Monday 12 July: Freedom Day looks perilous to many of lockdown’s ignored shielders

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/2021/07/11/letters-freedom-day-looks-perilous-many-lockdowns-ignored-shielders/

755 thoughts on “Monday 12 July: Freedom Day looks perilous to many of lockdown’s ignored shielders”

      1. 335306+ up ticks,
        Morning S,
        Rectified, it misses capitals also on occasions post’s itself.

  3. Gareth Southgate to be knighted for ‘putting a smile on all our faces’. 12 July 2021.

    Gareth Southgate is set for a knighthood after leading England to their historic achievements at the Euros.

    The England manager has been praised for “putting a smile on all our faces” by taking the team to their first major final in 55 years.

    It is predicted that he is now in line to become Sir Gareth, with other players on his team also tipped to receive honours.

    Morning everyone. The British have a history of rewarding failure which goes some considerable way toward explaining it!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/euro-2021/2021/07/11/gareth-southgate-knighted-putting-smile-faces/

    1. Why knighthoods for that? Looks like everybody gets one, so devaluing it.

        1. Morning Bob. I seem to recall from my very small store of football knowledge that Hurst had to wait thirty years!

        2. Morning Bob. I seem to recall from my very small store of football knowledge that Hurst had to wait thirty years!

      2. . At last the Dodo said, `Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.’

      3. The rot started with Alec Ferguson, I expect. I could never understand why he was knighted for doing an unimportant job.

    3. Such nonsense. He divided the country with his BLM and Stonewall politics, and didn’t win a major trophy.

    6. They made the tournament all about race and fans didn’t care about skin colour until they were told they were racist. can’t have it both ways. Race can’t be wonderful but when it fails, it can’t be talked about and expect people to not raise it.

    7. Goodie goodie! NoTTLers tell me that my posts about my rhubarb crumble, home-made marmalade and silly sausages bring a smile to their faces. So from now on, you can all address me as Dame Elsie Bloodaxe!

        1. There is nothing like a Dame, nothing in the world. There is nothing you can name that is anything like a Dame.

  4. Good Morning Folks,

    Feeling a bit fed up, raining outside, golf put on hold until tomorrow.
    Puts the silly football game into perspective.

    1. Morning E&S

      To be fair it would have been a travesty had we been European champions, we had an easy run and we weren’t that good really in a tournament where no other side looked that good either
      Although I might say that Italy quelled our fast attack players with professional fouls all evening, one should have had a sending of for the drag back by the collar of his shirt.
      But that’s what you get for all the diving I suppose in the earlier rounds.

        2. Oi, Hatman, that was my joke. I said the day after the semi-finals that apparently the previous evening’s match was for swimming as there were so many dives.

          3. Well, you’d did up-vote it, Hat. (Unless you only did that this morning.)

          4. I’m off to bed now Elsie, its possible that I upvoted it whilst over tired as I am right now & simply did not remember what you wrote.

          5. I know the “over-tired” feeling, Hat. My own reaction to that is to eat more. Not a good thing when trying to keep my weight down.

  6. ‘My responsibility’: Gareth Southgate takes blame for shootout selections. 12 July 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/27096c036d004a70348adce59a7887ac60d93011e62dba669332cc461c71b80c.jpg

    “They’ve given everything,” Southgate said. “They should hold their heads high. The devastation of going so close and not being able to give the country the trophy they wanted is difficult to put into context. The players have given everything and I’m proud of them.

    “The players are in a really quiet place. The Duke’s been down to see them in dressing room and has rightly thanked them for what they’ve done. I said we could have no recriminations. They’ve got to walk away from here heads held high. They’ve done more than any team in the last 50 years. But credit to Italy, they’ve been outstanding. The way they’ve used the ball was a little bit better than us and they were strong enough in defence to stop us creating anything.”

    God. What sick making drivel. You lost! Too much kneeling and not enough playing!

    https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jul/12/my-responsibility-gareth-southgate-takes-blame-for-shootout-selections

    1. I’m just wondering whether Gareth deliberately selected the last three shootout players on the basis of colour, had we won and they all scored he would have looked even more virtuous than he is now and a certain knighthood maybe even a sainthood.

      1. I know precious little about football Bob. But the choice of at least one of them on the grounds that he had never taken a penalty suggests something other than football was on his mind!

        1. And bringing two players on at the last minute to take them seemed a bit odd too, they weren’t even warmed up had a kick of the ball.

          1. You cannot trust the motives of someone who made a national issue out of insisting that the team knelt to honour a violent criminal. Maybe it was discrimination based on skin colour.

          7. I suppose Southgate knew his knighthood was in the bag for promoting BLM, so winning may have been less important than virtue signaling and a bit more propaganda.
            They really think they are fighting the KKK don’t they, rather than millions of fed up Brits.

    2. Gareth Southgate takes blame for shootout selections.
      Gareth Southgate takes BAME for shootout selections.
      There that’s fixed it for you!

      1. I ran out of Champagne last night. Not because England lost but Southgate’s virtue signalling did.

      1. ‘Morning E&S. I have as much to do with him as you have to do with fairies 😉

  8. Morning all, a wet one here in Nairobi, so usual deomlishion derby on Kenya roads. See,s “Liz Evans” wants to lose more “friends” and not influence anyone:

    SIR – Valerie Monaghan (Letters, July 8) asks who the people are who don’t want lockdown to end. Could they be among the 500,000 who are immunosuppressed – those with blood cancer or on long-term steroids?

    These people have been ignored during lockdown, and even with research it has not yet been explained whether they will have Covid antibodies like the rest of us. Of course they are nervous about Freedom Day.

    Liz Kwantes
    Cookham, Berkshire

    SIR – From July 19 it would be a great idea if the major supermarkets could reintroduce special shopping times solely for mask wearers.

    This would encourage the return of those of us who have been shielding and do not feel safe enough to mingle freely among the great unmasked.

    Liz Evans
    Kirk Ireton, Derbyshire

    SIR – Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, called for workers to go back to their offices (report, July 9) and a return to normal life. Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, says people may have to wear face coverings on public transport after July 19.

    Which is it: normal life or face coverings? You cannot have both.

    Eric Gibbons
    Dunfermline, Fife

    SIR – How can we plan our lives if we are constantly told to isolate by the NHS Covid-19 app? My daughter was finally able to have her wedding after an agonising two-year stop-start process. Sadly, with 24 hours to go, some guests were prevented from attending due to the app informing them that they must isolate for 10 days.

    They had no symptoms, had been double vaccinated and are in good health, yet had to miss what should have been a fantastic reunion of friends and family.

    Patricia Abbott
    Wattisfield, Suffolk

    SIR – I was recently pushed into changing my monthly payment by cheque to weekly payments online by my doorstep milk-delivery service.

    The reason? You guessed: “Due to Covid.” Rubbish – they just didn’t want the bother of paying in cheques, which is understandable. Whatever next?

    Celia Moreton-Prichard
    London SE13

    SIR – I am a British national but my partner lives in the Netherlands, where we have both been double vaccinated.

    We have certificates to prove both doses. We also have international certificates of vaccination issued under the International Health Regulations confirming dates of vaccination, labels with batch numbers, and the signature and stamp of the party giving the jabs.

    These are internationally recognised documents. What legal right does Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, have to refuse entry to British citizens who have received a double dose and carry recognised health passports?

    M D Plater
    Highcliffe, Dorset

    Afghanistan’s future

    SIR – Ben Farmer’s sensitive and sobering report from Afghanistan (July 10) will worry all those who had the honour of serving there.

    The Prime Minister has shown statesmanship by the manner in which he has acknowledged the perils of the situation. We should be clear though that, despite current difficulties, there is nothing inevitable about a Taliban triumph: it took seven years from the withdrawal of Soviet combat troops in 1989 to the partial Taliban takeover of 1996, and the real occasion for that was the withdrawal of Russian financial aid in 1992, not defeat on the battlefield.

    Circumstances change but the need remains to maintain financial support to the Afghan government, provide military support, and pressurise the Pakistanis to stop supporting the Taliban. The situation is worrying but not desperate. Even at the height of its power, the Taliban did not control the whole of the country (though it did take Kabul). Equally, for the majority of Afghanistan’s history since the 1840s, the government in Kabul has rarely had authority outside the towns and the roads that link them. A sense of perspective is helpful here.

    Finally, we must not forget our former interpreters and others who supported us. Here, Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, and Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, have changed our policy and official attitudes substantively. But a good policy is only successful if it can be delivered and this needs resources and the cooperation of the Afghan authorities to issue passports and the like. Given their focus over the next few months, this may prove increasingly difficult; we need to know that there is a Plan B. To abandon these people and their families would be unconscionable.

    Colonel Simon Diggins (rtd)
    Defence Attaché, Kabul, 2008-10
    Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire

    Male millennium

    SIR – Responding to a question in the House of Commons on July 8, Michael Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, agreed that the hereditary peers in the House of Lords, and the law of male-preference primogeniture, were anomalies that the Government “should definitely look at”. He also admitted there are no plans to reform this anomaly.

    Why not? Gender discrimination is illegal. Surely abolishing an anachronistic and unfair law dating back nearly a millennium ought to be a priority in this day and age.

    Helen Nall
    Hoveringham, Nottinghamshire

    Net-zero nonsense

    SIR – Charles Moore (Comment, July 10) rightly criticises attempts by governments to second guess, if not pre-empt, innovation in technology.

    Since 2004, our industrial electricity costs have increased by more than 160 per cent and are becoming increasingly uncompetitive. The introduction of electric vehicles and heat pumps over the next nine years will only make that worse.

    The overall cost of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 has been estimated at around £100,000 per household. That is for a country responsible for only around 1 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

    This misguided evangelism will not only put more people into fuel poverty, but will also drive more energy-intensive businesses and jobs abroad to countries such as India and China, where they will cause more carbon dioxide emissions than before.

    Since energy per kilogram for an electric vehicle battery is much lower than that for fuels such as hydrogen or ammonia, electric vehicles will soon become outmoded and overpriced, particularly after the tax on diesel and petrol has been transferred. That they take several hours to recharge will also put them in the shade. So why not give innovators who grasp the laws of physics and market forces more time to provide cost-effective solutions?

    Roger J Arthur
    Storrington, West Sussex

    SIR – Charles Moore writes: “If you get a heat pump … your water will probably not be warm enough for a bath – and sometimes you will be freezing – without an auxiliary supply of heating.”

    A ground-source heat pump supplies heating to our five-bedroom detached house in Aboyne in rural Aberdeenshire. We have no auxiliary supply. We had temperatures last winter as low as -9°C and were as warm as toast with plenty of hot water.

    Try telling Swedes that heat pumps don’t work – they are in wide use there and one of the biggest installers in Britain is a Swedish company.

    John Barnes
    Aboyne, Aberdeenshire

    Right vs rights

    SIR – The Supreme Court has ruled that the right to protest peacefully must be upheld even when highways are deliberately blocked. The decision is based on articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Judgments like this make one understand why (however unfairly) the law has been called an ass.

    It is surely obvious that the majority of the people of this country would put their right to pass along a public road before the right of others to prevent their passage, when that protest might equally well be made on the pavement.

    Do judges not have a duty to have at least some regard to the generally accepted view of right and wrong?

    James Vallance White
    London SW1

    Defensive dog

    SIR – I have sympathy for the reader who dislikes dogs but is continually told, “Oh, you’ll love mine” (Letters, July 10).

    Our Jack Russell was attacked twice by loose dogs while still young. Since then he has not tolerated any other dog approaching him, taking the attitude: “I’ll get my retaliation in first.”

    What is annoying is that when I ask other dog owners politely to keep their pets away, the response is invariably, “But he is only being friendly.” I can assure them that their dog may be friendly, but mine definitely is not.

    David Pick
    Malton, North Yorkshire

    Town planners’ long tussle with street trees

    SIR – There has been praise recently for street trees, and calls for more in new developments. Town planners would love to oblige, but highway engineers are horrified as they see the inherent problems.

    Trees must not grow too large. If they do, their roots will disrupt the pavements, leading to pedestrians falling and problems for the partially sighted and wheelchair users.

    They must not overhang the road, as they might be struck by vehicles or cyclists, causing accidents. Tree roots must not interfere with the services – gas, electricity, sewerage and telecoms – that run beneath the verge or pavement, installed there to avoid the need to dig up roads.

    If a developer is determined to have street trees, then the highway authority will simply refuse to adopt the road, leaving responsibility for upkeep to developers or residents.

    Of course, trees could be put in front gardens, but few gardens are big enough. These problems will remain unless every road is to be a wide boulevard with extensive gardens and verges where planting can be introduced. This would mean releasing more land for development, as density per acre will drop.

    There is no simple solution but it is a problem with which town planners have been grappling for years.

    R T Britnell
    Canterbury, Kent

    Parishes plundered and left without services

    SIR – I am church warden of the mother church of a very rural benefice of six churches, which all share one vicar (“Bishops under fire for heavenly lifestyle as parishes near collapse”, report, July 9).

    A small congregation works hard to give as much as we can as a Parish Offer to the diocese. As a result we have had a service every Sunday.

    The incumbent vicar will be retiring soon. He will not be replaced. In return for our generous Parish Offer, a church with a 1,400-year history will expect to have a clergy-delivered act of worship once every six weeks.

    I fear the end of worship is nigh, and I will become only a custodian and steward of an empty, soulless medieval building, haunted by the echoes and shadows of past congregations.

    What has the Church of England come to?

    Nick Vaughan
    Clodock, Herefordshire

    SIR – Noel Hudson DSO MC, who was Bishop of Newcastle from 1941 to 1957, lived in a small Victorian terrace house close to the centre of Newcastle. He had one secretary. How times – and priorities – change.

    David Johnstone
    Pewsey, Wiltshire

    1. I fear the end of worship is nigh, and I will become only a custodian and steward of an empty, soulless medieval building, haunted by the echoes and shadows of past congregations.

      What has the Church of England come to?

      Well Nick it has like the country it served for four hundred years come to its end!

      1. Blair made sure that under his premiership England would start the process of becoming Engladesh & he succeeded above and beyond expectations having had the Marxist facilitators within the Church of England turn it into the Church of Engladesh ahead of schedule !

    2. Gender discrimination is illegal.

      Helen Nall of Hoveringham, Nottinghamshire, how can you make a grammatical construct Illegal?

    3. Mr Pick, your dog needs training and be better socialised with other dogs of all types. Reinforcing his fear isn’t going to help him. He’s a pack animal and needs to know where he stands.

      1. My thought, too. My previous dog was a nightmare with other dogs at first because he hadn’t been properly socialised before I got him. Eventually, people were saying, “isn’t he a lovely dog?” They were a bit taken aback when I said, “yes, it’s only taken me X years”.

  9. No Suprise as teams that go down on a knee before a marxist cause will never win. Get off your knees and man up.

    1. mng Johnny. First I heard of outcome is reading on here. I presume England lost and players were exhausted from “taking the knee”.

        1. mng obl. No idea. After watching TDF mountain stage yday, had more important things to do, like sleep. Am sure “the three stooges” have been taking the proverbial pee for a month

  10. South Africa this am. Violent / destructive protests in KwaZulu-Natal have spread to Gauteng. Protestors demanding release of former president Zuma from prison. 14 more days of adjusted level 4 lockdown, post Ramaphosa announcing further extension yesterday. Lock down = riot, seems black lives don’t matter

    1. “Free Zuma Protests” now blocking off main routes into Johannesberg, and lots of looting going on. SA plod unable to cope or willing to do anything. Sound familiar?

  11. Good morning, all. A wet start to the day.

    Good first half – then Engerland froze. I went to bed after 90 minutes. That early goal was a curse. They had to defend it for 88 minutes and began to deteriorate and that motivated the Italians. Once they had levelled – they knew that if they scored, they’d win and if they didn’t they win the penalties.

    (The above is written by someone who knows nothing about wendyball…)

    1. Good morning Bill in Soggy Engladesh, its a mere sunny 28’C by me right now at 09:17 AM, can we swap the weather today, the rain would be much appreciated here to give us a break from the heat!

  12. 335306+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Monday 12 July: Freedom Day looks perilous to many of lockdown’s ignored shielders

    Britons ‘expected’ to work from home and wear masks after July 19
    MPs warn Freedom Day risks being ‘watered down’ as Boris Johnson issues a warning ahead of Monday’s press conference

    This same governance group did NOT put a long stretch of blue water
    between the United Kingdom and the eu post 24/6/2016 they certainly have form on never, ever, taking issues further than the rhetorical stage, vows,promises, pledges, NEVER fulfilled, instead we got the
    “drag anchor deal,”
    The team England under Gareth Southgate as with the real UKIP team under Gerard Batten has shown us what CAN be done and achieved.

    Last night pointed out a battle lost but NOT for the want of trying.

    🎵
    The Only Way Is Up

    We’ve been broken down
    To the lowest turn
    Bein’ on the bottom line
    Sure ain’t no fun.

    🎵
    Straighten up & fly right…. is the order of the day.

  13. Good morning all from a wet & drippy Derbyshire. Heavy rain and 10½°C on the yard thermometer.

    So, from last night’s comments I briefly glanced at, Italy I gather equalised, it went to penalties and England did their usual stunt of screwing up the shoot-out.
    Oh dear.

  14. Some of David Cameron’s texts cannot be released because Treasury wiped phones. 12 July 2021.

    Earlier this year, Mr Scholar was asked to disclose the communications he had with former prime minister and lobbyist David Cameron.

    Questions were raised about what was said between Mr Cameron and officials, and what – if anything – he had been promised.

    But Mr Scholar said he was unable to tell MPs what his texts to Mr Cameron said because they had been wiped from his mobile phone.

    His memory has been wiped as well has it?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/12/david-camerons-texts-cannot-released-treasury-wiped-phones/

      1. Morning Stephen These people are the dregs of what was once a Great Country!

    5. Q: But why cannot the other party, David Cameron, just release the correspondence from HIS phone? Hasz he also wiped his phone?

      A: Either that or he ledt it at the pub and it got nicked.

  15. Lightning strikes have been killing 2,000 Indians on average since 2004.

    The dear old Beeb helpfully adds:
    “The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that deaths by lightning strikes have doubled in the country since the 1960s – one of the reasons they cited was the climate crisis.”
    However they forgot to mention that the pop of India was 450 million in 1960 – Today it is 3 times larger at over 1.3 billion….

    2. More Indians play golf in the rainy season, but like to shelter under the trees?

      1. Years ago, that happened to a local vicar.
        He was the vicar for our school and was always going on about (cue sing-song vicar voice) “Sin eeeendddd Death.
        God works in mysterious ways.

    3. Lucky I saw your post before I made one. As you say the population has trebled, so that statistically the chances of a person being killed by lightning strike have become smaller.

      1. Any specific individual, yes, but a random person is more likely to be struck, there being standing room only now.

  16. ‘Morning All

    It seems men who are paid tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds a week are beyond criticism even if they make a complete pigs ear of the job they are paid to do

    Such criticism is of course “Waycist”

    Needless to say the Met are swift to the party…….

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/07/12/01/45328967-9778835-image-a-75_1626051264805.jpg

    Perhaps if it hadn’t been so bleeding obvious that it was all about virtue signalling rather than feetball maybe the fans wouldn’t be so pissed off!!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/319a2ada8573d9aafa9a7a6beec9817f0d784e1e1f815534b8795c2651acd18f.jpg

        1. was always the agenda, pt of deception plan to deflect from lockdown / ongoing Cyber Polygon. Real fans [the ones that boo who never get tickets] made it clear about racist / shirtlifting propaganda being rammed down their throats. Identical to “project fear” re Brexit, C-19, people see through it and see and call it for what it is.

          1. “…people see through it and see and call it for what it is.”

            Switched on people see through it. Only the sheeple do not.

          1. They have proved beyond doubt, Hat, that Africans can fuck-up no matter where in the world they are

    2. 335306+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      Did they mention their input regarding the odious rotherham issue ongoing for 16 plus years ?

  19. I have now glanced at the newspaper (it arrived late) and see, to my shock and amazement, that the Blessed Brashford failed his penalty kick. Perhaps he’ll now lead a national campaign to have larger goals….

    I see, too, reports that huge rewards – knighthoods, peerages, gongs galore, are to presented – on bended knee – to the losers. Sounds about right…(sarc)

    1. OT – A new series of University Challenge starts tonight and I see that a friend of yours is on the King’s College team. I’m sure he will have made sure the result is favourable!

          2. I have just this minute posted copies to the involved parties. They will decide if they want their mugshots posted on Nottle.

            Don’t want to get sued. I don’t know any lawyers.

  20. My last comment (really) on the wendyball. That Sterling is a cheat -and it was good to see that the Italians (also cheats!) had his number.

    1. I don’t know how anybody thinks they can be taken seriously when they take part in a discussion with their knees hanging out of their jeans.

        1. ‘Morning, I would rather think of it as allowing the small brain to ventilate before burning out.

      2. 40 years ago going ‘topless’ on the beach was de rigueur if you were young. Of course it helped if you had pretty breasts.

        Now it is highly provocative to show your nipples and as a result breasts have become far more sexualised and women try to show as much as possible while hiding the nipples and the Daily Mail puts little black covers over significant areas in its pictures of half-naked girls to stop us getting too excited.

        Are knees the new fetish? Is a glimpse of knee through a tear in your jeans now extremely sexually alluring and if so how long before such displays are banned?

        1. Good morning everyone.
          The latest trouser fashion signals that the wearer has spent many happy hours on Hampstead Heath. If you don’t believe me, check their palms.

  23. Rise in men who feel the BBC ‘no longer reflects people like me’. 12 July 2021.

    In recent times, the BBC has made great efforts to bridge the gender divide. It has increased the number of women on screen, upped the pay of female presenters and produced drama and documentaries about women’s lives. The only problem? Men are feeling left out.

    Research carried out by the corporation found that more than a quarter of men feel that the BBC “no longer reflects people like me”. The figure is 28 per cent, up from 23 per cent last year. For women, it has remained static at 20 per cent.

    Asked if the BBC is effective in its mission to inform, educate and entertain, 82 per cent of women agreed but only 75 per cent of men.

    Who did they ask? This is a question that only twenty years ago no one would have even proposed and if you had it would have been thought to be in poor taste or that of some Troublemaker or Political Eccentric. Now we all know not to believe what we are told by an organisation to whom lies are as natural as breathing! The BBC is nothing more nor less than a Woke Propaganda outlet and those believing its tenets are fools!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/11/rise-men-feel-bbc-no-longer-reflects-people-like/

    1. I’m not male, but the Beeb doesn’t represent me either.
      TBF – unless i’m thinking of carking it, neither do the adverts across all channels.

    1. Morning Ped. I notice he has one eye open to make sure that the cameras are getting it!

    3. Saka? Is it too much to hope that the sack-a will await the tinted one? A kick (and preferably one that landed on target) would have been a better response.

  26. There’s no success like failure and failure’s no success at all

    [Bob Dylan: Love Minus Zero]

    The Italian Football team they tell me (as I switched on the tv after the match started to avoid witnessing the embarrassing spectacle) bent in reverence to the dead, black violent American criminal. Was their genuflection superior or inferior to that displayed by the English team?

    Black Lives Matter is registered as a political party?

    Apparently FIFA bans displays of political allegiance in football.

    Come to that was the people’s Princess a supporter of Blair’s ‘People’s’ Labour Party.

    1. Was their genuflection superior or inferior to that displayed by the English team?

      The difference, my dear, is that the Italians, mostly Catholic in culture if not in religion, would have put their left foot forward while kneeling.

  27. There’s no success like failure and failure’s no success at all

    [Bob Dylan: Love Minus Zero]

    The Italian Football team they tell me (as I switched on the tv after the match started to avoid witnessing the embarrassing spectacle) bent in reverence to the dead, black violent American criminal. Was their genuflection superior or inferior to that displayed by the English team?

    Black Lives Matter is registered as a political party?

    Apparently FIFA bans displays of political allegiance in football.

    Come to that was the people’s Princess a supporter of Blair’s Labour Party.

  28. There’s good news and bad news this morning – Branson went into space – the bad news is he came back

    2. Shame. He did not go into space though, at 53 miles altitude he was 9 miles short..

  30. The Daily Human Stupidity.

    “It was an accident that has endowed man with intelligence. He has made use of it: he invented stupidity.”

    Remy de Gourmont.

    2. Fear not, dear heart – the glowing tributes to St Marcus of Brashford will brighten it for you.

          2. I doubt it

            I wore a Dark Blue suit for 28 years.It was The Royal Navy then
            Edit
            When our Aircraft CarrierS went to sea, the aircraft were from RN Squadrons in the Fleet Air Arm, not ones ‘borrowed’ from the RAF and USN :- a totally disgusting state of affairs

    2. One wonders, where do they get all that fruit salad on the chest when we haven’t had a (significant) war?

      First in the NAAFI queue maybe.

      1. You wouldn’t see the likes of him in the NAAFI. Private dining room and private chef for him.

    3. Link copied and distributed; several recipients are retired teachers.
      Looking out for mushroom shaped clouds over a leafy Colchester suburb.

      1. Tut, tut. Get with the zeitgeist; goal scoring ability is the least of the considerations.

    3. The ‘science’ proves it.

      Another dumbo, well outside any area of expertise he might claim.

  37. Yo All

    A care-home resident and a visitor separated by a screen, put in place to limit the spread of Covid-19

    Credit: Hugh R Hastings /Getty

    It reminds me of countless films, where the scene is a prisoner is being visited

    The the dregs of society, who run this country should be made to abide by the same rules as the apply to us prolesThe
    inmates of these ‘Care’ Homes will have given their working lives to make Britain what it was until a ‘certain politician’ (insert name Blair?)
    started the ruination of this great Nation

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/opinion/2021/07/11/TELEMMGLPICT000257021531_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwekapBZ1c_8650LP5YH00zA.jpeg?imwidth=960

      1. I have removed our Union flags from the front garden (I had three large-ish ones stuck in a large pot by the front door). It was with a heavy heart I plucked them from the container two weeks ago but I honestly felt I could no longer support the present structures and institutions of the Disunited Kingdom by flying our flag. Sadly our once wonderful land and its indigenous people have been viciously betrayed by its leaders and weak minded people. I do not expect to return those flags to their rightful place in my lifetime.

        I should add that I still love the country – the rocks and physical structures – its geomorphology that are the British Isles and its gentle water-colour landscapes. Its man-made structures and many of its people that rest upon it, not at all. I am lost.

        1. We have fallen upon EvilTimes Poppies Mum! We can only console ourselves that we have seen the best of those before and lived in what was once the Crown of a Great Civilisation. It is all ending now and we will be best out of what is to come!

        2. The country I loved was simply given away to a bunch of losers and we are still paying the price.
          I don’t have a country so what is the point of a flag…?

    3. Are you sure it’s ruination and not urination. All the politicians are taking the P1$$.

    4. The trouble is, people will continue to moan about what is happening but will not take any direct action. The fire has been bred out of their bellies. The spirit of Edward I (and III), Elizabeth I, and Winston Churchill (among other notables) has been extinguished.

      1. Good morning Mr Grizz.

        The British Empire has been falling for much more than a century. The last two world wars were our last gasp. It has been a long drop.

        As with the fall of ancient Rome, we have invited the modern version of the Visigoths inside the gates.

        There will be nowhere safe to hide and the world will slip back into barbarism and darkness until a new age of reason arises.

          2. Decadence, debauchery and a clown for leadership.

            It is the Fall of Rome repeating itself.

            The problem we have is that it is an unstoppable force.

            No way to shore it up.

            No way to reverse it.

      2. We have also been deliberately disarmed.
        Now only crooks and police have anything useful readily to hand.

  38. Apparently Sir Richard Branson has been blasted into ‘space’. A first for a multi-millionaire.

    Let us examine that ‘space’. It seems that space starts (according to the Americans) at an altitude of 85,000 feet. That is 85,000 FEET (not miles). 85,000 feet is … 16 miles: the distance between Chesterfield and Worksop.

    OK. Now get a sheet of clean, white, A4 paper, a rule and a pencil. Mark two spots on that paper, 248mm (9½ins) apart. Next mark another spot on that paper just 1mm (less than one-sixteenth inch) from the second spot. The distance between the first two spots is a scaled down representation of the earth’s radius. The 1mm distance is, on the same scale, just how far ‘space’ starts above the earth’s surface.

    Branson was still scratching the earth’s surface. To call his journey a flight into ‘space’ is, frankly, a joke.

    1. All of 15,000 feet higher than Gary Power was flying sixty years ago when the Ruskies shot him down.

    2. Should have saved money and taken a return trip on Concorde, that wax almost 60,000 feet.

  39. Buongiorno e commiserazione.
    However, picking a brain surgeon, an engineer, and a nuclear scientist, to take the last three penalties was maybe not the best idea an England football manager has ever had?

    1. The Government have no shame.

      The next time we have a go at AfGaf our armed forces will be made up of the TransWoke folk. Best of luck, girls.

  41. 335306+ up ticks.

    Has any lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration,( ongoing invasion)
    supporter / voter any idea what, is the topping out number they would be satisfied with in regards to murder of the innocents, paedophile rape & abuse of the nations kids etc,etc,etc before giving their voting choice of vote a serious coating of looking at.

    Dt,
    UK: Albanian Illegal Migrant Jailed for Murdering ‘Loving and Caring’ Father-of-Two

  44. How To Be A Virgin

    A young woman says to her doctor, “Doc, I’m getting married this weekend and my fiancé thinks I’m a virgin. Is there anything you can do to help me?”

    “Medically, not really,” the doctor replies. “But try this: On your wedding night, when you’re getting ready for bed slide a thick rubber band around your upper thigh. When your husband enters you, snap the rubber band and tell your husband it’s your cherry popping.”

    On the wedding night, the new bride undresses in the bathroom and slips the rubber band around her thigh. She and her husband begin to make love. As her husband enters her she snaps the rubber band right on cue.

    “What the hell was that?” the husband asks.

    “That was my cherry snapping,” the bride says.

    “Well, snap it again,” her husband yells. “It’s got my balls.”

    1. Like the bloke who found it hard to enter his girlfriend and had to really ram it in – he said “I’m sorry I didn’t know you were a virgin” She replied “If you hadn’t been in such a hurry I’d have taken my tights off”

    3. Yo NTN

      A disgusting joke…makes sex totally heterosexual, what abowt the LGBTERTGFDFGERS?(sarc)

      1. ‘Afternoon, OLT, the riposte will appear tomorrow at some indeterminate time.

    4. I lost my virginity well before I was married, and after nearly 40 years of married life, I found it again.
      :-((

  45. Bukayo Saka is a teenager who had never taken a penalty – so why was he asked to do it now?
    At the end, a 19 year-old with the ball in his hands and a nation peering over his shoulder felt like a boy being asked to do too much
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/euro-2021/2021/07/12/bukayo-saka-teenager-never-taken-penalty-why-now-euro-2020/

    The MSM and the politicians also put tremendous pressure on that delightful young girl at Wimbledon last week.

    A BTL comment:

    “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”
    [ Galatians 6:7-9 ]

    Race has been rammed down everyone’s throats as a result of the black criminal who has nothing to do with either UK or football. And indeed, white people have been encouraged to feel guilty for being white and guilty for the past.

    It is wrong to criticise these young men because of their ethnicity but it was the politicians and the main stream media who brought up the question of race in the first place. They must take their share of the blame for provoking the inevitable consequent reactions of some white people who have been made to feel ashamed of their very existence.

    1. The sad thing is, that young man is now labelled for the rest of his life. All because of virtue signalling.
      This appears to be wendyball’s equivalent of selling sofas; pure social engineering.

    2. As they are found of saying in criminal trials: “Well, you opened the door”.

  46. Goodwin on top form [I wondered where he’d gone]: Can Britain Survive the Woke Wave? https://unherd.com/2021/07/can-britain-survive-the-woke-wave/

    BTL

    rashant Kotak

    It is a facet of globalisation that not only are there huge flows of people across national boundaries, there are concomitant huge flows of ideas too. And the facilitator of this flow is technology – because it is heedless of human scale notions, not just human superpositions, constructs if you like, such as nation states and national boundaries, but also the ‘constructs’ of nature like physical geography. But there’s something more – technology is shining searchlights on aspects our nature which we never knew existed and would have remained hidden otherwise.

    What I’m trying to convey is that not all of these ideas swirling around about the nature of humanity, that now appears to be influencing humanity, have directly human origins: some of these are generated by the blind watchmaker that is the algorithmic ecosystem. I’m not anthropomorphising, it is not doing so consciously because it is no more conscious than a hurricane or a supernova, and moreover we created it (although it is a moot point how much choice we had in its creation), but nevertheless it is changing us.

    Patrick Taylor

    Comments on these pages often decry inequality of opportunity and income disparity as the two main evils that are fracturing society. But I’d suggest this Woke / Identity politics agenda is a far more pernicious way to separate us.

    Woke ideology is the very antithesis of the principles of universalism – this fixation with identity politics suggests what differentiates us is more important than what we have in common.

    Surely we should treasure more what we share as members of a diverse community rather than seek to silo people and segregate that community into ghettos based on our racial identities, sexual orientation, age, gender or creed?

    How many people ever preface a statement with – “Speaking as a …… ……” unless they believe that belonging to that specific, arbitrary group confers on them special insight, or a ‘right’ to speak, that is denied to those outside the group?

    Identity politics means I can’t “really” understand you, I can’t really empathise with you, I’m not allowed to because I am not a woman, or I am not black, I am not gay, I am not a Muslim. If I think I do understand you, or if I volunteer an opinion, then I’m mansplaining, I’m arrogantly assuming that my opinion is valid even though I don’t have the ‘lived experience’ of suffering abuse by belonging to the right victim group.

    That woke “intersectional pyramid” is a hierarchy of victim status. In fact the entire concept of identity politics – which purports to be about inclusivity and equality – is in reality divisive and intolerant. It silos people and silences people. Identity Politics tells us what groups we belong to and that our whole identity is defined by that group and dependent on that group, this drives a wedge between people who would previously have felt kinship with one another. It is hard to retain solidarity with your community when parts of that community are being taught that it is ‘right’ to mistrust the motives of another.

    Such are the grisly politics of grievance. God help the young. I consider myself supremely fortunate to have grown up before Woke ideologies, “Social justice” activism and Social Media.

    What will eventually defeat this pernicious ideology is that its ideas are manifestly contradictory. To fully support one facet of woke-dom puts you on the wrong side of another facet. If you stand up to support feminist rights you fall foul of trans-rights etc etc

    Given the propensity of id-pol adherents to try and cancel any who dare to challenge their precepts, the whole movement becomes an Ouroboros – the mythical serpent that eats its own tail – though in the case of Guardianistas it would possibly be better to describe a variant on the Ouroboros – as a monster that disappears up its own backside.

    Frankly, for the good of society, it cannot come soon enough.

    tim williams

    The only thing missing from this typically helpful piece by Dr Goodwin is that the crisis of values comes at a time when that other thing holding the UK together over centuries, a sovereign and essentially unitary parliament, has been undermined by devolution to the Celtic nations. Two constitutional devices once made the UK, as was said a ‘parliamentary nation’: a first past the post election system which forced extremists and those of separate cultures into one of two UK wide parties – proportional representation enables extremists to make progress without compromising by staying in separate ideologically pure
    parties – and a centralised political system. Despite taking back control from Brussels, power ceded to Edinburgh and Cardiff (NI is a difficult anomaly) has not been taken back and won’t be. I add: this has been missed but Woke is the Remainer revenge; they have taken back the country from the Gammons via it. How to wrest it back?

    Stephen Rose

    One statistic I don’t see is what proportion of woke progressives want to have children and what percentage of woke progressives are in a mixed race relationship. My own limited observation indicate its low on both counts.

    Sanford Artzen

    Woke = Self Hate

    It really is that easy. Hate of ones Nation, People, Culture, History, and society – and thus ultimately of One’s Self, to complete the pathology of this twisted Ideology.

    But it is an odd hate in how complete it is. The Woke individual is trained to self hate so completely that they then turn it outwards, and so hate all who will not join in the hatred of all which is Western. They hate the West, they hate themselves, and they hate all who do not hate the West.

    Ouroboros like, it engenders such self loathing that it causes one to destroy yourself and Nation in a perpetual self destructive loop – like the old days when ‘The Record’s stuck’ and all it could play was the same line, again and again and again.

    hrafnseyr

    I think you’re definitely onto something there – you’ve helped crystallize my evolving thoughts on the matter, in fact. The self loathing really is the defining feature, but it’s so self conscious… is it in any way genuine? Hard to say. Toxic though: on that I think we can all agree. It reminds me of an algal bloom, reproducing out of control in an unnaturally favorable environment, before finally dying off and taking everything else in its ecosystem with it. Selfish and
    stupid, an ideology for our time.

    David McDowell

    Excellent writing. Worth the subscription.

    Peter LR

    A couple of thoughts: the 18-24 generation is too influenced by the internet and yet to make important life decisions which affect other people (such as raising a family). I have also read that that age group is more easily scammed due to too much trust of the internet.

    There is a huge swathe of Britain who put their trust in practical common sense and who can smell ideology when it tries to inveigle its way into decisions. That’s why these ideological proponents have to resort to threats to livelihoods and social media pile-ons to enforce their dogmas. They are the new aristocratic toffs.

    Land of Hope and Glorious mickey-taking!

    1. Did he *know* they were not the best penalty takers? If so.. why did he choose them?

    1. Goodness Belle we have enough of our own without hearing about it elsewhere! Did you used to live over there?

      1. it’s been boilng over since yesterday vw. There’s the odd reference / snippet on rockspider news which I get as DSTV’s HQ in Joburg. Am hearing over 90% of roads into Joburg blocked, riots kicking off everywhere, hence snippet of info. Rockspider MSM finding it difficult to suppress

      2. My parents emigrated to SA in 1967,with my 2 younger sisters and brother . I was in the UK training to be a nurse , and was expected to join them when I qualified. I decided to stay in the UK.

        Parents died out there , Mum killed in a car crash, she was on her own . Siblings and nephews and nieces are still out there , and consider themselves South Africans

        I lived in Black Africa when I was a child . I had seen enough of Africa , end of colonialism etc .

        I never ever expected Africa to come to me here in Britain.

        I have visited a few times , it is not for me .

        1. Good morning, Maggiebelle

          If white rule was so wrong in Africa why do so many black people living in countries now ruled by black people want to come and live in countries ruled by white people?

          Mind you our suicidal politicians are doing their best to encourage bames to take over the running of politics here!

          1. Maybe that is the answer to the problem of illegal immigration? Get the bames to run everything and the immigrants will not longer want to come!

          2. We’re heading that way, if you look at the Commons. Then you look at those constituencies and realise that there’s something wrong with them.

            I do wonder if it’s Left wingery that’s the real destroyer though. Look at Democrat cities in the US, at communist nations like the Congo. They’re all toilets. London is going the same way.

          4. Post war politicians hadn’t a clue , and in particular the narrow minded Labour party , who forgot about supporting their own working classes .

            If British politicians had had experience of colonial Africa , and the wealth those countries contributed to their own economy pre Independence days , we wouldn’t be importing fractious folk now!

          5. Money money money. Welfare, hand outs, free healthcare. The river of other people’s money given to wasters is endless.

          6. And how many Muslims in Britain would prefer to emigrate to Muslim countries?

          7. There’s no point in that for them, Rastus. They move to Christian countries to destroy Christianity and make them submit. In this appalling task they are aided and abetted by the government and the CofE.

  49. Good morning all.

    Well. What a fiasco, all caused by Gareth Southgate. The substitutions should have been made much earlier to give the new players time to get into the game. And those chosen to take the penalties should have been all the seasoned players who had done it before.

    Jordan pickford made two amazing saves to keep us in the game but those penalties … even I, a non footballer, could see where the players were going to shoot. A monumental mistake by Southgate. Perhaps his inexperience? Or BLM nonsense.

    1. BLM nonsense.. and a chance to soothe the cry babies .

      Thank goodness we had proper blokes in those days ,, who were paid a pittance .

      THE England team together earn more than £1m a week from club football. They are paid for their international appearances but the FA refuses to say how much.

      However, some time ago, an official let slip the fact they earn ‘a substantial four-figure sum, and they get all their expenses as well,’ each time they turn out for Queen and country.

      If on July 9 in Berlin they manage to repeat the success of 40 years ago, they will each be paid a bonus of around £300,000. The 22 members of the England 1966 squad who beat the Germans at Wembley each received a bonus of £1,000.

      Just how the money was divided up was recalled by Nobby Stiles, a member of the winning England team: ‘We had made a unanimous decision to split our winning bonus equally among the squad, irrespective of who had actually played.

      ‘That great man, the late Bobby Moore, our captain, knew us well enough to take an instant decision. Sir Alf had gathered us all together and said, ‘Gentlemen, we have something to discuss. You have been awarded a bonus of £22,000 to be shared between you. One way of doing it would be everyone to have a basic £500, with extra money for appearances.

      ‘Without a moment’s hesitation, our captain stood up and said: ‘No, boss, it will be £1,000 each. We were in all this together and that’s how it will stay’.’

      • Until the late Fifties, English footballers could earn no more than £20 a week, no matter how good they were. That is equivalent to £281 today. If they had been paid the equivalent of today’s Premiership stars, rather than £20, they would have earned £7,000 a week.

      1. Stanley Matthews, widely regarded as the most skilful English player ever, would catch the ‘bus to and from the match each week.

      2. That imbecile woman Shirley WIlliams said that the way to get better people into politics was to pay them more. Look at how very wrong she was – the quality of politicians now that they are so well paid has never been so low.

        And the same could be said of footballers.

        1. The way to get better people into politics is to remove universal franchise and to impose referism, recall and direct democracy on the servants hired.

      3. If on July 9 in Berlin they manage to repeat the success of 40 years ago…

        That was the 2006 World Cup. They’ll be earning even more today.

    2. Given that at the moment, every single thing is back to front in this country, the process is either inept or so completely stupid that no one sane would believe it, so the solution appears to be to make everyone mad, then normalise the insane.

    1. I visited the Continent on many occasions before we joined the so-called Common Market, never had a problem.

      Now, it may well be the case that customs and immigration officials over there are under instruction to punish the Brits for leaving the club – one thinks of lorries, ham sandwiches and the Dutch. If this is true, I think a little retaliation is called for, not belly-aching.

      1. Not to mention the people with properties in Spain who were refused entry a couple of months ago.

        1. But, but – they had been clearly told by the Spanish authorities that they would definitely need a new identity document (to replace their former UE citizen ones).

          They decided the rules would not be applied and ignored them. Refusal of entry was the result. I have no sympathy for them at all.

          2. We must agree to differ. The Spanish and French Govts had made it crystal clear that UK residents would need new residence permits. The rules were clear and well publicised. The idiots to whom you refer applied the (all too familiar) “I’m British the rules don’t apply to me” approach and paid the penalty.

            If you live in a foreign country – you need to abide by the rules. It is a GREAT pity that HMG did not apply the same, very sensible, approach to EU people who live in the UK. They have been given lots of time and plenty of warning but many are still ignoring the rules.
            Well, tough if they are deported.

          5. Ah, but that would have been “racist”, “bigoted” and “discriminatory” (rather than just plain sensible).

          6. Same here in Norway, Bill.
            Brits needed to apply for residency under a different scheme other than the EU Resident scheme. We also have to get an identity card. My family have permanent residency outwith the EU scheme, so we’re not affected.

          7. Are you going to stay there for always? I assume your sons are bilingual and regard themselves as Weegies.

          8. We’ll stay, we think. Haven’t found a better place to live.
            Both boys are bilingual; Firstborn is still some form of English, but Second Son is mostly Weegie. He’s never lived anywhere else.

          9. Recall that now the application to stay deadline has passed, a load of Euros will have to return home as they couldn’t be arsed to do as requested.

          10. The residence permit is not a passport and mine, that I had in Spain, would only expire if it wasn’t renewed after 5 years (mine hasn’t been).

          13. Only up to a point, Conwy. HMG will NEVER deport illegal, black, slammer invaders. Far too risky….

            But they are quite likely to deport hard-working, tax-paying, white, Christian Western Europeans (especially those married to Brits, and who have children born in the UK) – who, because they are decent people, will go.

          14. Just look at the ethnicity of those who work in Passport Office, National Inurance number allocaters, and other relevant bodies.

          15. Well I only know what I read in the MSM – so they only give half the story as usual.

          16. ‘Morning, Bill, my passport, issued in 2018 is valid until 2028 even though it’s an EU Passport.

            So the EU will not recognise it’s own Passports?

          17. It is NOT an EU passport, Tom. It is a British passport issued by the British government agency.

            It merely has the stupid words “Europiss Union” on the cover. Meaningless. And the UK gvt cowtowed by calling us “British Citizens” instead of what we really are, “British Subjects” of Her Majesty.

      2. Couldn’t agree more, Joe. Special slow queues for ALL non-UK arrivals.

        Whatever the EUSSR does to punish, trade and negotiation-wise – we double it.

      3. In 1966 I was living in France (probably why England won the footy), in 1970 I did the Grand Tour (Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Belgium) in my clapped out old Mini. No problemo (apart from the dynamo deciding to go U/S when going over the Arlberg Pass and the number of Umleitung and Baustelle obstacles due to the impending Munich Olympics).

        1. My old Mini’s generator had a commutator like a milling machine. In the end, I was fitting new brushes every 2 weeks or so, as the old ones were machined away. Got to be pretty good at it, too, used to take 10 minutes from opening the toolbox to washing hands.

    2. What an utter crock that article is – although I wouldn’t expect anything different from “The New European”.

      1. No – Google popped it up on my phone and I didn’t manage to paste it from there – but I thought you’d all enjoy it.

      2. Yup, from start to finish. Typical of the selfish, immature, spoiled and lazy Left wing incompetents soaking up tax payers money, never producing anything of value.

        We’ve left. They’ve lost. The next steps are to hammer them repeatedly with Britain’s success outside the hated EU.

    3. Good day, Jules. Tried post a comment replying to ‘Monsieur’ Alain Catzeflis’s diatribe against Brexit only to see this message:.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/86bf644ec6bd7726f550015fcb9a2dbfbe5557a71bdd567704e674547643acbe.png

      Ochòin! …….. Can’t even remember what I posted to warrant such a ban or when I posted it. Sadly, this means that M. Catzeflis will be unable to view my pertinent and sagacious riposte to his Remoaner whinge. Still, never mind ….. “C’est sa perte”, as they say in the Cévennes.
      ;¬)

      4. Oh, you naughty chap, Duncan! Lovely to see you, and it isn’t even Thursday!

      7. You haven’t been having a pop at the England football team have you Duncan 😉🤩😃

    4. Alain Catzeflis was born in Cairo. His mother was Polish, his father French/Greek/Italian. He was on the Financial Times for 23 years and before that on the Daily Express. ( aka Alain Cass) He covered the events in Northern Ireland & the 1973 October Middle East war. He was the FT’s News Editor from 1989-1995. He pioneered the paper’s investigative reporting which won a number of awards. After he retired he learnt to fly (at 60) and circumnavigated Africa in a single-engine Piper. Alain speaks a handful of languages. He lives in the Chilterns with his wife and Catalan sheepdog. He has 9 world-class grandchildren. This site is dedicated to them.

      https://www.theconstantreporter.com/

      Just an ordinary, everyday Briton then…

        1. Indeed. Many people who cling to the EU are rootless. They have no connection with the land or the country.

      3. And as if to reinforce his European credentials, he has a Catalan sheepdog, instead of a proper British breed of sheepdog.

        Typical of a Polak/Frog/Bubble/Wop like Catzeflis!

      4. He has “world class” grandchildren? World class in what respect – whingers, remoaners, hangers on?

  52. No need to worry, while England was busy losing yesterday another 230 future England penalty takers were arriving in Dover.

  53. Among other things, during this weird twilight period (Götterdammerung”?), I have been catching up on my ‘History Today’ reading. A section from an article about the Black Death caught my attention. And this was for something a little more serious than a common cold mutation.

    “The threat to the parish during the Black Death was real; drastic measures and emergency legislation were implemented to ensure that churches remained open, funded and staffed at a time when people needed them most.”

    1. Anne, Covid was created and spread by a communist country not known for favouring Christianity.

      1. Course it was.That’ll be why patents were taken out in the US years ago for a similar disease.

        1. Gareth doesn’t do passion! He wears a waistcoat and knitted tie, for goodness sake!!

          1. I thought he’d ditched the waistcoat.

            He made a serious error with his choice of penalty – takers – let down the team which had played for the whole match.

        2. Gareth doesn’t do passion! He wears a waistcoat and knitted tie, for goodness sake!!

    3. Southgate is taking full responsibility for the choice of penalty takers and the order in which he played them.

      Apparently they were the best in practice. If so, I suggest that the rest must have been absolutely dreadful.

      Perhaps the selection should have been given to the three goalkeepers in the squad. Presumably they would have the most relevant opinions as to the qualities of the potential heroes/losers as penalty takers.

    4. A good reason for banning England from future competitions for showing lack of respect?

    5. That seemed to have caught on a few years ago. Ask any other team or an Olympic athlete if they would be happy with a silver medal and they’d bite your arm off.
      I suppose EC runner up doesn’t attract as many sports shoe advertising deals

  55. Afternoon all I’ve been chatting to my mate Brucie in Oz this morning. They recently have had many problems with very wet weather and high winds in parts of Victoria, lots of trees down including one leaning again st there holiday accommodation on lovely Philip island, plenty of fire wood for next winter. Chain saws and mulchers in full use.
    I suspect many have mentioned the yet another Football penalty fiasco this morning and how the BBC are hell bent on making some sort of massive BS contentious issue about racism in football.
    Perhaps the simple answer is the penalty takers were promoted above their ability station, that’s the most obvious answer, not al the BS the BBC have been ranting about all morning.
    But why super hero Sterling was lined up to take part is more than a bit of a mystery.
    And I hope the unusually elderly ref is appreciating his latest retirement package after he determinably ignored the play acting Italians rolling around in abject agony obvious and very serious fouls on the England players and did not issue two red cards. I trust his new ‘holiday villa’ on the Amalfi coast will be suitable.

    1. I doubt that this particular referee was corrupted, certainly not by money. It’s alleged he’s a multi millionaire from his business interests, refereeing is merely a hobby.

      1. I thought that for most of the game he tended to favour his decisions toward the English players

        1. I thought he was well balanced in his decisions. He was following the laws; if the laws are wrong it’s not the referees’ fault, the blatant shirt tug being a case in point.

          1. Not much common sense employed there!
            Sorry sos! Bad grammar employed there! I meant the ref was lacking common sense!

          2. It didn’t prevent a clear cut scoring opportunity so the yellow card was his only recourse.

            Daft? Yes. But that’s how it is.

      2. Even millionaires have their price Sos. Of course he may have just ignored the blatant fouls out of mischief.

          1. I think there needs to be a rule change in that if a player goes down and rolls around they should be removed from the pitch and made to stay off for 5 minutes. The time players spend rolling around in fake agony is added on as extra time, this should be stopped. At least Harry Kane gets up and gets on with the game. 😉

          2. I agree.
            I would also introduce a similar law for professional fouls. Like rugby, first yellow card gets ten minutes in the bin the second gets one sent off.

            And I would also adopt a similar approach to the divers, diverse or otherwise.

          4. Nope, rewrite the rules because the current rules aren’t conducive to a good game (and I don’t even like football).

    2. Our woke Canadian media are leading the news with stories of a racist backlash against the English team.

      There again they would find racism anywhere.

        1. I’ve hedged my bets with Oscar; he’s mainly white, but with diverse black and tan bits 🙂

          2. Like the guy in Birmingham who got a terrier that was mainly black and brown with a few, tiny, white spots – He called it Bradford!

    3. The ref is a millionaire many times over.
      He runs his own successful business.
      Sorry to burst your bubble.

      1. “You will hear everlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man.” GK Chesterton

        1. Tomorrow’s headline..
          “Referee was bribed..Horace Pendleton has proof!”

  56. Why should I…. WHY SHOULD I FEEL SORRY for a teenager, paid £100K a week to do job, who fails to do the job he is paid to do???

    1. Absolutely.
      If an electrician burned a persons home down because of an inability to carry out the job properly they would be out of work. But all the footballers will still be in their jobs cashing in on their inabilities, at 100k per week.

      1. And so will the idiot, virtue signalling, failure of a manager! Can you imagine what sort of moron tells the bozo that, no matter what the outcome of the campaign, he will still have the job? How bluddy inspiring is that? What incentive does that provide apart from the political gamble he took with three black youngsters?

      2. Ahem…most software developers get paid to fix the bugs that they themselves created.
        Sometimes the money for fixing the bugs is higher than the original development cost, but the employer is still always pathetically grateful.

        Yesterday, I was the guru, who fixed the broken build, extraordinarily quickly, in code that nobody who was in work yesterday understands.
        My secret? I recognised immediately a knock-on effect that had arisen from a mistake I made last week!

        (NB: Our daily build system ensures that such bugs are caught early, which is always cheaper to fix than if they are caught six months later when you’ve forgotten what you did. We do have some quality standards!)

    2. They fall over a lot and they burst into tears.

      The only way to deal with Toddlers is a clonk athwart the ear…

      Good afternoon, Stormy.

      1. Footballers should be paid less than nurses because they are less important

        1. Who defines what is important, though?

          This is why we let the market define value.

    3. The only reason he and others like him can demand ‘compensation’ of £100,000 per week is because tens of thousands of people are prepared to pay extraordinary amounts of money to go and watch them kick a ball around for 90 minutes or else subscribe a ridiculous amount to sports channels so they can watch on TV. Some of us are more sensible and spend the same ridiculous amounts to go boating! 😉

      3. ‘Afternoon, Stephen, it ain’t sport, it’s business and the mugs who pay, don’t realise it, ‘cos it’s now tribal.

    1. Perhaps if falling over board, the sea is much kinder to minority black people.

      1. I have been preparing my camper in the hopes of getting at least one night away this year (I did 87 miles in total last year) and, although it goes against the grain, I had to throw away pasta meals and sauces that were a year out of date. A few months I’ll risk, but nearly 18 months was a bit too much of a stretch 🙁

        1. My father was in the Danish marines in WWII – at one stage they were in a cave where nobody had been since WWI. They found a tin of meatballs from WWI, opened it and ate them. No problem in eating or afterwards.

          1. If these had been in tins I wouldn’t have hesitated. Unfortunately, they were in modern packaging – foil sachets and plastic tubs.

        2. My father was in the Danish marines in WWII – at one stage they were in a cave where nobody had been since WWI. They found a tin of meatballs from WWI, opened it and ate them. No problem in eating or afterwards.

        3. I try to use them in rotation (ie oldest first) but don’t worry about dates – they are always ok. If it smells ok it is ok.

  59. If “Freedom Day looks perilous to many of lockdown’s ignored shielders” it’s because the media have been relentless in their message of doom and gloom. The C19 testing station has been moved to the north of the county now and the message seems to be “get tested even if you haven’t got any symptoms”. My thoughts are, “of course; we need more false positives because the numbers aren’t scary enough”. I am well and truly done. There’s an article in my local rag about how Bojo is claiming we need to be careful (ie not be released at all) when (more likely if) Freedom Day ever comes. Getting free of Covid will be like getting free of the EU; it will happen in name only.

    Edit – where are my manners? I should have said good afternoon to everyone!

    1. 335306+ up ticks,
      Afternoon C,
      Getting free of Covid will be like getting free of the EU; it will happen in name only.

      Orchestrated by the very same politico’s.

      1. Yes. However convincing our victory is, they will retire back into the shadows, regroup and come back stronger. Most people will happily forget the threat when the urgency recedes.

        1. 335324+ up ticks,
          Morning BB2
          Most people ( the electorate ) WILL forget on account of the ersatz parties “good name” the three monkeys RULE OK.

    2. What BoJo is doing is like the teacher who punishes the whole form for one or two miscreants: get the rest to put pressure on them.

      1. The only pressure they’ll get from me is to ditch all the restrictions. #I’m done.

    3. Our local testing station at the Leisure Centre was moved from the top car park where it was out of sight and out of mind, to the bottom car park where anyone going to the LC has to pass it. The last few weeks I’ve passed it every Saturday. Never have I noticed any customers, just lots of staff cars, people wandering about, smoking, and lots of huts with NHS signs on.

      The mentality of people with no symptoms getting tested volunarily escapes me.

  60. 335306+ up ticks,
    breitbart,

    ‘Epidemic of Loneliness’: One-Fifth of UK Under-35s Have Just One or No Close Friends,

    So it is coming to pass that the divide & conquer campaign will play a major part in the great reset, 4/5s to go, work in progress if the political instigators are given carte blanche via the polling booth, or even if they are not.

    A good deal of the great reset really does come across as rape & abuse ( paedophillic fear element both physical / mentally) catch them early, re-educate,remould, replace.

    The great reset where odious issues become the norm, but the political purveyors do like a facade of decency, hence the polling booth.

    They can fool many of the peoples most of the time ………..

        1. Nor would they have coped with the Blitz or rationing. They even think today’s abundance is “austerity”!

  61. Good afternoon, all!

    Another excellent and succint piece from Independence Daily, which welcomes us ordinary individuals to write.

    GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE – A FEW FACTS
    Written by Peter Kirby

    I have been studying climate change for twelve years by reading books on the subject (I have over thirty) and researching scientific papers available on the internet. There is much to say, but put as briefly as possible I have come to the following conclusions.

    Climate change is a natural function principally caused by the sun and other factors which are terrestrial, galactic, and cosmic. These influences are very powerful. The climate has changed in the past, is changing now, and will change in the future. Those seeking to stop the changes are trying to stop the unstoppable. The policies which have been introduced to achieve this are very harmful to the economy, and the scary forecasts based on computer models are exaggerated. Models are not evidence and too much real evidence has been ignored by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which consists of politicians who write the Executive Summary for Decision Makers. Many of the panel’s own scientists have publicly disagreed with the summaries. They have been sacked or ignored.

    I believe it is necessary for the Climate Change Act 2008 to be repealed so that an enquiry can establish what is likely to happen by examination of real historical evidence, and then embark on a programme of mitigation where the effects are likely to cause economic disbenefits, adaptation where necessary, and development when the effects are beneficial.

    Much is made of the claim that ‘the science is settled’. This ignores the powerful forces referred to above. Science is never settled, it merely establishes hypotheses which stand until a future scientist proves them wrong. Science must be established on the principle of the scientific method using real evidence, not models, from which to draw conclusions taking account of the forces mentioned above. No laboratory experiment has ever proved that CO2 dangerously warms the atmosphere.

    Those politicians and scientists who promote the hypothesis that carbon dioxide and methane emitted into the atmosphere are causing catastrophic global warming ignore the recent history of global temperature. From 1890 to 1916 the global temperature was falling slightly; from 1916 to 1940 it was rising slightly; from 1940 to 1975 it was falling slightly; from 1975 to1998 it was rising slightly; and from 1998 to 2020 there has been no statistically significant change.

    Also two fundamental facts have been ignored. The first is that the capacity of those gases (carbon dioxide, and methane) to warm the atmosphere is logarithmically reducing. This means that as more and more CO2 gets into the atmosphere the extra gas has less and less effect and we are already at a point where additional CO2 will have only a very small effect. The second fact is that today CO2 forms only four molecules in every 10,000 molecules of atmosphere. In the last 70 years it has increased by one molecule in 10,000. Yes, that is indisputable. I ask the question:- can a change in the nature of one molecule in 10,000 cause catastrophic global warming? I am forced to the answer NO! CO2 can warm the atmosphere a little, but not much. In the case of methane there is less than two molecules in 1,000,000 molecules of atmosphere. This is also indisputable. The principal gas which warms the atmosphere is water vapour the volume of which in the atmosphere is beyond the control of mankind.

    To reduce the cause of modern climate change to only one variable, CO2 which forms 00.04% of the atmosphere, and to a small proportion of that variable (i.e. manmade CO2), is not science. It is pseudo science. The real empirical evidence shown by the present lack of sunspots is leading many scientists to the view that a cold spell is imminent.

    In view of the worldwide and UK misallocation of resources I believe that a rational consideration of the factors involved is long overdue, natural climate change must be taken account of, the true purpose of the IPCC CO2 reduction campaign must be publicised, and the Climate Change Act 2008 and subsequent legislation must be repealed.

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/global-warming-and-climate-change-a-few-facts/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=INDEPENDENCE+Daily+Newsletter1

    1. Articles such as Kirby’s are ignored by the PTB because it doesn’t suit their great reset agenda.

      Good afternoon your Ladyshipness.

    2. I wish the new leaderine of our county council would take this on board. She’s fully signed up to the climate change “emergency” and sending us back to the dark ages to try to stop a natural phenomenon.

    3. One day, those who totally believe that “Climate Change” is man, oops Personmade will realise that the Earth is Not Flat

      1. Apropos of this, here is a copy of the letter I have sent:

        I write as a UK citizen, concerned about the direction that you, your cabinet and the latest Mrs Johnson seem hell-bent upon taking us on, with your spurious concerns about climate change.

        I have enclosed a treatise by a Peter Kirby, Guest Author at Independence Daily on the subject which entirely debunks the theory of man-made climate change.

        This is just one article of many that identifies what most of us, with any form of good sense, already understand – climate change is an ongoing and repeatable phenomenon that we mere mortals can do nothing to change, alter or stop.

        Please take note of his conclusions and act accordingly or, when you are finally out of office, the consequences of your actions will undoubtedly come back to bite you, if only to ruin any reputation you might have accrued during your parliamentary lifetime.

        Most sincerely

        XXXXXXXXX

        Encl. GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE – A FEW FACTS

        1. It will only work if you can pay him more than the Gates/Soros/Rockerfeller cabal.

          Boris whoring himself out to the highest bidder.

  63. BTL Comment:

    Looney
    30 minutes ago

    … England dropped ball in the penalty lottery, again!

    Boris Johnson is about to accuse Putin of deflating the football, infecting it with COVID, and poisoning it with Novichok, Polonium, and Ransomware.

    Looney

  65. You take a football; you place it on a white painted spot that is just 36 feet from a large target of an area measuring 24 feet by 8 feet. You then remind yourself that you are getting paid one third of a million pounds … every week … for not missing that simple target.

    1. Its the White Spot its racist & stinks of colonialism, when the LAME BAME footballers see the White Spot they can’t think of anything but kicking the ball away from the net to avenge the grievances of all the Kunte Kintes & George Floyd’s !

    4. But not every player in every team, Grizz. It’s a surprise how many good players are poor penalty-takers.

    1. The mind positively boggles. Especially since the creature who placed that there is supposed to be a member of an emergency service.

      I’ve met a few firemen in my time and I wouldn’t trust most of them to boil a kettle without burning the water!

      1. They needed to be fit. Well trained and follow procedure. They didn’t need to be a brainbox.

        Now, they don’t need to pass a fitness test. Just a critical theory test.

        1. I hold firemen in the same regard as I do social ‘workers’. I’ve met a good number of them too and it is clear they are neither from this planet nor Fuller’s Earth!

  69. All the guilty men – and all of them received dog’s abuse for it. Only since about 2006/07 has the internet exaggerated it.

    1990 WC – Stuart Pearce, Chris Waddle
    1996 EC – you-know-who
    1998 WC – Paul Ince, David Batty
    2004 EC – David Beckham, Darius Vassell
    2006 WC – Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher
    2012 EC – Ashley Young, Ashley Cole

      1. The bit I don’t get is that he complains about Nissan, yet ignores the bribe Ford took to move van manufacturing to Turkey.

        I get it, he is frightened and scared and thinks the EU matters. In reality, he’s ignoring reality because it doesn’t suit his argument. That’s fine, but immature.

      2. I managed 1 minute and 28 excruciating seconds.

        The man is an absolute buffoon, akin only to the bumbling buffoon, currently inhabiting 10 Downing Street.

        My tolerance to date has now become intolerable.

  71. A late thought about Wimbledon: some of the porkers who were line judges would benefit from changing places with the ball-boys.

    2. What does Douglas Murray make of this?

      This is yet another betrayal by probably the most dishonest and dishonourable government in our history.

  73. Poor Football Players

    This afternoon I received an email request from three people on Change.org (Shaista Aziz, Amna Abdullatif and Huda Jiwad* – sound like good English names) asking me to sign a petition asking the FA to ban for life those spectators who abused the three ‘poor’ England players after they missed their penalties. I declined, especially when I did a little digging on the Internet and read the following:

    How much will Italy and England earn in total?
    Having made their way to the Euro 2020 final, both England and Italy will pocket the most amount of prize money having accumulated earnings at each stage of the competition.

    The Azzurri (the Blues) won all three of their group stage games en route to the title meaning they will walk away with an incredible €34 million in prize money.

    England, meanwhile, won two and drew one of their group matches, meaning they depart as runners-up with a grand sum of €29.75 million.

    How much prize money do the players get?
    According to The Athletic, players are set to be handed a 40 per cent cut of whatever their team earns at Euro 2020.

    This sum will be distributed in the form of bonuses with most players also paid a small fee for each appearance they make.

    With Italy’s win, their 26 players could each potentially now pocket around €500,000 in bonuses.

    So much for the ‘poor’ England players.

    * PS these three call themselves #TheThreeHijabis on Twitter – bit of a giveaway. I Googled their names; you can do the same.

    2. The England players stated they were going to donate their bonuses to NHS charities.

      It must be nice to be able to give away what many people might be lucky to take home in pay over 25 years.

      1. I believe they get a bonus of £2,000 each ‘appearance money’ for each round. I think it more likely that THAT is what will be donated, but I could be wrong.

  74. Mongo would like to tell everyone that he is the sire of a litter of 7 healthy puppies. The news came from the owner of Katy – also a Newfie when she took her to the vets to check for just that.

    Marion – who ‘introduced’ the dogs – said he was a perfect gentleman, patient and calm and put up with the more aggressive and louder female until he was invited.

    This’ll be Mongo’s second litter. The first time around he was a superb Dad and incredibly protective of both mother and puppies but this time I think the owner of Katy won’t want him about, which is a shame.

  75. Good afternoon all
    Not been around a lot recently as seem to have been inundated with bowls club stuff.
    Anyway, we’ve just watched episode one of four of Rise of the Continents on BBC2, yes I know it’s BBC, about Africa. I think the other three episodes are on this week and we’re recording them.
    Worth a look.

    2. Hello Alf

      We watched that , we had a good dog walk earlier , and the rain has moved on now, wahing on line dry and there is some heat in the sun.

      We sat down for a late light lunch , a home made cheese and tomato roll each and a cup of tea and marvelled at the splendour of the Rift Valley on the TV

      I then rang my brothen,in law and sister who live on the edge of the Kruger park because we had heard about the chaos being created by vandals and protesters who are doing horrible things out there , all in the name of the crook Zuma .

      Black townships who have super duper shopping malls , run by blacks are being wrecked by looters , black on black crime again , buses trains and taxis and lorries carrying goods have been targetted , and the police are incapable of restoring law and order !

      Sounds like Croydon a few years ago !

          1. When Greece was having a spot of debt troubles a couple of years ago:

            “This could be a major piece of chicanery
            This could be
            … syst-o-matic
            …hydro-matic…
            …ultro-matic…
            Why, it could be…Greece Tight’nin’!
            (Greece Tight’nin’)
            We’ll get some overheads lifted and four barrel quants, oh yeah
            (Keep taking. Oh, keep taking!)
            Fuel supplies cutoff and chrome plated rods, oh yeah
            (Now get ready; EU’ll kill to get it ready!)
            With GDP on the floor & bailiffs waiting at the door.
            You know without a doubt EU’ll be really making out
            In Greece Tightnin’.

      1. Hi Ndovu!

        It has been too long! Unfortunately we have not been in that part of the country since we met.

        1. We haven’t been anywhere recently either – good job we have this little group to chat with!

      1. I used to nickname one of my dogs (whose name originally was Jasper) Jasper Grasper-Sandwich, but it was actually Charlie (nickname Charlie Farley) who actually managed to swipe sandwiches off a table en passant without breaking step.

      1. My place initially…Just to make sure they were well oiled………..Then Lauro’s Brasserie Fareham. Best Chef in town. Larry has been one of the chefs in the background for the Roux Scholarships.

    2. You were not kidding! It is splendid! Nor should one overlook that the wearer needs to be able to carry it off!

  85. The last 3 penalty takers chosen by Gareth Southgate were Black . . .a cunning plan that back-fired?
    England were supposed to have been saved by the heroic efforts of those last 3 – and result in England winning which would, no doubt be put down to the BLM “rescuing” England

    3. All the media attention is on the 3 black players , but what about the white players who contributed such alot to the game, especially that young goalkeeper ?

    5. I can’t help thinking there may be an element of truth in that and it blew up in their faces.

      Pickford has a pretty good record in saving penalties.
      I actually feel sorry for the young players involved. The least Southgate might have done was interspersed them with the likely “bankers”.

    6. Southgate allowed his Social Warrior tendencies to overwhelm his football sense!

      1. I think he knew that would happen and it would give him another opportunity to caress them and sniff their hair.

      1. Belting down , must have had inches , because the outdoor water bowl for the dogs is overflowing , really black and dark here , stair rods , incredible weather even , feels like the English Channel is dumping on us .

        Moh is somewhere on the golf course … wearing his shorts !!!!!!!

        1. feels like the English Channel is dumping on us .

          Wasn’t Southern Water fined recently for releasing untreated sewage into the sea in those parts? Better rewash everything.

          2. Originally SW tried to say it was because of overflow after storms. They were caught out. We have had Cryptosporidium twice in our water drinking water in the last 10 years.

            Then they expect us to pay for it.

        2. “Moh is somewhere on the golf course … wearing his shorts !!!!!!!”

          Ho Ho Ho…. :@)

          Nottler’s revenge !

      1. Warm here as well , my dogs don’t like the thunder . The big plastic washing up bowl that the dogs drink from outside is overflowing .

  89. A significant minority of British people revel in authoritarianism for its own sake

    Polls suggest people are indifferent to freedoms they happen not to want to exercise themselves

    DANIEL HANNAN • 10 July 2021 • 6:00pm

    What the hell is wrong with you people? Twenty-six per cent of you want nightclubs and casinos closed permanently, virus or no virus. Thirty-five per cent of you feel the same way about quarantining travellers and 40 per cent about mandatory facemasks. Incredibly, 19 per cent of you want a nightly curfew – to repeat, not as a response to Covid-19, but as a general principle.

    I wish I could blame someone for these figures. I’d love to be able to point the finger at SAGE or at the BBC or at the Cabinet – or even at that prize ass Piers Morgan, who seems quite happy to enjoy foreign holidays and attend mass events while railing hysterically against any loosening of the rules. But let’s not deceive ourselves. A significant minority in Britain revels in authoritarianism for its own sake.

    Those who crave normality might find the figures hard to credit. The anti-lockdown demonstrators I occasionally pass in Westminster aim their placards and chants largely at the PM and his scientific advisers. It is doubtless comforting to imagine that prohibitions have been foisted on an unwilling nation. But the truth is that every easing of the restrictions was pushed through in the teeth of popular resistance.

    Ninety-three per cent of people backed the first lockdown, and 85 per cent the second. Then came the vaccination rollout, the thing we had all supposedly been waiting for – and it made barely any difference to public opinion. When the “cautious but irreversible” timetable was abandoned, and the 21 June reopening postponed, 71 per cent approved.

    That slight decline in the figures is something, I suppose. As the initial panic wore off, a few people began to understand that trade-offs would be needed. But we few, we despairing few, were hard to find beyond the Telegraph’s comment pages. If, like me, you struggle to reconcile the opinion polls with the views of your friends, consider that you might be living in a bubble. The most extreme lockdowners are, by definition, the people you are least likely to meet, because they are, you know, locked down. Even as vaccines break the link between infections and serious illness, they remain “cabin’d, cribb’d, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears”.

    I have learned some hard truths about my country these past 15 months. I used to imagine that we would reflexively favour liberty. Sure, we would be open to persuasion, ready to accept proportionate restrictions if they were justified by the evidence. But our default assumption would be that, as freeborn Brits, we should be able to go where we pleased without needing to explain ourselves to anyone.

    Boy, did I get that wrong. The epidemic brought out our most petty, priggish and puritan tendencies. True, it also brought out our kindness, compassion and community spirit. But these things are often two sides of the same coin. Psychologists have long known that wars, earthquakes and natural disasters give people a sense of purpose and solidarity that can be extremely pleasurable, but that that brain chemistry also makes them intolerant of any behaviour judged to be eccentric or nonconformist.

    Other countries, at least to some extent, experienced the same psychological shift. The world over, restrictions were popular, and people preferred safety to freedom. But a visitor from another planet, judging by the texture of daily life, would surely conclude that Britain was a more repressive society than Russia or China, where restaurants remained open and people were free to work and travel. It was here, in the land of Magna Carta and Hampden, the land of Wilkes and liberty, that we took the most egregious pleasure in telling others what to do.

    This isn’t chiefly about the coronavirus any more, if ever it was. I happen to believe that we could have managed with lighter, Swedish-style restrictions. Sweden’s healthcare system was not overwhelmed – the sole official justification throughout, remember – and infections there peaked and declined in line with most of Europe. But I might be wrong: plenty of clever people disagree with me.

    The fiercest row now, though, concerns the most marginal measure, namely the wearing of facemasks. The evidence here was always patchy, which is why both sides can cherry-pick their studies. Most medical authorities, including SAGE and the WHO, frankly admit that the case is finely balanced. Initially, their advice was not to wear them. It later changed, less because of new evidence than because of a sense that every little helped. If masks reduced transmission, it was a bonus; and if they didn’t, well, wearing them was no great hardship compared to other lockdown restrictions. I bought that logic. But the hysterical tone now taken by both sides on the issue tells me that we are in a culture war that has become
    decoupled from the science.

    No, this is about freedom, pure and simple. I understand why people enjoyed aspects of the lockdown. Who wouldn’t rather play with the kids than board a commuter train? But – do I really need to spell this out? – the essence of a lockdown is that it is coercive. It doesn’t allow you to make different choices. It obliges you. You were always able to forego a foreign holiday in exchange for working shorter hours. The lockdown is about whether you get to impose your preferences on everyone else.

    Look again at the figures I quoted at the start. What they tell us is that people are indifferent to freedoms that they happen not to want to exercise themselves. If they don’t go to nightclubs, they are happy to see nightclubs closed. If they don’t fly abroad, why should anyone else?

    The readiness with which people slide from “I don’t like X” to “X should be banned” is terrifying. Obviously, we all have our own X. For some it might be pistol-shooting, for others cannabis, for others pornography or fox-hunting or casinos. Yet an open society depends on our willingness to stand up for the rights of people we don’t particularly care for. By that measure, we have already ceased to be a free country, whatever the law eventually says.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/10/dont-just-accept-authoritarianism-demand/

    “…a visitor from another planet…would surely conclude that Britain was a more repressive society than Russia or China…”

    He might also conclude that, prior to Covid, no one ever died of anything but old age, malice or misadventure, the precautionary principle having been taken to its extreme.

          1. The only thing certain in UK about the word “Life” is that it will not describe how long
            murdering terrorists stay in prison for after being sentenced to it.

            It does cover though, how long our servicemen will be persued and persecuted for doing their jobs in Northern Ireland

    2. What people mostly want are Good Masters. Freedom is an onerous business. It requires the taking on of responsibility. It favours those of an adventurous spirit.

        2. ….. and what does MR say about that Bill?

          or does being a schoolteacher count……

      2. Most of us would like to see good manners. I write this as the couple living above me play some kind of Eastern European music at full blast.

  90. Sydney sees record Covid infection numbers as lockdown fails to curb virus spread. 12 July 2021.

    The prospect of an extended lockdown in Sydney loomed on Monday as Australian health officials reported yet another record daily rise in Covid cases for the year, fuelled by the highly infectious Delta variant.

    New South Wales state reported 112 new locally transmitted Covid cases, almost all in Sydney, despite the country’s biggest city entering its third week of lockdown. Case numbers have been at record levels for at least three days.

    Oz probably has the most stringent import regulations on the planet and you can’t even go to the dunny during a lockdown without having contact tracing and yet here they are. There is this and another report I read that says the Israeli’s are going to introduce booster shots for the twice vaccinated in the Autumn. I have to confess to some ignorance here! I only skim the Covid news because I find it too depressing and I myself have been largely unaffected by the UK regulations. I wear a mask on the Bus and in the Shops and that essentially is it. I have not been vaccinated even once and though I think I have had the Bug I don’t know for sure. What I suspect is that all that has been done so far in quelling the virus will be proved to be useless and in fact worse than if everyone, like myself, had simply just looked after themselves. This is a catastrophe but it a self-manufactured one by the Elites. I am sympathetic to any correction to these views if anyone knows better!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/12/sydney-sees-record-covid-infection-numbers-lockdown-fails-curb/

    1. The proposed third vaccine shot in Israel is Only for immunocompromised patients & not for the majority of the population.
      https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/coronavirus-in-israel-immunocompromised-can-get-jab-today-health-min-673464
      ” Immunocompromised patients will be able to receive a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine starting immediately, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said Sunday. The healthcare providers will determine who is eligible, he told KAN News. People with specific conditions, for example, who have had an organ transplant, will be eligible, he said.”

    2. Pretty close to my experience, Minty. Unvaccinated, very strange “flu” in February last year after conference in airport hotel, so assume I had it, avoid masks as much as possible & refuse to be terrified.

      1. I must admit to being scared of our out-of-control corrupt government, the Coronavirus Act, the thought of legal mandatory experimental injection and the injection itself. I am fully expecting it to be declared safe in 2023 despite the array and number of side effects, whereupon legislation will be imposed to make the E.I. compulsory. The ‘virus’ does not concern me at all. We think we both had it, having caught it when we were staying at a hotel over Christmas 2019. Two days after our return home we both started feeling unwell at the same time, overwhelming flue fatigue for both of us, sore throats – at this point we split the remaining symptoms between us! I had the worst sinus symptoms ever and p’sdad had the chest/cough symptoms. I do not watch tv and especially not the ‘news’, I no longer listen to the radio so I have not been subjected to the propaganda. It is non-stop in Tesco over the tannoy system, in Waitrose it is non-existent.

        1. We are convinced MB had it in Jan/Feb 2020. I probably had it but mildly by virtue of close contact; I probably thought it was a cold.

      2. Yo, Paul. I had something in Feb 2020, having stayed at Dianne’s place in Topsham for a week. She had the ‘worst ‘flu ever’ in Jan 2020. A vaguely moist – if not actually runny – nose. Woke early one morning feeling short of breath, and tight around the chest. Got up, had a cup of tea, posted the new NTTL page and the symptoms went away. Decided it wasn’t a heart attack. Also had half a day of no sense of taste or smell. A neighbour reported exactly the same symptoms. I’ll never be able to prove it, but I believe this was C-19.

        1. Never had a sense of taste… socks with sandals an example… but had the weirdest shivers and freezing up my back, otherwise sort of flu-ish.
          “Are you flu-ish? You don’t look flu-ish” (c) Blue Meanie, Yellow Submarine.

        2. My episode in the ICU last year met all the criteria, apart from loss of smell/taste.

          The medics swear I didn’t have Covid.

          I wonder how many people died of what I had, yet were put down as Covid.

        3. I had a bug in January 2020 – fairly mild – nothing since. I had the jabs but had to postpone my planned trip (wouldn’t have bothered with the jabs for any other reason). complied with mask wearing till June – decided I’d had enough. #ImDone.

  91. The Government is absolutely right to defend free speech in universities

    The Left’s opposition to the new Bill reflects their basic lack of faith in people’s ability to think for themselves.

    TELEGRAPH VIEW

    As Gavin Williamson writes in these pages, free speech is essential for universities – without it, orthodoxies cannot be examined and new ideas tested. The Government’s Higher Education (Free Speech) Bill, which gets its second reading in Parliament today, will compel institutions to comply with free speech duties or face sanctions (for the first time, these duties will also be extended to students’ unions).

    At stake, warns Mr Williamson, is the sector’s global reputation: when people come to the UK to study or research, they expect to be immersed in a wide range of opinions, not have them stifled by student mobs or peer pressure.

    Labour, predictably, opposes the Bill, as do the unions, suggesting that this would be a win for racists or conspiracy theorists denied a platform. This unfairly and inaccurately conflates extremists with academics or students of perfectly sound mind who have dared to challenge the prevailing consensus, or simply said the “wrong” thing.

    Moreover – and this is something the Left simply does not get – the best way to sort bad ideas from good is by examining them in public. University is the one place we should expect this to happen; it’s also the place where one imagines the audience is intelligent enough to reach the right conclusions. At the heart of the Left’s contempt for free speech is contempt for the citizen and for their ability to think for themselves.

    The Government should be applauded for taking a brave and consequential stance, for if it were to walk away from this battle – if the universities were surrendered to groupthink – our culture and economy would suffer. The laboratory of ideas must remain open to all, tolerant and fair-minded.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/07/11/government-absolutely-right-defend-free-speech-universities/

    How ironic that in age of all-embracing, top-down conventions intended to protect our rights, a government should have to promote a specific, bottom-up statute to compensate for the failure of those very conventions.

    And how predictable is the Labour Party’s stance…

    1. It’s also the place where one imagines the audience is intelligent enough to reach the right conclusions.

      Ah if only ’twere still so

    1. Gove will have to beat off the ‘pansexual’ Layla Moran and the goggle-eyed Miliband first… …or join in a LGBT paedosexual foursome.

  94. I thought this exchange on our village Facebook page deserved a wider readership:

    640,000 Range Rover Shopping Trips (RST) of carbon in the bricks due to be demolished at Brimscombe Port. Video below. Link to original article on RIBA website https://www.ribaj.com/…/sustainability-think-in-range….

    Link to Radio 4 clip on embodied carbon – https://www.facebook.com/groups/181652442196343/permalink/1476402812721293/

    Tomas,

    your latest analogy using the arguments from Ribaj, (regarding the

    bricks in the Port of Brimscombe), borders on the extreme and eccentric.

    There is a very sophisticated stratedge used in high pressure selling

    & marketing, which (when well presented), turns the lie into a

    believable truth, and like hypnosis is invisible to the listener or

    reader…. Put plainly, its called “hoodwinking”, or to those trained in

    this technique its called “The Objection Spiral”. This simple

    psychological approach, is used to ignore the rebuttal of the strongest

    objections and use less important objections down the list to the

    trivial, until any objection can be won. In your green garden you will

    be using lots of CO2 attributable sources. In the renovation of your

    mature property, you will be using a lot more of CO2 attributable

    sources. But most of all …. your very breath is a CO2 source, which

    unlike the bricks at the port, (which have already attributed their CO2

    value, and cannot reversed and will not add any more), unlike your

    wasted breath on this new story. Yet another veiled attack on the Canal

    Restoration and the Council’s decision to see the current Benson’s mess,

    into something more useful. Ribaj does have a point to make but if used

    in your interpretation, WILL CONSIGN HUMAN KIND BACK TO THE STONE AGE,

    when we already have insufficient trees to burn, to keep us warm in your

    new forewarning of a Winter of Discontent …..

    Philip

    sounds interesting do you have any references to it…? I couldn’t find

    anything when I googled “Objection Spiral”. The bricks point is very

    real though and is now becoming mainstream thinking in terms of reducing

    carbon in construction. I don’t know if keeping the buildings is the

    right thing to do in this case but it’s a serious enough issue to

    require proper analysis. To undermine my own argument if you knock down

    a high embodied carbon building and replace it with a zero carbon

    building then maybe it is irrelevant anyway… This does however

    require not building with brick, steel and concrete though… Stone and

    timber hundreds of times better. I suppose the point is that a project

    like this needs proper empirical engagement in this stuff because it has

    the potential to have an unbelievably large impact on the environment –

    millions of range rover shopping trips. I am simply holding the council

    up to its own committments and trying to highlight that to get this

    stuff right requires more than just platitudes towards zero carbon…

    Tomas
    I have complained about your article to the Monitors, as it is
    misleading and continues to be manipulative in the issues relating to
    the Port of Brimscombe ……… I think 3 video’s giving your opinions
    and thoughts in the contentious manner in which you have is very
    negative for the interests of Thrupp & Brimscombe and your
    references, like last weeks, posture professional opposition when they
    are merely your gatherings of isolated issues which back your own
    discontent …….. Having a public forum requires participants to be
    honest ……… I regard your methods as subversive and detrimental to
    the B&TCDG. In response to the Objection Spiral, I received training
    by TASC in London in 1980 and I can confirm that it has all the horrors
    of Hypnosis when practiced on the unaware…… your continued use of
    obscure references to the subject of the Development of the Port of
    Brimscombe is divisional and destructive …… In CO2 terms the
    travelling of all the users to RSP would raise the same objections …..
    please lets move on …… Brimscombe & Thrupp will be the great
    beneficiaries of a restored T&S canal …

    ·

    2. Jesus! The lengths some people will go to discredit any kind of development on the basis of some aspect of its carbon footprint/content.

      Nutters, the lot of ’em.

  95. That’s me for the day. Rain kept threatening but never arrived.

    Bonfire tomorrow- so a nice bit of pyromania to look forward to. It’s my contribution to global warming… Have a jolly evening being woke!

    A demain.

    PS After his own painful experience, you would have thought that Gormless Southgate would have really, really made an effort to ensure…..(sighs….)

    2. Justine Trudeau and Emma Micron say ‘ Get your hands off her you BITCH !

      apols to Sigourney Weaver…

    3. As I said in training the ball is supposed to go in the back of the net…..

  98. A few old Adams cartoons, enjoy them with the benefit of hindsight.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/england-euros-gareth-southgate-councils-long-covid-b944586.html

    https://static.standard.co.uk/2021/07/07/13/newFile-1.jpg?width=990&auto=webp&quality=75&crop=968%3A645%2Csmart

    https://static.standard.co.uk/2021/07/06/12/newFile-2.jpg?width=990&auto=webp&quality=75&crop=968%3A645%2Csmart

    https://static.standard.co.uk/2021/07/05/12/newFile-3.jpg?width=990&auto=webp&quality=75&crop=968%3A645%2Csmart

  101. Does this creep understand why so many people object to the on-field gesturing? Has it ever occurred to him that people can be critical of that and of those who abused the England players?

    Read some of the comments below and fear for the country. Those who claim that they wish to unite us are in danger of doing quite the opposite.

    https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1414577580531924996

    Meanwhile, today’s announcement of the end [sic] of restrictions was described by him as ‘reckless’.

    I don’t know which I dislike the most – him or Tattyhead.

    1. nobody seems to be able to separate the criticism of the actions of the government of Israel, the state, from anti-semitism, either.

  102. Gosh, just finished several hours of tree/shrub clipping in the garden and almost on cue the evening basket-watering service has arrived!

  103. STOP PRESS – all you Frenchie NoTTLers – stand by for strikes:

    Les soignants non vaccinés au 15 septembre ne seront plus payés, annonce Véran
    Le gouvernement durcit encore le ton. « A partir du 15 septembre, si vous êtes soignant et que vous n’êtes pas vacciné, vous ne pourrez plus travailler et vous ne serez plus payé », a déclaré Olivier Véran sur LCI, après l’annonce par le président Emmanuel Macron d’une obligation de vaccination pour cette catégorie de population, avec sanctions à la clé.

    Toy Boy’s toy boy announces that all French heath staff not vaccinated bye 15 Sept WILL NOT BE PAID.

    No compulsion, you understand…………….

    Bonne soirée

    1. But they are welcome to carry on working, even though they are sooooo dangerous to everyone else?

      1. No French civil servant (and that’s what the medical service is) would work for ONE SECOND without pay

    2. Perfectly voluntary what is the problem?

      A friends family is arriving from the UK next month, the adults are doubly vaccinated so no problems with them coming into the country. but the two year old granddaughter will need to spend time in a quarantine hotel.

    4. When Mitterrand tried to abolish private schools virtually all the teachers in these schools said that they would refuse to work in the state schools. This would have produced such chaos that Mitterrand had to climb down.

    2. Ah geography knowledge.

      I am looking forward to the US network coverage of the Open this week. For the past few days they have been advertising the views of the North Sea that their commentators will have from Royal Lytham & St Annes.

      With a bit of luck those obnoxious commentators will be across in Hull or Skegness and we will hear decent UK commentators.

      1. Well, they’ll view the English Channel because the Open is at Royal Sandwich.

        1. Ah I hadn’t checked, they have been saying Lytham and I foolishly took them at their word. It could be really good coverage if the commentators are in one place and the camera crew in another.

          Is it too far north or do they need plans for handling migrant arrivals during the open? It would be embarrassing to have a boatload of new doctors running across the course.

  106. I have just heard, for the first time in a very long time, church bells ringing out loud and clear across the village. Bell ringing practice once again! A lovely English sound. My heart rejoiceth.

    1. Sigh…

      I no longer live across the road from Seale Church, nor am I the Verger. But ringing has been banned, along with singing. Nature, however, abhors a vacuum, and the tower has been invaded by jackdaws. Two massive nests in the bell chamber, which affect the striking on the hour. There’s a separate issue which has been causing the clock to stop at ten past five (am or pm – I’m not sure). We’ve found a firm which specialises in clearing bird nests from ‘abandoned’ church towers, and they’ve never been so busy.

      But here the bells are, in more normal times…

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g7RoP_xbJ0

      1. Ours ring out on Sundays to call the faithful to prayer (they’re a whole lot more tuneful than the adhem).

    2. I love the sound of church bells. I am quite happy to hear the Call to Prayer in Turkey but I would hate to hear it in England. When we are in Fethiye we anchor quite near a mosque. There are different imams who perform and we learn to identify which ‘Bob‘ is making his doleful sound. Why ‘Bob’ I hear you ask? Because of Bob Marley and the Wailers!

  108. Too bloody right it is. They just can’t let go.

    ‘Freedom Day’ is still some way off

    If these restrictions are to remain now, in the middle of the summer, it is difficult to see them ending in the autumn and winter

    TELEGRAPH VIEW • 12 July 2021 • 7:30pm

    The final stages of the Government’s “road map” to post-Covid normality were always going to be the most problematic and so it is proving. Only seven days ago, the Prime Minister faced down opposition to his apparent readiness to re-open society from July 19 when cases were rising, arguing “if not now, when?”

    Yet while the legal requirements for people to work from home, socially distance and wear face coverings are being removed, they are being substituted by state-sanctioned guidelines that many will feel obliged to follow. So-called Covid-status passports, which the Government had apparently ruled out, are also to be recommended. This is not exactly the reinstatement of common sense and personal judgment that was anticipated.

    People will be expected to continue wearing masks in indoor spaces, a stricture that will no doubt remain a requirement of entry for shops and hospitality venues as well as being mandated on public transport. Companies eager for their staff to return to the office have been left in an impossible position by ambiguous guidance about working from home. Employees are not being told to stay away but nor are they expected to go to work.

    Since Mr Johnson previously said it was “now or never” to end these restrictions, the inescapable conclusion is that it is to be never. If they are to be requirements now, in the middle of summer, how will they not be in the autumn and winter when the number of Covid and flu cases will rise? Some scientists, indeed, have argued that distancing and face coverings should be made permanent.

    In the Commons, the Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, confirmed the new tone, saying that next Monday would not be a terminus after all but another step on the road back to normality, though with no indication of when that might be.

    If there are good public health reasons for this circumspection then let ministers say so and produce the evidence to justify it. If, however, the four tests set for a full reopening have been met – as Mr Javid told MPs they had been – then let it happen. Worryingly, however, the pledge of an “irreversible” course out of lockdown is no longer being heard.

    It is, of course, to be welcomed that Stage 4 of the road map will be implemented next Monday. But for as long as ministerial pronouncements seeking to influence how we should behave stay in place, “Freedom Day” will remain some way off.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/07/12/freedom-day-still-way/

    1. Just been on the phone to crazed teacher friend in Daaarsett (just up the road from our own True Belle), who is shit-scared of people NOT WEARING FACENAPPIES!!
      The suggestion that she could wear them anyway was dismissed as irrelevant – the world wants everyone to die horribly.
      Jayzuz, where do you start?

      1. With exceptions only for horse-spittles and the like, I ditched the masks on 21 June. Once known as ‘Freedom Day’. Admittedly, I use a lanyard, but only to deter confrontation. I now only wear the bloody things in church – which is a real problem, since we’re not allowed to sing, and the recorded hymns are on my phone. Unfortunately, Samsung ‘Smart Stay’ doesn’t recognise faces swathed in nappies, so the screen tends to go blank at the most inappropriate moments.

        1. The targeting of churches is a deliberate act by government. Satanists would destroy our church by whatever means at hand.

          It is much the same in the States.

          Nobody but a fool would imagine that the wearing of face masks is healthy. Face masks caused more fatalities in the Spanish flu than the virus itself. That devil Fauci wrote a ‘scientific’ paper on this years ago. Fauci has since lost his conscience and is profiting from Covid Pharma patents.

        2. Caroline finds that if she wears a mask when she plays the organ in church her glasses steam up and she cannot read the score.

          They have allowed her to play maskless – the alternative is they won’t have any music.

    2. As far as I am concerned, a government which has lied to us for 18 months to cover its own panic reaction has lost any right to be listened to.
      I could list the damage it has done to reasonably ordered and pleasant society, but quite frankly, I just cannot be @rsed. The ruling class (and, quite frankly, the party colour makes no difference) can just FOAD.

      1. Yup. I think those photos of the G7 participants gallivanting around maskless, watching the Red Arrows at our expense (global warming anyone?) while the masked waiters served them champagne and canapés were priceless.

        Lately we watched the goons in the Royal Box at Wimbledon, including that wicked prat Vallance, all unmasked and laughing at us.

        How come ‘goldenballs’ Beckham and Scientologist Tom Cruise manage to obtain seats at both Wimbledon and Wembley?

          1. Beckham went one further – he actually got sent off in a World Cup match against Argentina through a piece of petulant retaliation. England played the rest of the match, which they lost, with ten men.

            However much he is idolised for his club career Beckham has never played in an England team which has won anything. I wonder if tattoos have same negative effects as ‘taking the knee’?

        2. Agreed, John. I begrudgingly went along with the restrictions till 21 June. Since then. I’m exempt. I have a lanyard, for what it’s worth.

          Yesterday, having been assured that, following my removal from the Verger’s cottage, the Parish would take care of my transport issues, one Churchwarden who lives all of 1/3 mile from my new place, sat at the very
          back of the church, from where I was in full view. The Rector and two remaining wardens were oblivious to my presence.

          So I walked the 1.6 miles to the nearest bus stop. Noticed a sign for the “Christmas Pie Trail”, which ends up close to my new place, and thought “bugger it” – I’m walking home. This worked well, until I reached a sea of mud, so I retraced my steps and walked to Ash Rail Station, and caught a train for the last few minutes of the journey.

          4 miles in total, which is somewhat more than if I went all the way home…

          I’m glad of the exercise, but feeling marginalised, regardless.

          1. You have my sympathies Geoff.

            My neighbour Laura from Atlanta, who organises for a worldwide Christian charity based in Houston, came over to say a prayer for me. Laura knew that I was suffering from severe Hayfever symptoms and wished to pray for the alleviation of my symptoms. My wife Carol and I were moved by such concern.

            I have faith and have slept comfortably since. A bit clogged up at intervals but able to have 7 hours uninterrupted sleep.

            I remarked that everything we are presently experiencing is foretold in Revelations. I also gave Laura a copy of ‘Mere Christianity’, a transcription of radio talks given by C S Lewis during WWII.

          2. Just read this. You have my sympathies; nothing quite like being sidelined.

      2. You may think that no politician could possibly be worse than Boris Johnson and you are probably right. But Macron is pushing hard and is not far behind.

      3. It was not a spontaneous panic reaction – they were either herded or bribed into exactly that reaction.
        The patent analysis is two hours, so quite hefty, but when you hear it, you realise the extent to which this was planned.

    5. I’ve just come back from a PCC meeting. We met in church, unmasked. One of my fellow councillors said she’d had enough with the restrictions. She wasn’t happy with the first lockdown, but went along and has got progressively disillusioned as it’s gone on.

    1. Ms Prattle

      The abuse’ as you call it was more to do do with the managerial decisions made, as to whom should take the penalties.

      I am not a Wendyballer, but to put a teenager in a win/lose situation is NOT good leadership

      Southgate made bad decions, that to us, the population in general, seem to be BLM biased

      Every manager is responible for getting the Right peeple to do the jobs required: he failed in this

      He seems to be colour blinded by BLM.

      We who have supported ALL England (NOT Ingerland) teams for 5, 6. 7 decades are disgusted by his actions and decisions

      1. The question that will never be answered is whether Southgate was politically motivated when he made his decisions as to who would take the penalties.

        Apparently the penalty takers were those who performed best in practice. However, anyone who performs in front of an audience will know that some people who perform well in practice find that things are very different in front of ‘the public’.

        For example, Caroline plays the organ and I play the guitar and both us us find that we are not quite confident enough to play some pieces in public even though we can usually do them perfectly in practice.

        1. I’m not buying that – of course they were going to come up with some excuse after the three failed. They successfully made the whole tournament about race, so we’re entitled to think what we want now.

          With regards to your music, my daughter was unconfident about playing in public. Our church organist told her that she had made loads of mistakes in her time, some of them quite comical ones, and nobody ever notices. I am completely unmusical, and I can confirm that.

      1. Yo Boss

        Spent many happy hours in Pompey

        Tied up at Railway Jetty, Bows South, you were at 4 hours notice to sail anywhere in the World, as Fleet Contingency Ship 1.

        I like HMS Warrior, Britain’s first iron-hulled, armoured battleship. although the proper engines have been removed and ‘wooden replicas’ fitted

        1. I had an aunt who lived in Commercial Road, then Soberton Road in Leigh Park. More recently, I worked for a brickwork subbie who did the cladding on a hotel at GQ. I’m trying in vain to find it…

          1. I lived at Lee-on-the Solvent when not shipborne, in the 70s/early 80s

            What is GQ?

          4. I lived in Old Portsmouth for 3 years and had a great time. Between evensong at the cathedral, The Pembroke pub and the Royal Naval Club, what could possibly go wrong.

          5. Yo Mr N

            It is hard to believe now, but just as far back as the 1970/1980s Serving RN personnel were not allowed to join the Royal British Legion

          6. Fair comment, Johnny. I’ve been to the Cathedral, where my old assistant organist did a recital with a flautist friend. Was bloody marvellous.

          7. I have just checked out ‘Gunwharf’

            In my day, HMS Vernon housed the RN Diving School, training Clearance Divers for
            the Fleet Clearance diving teams and minehunters. The establishment was
            also the home of the “Dunker” Helicopter and Fixed Wing Aircraft Escape
            Training, until a new facility was opened at RNAS Yeovilton (HMS Heron).[5]

            I did that a few times

      2. A sunny afternoon with Garlands, sitting on the terrace drinking two for one large Gin & Tonics. I got Garlands drinking Cocktails. naughty me

      1. Agreed, It was way ahead of its’ time

        If you go on board, you will see that it had

        Electricity
        A Fire Main
        A Warning sign (Nelson fell here) by a raised plaque, take care

          1. You got it right

            You cannot , by a superficial glance, which is what Wokists do, compare what happend 200 years ago, tohow life ‘appears’ now

    3. My neighbour used to have their Mess dinner on there until they were turfed out.

        1. As a ‘bum man’ I would stay the girl was perfectly proportioned.

          Edit: Years ago I was staying in a hotel close to San Gimignano in Tuscany. On a trip to Siena via Poggiabonso we met a traffic jam on their tortuous and dangerous narrow two lane motorway.

          The jam was caused by two attractive women in an open top sports car being hustled by couple of black haired Italian men in the next lane who had deliberately slowed in order to chat up the women.

          My recollection was that the young women were very attractive whereas the men were hook-nosed morons, not dissimilar to the victorious Italian football mob.

  116. Just got back from open mic. A couple of new, and excellent, musicians. The masks seem to be going by the board, and good riddance. Burning my 2 face covering bits of cloth now. Take care, all.

      1. Well I guess “Integrity” is a concept that is foreign to them.
        Think of the carbon footprint caused by those three private planes…oh sorry, I forgot, they are Valuable Democrats doing what they want, it doesn’t count.

    2. The globalists replaced the leadership in Ukraine, Italy, America and other places.

      Doing it in Africa they can be a bit more blatant.

Comments are closed.