Monday 10 August: France must face up to its failure to stop migrants crossing the Channel

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/08/09/letters-france-must-face-failure-stop-migrants-crossing-channel/

852 thoughts on “Monday 10 August: France must face up to its failure to stop migrants crossing the Channel”

    1. If you were French, I’d have thought it a success, rather than a failure, to offload this problem onto the British.

      1. The French have been remarkably successful recently.

        They’ve got rid of large numbers of fit young Muslim “refugees” who can be guaranteed to cause trouble in the future.

        Macron has manaqed to persuade a number of countries to volunteer money to renovate Lebanon where so much is owned

        by French investors. He’s saved France a bucket of money, and improved his standing in the Middle East.

        Really smart!

        1. Even smarter, he’s got the British government to cough up to fund the invasion of UK beaches!

  5. SIR – Many of those seeking sanctuary in Britain have endured terrible persecution in their homelands.

    It is to be hoped that, when they arrive, they will be treated with compassion and consideration. We who are already here have only the shallow claim that we got here first.

    Michael Armitage
    Cromer, Norfolk

    Mr Armitage, what part of the Dublin Regulation are you struggling with? You know, the part that requires asylum-seekers to register in the first safe country they reach? This must surely be the most pathetic letter yet published on the matter.

    1. But then the second generation arrives down the line and hates us, then wants to change us and then replace us.

      1. And bomb us and murder us and destroy colour, song, literature, education, art and fun.

    2. Maybe these homelands need to take responsibility for their citizens or face sanctions, rather than aid if their leaders fail to do so.

      We have reached the stage where civilisations cannot absorb the consequences of the tyrannies of others without them going down too. The UN is like a barrel of apples, where the rotten ones, if not isolated, will eventually destroy the whole barrelful.

      It is not a happy solution – we ourselves may well succumb to the sort of corruption that lays waste to nations and brutalises and traumatises our frightened innocents, who must either get away or face torture to oblivion at the hands of our tyrants. Don’t think we are spared humanity just because we are British. Do not judge, let we ourselves be judged.

      I went to Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and faced hard feeling because the UK did not intervene when the Sudetenland was annexed. It was over Poland that we drew the line, but then there were many months when we did nothing. America was not willing to do anything about Hitler until Pearl Harbor was attacked. Trump justifies Erdogan’s attack on the Kurds, because the Kurds did not contribute to the Normandy landings. Of course if they could deal (and they were the only ones who did) with Islamic State, they should have sorted out Hitler too. I took such criticism on the chin – if Britain had intervened over Czechoslovakia, and Chamberlain not waved that piece of paper “Peace in our Time” around, then we might too have succumbed to the jackboot that took over most of Europe.

      Yet Lebanon shows us all too well what happens if we don’t apply tough love. In their generosity, they took in the afraid and the dispossessed from their neighbours, and what thanks did they get?

      If we close our hearts, then we close them to the innocent children caught up through the actions of their parents. We create a new generation of the traumatised and the brutalised, but what choice have we got? Do we absorb them into our own societies and deny our own indigenous the right to breed and have families? Feminism and wokeness has made family life forbidden fruit for me, when it is encouraged for them.

      During this coronavirus lockdown, where we must distance ourselves socially, we are all going down with compassion fatigue. It is against the law to love one another. Only when we can recover this capacity are we in any state to extend limited and select relief to the less fortunate, but we must discriminate and we must be careful not to overwhelm our capacity to help.

    3. BTL COmment:
      Colin Thomasson
      10 Aug 2020 6:41AM

      “What quintessential woke cant.
      Mr Armitage denies us the very existence of our culture, heritage and right to exist .
      All of that which is good and just in Blighty is, apparently some sort of accident.
      Nothing to do with the people and their culture who in fact have created it from about one thousand years of continued sovereign government.
      But no, nothing to do with being born and raised in the British tradition, which would be to acknowledge the worth of the native peoples, it is simply an attribute of geography .
      Nothing to do with the natives whom the woke by definition despise and disparage and whose humanity that movement exists to deny.
      We got here first, presumably by some frightful unfair process of racist cheating , and have absolutely no more right to be here than the invaders who intrude by woke right, ignoring our laws, flouting their human rights which means we have no right to exist.

      I find Mr Armitage’s cant insulting, hurtful, harmful but what’s actually intolerable, he displays a bbc level of racist depravity, intolerance and contempt for the British people, their culture and existence.
      All of which in snide bbc fashion he denies exists as anything to do with us.”

      2. If I could give that rant a thousand upticks, I would! Just maybe, people are becoming aware of what’s happening.

    4. Dateline 1620 – New England.
      SIR – Many of those seeking sanctuary in America have endured terrible persecution in their homelands.

      It is to be hoped that, when they arrive, they will be treated with compassion and consideration. We who are already here have only the shallow claim that we got here first.

      Native American Chief.

    1. ‘Morning, Bob.

      I find it gets quite chilly at night if you leave a window towards the prevailing wind open. Last night I slept under a duvet & closed the window at 4 am.

    3. Not here. Slightly warm yesterday, with a cold wind. (slightly warm – when the thermometer nudges 20 Degrees in the early afternoon. Nice today, but cloudy.

  7. I’m just wondering what the reaction would be by the French if we were sending all our unwanted refugees across the channel to France by such an uncivilised method and how we would be portrayed around the world for allowing it.

      1. This is very true. Perhaps we should consider emtying a few French lorries of produce and dumping it into Dover harbour??

        1. 322320+ up ticks,
          HJ,
          Keep in mind nose / face.
          Also what peoples should keep in mind when visiting a polling booth again is what has my party done for me since the last GE, then vote accordingly.

        2. I’ve got a better idea.

          Fill the French lorries with illegals and send them back that way.

          1. When our local Liberal MP visited our factory it was a time when the French farmers were stopping UK lorries from entering France. They were breaking them open and tipping the Scotch beef etc onto the road while the police watched.
            I buttonholed the MP, Archy Kirkwood, and suggested that we put a platoon of heavily armed Royal Marines in one of the lorries and let the French have it when they broke into the lorry, in breach of local and international law. He replied, “ah, wuff, waffle, sniffle, wah, waffle, whimper…”.

      2. Macron is very friendly with Alex Soros so obviously that’s where the influence comes from.

    2. 322320+ up ticks,
      Morning B3,
      I am more for wondering when the peoples are going to fully realise just what is taking place here.
      They are being taught a lesson on the NEW pecking order
      it is plainly obvious that the peoples efforts at wanting their party in power and running the Country has finally paid off in spades, regardless of any of the odious consequences suffered putting said party in place,again,
      again,& again.
      They won’t get in again is such a hollow bleat especially since the choice they give themselves is betwixt sh!te,sh!te or sh!te.

  8. Morning Folks. There’s another good essay By John Ward over on The Slog:

    “Anthony St John Blair, a product of private education and Oxbridge who wasn’t even a member of the Labour Party until he met his wife afterwards. He vowed to use targets to improve the ailing education system – by which he meant giving students higher scores for “correct” answers. Thus ended any element of questioning accepted norms, and a subsequent lowering of standards to “meet” targets. In 2020, 17% scored in a GCSE exam is a pass. In 1964, 45% at GCE O-Level was a fail.

    Obsessed solely with how Blair had “succeeded”, on coming to power in 2010, David Cameron dumped his promise to restore Grammar Schools. The lesson had been well-learned over 46 years: keep the electorate addicted to dim acceptance, and you can get away with anything.

    Suitably anaesthetised by spin, the electorate heard one ageist message after another, and swallowed them all with barely a blink. Only bigoted old people opposed further immigration we were told (migration surged under Tony Blair, he having correctly discerned that most them would become Labour voters) but MORI research at the time showed that 78% of the entire population wanted it stopped. Older women unaware of the forthcoming theft of their State Pension rights were blithely told that “they should’ve known it was coming”. After the Brexit success in 2016, Blair blamed the innate racism and poor education of retrogressive older voters.

    The bottom line is this: it is infinitely more easy to smear older people: ageism in the West remains one of the few isms one can use to vilify a social group without any recourse to law being possible.”

    https://therealslog.com/2020/08/09/the-sunday-essay-age-is-just-a-number-but-birth-year-is-a-guide-to-attitude/

    1. John Ward omits the motive behind Blair and Cameron’s policies and legislation.

      Namely one George Soros who was heavily influencing both of them.

      Doubtlessly for money as both have ended up so rich.

    2. Under the new Hate Crimes Act in Scotland ageism will be a hate crime as well as everything else. Literally any distinguishing feature will now be included in the hate crime envelope.

    3. He’s wrong: 45% was the pass/fail boundary but counted as a pass. Hence I can claim my French O-level as a pass…

    4. What’s this ‘St John’ crap? Police records show that Bliar’s middle names are Charles Lynton.. {:^))

      1. Good morning, C1.

        You may recall yesterday your request to save the Hundred Acre Wood (in reality the five Hundred Acre Wood). Well, fortunately it wasn’t damaged at all, but two other areas were, and we had to call in the cavalry for the second time in 48 hours. The first fire broke out Friday evening, and fighting it was very difficult because it caught the underground peat alight which then continued to burn most of yesterday, popping up in odd places and sometimes yards from the fire itself. Around yesterday lunchtime another area went up, requiring 5 appliances, 2 tankers and 2 senior officers. No cause established, but possibly a disposable barbeque (illegal on Ashdown Forest) or carelessly discarded smoking materials.

        I would have posted some photos but Disgust won’t let me because, it says, I am not logged on. How it thinks I am posting this without being logged on is a complete mystery.

  12. Why is the BBC promoting identity politics?. Spiked 10 August 2020.

    Here, they accuse you of the very thing they themselves are guilty of. On one hand, they shamelessly attempt to confine people to groupings based on race and prescribe them as oppressors or victims. And on the other, they accuse everyone who doesn’t agree with them of being a racist. They’re quite literally defining people based on the colour of their skin, while calling everyone else racist.

    The worst thing about this is that they are well-intentioned. The BBC and others in line with identitarian groupthink have a sense of self-righteousness so strong that they never even question whether their approach is right or wrong. But what they don’t realise is that their approach is harmful. Recent research suggests their methodology is detrimental to the very causes they profess to support: ‘There is evidence, for example, that introducing people to the most commonly used readings about white privilege can reduce sympathy for poor whites, especially among social liberals’, a recent BBC report finds, ironically.

    This is lamentably naïve. The cadre that controls the BBC are Marxist ideologues. They are not concerned with right or wrong at all. They couldn’t care less and have no more difficulty dismissing reality than their predecessors in the USSR. The Holodomor, the Gulag. No problem to the right thinking.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/10/why-is-the-bbc-promoting-identity-politics/

      1. Do they broadcast TV programmes in the morning? Isn’t that what the test-card is for?

        1. I set these things up for you. I played the lead in the Scottish play in 1953. I was 12. I knew the whole damned (spot) thing by heart. That was then; this is now…{:¬))

        2. Duncan greets the bleeding captain with “What bloody man is that?”(I. ii line 1), in Macbeth ‘blood’ is a symbol throughout, blood represents the guilt that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth feel but also the brutality of murder. Moreover Duncan will become the ‘bloody man’ and it could foreshadow his eventual death.

        1. Here, we can make a whole choir of voices crying in the wilderness – make straight the way of the Lord!

  14. Britain has no way to protect itself from this new wave of immigration. 10 August 2020.

    But now the politicians have to contend with a new problem. In place of complicated statistics, we have the simplicity of an image: photographs showing the steady flow of human traffic, crossing the Channel from France to enter Britain illegally.

    Those pictures tell the shocking story of an almost total absence of immigration control. About 4,000 migrants have made the journey this year so far, already more than twice the number in 2019. Last Thursday alone, 235 crossed the Channel in seventeen separate vessels. In just a few months, Kent County Council has taken hundreds of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children into care.

    Though I’m aware that the Cross Channel traffic serves a more important purpose to the Government in distracting attention from the vast numbers that simply fly in and decamp to the nearest benefit office to say that it could not be prevented is an absurdity. A dozen dinghies a day cannot be stopped? I could do it with two NoTTLers and one large boat. They do not stop them because they do not wish to do so! It is as simple as that! The reason is not some great mystery. The Elites, both Right and Left, support immigration though for slightly different reasons, they have always done so. They simply dare not say so!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/09/britain-has-no-way-protect-new-wave-immigration/

    1. Britain is similar to a Ready Made Meal to many outsiders ..

      The reputation of the tastyness of the dish has been transmitted to many followers… they are flocking in for tasters!

    2. 322320+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      DOVER is establishing the governance stance on ALL
      issues as already posted ” the domestic staff
      ( political servants) now rule the manor.

    1. I have the radio recordings, which started with the sound of a horse driven hackney carriage. He was also a villain in many a children’s hour serial.

  18. Labour MP Dawn Butler stopped by police in London. 10 August 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/322df82bed054c4627c4f6321d67fba30d8cd2e92576a05df9a8ef044d0d617b.png

    Dawn Butler, the Labour MP and former shadow equalities minister, has accused the police of being institutionally racist after she was stopped while driving to Sunday lunch with a friend.

    Butler, a strong critic of police stop-and-search tactics, said the car was being driven by her male friend, who like Butler is black, when two police cars pulled it over in Hackney, east London. Officers said the vehicle was registered in North Yorkshire.

    Morning everyone. I read Belles late night comment about this and looked into it myself. The footage has been extensively edited (another officer has been deleted from most accounts) to present Ms Butlers side but unfortunately the claim by both her and the MSM that they were stopped because both were black is refuted by the still above. A white throat and forearm are distinctly visible.

    Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/09/labour-mp-dawn-butler-stopped-by-police-in-london

    1. ‘Morning, Minty. Quite so, the version shown across the media yesterday stinks. When stopped by the police, what is the very first thing you should do? Why, reach for your phone of course, in order to record the event. After all, you are automatically the victim here – although how the police would know from presumably behind her car the colour of the occupants isn’t immediately clear. And then, having scuttled off home to edit the recording, overcome your deep reluctance to make a fuss, call in the media for an extended rant on national television, as well as bombing yer soshal meeja.

      Good to see that one of Sir Ikea Hindsight’s MPs fully supports the fuzz.

    3. I was once stopped by the police in Rushwick, who suggested that I has passed a prohibition notice. It was true that I take a detour on the old road through the village because the new road now has four sets of traffic lights installed because the Highways Department had budget to use up, and going through Rushwick saves about five minutes on the journey. However, when I went back to check, the notice only applied to vehicles over 7.5 tonnes, and my 2CV does not even get anywhere near that, even when pulling an overloaded trailer.

      I apologised profusely to the police officer though and promised I would obey traffic signs in future, so he let me go with a warning and went on his way. I did not want to argue the toss too much because my MoT had recently expired.

      1. Nowadays, the police know all this before they get out of their car. They know the ownership of the vehicle, name and address, whether it has an MOT and if it is insured, and if Road Tax has been paid.
        So when that ask you if you are th one o fate vehicle, they already know all this as they can look it up online from the Panda car.

  19. SIR – When is all this nannying and fretting going to stop?

    I cannot take my son swimming because we must use a lane each. He is a poor swimmer and has Asperger syndrome, and needs me with him.

    I do not wish to buy clothes if I cannot try them on in the shop. I do not wish to go to the cinema and have to sit in a mask for two hours. Would I be allowed to take the mask off to eat my popcorn?

    I am healthy. I do not need someone else to keep me safe from a virus that I almost certainly won’t catch – and, even if I did, would only give me mild symptoms

    Life is full of risk. I drive a car and climb the stairs and use knives. There are bacteria and viruses all around us, and there always will be. I want to live my life freely – not spend it being “protected” against my will.

    Karen Gwynn
    Bromsgrove, Worcestershire

    For “protected” substitute the word “controlled”…and then everything will become clear.

    1. 322320+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      It was made clear some time ago, & is being made clearer by the day, I believe that a pecking order is being firmly established and put in place for the future, the political domestic staff are now running the manor for more proof
      check out DOVER.

  20. The Dublin Convention on immigration is an EU arrangement which I find difficult to understand. It gives great protection to what the EU call irregular immigrants and we call illegals. Each country seems to have a “fair” responsibility to accept a “reference number” of “asylum seekers” whether irregular or genuine and treat them generously with accommodation and free legal assistance. If the country’s avalanche of asylum seekers is above a certain % excess of its reference number it can pass them on to another EU country. If it refuses to accept its ref number of asylum seekers it can offload them to another EU country but has to pay £250000 per person passed on. What is the UK ref number and are we accepting more immigrants that is regarded as unfair? What is the French situation@ Are they allowing to dump “asylum seekers” in contravention of the Dublin convention. All immigrants to the EU require to be fingerprinted and facially identified plus photographed if necessary. This goes on the EU database to follow the immigrant’s progress. This data should preferably be acquired at the point of entry but if not should be taken in another country.
    As usual I found the EU dictat confusing as some requirements were still under consideration but I concluded that the rules favour the immigrants rather than the protection of EU citizens. It is a bonanza for our sharp solicitors.

    1. FANS of a Bollywood film were left smiling when they visited a UK landmark where some scenes were shot.

      A sign on the approach to Durdle Door asks them in Hindi to not drop their ‘nonsense’ on the beach.

      The Lulworth Estate, which owns the famous limestone arch in Dorset, has apologised for the mistranslation of the word ‘rubbish’. Spokeswoman Caroline Sharpe said: ‘It is embarrassing but you have to see the funny side.

      ‘I can only apologise if anyone has taken offence. The signs are currently being corrected.’ She said it was a good lesson in not relying on internet translators. Durdle Door has seen an increase in Hindi-speaking visitors after it was used for scenes in last year’s Bollywood film Housefull 3.

      https://www.metro.news/argy-bhaji-on-the-beach-to-fix-rubbish-signs/827920/

  22. Daily Betrayal

    “The official

    Covid-19 daily death toll may never be brought back following an

    investigation into Public Health England’s method of counting it, the

    Telegraph understands. The conclusions of the review, which was ordered

    by Matt Hancock after it emerged officials were “over-exaggerating”

    deaths from the virus, are expected this week. One expected

    recommendation would be to stop daily reporting altogether and move to a

    weekly official death toll instead, a government source said on Sunday

    night.” (paywalled link)

    Let’s not count our deaths then, is it? Nice!

    We’re also told about ‘a spat’ between scientists working on that

    Oxford vaccine – the ‘game changer’, you recall. Some would like to ‘use

    human guinea pigs’ by injecting them with CV-19 – after having

    vaccinated them, I assume – while others believe this is reprehensible.

    There’s some actual information about that Oxford vaccine trial thought

    which isn’t precisely encouraging:

    “Meanwhile, Downing

    Street has been advised that there is a 50 per cent chance that a

    vaccine could be administered by next year, but that it is unlikely to

    give complete protection against the virus. Instead, the Oxford

    University team expect the jab to “mitigate” its worst effects by

    lessening the severity of the symptoms. Trials found two thirds of

    recipients developed headaches and a fifth developed a high temperature,

    it is understood.” (paywalled link)

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-betrayal-monday-10th-august-2020-day-35-of-semi-lockdown-britain/

    2. Some months ago the Australians discovered that Ivermectin lessened the severity of symptoms.

      Pity that Professor Whitty ruled it out for use here.

    3. If we have a normal seasonal flu this year it will be called the second spike of Covid-19 regardless of what virus it is. The government is not going to let a golden opportunity, to grind us further into the ground, go begging.

      I think the Ministers of the Crown by being employed as they are doing numerous villages out of their idiots.

  23. Good morning all
    Had my TalkTalk bill yesterday and the monthly fee had gone up from £33 to £36.50. I have been with them since they started and their service has been good. I had an on line chat and my new 18 month contract for Faster Broadband and anytime UK calls is now £28.95. I call that a bit of a result.
    Very few problems with them over the years.

    1. Good for you. When they put the price up it is always worth giving them a call. Hinting that you might look elsewhere.

    2. Their online service is much better than their telephone support. I was a Tiscali customer and their telephone support wasn’t great but for a while after TT took them over it was appalling. It improved but when I’ve needed help more recently (rare) online has been preferable.

      1. It took 33 minutes of online chat to get the reduction. It’s saving us £48+ over last years bill and £84+ over the new charges the sent me. A good return on time invested. Most people have problems with their ISP and I’m sure TT are no different to others. Historically they have a bad name but I’ve always managed to resolve mine fairly easily.

        1. Well done, gg. What sticks in my craw is that they don’t offer existing “loyal” customers such goodies ab initio. Barstewards.

        2. I’ve managed to get reductions over the years from the AA and my household insurers by playing the loyalty card.

  24. 322320+ up ticks,
    Is there the slightest chance of these “stick a plaster on it, thick makeup to conceal the CRACKS” deploy the navy, to up the intake issues being taken OUT by the root as in the electorate deploying a pro English / GB governance party.

    By the by station a hospital ship / aircraft carrier outside of our waters, yesterday, to nip in the bud ongoing trouble for future generations.

    Importing future potential terrorist / paedophiles / trouble whilst still in the womb is surely more than even a current lab/lib/con coalition member can take.

  25. Well, that was a waste of time. Shoe shop had clogs but they didn’t fit properly. Holt was full of trippers – some masked; most not. Little Hitlers running shops. I thought I’d risk buying a loaf – the only shop that was accessible allowed one in at a time – and then only sold poncey bread – the sort liked – presumably – by Londoners on holidays. Bought two bananas. The MR took money from an ATM. And so back home.

    Making my own loaf. Scorchio outside. Far too hot to do anything useful in the garden. I took 1,000 litres out of the well on Saturday – it is almost dry – only about three foot of water left. I have measured. The level has risen since Sat by about 6 inches.

    3. Clogs aren’t supposed to fit!
      Pain in the fundament, isn’t it? Got instructed by some wet wally (not asked, but instructed) to sit further away from him on the train. Very abrupt instruction, no attempt at politeness, or even asking. Told him he could eff himself, and remained where I was – outside the minimum separation, so… hope that ruined his day. Maybe he will learn that a polite request beats an abrupt instruction any time.

    4. There is a gruesome and gobby, chubby little red-faced woman with tightly permed hair who runs that open-fronted rip-off greengrocer shop on the main street in Holt. She pissed me off once when I complained about the terrible standard and extortionate prices of her less than average produce. She didn’t like to hear complaints and advised me to shop elsewhere.

      A couple of weeks later I returned to her shop. I walked around and filled a basket to the brim with veg. When I got to the check-out I said to her, “Oh, the spuds are much better, far tastier and a hell of a lot cheaper in Budgens. I think I’ll go there instead.” I simply left my full basket with her and walked out. I never went back.

    2. I have the Vileda one for my laminate floors but don’t have Alexa. My neighbour does though and at a party i instructed it to set the alarm for 3am Sunday morning and play the music to Jaws loudly. :-0

  27. Am I the only one to ask MPs lots of embarrassing questions about George Soros and Open Society which are ruining the UK ?

    It’s quite fun once you get into it !

  28. ‘Morning All

    Aren’t these two just the perfect pair of Gestaporettes their circular logic is terrifying

    “Can we have your details Sir??”

    “Am I legally required to give you my details??

    “No”

    “Can we see what you’ve filmed on your camera??

    “Am I legally obliged to show you what I’ve filmed??”

    “No”

    So far so good,see what happens next……………………

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DdyjDHjHM8&feature=youtu.be

      1. What a dam disgrace. A bloke takes photos and is treated like a drug dealing non-white. A body search in the street is illegal. He should sue.
        Tomorrow these same police dolts will be parading with BLM wearing rainbow badges. An incident number is enough.

        1. As long ago as 2010, ACPO issued guidance on filming in public in England and Wales.

          “There are no powers prohibiting the taking of photographs, film or digital
          images in a public place. Therefore members of the public and press should not
          be prevented from doing so.
          • We need to cooperate with the media and amateur photographers. They play a
          vital role as their images help us identify criminals.
          • We must acknowledge that citizen journalism is a feature of modern life and
          police officers are now photographed and filmed more than ever.
          • Unnecessarily restricting photography, whether for the casual tourist or
          professional is unacceptable and it undermines public confidence in the police
          service.
          • Once an image has been recorded, the police have no power to delete or
          confiscate it without a court order.”

          These officers either:
          A. Don’t know the law.
          B. Know the law but are just trying it on for no apparent reason.

          As for misuse of terrorism legislation, those of us on here with military or police experience will know that terrorists do not go round taking pictures and drawing attention to themselves, so I have to assume hat police training on this subject is woefully deficient and is possibly based on TV/Film dramas and not reality.

    5. Anything that makes it to a police notebook will be part of an Enhanced Disclosure & Barring that condemns someone for life, without any right to appeal, where malicious hearsay and prejudice is admissible evidence.

      This is why the police cannot be trusted with someone’s details.

      The police are right to question someone they suspect of using a camera with intent to commit a crime, for example to plan a robbery or an act of terrorism. In this case, what we have is a bloodyminded Englishman asserting civil liberties, and is in effect being a pain in the arse, but is probably saving the nation from tyranny. We all remember how Walter Wolfgang was detained under the Terrorism Act for heckling the Foreign Secretary during a debate at a party conference.

      A clip round the ear should suffice.

    6. I couldn’t make out what the chap was trying to film.

      Of course, had he been bame (with stolen camera) the plod would have leant over backwards to help him find the best angle…..

      1. It doesn’t matter what he was trying to film. When was the last time a BBC cameraman was challenged, interrogated and searched?
        (Four police persons, while meanwhile in the background two immigrants are raping a 13 year old, burglars are turning over a pensioner’s house, a Bulgarian gang are shoplifting, and four people are driving past without car insurance, one in a stolen car.)

  29. Morning all

    SIR – It is all very well for Emmanuel Macron to lecture Lebanon’s leaders on how to run their country. He ought first to make sure that his own house is in order.

    The French government’s failure to stop illegal migrants making the Channel crossing from Calais to Britain is scandalous, and it is high time President Macron’s ministers got a grip on things.

    A Gallic shrug is simply not on; what we need to see is action to stop these crossings once and for all.

    Martin Nuttall

    Cambridge

    SIR – Paying the French to stop migrants crossing the Channel would be a complete waste of money.

    They clearly have no interest in preventing the boats from leaving their shores for Britain.

    Sandy Pratt

    Storrington, West Sussex

    SIR – In the grand scheme of things, the £30 million demanded by France is not excessive.

    Consider the costs of looking after migrants, investigating claims, possibly returning them to France and patrolling the Channel.

    As the number of people making 
the crossing rises, it won’t be long before France’s offer starts to look like a good deal.

    Christopher Lambert

    Tadworth, Surrey

    Advertisement

    SIR – What we need is an agreement with the French that, whenever illegal migrants are picked up by one of our boats in the Channel, they will be automatically returned to France.

    Right now, people are entering our waters, with the prize is that they will be treated as asylum seekers, even though the law says that they should have claimed asylum in the first safe country they came to.

    Unless things change, this process will continue and sooner or later there will be another tragedy. As long as the people smugglers succeed in getting people into Britain, the boat crossings will not stop.

    Diane Alder

    Godalming, Surrey

    SIR – The Government must explain what the purpose of the Border Force is, if not to fulfil its role as a “law-enforcement command… responsible for front-line border control”.

    If we cannot return illegal migrants once they have crossed our borders, do taxpayers really want to fund a force that is effectively just doing the job of the RNLI?

    David Taylor

    Everton, Hampshire

    1. ‘SIR – What we need is an agreement with the French that, whenever illegal migrants are picked up by one of our boats in the Channel, they will be automatically returned to France.’

      Best laugh of the day so far ……thankyou Diane Alder

    2. The RNLI is involved in illegal activity by brining illegal immigrants here. The UK Government, through the Border Force agency is breaking the law.
      Will no one challenge them, or bring them to book?

    3. The French want to get rid of the migrants. Giving them an extra £30 million means that they will still do nothing to prevent the smuggling trade (they are probably actively encouraging it).

    4. “As the number of people making 
the crossing rises, it won’t be long before France’s offer starts to look like a good deal.” No, it isn’t a good deal at all, Christopher Lambert. We need to send them back not give them access to benefits. Otherwise the number of people making the crossing to Treasure Island will expand exponentially. The message needs to be, “you aren’t welcome here, you and your family will be sent back and forget any drawing of benefits.” Then we won’t need to be paying the French (who won’t keep their end of the bargain) a sou.

  30. There’s been nothing but a constant stream of thunderstorms coming up the Tamar bloody Valley since 10 o’clock. Looking at the radar there’s no bloody end in sight either, the cells are just forming south of Plymouth. Like bloody West Africa in the rainy season.

    1. Can’t help wondering when HMG’s “policy” of making people stand in queues in the street/car park is going to work when it rains hard…snows….

      4. Then I shall do all my shopping in Westfield, though most shops there seem to have already stopped counting people in. (Tiffany & Co still do but I won’t be buying diamonds any time soon!) If it does come back though, at least outside the shop is still inside the mall.

        1. Tiffany in Shepherds Bush? Don’t get this wrong, I like Shepherds Bush, but that’s as incongruous as a Poundland on Bond St.

          1. I thought that when Westfield first opened in 2008. Initially we had De Beers too but while they’ve gone, Tiffany are still there. Handy for the Holland Park/Notting Hill set I guess.

      5. We’ve been having that conversation.
        One of the reasons for the ovine behaviour has been the weather.

    3. Will it keep the grockles, away, though? All these clouds may have that silver lining!

    4. Just starting here (about 40 mins late, according to the warning). If I disappear, you’ll know why!

  31. SIR – A good friend whose hip operation was rescheduled has been left unable to walk and wracked with pain. Meanwhile, I have visited my hairdresser, had three fillings done by my dentist and seen my chiropodist. I also have an eye test scheduled for next week.

    Why can’t all the consultants and surgeons get back to work?

    Jennifer Graeme

    Shaldon, Devon

    2. Dentists are shut here, No “aerosol” usage. Only dental hygienists may scrape your teeth manually…

  33. SIR – Many of those seeking sanctuary in Britain have endured terrible persecution in their homelands.

    It is to be hoped that, when they arrive, they will be treated with compassion and consideration. We who are already here have only the shallow claim that we got here first.

    Michael Armitage
    Cromer, Norfolk

    Did he really mean that?

    2. “We who are already here have only the shallow claim that we got here first.” – wrong!
      Not only first, but contributed to the safety and prosperity of the nation over many, many generations. Built it into the civilised place that it is, unlike those who seek to creep in and enjoy said safety and prosperity without making a contribution themselves. No wonder they are called Gimmegrants.

    4. Morning, Maggie.

      The man’s an idiot. Any true asylum seeker/persecuted will fall to his knees at the first decent country he reaches and thank his lucky stars..

      Only illegal, benefit seeking scroungers carry on through a dozen countries to get to Calais – and so, by HMS Patel to Engerland.

        2. (Reply) No Winston, we are bringing it with us… …and I ain’t your father, I’m your grandmother.

    5. 322320+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      Sounds like this mickey armpit has something against the snail munchers to me.

      2. Morning Plum,

        I hope you have a a better week to look forward to.

        The migrants don’t know that they will be dumped up North or somewhere in Scotland .. then they will become victims of poverty , the cold weather , nasty landlords , and violent knife and drug gangs!

        1. Hi Belle and thanks…
          I’m treating it like a game of tennis. So far I’m 2 – 6 down first set.

          Looking forward to winning….Game set and match…..!

    7. “We who are already here have only the shallow claim that we got here first.” – wrong!
      Not only first, but contributed to the safety and prosperity of the nation over many, many generations. Built it into the civilised place that it is, unlike those who seek to creep in and enjoy said safety and prosperity without making a contribution themselves. No wonder they are called Gimmegrants.

    8. Nice address Me Armitage. Take a stroll round Tower Hamlets and see if it changes your perception.

      Good morning, Belle.

    9. Sadly TB, I fear he did. At best naïve, at worst someone without any appreciation for the society and culture that has been nurtured over centuries and which is in danger of erosion and being lost forever to various incomers who have no intention of integrating and every intention of milking the system solely for their own benefit.

      ‘Compassion and consideration’ will simply be taken advantage of.

      1. If he wants to treat them with compassion and consideration he’ll have took some into his house to live. At his personal expense. Lets see how much compassion and consideration they show him.

    1. Perhaps it provides extremely good footage for Trump Campaign election ads**

      ** PS – don’t tell the pollsters

  35. I noticed two Police cars go past my window at 7.30am. It’s a cul de sac so they went past twice which is why i noticed them. Turns out it was a drugs bust. The entire bungalow except the kitchen had been turned into a cannabis farm. Choc full of mature plants too. Wish i’d known. 🙂

    1. “Dixitque Deus ecce dedi vobis omnem herbam adferentem semen super terram… “
      — Gen 1:29

    2. The house were we moved from nearly 30 years ago became a drug outlet with a local marijuana
      dealer living there. It was probably 25 years ago. Our old neighbours were noisily awoken one morning by the police trying to get the front and side door open.

      1. Flat we rented in Milwall many years ago, the floor above were a gang of Rastas who held very loud parties every night.
        One morning, we were woken by the sound of police radios, place was swarming with them. Drain cover was up and the drains netted, door in with a battering-ram, all marched off never to be seen again.
        As we left, we saw two vans of SPG parked discreetly round the corner, each filled with HUGE policemen (think elephants in a Fiat 500…), but they weren’t needed.

        1. Those were the days eh Obs.
          And now we have a musical scenario from our police, as in …”hold you hand out you naughty boy”.

    3. What? You live on Grass Alley and you didn’t even know? I thought you had your finger on the pulse.

      Motto: If you grow and sell Grass, don’t piss off your customers or they will Grass you up!

      1. The bungalow was being rented. I did know as it happens. For months the front window has been taped up. You might do that if you are decorating but when it never came down i twigged what was going on.

        Also they made a bad choice in moving to a cul de sac full of mostly elderly retired.

      1. 10 houses away from me, so no. It was being rented. Their neighbours probably could though. And dobbed them in. It was obviously to sell. If it had been one plant i don’t think anyone would take any notice. It was a sophisticated set up. All the walls and ceilings covered in plastic with seals for doorways.

        1. Apparently the police scan the country from helicopters fitted with a thermal-image camera. A house containing a cannabis-farm stands out like the proverbial. This has made the perpetrators of such farms (often Chinese) favour houses under flight paths into airports, where helicopters are not normally permitted to fly.

          2. Same in winter with snow on the rooves. No need for a helio. The cannabis farm house sticks out like a sore thumb. No snow covering.

    5. As pot is legal in Canada nowadays, the only reason that would happen here is if the dealer had a bogo type special deal going

        1. I thought that your lot invented the buy one get one marketing ploy.

          It’s like Bogof but without the free one!

          1. In w/rose atm a pack of choco digestives cost X. A twin saver pack costs, unexpectedly, not X – Y, but X + Y.

            I always by 2 single packets.

          2. They like to take advantage of the fact so few moderns were taught arithmetic (same applies to compound interest).

  36. Janet Daley:

    When this whole saga began, you may recall, Boris Johnson was very fond of war analogies. Britain had been forced into battle against a “hidden enemy” which would only be defeated by unified action and national resolve etc. Last week Matt Hancock was at it again: the country was “as close as you can get to fighting a war” which required constant vigilance and sacrifice etc.

    With all these nostalgic metaphorical calls on the British Blitz spirit, you might have thought that the fundamental principles of wartime government would have been observed in regard to the use of language – which is of such huge importance in ensuring the confidence of the people in a crisis.

    So what are the basic rules for a government addressing its population in a war against a foreign power which should also apply (as per Mr Johnson and Mr Hancock’s analysis) to a viral epidemic? First, there should be consistency and an appearance of agreement between all members of the government (and its official policy advisers) at all times. Second, there must be an unshakeable sense of calm clarity which is to say, an absolute prohibition on any statement that could give rise to hysteria or panic. Finally – and most important of all – there is the urgent need to maintain public morale, the collapse of which would be catastrophic: pessimism and hopelessness are the true enemies in any war effort.

    It is only fair to say at the start that this pandemic has been so unpredictable in its progress that most of the established rules for dealing with health crises have been pretty useless. So I am not talking here about the practical matters of organising hospital resources or instituting testing programmes which have been largely a matter of trial and error throughout the world.

    Whatever mistakes were made – or not – about lockdowns and tracking regimes will have to be debated on empirical scientific grounds sometime in the future. But political leadership is something which governments can control and on which they can be judged now.

    It would have been beyond the reach of almost any politician to evaluate properly the solutions, which were at various points conflicting, being offered by the scientific experts. But where politicians should have their own expertise is in the words that they use to present their case for action. Even if they cannot control events, they can control the description of them.

    The present Prime Minister is known to be less than assiduous in his command of factual detail but he has an awesome capability with language and an unrivalled understanding of its force. So there is really no excuse for the imprecision and bluster which has created confusion and despondency at best, and outright rebellion at worst.

    It would take some beating to produce a statement more utterly meaningless than the sentence uttered by Mr Johnson at his briefing last Friday: “We can’t fool ourselves that we are exempt from a second wave.”

    What in the name of God does that mean in actual life-changing terms? Is it a cautious way of saying that we are now, at this moment, into a second wave of the virus? Or that we might be, but there is no way to be sure? Or that we are not yet in a second wave but if we persist in our dangerous habits (which until a few hours before this announcement, were acceptable) we shall be in one?

    And what exactly is this dreaded thing – a “second wave”? What are the criteria for determining that it has arrived? How can it be distinguished from occasional lingering flare-ups of the first wave? All of these questions are left hanging in the air.

    What will remain in the minds of most people are those terrible words, “second wave” which keep being repeated wildly and loosely by almost everybody in a position to pronounce on policy, producing a vague vision of thousands more victims dying alone in overflowing hospital wards. Is that what the government wants – to scare everybody back into submission to the rules (whatever they are at the moment)?

    At the time of writing this column, the only thing that can be indubitably and unquestionably stated is that there has been an increase (not a huge one) in the number of positive tests for the virus in some areas. Even to label these “new cases” is dubious because so many of those testing positive are not, in any perceptible sense, suffering from the illness.

    The fact that they are carrying the virus has been discovered by a vastly increased use of testing. For all we know, they may not be “new” instances of the virus at all: they may have been positive for quite a long time before random testing found them.

    Again as I write, there has been no increase in hospital admissions so this rise in the number of positive tests seems not to be equated with what most people would understand by the emergence of a “second wave” of the pandemic. We have not had an increase in disease, we have had an increase in positive tests – which logically would follow from a massive increase in testing.

    So why bandy around this peculiarly emotive and almost indefinable term (“second wave”) when you could just speak, strictly correctly, of local recurrences? And why is there so little reference in official pronouncements to the fact that treatment of actual cases of the disease has improved so much that it has become a manageable condition for many patients? That is genuinely good news and would, presumably, affect the outcome of any future second wave.

    Many people I gather are beginning to suspect that the government deliberately plays down good news for fear that we will all just throw out the rule book and run riot thus putting the NHS under threat of being overwhelmed once again. (Except, of course, that the NHS never was overwhelmed.)

    The populace has been, as ministers constantly acknowledge, extraordinarily forbearing through this on-again, off-again suspension of life as we know it. But – you can feel it in the air – the good will is running out.

    Top BTL comment, much of which is echoed by the others:

    “My goodwill vanished the minute we were compelled to don the ridiculous “face coverings” that we managed perfectly well without at the height o the pandemic but are now required twear. In my area only 3 in 100000 currently have “the virus” – and that was achieved without being muzzled in shops.

    The government is behaving in an arbitrary and dictatorial fashion that is totally unacceptable eg issuing dictats by Twitter and giving people less than 24 hours notice that they cannot reopen their business or hold their wedding reception. Now, we learn that children’s education may be put on hold again or the pubs forced to close once more! It’s unforgivable. I wish some of the more grown up “

    3. This needs to be repeated “There is the urgent need to
      maintain public morale, the collapse of which would be catastrophic:
      pessimism and hopelessness are the true enemies in any war effort.”

      The reason Sweden took the course of action they did, compromising a certain amount of protection from the virus, was that it was vitally important to maintain public morale. Yes, their infection and death rates are not as good as other Scandinavian countries, but they traded that with the likelihood that far less damage was done by the virus overall.

      To give credit to the Johnson Government, he attempted originally to follow the same course, but was over-ruled by his medical advisers, and was overwhelmed by evidence coming out from Italy, and by senior members of the Government being laid low by the virus.

      I suggest the difference between the original Johnson approach and the Swedish approach, is that the Swedes never actually gave up treating this virus with due care and caution, and they applied commonsense when it came to socially distancing while going about their daily lives.

  37. 322320+ up ticks,
    I put down the loss of the happy carefree days of scrumping to the twisted adoration, support & votes, given to the lab/lib/con coalition.

    You have more chance now of being deported for scrumping via the priti awful one than a potential paedophile / terrorist illegal incomer.

  38. Enquired from friendly neighbour how her cat’s confinement was progressing. Kittens due next week. Then the PS – £300 EACH…….

      1. So would I – but the Boss has other ideas… She pointed out that it is the cost of one trip to Laure…..(difficult to argue – not that I ever would, of course…!!)

    3. £30 for a homeless moggie. For that you get a checked over microchipped feline, kitten or older. Ours is now 4 and in great shape apart from being stung by a bee on the paw last week. https://www.cats.org.uk/

    4. £30 for a homeless moggie. For that you get a checked over microchipped feline, kitten or older. Ours is now 4 and in great shape apart from being stung by a bee on the paw last week. https://www.cats.org.uk/

    5. Get someone else’s cat to adopt you.

      Just offer it better food and living conditions.

      Cats aren’t too fussy about who they own as long as the service is up to scratch.

      1. Were we in Laure, a pair of siblings would be available from a dozen different sources – for a fiver.

      2. The best cat my mother ever had was one which ‘adopted’ her. Her previous cat had been run over about a week before when she saw this strange cat sleeping in the hedge. She swore she would never have another, but every time she went out to the garden that cat would come out of its hideaway & roll at her feet & make figures of 8 around her ankles. After a week my mother gave in & “Rolly” was welcomed into the house. A
        beautiful cat & very well behaved. We found out that she had fled her previous home because the children mistreated her. She lived to a ripe old age.

        2. Yup. We were amazed to find her true age. She is as light as a feather but can move extremely quickly. She eats a little moistened dry food and loves these warm balmy days, curled up on a garden bench as above.

      2. That was then, John. This is now – in spades. Even the RSPCA charge getting on for £100.

        Mousie, whom we saw last Thursday, (now 15) cost us £10 from the RSPCA. But that was 2004.

        1. Paris we adopted when a care home in Halstead evicted the animals, mostly cats and a parrot.

          My wife was running ‘activities’ for the elderly occupants, part-time, took a shine to her and brought her home.

          We only discovered her age when the vet read her microchip dated 2000.

          All of our cats have been rescue cats. Even Sinbad, our Lhasa Apso, was given to us by a family whose children had gotten tired of taking him for walks. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/316e70fbc04b3787a741965685448e66be9fd9bf1cfaaf06e7f1b04ecabce85b.jpg

          1. All my dogs, even the pedigree one, have been rescues. The last two were “free to a good home”. As one lived to 17 years and the current one is sixteen and a half, we’ve certainly had value for money! Neither of them cost much more in vet’s bills than the annual vaccination and check up (although the current one did have to have a cyst removed as a one-off).

          1. Tried that. Zilch.

            It appears that, nowadays, kittens are like gold-dust (though even more expensive) – and anyone who has a litter can make hundreds.

            We have been completely gobsmacked. Last time we had a kitten – in 2004 – the owner of the mother couldn’t give most of the litter away. Autre temps; autre miaows.

          2. As I’m a dog person, not a cat person, I don’t have connections in feline society or I would put you in touch. Have you tried the Cats’ Protection League and Battersea Dog and Cats’ Home?

          3. Yes, Conwy. Same answer from all of them.

            A local woman had two kittens; we went to see them but they were sickly. And one of the RSPCA ones was described as, “weak boned – will need vet attention”….

          4. Sorry, then I’ve run out of options. I hope that when my aged pooch goes another one will find me (I went out for a walk with my old dog and came back with this one as well because his owners couldn’t cope and were going to send him to the local dogs’ home).

  39. I awoke so early this morning, 5:30, i think it was ‘the milkie’ i arose and i got stuck into making bread.
    Made Pan Rústico started the mix yesterday, it is brilliant.
    And from a kilogram of 3 mixed flours, white wholemeal and rye flour, four small split top round loaves.
    Also started the process of some Damson Gin, defrosted this years pre-frozen fruit and cut them up mashed down and destoned, not too much caster sugar, you can add it but cant take it out.
    Just off for a sarnie for lunch, with sweet green house tommie’s.
    Aubergines plants have plenty of flowers now, looking good.

  40. Good morning all. Sunny and still. The delight of going to buy shoes awaits….

    Anyone stopped by the perlice last evening?

    1. 322320+ up ticks,
      TB,
      Keep in mind,
      There are many in the political hierarchy who would condemn the SBS if it suited a purpose.

    1. Cover up those ridiculous golden sphincters on your number-plates and get a decent oval GB plate.

      1. I had already ordered replacement number plates (without the stars) early in 2019, but waited until 31st January 2020 before fitting them and discarding the old EU-type plates.

        1. It really lights my fire to see 66,17, 67, 18, 68, 19, 69 and now even 20 plates still displaying the sphincter of stars. What bit of “we voted to leave” don’t you effing understand?

  43. Dawn Butler’s dodgy racism story. Spiked. 10 August 2020.

    Dawn Butler is famous for her bullshit. She once claimed that 90 per cent of giraffes are gay. She has insisted that babies are born without a biological sex. She claimed she was endorsed by Barack Obama – it later transpired that the ‘Obama endorsement’ letter was in fact written by her own aides. She boasted about having reduced by 3,000 the number of rough sleepers in her constituency of Brent in London. Which would be truly mind-blowing considering there are only around 5,000 rough sleepers in the whole of the UK. Did Brent really have two-thirds of Britain’s rough sleepers before Ms Butler came along?

    Pity about that! Brendan noticed all this but failed to spot her driver was White!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/10/dawn-butlers-dodgy-racism-story/

        1. Same tribe?

          I hate the way people like that use their fingers , done in such a jabby manner .. Dawn B’s hand movements were so threatening and intimidating .. Straight out of Africa, she is perhaps similar to Winnie Mandela ,, but blacker but just as threatening!

          There is something really obnoxious about a shouty loud spoilt blackwoman that makes my blood run cold.

    1. Good morning DB

      I hope you all slept well , it was so warm last night .

      We have a lovely breeze blowing through just now , a zephyr .. sweet relief!

        5. A long time ago one of my cousins had one of those same colour. He came to our house and took me and my elder sister for a drive. He drove up the beginning of the newly opened M1 10 miles or so over a ‘ton’ and did a U turn across the central reservation.

        6. My first car was the slightly lower-rated Consul version of that car. It was a Goodwood Green (very nearly black) 1961 Ford Consul 375 with front bench seat and three-speed column change, reg. no. 260DYR. I bought it from a mate for £40 in 1971.

          1. My first car was a Ford Prefect 100E. Bought off a mate of my dad. The seller was a mechanic who improved it somewhat, I had a 4 speed all synchronised gearbox and electric wipers instead of vacuum operated wipers.
            Bought it for £50, sold it 18 months later for £45.
            This was my first foray into cars, it replaced my BSA 650cc A10 motorbike and you could say it slowed me down a tad!

          3. Vacuum operated wipers.. Just when you needed them as you booted it to pass something in the pouring rain, they’d slow to almost a stop!

          5. My first car was a beaten up Cortina Estate. We lived in the country and I used to visit the local cattle market to buy chickens and ducks.

            One day a calf was left in a penn…no bids. I made enquiries, paid a pittance and took him home with me…Useful car an estate!

            My next car………?
            My husband bought me a Mini!

          6. My first car – 1968 heap of rust, with a Mini badge on it (a Traveller) – very useful, that. Learned a lot about fixing cars!

          7. My first car was a 1965 (I think) Mini. Solenoid starter on the floor, cord to open the doors and push button catches to open the sliding windows! Like you, I learned a lot about how to solve car problems.

          8. Mine was just post-floor starter, but with slidy wondows and string door release… It was a Deluxe, so had a cabin heater fitted (that majored in noise and leaks…).
            Loved that car. Called it “George”.

          9. Ah, vacuum operated wipers – my brother had a Ford Prefect with those; when we went uphill, they slowed to nothing (and the car wasn’t much better)!

          10. I once went to the pub with 3 mates. As you came out the car park to get to the main road you had to turn sharp left and climb a steep hill. As climbing the hill was from a standing start, the only way my car could do it was with no passengers, I made them walk and met them at the top. Happy days.

          1. My father had a yellow & white automatic zodiac of the same series. It’s the car I learnt to drive on, aged 12, using disused WWII runways in the New Forest.

          2. I taught our sons the rudiments of driving on the still open runways of Earls Colne airfield, so they could manage the tricky stuff like changing gear while not looking down etc ….
            They got it very quickly; even their mother was impressed.
            I later learnt that they had, aged about eight or so, been nipping over the garden fence and driving dumper trucks around in the builders’ yard behind the house we were then living in. The drivers actually used to leave the keys in the trucks when they knocked off for the day.

          3. A school friend of mine used to create extreme jealousy in me by sweeping past in his father’s cream automatic Zephyr convertible, waving cheerily, while I pedalled on with my bike, having still to pass my driving test. (Or was it a Zodiac!?)

    1. “France has defended its efforts to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel as it emerged that it wants another £30 million from Britain.

      Five times as many migrants had been stopped since January compared with the same period last year, according the French interior ministry. The total for last month was ten times that recorded in July 2019.”

      The Grimes….

    2. “France has defended its efforts to prevent migrants from crossing the Channel as it emerged that it wants another £30 million from Britain.

      Five times as many migrants had been stopped since January compared with the same period last year, according the French interior ministry. The total for last month was ten times that recorded in July 2019.”

      The Grimes….

      1. Never give in to blackmailers …they always ask for more…and more…and more….

        What does it say about a gov. who can’t defend it’s own borders….

        2. 322320+ up ticks,
          Morning PT,
          Precisely, but I believe the governance party knows that, being it is a form of payment for services rendered.
          Keep in mind,
          The may thing gets paid whether she makes the speech or not, ie, services rendered

      1. You mean the dimbo bimbo who closed down New Zealand completely in March and April to protect the country against Covid-19?

        That was the summer in the southern hemisphere when viruses are least active. The country is now open again in time for their winter!

  49. 322320+ up ticks,
    Whats the betting of the outcome for British yards ?
    My personal belief is we will see two hopes come into play
    that being NO hope & Bob Hope.

    MPs fire salvo in £1bn Navy contract row
    MoD refuses to release findings into South Korea deal.

  51. The Canadian Ethics Commissioner is advertising for new investigators, they just cannot keep up with the unethical behaviour of Trudeau and friends.

    We’re doomed I tell you, doomed!

  52. A train joke to cheer you up:

    An Englishman, a Frenchman, a ravishing blonde and an old lady are sharing a compartment on a train as it winds its way through the Alps. Every now and then the train passes through a tunnel, during which time the compartment is plunged into complete darkness. On one such occasion, a ringing slap is heard and as the train passes back into daylight, the Frenchman is rubbing his sore, red cheek.
    The old lady thinks, “I bet that naughty Frenchman fondled the blonde and she struck him.”
    The blonde thinks, “I bet that Frenchman was looking to grope me in the dark, mistook the old lady for me and she slapped him.”
    The Frenchman thinks, “I bet that Englishman touched up the blonde in the dark and she slapped me by mistake.”
    The Englishman thinks, “I can’t wait for another tunnel so I can slap that Frenchman again.”
    Yup I know it’s an old joke.

  53. It’s time to declare an emergency in the Channel, Nigel Farage 10 August 2020.

    People know that stopping this illegal trade is not just about satisfying public opinion on border controls. Neither is it simply about spending billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on services which those same taxpayers rely, instead of funding tens of thousands of people who have never paid into the system. No, it is also about national security.

    The vast majority of those who come to Britain illegally are young men about whom very little is known. The chances of them integrating into British society and sharing British values are, in most cases, remote. And it is likely that some of them will be active sympathisers with Isil and other extremist groups, as other European nations can testify.

    I’ve just filled out another questionnaire for the Brexit Party on this subject and suspect that Nigel is going to relaunch and rename it! Both major parties of course would be extremely vulnerable to an anti-immigration party!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/08/10/time-declare-emergency-channel/

    1. I hope he does relaunch and also careful about who gets appointed to the executive. I’d vote for him. He is the only one telling the truth about this disaster.

    2. 322370+up ticks,
      Afternoon AS,
      Yes we had one of those type groups before,Just one member if I recall.
      The genuine party fighting anti UK sh!te was the real UKIP not the current ersatz UKIP.
      It showed the way but that could not be tolerated because the 18 months Batten was the leader was showing what could really be done regarding a genuine patriotic party & leader that put the fear of sh!te up the toxic trio.

      The “nige” is a very hollow threat echoing covertly tory issues.
      Self condemnation, his take on the membership who worked for & trusted him for years and gave him a working platform.

      We have got to where we are today by trusting those
      in commanding positions, we, looked for decency and patriotic honesty and received treachery, every time.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc7iuUHk3Yk

  54. Phew! Just dead-headed 1/2 of one of he buddleias in the front & completely filled the green bin for tomorrow’s collection. Time for a rest.

    1. Well done peddy, when we lived in Norfolk we used to pile up our rose prunings in Sept/Oct. We filled every fortnightly green bin with the prunings until Feb/March. (We did have lots of roses.)

      1. When I was fitter, I used to start pruning on New Year’s day, weather permitting, & kept at it every weekend until Easter. I had over 120 roses then, on top of that the many clematis viticellae & honeysuckles

  55. Even for the BBC this is poor stuff.

    Coronavirus: Australia records deadliest day but fewer new infections

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-53718184

    Australia has had just 314 deaths. The 19 deaths reported on Monday presumably include a weekend ‘catch-up’ count. Most of the deaths are in care homes.

    The comments are interesting, a mixture of “Wake up, covidiots! It’s coming for you!” and “Bit of an exaggeration, isn’t it?”

  56. A German tourist is visiting France and the customs official says “occupation?”
    The German tourist replies “No, visiting, just visiting.”

    2. I’m sure that in a tweet over the weekend, she said that the driver was black. Any tweeters able to verify this?

          1. I think she’s being very economical with the truth.
            Combined with her video (where a white driver appears to have been “pixeled out”, It reads almost as if she’s been cruising around hoping to be stopped.

    3. I stopped a car at 0230hrs on a main road just outside Chesterfield, way back in the late 1970s. The car had a light out. This gave me a lawful and reasonable excuse to check out the driver and see if they were an ordinary sort, in which case a simple word of advice would suffice; or whether any other offences were apparent, e.g. burglar doing his rounds, drunken driver etc.

      The lone black woman driving the car wound down her window and shouted, “You only stopped me ’cause, I’m black!”

      I smiled at her and explained that I don’t have X-ray vision, especially at that time of the morning. However, she wouldn’t calm down so I explained to her that I was simply just going to advise her to change the bulb when she got home but, because of her unreasonable attitude, I had become suspicious that she might be hiding something. I gave her car a thorough search, a ticket for the lighting offence, and demanded she produce her driving documents at a police station within five days.

      Just before she left I said to her, “If you are going to falsely accuse me of being unreasonable then I might as well give you something proper to moan about“. I never heard from her again so I’m presuming she paid the fixed penalty.

      1. Afternoon Grizzly

        So many supa dupa expensive cars have blacked out windows , are blacked out windows legal, and why do people need them?

  58. Funny Old World

    Who remembers Thomas Borody??

    You know,the chap that won the nobel prize for proving ulcers were caused by a bug,not stress and turned the entire medical establishment on its head……………..

    It appears he’s come up with a treatment/cure for the ‘Rona

    Antiparasitic drug + Broad spectrum antibiotic+Zinc

    Although the first two drugs are different the combi looks exactly like a HCQ+antibiotic+zinc protocol

    So after excellent results in the real world the Australian Government is rushing the treatment out ………………..

    Oh Wait

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_4FvBAwseQ
    It’s almost as if a cheap effective cure doesn’t fit the agenda………………………….

  59. A very good morning to one and all. Here’s a brief diversion from the evils that seem to be pressing in from all sides. I have this week entered my 8th decade, the celebrations were of necessity modest but no less pleasant for that. I thought it was to good to last when an orange engine management light appeared on the dash of our 13yo Mini but with a quick deployment of an ebay gizmo and an iPhone app I was informed that the inlet camshaft position sensor was faulty, I sourced a new one for £15 and fitted it the next day, a 2 min job, so that was nice. A couple of weeks ago when trundling about Facebook I was beguiled by an advert, now I don’t usually give these things a second glance but this was for a Swedish Fizz derived from birch sap, how could I not buy this?
    The two bottles turned up yesterday and after being suitable chilled we broached the first with some trepidation. It looked like champagne, had many tiny bubbles like a good champagne but it tasted unique and not in an unpleasant way, there was a hint of fresh sap but it was none the worse for that. I will be buying again.

    diversion over

    back to the awful reality
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/679184d7931ea514d66209c337c0970e148cffd23184e8aec6d69b01772f7871.jpg

    edit 8th decade although I do feel as weary with the wankerati of this world as a 790 yo might.

    1. We make jelly from pine shoots in the spring – the wee brilliant green new growth. Flavour vaies from tree to tree, so you need to decide just how much wunderbaum taste you want— cook up with sugar, and it’s a good base for mint, for example, or just au naturel – lovely with venison.

    3. Well done.

      80th decade eh?
      You’ll be giving Methuselah a run for his money.

      Hope the fizz tasted as good as it sounded, interesting.

    5. Hmm, all they do with birch sap I canada is to boil it down into an apology for maple syrup.
      Drill and yeast now ready for next spring.

    9. I’ve found it online at Sverigeshoppen. Did you really pay $295 per bottle?

      Happy belated birthday wishes!

    11. Happy birthday. As you are entering your 8(0)th decade that means you are 70 today doesn’t it?

    2. His son has a degree in engineering and found himself his own job to be independent. He worked at McLaren cars just a mile or so down the road from us.

  61. The Independent reports that the MoD is deploying surveillance aircraft to the Channel. Just another pointless gesture by the government to kid us that something is being done to stop the invasion.

    1. Not much point in having surveillance aircraft if nothing is done to stop the flow of migrants benefit seekers.

    2. I’ll repeat what I wrote yesterday, Priti is a first class bullshitter!
      She is in good company in Boris The Betrayer’s Government.

  62. 322320+ up ticks,
    Is there any truth they have orders to fire upon vessels portraying an English flag and suspected of having a camera on board apart from the border
    control going about their unlawful business.

    Royal Air Force Surveillance Craft Monitoring Illegal Channel Crossings

  63. Afternoon, all. As there is a yellow warning out for thunderstorms with threatened disruption to power supplies, I thought I’d get in early before I am wiped out! As for the headline, France is laughing all the way to the bank. Not only does she get rid of undesirables by shoving them our way, we’re paying her supposedly to stop them! Time to stop paying France and sink the boats!

    1. Don’t tell Belle….
      They are now talking of housing illegals on the cruise ships anchored off Weymouth, you couldn’t make it up. (Comment D/T)

      1. Perhaps, oh perhaps, they have taken up my notion and will sail them to the French island Department of Guadeloupe and land them there?

        1. 322370+ up ticks,
          Evening HP,
          “They” will do NOTHING to benefit the indigenous peoples.

        1. Yeah – and just wait for the prisoners guests to come round hawking carved ornaments…

        2. 322370+ up ticks,
          Evening M,
          What about the illegals through, they would come under the human rights,pcism
          & appeasement umbrella I take it.

      3. Have we got anybody to attach limpet mines to the hull once they are full? A two-man (other genders are available, although only one other is real) mini sub would do the job.

          1. You heard of the Soviet dogs trained to run under German tanks whilst wearing an explosive charge, so the tank could be blown up?? Problem was, the dog would run under the nearest tank, not knowing the difference between hammer & sickle and swastika, and so the Russians had a lot of tanks blown up by dogs.
            Hah! Petards…

          2. You heard of the Soviet dogs trained to run under German tanks whilst wearing an explosive charge, so the tank could be blown up?? Problem was, the dog would run under the nearest tank, not knowing the difference between hammer & sickle and swastika, and so the Russians had a lot of tanks blown up by dogs.
            Hah! Petards…

        2. My late father in law’s Fleet minesweeper HMS Pique was disabled by an aerially launched limpet mine. It attached to the stern and blew off the propeller.

    2. Every boat load of men, all wearing life jackets, should be towed back where they came from and tipped over with instructions to swim to shore.

    4. Raining? It’s very dry here – three waterbutts full still didn’t bring the pond up to its level.

      1. Humidity is horrible here, I have been busy cooking for later ,

        Went into the garden , very still and overcast droplets of rain, nothing much.

        Moh is demolishing stuff with the sexytuers, and I am now sitting in front of the fan . Very uncomfortable heat.

        2. Still 33 deg C outside. Indoors, it’s 28.5 deg, with a relative humidity of 46%. Too hot to do anything outside, but bearable indoors. Nights are quite unpleasant at the moment. Two more days, apparently…

          1. Yes Geoff, not a puff of breeze last night .

            I was waiting for the cicadas and tree frogs to start a cacophony, and thought I was asleep under my mosquito net, then I turned over and realised I was here at home in Dorset ..

            It is uncomfortable for everything , cattle , horses and sheep .

            My dogs had an early walk , and then slept quietly afterwards.

            I am always surprised that anything gets done in tropical countries..

            The migrants will have a few surprises when winter hits home later.

          3. Yep. It was still dark at 04.04 this morning when my dog decided he HAD to go out. I hadn’t managed to get to sleep so he didn’t wake me up.

  66. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d35cf57ebbe71c086d234778cd1b92e35208cf7d7efda5e5cd235163461402a.jpg Just been playing with my new (tiny) toy which arrived today. It is a minuscule (60mm x 60mm x 16mm) bluetooth box which connects to the Denon amplifer of my Hi-Fi system in my workshop for some music while I work.

    I have paired my iPhone to it and it now plays the contents of my iPhone’s Spotify library, via bluetooth, through the Hi-Fi speakers. Those speakers are 38 years old and I fitted them with new drivers four years ago; they still sound as sensational as they did when I bought them in 1982.

    1. I have something similar, Grizz, to feed Bluetooth into my (not really HiFi) Sony Receiver. Still have a pair of Mission 763’s, though, minus the grilles, which disintegrated. They’re only 32 years old, but sound as good as ever…

        2. A problem when posting from iPhone. I tried reorientation of the original image with edit function but the same thing occurred. In the end I gave up.

          A fellow Nottler will sort it for sure.

          My boss the late Sir William Whitfield had a fantastic sound system from the sixties, the name escapes me at present. It was contained in a superb wooden cabinet and maintained by the manufacture on the promise that he would gift it to their museum on his demise.

          Edit: Whitfield’s system was Quad.

        3. Conners – you have to appreciate that corim is an architect. His entire home is 90 degrees from the norm, just because he can… (sorry, cm, couldn’t resist…)

      1. Greetings Grizz. In normal circumstances the local Chasse are quite efficient at controlling the deer and wild boar numbers. However the virus has prevented the Chasse from operating, despite a concession to extend the hunting season this year. So the deer numbers are increasing and they are getting bolder.

    3. Deer oh deer….{:¬)

      I sympathise. The varmints do the same in Norfolk – eat anything green. Bold as brass. too.

    4. They say that you don’t need the whole lion, just lion poo.

      Or anything that smells gross.

      1. I did look into that, so to speak. It seems most folk want to use it as a cat repellent and, since I have a cat, I don’t think it’s a good idea.

    6. I recommended soap hung on a rope to a neighbour who was worried about her flowers and their vulnerability to deer attack. I noticed she had implemented the idea and I was not aware of any ensuing damage,

      I understand coal tar soap is preferable as a deer repellent.

    8. 322320+ up ticks.
      Afternoon HK,
      In the nicest possible way what’s the old lady like ?
      Two 12 hours shifts or maybe trip wire grenades attached,
      or even a full frontal of the d abbot.
      Liking venison I would go for the grenade option.
      That’s about all I can suggest.

        1. Horrible stuff.. The only time i drank that was when i was broke. Cheapest in the Offie. 🙁

  68. “Yes, yes, darling … I promise you … my very next job is getting the cases out of the attic. I do also have a country to run. Dilyn …. Bring back that sock!!!!”

    Ah … Um …. Good Morning Afternoon, Everyone.

    Once again, I’m afraid that the Secretary for Health and Social Services will not be adding his invaluable advice to this communiqué. However you will be glad to know that he is now not only sitting up in bed but also enjoyed a small helping of scrambled egg with his coffee.

    As this dreadful pandemic has affected the whole of Great Britain, the First Minister for Scotland has stepped into Mattie’s shoes and today we are being treated to her observations on how our friends north of the border are coping.

    I will be witnessing much of this for myself in the next few weeks, but I’m sure Ms. Sturgeon will give me valuable insights that a mere visitor could not absorb while on holiday. For her contribution to today’s communication, the First Minister retained her tartan face mask as an additional safety measure, so Samantha from Hansard has transcribed Ms. Sturgeon’s utterances for greater clarity. I think we can all agree that it is heartening to hear the One Nation spirit so clearly articulated.

    1. Mmmmmf …. Sassanachs ….. wooofff ….aaarrgghhh Barnett Formula … Brrrraveheart ….. grunt, mmmffff, splutter …. Haggis … season …. cough.. pffffffff ….. Glasgae belongs tae me …..

    2. After another mainly dry and warm weekend, you may wish to stop being sensible and enjoy what’s left of the summer. But this is not the way to conquer a virus that kills 000.03% of fat 87 year olds. So please cower in a darkened room and share with your social bubble a re-run of your box set of Game of Thrones. Remember Winter is Coming and that a second wave will finish off granny; yes, she is still alive although you haven’t seen her since Mothering Sunday.

    3. To those who are obeying orders following advice, you should help in our valiant efforts to restore the British economy to rude health. Spend this week by going out and buying lots of tat that you really don’t need; but, without my having to spell this out, check the labels for country of origin.

    4. Of course, during this emergency, we mustn’t forget obesity, our other great national plague. While the Great British Breakfast is a treat that many of you enjoyed this past weekend, in order to save our NHS in this time of national emergency, we would ask you to settle for a rice cracker with a smear of ultra low fat spread. This will only apply in England; to be precise, south of the Wash. The north of England and Scotland cannot be expected to forgo their black pudding or Lorne sausage.

    Keep Safe. Keep Scared. Keep Snitching.

  69. Harry and Meghan to Focus on Black Lives Matter Activism, Says Royal Expert. 10 August 2020.

    “Part of this work, part of this moment that we’re in, is that making sure from analysis to action that we drive action toward structural and systemic change. Changing the rules that have held people back,” said Rashad Robinson, a race activist who was “at the forefront” of efforts to de-platform U.S. conservative Pat Buchanan from MSNBC, in a clip of an interview with the prince for the Color of Change organisation.

    “You say this so beautifully Rashard, and it’s so true,” replied Harry, a hereditary millionaire who owes his public profile to the fact he is a relation of Queen Elizabeth II — although he has now abandoned his royal duties to pursue activism and money-making ventures.

    “There’s so much that has happened for so long and once those problems exist, charity is crucial in so many ways but it can’t fix the problem. The problems already exist, and are too big,” the prince told Robinson, whose organisation is lobbying to defund the police.

    “As I’ve said to you before, it’s like bringing a bucket of water to a forest fire,” Harry said, adding: “We have to go to the root of the problem, the source of the problem, and actually fix it there.”

    What a twerp!

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/08/10/harry-meghan-focus-black-lives-matter-activism-says-royal-expert/

    1. I sometimes wish some 30 year old bimbo would crawl out of the woodwork and link Harry to the late pederast Epstein.

      2. I thought that Epstein was into under-aged girls. There is no evidence, that I know of, that he was a pederast.

    3. By this “Part of this work, part of this moment that we’re in, is that making sure from analysis to action that we drive action toward structural and systemic change”

      Do they mean this “This work involves finding what needs to be done and doing it”?

      BTW, I’m just commenting on the gobbledegook, not agreeing with it

        1. Her PR team write his pronouncements for him. Note the American form of many of his sentences.

    6. So, I guess ‘white privilege’ is at the top of his agenda. Oh heck, maybe he should identify as black or thinks gingers are safe.

    7. “replied Harry, a hereditary millionaire who owes his public profile to the fact he is a relation of Queen Elizabeth II”…

      Allegedly.

      #GingerLivesMatter

  71. I am off at the end of this very sticky day; quite unpleasant. Just finished the watering and am beginning to get a touch worried as all the butts are getting low – and the well.

    No clogs; no kittens. Still, a glass of something should put it all in perspective.

    A demain

          2. I was over at the neighbours’ for a barbie last night. It seems they have all the moles. They’ve been missing from here for a few months. Also from the churchyard.

          3. I hate them with a passion. They get everywhere in the garden, they’re a bugger to kill and do a lot of damage.

          5. Especially this years barstards – whose runs are about 3/4 inch below the surface – and so impossible to trap.

          6. There is a spiked killer for that, but I don’t know if you can get one, or more realistically several, easily

            https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XTVMF4H/ref=sm_n_au_dka_FR_pr_con_0_0?adId=B06XTVMF4H&creativeASIN=B06XTVMF4H&linkId=3518d067273822fc7b57812b5b7554f4&tag=sidebar-all-pages-20&linkCode=w41&ref-refURL=https%3A%2F%2Fstoppestinfo.com%2F225-how-to-get-rid-of-moles.html&slotNum=1&imprToken=V1.ZxcXqZUtObHfKxTKbzQ&adType=smart&adMode=auto&adFormat=grid&impressionTimestamp=1597081770920

          10. Some years ago, surrounded by molehills, I noticed that a new one was under construction. I grabbed a long metal spikey thing from the WWII pill box in the corner of the garden, stood over the site, and when I observed any movement, rammed said spike into the ground. There was no sign of any success.

            Apparently, moles have haemophiliac tendencies, and don’t survive any injuries which cause them to bleed.

            A couple of days later, there was a hole in that bit of garden, so I assume that Mr Fox had investigated…

          11. In my experience, a dead mole stinks worse than any other creature that has died.
            Essential to check traps morning and evening.

          16. Just borrow him when we go away. It’ll save on the cattery bill and you might benefit from his expertise! Win win!

      1. I usually measure these in channel crossings, but that’s a bit inappropriate this year.

          1. One of my pet hates is gite guests who bring in lots of inflatable toys and leave them lying around wet to gather grot and then put them back in the pool covered in grit, grass cuttings etc. grrrr.

          2. I had a colleague years ago, who used to put a chemical in his pool which would instantly change colour if anyone decided to attend to a call of nature…

          7. ‘Twas entirely apocryphal; I didn’t move in such rarefied circles.

            Said colleague was a master of the art of the Malapropism, which was fun.

            “young Daniel is fully computer illiterate”

            “Don’t want to upset the rocking boat”

            There were lots more, but the passage of time means they’re rather hazy…

          10. My wife caught me peeing in the pool last week. She shouted so loud I nearly fell in. ;@)

          3. You’re not kidding.

            Once upon I time I could have “tumble-turned”, now I’m so arthriticky that it’s a struggle to push off at times. I can now longer do butterfly for any distance, nor breaststroke, thanks to knee and hip ops.
            {:-((

          5. Normally I swim twice a day, I start at 101 and count down.
            Then

            125 . 1500 m
            135 ~ a mile
            167 ~ two kilometres
            etc, I don’t usually do more than 4 km a day at this stage of the season, although it was pleasant on Saturday, so I did 5 km.

          10. Phelps was better, but my hero when young was Bobby McGregor, pipped at the post in the ’64 Olympics by Don Schollander.

            I actually think that there is something wrong as far as Olympic swimming medals is concerned, in that one person can win so many at a single Olympics or world championships.

          11. Agreed. The events cant be that tiring if they can enter two or three each day.

          17. …and handed back some of his relay medals when he found out that other members of the relay team had used drugs.

  73. The Covid long haul: why are some patients not getting better? 10 August 2020.

    When the Guardian’s Luke Harding began suffering symptoms of Covid-19 he assumed he would be laid low for a couple of weeks. Five months later he is still unwell, and he has found hundreds of people like him.

    The Guardian’s senior international correspondent, Luke Harding, was struck down with symptoms in March that were being increasingly reported throughout the country. He had a shortness of breath and chest pains, and although he was unable to get a test he was certain it was Covid-19. Five months later, he tells Mythili Rao, he is still suffering.

    I’m surprised he didn’t claim it was due to Vlad smearing Covid19 on his keyboard. In Harding’s Private World Russia is responsible for everything from the Deaths of the Dinosaurs to Income Tax and Global Warming!

    Just in passing can I observe that anti-Vlad stories have been in decline for a fortnight or more. By this I mean the Vlad Ate my Hamster stories by people who have no actual Hamsters. I think there has been a review of propaganda output by the Powers of Darkness and they’ve decided that it’s counterproductive.

    https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2020/aug/10/the-covid-long-haul-why-are-some-patients-not-getting-better

    1. ” By this I mean the Vlad Ate my Hamster stories by people who have no actual Hamsters.”

      Well, if he had eaten them, they wouldn’t, would they?

    2. Here’s Paul Garner’s BMJ blog:

      https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/06/23/paul-garner-covid-19-at-14-weeks-phantom-speed-cameras-unknown-limits-and-harsh-penalties/

      It looks as though having experienced the symptoms of COVID-19 the body is able to resurrect them under certain conditions and keep them in the background for future reference.

      The concerns are that the medical profession are seeing this as a form of voluntary malingering like ME and backache which have no measurable medical parameters to confirm a diagnosis,

      Recurrent episodes of a delayed and recurrent withdrawal reaction are however known particularly in my case where I suffered repeated symptomatic episodes after withdrawal from an ACEI drug. Interestingly ACE Inhibitors target the ACE2 receptors in a similar way to COVID-19.

      Fortunately I gave a comprensive Yellow Card adverse drug reaction report to the MHRA and my medical notes now include a particular ACEI as giving me an allergic reaction. At the time I noticed that certain chemical compounds induced the original adverse reaction to the drug.

      I can appreciate that having experienced COVID-19 adverse reactions a recurrence of them at some future date can be highly likely but dismissable by the medical profession.

          1. Just checked it out, and no, they all just made it but are now suing the 75 year old driver, who was on his mobile and sitting down and unable to see over his dashboard.

    3. 322370+ up ticks,
      Afternoon JN,
      As I posted yesterday you can really pack them in a frigate, cut out the middle man, trouser the crossing fee
      after a small% for the party.

  77. Even for the BBC this is poor stuff.

    Coronavirus: Australia records deadliest day but fewer new infections

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-53718184

    Australia has had just 314 deaths. The 19 deaths reported on Monday presumably include a weekend ‘catch-up’ count. Most of the deaths are in care homes.

    The comments are interesting, a mixture of “Wake up, covidiots! It’s coming for you!” and “Bit of an exaggeration, isn’t it?”

    1. Views seem to have polarised into those two – yet there is no evidence that these mass gatherings on beaches and demos have increased infections.

      1. You could do it. They said if you can manage to balance on a paddle board in calm water you could handle one of these. A bit like riding a motorcycle and leaning at the right angle in and out of a turn.

      1. Was she? Didn’t notice. I was enjoying the way known tech has been re-applied to something fun.

      1. How are you, P_T? How’s the recovery going? I’m afraid I don’t hold out much for your optimism that there will be a wake-up call.

        1. First set 2 – 6 down.looking forward to Game.set and Match…GRRR!

          I’m sure you are right Conway…maybe the animals will have the last laugh…

    2. Today is #WorldLionDay – the world needs to wake up and see what is happening in South Africa. Once a first world country – it is now a sinkhole with over 300 factory farms raising lions and tigers – yes – tigers – for canned hunting and the lion bone trade. Cubs are removed from their mothers at a few days old, to be bottle -fed by exploited young “volunteers” who pay quite large sums for this pleasure. They are used for lion walking, then they are released as tame prey in small enclosures for rich “hunters” to kill. Then their bones are exported to China.

      South Africa is a beautiful country but I would not want to go there again. The ANC government is no better than Mugabe was.

      1. “The ANC government is no better than Mugabe was.” – no surprises there, N.
        Just depression about being proved right.

          6. I didn’t do a lot of dashing around when I was a spring chicken – too busy looking after my chicks.

          7. I did most of my Africa before I was 30, the last trip being my honeymoon – Kenya, Seychelles & Zambia, then I started raising chicks.

        1. They should – but for South African lion farmers and the Chinese, the only good lion is a dead lion – and for the American “hunters” to put its head on a wall.

          1. I don’t understand trophy hunting – who wants bits of dead animal screwed on the wall of the house? Ugh.

          4. I could live with it if the lion trophy was the result of a hand-to-paw, fair fight, no weapons or tools. Just as long as the lion was allowed to put human heads on the wall after a similar fight.

          5. Killing a beautiful animal for its head, skin and bones is never a fair fight. Lions kill to live, not for fun.

          6. You can guess what the outcome of man v lion would be, no tools or weapons, just hand-to-paw… anyone who can take down a lion deserves respect.

      4. Sadly, that development was inevitable.
        Apartheid was, arguably, the wrong way to tackle the time lag: the ideal being pushed by the west required an unattainable jump by the locals from the Stone Age to the 20th. Century within a few short years. The Boers had rather more experience of the people being gifted a tranche of Africa than those bien pensant westerners smugly hunkered down in their then safe little world.

        1. So the Boers got into lion farming……..while the ANC government has banned alcohol again – even after the last time when people died of poisoning from home-brewed hooch. Meanwhile, elderly white farmers are being brutally tortured and killed but that doesn’t make it into the press here.

          The public hospitals in South Africa are cesspits so it’s no wonder people are dying of Covid in droves as well. Meanwhile their government ministers want people to fly in because the aircraft filtration system kills the virus! https://www.msn.com/en-za/lifestyle/travel/planes-eat-the-virus-–-mbalula-defends-100percent-capacity-rule-for-flights/ar-BB1660Oa?fbclid=IwAR13lp_PzCHOeDhW-8CuGWqUcD8UHcsbm0HxoG16c9HBaRBN4ztbK4jEfPs

  80. Time to start making the vichyssoise, so it has time to chill for tonight’s supper.

          3. I found I was allergic to truffles after consuming a bowl of truffle soup in a hotel in Avignon years ago. My lips resembled Al Jolson and my scalp itched terribly.

            Subsequently I found a similar allergic reaction, lips-wise after eating liquorice.

            On the oil front, try Walnut oil.

            Edit: Not to be used in fry ups or cooking but as a dressing for salads and cold dishes. Lovely nutty flavour.

          2. Crispy chilli pancakes for tomorrow.

            I’ve made the chilli (minced beef, onions, garlic, chilli powder, cumin, chillies and kidney beans) today to mature overnight. Tomorrow I’ll make some pancakes, fill them with the chilli, roll them in breadcrumbs and bake them; then top with grated cheddar and grill until melted, and served with a mixed salad.

            Today I toasted two slices of home-baked bread, buttered one side and spread with Marmite. I then cover them in grated farmhouse cheddar and toasted it until brown and bubbling, before topping them with baked beans and two sunny-side-up fried eggs. Yum!

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fb34f6d9955f50d7fd3226fb2f48f4f04fa933d51a7dd7637a6a8c8aea19bea4.jpg

          6. They don’t photograph too well but they were cooked perfectly. The yolks were runny and soft and the whites were perfectly crisp around the edges. Eggs don’t get better than that.

          8. I never baste them because I want the yolks to remain yellow and be a soft and runny as possible. I baste the whites.

          10. I know, Geoff, but as it’s my only meal of the day followed by 23 hours of nothing but water, I’m getting away with it.

            Still losing around a pound a week.

    1. When I suddenly realise that I have more in common with the some of the grubbiest corners of the Commonwealth than the world’s most populous country.

  82. Boris Johnson says crossing Channel in small boats ‘dangerous and criminal’. 10 August 2020.

    The prime minister said on Monday: “There’s no doubt that it would be helpful if we could work with our French friends to stop them [migrants] getting over the Channel. Be in no doubt, what’s going on is the activity of cruel and criminal gangs who are risking the lives of these people taking them across the Channel, a pretty dangerous stretch of water, in potentially unseaworthy vessels.

    “We want to stop that, working with the French, make sure that they understand that this isn’t a good idea, this is a very bad and stupid and dangerous and criminal thing to do. But then there’s a second thing we’ve got to do, and that is to look at the legal framework that we have that means that when people do get here, it is very, very difficult to then send them away again, even though blatantly they’ve come here illegally.”

    More lying! Worse stupid lying!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/10/boris-johnson-hints-at-law-change-to-deport-migrants-who-cross-channel

    1. He could start by repealing whatever legislation came in when Theresa May signed up to the UN Migration pact.

    2. 322370+ up ticks,
      AS,
      It sure is dangerous & criminal, so is aiding & abetting
      plus treachery as portrayed by priti johnson.

    3. His blather is to excuse these illegal economic migrants of wrongdoing. The UK Government is complicit.

  83. Someone will soon turn up some ‘dirt’ on Mr Dolan.

    Anti-mask activists storm London supermarket demanding shoppers resist ‘new world order’

    Protestors from StandUpX told shoppers in a Morrison’s in south London that ‘masks are so bad for you’, with some shouting on megaphones

    ByTelegraph Reporters

    A group of anti-mask activists stormed into a supermarket demanding shoppers resist a “new world order” and to remove their face coverings.

    Members of StandUpX stunned grocery shoppers as they entered a Morrison’s store in Peckham, south London, to berate those who were wearing face coverings.

    The protestors, who were largely not using masks, walked through the isles with megaphones telling people not to submit to the Government’s Covid-19 guidelines, saying: “Your masks are so bad for you”.

    One activist shouted: “You are conditioned to believe everything the government tells you.” “You never ask questions, just wear a mask.”

    “You know this agenda is the new world order agenda. They are conditioning you for the new world order guys. You guys need to resist.”

    Standup X protest groups claim to be a “community of struggle against the New Normal”, questioning the sense of local lockdowns and social distancing measures designed to halt the spread of coronavirus.

    It was founded by Simon Dolan, an aviation tycoon who earlier this month lost a High Court bid to overturn the government’s lockdown rules.

    Hundreds of activists descended upon Hyde Park last month to oppose the wearing of face coverings becoming mandatory in shops and supermarkets.

    Launching the campaign on July 6, Mr Dolan said: “I believe in freedom of choice for all and the protection of personal liberties. The Government’s actions are crippling the economy, denying children education, and trampling over human rights.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/10/anti-mask-activists-storm-london-supermarket-demanding-shoppers/

          1. Only joking. They just looked a little to sprightly for their ages. Hope I’m wrong.

    3. “What did you order from that French restaurant’s new We serve you in your own home service Bert?”
      “Numero soixante neuf Ada”.

    1. I hate to say this, but I’m not sure what the problem is…

      Roundabouts are less than friendly to cyclists. Obviously, Jill Backson would have any cyclist approaching a roundabout shot, or worse. I’m fairly laid back about this.

        2. Possibly the most useless roundabout in Christendom, is the one at the South end of the A331, where it meets the A31. Only a mile from here. Literally no-one ever joins the roundabout from the direction of Farnham, which means that there’s nothing to moderate the traffic from the A331. Not surprisingly, this means that all traffic from Guildford, etc, is forced to wait for ages at the roundabout. I avoid this like the plague in busy periods.

          1. That sounds like France, where they are putting in roundabouts like crazy, but with little thought as to traffic flows.

      2. This type of layout means that drivers may actually stop on the roundabout to give way to cyclists. The danger is that unsuspecting motorists will not realise that this may happen, and be more prone to rear-end shunts.

        1. Cyclists really will think they own the road and will have even less regard for their own safety and that of others. This roundabout says ‘Motorists will be held responsible for all accidents, whatever the cause’. Pedestrians should beware as well.

          1. I followed a cyclist this afternoon through Bath, no shirt so don’t be surprised if you lose a lot of skin if you fall off and no hands on handlebars wobbling all over his and my side of the road making falling off likely.
            He appeared not to care in anyway at the number of cars backed up behind him, I half hoped someone misjudged his wobbling and sent the bugger flying!

        2. Yes I see that the road on the right is marked perfectly if you are looking for a quick shunt up the rear. A car entering the roundabout from the top road will not be expecting a stopped car just there.

          The answer will be to add traffic lights.

          2. The original idea of roundabouts was to keep traffic moving, which works fine is there is an even flow of vehicles from all directions. On some roundabouts, the flow is unbalanced, leading to queuing on one or more approach roads. The solution was to introduce traffic lights, which rather defeats the purpose of the roundabout. Have you ever noticed how the traffic flow is much improved on such roundabouts when the traffic lights fail?

          3. I once drove through london and the traffic lights had all failed at Hyde Park. It was the fastest crossing I ever had.

          4. I once returned from a holiday in Turkey, when the PTB at Gatport Airwick were all on strike. I was through the place, collected my suitcase in 10 minutes, and on a train home, all within fifteen…

          5. Our university department ran far more efficiently when we were without an administrative officer for six months.

          6. I find it really annoying that the traffic lights remain on at all times, so you sit at an empty roundabout waiting for the lights to change at 2am. They really only need to be on during peak traffic times.

        3. Ah, yes. Leaving Edinburgh on the Bypass, I was behind another car at the roundabout. Single lane. The car in front pulled onto the busy roundabout, I looked right and as it was clear I accelerated. Turning my head back to the traffic on the roundabout I suddenly realised that the woman in the car in front had stopped on the roundabout to pick up a hitchhiker. I hit her car quite hard.

      3. When I was posted to the Netherlands, I quickly learned how to use these in my car and on my bike from the offset. I don’t see what the problem is either.

    3. I think cyclists should dismount at roundabouts and cross on foot. Have you ever seen such a roundabout. how much did it cost to make it easier to kill people.

      1. It’s similar to the one at Hemel Hempstead, but the one at Hemel has much better road markings.

    5. When I lived in Victoria Street, just off Parker’s Piece it was not uncommon to see Spanish language students on hired bicycles snaking the wrong way around the (then) roundabout at the junction of East Road and Mill Road.

      The junction now has traffic lights.

    6. As I live not too many miles distant from this roundabout and have traversed it many times by cycle and car, I can confirm it most definitely will be carnage. Why, oh why, if things are working well, can they not leave things alone. I suppose it is for the head honcho’s CV in preparation for the next career move (job) “look, see what I did! – clever me!”

    7. Any group such as antifa, ER etc wanting to bring the traffic to a standstill could do it here with just half a dozen or so cyclists whizzing round the cycle lane constantly.

  86. Good evening!
    Arrived home from my jaunt mid-afternoon after a delightful evening & a lovely meal with Anne and her other half!
    Elsie’s alter ego also made an appearance for a short while. a thoroughly enjoyable evening with a comfortable bed to follow!

    Here’s some photos from yesterday & Saturday evening at Shingle Street, a place I got to know during POLEX72, a pipeline exercise getting AVTUR off an RFA tanker, probably one of the old Tidal Class, lying off Orford Ness to the two airbases at Bentwaters & Woodbridge for the Yanks to burn up in their Phantoms.
    I was astounded at how much the coastline had changed.

    This bungalow was coloured pink in ’72 and had a VERY pretty young hippy lass living there with her boyfriend, She’s still there, now a lot older!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a8b223ceb0d287177af2e7f4f66b55df21ff67ea52f0a351e9e64341c4012564.jpg

    The Coastguard Station & Cottages. In ’72 the sea was about 100 yards from the front of the cottages, The shingle bank now extends at least a ¼ mile away!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eac97e6ce36fe4391d905988c5e65e60cb782207a7d0a96a9166e5f0ca5e9d0d.jpg

    An early morning shot, deliberately underexposed to bring out the sky. The shifting shingle has formed a lagoon that makes a very safe place for swimming:-

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5278abf80a340f40897494c00025e3a21e5f2442ca72a27ca084453c0cc45f15.jpg

    A Starb’d hand marker bouy for the mouth of the Debben. The tide was going out and I think the angle of the bouy indicates the force of the current.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4efdae257943ebd2cfa8f51168fe9d8d9db09c5cf21aa138655f1601a2256e39.jpg

      1. And I’ve got one of my purchases illuminating my keyboard as I type!

        The other three are sans lampshades and one needs a new lamp fitting, but given that one was over £400 retail and the other two over £200, I still think I got a bargain!

        1. Nice one. I like such bargains. One day I’ll recount my experience at the ‘Porlock Fire Brigade benevolent society’ jumble sale!

    3. Wonderful photos and memories for you! Did the lady remember you?!
      Glad you had a great get-together!

        1. Very kind words, Bob of Bonsall. It was good to meet up again and enjoy a convivial NoTTLers’ party. Your singing was an added delight. As the Scots say “Haste Ye Back!”

    5. Just found this picture shewing how close the sea was to the Coastguard Cottages in 2007!

    6. River Debben ? or river Deben, BoB ?

      “The Eagle has landed.”

      We – me and my fiancée – were sailing on the river Deben on Sunday July 20, 1969 when Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Apollo Lunar Module Eagle.

      At the moment of landing we were manhandling a wooden dingy over a railway crossing gates – about 16.00 ?

      Back in Haddington Gardens we watched blotchy B&W images of Neil Armstrong in the early hours of Monday …

      1. My uncle used to keep a small boat on the Deben at Waldringfield. As a teenager, I spent many happy visits there. My cousin, being a little older, was bored with it and called it a “muddy little ditch”.

    7. That bungalow featured in the film Yesterday (2019), thought I recognised it!

      It’s the residence of John Lennon – in an alternative universe where The Beatles never existed.

      In the following clip:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ONU_H0EjIg

      Being the work of Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis there are, needless to say, various backstabbing, multi-kult, anti-white messages.

      Why is the main character Asian, are they taking the piss? (Yes). Of course he has a desirable white girlfriend.

          2. I’m always amazed at how much she let herself go. We all have to accept the ravages of time – but heck, show some signs of a battle, however unsuccessful.

        1. I’m not a lover of domestic animals but big cats in the wild are a different matter. My favourite is the Bengal (?) tiger.

    1. That didn’t work with the Australians . . . They just told them to carry on. They didn’t do anything.
      If they do drop them in the water they should be instantly lose ANY chance of staying here – -as they are willing to try attempted murder.

    1. The Grinning Haircut – once again – shows himself to be a woke, libtard wazzock.

          2. Something like that.

            It doesn’t help that the roof over my head has been somewhat tenuous since February. I’ve an interview next Monday, re. an application for a charitable retirement bungalow, not far from here. Meanwhile, the entire village (or so it seems) is up in arms over the parish’s plan to sell this verger’s cottage, where I’ve lived for 15 years. Lots of helpful suggestions from the community, apparently, but the bottom line is that the parish needs to raise some serious money, or it will cease to exist.

            Like much of the Church of England at Parish level. See recent articles by the lefty Giles Fraser in the DT and Unherd.

            If that doesn’t work out, I’ll take the redundancy and head North. to God’s Own County. Sorry, Grizz, etc, but that’s Cumbria, not Yorkshire… :-))

          6. Best wishes for an agreeable outcome Geoff. If I was in a position to help in any way I would.

          7. Thanks, Harry. Very kind, but I’m an irritatingly independent-minded curmudgeon. I’m fairly laid back about the whole thing. In February, it seemed imminent. Thanks to lockdown, I haven’t ruled out ordering a Christmas Tree…

            Truth be told, while I have no argument with the parish, the various woke ejaculations from the Bishops have just about alienated me from the entire organisation.

            If I get lucky with the bungalow next Monday, I’ll call the parish’s bluff, and accept their alternative offer of redundancy. This wouldn’t preclude the possibility of my accompanying services in the future, on a freelance basis.

          9. Not really. I’m pretty much in agreement with the Rector, a sound chap, that the C of E is in terminal decline.

            Should I be fortunate enough to get the bungalow (which, in all honesty, doesn’t tick all my boxes), I’ll still be here if I’m needed. The main attractions are (1) it’s cheap, around £55/week, and (2), it’s just across the road from a rail station.

            If not, the harsh reality is that the cheapest rental property within three miles of here is a room in a HMO, at £500 pcm. Back in God’s own County, that would secure a 3-bed new-build detached house, with integral garage, and all white goods included…

  95. Just made 4 jars of damson jam. Old damson tree in the garden with a lot of large fruit.

    1. Lucky you. The plums trees round here have been a disaster. Even the normally bomb-proof cherry plum trees have produced very little.

      1. The tree could have been planted when the house was built in 1938. Half the trunk is missing, came away when I took ivy off the tree. Doesn’t seem to have harmed it too much.

        1. There’s also a Mirabelle further up the road. Normally the owner put a ‘help yourself’ notice beside it.
          This year there’s about one on the grass verge; that’s it.

          1. We have a mirabelle, the jays know exactly which day to strip the fruit off before we get there.

          4. Last year, the vines were laden, but the grapes weren’t just quite ripe. I decided to leave them a little longer, only to find, when I went to gather them a few days later, that all that was left were stalks. The pigeons that nest in next door’s trees had eaten every single one 🙁

          5. That’s happened to our blackcurrants 2 years running (might be black birds rather than pigeons though) – must get something sorted for next year to stop them.

      3. My cherry tree produced its best harvest ever this year, and wonderful they were too. Even the jackdaws left some for me!

        Looking forward to some plums for the best-ever crumble!

          2. Interesting. Ours – or rather our neighbour’s which grow over the wall – look perfect but still need another week.

          3. How DARE you refer to me as “that pushy woman”, Uncle Bill? I’ll have you know that Citroen 1 is very welcome to send me his surplus damsons for me to make some Damson Crumble for my friend Grizzly. Oh… wait a minute… did you mean Nursie?

            :-))

    2. My wild damson is loaded this year. They’re beginning to throw themselves onto the ‘lawn’. I don’t do jam, so I’ve invited one of the locals to do a PYO session tomorrow.

      2. Come on, Geoff – in these dark days of no music – a jam session could be fun…

  100. University challenge has morphed into a glorified Pub Quiz.

    Middle aged wannabes, and so far they aren’t even any good.

    2. ‘Er indoors is watching it. I’m outside with some Malbec, a book and the iPad.

        1. Head full of rubbish. We do a weekly online pub quiz and win every week, much to the publican’s annoyance. He would much prefer his Southampton locals to win.

          2. Don’t need to. If Grizz (or anyone else) is interested in a Sunday night online quiz I can send him a link

          5. Left to right by rows from the top:

            Iris Murdoch
            George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans)
            Charlotte Bronte (?)
            Sylvia Plath
            Hilary Mantel
            (?)
            Agatha Christie
            J K Rowling
            Margaret Atwood
            Virginia Woolf
            Emily Bronte
            Jane Austen
            Mary Shelley
            Zadie Smith
            (?)
            Enid Blyton
            Beatrix Potter

      1. Indeed
        But, average age 49 or thereabouts.
        HG and I scored at least 200, and beat them to many of the starter questions.

        Reading, also a pub team but not good, were very poor.

        That was a glorified pub quiz , ringers.

        It should be limited to under-graduates.

Comments are closed.