Monday 18 April: Deporting illegal migrants will allow Britain to focus on genuine refugees

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

647 thoughts on “Monday 18 April: Deporting illegal migrants will allow Britain to focus on genuine refugees”

  3. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – You report (April 16) that “speed limiters could be fitted to all new cars under government plans to fall in line with a controversial European Union ruling”.

    I thought that we had left the EU, and that one of the main reasons for doing so was to avoid being subject to its rulings. Am I missing something?

    Don Philp
    Darbys Green, Worcestershire

    Me too, Mr Philp!  I did a double-take when I saw this item.  Presumably the ‘Remainer tendency’ in the snivel service is getting its own way yet again?  Must be time for a thorough clearout at senior level. And just think of all that speed-camera revenue that will disappear if vehicles cannot break the speed limit! Methinks Big Brother hasn’t quite thought this through. Besides, with population growth so rapid, and little new road building, it will be difficult to attain any useful speed at all.

  4. The Prevent counter-terrorism strategy will ‘definitely’ be reformed. 18 April 2022.

    The Goverment’s flagship counter-extremism strategy will be overhauled in the wake of Sir David Amess’ murder, the Home Secretary has signalled as she said “things need to change”.

    Priti Patel said that when the independent review into Prevent has concluded, there will “definitely” be reforms made to the scheme.

    It may very well be blasphemy to say this at Easter but you cannot resurrect the dead. Prevent was only ever a scheme to cover Governmental Cowardice. There was never the remotest possibility that it would work and no amount of reform will make it do so!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/04/18/priti-patel-prevent-counter-terrorism-strategy-will-definitely/

    1. The only Prevent strategy that will work will be to proscribe islam and deport all muslims.

  5. SIR – If Ukraine did not sink the Moskva, why is Russia retaliating against it?

    Bruce Carlin
    Dewsbury, West Yorkshire

    Bombing the factory that builds the missiles that didn’t sink the Black Sea fleet flagship… pure coincidence, of course!

    If Russia is struggling to impose its evil will on Ukraine, it has already lost, comprehensively, the propaganda war.  Their ineptitude in convincing the world that black is white and night is day will be seen in the future as an object lesson in how not to conduct the ‘war of words’.

    1. Russia’s attack on Ukraine was in the words of Talleyrand about one of Napoleon’s excesses; “Worse than a crime. It was a blunder”. Poor Vlad. To see twenty years of patient work brought down in a few weeks! His present activities are simply to try and recover lost ground. This may well prove impossible though his situation is not as dire as the MSM suggests. If he can secure the Black Sea coastline he will have a strong bargaining position and strategically he is in no immediate danger. It is the West that is on shaky ground!

  6. SIR – If Ukraine did not sink the Moskva, why is Russia retaliating against it?

    Bruce Carlin
    Dewsbury, West Yorkshire

    Bombing the factory that builds the missiles that didn’t sink the Black Sea fleet flagship… pure coincidence, of course!

    If Russia is struggling to impose its evil will on Ukraine, it has already lost, comprehensively, the propaganda war.  Their ineptitude in convincing the world that black is white and night is day will be seen in the future as an object lesson in how not to conduct the ‘war of words’.

  7. SIR – If Ukraine did not sink the Moskva, why is Russia retaliating against it?

    Bruce Carlin
    Dewsbury, West Yorkshire

    Bombing the factory that builds the missiles that didn’t sink the Black Sea fleet flagship… pure coincidence, of course!

    If Russia is struggling to impose its evil will on Ukraine, it has already lost, comprehensively, the propaganda war.  Their ineptitude in convincing the world that black is white and night is day will be seen in the future as an object lesson in how not to conduct the ‘war of words’.

  8. SIR – Stanley Johnson (Comment, April 15) complains that we are still trading with Russia, whereas we would not have traded with Germany in 1940. We were at war with Germany in 1940. We are not at war with Russia.

    Edward Windham-Bellord
    Cucklington, Somerset

    Good point, Edward Double-Barrelled. More the point, why does the media continue to listen to, and repeat, anything that this bumbling old fart comes up with? In my book he’s an irrelevant nonentity.

    2. Morning all vw here. I thought Stanley was moving to France. And good riddance, too. Take your son with you.

  9. Good morning all.
    An overcast and slightly damp start outside from a drop of overnight rain, but it’s fairly mild with a whole 5°C outside.

    Not a brilliant night last night, the DT’s cough is still waking us both up and I’ve started coughing through the night too.
    I don’t think I’ll be doing a lot up the garden today.

      1. I’ve been back to bed again. A solid 3hrs before my bladder insisted it was time to get back up.
        I feel MUCH better.

  10. Good Moaning.

    Bingo! Nailed it ! Let’s hear for Sally.

    “SIR – When spiritual guidance was required at the beginning of the pandemic, Justin Welby closed the Anglican churches. He then went on sabbatical. Now he sees fit to meddle in the political arena. Has he given up on his role as Archbishop of Canterbury?

    Sally Waite

    Sherborne, Dorset”

    1. ‘Moaning, Annie. To what do we owe this early pleasure… insomnia? Caffein overdose?

  11. SIR – I had grave misgivings about the Government’s plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda. Yet as soon as the Archbishop of Canterbury attacked it, I became convinced it is a good idea.

    Alex Rentoul
    London W4

    Well said, Sir. It is high time that Welby was asked to choose between the Church and politics. He’s sufficiently useless at the former to excel at the latter.

    1. I read that as sell illegal migrants to Rwanda and thought what a good idea – that will stem the tide!

      Morning Hugh and everyone.

  12. SIR – I had grave misgivings about the Government’s plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda. Yet as soon as the Archbishop of Canterbury attacked it, I became convinced it is a good idea.

    Alex Rentoul
    London W4

    Well said, Sir. It is high time that Welby was asked to choose between the Church and politics. He’s sufficiently useless at the former to excel at the latter.

  13. Islam and the making of the West. Spiked.17 April 2022.

    The history of Christian Europe and the Arab world since the birth of Islam in the 7th century has consisted of wars, conquest and alliances. There has also been a great deal of trade between the two, and, most striking of all, mutually enriching cultural and scientific exchange. Indeed, Europe’s emergence from the Middle Ages was in no small measure spurred on by the intellectual and scientific breakthroughs of the Arab world, particularly in the 9th and 10th centuries.

    This is a long read and an attempt to sanitise the general view of Islam. It is true that the Arabs saved and preserved a great deal from the Ancient World and built on some of it; primarily mathematics, and that Christian scholars got hold of this and improved on it further. It is not true that this was mutually beneficial. Progress in the Islamic world stalled under increasing oppression and proselytising while the Europeans went on to the glories of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment which eventually gave them Science, Secular Law and Reason and with them the European Hegemony. This is now breaking down and a New World is coming into being. Like most historical transitions it will be pretty nasty until the winner is declared and may well be even nastier afterwards.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/04/17/islam-and-the-making-of-the-west/

    1. You only have to look at Islamic countries to realise that Islam offers nothing to the world. The Taliban in Afghanistan and the Mullahs in Iran have amply demonstrated their aim to take their countries back to the seventh century.

    2. This is, in fact, an outright lie. In the 10 century it was decided that Islam has all that was needed for salvation at all levels of human life, technologically, psychologically, spiritually, and thus all and any enquiry was forbidden because any further enquiry would be an expression of doubt in the certainty of Islam as the true path to salvation. This is called “The Closing of the Door of Ijtihad.”. “Ijtihad” means “free enquiry”. Since then, Islam has languished and even degenerated in its abilities to cope with the world at large. The reaction to any attempts to improve matters by free enquiry has been labelled as “heresy” and is punishable by death. Thus, most Muslims are entrenched in this attitude and cannot go further, psychologically speaking.

    3. This is a long read and an attempt to sanitise the general view of Islam…

      Johnson did the same in his two-part BBC2 programme ‘After Rome: Holy War and Conquest’.

  14. SIR – The Rwanda “mutiny” shows again that we do not need a new government, but a new Civil Service.

    George Herrick
    Salford, Lancashire

    If it’s all the same to you, Mr Herrick, I would settle for both!

  15. Martin Selves.

    1 min ago

    You would think, listening to Sky News that Priti Patel
    is alone in her support for the Rwanda Option, and the Archbishop has
    universal support. As we know it is very much the opposite that is true,
    but sadly Sky is intent to broadcast its own political affiliation, and
    the BBC set the example to follow years ago.

    Watching Sky, it is hard to find a white TV presenter
    these days, or a white one who is not indoctrinated. Increasingly,
    coloured (are we allowed to write that) presenters on both channels is
    become the normal, when it is disproportionate in real or imaginary
    terms. Employment status is important in woke Britain these days, and
    increasingly colour is an advantage ….. any colour but white is gaining
    ground in the MSM.

      1. These days it is all that matters! Besides, the idea that the best person for the job should be selected is just so last century…

    1. “Boris couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery.”

      I’m not entirely convinced of that. For someone who invariably looks, acts and speaks like a sozzled pisshead; my bet is that he could very well organised a splendid ‘do’ in an ale factory.

  18. Warning Ruskie Propaganda Alert:

    ”
    13 minutes ago
    “Germans need to wash less often in order to consume less energy resources supplied from Russia. This is reported by the Bild agency with reference to the words of dermatologist Yael Adler. According to the expert, rarely washing is useful.

    Earlier, German Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir urged Germans to eat less meat for the sake of fighting Russia.

    German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbeck said that the situation in Ukraine is reflected in the growth of food prices in Germany, and also provoked a local shortage of sunflower oil and flour.

    In Germany, they predicted an increase in beer prices against the background of an increase in production costs.

    In addition, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said in an interview with Bild that the situation in Ukraine will lead to a decrease in the level of well-being for Germans.

    Yes, the Germans must become dirty, smelly, and poor. They must freeze and starve, for the sake of a high goal. For the sake of fighting Russia!”

    Love & Kisses

    ‘You will own nothing’ Klaus

    1. For the sake of fighting Russia!

      Better start recommissioning that bunker in Berlin…

    2. So more people have been harmed by Putin’s malicious adventure than just Ukrainians. It supports action against the Russian invaders from other nations whose interests have been degraded by this invasion.

      To be fair, the prosperity of nations such as Germany has been degraded by more than just the invasion – measures to correct climate disturbance being one, and tackling a global pandemic for two years being another. Russia’s invasion is as welcome to the world as a bucket of cold sick though.

  19. What a man, and what a life…

    Major Roger Woodiwiss, SAS officer who braved leech-infested swamps, dense jungle and bamboo forests in Malaya – obituary

    He was wounded when a barbed spear of a pig trap penetrated through his thigh; the troop medic pushed the head out through the wound

    ByTelegraph Obituaries17 April 2022 • 6:00pm

    Major Roger Woodiwiss, who has died aged 92, was the Operations Officer for 22nd Special Air Service Regiment (22 SAS) from 1973 to 1976.

    Reporting in turn to two future Directors of Special Forces, Lieutenant Colonel (later General Sir) Peter de la Billière and Lieutenant Colonel (later Major General) Tony Jeapes, he was responsible for the military preparation and political direction of SAS squadrons in operations across the world.

    On several occasions, he was responsible for the control of two squadrons on active service and the operations of three teams, all at the same time, all in different countries and often in different continents. The effect of a mistake on his part, particularly in the execution of diplomatic tasks, could have had serious international repercussions.

    At home, he was often deeply involved in classified operations requiring close liaison with the Home Office and police forces throughout the country. He was appointed MBE (Military) at the completion of a most exacting tour.

    Roger Vivian Woodiwiss, the elder son of an insurance underwriter, was born in London on March 22 1929. His father had served in the Indian Army Reserve of Officers in the First World War.

    Young Roger was educated at Ardingly College, West Sussex. After attending RMA Sandhurst, in December 1949 he was commissioned into the Dorset Regiment and posted to the 1st Battalion (1 Dorset). He spent two years in west Carinthia, Austria, and then Vienna.

    In 1955, after passing the rigorous selection process, he joined 22 SAS in Malaya, where it was engaged in conducting operations against Communist terrorists. Woodiwiss commanded a troop in deep jungle; effective deployment was only possible by parachuting into the tree canopy, by travelling up one of the rivers by boat or, more rarely, by helicopter once a landing site had been cleared.

    Deep-penetration patrols could be away from base for several months and they had to rely on re-supply from the air. Woodiwiss quickly established a reputation for outstanding leadership and in the most challenging conditions – intense heat, leech-infested swamps, dense secondary jungle and bamboo forests – his troop achieved an impressive number of terrorist sightings and kills.

    On one patrol, he was severely wounded when the barbed spear of an aboriginal pig trap penetrated right through the top of his thigh. He was saved by the troop medic, who snapped off the bamboo shaft before pushing the steel head out through the wound.

    There followed a desperate two-day, stretcher-borne trek through the jungle, during which he remained fully conscious, to the helipad from which he was successfully extracted.

    After a brief posting to 1 Dorset at Minden, West Germany, as second in command of a company, he rejoined 22 SAS in Malaya during the last phase of the Emergency. A year-long posting as Special Forces Exchange Officer with the American 7th Special Forces followed.

    Woodiwiss was recalled to 22 SAS to command a squadron in Sarawak, North Borneo, during the Confrontation with Indonesia. Known as Operation Claret, their activities consisted of cross-border raids to gather intelligence and to ambush tracks and rivers used by Indonesian units. In December 1965, at the end of a successful tour, he was Mentioned in Despatches.

    No sooner had he returned from Borneo than his squadron was deployed to the Radfan Mountains, close to the Yemen border with Aden, tasked with identifying and dealing with armed bands of rebel tribesmen.

    The terrain could hardly have been more different from Malaya or Borneo. Success now depended on well-planned ambushes sprung by patrols lying up in barren mountain passes or close to remote watering holes. They had to remain concealed during the searing heat of the day and move only by night.

    The Devonshire and Dorset Regiments had amalgamated in 1958 to form the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment (D and D), and he returned to West Germany to command a company of 1 D and D at Münster.

    Roger Woodiwiss had considerable charm. Puffing on his pipe, and with an engaging grin, he had a natural gift for giving young soldiers the confidence that they could carry out anything that was asked of them. He would never allow them to languish in barracks, bored and dispirited, but would always find an imaginative and adventurous use of their time.

    In June 1967, during company training in Libya, he took his men into the desert and, with the help of an ex-wartime RAF officer, they were deployed on deep-penetration patrol exercises, taught to navigate with sun compasses and to survive without logistical support. There were also night exercises when they drove across featureless terrain without lights and only a compass and the stars to guide them.

    Two tours of duty as a senior instructor followed, the first at the Canadian Combat Arms School at Gagetown, New Brunswick, and then at the Senior NCOs’ Tactics Division at the School of Infantry, Brecon.

    After his three-year tour as Operations Officer, in September 1976 he retired from the Army and accepted the appointment of Director of Purchasing at the Ministry of Defence in the Sultanate of Oman. At the conclusion of a successful three-year contract he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and appointed SO1 Finance at the headquarters of the newly renamed Royal Army of Oman.

    In 1987 he was awarded the Sultan’s Distinguished Service Medal. He finally retired in the rank of colonel in 1999, having completed 23 years in the service of the Sultan.

    Roger Woodiwiss married, in 1957, Peggy Parkes-Davis, who survives him with their three daughters.

    Roger Woodiwiss, born March 22 1929, died March 12 2022

    A BTL:

    Graham Cove4 HRS AGO

    “Top man. A pig spear through his thigh in the jungle. What about the germs ? In Britain today people wear face masks on a windy beach because of germs.

    RIP sir, and thank you.”

    Quite!

    1. ‘Morning Hugh.

      One of a dying breed. Quite the antithesis of modern-day woke soy-boy wasn’t he?

      Boot camp for the modern generation, anyone?

  20. How to tackle the cost-of-living crisis? Let them eat scrag end

    Melanie McDonagh, Comment DT 18/04/22.

    Another subject overdue a return is home economics, or domestic science. It’s pretty well designed for the cost-of-living crisis, enabling students to work out a budget, mend things and cook from scratch. It seems that there’s been an increase in demand for cheap cuts of meat – like shank and scrag end – evident in orders from online butchers. But you need instruction to turn them into something delicious by slow cooking. That’s where home economics comes in. Let them eat breast of lamb might seem Marie Antoinettish, but it’s the way to go. And how about offal? You can buy it for next to nothing. Better cheap cuts than Frankenchicken.

    As was postulated on this forum just yesterday, the cut of shoulder of lamb is, in many people’s opinion, the “king cut” of lamb. It’s flavour is incomparable and superior to all other cuts of that meat.

    I also agree with the writer of this (abridged) article today that other cuts of lamb have a more delicious flavour than that vastly overrated, over-expensive and popular cut, leg of lamb. Scrag end of neck, best end of neck, lamb breast, shank, chump chops and loin chops are all far more tasty than the leg.

    May people think that leg of lamb, which is devoid of fat and very lean is the one to go for. I have never been convinced of that. I find that leg, being devoid of the substance that gives meat flavour — fat — has an off flavour that I do not get on with.

    OK, one man’s meat, and all that, is a subjective topic. But for me, give me any cut from that noble animal … except for the drearily flavour-free leg.

    1. Aussi or New Zealand lamb is disgusting. It has a very odd flavour. Any British lamb is preferable.

      I prefer when dining out to eat rump of lamb. Has a nice bit of fat to it. Leg of lamb should be minced up and made into burgers and kebobs. Keema is a good use for it as it spices it up.

      Good morning.

        1. 16 June 2021 –
          More beef and lamb will be exported to UK as import taxes are phased out over a decade under a free trade deal between the two nations.

        2. I don’t on principal. To save hassle, it is all halal. (Think of the nearby markets.)

      2. Good morning, Philip.

        Swedish lamb is quite devoid of flavour. That is, when you can get it! Mine was so so. OK but not great.

        Welsh hill lamb is superb but, for my money, Scottish lamb that has fed on coastal seaweed is sensational.

        2. Morning, Grizz.
          Isn’t there English lamb raised in salt marshes near Dungeness that’s got a reputation for good flavour for the same reason?

          1. There probably is, Paul, but I haven’t come across it yet. Dungeness is an other-worldly place. I’ve been there a couple of times for the birdlife.

          1. Good afternoon, Garlands.

            Indeed it is. I remember once having a Cumbrian casserole (at a pub in Grasmere) that was a thick onion gravy containing chunks of tender lamb, chunks of Cumberland sausage, and chunks of black pudding. Served with fresh, warm, crusty bread, it was a flavour sensation.

    2. Used to love roasted breast of lamb when I was a child. And our little rationed frames probably benefited from the delicious fat. I assume lambs still make it, but you don’t see it these days. I suppose it’s in the incomers food suppliers.

    3. I can’t remember when we last had leg of lamb – once we’d discovered the joy of a slow roasted lamb shoulder we never went back to leg!

    4. The best lamb i ever tasted was on a huge farm/sheep station next to Narran Lake in NSW. Because we help the farmer Ron Ketch get rid of the wild pigs that killed his newly born lambs.He slaughtered a sheep and myself and Trevor Butchered it for BBQing We only had our hunting knives and a hand saw but we made a good job of it. Hung in the our door fly safe for two days to firm up. But in my marinade i predict this will be a match.
      Got to go and get the charcoal loaded the table laid and the beers in line and be prepared.
      I just hope Carol has the forecast right for a change.

  21. Good morning everyone .

    Beautiful moon last night … and a very peaceful evening, thankfully. The East Lulworth rave started on Saturday night until nearly mid day yesterday.. Thump thump thump … the noise was relentless , but bed early for us last night and a better sleep.

    Police helicopter activity and road blocks , diverted traffic which was already heavy, ruined a pleasant country walk yesterday afternoon ..

    The ravers were a raggle taggle bunch of a thousand or more , we saw groups of them wearily trekking their way back to wherever they were heading .. probably with shattered ear drums .

    So the police can disrupt a rave , but they cannot put a stop to climate idiots stopping fuel tankers , climate activists glueing them selves to Council meetings , or yobs ruining bibles in Sherborne Abbey ..

    Just another typical Easter holiday.

    2. Same here.
      Glorious day yesterday. Finished fence, barbeque, lots of wine drunk… me & my two lads. One that will sit in the memory for a long time.

  23. 352046+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Monday 18 April: Deporting illegal migrants will allow Britain to focus on genuine refugees
    That would mean to undo decades of work
    the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration coalition supporter / voters input would be a complete waste.

    As for priti nasty’s take on it , first are we sitting comfortably, then i’ll begin, listen to priti is a rhetorical tory (ino) soothing balm
    and the polling booth proves it works.

    Deporting illegal migrants will allow Britain to focus on genuine refugees

    “Will allow” as if there is a party waiting for the word to start mass deportation, that is a well established part of the reset / resettle / replace campaign running smoothly with
    electoral majority.

    These lab/lib/con political elites certainly know the strength of the electorate, they count on it.

  24. Kremlin is accused of recruiting ‘child soldiers’ to replace Russian losses in Ukraine as war takes another sinister turn.

    Zelensky accuses Putin of building torture chambers and abducting officials in southern Ukraine, as last soldiers in Mariupol defy Russia’s ultimatum to surrender.

    ‘Increasingly desperate’ Vladimir Putin could attack a NATO base to stop the western weapons that are stalling his invasion from getting to Ukrainian forces, ex-national security chief warns.

    Russians eat babies! Says Zelensky.

    Vlad strangled my dog! Joe Biden. Blah Blah!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10726663/Increasingly-desperate-Vladimir-Putin-attack-NATO-base-stop-weapons-getting-Ukraine.html

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/russia-ukraine-conflict/index.html

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10727061/Kremlin-accused-recruiting-child-soldiers-replace-Russian-losses-Ukraine.html#comments

    4. Anyone with the slightest bit of common sense knows this all has to be untrue. The Russians would be so busy doing all this stuff they wouldn’t have time to advance one foot into more Ukrainian territory if it were true.

  26. NHS to call on volunteers to drive emergency patients to hospital. 18 April 2022.

    Volunteers will be sent to drive 999 patients to hospital, as part of efforts to relieve pressures on ambulance services.

    The London Ambulance Service (LAS) is to start piloting the system within weeks, as senior doctors warn of “staggeringly bad” delays to emergency care in some parts of the country.

    Although volunteers are regularly used by hospitals and charities to take patients to outpatient appointments, this is thought to be the first time that non-professionals will be used to ferry emergency cases.

    Rickshaw Drivers next! The whole system, with the NHS leading the way, is in the process of slow disintegration!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/17/volunteers-drive-999-patients-hospital-amid-record-ambulance/

    1. I’ll bet the volunteers will be delighted to find themselves with an emergency case on the back seat and then discovering that there’s a six hour wait in the car park and they get fined and clamped.

        1. Knowing the NHS what do you think?
          A friend was advised to get to A&E. She parked and was then immediately but unexpectedly admitted to hospital and told to leave the car.
          She was clamped and fined and they refused to rescind it.

    2. Half of the problem of ambulance arrival time is the box ticking red tape (purely arse covering) the medics/drivers have to perform during and after pickup and delivery. So how will the NHS bypass this state of affairs?

      1. We’re just picturing hauling MB down the stairs and into my Noddy car when he had his heart attack.

    4. Patient with spinal injury paralysed by man-handling into passenger seat of Smart car.
      Insurance company refuses to pay up as driver failed to mention new voluntary role on policy renewal form.

  27. And just when you thought Patel might be on the right track:

    Britain is to take refugees FROM Rwanda in Priti Patel’s migrants shake-up under agreement to grant asylum to most vulnerable families
    People granted asylum status by Rwanda will be able to come to UK in scheme
    The reciprocal deal means Britain resettle some of most vulnerable refugees
    They will have complex needs, including physical or mental health problems

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10726955/Britain-vulnerable-refugees-Rwanda-Priti-Patels-migrants-shake-up.html

    1. Oh, goody gumdrops.
      Let’s hope this is a spot of kite flying.
      (Yes, yes … I know….)

      1. Anyone claiming to be a refugee in Rwanda likely can’t read or write, and will have pretty primitive morals.
        Tomorrow, there will be millions of them – no unpleasant water crossings, just BA to LHR! Life sorted, courtesy of the taxpayer.

        1. And possibly the re-united Tutsi and Hutus might be looking for a fresh ‘other’ to cut down to size.

    3. In short, Rwanda agreed but only if we take those it doesn’t want. That’s blasted cold. Can’t farm? Get rid. Can’t hear, see, or only having one arm? Get out. That we’re doing this shows how bloody great this country is – and how stupid.

      Rwandan’s fell on each other over sheer backward tribal savagery. The UN proved itself utterly pointless and uninterested. Now we’re returning Ethiopians, Eritreans, Syrians, Sundanese to Rwanda at immense cost when we should simply be returning them to france – as france should have done.

      Every country these dross have passed through has failed to uphold international law. If htey won’t, why should we? Why is Britain always muggins?

    4. 352046+ up ticks,
      S,
      Could almost be taken as a cleansing exercise NOT stopping but swapping, we will in point of fact end up with MORE.

  28. Know the name, but if Dominic Lawson is correct (and I would imagine DM lawyers crawl over these articles before they are published) this chap is a twonk, even by Westminster standards.

    “Who’s actually lost his moral authority?

    One of the first Tory MPs off the blocks to call for Boris Johnson to resign, after news of the Downing Street ‘lockdown parties’ emerged, was Andrew Bridgen. This was hardly surprising. Bridgen has a desire for publicity extraordinary even by the standards of his trade.

    He declared back in January that he didn’t need to see the result of any investigation ‘to know that for me, Boris Johnson has lost the moral authority to lead the country . . . He should do the honourable thing and depart.’

    Those of us familiar with Bridgen’s role in the grotesque attempt (at millions of pounds of public expense) to prove the late Sir Edward Heath to be a child-abuser already knew he was not a person to be taken seriously as a moralist. Now we discover that a High Court Judge, no less, has determined that Bridgen is a liar.

    This stems from a legal action brought by the MP relating to his family’s potato business (which turns over almost £30 million a year).

    Bridgen had asked Inspector Helena Bhakta, the commander of the neighbourhood policing team for his constituency of North West Leicestershire, to investigate what he claimed was a fraud against him by his brother, Paul.

    The MP later told the court he had not made such a request ‘as it would not have been proper’. But Inspector Bhakta produced her own contemporary notes from October 16, 2017: ‘As NPT commander I have regular contact with Andrew Bridgen over constituent matters. Today he asked me to call him. On doing so, he informed me that he suspects his brother is committing fraud.’

    Judge Brian Rawlings concluded that Bridgen’s denial, under oath, of making this call was deliberate dishonesty. He also declared that Bridgen had ‘lied’ in claiming to have been dismissed as a director of his family company, rather than quitting voluntarily, ‘in the hope that this may reduce the settlement that he had to pay his wife in his divorce’. Judge Rawlings’s devastating conclusion was that any assertions by Bridgen required confirmation by an independent witness, or documentary evidence, before they could be trusted.

    Perhaps it is Andrew Bridgen’s own unfortunate constituents who should ask him to ‘do the honourable thing and depart’.”

    2. A Scottish court found the an MP had lied, but brushed it away because he lied in a professional capacity as he told the lie as an MP and not as a private person. That is, we may expect politicians to lie.

      1. Chris* Bryant – possibly the most repulsive man in the House of Commons – accused Nigel Farage of taking hundreds of thousands of pounds from Russia Today.

        Nigel Farage has said that he would like to sue Bryant for this outrageous and unsubstantiated lie but that, as Bryant said what he said under the protection of Parliamentary Privilege, there is nothing he can do and Bryant refuses to retract his lie.

        * Put in my place by the pushy nurse who is giving BT a rest.

          1. I stand corrected – even though I am sitting at my desk. Michael Bryant was not a bad actor.

            Chris Bryant was, so Wiki informs me – once an Anglican priest. This comes as no surprise to me as an organisation which employs scumbags like Welby and Richard Coles turns away decent people like Calvin Robinson.

    1. I see the Fail are not accepting comments! Make sure all of them [the protesters, but maybe the Fail as well!] get a criminal record and fine them heavily; any that breach their bail conditions go to prison!

    3. If this middle class do gooder owns her own house, it should be confiscated and the money raised go to the people who lost money due to her blockade. If we started doing that people like her would stop pretty soon.

  30. No “genuine refugees” ever arrive in the UK. No one arriving by boat across the Channel is “genuine”.

  31. Good Morning to all. Another nice day here in West Sussex, clear blue sky and currently 50f. No doubt it will get warmer and, I trust everyone had an enjoyable day yesterday.

    This from todays leading letter: “SIR – “Extortionate”, “inhumane”, “immoral”, “ungodly” and “illegal” are just some of the descriptions of the scheme to send single males illegally entering the UK to Rwanda for assessment and processing.”

    So I have a question. Can Anglican bishops be told to resign? Because I have to say that neither the Archbishop of Canterbury or of York seem to be competent either spiritually, politically or in understanding the will of the people. Which leaves them pretty much useless as Church leaders, I would think.

    1. The Queen is head of the Church of England, so I suppose as she’s the boss she could sack a bishop.

      1. I ask because I have never heard of it being done but it seems high time with Welby. If I were an Anglican I would be furious and would perceive him to be a wrecking ball in the Church.

          1. Reminds me of a evening out with friends, he was a chess player and when i asked him to pass the salt it took him nearly ten minutes………it must have been the gingham table cloth.

          3. I have gingham table cloths for lunch time and white linen for dinner. I have never followed fashion.

    2. Turns out it’s only 500 and in return we take in the Rwandans they don’t want. Tribal purity reigns in Rwanda…

  33. Rev Richard Coles: Church of England increasingly ‘excluding’ gay couples
    Vicar says he is retiring from parish duties because of the Church’s increasingly ‘conservative, punchy and fundamentalist’ direction.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/17/rev-richard-coles-gay-people-not-welcome-church-england/

    I quite often find I am in agreement with this DT BTL poster!

    BTL
    Richard Tracey
    This odious man parades his title of ‘The Reverend’ in conjunction with his homosexuality to get well-paid appearances on television chat shows and panel games.

    I find this both hypocritical and disgusting. I have never once heard him talk with humility and sincerity about the teachings of Christ which is surely his principal job?

    2. I have always felt sorry for his “parishioners” – they must never see him in the village – or in church.

      On the other hand…..

    3. I expect they will be more than glad to see the back of him. He’s a typical ‘celebrity’ Band wagoner.

    4. “Conservative, punchy and fundamentalist”? That would be following Christian teaching, then.

    1. How good to see the girls taking it in good part – and not weeping and claiming that their space has been invaded,…

  36. Please, please, O please. Fox in the hen house!

    French election: Le Pen may be on verge of shock win with horror undecided stat for Macron
    David Maddox – Sunday Express Political Editor EXCLUSIVE 1 day ago
    336 Comments

    With just a week to go, the survey of French voters by the Democracy Institute has revealed that Emmanuel Macron has just a two point lead over his rightwing rival with 43 percent to 41 percent. However, crucially, the poll shows that 16 percent of French voters are undecided and could opt either way.

    More worrying for Macron is that the votes of third place far left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon have split evently between the two finalists with 28 percent going to Macron and 26 percent going to Le Pen.

    When the two faced off in 2017 Macron won almost all the far left votes.

    But according to the survey of 1,050 French voters, Macron is losing support over the cost of living crisis which Le Pen outpolls him in and is the top issue of concern for French voters on 54 per cent.

    Le Pen is gaining support among low income voters with a mere 38 percent backing Macron.
    Meanwhile, Macron is relying on young voters and pensioners to get him over the line with a majority of 18- to 24-year-olds and over 65s.

    But the age groups between 25 and 64 favour Le Pen who has promised to stop Macron’s plans to raise the age of retirement from 62 to 65.

    Macron is also unable to lean on his record as a path for victory with 47 percent compared to 43 percent disapproving of his handling of the Ukraine crisis; 59 percent disapproving of his economic record; 55 percent disapproving of his overall record as President and 50 percent saying he is not a statesman.

    Concerningly for the international community, there appears to be support for Le Pen’s policy of leaving Nato by 45 percent to 42 percent.

    There is also scepticism over the war in Ukraine with 51 percent believing sanctions hurt France more than Russia.

    Meanwhile, Russia is only the third biggest threat for French voters on 20 percent behind China on 22 percent and terrorism on 33 percent.

    Patrick Basham, director of the Democracy Institute, said: “On Easter Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron should pray next week is uneventful. If it is, he will be reelected. Marine Le Pen should pray for someone or something to disrupt the political week. If that happens, she probably wins the election.”

    Vote for President
    Q “Which presidential candidate will you vote for in this year’s election?”

    Macron = 43%
    Le Pen = 41%
    Undecided = 16%
    Macron’s Vote by Gender
    Men = 47%
    Women = 55%
    Macron’s Vote by Age
    18-24 = 53%
    25-34 = 44%
    35-49 = 44%
    50-64 = 47%
    65+ = 63%
    Macron’s Vote by Income
    Low = 38%
    Middle = 52%
    High = 57%
    Macron’s Vote by Geographic Area
    Rural = 35%
    Small town = 49%
    Urban = 56%
    Enthusiasm Gap
    Q “Are you strongly or very enthusiastic about your choice of presidential candidate?”

    Macron voters = 53%
    Le Pen voters = 64%
    Macron Voters: Positive or Negative Vote
    Q. “Are you voting for Macron or against Le Pen?”

    For = 48%
    Against = 52%
    Le Pen Voters: Positive or Negative Vote
    Q. “Are you voting for Le Pen or against Macron?”

    For = 61%
    Against = 39%
    Mélenchon Voters’ 2nd Round Choice
    Macron = 28%
    Le Pen = 26%
    Undecided = 14%
    Direction of Country
    Q “Is France currently heading in the right or wrong direction as a country?”

    Right = 38%
    Wrong = 62%
    Most Important Issue & Favoured Party
    Q “What issue is most important to you, and which candidate do you favour on this issue?”

    Inflation = 54% [Le Pen favoured by 15 points]
    Health care = 11% [Macron +12]
    Crime = 10% [Le Pen +17]
    Jobs = 9% [Le Pen +7]
    Immigration = 9% [Le Pen +11]
    Ukraine = 7% [Macron +4]
    Macron’s Ratings
    Q “Do you approve or disapprove of President Macron’s overall performance?”

    Approve = 38%
    Disapprove = 55%
    Q “Do you approve of President Macron’s overall handling of the economy?”

    Yes = 37%
    No = 59%
    Q “Do you approve of President Macron’s overall handling of the Ukraine crisis?”

    Yes = 43%
    No = 47%
    Q “Is President Macron a statesman?”

    Yes = 42%
    No = 50%
    Le Pen’s Ratings
    Q “Do you approve or disapprove of Marine Le Pen’s overall performance?”

    Approve = 37%
    Disapprove = 56%
    Q “Is Marine Le Pen too pro-Russia in her statements and positions?”

    Yes = 43%
    No = 45%
    Foreign Policy
    Q “Which country is hurt more by the economic sanctions imposed upon Russia?”

    France = 51%
    Russia = 41%
    Q “Should France leave NATO?”

    Yes = 45%
    No = 42%
    Q “Which country, actor, or behavior poses the greatest threat to France?”

    Terrorism = 33%
    China = 22%
    Russia = 20%
    Migration = 13%
    Other = 12%
    Poll Methodology

    The fieldwork for this survey of a randomly selected national telephone (landline and cell) sample of 1,050 registered French voters was conducted by the Democracy Institute’s polling unit from April 14th to April 15th 2022. The projected national turnout among registered voters is 72 percent. The survey was conducted via interactive voice response, in which recorded questions were played for randomly-dialled respondents and answers were given via their telephone keypads. To ensure a representative sample, the results were weighted for key demographic and political variables including, but not limited to, party identification, gender, age, education, income, region, voting history, and cell phone-only households. This national poll has a margin of error of (+/-) 3 percent at a 95 percent confidence interval.

      2. Not sure on that Plum. She is most definitely hostile to it and believes in a policy of France first.

    1. Morning Rik. It is really just a complex scam designed to fool the peasants into thinking something is being done!

    3. Put the economic migrants landing on our beaches on P&O ferries at gunpoint. Sail to Calais and dump them back on French soil. Rinse and repeat. These men are not fleeing war, famine or disease.

    4. On the contrary, this is a rather good idea.

      We take some of their people with complex needs, and in return we get rid of a large number of slammers who are of military age, many

      with military training and experience.

      If it is done properly it could be very advantageous to peace in our country.

    5. On the contrary, this is a rather good idea.

      We take some of their people with complex needs, and in return we get rid of a large number of slammers who are of military age, many

      with military training and experience.

      If it is done properly it could be very advantageous to peace in our country.

  38. I put this up late last night. Come on folks, put a name to that face.

    I’ve just finished watching BBC2’s Maggie & Ronnie show. What giants they were compared to today’s morally and intellectually retarded pygmies. Of course, memories of the 80s are always going to be warmer: my knees didn’t pop, I didn’t need reading glasses, I had more money to spend on indulgences and the pubs were buzzing!

    Apart from the politics, what was the most notable feature of the programmes? Fashion: a little overdressed perhaps but at least a sign of self-respect, unlike today’s slovenly creatures, and BIG HAIR! News presenters Julia Somerville and Jan Leeming feature, both also with impossibly clipped pronunciation that trumps Pamela Stephenson’s ‘NTNON’ send-up of Angela Rippon, but who is this?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b099bbd8a4b7636b496ba7ec13511688fa77aabd18715625d848a51e05f7ed17.jpg
    We shall not see their like again…

    As a footnote, there was a sad moment in the second programme. Reagan’s time in office was over and before he officially handed over to George Bush, he and MT met for the last time as leaders. MT looks lost, knowing she was now really alone. This was just four months after her Bruges speech, effectively her political death knell. If only today’s Conservative Party could be as ruthless in getting rid of a leader who has inflicted so much damage on the country as it was in 1990 in wrongly removing someone who was the last champion of the United Kingdom.

    1. I depressed myself yesterday by designing a Good Luck card for a cousin who is going into hospital.
      I chose shots from the obvious “Carry On” films.
      A poignant reminder of when we were still allowed to laugh and there were definite differences between xx and xy. And we enjoyed those differences.

        2. As my wife tells me I am wrong again! I knew it was an Armstrong. I used to think she was rather attractive – but then I met Caroline!

    4. I had exactly the same problem that you did with this newsreader. Somerville and Leeming were obvious (as was Sue Lawley) but I’m struggling with this lady.

  39. Broadcasting Earth’s location could provoke alien invasion, Oxford scientist warns. 18 april 2022.

    Dr Ord suggested that it might be wise to have “public discussion” before sending messages to aliens, pointing out that “even passive SETI (listening for their messages) could hold dangers, as the message could be designed to entrap us.

    “These dangers are small, but poorly understood and not yet well managed.”

    Overall, wrote Dr Ord, “the main relevant question is the ratio of peaceful to hostile civilisations. We have very little evidence about whether this is high or low, and there is no scientific consensus. Given the downside could be much bigger than the upside, this doesn’t sound to me like a good situation in which to take active steps toward contact.”

    I have to confess to a small but persistent suspicion that they are already here and undermining the native’s existence.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/17/stop-revealing-earths-location-dangerous-aliens-nasa-warned/

      1. They forgot to key in the new traffic lights near Sainsbury’s. We are safe; the aliens will never get past that jam.

    3. Any alien race that could travel here would have markedly superior technology. The best humanity could hope for is slavery or being kept as pets. They would not be friendly.

      2. Voyager 1 was launched in 1977, it has only recently left the solar system.
        In very approximate terms it is a “light day” away from Earth.
        The nearest star with a potentially habitable planet, apart from the sun, is over 4 light years away.

          1. If one can imagine it one can create it.
            Eventually.
            Given the size of space and the number of stars and planets, I suspect the chances of them finding Earth are pretty remote, even if they did develop a way of travelling the distances involved.

          2. The original post to this thread says they want to signal any available aliens. If aliens pick up our signal they will know exactly where we are.

          3. Possibly not.
            We get transmissions and only know approximately where they are coming from, although your aliens may probably be a lot more sophisticated than we are.
            It depends on how long they have been developing from their own primordial soup.

          5. That’s the coming back , the going away is still subject to mankinds inefficient propulsion systems.

    4. I’m not convinced of that way of thinking at all. Beings capable of travelling such vast distances would have achieved a highly technological civilization. To achieve that they would have learn a very high degree of co-operation. They would have avoided the pitfalls of trying to annihilate each other and would have transcended that desire, just as we are trying to do. And just like us, if we managed to get there, we would not go back. Not on “moral” grounds but on the grounds that co-operation produced the maximum amount of efficiency of resources and thus benefited all.

      At the point that such beings had achieved the capability of inter stellar flight, I would suggest all aggressive tendencies would have been bred out of them by evolution. Because greater co-operation produces the maximum rate of returns and is thus evolutionarily speaking a superior strategy. So I’m suggesting that co-operation would be, as it were, baked into their genes and on meeting us, even if we were primitive compared with them, would not result in a “hostile” take over by them because such behaviour would have been eliminated way back in their evolutionary past. Consider how far we have come in a few thousand years.

      A civilization capable of arriving here would be much, much older than us and far more sophisticated with regard to their understanding concerning the interdependent nature of civilization, co-operation between beings. If anything, therefore, they would think in terms of two possibilities. One, we are not bright enough to deal with them and thus they would retire and wait. Two, they would see us as useful partners and would thus accelerate our evolution so that we could benefit both them and us. Beings guided by such a co-operative ethos would not see us as inferior in the same way as we regard other life forms as inferior to us. In fact many people do not think that way any more, it’s the good way of thinking ecologically, as opposed to the political use of ecology, which is embedded in the us/them mind set, which is an inferior and primitive way of using the ecological/ co-dependent, co-operative way of thinking, in fact us/them ecology is a negation of the underlying principles of real ecology.. So I would argue that we are already evolving along that path of co-operation and, it seems to me, it is the inevitable path because the alternative with greater and greater technological sophistication, becomes complete annihilation.

      1. Why would anything coming here want the cesspit we’ve made of the planet? A bit like discovering an island 300 years ago and finding it’s swarming with rats, just killing and eating each other. Kill all the rats and let the island get back to a balanced ecology before building a luxurious holiday complex. That’s what I’d do if I was a visiting alien.

        1. I don’t see it as a cess pit at all. On the contrary, I see it as a glorious and wonderous place. The fact that people have and continue to make mistakes, well of course, evolution is a process from the primitive to the sophisticated. We, I believe are on the cusp of becoming far more than we realize. As Buckminster Fuller put it. “It will make the Renaissance look like a tempest in a tea pot.” It is not fair, in my opinion, to judge from one moment in our brief history. The only reason we do it is because we are self aware and that in itself is proof of progress in evolution. I strongly believe that is because the universe is aware, we reflect that reality, but we are just at the beginning of understanding that and thus, are where we are at this moment in time. Our task, I believe is to lift up the entirety of humanity and all sentient life and in that process the entire planet. Even in the last 100 years we have come a vast distance. 50 years ago our modern world was inconceivable, a fantasy. Now we are able to feed everyone which when I was a child was not the case. Mass starvation was a common place. 50 years ago we shot elephants fore sport. %0 years ago we thought nothing of spoiling and destroying land for our own needs. Now we are struggling to find more positive ways of achieving what we need. So no, it is not a “cess pit” not even remotely.

          1. Elephants are still shot by trophy hunters for sport. Two with very large tusks were recently shot in Botswana.

          2. Yes, these are exceptions that prove the rule. But now we think of such people as criminals and beyond the pale.

          3. We do – but it’s still legal and they still do it. Not just elephants, either – South Africa, Namibia and Botswana still welcome trophy hunters and have quotas for various animals – lions, leopards, even rhinos.

          4. I know they do but it is now beyond the pale. People who do this sort of thing are treated with contempt and quite rightly to. I suspect in the very near future even permitted trophy hunting will become illegal because of the majority have for such behaviour.

          5. Sadly it’s not just the shooters – those African countries look on their wildlife as a resource to make money – very little goes to the local people but it goes into the coffers of the governments and of course some back pockets. The people get a bit of meat. The people who live in close proximity to large wild animals are not sufficiently recompensed for the damage they can do to both their livestock, fences and their livelihoods.

          6. That’s typical, as you know, of Africa. My brother in law was a policeman in Kenya. Went back after independence and what the black elite had done to the place and to the ordinary Africans was tragic. Most of any good the British had done had unravelled into the usual bribery and corruption.

          7. But at least Kenya banned trophy hunting back in the 70s. Of course there is poaching and snaring for bushmeat, but visitors pay to see the wildlife, not shoot it.

          10. It is easy to pick out things and point to them. I would refer you to what I have already said about lifting people out of starvation. That the third world now has a life span as long as ours was in the 1950’s. Advances in medicine advances in physics, advances in our understanding of the natural world. there are 100’s of things that have improved life for all. But you are choosing to ignore them by pointing to the negative and ignoring the positive.
            https://www.splice-bio.com/8-revolutionary-discoveries-of-the-last-50-years/
            and
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpozw1CAxmU
            Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

          14. It’s not difficult. My brother is a Buddhist priest and they teach that human beings are fundamentally good. Think like that and you see the goodness in people. Our civilization, to be specific the civilization produced by Western Christianity, Catholic/Protestant, not the Orthodox Christian world, is based on the belief that people are fundamentally bad, depraved through original sin. Even if you do not consciously believe that it permeates our whole way of being. But when you think like that, then you see humanity as irredeemable. It is simply a matter of looking for the good and not defaulting to negativity. But we do that all the time because negativity is easier. It is harder to build than it is to destroy. In the Orthodox tradition we see people as “logoi” sparks of God, so we are all good. As the Bible says: “We are made in the image and likeness of God.”

      2. I tend to have a different view. When explorers ‘dicovered’ new lands it never went well for the people who lived there.

        1. Those were the days where we understood very little about co-operation, we still lived in the mind set of them and us. Exclusionary thinking which I believe, is going the way of the Dodo.

          1. Yet humans are simply not ready for it. We’re far too immature, with demented fringe groups still wanting their own way regardless. Egotistical morons grasping at any advantage going for their own ideology.

          1. Oh I don’t know. Privileged, exempt from taxes and many laws, no need to work because whitey provides anything that is demanded.

          2. …and when they reach critical numbers they will take over. I doubt whitey will be treated well at all.

          3. Did they ever reach ‘critical numbers’ or was that threat the reason why they were effectively wiped out?

            How many of the original ‘Red Indian’ tribes now exist?

            How many are reduced to penury, selling drugs and alcohol on their ‘Reservations?

      3. You make the assumption that other civilisations will consist of conscionable beings…

          1. The Eloi were a bit dim. They would never have go into space.

            Good afternoon Stormy.

        2. They would have to be if they were capable of inter stellar flight. That’s my point.

          1. Why would they have to be conscionable? Technological achievement is not an indicator of conscience.

          4. I know what it means. So please answer the question. But for your convenience. Here is the American Heritage Dictionary
            Acceptable or permissible according to conscience.
            Conscientious; principled.
            Governed by, or according to, conscience; reasonable; just.

          5. “So please answer the question.”

            You won’t last long on here if you take that tone.

            You assume that your intergalactic travellers will use their technology for good, i.e. conscionable, purpose. Why would they? They might have no concept of conscience.

          6. It is up to you how you take a “tone” from the printed word. If I had said: “Answer the question” than you might take umbrage. as it is you are being rather precious, I used the word “please”.
            To answer you. I take it that they will do things for the maximum amount of efficiency, not for morality. In other words moral judgements such as good or bad would not enter into it. Beings who understood that cooperation was the highest good and benefited to the maximum. would not use such concepts as good or evil because they are dualistic notions and would not be entertained in such a society. If you imagine that I am making that up then I would refer you to Buddhism which has, for over 2000 years taken exactly that point of view.

            “What is good is the efficacious which is in harmony with interdependent causation/inter-causality/inter-being, inter-arising.” The philosopher Vasubhandu. I use several terms because no one word or concept in the English language reflects the word Pratityasamutpada which is what Vasubhandu is talking about. It is a term which is synonymous with the Truly Real as opposed to what is Relatively Real and it is the basis of all Perfect Action.

          7. Oh, and please don’t threaten me. I was being perfectly courteous but it seemed to me you were beating about the bush and being rather insulting in asking me what “conscionable” means.

          8. How was it threatening? Demanding that questions be answered often ends badly.

            In speculating on the nature of extra-terrestrial life, you made assumptions that were challenged and didn’t like it.

          9. I would say you were being condescending to start with. Do I know what conscionable means, indeed! And then you threaten to see me off this community because I answer you in a way not to your liking but quite politely. Answer the question. Would have been rude. Please answer the question Is not.

      4. “Consider how far we have come in a few thousand years”. And how far we have fallen back in a few short decades.

        1. One step back two forward. I actually don’t think we are retrogressing at all. We are certainly going through a period of intellectual and existential confusion but that is because we are watching the death of civilization as we knew it, and the birth of another. What we take for granted is unravelling and causing, in the minds of many, confusion. All our usual reference points are being knocked down but that is because what we assumed to be true is no longer so. We are, so to speak, moving from Newtons world to that of Einstein and most of us don’t understand Einstein’s world and are thus all at sea and suffering from nostalgia and hankering after old certainties.

          1. I don#t think we have changed at all. There were always clever and civilised people, and there were always barbarians. The New Testament is an astonishingly modern book. And only a couple of years ago, ISIS were murdering people in the most horrible way imaginable.

          2. …and,Johnathan, do you think that the ‘New Civilisation’, whose birth you think we are seeing, is going to be the answer to and for our future?

            I’m very glad that I shall be dead, long before that disaster strikes us.

            How many could possible write sentences like those above?

          3. If you look at a chart of human progress. It is a line that goes up very gradually for thousands of years, it’s a gentle slope. Since WWII the slope has, because of innovations, become literally vertical, innovations coming in thick and fast. That is why the confusion. Of course it is causing political turmoil because they can’t keep up. But, I firmly believe that it will, as they say, all come out in the wash. Here is an article that touches on what is happening although I do not necessarily go along with this particular version of what is going to happen.
            https://bigthink.com/the-future/ray-kurzweil-singularity/

          4. I can’t agree, Jonathan. We are watching the death of (a good) civilisation as we knew it, and the birth of another which is in fact not a civilisation but more like anarchy.

          5. I think Elsie, you are assuming the death of the West. I do not see it that way at all. On the contrary. I know we are going through a period of confusion at present but I don’t think it will last. There is, not to put to fine a point on it, an attempt at a Marxist takeover of the sort that Gramsci advocated. But there are distinct signs that it is not working and is now going on the defensive. So I am hopeful for the future. The reality is that if the West died, so would the rest of the world, literally. Because it is from the West that all innovations flow. Those with saner heads know that and will not allow the Golden Goose, to be killed.

      5. Yes on the co-operation, but not necessarily older. Certainly more sophisticated, having abandoned the desperate rabidity of politics in favour of logical, ordered societies. Gone would be the ferocious urge to buy favours, votes and power in favour of self worth and merit.

        Such a nation would never have conceived of the miserable spite of the EU, the useless UN, the wretched greed of the political classes and would have long abandoned idiotic concepts such as forcing others to work at great cost for inefficient, ineffective, wasteful public services or worse, the profit of others.

    5. Haven’t we been sending radio and television broadcasts out for up to a hundred years. Perhaps they’ll be able to tell us what Twin Peaks was all about.

    6. Any “Oxford scientist” who genuinely believes that our solar system is within travelling distance of putative life-forms from another solar system, desperately needs to be dismissed from his/her/its post and then confined to a quiet place, in a straitjacket, for its own safety.

      1. I did read a sci-fi story of a a crew of astronauts sent to the nearest start using suspended animation to stop them aging. When they finally got to their destination they found humans were already there because in the meantime someone had invented a fast than light propulsion system.

  41. Morning all.
    Been very busy prepping for the family BBQ today 2 pm arrival. Eight adults and three lively Grand children.
    Boned and over night marinated (that’ll import some more flavour Grizz) Leg of English lamb, home made Tapenade with home made Ciabatta, roasted veg, none root or or brassica. Plenty of fresh rosemary and garden Thyme olive oil. Chicken kebabs for two of our daughter in-laws.
    But yesterday we went out to Benington near Stevenage, Stig will know it. Coffee at the village hall, free parking. Had a lovely walk around Lordship Gardens the lake etc and Saxon St Peters Church in the picturesque village. There is a distinct lack of signage along the road sides but we got there. One of our near neighbours does some part time work in the gardens. It’s known for it’s fine display of snow drops obviously we missed that, but……..
    And tmz morning my long awaited appointment with the cardiologist. Over twelve months of waiting. I’ve got a stack of paper work for his team to consider whish me luck.
    Have a good day, Slayders.

    1. Hope there were lots of diverse people there, too….. Like the adverts tell us…

    3. Good morning Maggiebelle

      Did you see my post last night? I suggested that you might have been called in to sort the ravers out; another Nottler suggested that you were joining in the raving and another that you had organised it!

      Have they gone away yet?

  44. Happy Easter?
    Apparently the home where Elderly Chum is residing, found a stray covid reading and has shut down for the duration. That should really please friends and families who had booked a visit.
    When WILL this nonsense stop?

      1. Covid pass…..For goodness sake. They’re desperate, aren’t they? Do they realise the dystopian hell they want to create has been done, failed and failed again?

          1. Is it failing? That would depend on the motive for doing it.
            It fails from a health perspective.
            But as a control mechanism, boy, it’s fabulous.

        3. They believe that this time it will be different, because technology.
          I believe that Hitler also thought that when he started to invade Russia.

        4. If I may, the difference this time is that it’s entirely digitally monitored and controlled. It will be mandatory to have your smart phone with you at all times. Any mandatory app not installed on your phone will trigger an alarm for the police to knock on your door. Basic free smart phones will be rented to you if you don’t already have one. This is your personal pass to allow you to engage in society. So your phone will be mandatory and essential ‘for the good of society’. There’ll be multiple mandatory ‘apps’ on your phone such as ‘money wallet’, ‘health pass’, ‘social credit score’, ‘carbon emission tracker’ and I’m sure many more as the insidious noose tightens .

          Focusing on just these four apps it’s easy to see how you will be controlled. The ‘health pass’ appears self-explanatory but of course like so many things ‘woke’ is not in the best interests of your own health, it’s for ‘the good of society’. Other people must be able to move around freely knowing they’re ‘safe’ and that all others around them have had every single state enforced medical prophylactic. You will only be allowed out of your home if your medical status is 100% up to date or you’re travelling to receive the latest and greatest.

          The ‘carbon emission’ app is also pretty self-explanatory. Even today, however you travel, your phone can tell whether you’re walking, running, riding, driving or on a train or plane. These activities create a ‘carbon footprint’ and when you have reached your daily/weekly/monthly limit you will be banned from leaving your home ‘for the good of society’ (do we see a recurring theme already?). Your spending habits are already easily tracked and logged online or in the shop via your credit card and each transaction carries with it a ‘carbon cost’.

          That cost is being developed as we speak. All manufacturing supply chains are now being pressured into creating an ESG (Environmental,Societal, Governance) score. You may not be surprised to learn that ESG is a misnomer. The ‘E’ refers to Net Zero, that’s the 2050 target of ZERO carbon emissions. So far so straightforward (mad as a box of frogs but straightforward nonetheless). ‘Societal’ is a little more oblique. This refers to Wokeness in terms of race & sex quotas etc in a company’s work force. Governance refers to Wokeness of the organisation’s Board, again quotas, skin colour etc. There is no place for profit as a driver anymore in this brave new world of the euphemistically named, Stakeholder Capitalism. This is touted as an environmentally friendly necessity (‘for the good of society’) and an increasingly large number of global financial institutions such as Hedge Funds/Pension Funds will already only finance ESG-compliant companies. This has been rolled out over the last couple of years and has already captured all (?) global corporations – certainly the 1000 or so global corporations which are members of the WEF. Smaller companies etc are now slowly being coerced for their very survival by the corporations at the top of their supply chains into compliance.

          The ‘social credit score’ app is already fully operational in China. This monitors your obedience to state diktats. Currently in China, the authorities monitor all internet traffic (as is the case also here in the West) and if someone criticises state dogma their credit score is reduced. This is not confined to the online world. If one crosses a road at an unauthorised spot, you will be identified by the ubiquitous CCTV cameras and your social credit score will be reduced. Conversely, be a cheerleader for the state and you’ll be rewarded with a high social credit score. Moreover, anyone who has their credit score reduced for any reason and please note, without appeal, will also see the personal social credit scores of those they are ‘grouped’ with, i.e. friends, family, colleagues reduced ‘for the good of society’. Oh, how to make friends and influence people.

          I’ve left the ‘money wallet’ until last as this is the real doozy. We can’t survive in the modern world without money and the more we have the easier our life is. Your ‘digital wallet’ will be stocked by one or more central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). This isn’t money as we know it, i.e. something which is universally exchangeable for anything put up for sale. In stark contrast, CBDCs are programmable digital coupons only exchangeable for specific goods that the issuer deems suitable for you to purchase. This links with the other apps mentioned above (and ones I haven’t even imagined) via a real time centralised database.

          The constraints on our freedoms are obvious. If you’ve been a naughty boy/girl/it your movement will be more restricted than those that obey. Those who obey will be able to move around more freely and wider, perhaps even get permission to go abroad. They’ll have a wider choice of goods they can purchase with their CBDCs. They’ll have larger carbon footprints etc etc etc.

          It’s a virtuous cycle and all you have to do to succeed is to be a virtuous, obedient, docile pet.

          Finally, (you’ll be pleased to hear), but interestingly enough, today’s MSM/Gov’t shell game is very telling and not unrelated. The current shell game on the street is focused on the left shell, the Ukraine conflict. All the while, the right shell has been very busy doing little reported, boring non-newsworthy stuff like signing a UN treaty (along with 193 other nations) which allows the WHO to supersede our government in responding to the next pandemic. The new de facto World Government in waiting perhaps? There’s even more boring stuff which of course no-one would be interested in hearing from our MSM, which is a small, just a tiny change to the UK Human Rights Act currently doing the rounds which replaces the primacy of individual rights such as bodily autonomy with primacy of the ‘societal good’. I can’t believe it, what a coincidence, there’s that phrase again.

          Do you see the recurring theme now?

    4. They are really cranking up the covimania over here, fourth jabs all around and wear a mask for yet another wave.
      Needless say to say the teachers union are calling for mask mandates, the left want businesses shut down and the doomsayers are filling the airwaves with apocalyptic messages.

      Meanwhile in the real world we went to see a local singer at a neighbourhood pub, absolutely packed with people having a good time.

        1. I took it seriously for some time but enough is enough, time to get back to living.

          1. My thoughts exactly! With what’s going on with us, who knows how long we’ve got left. We are not going to spend one more minute following insane diktats or falling for being scared into compliance.
            Sod the government!

          2. Indeed. I went to a recital this morning – not a mask in sight and refreshments available. Yesterday in church I shook hands with the people in front and behind at the Peace. Time to live.

    5. I heard from a friend in Germany recently, where FFP2 masks are still mandatory on trains for adults, and surgical masks for children.
      She is black. She was travelling with her two children on an almost empty train (just them and one other passenger sitting far away). Two ticket inspectors got on. She gave them her tickets, and then the man started on about her mask being a surgical mask not an FFP2 one. She said he went on and on about how he could fine her, but he would let her go just this one time, and she must buy an FFP2 mask immediately, and only children are allowed to wear the surgical ones, and where was she getting off the train, and why was she travelling etc etc. She said finally he only stopped scolding when his female colleague started to look embarrassed and said “I think she understands now.”
      I very much doubt he would have behaved like that if she were white and German and male. It’s not surprising that people crack sometimes. All that for an utterly pointless mask!
      Some people will never willingly give up their petty powers.

      1. Ticket inspectors and Traffic wardens. Brothers in Arms. I bet that if she had been traveling with a big black man they would have said nothing.

      1. Mr Papathanassiou tickles a mean ivory.

        In 1982 I bought a new hi-fi system with Mission speakers. This was the first tune I played on it after I’d set it up.

        Mesmerisingly good!

        1. I used to get the train up to London Bridge to go to school. One day it stopped at Brockley and we were all told to get off. So we did and there was an announcement that buses would be provided to get us to London Bridge. The engine in the train had caught fire, there was smoke everywhere. This was 1967/8. I remember it clearly- the date was Friday 13th.
          Luckily there was another girl from my school on the train so we could back each other up- no-one believed that the train had caught fire.

    8. There are many reports and some videos of electric buses combusting. They go up quickly and spectacularly.

      1. Yet what’s forcing the flames upward? Why are there not sparks as youd get in an electrical fire?

  47. If this is true it’s the most important thing in the Daily Mail today, if not the entire month. Because I can never peel them perfectly
    How to hard boil your eggs to perfection so the shell ‘slips right off’ WITHOUT dunking them in hot water
    A popular foodie has revealed the best way to peel a hard boiled egg so that the stubborn shell slips right off.

    American chef Kathleen Ashmore, known online as Kat Can Cook, swears by the power of steam to create perfect hard boiled eggs every time.

    To create them Kathleen simply placed eight eggs into a steamer inside a pot over the stove on a high heat.
    She then steamed the eggs for 12 to 14 minutes and revealed that the egg shells simply slipped right off.
    Kathleen’s trick works as hot steam makes the protein from inside the egg white contract, which pulls it away from the shell membrane.

      1. That crossed my mind too. I assume hard boiled considering the duration of steaming.

      2. 3-minute soft-boiled are delicious as are 12-minute hard-boiled. Anything in between, e.g. coddled (addled) or such like are an abomination.

    3. I rinse hot boiled eggs under the cold tap for a bit, not long enough to cool down interior. It makes them easier to peel, by cracking, and then pulling away the membrane with the shell. If keeping the egg for later the cold water effect stops a dark ring around the yolk.

      1. Were you ever in professional catering? That was exactly what i was taught. I despair when i see grey eggs offered. They clearly don’t know what they are doing. Which also makes me suspicious of their other offerings.

        1. Yes, I was. I worked in food service for a while. I also, at one time, owned a restaurant business.

          1. Food is and has been my life. Never got to great heights but it was my only interest.

      1. Best beloved believes that fresh eggs are the best for poaching – any thoughts?

        1. I’ve heard the same so it’s probably good advice. The white stays together better on a fresh egg so they look better when, for example, they are fried.

    1. It’s funny how the muslims use of systems to get their own way but want special treatment exclusion from those systems.

      You just don’t interview them. I’m sorry, you just don’t let them in the door. Heck, the Beeb even has a big long article about this yet it ignores the fundamental problem. The very article proves *why* you don’t hire them. Yes, it’s sad. No, I don’t like it but my little company doesn’t have the budget to pay someone £5000 because they won’t shake hands with a customer.

  49. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-new-york-subway-shooter-s-private-hell

    I’ve often wondered if that isn’t partly where I’m heading. Not the violent poor temper, but the introverted circular frustrations.

    What he did was heinous – an egotistical scream blaming others for his own failings that he violentlytook out on other people but does no one else feel that frustration of having to plunk in the 16 digits of your card only to be asked them again? To be told your call is important to us… yet never answered? At the horrific incompetence and waste of the state and it’s monolithic disinterest in providing a service? At the amount we pay and how little we get for it?

  50. Priti Patel could face an exodus of staff from the Home Office following the announcement of a controversial immigration deal with Rwanda, unions have warned.
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/priti-patel-rwanda-immigration-deal-uk-home-office-protest-b994693.html?itm_source=Internal&itm_channel=homepage_trending_article_component&itm_campaign=trending_section&itm_content=4
    That can only be good news. Who would miss them? Don’t let the door bang your arses as you go.

    1. That’s just a threat. They aren’t going anywhere. You are going to tell me next they would be acting on principle.

    2. Civil Servants will leave? Where will they go? And they would give up their pensions? Idle threats.

      2. As somebody here pointed out last night, whether or not you like Dominic Cummings at least he wanted to sort out the snivel serpents.

          1. and Johnson fell for it. If anyone was totaly unfit the become PM its Johnson.

        1. As someone who regularly works from home – and works considerably longer hours (7-6) than if he were in the office (9-3) – where you work these days isn’t really important. What you do is.

          The CS suffers from being two groups – the first group is quite small and does all the work. It’s motivated and conscientious. The other half, the majority, is indolent and unnecessary but gets all the promotions because it has time to brown nose, waffle and follow the endless processes designed to hinder achievement.

    1. That is in fact Q’s invention that was developed for 007 for disguised X band Governmental satellite communication with the Ukrainian president.

    2. That is in fact Q’s invention that was developed for 007 for disguised X band Governmental satellite communication with the Ukrainian president.

  53. One for Lottie…

    I’ve started dating a girl who’s doing a master’s degree in literature.

    She asked me the other night what I thought about Poe.

    I told her I was a big fan of his early work, but I must say my favourite is now Tinky Winky.

        1. True story- my dad’s brother was quite a character and always had tales to tell of holiday trips etc.
          One time, he and his wife were staying in an hotel somewhere or other and she, being of a slightly nervous disposition, had him check in the wardrobe and look under the bed.
          No guzzunda but a paper bag. He took the bag out and there were 4 doughnuts in it and one had a bite out of it.
          The mystery was never solved although he said the doughnuts weren’t very stale.

          3. My parents went on a cycling holiday in Devon during the war (they lived in Worcestershire). Quite apart from the fact they forgot their ID cards (and only realised when they were asked to present them when they got within a few miles of home on the way back!), at one of the B&B places the loo was out the back. Two rather posh boys were staying at the same place and they had to have explained to them the purpose of the guzunder.

    3. Same here. It could have been two but there are so many words with the same three middle letters. It’s always pot luck!

      Wordle 303 4/6

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

      1. An ‘impressive’ three for me!
        Wordle 303 3/6

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

  56. Modern feminism is ‘racist’ and only focuses on ‘straight, white, middle-class women’
    Highgate School in London, accused of upholding a rape culture, told pupils to use their ‘privilege’ for ‘black, gay and trans feminism’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/18/modern-feminism-racist-focuses-straight-white-middle-class-women/

    Highgate School?

    Next door in the Cemetery Karl Marx is turning in his grave!

    (Documents may have suggested that Lenin was transsexual of mixed race)

    1. Er, that’s always been the case, as the only women privileged enough to preach feminism are middle class ones from households supported by a man, from free and prosperous white cultures.

      Trans feminism is a term designed to wind up women. Woman = adult human female.

      1. I’m waiting for the one-legged black trans-lesbian contestant on Strictly. ITV3 aired Carry On Again Doctor (1969) yesterday afternoon. It features a male character trying to pass himself off as a woman. The jokes are exactly what you’d expect and yes, I laughed. (ITV own the Rank Films catalogue and thankfully have the balls…)

      2. All the black women i have ever had the pleasure to meet were sassy and strong. What they thought of their menfolk was derisory. It ain’t the men that fetches the water !

        1. In my experience they have little time for political feminism though, unless they’ve learned to use it to milk the system. It’s not part of their culture.

          1. The ones i have met in Birmingham and South London were trying to better themselves. Politics didn’t come into it. I agree with you.

            Diane Abbot park FFS.

          5. There are probably quite a few of them who dream of establishing a Republic so that they can be the first head of state – the ultimate gravy train.

          7. That would require him to have a hereditary peerage; the life peerages are baronies only.

    1. Three for me, sweeie ! … x
      Wordle 303 3/6

      ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. And me.
      Wordle 303 4/6

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

      2. Well I had the two AZ shots – but I’m not having any more and definitely don’t want the Pfizer crap.

      3. I refused a) because I’m a suspicious sod and b) because why would I need a vaccine when I’ve had the lurgy? My immune system fought it off, so I’m protected.

    2. They were publishing documents saying that 90% of the population was vaxxed only a few weeks ago.

    3. Particularly significant are the 12 million who refused more than one dose. They must be people who have either suffered a nasty reaction or someone close to them has.
      That’s a darn lot of bad reactions!

  59. Justin Welby can’t see that modern societies need borders to survive
    The asylum deal with Rwanda – widely thought to be impossible – is a real achievement for Priti Patel
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/17/justin-welby-cant-see-modern-societies-need-borders-survive/

    BTL – Alan Scott poses this interesting question for Justin Welby

    Is there a border of some sort between Heaven and Hell?

    I might add that there may be a buffer state called Purgatory between them.

    1. As I understand it we will be taking asylum seekers from Rwanda. Especially those with complex health problems. Just to add to our woes. You really couldn’t make it up.

      1. Kagame is such a nice man and he wants the best for his people. Don’t forget…the NHS is the envy of the world.

          1. Hence the apostrophes. Of course, they have ruined it and successive governments have been doing likewise for years.

  60. We knew Zelensky was a cross-dressing actor who likes to appear naked but it transpires that he too is a crackhead like Hunter Biden.

    Does Zelensky have a laptop?

    We need to cease pouring billions in aid and weapons to this pervert and his corrupt non-country.

    1. Macron, Zelensky, Hunter and Trudeau are all crackheads that wouldn’t look out of place on Gay Times front cover.

          3. Isn’t he Algerian or summat? I’m sure he would do well back in the old country once they found out he was queer.

          8. Nah – that was a different one – his “bodyguard” who – pretending to be a policeman – attacked an innocent passer by. Prosecuted and convicted.

      1. If it’s the white cliffs of Dover, at least they won’t need a bag of chalk!

      1. The C-17 on the beach just west of Dover, is the 14.00 RIB Class flight to Paris Charles de Gaulle …

  62. Mr T seems on form (no longer down on his uppers – but more like: up on his uppers!)

    1. Talking of which, only 25 minutes to a glass of fizz. It is the MR’s birthday, so I am treating myself…!!

      2. She’s in good company- my much missed Scots uncle would have been 96 today. Happy birthday to your wife and to Uncle P.

          1. She might care for a man that can carry a pig under each arm though……….watchout !

    1. I honestly don’t know what he’s thinking. He cannot be so fanatically desperate to control what people can say that he fights Musk to the blitter end. It won’t end well for him.

      It’d be more sensible at this point for Musk to set up his own social media platform. He’s got the clout and media profile to have it eclipse twitter without a lot of effort.

      1. I think that much of Musk’s motivation is that he wants to expose the rigged nature and corruption of Twitter and its ramifications for politics, how it has manipulated for a corrupt elite. He can’t do that by creating his own platform.

        1. Yes, true. However, he could kill it off by going solo. Leave it as a Left wing echo chamber. It’s not making any money after all.

          1. I agree, he could certainly do that. Perhaps that is the “Plan B” he is referring to but will not talk about.

          2. If he were to opt for Plan B he would have to quietly unload his shareholding in twttr.

          3. Should that happen, don’t off-load the Twat shares quietly but rather with a great fanfare and watch it spiral into oblivion.

          4. Mr Musk supposedly has 81 million ‘followers’. I agree with you that it would be much easier to set up his own platform.

      1. Hi Belle….

        TV Critic Christopher Stevens

        Fraudster who faked his death was a canoeist short of a paddle..,

  65. 352046 + up ticks,

    breitbart,

    BLM Nuttery: Park May be Renamed After Gaff Prone Leftist MP Diane Abbott

    Oifatarse Park has a certain ring about it.

  66. EXCLUSIVE The royal suite: Inside swanky £2,000-a-night five-star Hilton Hotel acting as Meghan and Harry’s Invictus Games base with rooms for ex-secret service bodyguard and aides
    Multiple sources confirmed to Mail Online that the couple booked into the hotel after arriving in the Hague
    Former US presidential bodyguard Christopher Sanchez, who is providing close protection, also has a room
    Other guests booked into the hotel had no idea the couple were staying in the luxurious Royal suite

    The “spot the hypocritical Twatometer” has finally been broken beyond all repair
    This arrogant bastard and his money-grubbing parasite attachment are toads. Prince Harry says he won’t rest until he’s ‘made world better place’ for Lilibet and Archie.
    He and his brood should give away all their riches and go and live in a slum in Africa.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10728393/Inside-swanky-2-000-night-five-star-Hilton-Hotel-acting-Meghan-Harrys-Invictus-Games-base.html

    1. I always thought the Invictus Games was a wonderful idea, but it now seems to have turned into a vehicle for showcasing celebs and their fashions.

      1. If Harry dropped off the planet the games would be a wonderful legacy.
        Unfortunately, the parasite is using it to further her own agenda.

        1. I thought mostly in the photographs that I glanced through that Harry did not seem to be all that happy with her.

      2. I thought William and Harry championing mental health was a wonderful idea. Now I’m sick to death of the phrase “mental health” and wish they and it would disappear!

        2. I always felt there was an agenda behind the prominence of ‘mental health’ as in the old days of Soviet and East European communism. I could see how easily it could be twisted into an arm of government control.

  67. That’s me for the day. Quite pleasant – lots of outdoor work. The lack of rain for a week is a bit of a worry. Still, the blue wisteria is almost completely out.

    Have a spiffing evening re-naming your local parks to take account of diversity.

    A demain – DV.

          4. When it comes to the riddle of the sphincts, I refer you to Peter – ‘My name is Ouseymandiarse…..Look on my works, ye might as well despair …’

          6. Talking of which – This from John Ward:

            “A few years back, I was present at a terrific supper party where each trougher was asked to give his or her top five people (alive or dead) with whom it would have been fun to have lunch. That too is a tricky question, although had the challenge been to share a meal with a complete prick, it could have been even more hilarious.

            Who could pass up the opportunity, for instance, to have lunch with Grant Shapps and ask him whether he’d just been born that sleazy and stupid or had simply worked on it over time? Who could resist unfolding one’s napkin at The Ivy with the opening line, “So tell me Tony Blair, has it ever occurred to you that nobody beyond Davos, the White House and Brussels gives a Monkey’s chuff what you think, and the entire United Kingdom hates your lilly-livered guts?”

  68. Have to unpack winter sweaters today. It has been snowing all morning here in WV, enough that it is beginning to settle. Rather more than the ‘conversational’ snow promised by the local weather people!!

    1. I’ve had enough of winter. Time for spring, green and yellow, white is too dull now.
      Hope all y’all get some spring soon!

      1. Me too! April has been a crazy month so far, going from freezing to 80’s F in a matter of days.

    2. My friend in CT said that after 70-80 degrees last week, they had snow yesterday!

    3. Move north, green grass up here.
      Still sweater weather of course but at least it is not snowing

  69. Just watching a garden fixing programme, with Charlie Dimmock. First time on over 25 years… Lordy, she’s turned into a grandma, and those famous loose joggly bits are now supported on a stomach of significant dimension… Sigh… – I used to fancy her, too. Sigh again…

    2. Carol watches Garden Rescue which I suspect is the programme you are watching.

      For all her past associations going back to Titchmarsh and his ludicrous makeovers (which invariably included decking or else walls built too rapidly with cement mortar by ‘Tommy’), I reckon Charlie has become an accomplished plantswoman.

      Yup, she has put on a few stone but she retains a really nice personality and seems to have developed as a small garden designer.

      1. I haven’t seen her since we left the UK 24 years ago, so it was a bit of a surprise, and yes, it’s Garden Rescue I was watching… She seems nice!

      2. I agree. Friend Dianne met her a few years ago at the Chichester Cathedral Flower Festival, and was impressed. Despite the fact that her teacher friend from Guildford had ripped the p155 out of Dimmock at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, not many years before.

    3. A friend of a friend did a skit on La Dimmock at the Edinburgh Festival a few years ago. Then met her at the Chichester Cathedral Flower Festival a few years later.

  70. As regards those arriving from everywhere and Rwanda is the health of the UK been considered? Africa is an incubator of some truly horrible infectious diseases. Many are endemic in Rwanda. I suppose that they will be coming here soon. At least the NHS will very shortly be getting some practice at dealing with plague and cholera, Ebola virus, Zika virus and Chikungunya virus, TB, AIDS/HIV, treponematoses, yaws, syphilis, pneumonia, malaria, schistosomiasis, trypanosomiasis (African sleeping disease), onchocerciasis, lymphatic filariasis, and leishmaniasis. Also Yellow Fever. Others are probably available.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6205565/

      1. AZ jab number two poisoned me and MH in different ways. And they are so slow here that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we both die before anything bloody else happens. And Yes, I know it’s a holiday weekend.

        1. Death from the jab is a little too close to home for us to be a joking matter now.

          I hope you both recover swiftly.

          1. Sos, I am not joking! And the hospital follow up is ludicrous.
            And I want us better too.

          2. I didn’t think you were.
            My comment related to a friend who was refused an exemption after a bad reaction to the first; his doctor insisted it was OK and he died shortly after getting the second shot of the damned thing.

          4. Not at all, unless you are psychic.

            I suspected that your comment related to matters close to you both.
            Yours are the problems of the living and thus much more important.

            PS We know you’re psychotic. };-O

          5. Yes, pain is not fun. And the slowness of any information is distressing.
            And we have an invasion of the grand monsters and their parents on Thursday. It will be so nice to see them but MH has told his son that we might have to change plan if either of us gets a call for a procedure.
            Tomorrow we will go out and stock up on suitable food for little monsters because I am not really up to doing the cooking and baking that I used to. They also haven’t seen our new home which I think they are concerned about. Better than the last place!!

          6. Get the little beasties to do the cooking, you’ll love it, they’ll love it.
            A win on all counts.

          10. Because he wanted to travel easily, so he could stay with us and the hassle was too great without all the ducks in the row..

            I know I shouldn’t, but I do feel a sense of guilt about it.

          11. Oh, man.
            I see where you are coming from. That’s hard.
            I refused all flu and covid jabs after an experience quite a while ago from the flu jab that resulted in a reaction worse than flu – and I’ve had flu, too, not just bad colds. So, I step up the winter vitamins, and haven’t been bothered since, although just before the pandemic started, I’d been to a conference at the airport, and wend down with “unflu” – influenza-like symptoms, but bot really. Even made me go to the Dr, but at that point there weren’t tests, so just advised to go home & sleep. Suspect it was Covid, but no proof… Not been troubled since. It has put a brake on travelling, though, so I see why your friend went through with it – I mean, how would anybody know the vaccine could be so dangerous? Other vaccines aren’t.

          12. I think I dodged a bullet with the AZ jabs – only had them because my trip was booked. My stiff shoulder is now largely better, but I’ll never know if it was caused by the vax or not. I refused the booster.

          13. It’s not your fault, sos. Forget the guilt. I only accepted two AZ jabs because the writing was on the wall. Unjabbed, I was likely never to see the inside of a pub again. For a while, the side effects rendered me useless as a church organist. No matter – we weren’t allowed to sing.

            I have regained most of the feeling, although the Royal Surrey seems interested in monitoring the situation. I learned this weekend that the Rector’s wife has had exactly the same response / adverse effect (if not worse) from her AZ jab. And the Rector didn’t escape adverse reactions either.

            I still have 8½ fully working fingers. I reckon I’m stuck with the remaining 1½ till I shuffle off this mortal pile.

            There have been several Covid cases in the Parish. All were fully masked, triple or quadruple vaccinated, and used to disinfect their Ocado deliveries and leave them on the doorstep for several days. I think their problem may be food poisoning…,

          15. Check out the Dr Zelenko protocol online for vaccine injury. He seems to be highly thought of.

        2. We suspect, but cannot prove, that SWMBOs brother died of a heart attack caused by the vaccine. It was a bit like these young, fit footballers dropping like stones.

          2. No, and you try proving the two events are related – or even getting that conclusion from the pathologist.

        3. Yo, Ann. A week after my 2nd AZ jab, I couldn’t feel anything in my right little finger, and the adjacent ring finger was partly numb. Had we been allowed to sing hymns, this could have been a problem. Since then, I’ve had nerve conduction studies twice, and ultrasound once. The Ulnar nerve appears to be thickened. 90% of the problem has gone away. But – talking to our Rector yesterday morning – his wife has the same symptoms, but rather worse. AZ again.

          1. Gawd, it’s awful. My right foot and ankle are still swollen and I still have one red spot on right arm but now scaly blotches are appearing on both arms. I am clean, I shower and wash my hair etc. So it’s not poor hygiene.
            It won’t go away and I am convinced that MH’s blocked shunt is because of this poison they injected into us. As I am also sure that the acceleration of the lesion on my face has been another by product of these jabs.
            Why won’t the government and those other sods admit that some of these jabs were/are poisonous.
            Pause for laughter…because it is not funny!

          4. They won’t admit it, LotL, because it is part of their plan. It is deliberate. It seems that the jab accelerates whatever is lurking in your genes, therefore everyone suffers from different illnesses thus it is hard to relate to the ‘vaccine’ and muddies the trail. And not only does it accelerate future stuff, it also brings to the surface illnesses that have been, to all intents and purposes, conquered by the immune system. It is truly diabolical.

            Johnson said he was going to solve the social care problem. I don’t think anyone in their wildest imagination thought he was going to solve it in this manner. I think he is out of touch with reality to the point of insanity.

      1. Soon after Prime Minister David Cameron announced his appointment, Bishop Welby, 56, a former oil company executive, made it clear that he endorsed earlier church statements criticizing government plans to legalize same-sex marriage.

  75. Ha! The biter bit…
    Police speak to Nicola Sturgeon over mask breach
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-61142777
    Police officers have spoken to Nicola Sturgeon after she was filmed breaching Scotland’s face mask rules. They reminded her of the importance of wearing a face covering when there was a legal requirement to do so, Police Scotland said. The force added it was satisfied that no further action was necessary.

    Footage shared on social media showed the first minister without a mask in an East Kilbride barber shop.
    In a statement, Ms Sturgeon said she realised she had forgotten to put her face covering on “within seconds” of being in the shop on Saturday.
    “I then immediately put it on,” she added. “However, I accept that not wearing a face covering even for a few seconds was an error on my part and I am sorry for that.”
    She said Police Scotland made contact with her after receiving complaints.
    Ms Sturgeon said: “This is what they would have done with anyone else in these circumstances, and they were absolutely right to treat me no differently to any other citizen. “I explained that the error was inadvertent and the police have confirmed that the matter is closed.
    “While the law no longer requires face coverings to be worn, I will continue to do so in circumstances where this can help reduce the risk of infection, and I encourage everyone to do likewise.”
    It is ironic that on the day Nicola Sturgeon lifted the legal requirement to wear a face covering in shops and on buses, she is in the news for breaking her own rules.

    For the second time in this pandemic, the first minister has apologised for forgetting to put on her mask when she should have.
    It was a temporary lapse and the police have judged that reminding Ms Sturgeon of her responsibilities was sufficient to deal with the matter.
    It is none the less embarrassing for Scotland’s principal rule maker to have the police calling her out for being a Covid rule-breaker.
    Her case is not equivalent to the multiple parties and gatherings held in and around Downing Street over which the prime minister has already been fined.
    It does however provide Boris Johnson with a comeback to the SNP when he appears in the Commons on Tuesday to explain his behaviour and his previous claim that Covid rules were followed at all times.
    During the visit to the barber shop on Saturday, Ms Sturgeon shaved a man’s beard while journalists took photographs.
    The SNP leader posted footage on her own Instagram account, describing it as “surreal” but one of the best and “scariest” things she had done on the campaign trail.
    Further footage was later posted online showing her interacting with people without her mask on.
    Police Scotland said its response to the incident was “in line with our proportionate approach throughout the pandemic

      1. She has Scottish Police protection so no worries. She has also given that rogue Johnson, and the bankster’s stooge Sunak, a free pass having called for their resignation over Partygate.

        I reckon the lot of them are all in this farrago together.

  76. Is it just me, but I’d like the illegals gone so we could look after our own properly and concentrate on them?

        1. No, well, they don’t like being told what to do. It upsets their egos, because, after all, being elected means they are smarter and know best.

    2. 352046+ up ticks,
      Evening C,
      Won’t happen all the time the close shop lab/lib/con rule the roost.

      1. I’ve been doing my bit to get someone different elected, ogga, but you can’t make the voters see sense 🙁

        1. 352046+ up ticks,

          C,
          The electoral herd is suffering Stockholm syndrome and swallowing
          as in an addiction loco weed, AKA
          political bullshite.

      3. Ours did a few weeks ago, and I vowed never to shop in Sainsbury’s ever again. And yet now they seem to have stopped stocking halal meat. I hope that means that no-one was buying the goods.

  80. We are going to listen to Hamish and Dougal for a while and then to bed perchance to sleep. And now some more nerve tonic;-)

  81. Back early from open mic. Very good music sets but I’m up at 5am for a plaice fishing trip. ‘Night all.

  82. Goodnight Y’all. Sleep well and good wishes to all of you.
    Gawd, I’m tired.

    1. I’ve still got rising 10 years on ya, dear boy but Bappy Hirthday,John, old chap.

    2. Happy Birthday John, Hope we see you back soon, hope all is well with you and yours.

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