.

    4. I have read of at least six Russian billionaires and their families have suicided by hacking themselves to bits. Dubai is probably safer for them than Spain.

    1. “Whatever the cost” approach has broken British finances over covid, So, let’s do it again! Arse.

    2. Big Pharma stopped producing a drug i needed and nothing much was said. Now HRT is running out and everyone is screaming.
      see what i did there…

      1. You could identify as a hot, sweaty middle aged woman, but the results might not be quite what you expect.

  14. Good morning all.
    A slightly overcast but dry start here in Derbyshire with a tad over 7½°c outside,

      1. Nope.
        It’s the “gift” that keeps on giving…
        (In yer Weegie, gift, pronounced “yifft”, means married, or poison. Just saying.)

          1. Morning, Grizz.
            Sunny day with you? Gorgeous weather here, despite the vegetation gagging for rain, made better by a day off away from the Klutz-in-Chief. Third coffee sliding down a treat as I sit at the terrace table & enjoy the 10C heat wave.
            B-D

          2. Indeed it is, Paul. We’ve now not had any rain, whatsoever, for well over three weeks. Just a mixture of sun and cloud and averaging around 11–13ºC.

        2. Same in German, Paul, and it is spelled the same as English – German ‘gift’ = poison.

    2. Wonder how many voting Labour in these areas pay their own Council Tax?

      2. Almost none.

        It’s funny, folk say London generates wealth for the rest of the country, and that this proves the success of di-worse-ity.
        This is of course, utter bollox. The people who generate the wealth in London don’t want to live in London. It’s an open sewer. The people who generate London – and the country’s – wealth, are white, educated and the ones paying all the taxes.

        The Left also ignore that London consumes vast amounts in welfare – that’s what di-worse-ity had brought us. Hordes of useless freeloaders who can’t speak English and claim endless benefits – which we’re stupid enough to allow.

        If we moved the wasters out, not only would we clear much of London, but we would save billions in welfare and billions more in welfare fraud.

        1. Those who generate wealth in London do wonders for house prices as far afield as Norwich.
          Unless, that is, you are young and would like to get on the property ladder. Although MB and I would benefit, we are creating an underclass of young people with no stake in the current system.

          1. Getting on the property ladder should be difficult, but not impossible. Anything that comes easy isn’t valued.
            I remember mortgage rates at 15%… nearly got an evening job at Tescos to keep the mortgage going. Fortunately, that problem went away sufficiently that I didn’t need to. However, it instilled a heightened sense of financial control in me.

          2. Sadly, not only are the wife’s/significant female’s earnings taken into account, but multiples of their joint incomes are now awarded. It used to be 3x the husband’s annual salary. Oh, and we had to put down a deposit.
            If the current regime had applied when we bought our first house in 1964, we would never have been able to afford it.

          3. ha! That’s get us about £100K, or a small flat. However the problem now is buyers are not competing for house prices with other buyers, they’re competing with big fat state as well, which has the homebuyers money to waste as well.

            Big government buys property to house it’s favourites – illegal criminals – and prices buyers out. The market is rigged, and deeply unfair.

          4. We missed the ‘boom’ of buying low and seeing the appreciation and bought high. We’ve only got some equity due to overpaying.

          6. One of my sons has managed to buy a three-bedroomed semi with garden and garage in a village a few miles south of Bedford; the other has bought a two bedroomed modern flat by the canal in Lancaster. They saved for their deposits and, apart form not being lumbered with students’ loan debt, neither of them has been subsidised by us since their graduation from university with good and useful degrees.

  16. I think the main problem with the local elections was that there was no party from the centre right to vote for.
    Hence the vast majority stayed at home.

    1. I had 7 candidates contesting 2 seats for the County Council.
      They were 2 Green, 2 Lib Dem, 2 Conservatives and 1 Independent.
      I only used 1 of my 2 votes available to me.

        1. One of the independents here wanted ‘no more cuts’. That was his entire mantra. That state waste continues to increase is lost on these fools. That more money will change nothing is beyond them.

    3. Average turn-out at local elections is 35%.
      I’ll be interested to see turn-out figures for this year. (Or, I could get myself a life.)

  17. Good morning, all. Blue skies. No overnight rain.

    Was there a low turnout? I am surprised that anyone bothered to vote.

      1. I didn’t have that much room, but I said much the same. Spoiling my ballot was the only form of protest we have. It’s wrong. We must be able to remove these people, revoke their laws, stop the dross from countermanding our will.

        1. For years here I have bored on about the need for NOTA votes to be counted and, when these win, then nobody is returned to office.

          1. The number of spoilt ballot papers are recorded at every centre where the votes are counted. The Returning Officer (usually the Chief Executive of the local Council) is required to show such numbers on the published Election Statement. One day they might exceed the unspoilt type…

    1. When is the excrement going to strike the ventilators? This concealment of the truth about the Covid vaccinations gene therapy cannot go on for ever.

    2. It’s worse than that. I can’t find the link but someone suggested that if national insurance from an average worker were invested as a normal pension fund it would, by the retirement of that worker, return nearly a million pound pot.

      Now, there are some people who have never worked. They shouldn’t receive a pension at all. There are some who cannot work. They should, but that number is very small relative to the population.

      The problem isn’t the cash. It’s that government prefers to waste our NI contributions.

      1. Many years ago, I read that Chile had the best pension scheme around. They invested the NI contribution into an investment pot for you, and when you retired, it paid out. It wasn’t just added to general taxation, and future taxation relied on to pay the meagre pension that the State gives in the UK.
        Also, he investment belonged to the individual’s estate when they died. That doesn’t happen in the UL, either. Pension payments just stop.

        1. Yep. We should do the same. It is not right that big fat state wastes public money on Shamy Chakrabalti’s salary.

    3. This would be on a par with the Abbopotomus as Home Secretary. Still, the chaos that would ensue would cure any future urge for people to vote Labour!

  20. Good morning all

    I can see the leftie media are gloating as is the leader of the Caliphate , Khan ..

    I cannot listen to all that posturing anymore .

    For goodness sake Boris , stop encouraging migrants , reduce taxes, drop your green energy nonsense , reduce foreign aid , cancel yer vanity projects ..and save us all from wokedom .

    You know it makes sense.

    1. He won’t. In fact, he’ll double down on it proclaiming there is nothing he can do. Note that the green nonsense is EU policy. Foreign aid goes to them in the majority as well. The treasury thinks that all money is its by default and deigns to let us keep some – grudgingly and is determined to enforce universal basic income – another EU policy, by the way.

      The criminal immigrant tide is spite from the state for Brexit. They thought we voted to get rid of the vermin, so are forcing them on us and using every weapon they can to bring more in.

        1. My brother in law who lives near Teddington Lock has a beautiful traditional Thames rowing boat which he keeps at the bottom of his garden. Each year they go swan upping – which is a check on the number and health of the swans in the river.

    2. Good morning Maggiebelle

      I think I have been banned from commenting on DT articles too! My last two BTLs were immediately taken down.

      I recently expressed my views about Nick Boles who used to be a Conservative MP and is boasting about the fact that he voted Labour in last night’s elections. He is a very repulsive man and I expressed my opinion of him unambiguously.

      1. Good morning to the most delightful cleverest raconteur with insight …

        Wow , I am wondering whether theee and me have fallen foul of a a bad tempered DT leftie moderator … or even a holier than hell yank bible thumper ..

        The DT are slowly filtering out the truth tellers … and allowing the TROLLSa free rein.

  21. Good morning all

    I can see the leftie media are gloating as is the leader of the Caliphate , Khan ..

    I cannot listen to all that posturing anymore .

    For goodness sake Boris , stop encouraging migrants , reduce taxes, drop your green energy nonsense , reduce foreign aid , cancel yer vanity projects ..and save us all from wokedom .

    You know it makes sense.

  22. Morning all.
    Shell profits up by 2 billion in three months, share prices have risen sharply and so will the pension groups that are invested in such companies.
    That of course will include none other than the civil services pensions and MPs pension schemes. Shame the back room government investors did make the effort to bomb proof and gold plate the public sector pensions.
    Which is why i didn’t bother to vote yesterday, I intensely dislike our political classes and their strange notion they are are more important than the people they ask to continually support them. They do no good at all, Boreus has let the nation down again they are all an absolute disgrace.
    Later this morning we are going to Hatfield House Craft Fair and catch up with some old friends for a few hours.
    N.B. The Tudors knew how to deal with crooked politicians.

    1. Enjoy the fair!
      Hope they have a beer tent… a fair, followed by a chinwag and a few beers in the sun makes for a really good day.

      1. Will do Obs, they have some lovely products on sale as well we usually come home with something. Our friend is an artists she has teaching sessions for the 4 days of the fair.
        There was a great Portillo prog on train journeys through Sweden last night right next door to you. I had to larff at his daft attire it didn’t really fit in at all. But a fabulous place to be when the sun is shinning.
        Slayders.

        1. Morning RE

          We watched and enjoyed the prog last night as well.

          Sweden looks lovely .. but why does Portillio stride around in such silly coloured clothes.. he isn’t on a golf course.

          3. Not that it matters, but does tend towards the wearing of flamboyant clothes…

          7. He was wearing yellow trousers and a blue jacket; colours of the Swedish flag.
            His colourful outfits – plus his team luring him into dancing – are the running jokes throughout his programmes.
            We saw him at the local theatre some years ago; his humour is wonderfully self deprecating and proper British. No wonder he’s not going back into politics.

          9. One of my BiLs sometimes use to wear yellow trousers on the golf course he gained the m nick name the Canary.

  24. Two conflicting accounts of the “kill switch” on exocet missiles in the very same edition (today’s) of the Daily Telegraph. Only one of which can be true. I leave you to make up your minds which account you believe.

    We did withhold details of Exocet ‘kill switch’, says French official

    New First Sea Lord speaks of the alliance’s role in ‘containing’ and deterring Russian leader

    ‘The lessons of history would say that we are in a particularly fragile moment right now’

    FRANCE refused to tell Britain how to stop Exocet missiles during the Falklands war because it did not want to hand over “the keys to the safe” to a rival in the arms trade, a former French defence official has admitted.

    Pierre Razoux said the French had a defeat device that could “kill” an incoming missile but President François Mitterrand would not share it with Britain. Exocets fired by Argentina during the conflict claimed 46 British lives when they sank two ships and severely damaged a third.

    It came as the new First Sea Lord revealed he had raised the matter with his French counterpart after The Daily Telegraph reported claims that France had withheld information about a “kill switch” in the missiles.

    Admiral Sir Ben Key said he had been assured no such device existed, but said the Royal Navy would support an inquiry into the matter if the Government decided to hold one.

    Senior MPS responded by stepping up demands for the French government to come clean, with one saying it was important to find out whether France could have done more “to save British lives”.

    This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Exocet strike that sank HMS Sheffield, and Mr Razoux, who was a civil servant in the French ministry of defence from 1992 until 2020, disclosed that French naval vessels were equipped with electronic countermeasures that could “neutralise” French-made missiles if they were ever used against them.

    He said that France had handed over “part of the technical details” of the Exocets along with a large amount of intelligence about Argentina’s weapons stockpile, but stopped short of providing Britain with the box-like device that could stop an Exocet in its tracks.

    He said: “To my knowledge, this kill process… was only activated when the missile received a message from the target itself. Just like boats from the Royal Navy, French ships in a war zone had a series of electronic countermeasures that emit signals to neutralise missiles that we could have sold and could be used against us.

    “It is an object – a type of box – that emits a signal on a particular frequency with particular data. It’s as if you had a whistle or a flute.

    “Each one has a different sound and frequency. Without the right emitter you cannot neutralise. But to hand this over is like giving the keys to your safe to your neighbour. It’s not done.”

    Without the vital device, Britain’s only defence against the radar-guided missiles was trying to lure them away from their targets, using clouds of metal strips fired from the ships and decoys trailed from helicopters. Vladimir Putin will face a huge personal cost if he dares to encroach on further nations outside of Ukraine, the head of the Royal Navy has said.

    In his first interview as First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Ben Key told The Daily Telegraph that it was imperative Nato nations worked to “contain” President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and did not allow it to “accelerate away from us”.

    “The lessons of history would say that we are in a particularly fragile moment right now, which is why it’s really important that while the support we are giving to Ukraine at the moment is to enable them, we have to show in a robust and resilient posture across the rest of the contact line with Russia, wherever that is, at sea, in the air, the rest of the Nato landmass, so that Mr Putin understands that this is not something that he can broaden without huge cost to him and Russia.”

    Sir Ben accused Mr Putin of committing an “egregious wrong” against Ukraine, as he urged the UK to continue to support President Volodymyr Zelensky in order to provide his fighters with “the wherewithal to defend their territory, their homeland and their people”.

    He said that while the hope of such actions would be that Mr Putin “chooses to desist”, he admitted that outcome feels “a long way away at the moment”.

    Sir Ben also cautioned that, although by a “dint of geography” the war in Ukraine is mostly a land-based campaign, the navies of Nato need to maintain a deterrent posture to “counter Putin’s actions and dissuade him from doing more”.

    “We represent a threat,” he added. “The Russians effectively tried to exclude any other ships from operating in the northern part of the Black Sea, and the Ukrainians demonstrated that that was not something that they could do freely.”

    He cautioned that “ships become valid targets” at war, and the UK needs to ensure it is prepared. “That requires for our posture to be correct, for our capabilities to be properly aligned, for us to be modernising and adapting to seeing what others can do and what technology opportunity offers us,” he said.

    Sir Ben also revealed that he had spoken to his French counterpart, Amiral Pierre Vandier, about The Telegraph’s recent disclosure that British officials suspected Exocet missiles used in the Falklands war contained a “kill switch” that could disable them, but that France denied such a device had been inserted into the weapons.

    “When I was speaking to my French opposite number yesterday evening about it, his single comment to me was ‘if we found this kill switch, could we let him know, because it would be quite helpful for him to know about’,” Sir Ben said.

    Falklands veterans have now joined calls for an inquiry into the allegations that France withheld secrets from Britain about the lethal weapon. However, Sir Ben added that while there has been “no evidence made available to us of this capability”, he would not stand in the way of an inquiry.

    “If the Government concludes that the best and right approach is to hold an inquiry, then we’ll support it,” he said.

    As the former Chief of Joint Operations, Sir Ben oversaw numerous missions around the world, including Operation Pitting, which saw the evacuation of 15,000 people from Kabul. It was thought by insiders that the success of this operation is what secured his promotion as head of the Navy.

    Sir Ben, who also held the position of Fleet Commander, joined the Navy as a university cadet and went on to qualify as both helicopter aircrew and as a Principal Warfare Officer. He has seen service around the world in a variety of frigates and destroyers.

    Closer to home, he has pledged to work on domestic issues such as gender inequality, and vowed to take on “toxic” leaders to help women in the force.

    He acknowledged that despite some progress, there remained a long way to go until gender parity is achieved.

    “We’ve still got a lot of work to do. The day we think we’ve cracked it is the day that we fall massively behind,” he said.

    “We undoubtedly have pockets of toxic leadership that we have to rod out, but I don’t think we’re different to any other complex organisation in the United Kingdom.”

    Sir Ben said that while he felt “excited by the prospects” of the future and felt “genuinely thrilled that women want to serve in the Royal Navy and speak positively about it”, he could not confidently say his force had learnt how to treat men and women equally.

    He said the Navy had not yet “solved” how to ensure the “equitable” careers for men and women serving alongside each other, when taking into consideration “the pressures of home life”, such as raising families in a service “where separation is a part and parcel of what we do”.

    “Have we solved that everybody who comes to work in the Royal Navy brings out their best and is recognised for that, rewarded and applauded for that and feels comfortable in an environment? Have we got that right for everybody at the moment? No.”

    Sir Ben’s comments on the need to ensure women are treated fairly in the Navy follow the recent publication of a damning report by the Commons defence select committee on women in the Armed Forces. It resulted in his predecessor, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, who is now Chief of the Defence Staff, admitting that the military had failed to value servicewomen.

    In an open letter to all naval personnel, Sir Tony apologised for the Royal Navy having “not done enough for the women in our Service” and to “all the women we have let down”.

    Despite the Navy’s shortcomings Sir Ben insisted it was in a better place than when he started his military career more than 30 years ago.

    “The Navy today is immeasurably better for having women serving at sea than the one that I joined in 1984,” he said, adding that this was because it encouraged “diversity of thoughts” and “perspective”, which resulted in “a more balanced Navy”.

    “Undoubtedly, the Navy that I joined, the leadership behaviours back then would no longer be judged appropriate. In some areas there was brilliant leadership, but there was also some not so good. And I think we are now seeing the benefit, not just of women but also of ethnic diversity coming into the service to help us tackle the problems of today and to seek best advantage.”

    He defended the Navy being seen as “slow” in promoting women to the highest ranks, as he cited Rear Admiral Jude Terry, who was promoted to the position last year as the first woman in the Navy to hold the rank.

    “Rear Admiral Jude Terry has been promoted to Rear Admiral at the same time as one of her male counterparts who joined the service at the same time, so her rate of rise through the ranks has been entirely consistent.”

    Sir Ben also cited the appointment of Captain Sarah Oakley as the Commanding Officer of the Britannia Royal Naval College on Wednesday as an example of the progression women are making within his force.

    AND

    France’s exocets.

    SIR – While researching my book, Exocet Falklands, I studied the Exocet saga (Letters, May 5) in as much detail as was possible, including transcripts of telephone conversations between Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand. There is absolutely no doubt that France supported Britain at the highest level, further confirmed when Mr Mitterrand embargoed the transfer of 10 Exocets to Argentina, despite them having been paid for.

    The team of engineers already in Argentina fitting the first five missiles to the Super Étendards were brought home, leaving the Argentines to work out for themselves how to marry the missiles to the aircraft. I discussed this aspect with a number of their pilots.

    The French also sent fighter aircraft across the Channel to practise air interception with ours. None of this suggests an unwillingness to help, or that there was skulduggery involved.

    Lt Col Ewen Southby-Tailyour RM (retd)
    Ermington, Devon

    Which is it to be then? Either Admiral Sir Ben Key, the First Sea Lord is telling the truth that France knew, and failed to inform the UK, about the “kill switch” on the exocet missiles,

    OR

    Lt Col Ewen Southby-Tailyour RM (retd) is telling the truth that France were invariably helpful towards the UK’s cause.

    Both of you cannot be telling the truth. Which of you is to be trusted?

    1. Without the vital device, Britain’s only defence against the radar-guided missiles was trying to lure them away from their targets, using clouds of metal strips fired from the ships and decoys trailed from helicopters. Vladimir Putin will face a huge personal cost if he dares to encroach on further nations outside of Ukraine, the head of the Royal Navy has said.
      Talk about a non-sequitur!

    2. The truth in politics is whoever you want to believe. I’m inclined that the French did know and didn’t tell us. We would do the same.

      Hells, we’re talking about a nation that is so lazy it isn’t enacting international law and processing and returning illegal, criminal migrants.

      1. As usual, the French did what was best for France. About time the UK followed suit, and did wat was best for the UK.

    3. Southby-Tailyour doesn’t mention kill switches. Read it again: Read what is NOT written, as well as what IS written.

      1. OK, point taken. However, my main point stands. One officer is saying the French were helpful; the other is claiming the opposite.

        1. Sorry, Grizz: Didn’t mean to be so abrupt – I thought the tail end of your post, in italics, was a BTL comment to the letter.
          Mea culpa.
          🙁

          1. No problem, Paul. I placed it in italics to avoid confusion (confusion which I caused!) with the main article and letter. I’ve now amended it to help clear up any ambiguity.

          4. Sounds like bliss to me, but I guess one needs some yin to appreciate the yang.

        2. Good morning Grizzly

          Have you had a chance to look at the Farage interview about this matter which I have posted above. If so, I would be interested to hear what you think of it?

          1. Good morning, Rastus.

            I’m afraid the testimony of that “spy-writer and intelligence expert” (who had read a book!), Nigel West, only obfuscates the issue and muddies the water further. Where does he get the evidence for his claim that there “was no ‘kill switch'”?

            His opinion is in clear and unambiguous opposition to this report: “FRANCE refused to tell Britain how to stop Exocet missiles during the Falklands war because it did not want to hand over ‘the keys to the safe’ to a rival in the arms trade”, a former French defence official has admitted. Pierre Razoux said the French had a defeat device that could “kill” an incoming missile but President François Mitterrand would not share it with Britain.

            Methinks this is a case of wheeling out some uncertified “expert” to give his two-pennorth and all that succeeds in doing is clouding the issue further. Either there was a ‘kill switch’ … or there wasn’t. Who do you believe?

          2. The truth of the matter is that on many issues it is almost impossible to know what the truth is! I am not sure that Farage was totally convinced by West either!

      2. If the French were not guilty of deliberately helping the Argentinians by concealing how to use the kill switch then why are the French now boasting that they did conceal the information? Are the French deliberately trying to stir up UK hatred against themselves? And if so, why?

        Did anyone see the report on this on GB News yesterday evening?

        Go to 16.05 to see the interview with Nigel West. He is not convinced that there was any way in which the French could have used a “kill switch” to stop the missile which sank HMS Sheffield.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mmfkjfk7R4

    4. I did a quick check. France fully rejoined NATO in 2009.
      In 1982, she was still outside the organisation; I suspect many French defence bigwigs (who probably rose up the defence ranks under de Gaulle) were ambiguous about the Falklands conflict.

    1. I am not the most technical person, so I asked what I could do to stop this happening again.

      You could give him a clip round the ear and a boot up the arse!

      1. Send him out in a paper round to pay off the bill and teach him the value of money.

  27. Ref my rant earlier this week about the new, useless Jeyes Fluid.

    While I appreciate that if coal tar is carcinogenic it should not be used, I don’t understand why chemists have not developed a “safe” replacement that is equally effective as the “dangerous” one.

          1. Sorry Grizz I knew it was one of them – amended
            I knew it didn’t taste salty

  29. Last night I had a brilliant wheeze. Radio NoTTL. Would be a national winner!!

    1. You know the ins and outs of broadcasting. How does one make a cat’s whisker radio?

        1. No need to kill the cat. Just hold the cat between the knees and order it to co-operate as the whisker is extracted.

          Edit – also works with lions.

    2. For three days yes it would,then Ofcom would close it down for #HateFacts

  30. Here’s one for you:
    I, and others, get a foxy lady uptick at the instant of posting, yet some others don’t get one at all.
    How does that work? Does it mean that I am the hunkiest hunk on NTTL, and the ladies can’t get enough of my pheromones?
    (One can always dream…)
    Right, off to timber yard. Slayders.

    3. IN CT my Golden, Fred, caught a chipmunk and had the whole critter in his mouth. My then husband said he would hold the dog’s mouth open and I could pull out the chipmunk. Oh no, I said, I’ll hold his mouth open and you get the chipmunk out. This happened and a soggy chipmunk staggered off into the wall where he lived.

  32. A couple of “Ain’t that the truth files”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f96ddd2fe6a6c5bb5627e28499999e5913a0365a4cd0549f8e2d1dfa874d9732.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/57f38c8ccca05ee3860ec676f63171f2e1fe4bc22c910e9d474256f5478a0552.jpg
    The incoming “Online Harms Bill” would of course criminalise much “speech” as illegal that susequently turned out to be completely accurate
    Anyone got any new conspiracy theories,all mine have turned out true………..

  33. 352457+ up ticks,

    The shite graders have been at it again, voting in short term gain long term pain.

    Must be near the point now that as with house building immigrants building for immigrants, immigrants voting for immigrants, this should really bring to mind
    granddads axe head & shaft replacement &
    the question of ownership.

        2. We’re going to need some bigger trees; the porky race-baiter will probably need a push start as well.

      1. She could always sort the problem out herself. Aborted, aged 30. Sorted.

    3. Well done that man.

      The top one is just sad. I look back on my own depressed and suicide-contemplating youth, and realise now that there were depths to which I didn’t sink.

          2. After viewing some others i think the role for the lady is as a foil for the man to peacock.

      2. Oh? You seem to know more about Swedes than I do and I’ve lived here for over a decade. There is no old-time-dancing obsession in my neck of the sticks.

        1. A newbie? I remember the restaurants in Stockholm in the 1970s always seemed to have some 1950s dressed people dancing, winkle pickers leather jackets n’ all. Still with ‘trad jazz’ bands. Of course it’s gone further downhill since then.

          1. Sounds like the Nottingham of today. Aged Teds with grey greasy quiffs everywhere.

        2. Only 18 months in and around Stockholm (1989 -1990) taught me that the Swedes love a good night that involves drinking (at someone else’s expense) dancing and having to be hauled home dead-drunk after the party – usually at about 01:00.

          You’re probably too far out in the sticks, George, to know of this and Stockholmers have a very low opinhe of Skåners, dismissing them as louts and country-bumpkins who can barely speak Swedish.

          That part of Sweden is, I think the original dropping off point for the majority of the illegals – seeking Swedish benefits.

          1. It is also, still, more Danish than Swedish. Even the skånska flag looks like the Danish one. I never tire of telling the locals that they are really Danes. The Skånsk dismiss Stockholmers as “noll åttas” (08s, after the dialling code for the city). They also take the piss out of the Stockholm dialect, i..e pronouncing, for example, Lars Andersson as “Larsh Andershon”.

    4. Until MB’s heart attack, we did the same thing. though without some of the more florid moves.

  37. Tory London Bloodbath….

    Tories lose flagship Wandsworth and Westminster and party is down more than 100 seats in early local election counts – but Starmer is falling short as Lib Dems surge and ‘Red Wall’ holds
    Cabinet will rally round Boris Johnson after local elections test

    As if it makes any friggin difference………….!

    2. Not guilty. I wrote “NONE OF THE ABOVE” on my ballot paper, because there were only 5 LibLabCons to choose from. A colleague had one independent standing in her ward so she voted indie and LibDem, which is a compromise I’d have accepted given the chance.

      1. No election here but I wouldn’t have wasted my time or effort to vote. It won’t make the slightest difference.
        Anyway, I have bigger worries….going soon to have the dressing on my face removed- you know how nasty it is when you have sticking plaster peeled off. It’ll be worse than the surgery itself.
        Bloody big coward, me. :-((

        2. I have voted in every election I’ve been eligible for.
          I voted NOTA yesterday and will always visit the polling station to register my democratic right to vote.
          By not voting you are submitting to their desire to ride roughshod over our rights. They probably rub their hands in glee that so many don’t turn out to vote.
          I’m not going to play their game.

          1. Same here, until this time. In fact my vote would have made no difference since the ward has remained Conservative, and the council NOC…

          2. My ‘spoiled’ but true vote made no difference to whoever gets elected but if the turnout continues to fall then those with a parliamentary vote might decide, in their own perverse way, that if 60% of green electorate don’t vote they can decide to abolish voting.
            It’s already the case that if voting ever decided anything it would have been abolished they will abolish them and save the cost of elections.

        4. Just put your glass of Pinot down before they tug at the plaster – it would really hurt if something was spilt.

          Be brave.

        1. Yes, I forgot that part. I used my biro too. Too easy to rub out the pencil and replace with two Xs for Labour.

        2. I have sent you an e-mail. It is prolly lost in the ether or in your spam. No rush about it.

    1. He paid for the flights, has now realised the mess he’s in and is ‘seeking donations’…I hope his car dealers goes bust.

    1. Most of us learnt our grammar from studying French and Latin up until “O” level as well as English grammar but this does not always help.

      How many people here could give a clear account of when to use due to and when to use owing to? Does it matter any more?

      2. No, that doesn’t matter any more …. But I’m sick of hearing my grandchildren say “them ones” or “them there” (their teachers, I am sure, use “them” frequently when they should be saying those or those ones, and, along with the majority of media people, say “less people” and “amount of people” …

      3. Seems not, Richard, but due to the paucity of education and owing to the teachers themselves being educated in the Common Purpose way.

        I hope I managed to get those two different meanings across, as I have a TEFL qualification and wouldn’t want to mislead any student.

    2. Look around you. The country is full of litter from welfare yobs, full of foreigners yabbering away, treating the country like their own personal doss house. There are truly stupid people who blame companies when the fault is government and our government since 95 has been a destructive, corrupt, toxic, Left wing, incestuous midden determined to do as much damage as possible. It lies continually ‘There’s nothing we can do’ ‘Bigoted woman’ ‘There are WMD’ ‘We invest your money’ ‘green creates jobs’ ad nauseum ad infinitum.

  40. And another one…

    Whitley Bay mosque submits plans to build minaret and mihrab

    https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/whitley-bay-mosque-submits-plans-23873308

    Labour councillor John O’Shea told the Local Democracy Reporting Service he had been assured by the agents representing the association the minaret would not be used to lead the call to prayer.

    He said: “I do hope the planning application is approved – the proposed Minaret will be a fantastic addition to the Mosque in the Bangladeshi Centre. Whitley Bay welcomes people who have different cultures and religions which adds to the vibrancy of the town.”

    Mr O’Shea is brainwashed. Let’s hope the planning committee throws it out but my hopes aren’t high.

    Has there been any opposition to these developments anywhere, even in Tory heartlands? Of course, many mosques have been set up in old buildings going back to the 70s and 80s but it’s only relatively recently that they’ve been altered to become identifiably Islamic. Cheltenham has one, a shabby property in a back street but it has a green onion on its roof. Bath recently celebrated 40 years of the establishment of the Bath Islamic Society. Here’s a picture of a dopey Bath councillor celebrating ‘diversity’:

    https://www.bathecho.co.uk/news/community/bath-mosque-40th-anniversary-chairwoman-visit-83186/

    Councillor Karen Walker is an Independent and the Chair of the Climate Emergency and Sustainability Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel, so obviously a bit of a lost cause.

    Chipping Norton showed a bit of resistance a few years ago. AFAIK, the town’s Muslims, who numbered just 34 at the 2011 census, still have their prayer sessions in the town hall. I don’t know if the planning permission has lapsed or if Mr Wissinter has been chased out of town for being a German ‘Nazi’. Tsk. Such prejudice…

    https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/10217776.plans-chipping-norton-mosque-scrapped-threats/

    1. “Introducing new monthly Mosque Open Days …”. Do Muslims ever “visit” religious houses other than mosques? (Other than to set fire to them, I mean!).

    2. I suggested a method below for extracting a cat’s whisker for a radio.

      One useful side effect is that the cat emits a call to prayer, so a halal way of proceeding is doing it on the minaret. Two jobs done at once.

    3. Did the people want a ‘vibrant’ town? Were they asked if they wanted a bunch of foreigners to move in to their home, continue living as they chose, in dress, thought and means – and to be forced to pay for those people?

    4. “…he had been assured by the agents representing the association the minaret would not be used to lead the call to prayer.” Then what is the point because that is a minarets primary function. The only reason for building it otherwise is as an ‘in your face’ function. Place note in the blurb taken from Wikipedia, the second paragraph: “They served as a reminder that the region was Islamic…”

      The formal function of a minaret is to provide a vantage point from which the muezzin can issue the call to prayer, or adhan.[6] The call to prayer is issued five times each day: dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and night.[7] In most modern mosques, the adhān is called from the musallah (prayer hall) via microphone to a speaker system on the minaret.[7]

      Additionally, minarets historically served a visual symbolic purpose.[8] In the early 9th century, the first minarets were placed opposite the qibla wall.[9] Oftentimes, this placement was not beneficial in reaching the community for the call to prayer.[9] They served as a reminder that the region was Islamic and helped to distinguish mosques from the surrounding architecture.[10] They also acted as symbols of the political and religious authority of the Muslim rulers who built them.[8][11]

      1. They are building it in the sure knowledge that a couple of years down the line it will be deemed a hate crime if they are not allowed to issue the call to prayer from it.

    5. Why not just bury the entire town in a giant heap of manure. It would serve the same purpose.

      I once climbed up a minaret with a friend in a tiny mosque in Cyprus. The guy at the door was beside himself because we were wearing shorts and sleeveless tops. White cotton coverings were provided. I wouldn’t have the same problem now. My knees and armpits are kept covered. With the best will, neither age well.

    6. It would be a ‘hate crime’not to allow it to be built, and therefore, permission will be amazingly swift.

  41. Really, the shortage of men on (18+) dating sites is getting extremely worrying ….

    3. mmm, Yo LD,

      Ponders why is he the shortage of men on (18+) dating sites is getting extremely worrying …. to you?

      1. Because it’s way too late for me to help in redressing the shortage ….

    4. My latest upvote was from some lady that had no profile, no previous messages and no history of any kind. A pity, she looks quite classy.

      I cannot see what that is supposed to achieve.

      1. I cannot see what that is supposed to achieve.

        Check your zips ……………………

        ………………………….

        ……….especially the one on the pocket where you keep your wallet.

  42. How easy is it to set up a parliamentary petition?
    One to add a NOTA box on every ballot paper and the total must be read out and published.
    It would then become an ‘official spoiled ballot paper’
    If NOTA wins no candidate will be elected.

      1. Yes, it is an excellent article. I have followed it on a number of occasions.

    2. Better than spoilt ballots just being cast aside. If we just did that, a few of the green faithful might elect the green party extremists as our next government.

  43. 352457+up ticks,

    The peoples have shuffled the old political deck of shite, added a few new faces to the rodent riddled ranks of the lab / lib / con coalition.

    Post
    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    21h
    Are you, like me, totally uninterested & indifferent to today’s local election results?

    Whichever of the three Globalist controlled parties wins the outcomes will be the same.

    Smaller parties will scratch around for 1%-2% of the vote while either being ignored or branded as ‘far right extremists’ by the MSM.

    The whole thing is a farce.

  44. Welcome to the Free Speech Union’s weekly newsletter, our round-up of the free speech news of the week. As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join and help us turn the tide against cancel culture.

    Johnny the Walrus

    An Amazon staffer worked himself up in to tears last week over the online retailer’s decision to sell Johnny and the Walrus, a children’s book that likens being transgender to pretending to be a walrus (Daily Mail). “I’m sorry, I want to preface this…”, the unidentified staffer says, wiping away tears in a video first obtained by Libs of TikTok. “This is really tough content.” The outburst occurred during a meeting in which senior managers discussed how to reassure staff that they understood just how “traumatic” the book’s rip-roaring success (250,000 worldwide sales, according to The Washington Examiner) had been for transgender individuals. “If you’re gender nonbinary,” the meeting’s host makes clear at one point, “this is super triggering … I would understand if you needed to leave.”

    The book’s blurb provides a clue as to the type of “traumatic” content the intrepid, cognitively resilient reader might find lurking beneath the triggering dust jacket:

    Johnny is a little boy with a big imagination. One day he pretends to be a big scary dinosaur, the next day he’s a knight in shining armour or a playful puppy. But when the internet people find out Johnny likes to make-believe, he’s forced to make a decision between the little boy he is and the things he pretends to be – and he’s not allowed to change his mind.

    And that’s it. The most you can say about it politically is that it pokes gentle, allegorical fun at some of the worst excesses of transactivism. But like all successful children’s stories, it’s pulled along by a deeper, underlying message, which is essentially that of self-acceptance.

    To reduce the trauma the book is causing, Amazon removed Johnny and the Walrus from its various ‘children’s’ book categories and repositioned it in the ‘politics’ category. Ads for the book on Amazon are also now being rejected by the tech giant on the grounds that they’re not “appropriate for all audiences” – an umbrella term that’s typically used to justify banning advertising for books promoting incest and paedophilia, among other things.

    The Daily Signal points out that Amazon, as with every other Big Tech company, never censors, blocks, suppresses or re-categorises content that promotes woke ideas on the basis that it is in some vague, nebulous and never fully explained sort of way too “political” or “inappropriate” for its intended recipients.

    For instance, Jacob’s Room to Choose is currently sat at #1,166 in Amazon’s ‘Children’s Prejudice and Racism’ bestseller list. Jacob, as the book’s blurb informs us, likes to wear dresses. One day he’s kicked out of the boys’ bathroom at school for wearing a dress. His friend Sophie, who doesn’t like to wear dresses, experiences something similar in the girls’ bathroom. “When their teacher finds out what happened,” the description goes on, “Jacob and Sophie, with the support [of] administration, lead change at their school as everyone discovers the many forms of gender expression and how to treat each other with respect.” Or how about Jack (Not Jackie), currently occupying position #335 in the ‘Children’s Siblings’ category? Susan has a little sister called Jackie, or at least, she does have a little sister called Jackie, until, one day, Susan realizes that her little sister “doesn’t like dresses or fairies – she likes ties and bugs!” Susan is confused. Disappointed, even. “Will she and her family be able to accept that Jackie identifies more as ‘Jack’?”, asks the Amazon description [spoiler alert: yes]. As if to emphasise just how apolitical the book’s contents really are, the blurb goes on to boast that it’s being “published in partnership with GLAAD [an American non-governmental media monitoring organisation, founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian people] to accelerate LGBTQ inclusivity and acceptance”.

    All great stuff, of course; but if Amazon feels that Johnny and the Walrus is too “political” for children, then what’s so different about these other two page-turners?

    Who watches the watchmen?

    In April, the Atlantic and the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics co-hosted a three-day conference titled “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy.” Topics of discussion included how and whether to regulate social-media companies; the pernicious influence of deep fakes and algorithms; the dangerous allure of conspiracy theories; national security; Russia; the storming of the Capitol on 6th January, 2021; and the implications of all this for the future of democracy. Our cousins over in The United States Free Speech Union have recently put out genuinely the most fascinating, thought-provoking summary of a conference you’re ever likely to see. It’s up on their Substack page under the title “Who will watch the watchmen?”

    That’s a great title, by the way, isn’t it? So good, in fact, that we nipped in there first and used it for our recent report on the UK’s Online Safety Bill (on which the Times and the Critic both had useful pieces this week). You can find our “Who will watch the watchmen?” report here.

    The university as asylum

    The news site Power Line described an opinion from the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the US as a “banner day” for free speech earlier this week. Speech First v. Cartwright dealt with a challenge to what the University of Central Florida (UCF) had been calling their “bias incident response” policy. UCF had imposed an “anti-discrimination” policy on their campus that described discriminatory harassment as taking many forms, including verbal acts, name-calling, graphic or written statements (via the use of cell phones or the Internet), or other conduct that may be humiliating or physically threatening. The policy further stated that “[i]n evaluating whether a hostile environment exists, the university will consider the totality of known circumstances, including, but not limited to” several factors. In court, UCF were forced to admit that “the totality of known circumstances” were hard to define clearly and would be entirely subjective in many cases. The compounding problem, however, was that on the basis of that unclear definition, UCF had proceeded to establish something called the “Just Knights Response Team” (JKRT). The purpose of this peculiarly monikered team, they said, was “to act as a clearinghouse for any bias-related incidents that may occur on UCF campuses”.

    It’s fair to say the 11th Circuit Court wasn’t particularly impressed. The opinion goes on to describe specific students at UCF who feared running afoul of the policy. The UCF policy “objectively chills speech”, wrote Judge Kevin Newsom, because its operation “would cause a reasonable student to fear expressing potentially unpopular beliefs”.

    Even more blunt is the concurrence from Judge Stanley Marcus, who was appointed to the appeals bench by President Clinton. Judge Marcus wrote separately:

    A university that has placed its highest premium on the protection of feelings or safe intellectual space has abandoned its core mission. The protection of feelings or the creation of safe space rightly might be the foremost goal in some settings, like at a family dinner, but it is not right for a university. A university that turns itself into an asylum from controversy has ceased to be a university; it has just become an asylum.

    The university as an asylum. An intriguing image. But was Judge Marcus invoking ‘asylum’ as a process whereby the dispossessed seek sanctuary, or as a benevolent institution in which the afflicted and the mentally unwell are provided with treatment? Rather than tackle that question head on, let us simply note that a few weeks ago the University of the Highlands and Islands placed a trigger warning on Ernest Hemingway’s Pulitzer prizewinning novel The Old Man and the Sea. The book tells the story of an ageing Cuban fisherman on a quest to land a memorable catch, and it was felt that students should be warned that it contains “graphic fishing scenes” of a kind likely to cause psychological distress.

    The free press and the coming threat of financial censorship

    Anthony Blinken, Washington’s top diplomat, used the occasion of World Press Freedom Day (3 May) to criticise the mainland Chinese and Hong Kong governments for media restrictions and alleged harassment of journalists and dissidents worldwide (Times). Citing data compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based non-profit advocacy group, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called China the biggest threat to press freedom in terms of the number of journalists under detention because of their work.

    But is it unfair to single China out like that? A report from the Economist this week made clear that journalists are facing increasing restraints, legal threats and fatal attacks not just in authoritarian countries but in democracies too. “Globally,” it pointed out, “press freedom is in retreat.” Drawing on analysis by UNESCO of data on freedom of expression from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, it estimates that around 85% of people live in countries where press freedom has declined over the past five years.

    V-Dem gives each country a score from 0 (least free) to 1 (most free). The global average weighted by population peaked at 0.65 in the early 2000s, and then again in 2011, before falling to 0.49 in 2021. This is the worst score since 1984, when the cold war was raging, and the two sides were propping up dictators on every continent.

    Interestingly, though, neither the CPJ nor the Economist mentioned the threat posed to a free press – and, by definition, to free speech – by financial censorship.

    Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi published a story this week about how PayPal, the internet payments giant replete with its own founding “mafia,” has recently been selectively de-platforming alternative media sites that publish stories contradicting some of the West’s reporting of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (the New York Post has the story too). Among those to have been banned are MintPress News, a left-wing web-based outlet, and Consortium News, founded by the late Associated Press investigative reporter Robert Parry in 1995 as one of the web’s very first independent, reader-funded news outlets.

    According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, PayPal has form when it comes to limiting or permanently limiting users’ accounts. Only last year, for instance, PayPal division Venmo was sued for blocking payments associated with Islam or Arab nationalities or ethnicities. Even so, silencing news outlets would mark a radical new departure, according to Reclaim the Net. Going after cash, as Taibbi explains,

    is a big jump from simply deleting speech and actually has a much bigger chilling effect. This is especially true in the alternative media world, where money has long been notoriously tight, and the loss of a few thousand dollars here or there can have a major effect on a site, podcast, or paper.

    So does this mean the global financial system is the new battleground in the fight to defend freedom of speech? Sarah McLellan, writing in Spectator Australia, seems to think so. Citing Jesse Powell, Chief Executive of Kraken Bitcoin Exchange, she argues that “the traditional financial system has essentially been weaponised” and that losing free access to funding streams on account of one’s political views is tantamount to losing free speech. It’s certainly true, as Ramesh Thakur points out (Spectator Australia), that states have been engaging in financial censorship for some time: in 2019, the Russian government froze bank accounts linked to opposition politician Alexei Navalny; in February 2022, Canada froze the bank accounts of mostly peaceful anti-vaccine mandate protestors with no due process, no appeals process and no court order necessary; and in early 2022, SWIFT took the unprecedented move to cut Russia’s central bank from its global financial messaging service.

    But that was all state led. The question is whether financial services companies like payment processors, banks, online platforms and credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard are also now starting to get in on the act of influencing what kind of speech can or cannot exist online.

    Living Freedom Summer School Event

    FSU Legal Officer and Free Speech Champions Universities Coordinator Karolien Celie encourages members to spread the word about the Living Freedom Summer School, taking place in London this summer. “The Living Freedom Summer School is a great opportunity for independent-minded young people to gather, think, question and debate big ideas in an open and friendly atmosphere,” she says. “Participants emerge not just with new ideas but new friendships. It’s a taste of what university life should be all about but too often isn’t.”

    Free Speech Champions Event

    Next Wednesday, 11th May, the Free Speech Champions will be “comparing notes across the pond” with North American university students, discussing how free speech and academic freedom can be defended. Host Karolien Celie will be joined by a panel including Emma Camp, who made waves with a recent New York Times article describing the culture of self-censorship on US campuses. You can find out more and register for the event here.

    Sharing the newsletter

    As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture. You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons below to help us spread the word. If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Best wishes,

    https://freespeechunion.org/who-watches-the-watchmen-ofcom-free-speech-and-the-online-safety-bill%EF%BF%BC%EF%BF%BC/
    https://freespeechchampions.com/comment/event/free-speech-on-campus-comparing-notes-across-the-pond/

    1. Johnny and the Walrus sounds quite relatable for children, whereas the pro-trans ones are just preaching. Children know when they’re being preached at.

    2. The watchman put me in mind of “Except ye Lord keep ye cittie ye wakeman waketh in vain”, which is inscribed above the town hall in Ripon. I do hope the wakeman didn’t go to each corner of the market square to announce ye plague and tell the people to go indoors. It would be a dreadful perversion of an ancient tradition.

      1. I got told off in Ripon, a few years ago, for calling their small city a “town”. Oops!

        1. Apart from the City of London, I believe St David’s in West Wales is the smallest ‘City’ in the UK.

  45. Does anyone fancy being a star athlete, scientist or artist but don’t have the skills?

    Apparently the Toronto school board are dropping aptitude testing in favour of a more inclusive lottery for places at the special streamed schools for gifted students.

    So if you fancy becoming a ballet dancer, just write to the school board expressing an interest in dance. With luck your name will be drawn from the hat and you will be on the way to dancing with the stars!

    1. Special streamed schools? Would those be schools for the folk who can’t cope in a traditional environment? Because pushing them into thinking they can achieve what they cannot, outside of the support network they need and deserve is not only stupid, it’s cruel.

      You’re hurting the kids by setting them up to fail. Lefties keep doing this: they keep thinking of a label they can ‘help’ and then they interfere, not bothered that those people are not a label but individuals, with complicated and specific needs.

  46. I posted a note last night about how the Canadian government have been using mobile phone records to track travel and shopping habits during the past two years. Apparently the US has been doing the same thing to spy on its citizens.

    It is one thing for Uncle Google to track our moves but I have no trust in Trudeaus minions handling the data appropriately.

    1. I leave my mobile at home and I don’t tell it what my shopping habits are! I have to take it with me occasionally, but generally only if I’m away from home, not just doing local shopping.

      1. I think that many of us will start seeing the phone as an unwanted intrusion in our lives.

        With government ineptitude being what it is, it is only a matter of time before some beer store delivery driver is pulled aside because he spends most of his time in beer stores.

      2. I leave mine at home wherever possible. The mobile data is permanently switched off and it links to WiFi in the two buidlings (about three quarters of a mile apart) where I live and work, plus the Apple store where it was bought.

        1. I think the records will be those of the phone company – they know where you are to within a couple of hundred yards based on data from surrounding phone masts.

          I am going to try and wean myself off taking the phone with me everywhere, or else keep it in a Faraday bag. No point handing this data over when we don’t have to.

        2. I seldom buy any mobile data, just use the wifi at home for Nottl……. I have it on silent so if anyone calls I miss the call. I don’t bother with texts either unless I’m expecting one like the ones you get if you use PayPal to buy something.

  47. Pam from the Covid Vaccination team rang earlier on – I’m glad to say my OH declined to have yet another covid jab. As he hasn’t got a mobile, presumably he won’t be hassled by numerous texts, as I was after declining the booster.

    1. We had hoped that our local Med Centre, which is pretty much like Fort Knox to get into for an appointment, might have taken the hint after their umpteenth text in February got a stiff ignoring, but yesterday we had 2 more – both ignored again! Why they are still pushing this, given the news about Pfizer, is beyond me – it surely can’t be for our medical benefit?

      1. I think the texts/texting is contracted out. They have obviously been sharing peoples vaccine status with a third party without express permission.

        1. Several months ago, we had a knock on the door from a lady with a clipboard.
          She said “our records say that neither of you has been vaccinated” when I said that is correct. She then asked why: as is often quoted – never tangle with an old person.
          My parting question was “who do you work for?” Pfizer was the answer!!
          Your assumption would seem to be correct.

          1. How did Pfizer get hold of those records? Surely there must have been a breach of patient confidentiality somewhere.

          2. I expect we were all sold down the river under the emergency legislation.

          3. One wonders what else might have been passed on.
            As bad as cookies on the PC.

          4. That’s exactly what Phizzee alluded to.
            Rules? don’t make me laugh, money talks: in the last couple of years, every supposed rule in the book has been broken. For the well-being of granny and the nhs.

          5. I wonder if you could sue the NHS for breaches of patient confidentiality

          6. Probably, but it would be like stepping through a mine field, one can see the end, but could get blown up while negotiating it.
            The system is not on the side of the little people.

          7. I would have said f%&k off you nosy bitch. But that’s because i’m nice.

          8. I had some fun asking her technical questions about the jab and what the advantages of us taking it were. Was her product better than others being offered; as she was obviously giving us a ‘sales pitch’ and what guarantees did we have that it would work better than our own immune system.
            I think she was glad to leave 🙂

          9. I would have asked her who the “our” was and how did they get hold of my medical records.

        2. Several months ago, we had a knock on the door from a lady with a clipboard.
          She said “our records say that neither of you has been vaccinated” when I said that is correct. She then asked why: as is often quoted – never tangle with an old person.
          My parting question was “who do you work for?” Pfizer was the answer!!
          Your assumption would seem to be correct.

        1. Population may be 70million? Be kind and say 65million. That’s 10 jabs each! What are they dreaming up for us next!

          1. It’ll be out-of-date before they can use it, so it’ll never be used. Somebody is getting a bung of noticeable proportions here – maybe the shots will never even be delivered, just the money “vanishes”…

      1. Hopefully they won’t ring again. I only got the one call last September. It was during the winter the texts started.

  50. Beergate and Currygate are still on the table whilst Partygate has been at the centre of election results.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/angela-rayner-downing-street-covid-durham-police-boris-johnson-b2068656.html

    Latest indications are that whilst Durham Constabulary originally went cold on Beergate, things are now heating up particularly with Currygate as a possible main course of action. The burning question now is whether or not Angela Rayner was ever on the table.

    Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (World at One BBC Radio 4) says that Sir Kier didn’t break any lockdown rules and anyway he wasn’t the one who made the rules in the first place. On the other hand could Carrie have blown it for Boris at his workplace party bash?

    1. “…could Carrie have blown it for Boris…”
      Mind bleach! Quick! Aaargh!

    2. I think that Boris Johnson was very unwise to have trusted a woman like Carrie Symonds. She was clearly in the camp of his enemies and her job was to corrupt and pervert him from doing his job properly. She knew he was weak and mindlessly libidinous and she knew that using these flaws in him she could destroy him

      Sexual incontinence and lust which subdues the judgement has destroyed the careers of many men in the past and will doubtlessly do so again.

      Delilah repeatedly betrayed Samson into the hands of his enemies just as Shakespeare’s Antony admitted that his judgement was subdued by Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium where his ships – tied by strings – to Cleopatra’s unseaworthy vessels’ rudders – followed them in flight out of battle just when it looked as if Antony’s fleet would prevail.

      As the Bible tells us: a virtuous woman’s price is above Ruby’s. What a pity that Boris Johnson went for cheap Rhinestone or paste!

      2. i must get new glasses – I read ‘Cleopatra’s unseaworthy udders’.

    3. I know that I saying Sumfing Stoopid: When can we have a Lockedgate at Dover

    4. ‘Afternoon, Angie, “The burning question now is whether or not Angela Rayner was ever on the table.” getting gang-banged by all and sundry – by her own admission she does like it up her.

  51. There’s my Friday ruined. The weekly “diary” in the Spectator is by the wanqueur adulterer Halfcock. Boasting about the Uke “refugees” he is housing.

    I hope they watch out for the CCTV….

    1. He’s trying to get his retaliation in early – “look how virtuous I am and please forget the people I put back into care homes and the dodgy contracts”! [edit – I see the upvoting tarts are still here!]

      2. Not in his wife’s house in the next village – 1½ miles from where I sit!!

        1. Sounds the right sort of place, there are only a few straw-in-mouth local yokels living there, aren’t there?!

  52. A nice obit of Tony Brooks, who has sadly died at 90. Although with the 7, the beautiful pic might actually be S Moss Esq. A copybook four wheel drift on crossly tyres, whoever it is… Denis Jenkinson would be pleased.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2022/05/05/tony-brooks-racing-driver-part-formidable-pairing-stirling-moss/

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/obituaries/2022/05/05/TELEMMGLPICT000294952053_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqp2ZybuEUAsPqEOEA7eklbKXqiRrGtYI-K9GGca5TxuU.jpeg?imwidth=1280

  54. Britain is uniquely capable of escaping this spiral of decay
    The Telegraph’s new columnist, Lord Frost, on how to pull the country back from the brink
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/05/britain-uniquely-capable-escaping-spiral-decay/

    BTL

    A couple of days before the Brexit deal was announced both Gove and Johnson arrived in Brussels. At that time Lord Frost was holding firm on both fishing and Northern Ireland and it looked as if he was quite prepared to go for “No Deal” and WTO terms.

    And then he crumbled.

    What was it that Gove and Johnson did to undermine him? I would like to hear Lord Frost’s account of why he caved in and lumbered us with such a disastrous Brexit.

    1. 352457+ up ticks,
      Afternoon R,
      We in the genuine UKIP left the Brexit in a state of victory and were told by many your job is done NO need of UKIP any longer, they the electorate returned to supporting / voting lab/lib/con a PRO eu COALITION.

    2. A man of integrity. Lord Frost resigned because he was not prepared to be tainted by double dealing scum like Johnson and Gove.

  55. 352457+ up ticks,,

    May one ask, do the brains of rocking horses within the electorate realise that we are, many of us, not in danger of losing a
    council seat / county but a whole bloody country.

  56. Just watched the final of Masterchef. Lenny Henry the unfunny comedian accused Masterchef of being racist because all the black men get voted off early.
    Caribbean food is good but it doesn’t have enough dimensions. It is clear to me that each time you get to cook again it has to be better than the dish you cooked before.
    The three finalists were two of Indian heritage and one was Thai. That’s racism for you. It’s not Masterchef that is racist. It’s you Lenny.

    2. I think Lenny Henry used to be quite funny until he started banging on about politics and trying to be a race champion.

      Effectiveness as a comedian is inversely proportionate to the spouting of left wing politics. Lenny Henry has become comically impotent – he cannot even raise a smile!

      1. Rastus, he was never funny! He needed other people round him to make him look funny!

      2. He was beaten as a child by his mother. Obviously not enough. There is another similar to him…Rusty Lee. I knew a young black guy who worked in her Birmingham restaurant. He said they were treated like slaves and she stole their tips. Funny…I don’t think so.

        1. After being beaten he should have been whisked back to a cooking pot in Katanga, DRC.

  57. Since leaving the EU ( Fourth Reich) we have been able to import much more South African fruit.We have been eating their wonderful pears, out of season in England but in season in SA. Do try them is you see them. Go wonderful with Colston Bassett Stilton.

    1. I’ve been eating Packham’s Triumph pears from SA bought at Morrisons. Wonderful if you like ’em crisp and sweet like I do.

  58. GB News presenter (Mark Steyn) makes false claim about booster vaccine deaths
    Basit Mahmood

    ‘He is wrong to claim the booster “increases your chances of hospitalisation and death”.
    https://leftfootforward.org/2022/05/gb-news-presenter-makes-false-claim-about-booster-vaccine-deaths/

    As Mandy Rice Davies would have uttered :

    “Basit Mahmood would say that wouldn’t he!”

    My own empirical observations lead me to think that Mark Steyn is nearer the truth than Mr Mahmoot.

    But, as we well know, we are encouraged not to believe the evidence of our own experience and eyes.

    1. Steyn based his claim on government data, which he presented on-screen. Is Mahmood saying the government lied?

      2. He’s saying that Steyn based his findings not on false data but on a false interpretation of the data. Steyn compared the two groups of people – the triple jabbed, and the unjabbed or only one or two jabbed. The two groups were much the same size and the triple jabbed had far more infections and deaths than the others. The flaw in his reasoning was that the triple jabbed were largely the elderly, who were more likely to die than the young.

        1. Yet that same reasoning is swept aside when it’s pointed out that most deaths attributed to covid are among the elderly. Plus I know so many people in the 30-50 age group who are tripled jabbed that I’m anyway not convinced!

          1. Yes – it’s the triple jabbed who are the ones getting it. But the stats really only covered the hospitalisations and deaths. And the figures were manipulated all along to categorise as ‘unjabbed’ those who got the shot up to 14 days before. It’s clear that the jab makes people more susceptible to illness during that period.

    3. My tortoise is more truthful than the PTB Party Line (and I do not have a tortoise!!!)

    1. You do not need to go to the polls now;Mr Rashid will do it for you, and then tell you who(m) you voted for

      1. I see that Rutfur Lahman, the odious creature convicted of electoral malpractice some 10 years ago, has won a council seat in Tower Hamlets. Words fail me!

    2. You do not need to go to the polls now;Mr Rashid will do it for you, and then tell you who(m) you voted for

  60. Regarding energy policy Boris Johnson said he was going to ‘keep fracking on the table’. Ooh er….

    Personally, i just wish he would f%&k off.

  61. I’ve been cleaning the oven because it’s raining and I was supposed to be out with a friend who’s boiler service went over time, and listened to an entitled Edinburgh nutter who thinks it’s OK to block a Home Office deportation!! I’ve got to say that my venom has gone into the cleaning!! She was sooo smug that the oven is sparkly! I lived and worked in Edinburgh for quite some years and this ghastly, middle class, smug bitch epitomises the city!

    1. Corstorphin or how ever you prounounce it .. Oh dear , I also apply myself just like you do Sue .

      I always feel happier when I am the company of a few who feel the same as me .

      That is why I love our Nottlers , they are similar to cosy arm chairs ..

      In actual fact pretty much like a Quaker meet up… You know many are silent witnesses to the truth.

      That has to be the daftest scribble I have ever written

      My antibiotics are strong and playing silly tricks with how I feel ..

      1. Have you still got the chest infection? It’s hanging on, isn’t it!
        We went to a meeting yesterday and one person there who had covid about the same time as you, and the reason the meeting was postponed, said she was still feeling rubbish, and very tired. She’s much younger than we are.

        1. Afternoon J

          Yes . I managed to get a phone appointment yesterday just after 2pm with a GP… I had rung every morning at 8.30 for an appointment for over 2 weeks, each time I was caught in a queue on the phone … 24/ 26/ and my landline battery wasn’t coping, i had even been to speak to the receptionist at surgery , and was given apologies for NO chance of an appointment for weeks ,.

          If you had heard my voice and my cough etc you probably would have said my goodness , get help now .. I’ M A REAL SORRY MESS.

          In fact I wondered whether I should have been sent for a chest xray.

          Doctor heard my cough and voice etc and said I should have called sooner !!!!!!!!!

          I have some strange strong antibiotics , one a day.. sorry to moan but I feel half dead .

          5. Well at least you got some sort of result – I hope the antibiotics do the trick.

        2. Afternoon J

          Yes . I managed to get a phone appointment yesterday just after 2pm with a GP… I had rung every morning at 8.30 for an appointment for over 2 weeks, each time I was caught in a queue on the phone … 24/ 26/ and my landline battery wasn’t coping, i had even been to speak to the receptionist at surgery , and was given apologies for NO chance of an appointment for weeks ,.

          If you had heard my voice and my cough etc you probably would have said my goodness , get help now .. I’ M A REAL SORRY MESS.

          In fact I wondered whether I should have been sent for a chest xray.

          Doctor heard my cough and voice etc and said I should have called sooner !!!!!!!!!

          I have some strange strong antibiotics , one a day.. sorry to moan but I feel half dead .

      3. There’s a lot to be said for some of those like The Amish, Anabaptist and Quaker movements. They at least pose no threat that I know of and adhere to their beliefs.
        More than can be said of those in charge of both the High & Low CofE, not to mention government.

        1. Both my children attended a Quaker High School when we gave up on local state (Maryland) schools back in the 80’s. My son ended up heading their IT department as adult. Always enjoyed their meetings and the quiet contemplation it afforded.

          1. I have known many people over the years who have said they were Quaker. Found their views on life: projected a quiet, contemplating and peaceful existence.

    3. A chap comes round every six months and cleans my oven for £50. I go out to the cocktail lounge. Heatwave here ! :@)

      1. My oven is self-cleaning…all I have to do is turn the dial setting to clean!

        2. Blimey you must be well orf Jill – that’s the highest heat setting, burns the muck off

          1. Nah, I only use it once or twice a year. Probably cheaper than the 50quid Phizzee spends!

          2. Yes I guess you’re right – if I did that I’d do it when the sun was shining and providing me with free electricity

          7. I think she might have been making a joke – but you never know with Geordie girls…!!

          9. Fine, Geoff. Me as normal as I am able to be. The MR has fully recovered, thank goodness.

          11. Thanks Geoff! I’m just feeling a bit virtuous!
            Sorry jill!🌹

        3. #metoo, Jill. Best to do it in the depths of winter, since those 500degC have to go somewhere. Wiping out the ash with a damp cloth afterwards is rather satisfying…

          1. Agree, usually try to do it on a not too cold morning, so the windows can be open. Otherwise the smoke detector goes bananas!

      3. We had ours done for £50 a month or so ago for the first time (by someone else). Off came the doors (I would never have done that) – it all looked wonderful when finished.

    4. Have a glass, admire the oven, and settle in for a cosy weekend, Sue. Jerks aren’t worth stressing over.

      1. Thanks pet! I don’t drink but the oven is fab! We’ll be on butties for weeks!
        Hope your wonderful lady has a great birthday and I think you’ve done a grand job! 👏🏻

      1. So do I. Even if it’s not, I’m not expecting it to be plastered over the msm any time soon.

          1. Yes.
            Good trips each way.
            The UK gets worse each visit.
            All the Bame advertisements are becoming correct.

          4. …and Mid-Suffolk. Ipswich is another story with a whole section devoted to Eastern Europe. Here, in the sticks (the spinach as they say in Sweden) no BAMES to be seen.

          5. At Chester races today (crowd of approx 16k) I saw 3 BAME racegoers (2 women, 1 man), plus perhaps half a dozen workers, including the “paddock expert” from ITV – he was late on cue, by the way – and a couple others working for the production company.

          6. Walking around Tunbridge Wells there were mixed couples and light coloured children everywhere.

  66. We had a lovely time at Hatfield arts and craft Fair. Fabulous weather and lots of interesting crafts and art on display. Even more interesting where some of the people i talked to whilst i sat in a shaded area and listened to the ladies jazz band, well after they’d finished their set. Some people from South Africa we had a lot in common, especially our opinions of a once great and bustling metropolis JHB. Now unfortunately described as a shite hole.
    Two charming young mothers with their young families all dancing around, one with a daughter the same age as our own granddaughter at Two, we talked about musical experiences and she use to work at the Birmingham Conservatoire. What a nice coincidence that was. It’s good to talk eh 🙂🤗
    But my legs were weary when we arrived home and i must admit i sat in the chair drank a well needed a cuppa and must have dozed off.

    1. Flippin Five for me too, sweetie … x
      Wordle 321 5/6

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

    2. Another 4.
      Wordle 321 4/6

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

      1. In four.

        Wordle 321 4/6

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

      1. Par 4 here too.
        Wordle 321 4/6

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

    1. He did have some accurate opinions:-

      Known for his controversial opinions and hard line views, he inspired a Happy Mondays track and once had his job saved by Margaret Thatcher. He had faced calls to step down after claiming that victims of Aids were in a ‘human cesspool of their own making’.

        1. True, but most of those poor sods were infected because of that cesspool and the US habit of paying druggie blood donors for their polluted product.

    2. Maybe he should have ‘dressed up’ and gone out more. Keep taking the Tablets Al …….. 😎

    4. Larkin’s poem’s opening lines –

      “Sexual intercourse began

      In nineteen sixty-three

      (which was rather late for me) –

      Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban

      And the Beatles’ first LP”

    5. Never been of any interest to me.

      Bennett’s problem is obvious. Anyone seeking a good time with him would run a mile. And then some.

        1. I do actually quite like his witterings. They make me think how happy my life is. Which is, i think, the point. I did enjoy his Talking Heads. Particularly Kitty (Patricia Routledge).

          1. Yes , I like him as well.

            A lot of my elderly uncles were pipe sucking /smoking thoughtful Yorkshire men , who growled and commented on this and that .

          3. Phizzee dear

            We have all got 6 degrees of separation.. No one knows .

            You would never ever know my origins .. My voice and vocal tones are received English . i used to have a radio voice !!

          4. I was accused of being Welsh. Because of the lilt in the voice, look you.

          6. One of the most moving renditions was when the Pope left – sung on the tarmac at CWL.

  70. That’s me for today. Very agreeable sunshine until about 3 pm. Since then it has looked as though it is about to rain -though none appears. Maybe during the night. Who knows?

    Have a jolly evening – I really think that Radio NoTTL has a great deal to commend it…!!

    A demain.

      1. …… with all our legal problems – it would be just like old times!

        1. It could be called “The Legal Beagle Show”!
          But it would have to be a “Tell” – you can’t show people stuff on radio…
          I’ll get me coat.

          1. We could call it- Sorry we really don’t have a clue but we like making it up as we go along.
            Who’s going to be Samantha and who will be Sven?

        2. It could be called “The Legal Beagle Show”!
          But it would have to be a “Tell” – you can’t show people stuff on radio…
          I’ll get me coat.

  72. Driver who nudged Insulate Britain protesters accuses police of ‘double standards’ after conviction
    Sherrilyn Speid was disqualified from driving for a year and must retake her test after pleading guilty to dangerous driving

    https://leftfootforward.org/2022/05/gb-news-presenter-makes-false-claim-about-booster-vaccine-deaths/

    Of course at the root of the problem is that if the police do not enforce the law properly then people will take the law into their own hands. Cannot Ms Speid take legal action against the police for dereliction of their duty to uphold the law?

    Sheer spite and nastiness from the courts too – makes one ashamed to be British.

    BTL

    The police who failed to deal with the problem of the law-breaking insulators should be sent back to training college and put on the bottom of the salary scale.

    1. Seeing as she was trying to take her children to school the punishment is clearly unjust. Judges in other cases sympathising with Extinction Rebellion when sitting on their case is also clearly wrong. Judges have allowed their political views to influence their decisions and therefore unfit to judge anything.

  73. Final Countdown for The Queen of Mean.

    It’s time for a man to replace the vacant chair …

    I vote for Richard Littlejohn

  74. Apropos some of the posts below re vaccines etc. You may remember that since last year I have been mentioning about the red spots that appeared on my arms after the 2nd AZ jab. Well, Wednesday night, overnight a huge batch appeared on my upper right arm. The worst lot yet. As I was at the surgery today to have the dressing changed I showed it to the nurse (who is lovely and did my ECG). She went and grabbed my doc into the room and showed him. I said I was concerned it was clotting; he said it was bruising and ask if I was booked in for a blood test. Yes I am so he said he would add into the blood test another thingy to find out why this has been happening.
    He’s a nice guy and looked rather surprised when he saw my arm.
    Also, what I thought would take ten minutes took an hour an a half. Bloody surgeon must have used sodding gorilla glue to stick the first dressing onto me mush.
    Anyway, I have a funny story to relate but it’s going to have to wait for now.

    1. I’m so pleased the nurse had the gumption to collar the doc about your spots Lottie. When’s the blood test? (Why couldn’t he do it there and then for goodness sake). Another annoying thing about the NHS. You were there, he was there, do the test.

      1. Seems they only have a phlebotomist at the surgery M-W and only in the mornings. Daft.

        1. Therefore a doctor doesn’t know how to take a blood sample?
          What a disgrace.
          Good luck Ann, home both your problem and the NHS get sorted out soon.

          1. He was hauled in by the nurse. I like him- he’s a good guy. I don’t think it’s serious at all- would just like it sorted.

      1. No and it isn’t a rash. It is large red blotches that appear, disappear and leave faint red marks. I showed the doc the marks left on my left arm which have now faded somewhat. It’s a pain in the arse which I really don’t need right now.
        Next week is full of hospital stuff and tomorrow, I am returning this new phone which totally useless. Like I really want to be dealing with that sh*t tomorrow.

        1. Are you on any anti-coagulant medicaion like warfarin that I’ve been taking daily since 2002?

          I regularly get red blotches, both large and small, up and down on both arms – nowhere else – and dismiss them as normal haematomas as a result of the warfarin.
          .
          If you are NOT on any anti-coagulants, your doc needs to check ALL your medicattion for these side-effects

    3. Strewth, Ann. Sounds serious. Glad you got into the surgery and actually had it looked at. Hope the test is soon!

      1. Honestly, I am fine- short of sleep and very tired.
        Do you think if I said “Beam me up” it would work? I really am at the end of my rope.

        2. No.
          You need a rest and a holiday. Sunshine… grandchildren… time away doing something different.

    4. Hope you are able to get this sorted soon, good luck with everything going on for you and moh next week, don’t let the turkeys get you down!!

    1. This presentation highlights how stupid the WEF are. as well as sinister and evil.
      Pushing the end of shopping as an “advantage”? That surely wasn’t designed by women.
      There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip – they have designed a nice little fascist system, but implementing it could be much harder.
      For example, Russia has just pegged the rouble to gold, and the two rising empires of China and India both value gold. Many central banks are buying gold – that doesn’t look as though they are all planning to use CBDCs.

      Spread the word about the WEF/WHO pandemic treaty aka one world government coup attempt, so that people fight it before our traitors can sign us up to it. If you have any doubts about how bad that will be, consider this; the WHO will get to decide when a pandemic is declared, and what each country must do in response.
      Once they’ve decreed covid passes, then anything can be pushed in under the public health skirts. Obesity pandemic? Rationing. Flu pandemic? no travelling
      etc.
      People need to know that this is in the pipeline.

      1. Have you signed the Petition against signing the WHO treaty seizing control of everybody’s health? Sorry I can’t provide the link and it may do no good at all. But I feel at least I’ve tried.

        2. We all need to talk to people in real life, and ask them if they’ve heard about it.

      2. Passed that video to my daughter and urged her to explain/pass it on to my Grandchildren and GreatGrandchildrenwho will be the ones to suffer from this Global Dictatorship.

  77. Cutting edge science.

    Being on an anticoagulation drug I try to avoid doing things that draw blood.
    However, I recently cut my finger whilst shortening a length of 15mm copper pipe so I decided to catch a drop on a microscope slide and look at it under my Bresser NV microscope.

    Amazingly I found I could clearly see my red blood cells.
    I also note that the larger white blood cells (neutrophils), an important feature in blood clotting and COVID infections, should also be visible.

    This means that I may be able to determine the level of immunity I have from COVID infection by virtue of taking an anticoagulant.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f5256619c1e3057f31a966aa2d490014e75384d1110e233d1574893a2fce08cb.jpg

    “There are also signs that neutrophils might participate in thrombosis or blood clotting,” said Lee, another troubling hallmark of COVID-19.”

    https://news.yale.edu/2021/02/26/blood-tests-offer-early-indicator-severe-covid-19-study-says

  78. I did promise you a funny story and this absolutely true.
    MH and I (impersonating HM of course,) had left the docs after a long time and he wanted a pint of Guinness and I wanted a large Pinot.
    Walking down the road towards the pub, a woman accosted us and asked if we would hold her budgies. Husbands hands twitched in anticipation and she thrust two boxes into his hands- a budgie in each one.
    She’d just come out the pet shop and had bought two budgies. We suggested a couple of names…
    We laughed all the way to the pub and chortled long after.
    Only in England;-)

          1. Actually, and only for you- MH suggested Sydney as Budgies are from Oz and I suggested Adelaide. So good Oz names.
            I just like to wind people up.

          2. Thank God not Joey. Every freakin’ budgie seems to be called that.

          3. Never had one- am a dog person me.
            Honestly Paul, it was so funny, we couldn’t stop laughing. I haven’t related it well but we were in stitches.

    3. Would, “We don’t need no steenkin’ budgies!”, have been a bit unfriendly?

    3. I’m so glad that my daughter ceased farming in Victoria, and moved to Tasmania via Brisbane (too hot) and now hobby-farms while her husband micr-brews beer.

  80. Hello from a Saxon Queen with longbow and axe in handbag .
    A very bright and sunny day today.
    I’ve been reading a book titled-
    William and Mary by Henri and Barbara Van der Zee ( for my glorious revolution course)
    Its highly recommended but reading about historical figures in the form of a functional book is something I struggle with, know many find it beneficial but I don’t.
    The man leading the course had lead other courses on the history of the monarchy- he himself a parliamentarian . I’m very much a supporter of the monarchy .

      1. One of my Ancesters, the last to bear arms, was Sir Timothy Fetherstonehaugh (Fanshaw) who was a Royalist caught in Chesterfield by the Roundheads and executed there in 1651.

  81. Totally off topic.
    Does anyone know how to track down the citation for a croix de guerre awarded to an Englishman?

        1. Best I can do at short notice.
          I saw there was a 23-year-old woman, working for SOE. Caaptured, tortured and finished in prison camp.
          23! What a woman! How unutterably sad…

          1. I’ve hunted high and low. Vincennes seems the most promising but it’s like trawling through an encyclopaedia.

          2. Yo, Paul. In our ‘umble united parish, we have Seale, Puttenham and Wanborough. S & P are both on the Pilgrim’s Way. W is different. It has an entry in the Domesday Book. At one point in it’s history, it was used to keep pigs. Wanborough Manor, however, immediately adjacent to the Church, was used to train SOE operatives…

          3. At Cranfield, the Department janitor was a Polish man, name of Florrie. He’d been in SOE, and tortured. He didn’t talk about it. Humblest man you could ever meet. He retired the same year as the Professor Head of Department, and pretty well the whole University turned out to say goodbye to Florrie. Not so the Prof.
            Respect to Florrie, and Violette Szabo. Only 23…

  82. I have to confess that on today’s Wordle puzzle, I engaged more than a little assistance from L’Angelo Misterioso.

    Sorry!

          3. He was my favourite too….no fan of gossip on the devil’s radio – his words would be soooo opportune now.

          4. He was my favourite too….no fan of gossip on the devil’s radio – his words would be soooo opportune now.

      1. Plum knows! 😉

        [“L’Angelo Misterioso” was the pseudonym chosen by Plum’s favourite Beatle when he secretly guested on a wonderful, early Cream single.]

    3. Wordle 321 6/6

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

      Mine was phew!

      1. Oh sh$te – I’ve got the mindless babe brigade trolling me again…

  83. Lutfur Rahman, the disgraced politician found guilty of corrupt and illegal practices, has secured a comeback by winning the vote to be mayor of Tower Hamlets in east London.

    After the five-year ban placed on him for standing for public office lapsed, Rahman managed to unseat the incumbent mayor, Labour’s John Biggs, under the banner of his Aspire party.

    Rahman was kicked out of office in 2015 after a specialist court concluded he was guilty of vote-rigging, buying votes and religious intimidation.

    Rahman won 40,804 votes on the second round, with Biggs on 33,487.

    More details soon https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/06/lutfur-rahman-wins-tower-hamlets-mayor-election-results

        1. All that work that went into securing the decision to ban him! It should have been a life ban.

        3. It’s the way they do politics in Bangladesh (east Pakistan as it was after partition) if you pay you get the votes.

      1. Dunno. Some Dutch prog, methinks.

        “Mr Bloe” was a group of short-lived anonymous session musicians. The harmonica-player was Harry Pitch, he of The Last Of The Summer Wine fame.

          5. My favourite malt.
            I send to sell it back in the 90s along with The Glenlivit.

    2. The sound of willow on bone by the baldy man on the back of the other guy’s head. A fine (dive for) cover drive.
      Ye olde village green clickyba match. Tea and chapatti time. Those were the days.

    3. “It ain’t just chicken! ”
      Didn’t some health inspectors prove that on at least one occasion?

  88. 352457+ up ticks,

    Thick is not an adequate description in
    regards to the electoral majority.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    2h
    Ha, bloody ha! What might they regret exactly?

    * More unlimited & uncontrolled immigration?
    * More inflation & poverty?
    * Ever rising energy bills due to insane ‘green’ policies?
    * Being dragged into WWIII?
    * More political correct policies?

    All policies guaranteed by Tory administrations. And we get the same under Labour. So what difference does your vote make? NONE!

    1. With the choice lib/lab/con I wrote on my ballot paper NOTA.
      Suggestion of what else I could have done please ogga.

      1. 352457+ up ticks,

        Evening At G,
        Not many other options beyond an independent & as you have done, it does show the state of the nation when these are the choices.

      1. An ostentatious display of power: “We dare you to move us…”

      1. Mr Love, who claims to have been a ‘Thatcherite before it was a thing’, has had his message deleted.

    4. That reminds me, today the Telegraph has a piece of propaganda about how to recycle out-of-date Soviet-era grenades which involves the use of toy helicopters fitted with little camera thingies.
      Edit: I suppose one could fix tiny loudspeakers to such a device and play Onward Christian Soldiers!

  90. Evening, all. Had a lucky escape leaving Chester early – the heavens opened on the way back and the rain was torrential. It will do the garden good, but I can’t wait for the heatwave!

  91. After doing a 15 shovel mix of mortar yesterday and doing a bit of wall building, I’ve had a bit of an easier day today doing a bit of backfilling of soil on the uphill side of the wall together with an hours nettle and bramble pulling.

    Dug a couple of tubs of leftovers out of the freezer for dinner and it actually tasted quait naice when reheated!
    I’ve Belly Pork marinading in my home made cider for tomorrow with the cider being used to make up some stuffing to cook the belly pork on.

    And a bit of tractor porn for those into such things:-
    https://youtu.be/sOzmnMlTbCU

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