Monday 20 December: Lord Frost’s resignation is a blow to the many Conservatives whose opinions he represents

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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796 thoughts on “Monday 20 December: Lord Frost’s resignation is a blow to the many Conservatives whose opinions he represents”

    2. Imagine posting that on farcebook! Never mind a temporary ban, plod would be hammering down the door within seconds. I shall share it with two of my very un-p.c. cousins.

  3. #CovidClownWorld

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fe9aa35111432a8e936b97c5e450e074e6487d16f7a5c2579890c762a251ee20.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f73603616c36d1d933c35c067714b5f43170eb1fea30e3dc60d4c05243da8472.jpg

    https://twitter.com/EsqHumbug/status/1472501450546819075

    https://twitter.com/VerhofstadtQ/status/1472513167532113922?s=20
    As Savage Jabber and his mates rant about ever more serious restrictions it’s all falling apart on them.
    Truth to be followed by trials??

  4. Boris Johnson and staff pictured with wine in Downing Street garden in May 2020. 20 December 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a529d4aa5688be0dbd2af565318bedb59ff70e129a20d09285186b127a68919c.jpg

    Boris Johnson has been pictured with wine and cheese alongside his wife and up to 17 staff in the Downing Street garden during lockdown, raising questions over No 10’s insistence a “work meeting” was taking place.

    At the time social mixing between households was limited to two people, who could only meet outdoors and at a distance of at least 2 metres. In workplaces, guidance said in-person meetings should only take place if “absolutely necessary”.

    Morning everyone. They’re having a laff!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/19/boris-johnson-and-staff-pictured-with-wine-in-downing-street-garden-in-may-2020

      1. They are breaking Johnson’s rules at the time. We were limited to seeing only people in our ‘bubble’ except for seeing one person outside with a minimum distance of 2m maintained at all times and at work ‘only where absolutely necessary’.

    2. ‘Morning Minty
      OK Bojo’s done,concerted attacks from all sides probably politically unsurvivable
      Why now? Cui Bono?
      I suspect it wont be us………
      No V Passports,No Lockdown (yet) It’s almost as if he’s failed his NWO masters……….
      I await with interest (and not a little fear) his replacement

      1. Morning Rik. His replacement must be ready. I suspect Gove! He would sell his own Mother!

    3. If it’s a work meeting, what’s his wife doing there? She’s his wife not a member of the cabinet or government, whatever she might think!

  5. Boris Johnson and staff pictured with wine in Downing Street garden in May 2020. 20 December 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a529d4aa5688be0dbd2af565318bedb59ff70e129a20d09285186b127a68919c.jpg

    Boris Johnson has been pictured with wine and cheese alongside his wife and up to 17 staff in the Downing Street garden during lockdown, raising questions over No 10’s insistence a “work meeting” was taking place.

    At the time social mixing between households was limited to two people, who could only meet outdoors and at a distance of at least 2 metres. In workplaces, guidance said in-person meetings should only take place if “absolutely necessary”.

    Morning everyone. They’re having a laff!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/19/boris-johnson-and-staff-pictured-with-wine-in-downing-street-garden-in-may-2020

  8. Lord Frost’s resignation is a blow to the many Conservatives whose opinions he represents

    he hasn’t has much in the way of press coverage, until he resigned that is.
    Sounds like he would make a great PM, so no chance there then.

  9. “The former chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry Department accused of hiding Chinese ties has admitted to taking tens of thousands of dollars from China, video footage presented in federal court on Dec. 17 shows.

    The footage, shot during an interrogation by federal investigators of nanoscientist Charles Lieber, was played for jurors on the fourth day of the trial regarding Lieber’s alleged false statements about China funding.

    The 62-year-old Harvard professor had maintained that he didn’t take payments from a Chinese university, except for compensation of his travel costs to China. But he shifted his story quickly after FBI agents Robert Plumb and Kara Spice presented him with copies of evidence, including a bilingual contract he signed with the Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in 2011.

    “That’s pretty damning,” Lieber, dressed in a blue jacket, told the agents at the campus police station during a three-hour interrogation, which took place on the day of Lieber’s arrest nearly two years ago, local media outlets reported. “Now that you bring it up, yes, I do remember.”

    The five-year agreement described Lieber as a “strategic scientist” at the Chinese school, which entitled him to $50,000 per month with approximately $158,000 in living expenses. It also alluded to his future involvement with China’s Thousand Talents Plan, a state-run program to solicit top scientific and specialized experts from around the world.

    Later in the interview, FBI agents showed Lieber an email that he had written asking Wuhan University to pay half of his salary in cash and to deposit the other half into a Chinese bank account.

    “I can’t even believe I did this,” Lieber said in response, according to local media reports. “It’s my mistake, and obviously I made a mistake.”

    2. There is a quote- might be Ogden Nash- can’t remember…
      “The first thing a small boy learns when he gets a drum set is that he will never, ever get another one.”

      1. “As dark as the inside of a Cabinet minister”, Tom!
        Good morning to you, too!
        Bracing myself for the last of the shopping – mostly for alcohol, and sprouts.
        Should make an interesting combination…!

  13. SIR – When a man of the calibre of Lord Frost resigns from a Cabinet job as important as Brexit minister, you know there is a really serious problem with Boris Johnson’s Government. The EU, opposition parties and Ireland will be rubbing their hands. His level head among the increasingly chaotic events of recent weeks will be sorely missed.

    Chris Hunt
    Swanley, Kent

    SIR – Lord Frost said he wanted “a lightly regulated, low-tax, entrepreneurial economy, at the cutting edge of modern science and economic change”. This is exactly what the majority of Conservatives want.

    Mark Solon
    London E1

    SIR – David Frost, who was by far the most impressive Government minister, has resigned for reasons that are all too understandable. This country needs a serious prime minister – immediately.

    Professor David Blake
    London EC1

    1. And so it continues…

      Martin Selves
      4 HRS AGO
      I mean this is a nice way. John Redwood would have brought a perculiar energy to Brexit and NI, but the task falls to Liz Truss. She has an energy and direction as well, and she needs it to get a decision from Boris who will not pull the trigger on anything much if it is not Green.
      She might use Redwood behind the scenes. The NI Protocol is years old now, and kicked around for a long time. Liz Truss must not “start over” but begin where Lord Frost finished last week. He wanted to pull the trigger with A16 because that is the only way forward.
      Truss needs to show their is no place for the ECJ in our Constitution. I want to know how much the ECJ and the Protocol costs the UK. It must be huge. We should know what that is. To keep it running has caused anger and resentment in NI and in the Conservative Party. Liz Truss must remove it and quickly. The loss of Lord Frost will have hurt Boris, and he knows, deep down, this was another self inflicted injury.
      We must stop hurting ourselves. The EU keep throw stones at us, they keep adding paperwork and regulation, and HMG meekly absorb the blows and carry on. We often make it easy for the EU to enter our economy, either in the Ports or in the City, while they pile on the restrictions. We should mirror what they do. If they complicate the import paperwork, we should mirror them and not ease them as we do now.
      If A16 causes the erection of tariffs, it will hurt both sides, and in total the Eu will be hurt most. We need to get real and pull the trigger, and not keep taking the sucker punches.
      I hope in Liz Truss we have found someone who is not the punch bag hanging down as an easy target. We want someone who will fight back.

      1. I think Remainer Truss and her Remoaner Foreign Office crew will be a catastrophic disaster. Happy Christmas!

          1. He did a degree that included French and served in the Diplomatic in Paris. as Economic Counsellor. He may have some Danish having been ambassador to Denmark.
            While with the SWA he began to learn Gaelic.

        2. I’ll say again that my letters to Truss remain unanswered. It takes two to three weeks to send or receive a large letter or small packet from Holland. A small packet from a Paris shop was delivered on Day 4, whereas a small parcel ordered from a Paris shop on same day from a French company sending from warehouse in Germany via Dutch logistics company was delivered on Day13. (I imagined that the parcel would be sent direct from the Paris shop, but what do I know?)
          Meanwhile a small packet being sent from Portugal on a Monday morning was received at lunchtime the following day.
          These problems are about processing items into and out of Customs. Is no one in the UK government ever going to get them fixed?

        3. ‘Morning, C1. She was indeed a remoaner before the 2016 referendum, but once the result was in she accepted it and got on with the negotiation of trade agreements. Admittedly some have been controversial but on the whole she has kept her head down and done a pretty good job in my view.

  15. Oh dear, it’s that time of year again so maybe we should know how Barbie feels about it:

    A Letter From Barbie

    Dreamhouse, Malibu, CA

    Dear Santa,
    Listen you little troll, I’ve been helping you out every year, playing at being the perfect Christmas present, wearing skimpy bathing suits in frigid weather, and dressing in fake Chanel at one too many tea parties, and I hate to break it to ya, but it’s definitely payback time! There had better be some changes around here this year, or I’m gonna call for a nation-wide meltdown (and trust me, you won’t wanna be around to smell it).

    So, these are my demands for this Christmas:
    A nice, comfy pair of sweat pants and a frumpy oversized sweatshirt. I’m sick of looking like a hooker in a hot pink bikini. How much smaller are these bathing suits gonna get? Do you have any idea what it feels like to have nylon and Velcro crawling up your butt?

    Real underwear that can be pulled on and off. Preferably white. What bonehead at Mattel decided to cheap out and mould imitation underwear to my skin? It looks like cellulite!

    A real man. I don’t care if you have to go to Hasbro to get him, bring me GI Joe! Hell, I’d take Tickle Me Elmo over that wimped-out excuse for a boyfriend, Ken. And what’s up with that earring anyway? If I’m gonna have to suffer with him, at least make him (and me) anatomically correct.

    Arms that actually bend so I can push the aforementioned Ken-wimp away once he is anatomically correct.

    Breast reduction surgery. I don’t care whose arm you have to twist, just get it done.
    A sports bra. To wear until I get the surgery.
    A new career. Pet doctor and school teacher just don’t cut it. How about a systems analyst? Or better yet, an advertising account exec!

    A new, more ’90s persona. Maybe “PMS Barbie”, complete with a miniature container of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and a bag of chips; “Animal Rights Barbie”, with my very own paint gun, outfitted with a fake fur coat and handcuffs; or “Stop Smoking Barbie”, sporting a removable Nicotrol patch and equipped with several packs of gum.

    No more McDonald’s endorsements. The grease is wrecking my vinyl.
    Mattel stock options. It’s been 40 years – I think I deserve a piece of the action.

    Ok, Santa, that’s it. Considering my valuable contribution to society, I don’t think these requests are out of line. If you disagree, then you can find yourself a new bimbo doll for next Christmas. It’s that simple.

    Yours truly

    Barbie

  16. Good morning from a slightly less cold Derbyshire. 1½°C and dry outside.

    Well said Kevin Bell in the BTL Comments:-

    Kevin Bell
    5 HRS AGO
    It’s surely not good news that the Foreign Office blob has got its hands on the Brexit negotiations and that Liz Truss, a Remainer, has taken on the brief. Appeasement to follow no doubt on the major issue, the ECJ.
    If Boris wanted to signal to Conservatives that he would not do this he would have appointed a Constitutionalist like Daniel Hannan or Ian Duncan Smith.
    I have already run out of last straws with Boris but such a sell out will be curtains for him with many others.

  17. To liven up gentleman Nottlers’ day…

    Sequins and a bobtail

    SIR – Having been a Playboy Bunny in the 1960s, I have a fabulous collection of “festive kitchen disco-style” clothes (Fashion, December 18), which I am enjoying wearing all over again – a cocktail dress at the opticians, mini-skirt for the dentist. The corner shop has seen my kaftan and Waitrose gets the glittery number..

    Diana M Airey
    Warborough, Oxfordshire

  18. Good morning, all. Too dark to see the weather. Still tomorrow is 21st December and the nights will start drawing out., Hooray.

    Anything dramatic in the papers?

      1. Nah – she is up and about. Not much change. Very sore throat. Being vertical is less congesting than lying down. She hates eating in bed! Cats? Out killing.

        1. Glad to hear she is vertical now, Bill. I myself much prefer vertical to lateral (tests).

  19. Lifted from Daily Sceptic.

    TheyLiveAndWeLockdown

    7 hours ago
    seen on YT

    IMAGINE we were living in medieval times…. and you’d been invited to a royal banquet.

    The ones in charge were extremely keen to get you to drink the wine. They were very insistent.

    You’d probably assume the wine was poisoned.

    “Drink this wonderful wine.”

    “No thank you.”

    “Be a good guest! Drink the wine. We uncorked it especially. It’s a beautiful and rare vintage.”

    “No thank you. I appreciate the offer though.”

    “Drink the wine. It’s very expensive but you can have a glass for free, and we’ll give you an extra plate of supper.”

    “No I’m fine as I am.”

    “Drink the wine and we’ll feed your entire village for a week and reduce your taxes.”

    “Wow all that for wine? What’s in it? Still, no thank you.”

    “We’ll make you a Duke.”

    “Very generous but no thanks I’m content in my home.”

    “You are not anti-wine are you????”

    “No I just don’t feel like drinking this wine this evening.”

    “Drink the damn wine or we’ll stop you working.”

    “Eh?”

    You notice they’re getting desperate now.

    “We’ll ban you from markets.”

    “Wow your tone has changed.”
    “Now you need to drink 3 glasses or we’ll stop you riding your horse or seeing your family for the next year.”
    “Wait, what? 3 glasses? Can’t see my family?”

    “Did we say 3 glasses? We meant 3 bottles.”

    “3 bottles?”

    “Yes…every few months we want you to drink 3 bottles of this particular wine we’ve prepared indefinitely for the next years.”

    “Years??”

    Yes, or we’ll try you for treason.”

    “Ok what is IN this damn wine that you are trying SO HARD to get everyone to drink it?”

    “We can’t tell you. Trade secret.”

    “It’s poisoned isn’t it?”

    “No..it’s…ummm…it’s just really really good for you. It’s um, special healing wine.”

    “Then why all the threats?”

    “We just need you to… I mean we strongly encourage you to drink the wine so you don’t miss out.”

    “But the Earl drank a glass and collapsed.”

    “Unrelated.”

    “No…like he was fine then had a glass then keeled over…he’s
    still on the floor writhing. Look at him! His face is blue and he’s
    clawing at his chest.”

    “Coincidence. Guards…please escort the Earl to his chambers. He’s had too much wine.”

    “I knew it was the wine! What about the rest of the court? Half of them also collapsed after the wine.”

    “Those guests got ill from something else. Probably the chicken.”

    “All at the same time?”

    “You sure do ask a lot of questions! Guards! Guards… get this man his wine.”

    “I don’t want it. What if something happens to me after drinking it?”

    “We’re not liable for that.”

    “Not liable for the wine you produce? I definitely don’t want it.”

    “Drink your wine so everyone else doesn’t get a hangover.”

    “Huh? That makes no sense. Maybe if they didn’t keep DRINKING they wouldn’t get HUNGOVER in the first place?”

    “Look at these paintings of people drinking wine all over the gallery. Look how happy they look.”
    Paiintings? Look, I don’t drink wine. I don’t want the wine.
    Even the idea of drinking this wine leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
    “Ah no matter if you don’t want to drink it.”

    “Ok good. Let’s drop the subject now”

    “You don’t have to drink it. We can pump it directly into your veins. You won’t even have to taste it”

    “Wait, into my veins? Are you serious? I don’t want your damn wine!”

    “TAKE THE DAMN WINE NOW! WE’VE ALREADY PAID FOR A WHOLE CRATE
    FOR EACH MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY! WE’VE SIGNED AN ONGOING CONTRACT WITH
    THE DISTILLARY! ANYONE WHO TALKS BADLY ABOUT THIS WINE WILL HAVE THEIR
    TONGUES CUT OUT! PEOPLE WHO ARE NOW DRUNK ON THE LAST BATCH WILL BE
    RECLASSIFIED AS SOBER AND MUST DRINK THE NEW BATCH! AND WE WANT YOUR
    KIDS TO DRINK THE WINE TOO! EVEN YOUR BABY. SWAP HER MILK BOTTLE FOR
    WINE! SHE’S OLD ENOUGH FOR WINE NOW! AND YOUR PREGNANT WIFE! SHE NEEDS
    IT TO KEEP HER HEALTHY! EVERYONE DRINK THE WINE!”

          1. It must be my computer/brodband.
            Edit: I have reopened my browser and have got back to it but it did not open to the clip I posted- it was another. I have tried again. The right clip is with Bret Weinstein- Dark Horse Podcast and is 20:39 long.

    2. Thanks for that, Nickr. Dr McCullough is always a good listen.

      Last evening I listened to Dr Richard Fleming, he is also an extremely smart man, who spoke for over an hour on several areas of the subject of covid. Not only does Fleming hold a PHD in Physics, he holds medical and legal degrees. He ended his conversation by talking about the legal aspects of what is going on. Affidavits are being prepared (Lawyers in UK are involved) and served to the International Criminal Court, in addition he claims that there are many judges around the World prepared to sit on a Nuremberg 2 tribunal.

    3. After telling me about three months ago I should probably not have the booster. My own GP is now non committal and tells me it’s up to me to make my own mind up whether I do or not. I hope he doesn’t get a sore arse sitting on the fence, I think my good lady and I have decide to change our GP after all this covid crap has passed.
      I have a phone call tomorrow from the cardiology department. Following my own jab related heart problems, now from this clip I definitely know it was brought on by the injections. So many people told me I was being paranoid and making conspiracy theories. I just hope that these doctors who know the truth can pin ‘big pharma’ down and sue them into oblivion.
      And I just wish these people would stop calling it ‘the vaccine’ because it’s not a vaccine it never has been ‘a vaccine’.

      2. The vaccines in the USA are prescribed under the doctrine of “Unavoidably Unsafe.” This was created because the pharma companies had been told by their insurers they could not be covered for the downstream costs that were accruing from the damage to the health of those vaccinated. In that respect, the companies do not have to worry about the costs that would be imposed upon them. Whether that is the same situation here, I don’t know but in the USA there is no recourse to legal remedies it seems.

      3. Eddy, you do realise that big Pharma companies have all been given immunity from prosecution in the case of adverse reactions, don’t you?

        1. Given that immunity, vw, it doesn’t extend to the Government who are now the administrators of a potentially unsafe medication and, as such, are liable for a class-action in the event of something nasty coming out of the woodwork.

          1. Most definitely Nanny. And I think lots of nasty things have been coming out of the woodwork. However, all those pushing the jabs will be shouldering the blame onto the “scientists”. I really cannot see that Anyone is going to be prosecuted. And seeing as Prof Ferguson is a mathematical scientist where does that leave us? The fact that they are still heavily pushing the jabs, even to the extent of young children being lined up for it, will it ever come to a halt?

          1. I dream of Nuremberg 2. But I think that’s all it will be, a dream. There are far too many vested interests, besides big Pharma and big money, behind all this. And George Soros and Klaus Schwab.

      1. It’s not her apologising, it’s the Scouts apologising to her/
        The whole issue began when Scottish scout leader and up his own arsehole Trans activist Gregor Murray complained to the Scouts that she had called him “He” instead of his preferred “they”.

        The Scouts then suspended her and began an investigation based on his complaint which they now realise was vexatious.
        It also appears that said Gregor Murray has also had problems with the SNP, accusing them of “Transphobia” when serving as an SNP Councillor.

        TRANS ROW Scotland’s only trans councillor suspended over ‘abusive tweets’ hours after quitting SNP over ‘transphobia’

        https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/4244982/gregor-murray-snp-trans-councillor-quits-suspended/

        In other words, the man is up his own arsehole.

          1. Read that as “… I’ll identify as a streetcar for the day…” and thought “How original!”
            ;-))

    2. I remember a few strange people being around when I was in the scouts. I think I had a built in avoidance and resistance to such people.

  22. ‘I was accused of being the novichok assassin’. 20 December 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/19b2eded6fcc507070da559dd749f6e8c1f227af9cebeafa7bfd5aa96d90f1cc.png

    The policeman poisoned by novichok has revealed he was accused of being the assassin who tried to kill Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

    Nick Bailey, a former detective sergeant, also said he was surprised local authorities in Salisbury were not made aware that an ex-spy was living among them.

    Mr Skripal and his daughter were found ill on a bench near Salisbury Cathedral on March 4, 2018 after being poisoned with nerve agent novichok.

    I have to confess to having some suspicions of Bailey; not of Novichocking the Skripals but of breathing in the Fentanyl near the park bench. The really interesting thing here is the comments section. This is an article filled with old news. There is absolutely nothing in it that is not already in the public sphere and yet it is has been moderated in advance, (actually limited to two fake posts) the concern of course being people like myself who might comment on this ridiculous story!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10326917/Nick-Bailey-poisoned-Salisbury-novichok-attack-reveals-accused-plot.html

      1. Morning Bill. It’s just a little propaganda reminder of the Evil of Vlad! It serves no other purpose!

  23. Morning all

    A school report to fire-up any budding scientist

    Technical confidence: a student heats glass with a Bunsen burner until it is malleable

    Technical confidence: a student heats glass with a Bunsen burner until it is malleable

    SIR – My daughter’s school science report (Letters, December 18) read: “Katie can now light a Bunsen burner with no visible sign of terror.”

    Richard Horton

    Thurnham, Kent

    SIR – My late partner always said that his finest prep-school report ended, “but his sewing does him credit”.

    Vivien Gainsborough Foot

    Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

    SIR – Forty years ago, my son’s junior school music teacher commented: “He occasionally hits the right note by mistake.”

    Gillian Malcolm

    Norwich

    SIR – I once had a master who wrote of my geography: “Could do better.” Under history, which followed, he simply added: “See geography.”

    Ashley Pape

    Wimborne, Dorset

    SIR – The most memorable comment came from my son’s housemaster: “A ball and chain would make a very acceptable Christmas present for Mark.”

    Dr John Holden

    Farnborough, Hampshire

    SIR – I recall only two school reports: prep-school art – “Barber is the kind of child who manages to get paint inside his overalls” – and a later one for French that read, “In the interests of Anglo-French relations, Barber must guard against a natural tendency to shout to make up for his linguistic deficiencies.”

    Philip Barber

    Havant, Hampshire

    1. Mine were pretty boring “Could do better” was a usual one.

      My son’s German teacher wrote: “He’s like a Porsche firing on three cylinders – still faster than most, but not as good as it should be.”

  26. Looking at everything the Government has done, and taken with Frost’s departure and Truss’s arrival, it might suggest that they are deliberately trying to ensure a massive Labour/Lib Dem house at the next general election, swiftly followed by a return to the EU.

    1. Morning Sos, to me it appears that Johnson is on a political kamikaze mission.
      Pastures new with a more lucrative payout to pay for his expensive lifestyle must seem somewhat attractive, breeding kids is never cheap.

      2. I would have assumed the flat that Boris lives in was government property, and the fact that he has spent an absolute fortune on decorating the flat will cost a real bomb to put right when he vacates it .

        In our early years when we lived in officer’s quarters which were decent sized homes, we had to account for every picture hook hole on the wall, every plate cup and saucer and make sure all was in pristine order when we vacated.

        1. We did too – in other ranks quarters. There was an allowance for crockery breakages, and as I was careful, I was able to spend it on some bits I needed – I still have and use a pyrex dish and one or two other things.

          We had to do a very hard cleaning job each time we moved on – all had to be spotless.

          1. We all did the same , didn’t we .

            Moh bought a pair of stainless steel carvers when on detachment in Denmark or somewhere or other ..they are fifty years old and as good as new, and I bought a stainless steel roasting pan , which has been wonderful , and like you I have some old pyrex and stuff like that .

        2. Morning T_B, has he spent an absolute fortune or has others paid for it? If he swore on his children life I would still not believe him.
          The rules that applied to you in your early years does not apply to our “glorious leader” or his piece of fancy.

      3. I have to admit, I’ve seen that film and wondered why it was considered so brilliant.
        Perfectly watchable, but not outstanding.

        1. Not even watchable. Stilted dialogue; wooden action (esp Bogart); scenery that moves (like Crossroads!!)

  28. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Prepare to be uplifted:

    Major Kit Maunsell, Gurkha officer who fought the enemy at close quarters during the Indonesian Confrontation – obituary

    His professional rigour did not diminish his good humour and sense of mischief

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries

    19 December 2021 • 3:56pm

    Major Kit Maunsell, who has died on his 82nd birthday, was awarded an MC in Sarawak, north Borneo, in 1965 during the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation.

    Indonesia’s campaign of infiltration across its mountainous frontier with Sarawak stemmed from its resistance to the creation of the Federation of Malaysia. It was countered by a long-running series of cross-border raids by British Commonwealth forces in an undeclared war which persisted from 1963 to 1966 and was not even hinted at in press releases in Britain for fear of drawing worldwide condemnation.

    On November 21 1965, Maunsell was serving with the 2nd Battalion 10th Princess Mary’s Own Gurkha Rifles (2/10 GR). He commanded C Company and the Recce and Pioneer platoons in a five-platoon attack on an Indonesian position at Gunong Tepoi, about two miles over the border inside West Kalimantan, Indonesia, and at the western tip of the Jagoi mountain range.

    An early-morning reconnaissance had shown that the enemy, about 100 in number, had dug in on top of a sheer-sided hill, with the remainder in a strong position on a lower spur. The top position had to be taken before the enemy was fully alerted, but the only approach was up a knife-edge ridge allowing only four men abreast.

    Maunsell took more than an hour to cover the 50 yards before he could see the closest of the enemy trenches, where a sentry was manning a machine-gun. The sentry, already suspicious, left a hut and moved down the ridge towards them: he was only 10 yards away when he stopped and began to unsling his rifle.

    The sentry was shot, but surprise had been lost, and Maunsell ordered Lieutenant Ranjit Rai to make an immediate uphill assault on the hut. Ranjit led four men in a charge, hurled grenades and stormed the hut, killing the occupants.The enemy was now fully alerted and Maunsell’s force came under automatic fire from the hill-top and the flanks. During this fire-fight a rifleman was killed and another wounded. Maunsell, shouting for covering fire, crawled forward and dragged the wounded man back behind the crest.

    This act of great gallantry inspired the company, and in an intense, hour-long trench-clearing battle the enemy position was taken.

    The position had then to be held until the company’s casualties, three dead and two wounded, had been evacuated. In this time, they beat off three counter-attacks before the Indonesians began to fight back strongly from a nearby position. With artillery support, Maunsell held on to the hill until he received radio confirmation that all his casualties were safe.

    Twenty-four enemy were killed on the position. The citation for Maunsell’s MC stated that his courage and disregard of danger, in the face of heavy enemy fire at a range never exceeding a few yards, was the decisive factor in a most notable and successful feat of arms.

    Lance-Corporal Rambahadur Limbu was awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in the action. Lieutenant Ranjit Rai, a Queen’s Gurkha Officer, and Lieutenant Doug Fox, Royal Artillery, also received MCs.

    Christopher Ernest Maunsell was born in Peshawar, then in India, now in Pakistan, on October 6 1939. His father was serving with the Indian Political Service.

    Always known as Kit, he was educated at Cheltenham College, where he played for the rugby 1st XV. He went on to Sandhurst and, in 1959, was commissioned into 10 GR. After a posting to the 2nd Battalion in Hong Kong, followed by a move to Blakang Mati, an island off Singapore, he was attached to HQ 99 Gurkha Infantry Brigade as a Liaison Officer.

    In December 1962 he took part in quelling an uprising in the British Protectorate of Brunei, and in the course of the next four years he undertook three operational tours in Borneo with 2/10 GR, first as Intelligence Officer and then in command of a company.

    He was appointed adjutant at the end of the Borneo campaign. The Brigade of Gurkhas was being run down and, after the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Regiment amalgamated, Maunsell resigned from the Army.

    He was active in the creation and funding of the Gurkha Welfare Trust and his generosity and sound investment advice allowed the Trust to pay larger stipends to 10 GR welfare pensioners.

    In civilian life, he spent 15 years in the garment business in Hong Kong and England. After completing a business course at Cranfield School of Management, he was head-hunted by a contract caterer with high-profile clients in the horse racing world.

    Maunsell proved to be a dynamic chief executive and over the following 15 years succeeded in building up the company very considerably. His forthright approach and adherence to high standards of decency and fairness were greatly valued and he held a number of other company directorships.

    His rigour in business did not prevent him from seeing the funny side of life and his sense of mischief endeared him to his family and many friends. After the investiture for his MC and much refreshment, he tried to get into a display window at Harrods to impersonate a mannequin. The prank did not come off and he had to be pulled out by the legs.

    As a younger man, he had played a lot of rugby and squash and enjoyed skiing. In retirement, he enjoyed opera, bird-watching, walking, painting and visiting art galleries. A keen sportsman, Kit Maunsell was the best of company.

    He married, in 1970, Caroline Gray, who survives him with their three daughters.

    Major Kit Maunsell, born October 6 1939, died October 6 2021

    * * *

    Michael Schwartz
    14 HRS AGO
    A wonderful tribute to a wonderful and brave man. Very often, people comment that the veterans of World War Two were the last generation of courageous servicemen. Major Maunsell’s obituary proves otherwise. Thank you for your gallantry, Sir. And twenty-four of the enemy in one go!

    1. Should have taken out the enemy sentry with a crossbow – silent but deadly – so surprise wasn’t lost.

  29. SIR — We are berated by the government to “follow the science” and “trust the science”. This advice is counter-intuitive since science is perpetually evolving, which is achieved by exhaustively questioning it, thus improving it.

    Just imagine if early intellectuals — such as Hippocrates, Copernicus and Newton (among others) — had been told to “trust the science” that existed before their ground-breaking discoveries changed the world. We would still be singing incantations over serious injuries, washing in local streams, living on a flat earth, and adding up on an abacus.

    Todays failed missive to the DT letters’ page.

    2. But they aren’t following any science. They are following someone’s biased claim of what the science could be

    3. Try writing and telling them your views on the film White Christmas.
      I am sure it would be published, after all it contains the word white and is not complementary, perfect in today’s culture.

    4. I was writing a comment when I recalled that 80 or so years ago Churchill summed up what might happen back then: his words then, ring true today.

      But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

      If jabbing the population with an experimental potion of dubious efficacy and unknown side-effects isn’t perverted science, I do not know what is.

  31. ‘Morning again.

    Excellent article by Dan Hannan in today’s DT:

    We know that lockdown is a social and economic disaster. Please, Boris – don’t do it again

    Why give in to the same combination of flesh-creeping forecasts and hair-raising headlines? Here’s six reasons why, hopefully, we might not

    DANIEL HANNAN
    18 December 2021 • 7:24pm

    Not again. Not after all the vaccines, all the precautions, all the privations. Not after all the models that turned out to be so absurdly alarmist. Our freedoms are elemental. They are what make us who we are as a nation. We can’t surrender them on the off-chance that some putative ill might materialise.

    The original lockdown was justified on grounds that it was the only way to prevent a meltdown in our healthcare system. In the event, our Nightingale hospitals stood empty, and real-world data (as opposed to modelling) showed that the peak in new infections had passed before the restrictions were imposed.

    The second lockdown had a sounder rationale. It was supposed to buy time while the vaccination programme was rolled out. Since, by definition, lockdowns push infections into the future, rather than prevent them altogether, this at least made sense.

    But we have more than done our bit. We are among the most inoculated people on earth, with some of us now on our fourth jabs. Vaccines were supposed to be the way out of this nightmare. If they are not, then we are facing chronic lockdowns forever.

    I’m confident that, had that been the proposition in March 2020 – had we been told that we faced a lifetime of stoppages – we’d have refused point-blank. But we have been boiled slowly, like so many frogs in the pan. A three-week lockdown became six weeks, then 12 weeks, then a wait until we could vaccinate the clinically vulnerable, then the over-50s, then all adults, then kids, too. After all that, the idea of annual lockdowns can feel almost like a logical next step.

    At each stage, we have been lulled, habituated, anaesthetised. Human beings tend to anchor to the status quo, becoming irrationally change-averse. When the status quo involves being paid to stay at home, along with a satisfying sense of solidarity and community, it is hardly surprising that some people take to it readily.

    Government advisers originally feared that a lockdown of more than three weeks would be unenforceable: a free people would shake it off, as a horse shakes off flies. In the event, they need not have worried. Our liberties turned out to be much easier to remove than to restore.

    Still, it is worth pointing out that, at every stage, the models used by public health agencies exaggerated the numbers of infections and of deaths. Indeed, it may well be that, once again, the lockdown will come into effect only after the peak in new infections has passed. Why do our leaders keep falling for it?

    Because, I’m afraid, all the incentives are stacked one way. No politician ever gets into trouble for erring on the side of caution. Nor does any public health adviser. No one has ever been hounded from office for spending too much on test and trace, or for imposing restrictions that had little effect, or for making predictions that were excessively alarmist. Make the slightest slip the other way, though, and you’re finished.

    Will that logic once again push Boris Johnson into a course of action that, in his heart of hearts, he doubts? Not necessarily. A number of things have changed since we last faced such a decision.

    First, there is now organised political opposition to more bans. Last week, 100 Conservative MPs voted against the relatively mild restrictions set out in Plan B. They were not concerned, in most cases, about masks in cinemas. The vast majority of them recognised that, even with Plan B, Britain would remain more open than Europe. No, what they were really doing was drawing a line, seeking assurances that ministers would go no further. In some cases, they withdrew their opposition after reportedly getting such assurances.

    Second, we have now had ample opportunity to measure Sage’s forecasts against the reality. We saw their predictions for the first wave, their predictions for the second wave, their predictions for what would happen after the July opening, their predictions for what would happen this autumn. Every time, what actually happened was less severe than their central predictions and, in almost every case, less severe than best-case scenarios.

    Third, this wave began in South Africa, giving us a few extra weeks of data to study. Everyone accepts that the omicron mutation has been less lethal in South Africa than the delta, but there were worries that this reflected a difference in demographics: the average age is 27 in South Africa, 40 here.

    Last week, though, studies started to come in that broke down South Africa’s hospitalisations by age group. They confirmed the view of both the European Medicines Agency and America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, namely that this is a milder variant than its predecessors.

    Fourth, we have had a control in the experiment all along. It has become almost indelicate to mention Sweden, these days, but there she stands, stolid, sensible and social-democratic, a living refutation of the claim that house arrest was the only way to avoid mass fatalities.

    It takes a real effort of will to recall how affronted foreign media were by Sweden’s refusal to shut down. “Heading for disaster,” went one headline. “Leading us to catastrophe,” agreed another. Time magazine reported that “Sweden’s relaxed approach to the coronavirus could already be backfiring” and quoted a doctor saying that it would “probably end in a historical massacre”. “We fear that Sweden has picked the worst possible time to experiment with national chauvinism,” chided the Washington Post. It was “the world’s cautionary tale”, pronounced the New York Times.

    So, do Sweden’s fatality rates stick out in every chart? Hardly. They are roughly in line with those of, say, Austria or Greece, and better than in Italy or Britain. At first, commentators tried to claim that this was because of some unique characteristic, such as low population density. In fact, Sweden is an urbanised society, with 85 per cent of its population occupying two per cent of its territory. Then they compared it only to its neighbours, pointing to better outcomes in Norway and Finland. But the original claim was not that a lockdown would fractionally lower the death rate; it was that nothing else would prevent a calamity. So now, commentators simply ignore the place altogether.

    Fifth, public opinion has finally begun to turn. For 18 months, YouGov polls have shown unwavering support for every kind of prohibition: closed shops, closed schools, closed pubs, closed borders. But on Friday, there was a significant shift, with 60 per cent opposing shop or pub closures and 62 per cent opposing a ban on mixing with other households. Perhaps, after long slumber, we are remembering who we are as a people.

    Sixth, and most significant, the PM ignored the official advice once before – and was utterly vindicated. When “freedom day” was decreed in July, public health agencies predicted disaster. Modellers at Warwick University forecast at least 1,000 deaths a day (in the event, the highest daily toll was 188). Sage told us that daily hospital admissions would be between 2,000 and 7,000 (the highest daily total was 1,086). Neil Ferguson predicted 100,000 infections a day (they peaked at 56,688).

    I have criticised the lockdowns often in these pages. But the PM deserves vastly more credit than he has had for trusting his judgment in July. Britain is, as I write, still a freer society than almost any of its neighbours. Our businesses are open, our retail sector is prospering and we have more people in work.

    Why throw it all away? Why give in to the same combination of flesh-creeping forecasts, hair-raising headlines and lockdown-nostalgic devolved administrations? The same off-the-record briefings? The same reports of “major incidents”? Why allow models, necessarily academic, to trump our real-world experience of having reopened and avoided the worst?

    Had the lockdowns been a clinical trial, they would have been called off on grounds of the damage they were doing to public health. We all now know the effects. The disorientated teenagers, the rise in undiagnosed cancers, the bankruptcies, the mental health problems, the tax rises, the sheer human misery. Are we seriously proposing to go through it all again, at a time when the coronavirus has become endemic, and when, according to the ONS, 95 per cent of us have antibodies? Why inflict such ruin on ourselves and our posterity?

    At such times, only Shakespeare will do:
    Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,
    Lest child, child’s children, cry against you woe!

    * * *

    Icarus One
    1 DAY AGO
    “As a doctor, it pains me to say this, but I believe that this climate of dread [about Omicron] is being deliberately manufactured by the usual suspects — certain scientists and doctors — in order to impose a new lockdown by stealth, rather than edict.”
    Angus Dalgleish, Professor of Oncology at St Georges Hospital Medical School London
    Enough said?

    Michael Kirkland
    1 DAY AGO
    Absolutely spot on. All we get are infection figures and ludicrous predictions. How many fully vaccinated people are seriously I’ll, in hospital or dying? How many of those hospitalised have chosen not to be vaccinated? And so on, these details are never given. Life comes with risks, we can’t possibly mitigate them all by constantly locking the whole of society down. We’re now reaching the point we’re lockdowns and other equally ineffective measures are far more damaging then any damage likely to be caused by the virus.

    Charles Hamilton
    1 DAY AGO
    These lockdown measures need to be lifted and the political class need to be saying to the public “some of you will die but we all have to live with risk otherwise we are not really free” Previous generations have lived and died through various epidemics and the strong have survived, the weak have passed on.
    The government propaganda machine has scared the public into obedience, decisions are being made without parliamentary scrutiny and as a result we are not living in a democratic society. As you I am not a fan of Boris, sadly we have politicians on both sides who are unfit to represent the population, many like Boris are ill informed and ill advised. I used to think that I lived in a democracy but not anymore. The government have not bothered that every year over 70,000 people die from heart disease and 150,000 die from cancers. They don’t stand at a podium and tell the country how sad they are that another life has been lost to heart disease or cancer and they don’t tell us that the NHS will be overwhelmed by these numbers!
    There are plenty of other causes of death more significant than Covid where families have lost loved ones and there is no memorial to them. This nonsense needs to stop and it needs politicians to stand up and be counted, not toe the party line. Business people need to challenge the government – all of them, not the odd brave business owner.
    Our journalists need to step up and reflect the fact that sadly 8 deaths in one day and a few thousand positive tests in a country of over 65 million is nothing of note.

    1. Remember those Government broadcasts on the radio in 1939? The BBC put them out on the Home Service every hour on the hour. A serious upper-class voice told our parents to pack a suitcase for every member of the family and all were to make their way to their designated Port of Departure on the date and time indicated in their letter. Buses and trains were laid on to take people to the ports. Everybody, all 46,467,000 of us were to be evacuated to Canada to avoid any deaths and injuries that might be caused by German bombing.

    2. “No, what they were really doing was drawing a line, seeking assurances that ministers would go no further. In some cases, they withdrew their opposition after reportedly getting such assurances.” No, Daniel, what they were really doing was grand-standing. There was no risk the measures wouldn’t pass (the numbers were already there), nor was there any risk of having the whip removed (too many of them). If they believed the assurances, they are even more naive than I gave them credit for. This is a government of U turns and broken promises.

  32. Good morning all

    Quiet weather ,low cloud , temp 6c.- in these Dorsetty parts .

    More than 270 people crossed the English Channel in small boats on Sunday, the Home Office confirmed. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-59725399

    It comes after more than 900 people crossed on Thursday and Friday.

    Border Force officials brought 274 people in 11 boats into the Port of Dover, while French authorities intercepted a further 178 people from leaving for the UK.

    Almost 28,000 people have made the crossing in small boats so far this year, compared to 8,400 in 2020.

    Last month 27 people, including 17 men, seven women – one of whom was pregnant – and three children, drowned when their boat sank near Calais.

    Dan O’Mahoney, clandestine Channel threat commander, said he was “determined” to “target the ruthless organised criminal gangs” behind the crossings.

    He said people “should claim asylum in the first safe country they reach”.

    The English Channel is one of the most dangerous and busiest shipping lanes in the world.

    Many migrants come from some of the poorest and most chaotic parts of the world, and many ask to claim asylum once they are picked up by the UK authorities.

    In the mean time , Dorset council are pleading for good souls to come forward to foster children, and those who have spare rooms / cottages etc please will they consider housing migrants .

    Naturally next year more areas of Dorset will be confronted by the loss of good quality farm land which will be sacrificed for ticky tacky homes.

  33. There is a difference between an anti-vaxer who refuses to countenance having any vaccines at all and a person who is reluctant to have a dud injection that might do him or her harm.

    Give me a vaccine that does not require endless boosters, prevents me from getting Covid 19, stops me passing it on if I get it, has no possible immediate or long-term fatal consequences for a person in my state of health and I shall join the queue to have it.

    At the moment the vaccine the PTB are trying to impose on everyone with false threats, fears and statistics is a complete dud and my assessment of the risk/benefit equation is that it would be a far greater risk for me to take the vaccine and my doctor, who has treated me for over 20 years, is of the same opinion.

    I wonder how many people who had the vaccine and even the second and booster doses of it are now beginning to think they have been conned?

    1. I definitely feel that way. Within 6 months, maybe sooner, we will be cajoled, with assorted threats and lies, into getting the next booster.

    2. I do – I had the first two shots of AZ, thinking it might be the way out of this nightmare. Now, clearly the vax is useless and potentially very harmful – so why have another if two don’t work? In particular the mRNA ones they are foisting on us now have been shown by leading dissenting scientists to be causing auto-immune disease, and driving the virus to mutate.
      I don’t want to further compromise my immune system which has always served me well, by taking an unnecessary dose.

      2. I’m in an entirely similar position. I recently received a letter ‘offering’ me my first flu jab and informed that whilst there I might be ‘offered’ a booster. I decided that I would ignore the ‘offer’. Then last week I received a follow-up letter; there was no mention of the flu jab but I am now apparently in a priority group for the booster.

        I suspect, much like the growing pile of letters from the bBC tv tax salesmen, that the mail from the NHSS Jabs Division shall be keeping my postie in a job.

    3. The reported number of non-vaccinated i.e. not had the first jab, here is being reported as 23 million. With around 12 million children that’s 11 million adults = approx 20% of the adult population. The number will increase as the double-dosed get beyond >100 days from second dose and become, for all intents and purposes, unvaccinated. Some will be ‘persuaded’ to take the booster but some will not. If the total of non-vaccinated and unvaccinated adults stabilises around 15 million then the government has a real problem, especially if that cohort represents a lower % of say, per 100,000, of those becoming infected/ill, as opposed to the same number of “vaccinated”. Squaring that circle with lies will be the only option open to the government.

    1. Fear creation in overdrive.
      Subtle suggestion that those not having the jabs WILL have work and education disrupted.

      1. The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth
        and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent
        thought

      1. Aye. Prescott was a firebrand unionit stuck in the 70s. His perspective was wrong on most things. Yet, he had integrity and prinicples. He wasn’t a hypocrite (too much of one). Despite my disagreeing with his every attitude, I respect him.

        3. He started his working life as a waiter in the merchant navy. It pissed him off no end when Tory MPs, sitting in the HoC bar, snapped their fingers at him every time he entered, shouting, “G & T, Pedro. And make it snappy!”

  37. A BTL comment with which I sympathise:

    Please don’t call him Boris. He’s not on your side. It’s like calling Blair Tony.

    I usually refer to him by his surname rather than his Christian name – using Christian names implies a familiarity and affection for Mr Johnson which I do not have.

    My friends can call me Rastus or Richard. Those who do not want to be friendly can call me Mr Tastey!

    4. It’s a little more complex than that.

      In ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ society, senior servants and professionals are referred to by their surnames only, as are professional sportsmen.

      Amateurs and formal acquaintances not in a professional capacity are referred to by their titles and surnames, as are professional sportswomen (since they acquire their surnames from either their husbands or fathers, and this acknowledges their separate status).

      Friends and informal acquaintances and junior servants are referred to by their Christian or chosen forename. Close friends and fellow members of a group or club are referred to by their nicknames.

      This leaves the full name as a clumsy alternative, when in doubt. Because female titles (Mrs and Miss) refer to marital status, this is not always clear in correspondence, and I personally use the modern invention Ms for feminists or when I want to insult a woman. There is no easy male equivalent. The nearest is Esquire, meaning property owner, and implies also being a husband. Otherwise, Master is only used for boys, and is dropped soon after puberty.

      In the case of politicians, it is quite usual for friends and opponents alike to use a nickname, which implies a certain notoriety, which could be positive or negative or both. Using formal names gives a certain anonynity to a politician, which may be a good or a bad thing, depending on the image he or she is after.

      In the case of former London mayors, ‘Boris’ and ‘Ken’ were said with a certain impertinence. There is cold suffrance though with their current successor, which is invariably ‘Sadiq Khan’, never ‘ Khan’, ‘Mr Khan, ‘Sadiq’, or ‘That Old P*ki’.

      1. Sad Dick Cant

        cant :- hypocritical and sanctimonious talk, typically of a moral, religious, or political nature.

    5. It is a problem how to address people, especially on forums such as this. I normally address you as Rastus and expect you to make clear if that offends, and I do similar for others here.
      I once read a comment by a contributor to this site who disliked being addressed in an over familiar way, I have never sinced address them by their first name.

      1. I expect and demand that you refer to me by my full title: Lord Emperor Darth Wibbling of the Fluffies.

        Or, ‘that arse/whinger/grumpy/wibb/s/ling/ler’.

    6. I tend to refer to you as Mr T, partly because we have not yet met, and partly because you are or were a teacher. Therefore in front of any children I would automatically talk about you as “Mr Tracey”.

      1. When I taught in an independent school many of my pupils became my friends and I invited them to call me Richard – but not until they had left school. Calling me ‘Richard’ rather than ‘Sir’ was a sort of rite of passage from schooldays to the new world they were about to inhabit.

        We have groups of Sixth Formers on our residential courses – we call them by their Christian (or first names) and we invite them to call us Richard and Caroline.

        .

    7. I call Boris Boris as Johnson seems daft. Doesn’t mean I like the man.

      At the time of voting he was the only option offering Brexit. Yes, he was using it, but until I can control the lot of them that’s par for the course. The other parties were desperate to force us back in, regardless.

  38. A question for the lockdown maniacs.
    If this is to be your last Christmas before dying, is being locked down the way you want to spend it?

    If Omicron genuinely is as transmissible and deadly as you claim, then this probably is your last Christmas. I hope you hate every second of it.

    1. The statistician Professor David Spiegalhalter estimates that the transmissibility of Omicron will lead to 11 million UK infections by Christmas Day so if there is 100% mortality with every infection there is a one in seven probability of not seeing Santa come down the chimney with a booster jab.

  39. As at 09:45 today:

    Demand = 41.6 GW.
    Gas is providing 23.87GW (57.38%)
    Nuclear 5.84GW (14.04%) flat out
    Wind – a magnificent 1.39 GW (3.34%) from 11,081 turbines!
    Solar (estimated) 0.07GW (0.17%)
    Biomass 2.88GW (6.92%)
    NEMO (new 1GW Belgian interconnector) flat out
    Dutch interconnector (1.05GW) flat out

    The “Saudi Arabia of wind power”? It is time that someone explained to Johnson the implications of a high pressure system in the winter months…

    3. I’m not worried about rooftop solar. In fact, I think it’s quite a good idea. However, the state wants to push this agenda but refuses to make the panels affordable. They’re also only useful with a battery lark.

      The calculations for getting solar panels for the house are a return over about 20 years, given our electricity bill.

      1. Domestic solar panels on the now defunct FIT payments made financial sense – and even more so with a smart box to feed unused power to an immersion to heat the water. Our boiler was unused between say late Feb and late October. Ours were repaid in 7 years – plus significant savings for electricity and gas. Battery packs then were around £4k, which didn’t make financial sense. I expect they have fallen since then.

  40. Good morning all.

    There may be a practical reason as to why Elizabeth Truss MP prefers to use her maiden name.
    Her husband is an accountant, and there are bound to be some rules about advertising.

      1. I don’t think La Truss goes for “anonymity”, Missus. Yet another self-obsessed person. (As well as a Limp Dumb AND a remainiac).

          3. Every woman in their forties rises well in their careers, and then look what happens in their fifties, hot flushes and sour disposition, look what happened to the Maybotand others?

        2. Sorry, I try hard to avoid any ad hominem comments, but her husband’s surname made me chuckle because it could cause some confusion, as in ‘are you related to …?’. Sorry Minister.

  41. We are in the process of downsizing. We gave away our settee and armchairs to charity 3 months ago. The children all decided to come and stay for Xmas. So we needed some seating. We obtained a couple of traditional sofas on Gumtree at the cost of transport and a donation to charity.
    We have been putting stuff in boxes. We also have boxes from previous moves that have not been opened for years. In four months our “downsizing” has amounted to net zero.
    Last night the Sultana commented,” it is like living in a big warehouse with boxes stretching into the distance”. A few minutes later the Sultana commented again, “I think we’ve found the lost “Ark of the Covenant””.

    1. We made an attempt to downsize years ago , I packed away tea sets, nice dinner plates and all that caboodle . Items we probably haven’t used for 40 years , and stuff that isn’t dish washer proof . All in boxes in the spare room.

      In addition to that , coronation paraphanalia that belonged to Moh’s late mother , old postcards from WW1, mountains of old photo’s, and loads of Edwardian cutlery, we don’t need jam spoons , and every type of ornate nickel plated silver tableware.

      Moh’s hoard of old computers , and other gadgets . How do we deal with things like that?

      3. Snap T_B

        When you ‘downsize’, the Spare Room becomes the most important one in the house

        If we move again, we will downsize from a 2 Bedroom bungalow, with a single garage to
        A Four bedroom house, double garage and 6 sheds

      4. I moved about thirty various bits and pieces of kit on to friends and familly. Built as many comps as I could from parts and gave the rest away. The warqueen was happy as a Pax cupboard was emptied of cables, plugs, boxes and cruft.

        We’ve probably got about 20 odd comps around the place, but they do things. There’s lots and lots of Raspberry Pis and the core stuff in, well, behind me doing work.

    3. No you haven’t. It’s in Allan Towers attic, behind the year before last’s box of crackers.

    4. Each year, at the beginning of November, Caroline mixes up a brew of pickling salt, brown sugar, back pepper, juniper berries, and allspice and completely submerges the large back leg of a pig and leaves it covered for a month a large tub. When it is time for our Christmas feast, the ham is taken out of the brine then boiled, skinned studded with cloves and baked and then varnished with a mixture of honey and mustard.
      (If anyone wants the full recipe then please apply to Caroline and she will be happy to give it to you.)

      Caroline’s sister, Pierrette, and her newish husband, Sjoerd, will be coming to us for the New Year but our younger son, Henry, and his girlfriend Jessica, have been forbidden to come to us by that nasty Mr Johnson and that even nastier Mr Macron so we shall be eating a lot of ham well into the New Year.

      Here is last year’s ham – it was one of the best:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2a2b95beede24f3d670807dc3706ecea6a542e737b8cecbe13412634ed03236a.jpg

      1. Together with a pair of the best walnut crackers that I’ve ever found. They will also do a good job on most other types of nut.
        That ham looks delicious.

          2. HG has recently taken to having a kir as her aperitif in the evenings. We discovered a very good cassis when we were last in Beaune. Pages Vedrenne of Nuits St Georges, they call it supercassis and it’s 20 proof, the flavour is particularly intense so one needs very little in a kir.
            It’s quite expensive, but the best we’ve tasted.

          3. I have a champagne opening kit which includes a nutcracker-like implement for removing the cork.

        1. You’ll find our e-mail address on our website if you google:

          Caroline and Richard Tracey Le Grand Osier.

          Look forward to hearing from you.

      3. I’m doing a similar, though smaller, ham this year. I shall roast mine (after the necessary boiling), similarly clove-studded, with a glaze of home-made marmalade and Dijon mustard.

        How long does your giant ham last and how do you keep it?

        1. Grizzly, I take a knife to it fairly quickly and cut off a huge chuck which I cold-smoke. I then slice both unsmoked and smoked, pack it up in portions and pop it into the deepfreeze. We are now finishing off last year’s beast – so it easily lasts a year in the deepfreeze!

          1. Thanks, Caroline. I tend to do similar, though I’ve not cold-smoked any yet, I’ll put that right soon. When I slice up my not-yet-used portions I cut some quite thick (as steaks) to have as a gammon steak with sautéed mushrooms, broad beans, a grilled tomato, mashed potatoes and parsley sauce (an old favourite). I always use the ham stock to make an old-fashioned pease pudding with split yellow peas, sweated onion and lots of butter. Eaten cold this accompanies the left-over ham slices wonderfully with a salad; otherwise, eaten hot, it makes a delicious pea-and-ham soup. A good ham is one of life’s great delights. 👍🏻😊

      4. Did the rest of the family get any? Oh, how good that looks! Like an advert in posh brochure such as Harrods, Fortnum and Mason…

    5. I’m in a similar situation because now the conservatory is finished, I no longer want to use it for storage. Hence, all the boxes that contain the stuff I took out are piled up in my sitting room. My next task it to go through them and ruthlessly get rid of everything that is no longer current.

  42. I looked it up on the Internet and found that Ms Truss voted to stay in the EU in the 2016 referendum. However, she declared in 2017 that she had changed her mind and believed that Britain would be better off out of the EU. We must also remember that she is pretty ruthless and, when she was young and already married she had an adulterous affair with a senior Tory, Mark Field, in order to promote her career.

    More and more people are beginning to doubt the sincerity of Mr Boris Johnson’s commitment to Brexit and they feel, as I do, that he waited to see which way the wind was blowing before deciding whether an IN or OUT position would better serve his political ambitions. Pragmatic Opportunism rather than Sincere Commitment is the shoddy hallmark of his far from sterling integrity.

    A BTL comment on the appointment of Ms Truss

    I wonder what Mrs Field thinks about her?

    But of course she has now changed her mind and believes in marital fidelity just as she is now a Brexiter who voted to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum.

    They say that religious converts are more ardent than those who followed their religion from childhood. Time will show if she has the zeal of the convert and will sort out the Northern Ireland mess to the advantage of Britain and those living in Northern Ireland and not give in to the tyrannical EU as Boris Johnson and the rest of his government seem prepared to do.

    3. Morning Rastus,
      More and more people are beginning to doubt the sincerity of Mr Boris Johnson’s commitment to Brexit
      I would not be surprised if the lack of commitment to Brexit was a large part of Frost’s decision and given time that fact will become known to all of us.

      1. A BTL comment in the DT upon which I commented here yesterday is that Frost was treated by Johnson very much in the same way as David Davis was treated by Mrs May when he was trying to negotiate Brexit. If you remember the evil Mrs May employed a scumbag called Olly Robbins to undermine everything that Davis was trying to achieve.

        In the same way, Johnson sent Frost into battle with the EU only to undermine him behind his back being guided by his current wife and the equally treacherous Gove on both fishing and the EU’s continuing influence in Northern Ireland.

      2. I had no concerns at all. Like all the rest of them. Boris is out for himself. He took advantage of an opportunity to get into power. Now he’s got there, he’s happy to ditch the vehicle that got him in.

      1. I’m not. Whenever Nagsman comes over to lunch I always ask her to blow her fag smoke at me so that i may coat my lungs with it once more!

    1. You know what frustrates me most? That somewhere there is genuine racism. Where someone is being persecuted because of their skin colour. All this nonsense just has folk sighing and turning away.

      1. Yes. That sort of bollards does nothing for people who are genuinely at the receiving end of race slights.

    1. Prejudice and bias against having your laundry and pets stolen, your petrol syphoned and parcels nicked off your doorstep.

      1. Tut, tut. What a racist backwater Northern Ireland seems to be. Anyone would think the inhabitants have a reason to be wary of enforced diversity.

    2. Perhaps that’s how we should treat all the immigrants? Make their lives so intolerable, have the BBC waffle on about how awful and racist we are and change the minds of the vermin wanting to get here.

      The BBC can then proclaim how racist we are, and we won’t care – because we’ll have stopped the genocide of our society.

      1. I’m trying to decide whether to go out tomorrow or on Wednesday. Decisions, decisions…

  46. Traditionally the three great offices of state are considered to be: the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Exchequer.

    Is the fact that Liz Truss has been moved to the post vacated by Lord Frost a demotion or a promotion?

    There is a tide in the affairs of men.
    Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
    Omitted, all the voyage of their life
    Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
    On such a full sea are we now afloat,
    And we must take the current when it serves,
    Or lose our ventures.

    My view is that if she succeeds in sorting out the shambles in Northern Ireland created by the Protocol and manages to bring sense to the anarchic confusion with fishing rights she will be a very strong candidate to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister.

    But has the prime minister deliberately handed her a poisoned chalice? Is the tide flooding or ebbing for her?

    1. without using Google as a crib, I thought that the role of Prime Minister was regarded as an office of state.
      Important to remember that former holders of these Offices are entitled to an extra special pension, not dependent on the period time that they spent in that role.

      1. And yet there’s nearly a hundred people in the cabinet. We barely need 5. It’s all rewards and cronyisms.

        1. Hence the PPSs going into reverse ferret mode. Paper tigers who were easily ‘persuaded’ by the arguments.
          They are in the foothills of their political careers and have school fees and mortgages to consider.

          1. Then politics needs to stop being considered a career. It should be considereed service. 90% of the problem is a bunch of politicians with ego and agenda, playing at a game when they should be servants.

            If the lot of them were forced to their knees, collared and chained on becoming an MP they’d change their minds.

    2. Until there is a sign of the powers granted by Brexit are used, what was the point of it?

      Why does the state insist on forcing EU policy when we have given it the ability to set our own course?

      As for who does it, I’ll believe she has value when Northern Ireland is part of the UK again and not used as a staging post by the EU.

    3. Isn’t she still FS? By giving her the Brexit brief as well it sends a message to the EU that Brexit is not first and foremost in the UK Government’s eyes. Whether that is a good or bad thing only time will tell.

      1. Yes, you are right – I have not seen the announcement of a new foreign secretary. Of course job doubling up is common practice with this government where Johnson is both circus clown and prime minister and is very bad at both.

      2. It isn’t. They don’t give a stuff. Heck, was it Blair’s govt that had defence – during the Iraq blippin’ war – also doing some other non-job?

  47. Good Moaning – just about.
    Oh, What A Grey Day.
    Despite being terribly organised and going through the address book, still a couple of people have caught me out.
    Do I put a 1st. Class stamp on the envelope which suggests panic?
    Or do I use a 2nd. Class stamp which suggests I hadn’t forgotten and that the Post Office is to blame?

    1. At this time of year it doesn’t matter. 1st and 2nd class post get lumped together anyway.

      2. Do they? Apparently the 2nd class drop dead is earlier than 1st.

        I hate sending cards. The few folk I’d want to I would prefer to call, but they don’t do internet things so it’s impossible.

        1. I much prefer a card. It’s more personal. My brother sends Jacqui Lawson animated crap with a silly dingetty tune, that once viewed stays in the PC. A printed card goes on the shelf and gets looked at frequently.

    3. This is the last year I am sending cards. The Royal Mail is as screwed up as the NHS. My son and my stepson might be the only exceptions.

  49. Well the dog needs a walk and I have local Christmas cards to deliver, I might take the car, I don’t want to be stranded on a hill out of breath.

    1. Does the breath come back with rest?

      As if so, do the hill on foot and stop every hundred metres. Who cares how long it takes.

  50. “… The Party member, like the proletarian, tolerates present-day conditions because he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut off from the past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries, because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than his ancestors and that the average level of material comfort is constantly rising. …”

    While we are ‘better off’ we are relatively poorer than my parents were. Why? Taxation. Debt. Big state. Boris can pontificate about wages rising, but they’re falling in real terms.

          4. Same weight of water there Grizzly!

            I have been handed a proper beer stein with Long Island Iced Tea.

          5. Those German bier keller steins crack me up. Half full of a yellow liquid; half full of soap suds. Talk about short measure.

    5. It is often the women who do the heavy lifting. If a girl can carry a pig in each arm she is marriageable material.

  53. If your blood pressure is a bit low, try looking at Piers Moron’s tweets – a full on Covidian!

  55. Just come back from my daily walk with Mrs VVOF. The weather was grey, damp and cold but I must say I was amazed, no sign of any of the 6 million daily dead collapsed on the paths blocking the way.
    Witless and his cronies must have a very efficient body collection arrangement in place.

  56. Just in from trip to Boots. They were out of their Own Brand Night-nurse – so I had to buy the costly one. Refused to sell me two (Chinese pharmacist said, “It’s irregal”… So, natch I went to one of the other chemists and bought a second one – and could have gone to the third for yet another.

    Do the f+ckwits who invest these rules realise that anyone intent on doing himself harm will do the rounds on two successive days and have enough stuff to do the biz for him?

    1. The only thing that dissolved the congestion in my sinuses were ephedrine drops. A drop in each nostril and the blockage cleared and the bad headache went away. Pharmacists would only sell me one very small bottle of drops, not two. Apparently it could be used to make crystal meth.
      As the content of a bottle was 10ml, or 1/100th of a litre and the solution was a 1.0% solution the actual ephedrine content would be 1/10,000 of a litre*.
      That is not very much. I think that you would need quite a few bottles to get into the big league as a drug baron. ( I don’t know the actual formula. I watched “Breaking Bad” but they were a bit coy about actual hands-on detail. On the other hand I did understand that it was a very dangerous enterprise with a real risk of blowing yourself up, quite apart from the actual dealing with armed druggies and nasty police persons.)
      That temptation has been removed as NICE required the drops to be withdrawn from the market back in May.
      However, I can buy a bag of ephedrine hydrochloride on line for 125€, enough to make around one million* little bottles of nose drops.

      *If my sums are right.

      1. Reminds me of the art school days when fellow students had up-turned bottles of Collis Browne’s mixture on the mantlepiece, waiting for the morphine to separate out. It was considered amusing but no-one ever thought it pointless, which it surely was?

      2. You can spot meth cooks. Most are idiots. If you want to make it you do have to properly control your environment.

        I say that in the same vein that I’d want to make explosives. It’s interesting. Having had someone withdraw from cocaine addiction it is NOT something I could ever recommend.

    2. It’s really nothing to do with self harm. It’s because ephedrine is a key component in the production of crystal meth.

    4. I always worked that out when buying paracetamol. I bought two in each supermarket I visited and then went to different chemists.

    1. If Truss capitulates that will be the end of her aspirations to be PM. It will also be the end of Johnson and the Conservative Party.

    1. Someone deliberately inserted incorrect data and tolerances into the plans that were subsequently allowed to be stolen?

      1. I suspect that very inferior off-spec Chinese structural steel was also partially to blame. Lots was supplied to the Yanks, especially on the west coast, before they wised up and one should expect plenty of building or bridge failures in the next couple of decades.

        1. I recall from way back something similar with ‘soft’ iron for the magnets in Strowger telephone exchanges. The iron was not up to specification and retained its magnetic properties for longer than it should have. The result was ‘sticky switches’ and problems for the technicians.

    2. All a bit worrying. If the building is that shoddy, with so little care for safety what else less important have they buggered up?

    3. Looking at the size and numbers of wheels/axels on those trucks they must have been very heavy and carrying an enormous load.
      I wonder if the three were in convoy and all on the same section, right on the edge of the bridge(?) simultaneously. Then it was overloaded by the sheer weight. There’s not much sign of other vehicles being involved.

      1. I thought the same. The load looks as if it might be an electrical transformer which can be very heavy.

  61. Just had a letter from the NHS inviting me to join the Galleri Trial. This is conducted under the auspices of the Kings College Cancer Prevention Trial Unit for the early detection of Cancer. I’m in two minds. How much hassle will it be and is it worth the trouble? Any Nottlers have any experience or opinions on the subject!

    1. I have an opinion but no experience… In the present climate I would stay well away from the nhs, disappear if possible from their records. All invitations for anything would go in the bin.

      1. Afternoon Poppie’s Mama.Well obviously the NHS is a turn off; they have clearly furnished my name here and my suspicions are partly aroused by the Mobile Test Unit which will take a blood sample. Do I turn up and get a free Covid Booster?

        1. Go with your instincts. A smell a big fat rat here. Life has taught me that. Not that I am a suspicious sort of person, perish the thought, but things are not always what they seem. And that works both ways.

      2. Afternoon Poppie’s Mama.Well obviously the NHS is a turn off; they have clearly furnished my name here and my suspicions are partly aroused by the Mobile Test Unit which will take a blood sample. Do I turn up and get a free Covid Booster?

      3. Afternoon Poppie’s Mama.Well obviously the NHS is a turn off; they have clearly furnished my name here and my suspicions are partly aroused by the Mobile Test Unit which will take a blood sample. Do I turn up and get a free Covid Booster?

    2. I don’t know. My Dad was in a Heart Disease Prevention Trial. For a number of years he took a tablet every day. Drug or Placebo? He died age 56 of a heart attack. My mother died of cancer. She was treated surgically and the cancer returned some years later.
      I’d guess you would be required to attend a periodic check-up. That might include blood tests, MRI/CT scans and X-Ray. We used to be sent little cardboard poo-boxes to use and return for it to be tested for bowel cancer. (We never did.). I do not think that there is a universal test for cancer. The King’s College people should be able to provide details.
      The other aspect is how will you respond if you are found to have cancer at some point? Treatment is pretty crude in my view. Radiation, chemicals, surgery.
      I liken it to treating a cat for fleas by beating it with a hammer. The bumf refers to “survival rates”, but that maybe does not mean a happy, healthy normal life. I think it requires careful thought and very careful examination of literature, specific to the trial . The words used in describing side effects are often bland, “nausea” for instance could mean anything.
      Have any trials been carried out before, elsewhere, or in previous years? There should be reports of these. How many people were involved in other trials and what were the outcomes?
      I hope that is not too blunt. My view is that cancer treatment is at an early stage in the medical sphere. Research is going on to identify the molecular/cell generation “triggers” of the disease and how to cancel them thereby stopping growth, as well as other aspects.

      1. Nausea as a side effect of cancer treatments is pretty horrendous, I understand. Constipation when being treated for testicular cancer is, according to Bob Champion, debilitating.

        1. Yes, the medicos do not want to put you off having treatment as treating patients builds up their base of experience and practice.

  63. I am – to varying degrees – claustrophobic. I am especially bad in noisy, cramped environments. This adds in to my natural misanthropy.

    If I were not the tolerant, decent, calm sort i am, I would have bent that stupid bint’s trolley around her neck and inserted it up her backside. Ditto the idiot who suddenly stopped in front of me without looking around him, and the idoit woman who pushed my basket with her trolley to force me to move.

    I am very close to murderous. I despise the vast majority of humanity with a passion most can only dream of.

    1. Just back from shopping. I’m in the same boat – and I had the whole blasted shopping centre full of people look at me and then walk into my face.
      AAAAA!
      Get the fcuk out of my space, ar****le.

      1. It is fecking staggering. I am NOT little. I am not easy to miss. I DO look around me to see where people are – a habit from doing yoga in cramped spaces – if I get a pose wrong, I’ll hurt someone if I fall. Why does someone – and it’s always the rat faced woman with a huge deep trolley pushed from the side (I did a talk on trolley wheels once – it’s fascinating engineering) so she has no control over it – always ram me. It’s not going to make me move.

        1. If you are that large and strong why not just tip the offending trolley on its side? Accidentally of course…

          1. For the simplle reason that I could, and people would get hurt. Properly hurt. I don’t want to do that. The application of raw force is a route to getting banned or arrested or worse and even though others are rude I won’t do that to them.

            I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s a bit like having to think of everything as an egg. You have to measure everything because if you don’t, you’ll injure people. One year the wife went off to work overseas in Zurich and when she came back I cracked her rib hugging her.

          2. In which case don’t get mad get even.
            Every time you spot the offending individual drop something from a nearby shelf in their trolley, ideally something embarrassing for when they arrive at checkout.

        2. Standing in the aisle of an Airbus, waiting to disembark at Vienna. 20+ rows of people in front of me, and the door not yet open, some ratbag of an Austrian woman behind me starts to push me to get on. Told her to Stop It! twice, and she didn’t, so I turned round and bellowed in her face. She then got the message.
          I don’t like Austrians. Rudest people I ever met (Could be justthe Viennese, I suppose, but I’m not minded to be generous these days).

          4. Swedes haven’t got the foggiest idea about queueing. They are determined to rush and push past. I’m wise to them now and push back, but harder.

          6. We also have the take-a-ticket system. I was meaning at airports or bus stops when they always attempt to jump the queue and push (or rush) past you. That is when a walking sick comes in handy to use as a barrier accompanied by a threatening glare.

          7. You can’t tell stupid. I went into town to pay a bill and took Oscar, naturally. I did a bit of window shopping and some nice young women complimented him and asked if they could stroke him. I explained the situation and they said, no problem. They just admired him from afar or followed the rules (no head touching). I went into the shop and a woman I know (she was troublesome as a parent when I was teaching and hasn’t improved) admired Oscar. I explained his hang-up and she just went to stroke him on his head! Snap! Fortunately, without connecting. I told her again why he’d done it and what did she do? Touched his head again! He was seriously p1$$ed off! What bit of “he doesn’t trust people touching his head and will snap” don’t you understand, you idiot?

      2. I tried that. I tried that a lot. I ended up swallowing half a bloody mask (and yes, I could not wear it due to the asthma but I try to be a good citizen.

        Maybe I’m really just a ball of tightly knotted rage.

        1. Toss off the mask and sing “We are the 99%” at the top of your voice. (Actual musical ability not needed in order to chant, “You can stuff the whole scamdemic up your arse”!)

      1. I can’t though. My blood pressure is through the roof at the moment, and I’m home. Heart rate still hasn’t recovered.

        It drives me potty. Some people just leaving trolleys where they like, blocking half an aisle, ignoring the solitary elderly fellow trying to go in. In that instance I blocked the stream of middle class idiots pushing out and made a bloody path. I came very, very close to losing it.

        And my bloody wrist hurts where that damned bint bashed it. At least when she did bash into me I glared at her – to the point where the warqueen had to bring me back. She went away. Perhaps I should do that more.

        1. Make sure you shop with a scanner no unloading trolley and no re loading it again. The best move we have made.

          1. Yup. Pick, beep, into the bag.
            My only gripe is that the pistol grip handle is not steep enough to have the scanner in it’s holder in the trolley handle and scan stuff at the same leve or a bit lower. The beam tends to point skywards.

      2. I can’t though. My blood pressure is through the roof at the moment, and I’m home. Heart rate still hasn’t recovered.

        It drives me potty. Some people just leaving trolleys where they like, blocking half an aisle, ignoring the solitary elderly fellow trying to go in. In that instance I blocked the stream of middle class idiots pushing out and made a bloody path. I came very, very close to losing it.

        And my bloody wrist hurts where that damned bint bashed it. At least when she did bash into me I glared at her – to the point where the warqueen had to bring me back. She went away. Perhaps I should do that more.

    5. Flash point? Shoppers in the queue behind you giving you the hurry-up as you are packing your bag and paying…

        1. This incident was past that point. Even as I was putting my wallet back into my pocket, a young woman picked up my bag, put it on the floor at the bottom of the aisle, and then flipped open a bag of her own to field the items to be passed down to her by her companion…who was her mother.

          Message to all men: when in a public place, even with witnesses to your innocence, never argue with a young woman accompanied by her mother…

        2. This incident was past that point. Even as I was putting my wallet back into my pocket, a young woman picked up my bag, put it on the floor at the bottom of the aisle, and then flipped open a bag of her own to field the items to be passed down to her by her companion…who was her mother.

          Message to all men: when in a public place, even with witnesses to your innocence, never argue with a young woman accompanied by her mother…

      2. What really winds me up is when I’m waiting for one of only two self-service points that take cash in my local M&S food hall and the person hogging one takes forever then pays by card! It’s happened a few times. Grrrr!!

        1. I think it was in Bill Bryson’s “Notes from a Small Island” where he noted the practice of certain shoppers at checkouts bagging their purchases and then looking mildly surprised that it had to be paid for so then need to scrabble around in their handbags in search of their purse . I have myself observed this with the added diversion of proffering a fistful of dog eared coupons some of which may be valid. As I’m not on any sort of timetable these days I just lock my knees and ponder on whichever eternal verity drifts into my consciousness

          3. So did I until about 2 weeks ago. We just sail through no traditinal check out or anything and we have packed all our stuff just as we like it. Just try it.

          5. Actually you do less work. you do not Q at the checkout unload your trolly reload your trolly then pay. or pay and walk out. via the first class lounge. ( no waiting)

      3. Flash point #2: The woman in front who never in her wildest imaginings expected the supermarket to want to be paid for all the shopping, and now she can’t find her wallet, or her credit card, or is paying by cash with 1/2p coins, each counted out individually, oh yes, here’s some tokens too…
        When the last tailings of shopping are travelling up the band, that’s the time to get the card.
        God, I hate supermarket food shopping.
        Although, just now with the masks being needed again, there’s almost nobody there. This makes it less unbearable.

        1. “God, I hate supermarket food shopping.”

          Me too. I much prefer to shop at independent grocers, greengrocers, fishmongers, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers.

          1. Our local greengrocer has the only food shop in the area that I’d willingly go into, just to marvel at the beautiful vegetables and fruit, the choice of pickles and pastas, the fresh cheeses, olives, and Turkish cakes.
            Absolutely magical, that shop is, there’s service, quality, freshness…

    6. You need to develop a manic death stare, like mine. One direct look and they become unfeasibly apologetic.

    2. When the Stage V extension to Television Centre was first opened, a colleague with spina bifida was informed that there were now disabled loos on evey floor. There were and each one had a three step approach.

      1. A friend who depended on a wheelchair, got a job in Cardiff* with a charity for the disabled.

        There was one of those large “push” buttons to enable her to enter the building – but it was too far away from the door. She wheeled herself there, pushed, the button the door opened – she then wheeled to the door – and it closed just before she got there…..

        Once in, however, her office was on the third floor. No lift.

        * I suppose I ought to post this in Welsh, as well….(sarc)

      1. You are welcome. I get annoyed that no one, eg journalists ever seems to contradict the accusation of racism.

    2. There’s no doubt that Britain is the best country in the world.

      Although, from a comment in another article:https://theconversation.com/how-racist-is-britain-today-what-the-evidence-tells-us-141657

      “…
      The longest lasting racism of Britain and most of Europe is the racism they’re not willing to confront – Gypsies, Romani, Travellers. It’s so much more morally pleasing to self-flagellate over colour coded types instead.

      Fix your deeply embedded prejudices that won’t even allow you to discuss it.
      …”

      Yeah, the dislike of the Romani is not down to their littering, leaving waste behind, invasion and ruin of parks, their criminality, lack of tax paying, their violence, theft and scams. No. It’s racism. Feck orf.

        1. Agree, 100%, Plum, and while, I don’t think it’s racist to say so, the BAME horrors are happy to ride on the backs of the woke, lefties and snowflakes.

    3. “The Chequer Board ” by Neville Shute is an excellent story that covers this (and other tales)
      The West Country landlord bans the White troops………

  69. Scientists are telling the Government that something that is a bit difficult to define is doubling at the rate of between two and three days and Dr Jenny Harries https://www.civilserviceworld.com/in-depth/article/jenny-harries-on-covid-19-and-founding-the-uk-health-security-agency has even been in the media as saying it is less than two.

    I’ve chosen to work out whatever it is by using a value of 1.5 so you can make some enormously big numbers and y not?

    You can generate this very big number of something using a domestic calculator with an x raised to the power of y key:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ce9287b646c1ebbb34fbdfc0490ba27818dec8d2fd3d6a7f534829f1098ad6ff.jpg

    In this example I have generated quite a big number from a little one as represented by the calculation in this graph:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/65d5323835ba31e6e724a54d35434e6f814b4617c686e50bab7341a15a7b94b3.jpg

    If you can reproduce the calculation on a basic calculator like the one above then you are qualified to be a Scientific Adviser at No 10.

    Good luck on generating some really big numbers of something!👍😉

  70. Well, well, well, the comment I put up earlier which could have been a spoof is, in fact, true. Armageddon for non-vaccinated in the USA. All the while the multi-jabbed are spreading a disease that their jabs cannot stop, chance of creating another variant, and as a side-order, they’re at risk of blood clotting problems, strokes, heart attacks, myocarditis etc etc. Whatever happened to, “Keep calm and carry on.”

    https://www.redvoicemedia.com/video/2021/12/white-house-warns-the-unjabbed-to-prepare-to-die-this-winter/?utm_source=right-rail-latest

    2. I don’t use soap any more, it dries my skin. I wash using a shower gel. I keep an unopened bar of Lux soap in my desk drawer. The wonderful aroma it lets out when I open that drawer is magical.

  73. One good thing: The AT AT I bought Junior for Christmas has been delivered by the Amazons through Smyths. What he doesn’t know is that Slave 1 was also there – and yes, it’s bally Slave bally 1.

  74. It will now be fun being a British Diplomat in Minsk…

    Minsk has summoned the British charge d’affaires and demanded a thorough investigation after an assault in London.
    A Belarusian diplomat was seriously injured after the country’s embassy in London was attacked on Sunday, 19 December, the news agency Belta reported on Monday, citing the Belarusian Foreign Ministry.
    “At first, a group of people damaged the facade of the embassy building, and then physically attacked the Belarusian diplomats who arrived at the scene. One of the diplomats suffered serious injuries and required urgent medical attention. He was diagnosed with a broken nose, mild concussion, and a tooth fracture”, an official statement read.

    Reports suggested that some of the attackers were detained by the Metropolitan Police when they attempted to flee the scene of the incident. According to reports, the suspects are part of a Belarusian immigrant group in the UK.
    “It has been established that the people [who attacked the embassy] are presumably included in the radical emigre group Nadzeya”, the ministry said.

    Yes i know you’ve all read it…its been featured in all the UK media /sarc

      1. It may be that they are really important to ‘their’ plans. If govt is not deporting them, govt wants them.

        1. Increasingly it’s obvious the intention – whether by design or accident – is the erasure of British culture, society and peoples.

          This is a war crime.

      1. I always said that my dogs, all of them, could hear a plate being scraped in Alaska. And Henry, the last Golden, could be right at the bottom of the yard, but if someone opened a can or bottle of beer, he was beside them in seconds. I reckon for speed he was a canine Usain Bolt.

        1. My father always played deaf when it suited him, but if I lowered a couple of ice cubes into a glass while making a pre-dinner G&T, no matter how carefully, he was at my side in seconds.
          Likewise, if I grated Parmesan in the kitchen while cooking, Missy would come running from anywhere in the house.

        2. They told me at the dogs’ home that Oscar was deaf. He’s so deaf he can hear me open a cupboard in the kitchen when he’s asleep upstairs! He’s right there in an instant.

    1. He would say that wouldn’t he?

      But maybe he’s right.

      If Truss can get him to invoke Article 16 she may advance her own career and enable him to carry on a bit longer. But is there a single member of the Conservative Party who is capable of being prime minister?

        1. I’m feeling a lot better since I decided to ignore absolutely everything spouted by that ignorant bunch of losers. Mind you, the nerve tonic helps;-))

    2. He says for Johnson to survive he must find a loyal team with Conservative beliefs to support him, but he has no such beliefs so how does that work?

      1. That’s a shame. Those on the sensible Right side of the political spectrum understand it very clearly.

        You’re not a passing Lefty by any chance? Just a polite question to a stranger on this forum.

          2. Somewhat doubtful.
            He’s made 30k+ posts and has zero votes. That’s often a sign that he’s been targeted as too right wing and pro brexit

          4. I have, but I am aware that the vote eating bot targeted a particular group of posters across numerous of the disqus blogs, predominantly people with what I would place as right of centre views.
            In my experience, people with zero votes and the number of posts that you have made tend to be in that group.

          6. Fair enough.
            You must have been unlucky to join the clobbered.
            The downside is that if one tries to contribute elsewhere the potential to be automatically blocked as a spammer increases if one has numerous posts but no votes.

          3. Looks like that took a bit of digging.

            It’s presented like a stand alone Tweet from WH[dot]gov as opposed to an extract from a lengthy press briefing.

            Seems a little disingenuous and manipulative to me.

            I really expected a lot more from the guy from Morse after he re-invented himself as an American evangelical culture warrior.

          4. I found it in under a minute when I looked on Google.

            I agree it is a selective quote, but the whole briefing is very similar to the type of project fear that we are seeing in the UK and Europe.

          5. Is your cohort now using the term “project fear” in a variety of contexts or is this a reference to your Brexit situation?

          7. That makes sense.

            From what I have seen here, it would appear as though your cohort would believe on some level that the two issues are “linked” on a variety of levels.

          8. This is certainly an anti EU forum, but I doubt that even the most evangelical brexiteers would blame the EU for the UK’s Covid reaction. They are more likely to look at what the Europeans, not just the EU, are doing and conclude their Draconian measures are worse than the UK’s.

          9. I suppose if you’ve been repeatedly using the “Project Fear” talking point for so many years, it’s easy to lift it out and plonk it down somewhere else without missing a beat. Populism is quite flexible in that way.

          10. Probably similar to the way the pro EU people told us leaving would be the end of the world as we knew it and climate change people have been altering their doom-mongering every time their latest projections turn out to be wrong.
            All groups do it, Nottle is no different.

          13. Yes, American.

            In the way that American conservatism has, over the last few decades, been gradually transforming into a more rough & ready movement; sceptical and mistrustful of “elites” of all backgrounds. Eschewing expertise in favour of “common sense” and feeling. Working more from the gut than logic.

            Am I mistaken?

          14. I don’t think that overall you are.

            What has happened in my view, which of course is a sample of one, is that so often the so-called experts have turned out to be wrong, and that “elites” have filled their own bank accounts at the expense of Joe public that people do revert to their own experiences and those of their immediate family, friends and colleagues.

            Be honest: is there a single politician you trust implicitly, is there a single billionaire who you think puts your interests before theirs, is there a single climate change fanatic who hasn’t turned out to be a hypocrite?

          15. I tend not to pay any attention to “climate change fanatics”, more to scientists and I don’t think that anybody has ever believed that billionaires put anybody’s interests before their own.

            I’m not convinced that the term “elite” is particularly useful. I tend to think that the world is a little too nuanced for such a clumsy word.

            But if you really believe that these elites are becoming rich at your expense and you are more likely to rely on the opinions of those in your immediate circle to make sense of the world, I do believe that yours is far more right wing American approach. More than a traditional British (or English)Conservative one at any rate.

            In the United States this seems to be a successful strategy for grasping and wielding power but one wonders how that country will fare over time.

            Whether or not this approach will prove to be successful in England, it’s difficult to say.

          16. I may be lucky.
            My circle of family, friends and colleagues is/was almost certainly better qualified, more highly educated and at the pinnacle of their professions than most people in parliament ever reached.

            I agree that “elites” is woolly, but it is also a convenient description for the universal cronyism one sees.

            If you believe that my conservatism is particularly right wing you should visit Nottle more often.
            Although to be fair, I suspect I’m in a tiny minority for that invitation!

          18. I wasn’t referring to your politics in particular. More a reflection of what I have seen on this site in the context of the English Blogosphere, these boards differing little from the likes of Guido, Breitbart, The Spectator etc.

          19. I disagree.

            I have wandered over numerous blogs over the years and one thing I like about this particular one is that the posters tend to be supportive of each other in times of crisis, even when they are diametrically opposed over certain issues.

            Yes, they do refer to sites such as those you mention but you will also see links to the Guardian, all sorts of Russian and middle eastern sites as well as Fox and CNN. A surprising number live overseas and they bring a different perspective too.

            The topics are wide ranging and very often fairly esoteric. If you have a particular (non-political) interest and want a serious or light hearted discussion the chances are that someone on here knows a fair amount about the subject, be it history, art, astronomy, medicine or choral music.

          23. What happens in America seems to follow over here fairly soon after – like the BLM demonstrations and statue-toppling. Fortunately we haven’t had a major gun incident for a few years. They seem to favour knives here.

          26. But the way you describe how what happens in the United States eventually happening in England make the English sound very supine.

          28. I don’t know why you believe that what ever happens in the United States will inevitably happen in England.

          30. Meaning that the English actively import everything American or the English are powerless to prevent it.

            Both possibilities are disappointing.

          31. These things generally involve small numbers of people only – not the whole population. You are generalising.

          32. I don’t mean to generalise. I was simply going with your comment… “What happens in America seems to follow over here fairly soon after – like the BLM demonstrations and statue-toppling”.

          33. What guy from “Morse”? If you mean Lawrence Fox, he was from Lewis, which was set after Inspector Morse had died. If you’re going to disparage, do, please, get your facts right.

  78. Boris de Pfeffel will weather this storm.

    Scrapping decimalisation all together should keep England content and suitably distracted until the next season of The Great British Bake Off.

      1. This is like a very English Deliverance.

        Floating down the Wye in a canoe with Ned Beatty…

        1. ¿Que?

          Could it be that you’re trolling? This is a very open-armed site and welcomes those with similar views. We don’t always agree with one another and will allow others to have divergent opinions but, should you wish to undermine our tolerance of other points of view, be sure that you’ll be hounded off.

          Check out our terms of reference at the head of this blog.

          1. It was a joke.

            It’s my understanding that the English pride themselves (with excellent reason) for their admirable ability to engage in self depracating, witty banter.

            I take it that you are the dour, humourless one who issues ridiculous threats to strangers?

            If I do decide to visit this blog again, rest assured that I will steer well clear of you, tough guy.

            Or you can head that possibility off by telling one of the moderators that I’ve hurt your feelings here.

          5. I suspect you’re a drinker and I find you genuinely unpleasent so I’m going to block you now.

            (There’s another spelling mistake in the sentence above, have fun with it)

          6. Suspicions are are all very fine and nice but they are not the basis for evidence – think on.

        2. ¿Que?

          Could it be that you’re trolling? This is a very open-armed site and welcomes those with similar views. We don’t always agree with one another and will allow others to have divergent opinions but, should you wish to undermine our tolerance of other points of view, be sure that you’ll be hounded off.

          Check out our terms of reference at the head of this blog.

    1. Dear God – that is Big Brother Halfcock on the giant screen…..

      Wonder what happened to him.,…

    2. The Nightingale hosptials were typicla of government thinking. A lot of money spent without really thinking it through. It’s no good having the beds without the staff to make use of them. A lot of activity, a lot of money spent, absolutely no thinking.

      1. My first thought on seeing this was that all those nice empty beds with clean linen could at least have been offered to the poor souls slepping on the streets. It was useless as a hospital so why not a shelter?

  82. Boris Johnson calls Cabinet meeting as Christmas lockdown fears grow
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/covid-latest-news-christmas-lockdown-restrictions-boris-johnson-cabinet-ministers-resist-omicron-cases-b972873.html
    Boris Johnson has called a Cabinet meeting as leading scientists called on ministers to impose a lockdown before Christmas.
    The Cabinet met at 2pm to discuss three possible options for restrictions as Omicron cases soar across the UK.
    Options include a modest set of restrictions, in which the prime minister urges families to limit indoor contacts. However, this would not be legally enforced, according to the Telegraph.
    A second option which would legally restrict household mixing, see the return of social distancing and an 8pm curfew for pubs and restaurants.
    The third option involves a full national lockdown, with all socialising banned and non-essential shops and hospitality venues shut.
    Deputy prime minister and justice secretary Dominic Raab said Christmas would be “better than last year” but declined to comment on whether he was among the Cabinet ministers reportedly questioning the modelling of Sage scientists.
    When asked by Sky News if he could guarantee there will not be more restrictions between now and Christmas Day, Mr Raab said: “Well, I just can’t make hard and fast guarantees.”
    It comes as confirmed cases of the highly transmissible new strain have risen by more than 12,000 in the UK – with London’s cases alone surpassing 10,000 on Sunday.

    1. Are they just manufacturing these figures?
      I now don’t believe them x4. My scepticism is now out of control.

      Edit to add end of sentence.

          1. I agree, and what concerns me is that too much prominence is given to behavioural scientists and statistical modellers, particularly those whose track records are poor at best.

          2. Perspective… hmmm….

            What’s that? Other people who think differently to me? Snort. Nonsense!

          1. Young Swedish tourist in the UK goes into a Chemist’s shop.

            Swede: “I’d like to buy some deodorant.”
            Chemist: “Ball or aerosol?”
            Swede: “No … it’s for me armpits!”

      1. Candace Owens is not alone in her thinking. I agree with her 100% and that’s from the male point of view.

        Stuff all this transgender nonsense – a woman is born a woman, in order to have this caring, sharing, child-rearing ability and men are born to go out and protect her and the children.

        …and never may the twain meet, because it would be unnatural.

        Identify as a woman as much as you want but you’ll NEVER have those caring genes just because you’re identifying as a woman to gain some sort of advantage to which you are NOT genetically entitled.

    2. My wife is our family’s major breadwinner. She’s better qualified,incredibly bright and very, very capable.

      I have a small business that I sold to spend more time doing the things I enjoy – looking after Junior and playing with Mongo. I do the cooking and cleaning because I don’t want to work 60 hours a week. It’s hardly the worm that turned territory. Yet we have non-traditional gender roles. Who cares?

      We made that decision to suit us. The Left seem to think government should intervene to make everything suit their ideology. This is arrogant hubris in the extreme. People should be left alone to make the decisions they want to – as individuals!

  85. HAPPY HOUR – maybe not!

    My learned NoTTlers.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37512fa7694fbf62a96285bcf01fb8032bca1f2e4818fb7ed3a563a62e42f7e0.jpg

    This morning I received a Christmas card from a schoolgirl friend .
    We go back many years and I was surprised by the content although
    meant in good humour, I was offended.
    I’m not usually so sensitive and over the years have taken all that life has
    thrown at me..
    Should I recognise this as a failing on my part …or tell her she’s a mean spirited
    old bag…..?

    1. Must have been fairly bad to offend you?

      If you’ve not already sent your Christmas greetings, you could ask her politely why she said what she did, or if you’ve already sent yours, then ignore it.

    4. I remember a comment made in jest (I think) some years ago, that really offended me. I followed it up with a chat about nothing at all, and found that it wasn’t meant to be insulting, it just came out wrongly. As one who has infinite capacity to give offence inadvertently, I find it unwise to condemn others who do that.
      Likely, your friend didn’t mean it that way, Plum. Maybe give her a call, and say “Hi! – long time…!” and see where it goes.

      1. But not right away while she’s feeling offended and hurt. Best to leave it for a while before the phone call.

      2. Jeez I know that situation. My “humour” is definitely NOT liked by some (possibly people here).

        2. You’re not wong Bill……but i think mine can be pretty dire at the best of times and I do hold back i can tell youms all. But better than some of the ‘comics’ we see on our TV screens.

    5. If it can’t do any good and it might do harm, I would tend to leave it.
      If it can’t do any harm and it might do some good then fair enough; but in this instance I would err on the side of the former.

      1. I don’t want to make an issue of it and spoil a
        long friendship. I’d rather forget about it ….

        Maybe she was having a bad day, I get those too!

        3. Wise move. I had a card today addressed (both envelope and greeting) to both of us, even though I had let the sender know that MOH had died.

        4. Wise move. I had a card today addressed (both envelope and greeting) to both of us, even though I had let the sender know that MOH had died.

      2. We had a card from old friends yesterday.

        They said (among other things) “Sad that we have drifted apart since you abandoned France. It would be lovely to meet up again, if only by Zoom”.

        That really niggled me. We didn’t “abandon”France (where they, too, have a house). We left after a great deal of thought. If they so want a Zoom – well, they know how it works.

        The MR said it was a perfectly OK comment and that I was (as usual) over-reacting.

        6. Your job was the very exact interpretation of words.
          Most people are not so scrupulous and don’t recognise the finer shades of meaning.

    6. Go for the mean spirited old bag line, and if she feels at all apologetic, suggest a case of sherry would go a long way towards repairing the damage.

    7. Go for the mean spirited old bag line, and if she feels at all apologetic, suggest a case of sherry would go a long way towards repairing the damage.

    8. Plum, was it the printed word on the card, or something actually written by your friend? We have neighbours with whom we have a very good relationship and, recently, we bought a birthday card for her. When in the shop we saw some really funny (to us) cards but were not sure that’s she would have thought the same.

      I’ll bet your friend never meant to be offensive. Try to put it out of your mind. Perhaps in thenNew Year contact her and say how it upset you? Don’t do it now, when you are so upset.

    9. It could be that her social perceptions have changed as she is getting older (i.e. v. early dementia). Forgive her, you’ll feel better for doing so. My cousin, whom I think has very early dementia, has sent bizarre birthday cards to poppiesdad for years, and I’m getting them too, now!

      1. My aunt got very upset when her daughter started to say hurtful things…….. it wasn’t dementia of the usual sort but she was diagnosed with PSP, which killed her at the age of 60. My aunt outlived both her children.

        1. That is very sad. I was thinking only very recently how sad it would be to outlive your children, and have strangers throw your life into a skip, rather than one’s adult offspring…

          1. It blighted her last years. But at least the people who sorted out her estate and her effects were not strangers, but her daughter’s widower and her son’s widow. Two of her grandchildren were married with children of their own before she died, so she was not completely childless.

          2. It blighted her last years. But at least the people who sorted out her estate and her effects were not strangers, but her daughter’s widower and her son’s widow. Two of her grandchildren were married with children of their own before she died, so she was not completely childless.

    10. I would rise above it.
      Various bods I’ve known for years will say something so bizarre that I put it down to age, stress or even progressive illness.
      Sadly, about 10 years ago a friend made an odd remark about her neighbours that struck me as uncharacteristically hate filled and paranoid. Very unlike the bright, funny person I’d know for 30+ years.
      She and her husband had just moved temporarily to London and I thought that, as she had always lived in Colchester, maybe she was feeling overwhelmed and disorientated.
      Upon their return to this area, she was diagnosed with dementia.

  86. It seems from what I have been reading, including family messages that this variant is doing the job it was probably designed to do. Spreading like wild fire around the country. Would I be wrong to wonder How TF it got into this country and spread so quickly ?
    Now we are down to dropping off flow tests on others door steps ………..

      1. I usually make it up as I go along, but basically cut the chicken breasts into bite sizes pieces, I peel and slice on medium size onion, crush two cloves of garlic with salt and about the same amount of fresh ginger. I use soy sauce and mild chili powder and or Chinese five spice. Heat the wok with oil put in half the chopped and crushed spices add the chicken splash in some soy and spices after it’s cooked place it the oven to keep hot add the rest of the onion garlic etc mixed and add sliced vegetables to the wok, cook the noodles in boiling water, after the veg of your choice is cooked, leaving all the cooking juices in the wok, strain the noodles and add to the veg stock stirring to take up the flavours, serve when all the cooking juices have been absorbed. The prep takes longer than the cooking.

  88. Boris Johnson will not impose more Covid restrictions before Christmas
    Omicron data ‘does not justify a lockdown’
    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-resists-new-covid-restrictions-before-christmas-0qrmjnj2r
    The prime minister called a cabinet meeting this afternoon to discuss the latest data on the spread of the Omicron variant and whether a two-week circuit breaker banning indoor mixing was needed. The Times has been told that both he and cabinet ministers do not believe the latest information is sufficient to justify a circuit breaker. The indecision came as more than 100,000 people tested positive for Covid in a single day for the first time.
    Johnson has pledged to recall parliament if he decides to implement further restrictions, a process that takes 48 hours.

    1. If that is what The Times has been told – we can almost guarantee 100% that the opposite WILL happen.

    2. If that is what The Times has been told – we can almost guarantee 100% that the opposite WILL happen.

    3. The Times has been told that both he and cabinet ministers do not believe the latest information is sufficient to justify a circuit breaker. .
      If only…

    5. Summary from the Beeb:

      Boris Johnson says the Covid situation is “extremely difficult” but no new measures are being imposed right now in England

      He says the data on Omicron is being reviewed “hour by hour” and the government is considering “all kinds of things”

      Arguments for and against tighter restrictions are “finely balanced”, he adds, with hospital admissions rising fast in London

      The
      PM was speaking after a long cabinet meeting where scientists briefed
      ministers and options for new restrictions were debated

      It has been reported that options include another lockdown, or an 8pm pub curfew

      Deputy PM Dominic Raab earlier said he could not rule out a Christmas lockdown – but the boosters made this less likely

      Meanwhile a photo of Johnson and others with wine and cheese in the No 10 garden during lockdown is described as a work meeting

      Latest statistics show the UK has recorded a further 91,743 new coronavirus cases

      1. The wine and cheese do looked like an after-works drinky-poos social gathering/party in the garden. Look at the soft light and long shadows, 6.30pm-7.00pm of an early summer’s evening.

        2. I posted earlier that if it was a work meeting, what was Nutty Nuts doing there? She’s his missus not a cabinet member or an elected official, whatever she might think.

    6. Note: it does not rule out more restrictions AFTER Christmas. It may not justify a lockdown, but that doesn’t mean we shan’t get one!

      1. EDIT: Copy of article added.
        NRK reporting that South Africa are saying their omigawd infection rate is now dropping fast, even though they didn’t take any action on it. Hospital admissions lower than for delta variant, too, and faster releases, too.
        Sorry, can’t see it in yer Eengleesh:
        https://www.nrk.no/nyheter/koronaviruset-1.14855584
        19:27 Omikron kan være i ferd med å avta i Sør-Afrika De første tilfellene av omikron ble påvist i Gauteng-provinsen, der millionbyen Johannesburg ligger. Mens det for én uke siden ble påvist nærmere 7.500 nye omikron-tilfeller daglig i Gauteng, ble det mandag meldt om 3.582 nye tilfeller, viser tall fra det sørafrikanske folkehelseinstituttet (NICD).
        Søndag ble det derimot meldt om 4.135 nye omikron-tilfeller i den østlige KwaZulu-Natal-provinsen, der kysten er et populært utfartssted for ferierende sørafrikanere. Det var en økning fra 2.974 i døgnet for én uke siden.
        Til tross for at sørafrikanske myndigheter ikke har gjeninnført strenge koronatiltak, kan det se ut som om den siste smittebølgen har nådd toppen.
        Antallet sykehusinnleggelser er også lavere enn under tidligere smittebølger, og de som blir innlagt blir utskrevet langt raskere enn da deltavarianten av viruset herjet som verst.

        2. Sorry, my Weegee is a bit rusty, but here goes:

          19:27 Omikron may be declining in South Africa The first cases of omikron were detected in the province of Gauteng, where the million-strong city of Johannesburg is located. While one week ago almost 7,500 new omicron cases were detected daily in Gauteng, 3,582 new cases were reported on Monday, according to figures from the South African Institute of Public Health (NICD).
          On Sunday, however, 4,135 new omicron cases were reported in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal, where the coast is a popular destination for holidaying South Africans. This was an increase from 2,974 a day one week ago.
          Despite the fact that the South African authorities have not reintroduced strict corona measures, it may appear that the latest wave of infections has reached its peak.
          The number of hospital admissions is also lower than during previous waves of infection, and those who are admitted are discharged much faster than when the delta variant of the virus ravaged the worst.

    7. Note: it does not rule out more restrictions AFTER Christmas. It may not justify a lockdown, but that doesn’t mean we shan’t get one!

    3. Bl00dy hell. The ‘possibilities’ for total control are endless. Makes Convid passports on phones seem benign.

    4. The only surprise is that it has taken so long for someone to put it together.
      Normal for cats and dogs to have implants, do you really think people would escape.

      Wake me when some politician proposes making it mandatory, until then the QR code stamped on my forehead will have to do.

  90. HG is cooking a boeuf bourguignon which in theory should see us up to Christmas Eve, when we normally pig out on smoked salmon.

    It smells so delicious that I fear it won’t see out Wednesday.

          3. Hah !

            by reducing by half you not only burn off the unwanted alcohol but you also intensify the flavour.

          13. L’homme n’a point de port, le temps n’a point de rive

            Il coule et nous passons.
            Lamartine.

          14. L’homme n’a point de port, le temps n’a point de rive

            Il coule et nous passons.
            Lamartine.

          10. Unimpressed frankly,given up on Wheel of Time as well but big Hat-tip for introducing Adrian Tchaikovsky great reading(if you’re not an arachnaphobe)

          11. I think our tastes in Sci-Fi are a match. I stopped with Wheel of Time too. The books weren’t all that bad though. Lucky i didn’t waste any money on any of it.

          12. Last 50 pages of The Children of Time’ to finish, maybe later. Lovely book and I’ve got the Children of Ruin sitting next to me for after.
            Off to the pub now, bye all.

          16. Unimpressed frankly,given up on Wheel of Time as well but big Hat-tip for introducing Adrian Tchaikovsky great reading(if you’re not an arachnaphobe)

        2. You jest.

          Often she does just that and she usually cooks sufficient to put some in the freezer too.

          3. I’m always interested and there is always more to learn. People develop techniques over time that are not common knowledge.

          4. I’m many times blessed.
            She loves cooking and trying all sorts of new dishes and approaches to old “standards”.
            I eat pretty much anything, something I bless my parents for, so she can experiment to her heart’s content and I’m a happy eater.
            Luckily I tend not to put on too much weight over winter before I lose it again in the pool.

  92. That’s me for this eventful day. A trip to town to get me riled. On the other hand, Trevor the Painter arrived with his mate, Trevor… to complete the sitting room and dining room decoration. AND they put the pictures back, those that were too high for me to cope with. All done in time for Covidmas.

    So – a glass of medicine for each of us.

    I hope to survive until we meet – à demain.

  94. Evening, all. The so-called Conservatives are purging the party of Conservatism. They deserve everything they get.

    2. A recent arrival writes:
      “Just because you’ve let me in doesn’t mean I don’t now want to kill you.”

  99. Good evening all.

    Imagine if we were starting from here, we’d not lived the lives we’ve lived for the last 19 months and somebody told us about Omicron. A new virus had emerged in South Africa, extremely contagious but with symptoms akin to a mild cold. Would we have collectively run round like headless chickens and then hidden under the bed? No, we would have shrugged and gotten on with life.

    When did mass hysteria become a way of life?

    1. When Tony Blair set up the Dianafest of national mourning for a woman who was trying to destroy the monarchy.

  100. Boris Johnson’s cabinet is too large to function properly

    A prime minister needs to be able to act without worrying about a plethora of leaks and games

    NORMAN TEBBIT

    No one should underestimate the scale of the difficulties which the Government has faced since the onset of the pandemic. This is particularly true for one led by a man such as Boris Johnson, who is full of ideas but lacking in the management skills to prioritise or put them into effect. It was this that placed Dominic Cummings into such a powerful position.

    In Thatcher’s day, as I remember it, there were about 22 cabinet members. These days there are around 23 cabinet ministers and a further seven others entitled to attend. Just try managing a discussion and then taking a decision on a complex matter with such a large group, especially if a paper on the matter has not been previously circulated. At some stage a prime minister has to table a draft and seek the agreement of his or her colleagues. Otherwise the matter has to be deferred or put to a cabinet committee to consider and then come back to the cabinet with a recommendation.

    In recent times journalists hanging in or around Downing Street have taken to asking ministers leaving a cabinet meeting what has been decided on an issue of the day, and sometimes they get answers. Some ministers have done so in an honest attempt to sum up the discussion; others to steer newspaper comment to a particular angle. In the days of Margaret Thatcher, her press secretary would be told what the press should know. Of course, even then there was speculation and some unauthorised briefing, but these days that is compounded by a plethora of political leaks.

    What North Shropshire means for Boris

    The Prime Minister has had a more mixed bag of events from the joy of his new baby daughter to the utter humiliation of relying on Labour MPs to pass his Covid legislation. After that came the loss of the traditionally safe Conservative seat of North Shropshire to the Liberal Democrats in last Thursday’s by-election. This was not just embarrassing; it brought instability to the Government.

    Of those candidates which mattered, the Lib Dems polled 17,957 votes and the Conservatives came second with 12,032 votes. Labour fell to a poor third place with only 3,686 votes and the Greens trailed that with 1,738 votes. The Reform Party, which was the Brexit Party, managed to attract only 1,427 votes.

    In a YouGov national poll which came out on Friday December 17, the Conservatives scored 37 per cent, Labour 32 per cent and the Lib Dems 10 per cent. Taking the North Shropshire by-election result and the YouGov poll into consideration, I would guess that many Conservative inclined voters will abstain or lend their votes to the Lib Dems in by-elections to demonstrate their loss of confidence in the Prime Minister but will return to the Conservative fold in a General Election.

    However, it would not take many more weeks like the last one for those Conservative voters to simply stay at home at a General Election to get rid of Boris Johnson.

    Bad messaging turned ‘partygate’ into a problem

    As someone said, it is not usually the first lie which you tell that lands you in trouble, but the lies which you subsequently tell to cover up the first one. It is the same in public life. It should not have been too difficult to draw a line between last year’s Christmas parties in the office — comprising a few mince pies and a glass or two of wine before heading for home — and what we called in my RAF days “a thrash”; it only became a public relations disaster when it was denied that such things happened last Christmas in Number 10 or any other Ministerial office.

    In my days as a Minister we laughed together in the office a good deal because it helped to get the work done and the problems solved. We certainly enjoyed some mince pies and a drop of wine before heading home for Christmas. I do not know what happened at Number 10 last year or what is going on this year, but it was yet another cock-up to appoint someone to look into the matter who has been associated with a pre-Christmas gathering of some sort himself last year.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/20/boris-johnsons-cabinet-large-function-properly/

    BTL:
    Edward Seaton

    Sorry Norman.

    No man is more a ‘Thatcher’s child’ than me.

    I was thrilled when he won in December 2019, but I now despise Johnson and what he has done to the party with a passion I cannot describe on here.
    If you think I’m going to forgive him for wrecking my business and criminalising my children for starting relationships during lockdown, you can very much think again.

    Angela Molton

    I was under the impression that despite there being a cabinet, all decisions were taken by Carrie Johnson and her like minded ‘friends ‘. Along with the shouty twitter mob and the hysterical MSM, it feels that we are governed by this and biased opinion polls.

    As it appears, there is no credible thinking around how our freedoms and liberties are being destroyed, let alone any form of sensible debate. Surely this is why these ludicrous and frankly dangerous decisions are taken, as I am unaware of any serious and in depth debate of any note. I pray that this will change in the coming year.

    Hoping for a Merry Christmas and a better New Year for us all.

    D Walker

    I won’t be “returning to the fold” at the next General Election. I can’t think of a single reason why I would want to vote for this Commie-Green-CON Party.

    Nicholas Hazelton

    Happy Christmas Norman Tebbit, the best Prime Minister we never had.

    Can we clone you, your party could use some common sense!

    2. William, I worry that Lord Tebbit may be becoming elderly. He coldly refers to Mrs Thatcher as ‘Thatcher’.

      2. This generation ( and me) only used to use surnames. When I answer the phone I just said Norfolk.

        1. Good evening Johnny, (if you’ll pardon my familiarity)

          Your telephone answer reminds me of Noel Coward.

  101. I don’t get this….you murder a 65 year old multi millionaire and you get 36 years. You murder a 6 year old child or a 2 (?) year old toddler and you get 25 years.
    Guess wealthy elderly men’s lives matter more than innocent children.
    God save us all from this country nowadays.
    edit and see below…man murdered was in his 80s not 65. Sorry for error.

    1. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.
      It’s not what you kill it’s who you kill?

      We live in a very sick time.

      1. Yes, I reread the article in the local rag and he and his partner were in their 80s.
        Still seems that his life mattered more than the little guys.

  102. Evening everyone.
    I just came across a rather apt comment on a farcebook post (Australian Conservative Libertarian group).
    ‘The government has brainwashed people into thinking freedom is selfish.’

      1. Just because you don’t believe in conspiracy theories doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to get you.

  105. Good night all.

    Mulligatawny soup from a can – nothing like the real thing, which I sometimes cook.
    Fresh pineapple chunks with a custard tart.

  109. Evening everybody. Even more great news of our son. The only tube he has now is the NG tube, he’s been able to pee (phew! Thank goodness), and is being moved this evening to a normal ward. We suspect he won’t be home for Christmas, we think he’s been encouraged to think he would be to motivate him doing all he can to help himself. More exercising on steps and tomorrow he will be having thick yoghurt with three pieces of banana. Progress indeed. We’re so thrilled at his progress, thankful to all the hospital staff and again thank you all for your prayers and good wishes. It has been so lovely to know that there are so many good people around, so thank you all again.

    On the topic of the moment, and the last near 2 years, Alf has said something that really struck me. To someone who is all for the experimental jabs –

    If your vaccination doesn’t protect you why do you think mine will?

    4. So good to hear your news, vw and thank Alf for his wisdom.

      KBO you two, we’re behind you, willing you and your son on.

    6. Wonderful news vw! He’s doing brilliantly! And Christmas is just one day in his recovery – you can all celebrate whenever you want! Love and blessings to you all!

  111. Is the new Covid drug the answer to our prayers?

    From today, new antiviral medication is available on the NHS, the third in a few weeks. Who will it benefit, and how?

    By Luke Mintz • 20 December 2021 • 6:00pm

    The Covid drugs are finally here – but how well will they work? On Monday, the NHS began giving out doses of a new antiviral drug designed to prevent Covid patients from needing to go into hospital. Sotrovimab, a monoclonal antibody treatment, will at first only be given to clinically vulnerable patients, such as cancer patients, organ transplant recipients and other high-risk groups. It should be taken within five days of infection from Covid.

    This comes two weeks after the NHS announced the distribution of another antiviral – molnupiravir, which was first developed as an influenza treatment – to 10,000 Covid patients across the UK. Molnupiravir was developed by the drug company Merck; in November, the UK became the first country to approve its use against Covid. It will be given out as part of a trial with Oxford University. Participants, most of whom are older than 50, will take eight pills each day, for five days, and will be asked to chart how they feel for 28 days in a diary.

    Also on the horizon is is Paxlovid, an antiviral developed by Pfizer. The UK has ordered 250,000 doses of Pfizer’s drug, but it hasn’t yet been approved on these shores.

    The sight of three high-profile antivirals arriving on the medical scene within a few weeks of each other looks exciting. Vaccines are still broadly considered our best medical tool against Covid, but doctors have long emphasised that we also need robust treatments for those who get infected.

    But scientists warn that no drug is a panacea, and it is unlikely that Covid will ever be fully cured. So what do we know about antivirals?

    How do antivirals work?

    Unlike other drugs, antivirals aren’t generally designed to soothe your symptoms. Instead, they dive in at the deep end, attacking the virus itself. When coronavirus infects the body, it sets up camp inside our cells, and begins to make copies of its RNA genetic material. Molnupiravir messes up this process by disguising itself as the virus’s RNA. It hands the virus building blocks to make copies – but the blocks are all duds. Confused, the virus ends up replicating the antiviral rather than the virus itself. “It’s like putting diesel in a petrol engine,” Stephen Griffin, associate professor in the School of Medicine, University of Leeds, told The Telegraph last week.

    Pfizer’s drug Paxlovid works slightly differently; it’s a protease inhibitor, meaning it destroys the enzyme the virus uses to replicate itself, like if you crept into a builder’s yard and broke their spades.

    How effective are the new antivirals?

    Pretty effective, say scientists. Molnupiravir (now being given out to 10,000 patients in the UK) was trialled in a US study last year (anchored at Atlanta’s Emory University but mostly carried out in Latin America). The drug cut the risk of hospitalisation in half when compared with a placebo.

    Paxlovid (not yet approved in the UK) looks even more effective, cutting the risk of hospitalisation and death by 89 per cent.

    Sotrovimab, meanwhile, reduced the risk of hospitalisation and death by 79 per cent in high-risk adults with Covid, according to one clinical trial quoted by the Government.

    Will they work against new variants?

    Yes, antivirals like Molnupiravir and Paxlovid are likely to work against most variants, scientists say. Antivirals normally target the genetic material in the middle of a virus particle, which generally doesn’t change from mutation to mutation. This means they will probably perform well against every variant of Covid, explains Penny Ward, a leading expert in pharmaceutical medicine and visiting professor at King’s College London.

    “It takes too much effort for the virus to change all of its internal proteins regularly,” says Ward.

    “You can expect a priori that an antiviral drug will be mostly effective against most variants, unless the very specific enzyme against which that particular drug is directed is changed in some way.”

    The answer is less certain for monoclonal antibodies like Sotrovimab, says Ward: “The monoclonal antibodies were designed against the original Wuhan strain. And so the same problem emerges with a monoclonal antibody as we have with the vaccines, which is this question over whether the antibody itself will continue to bind the new variant.”

    Vaccines, in contrast, usually target the virus’s spike protein (the jagged outer edge) which changes much more frequently. This is why vaccines have become slightly less effective with each new variant of concern.

    Will antivirals keep patients out of hospital?

    Throughout the pandemic, UK policymakers have kept a close eye on hospital numbers, thought to be the most important metric used by ministers to decide whether we go into lockdown. Now, as the UK battles the omicron variant, scientists and modellers are once again warning that hospitals could be overwhelmed.

    The beauty of the new generation of antivirals is that they act early, when a patient’s symptoms are still mild. If effective, they prevent the patient’s symptoms from escalating, meaning they don’t have to go into hospital. You simply swallow the capsules when you have the sniffles – and hopefully the sniffles are the worst it gets.

    This makes them far more exciting than other drugs that have been used against Covid, like Remdesivir, an antiviral developed against hepatitis-C, and dexamethasone, an anti-inflammatory steroid that soothes the body’s immune response. Generally, both of those drugs are only used once a patient is already seriously ill in hospital.

    Will antivirals be widely available?

    The new Covid pills look promising, but doctors are still unsure how widely they should be given out. In the UK, Molnupiravir is, at first, only being given to 10,000 Covid patients. Sotrovimab is only being given to patients in vulnerable groups, while we are still waiting on approval for Paxlovid.

    The new generation of antivirals work best if given early. Molnupiravir, for example, should be given within the first five days, and ideally in the first 48 hours, before the virus has had a chance to spread.

    Some, like Harvard University’s Professor Michael Mina, think the pills should be driven to a patient’s home in an Uber-style service. Others think they should be available over the counter at pharmacies.

    But Griffin doesn’t agree. He hopes the pills aren’t “given out like sweeties”, telling The Telegraph last week: “These are new medications, you definitely want clinical oversight. We do that for HIV [and] hepatitis-C. They do have the potential to have side-effects, or to mix with other drugs.”

    Are there any risks with antivirals?

    There is some concern about the virus mutating in response to antivirals.

    An animal study at the University of North Carolina found that Molnupiravir’s strategy of replication (where it tricks the virus into making copies of the wrong thing) could theoretically accelerate the mutation of the virus inside our cells, creating yet more dangerous Covid variants. In theory, the higher the number of people prescribed the drug, the higher the chance of a dangerous mutation – “like lottery numbers,” says Griffin.

    Ideally, say Griffin and others, Covid patients would be given several antivirals at the same time, to minimise the chance of an antiviral-resistant virus strain escaping the body.

    This is already the standard approach to HIV, against which antivirals scored an impressive success in the 1990s. Now, most HIV patients in the UK take several antivirals every day to minimise the chance of the virus becoming resistant to one of the medicines and then escaping the body by infecting somebody else.

    According to manufacturer Merck, the virus already does a perfectly good job of creating variants when allowed to spread freely, therefore the risk is overblown, it says.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/new-covid-drug-answer-prayers

    BTL:
    Malcolm Houghton
    Err, you mean like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin would have done 18 months ago and saved thousands of lives and not generated millions in profits for Merck, Pfizer and other dodgy corporates?

    Victoria Louise
    I bet comments won’t stay open for long on this article!

    What about how small the trials have been and how expensive a course of treatment it? Not to mention the obvious lack of safety data for new drugs.

    And how much good quality evidence we have in favour of Ivermectin and apparently also hydroxychloroquine. And how cheap they are. And how safe they are. And that Remdesivir was killing more people than the Covid control group in the US.

    Thankfully some of those crucial points are covered on this website: http://www.bird-group.org

    2. One, tiny, little question.

      How is this new wonder drug given, tablet, injection, suppository?

      Nobody knows and, if as an injection, does it include the same micro-nasty that makes you a slave to the PTB?

    3. And will it be as safe as ivermectin? I doubt it. I don’t think I’d trust Pfizer to make me a cup of tea these days.

  112. Awa’ an bile yer heids!

    Final insult for Bonnie Prince Charlie as site of his final defeat is added to slavery list

    National Trust of Scotland accused of ‘farcical logic’ as it puts Culloden, and birthplace of author JM Barrie, on slave trade location list

    By Craig Simpson • 20 December 2021 • 7:06pm

    The site of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s final defeat has been added to a list of locations connected to the slave trade by the National Trust for Scotland (NTS). Culloden, near Inverness, is known as the place where the Jacobite rebellion was finally crushed in 1746, but the battlefield overseen by the NTS has now become the first in Britain to be linked to the slave trade by an official body.

    The site of Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s defeat has been included in a report into links between the slave trade and historic sites because the “the Bonnie Prince” received financial backing and a boat to Scotland from a businessman linked to the slave trade. The NTS report, part of a project devised following Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, also states that the diaspora of defeated Scots and prisoners of war created in the aftermath of the battle went on to become “owners of enslaved people”.

    An entry on Culloden, one of the NTS’s most visited sites, explains: “Prince Charles Edward Stuart sailed from Nantes – a busy port in the transatlantic slave trade – to the Hebrides in summer 1745 on a French slave ship, the Du Teillay.” The ship belonged to plantation owner Antoine Walsh, who “took a leading role in financing and planning Bonnie Prince Charlie’s expedition to Scotland.”

    This expedition, aimed at reclaiming the British throne for the deposed Stuart dynasty and ultimately crushed at Culloden by the Duke of Cumberland, resulted in “many Jacobite prisoners” being “transported to British colonies”, the report states. It adds that many Scottish emigres “became involved in enslavement: working enslaved crews to clear trees in the West Indies, managing plantations as ‘attorneys’ and subsequently owning enslaved people.”

    Culloden has been designated as having a link to slavery that is “indirect” in the NTS’s assessment system for historic sites in the new report, which states in the introduction that historically “Scots forgot (or chose to ignore) their slavery connections”.

    Research has found that more than a third of NTS sites have links to slavery whether “direct”, “indirect”, or linked to “abolition”. Some also have “intergenerational” links, meaning their ownership or economics were linked in some way to the broader slavery-supported economy, or to individuals who profited from it, with entire islands like St Kilda and Iona highlighted in the report for their historical ownership by families connected to the slave trade.

    Another site found to have “intergenerational” connections in the new report is the birthplace of JM Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, a humble weaver’s cottage that has been highlighted because the broader weaving industry produced clothing for slaves.

    While the weaving industry in Barrie’s hometown of Kirriemuir made corsets and not clothes for slaves, the NTS report has proposed that the writer’s home be used as an educational tool to teach visitors “how coarse linen was used to clothe enslaved people in the Americas and the Caribbean”.

    The inclusion of Barrie – born long after abolition – has been criticised by leading Scottish historian Sir Tom Devine, who told The Telegraph: “This is yet another ludicrous example of a national institution trying to link a famous historical personality to slavery despite the most tenuous of connections. The NTS does its reputation much harm by engaging in and publicly legitimising such nonsense.”

    He said his own research found that “every nook and cranny of Scottish life was affected directly or indirectly by the transatlantic”, meaning that “by the farcical logic of the NTS, every person of note in that period, whether slavers or not, are fair game”.

    He added: “Scholars of the future will have great fun unearthing these stupidities of our time.”

    Michael Terwey, the National Trust for Scotland’s head of heritage services, said: “The Trust’s primary responsibility is to offer our members and visitors as truthful a view as possible of Scotland’s complex past as we can. This is an interim report and we have more work to do and, no doubt, more to discover. We will in the meantime be applying our research to the interpretation and guidance of our properties, using it to expand on the stories they should tell, helping people to understand better our country’s history.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/20/site-bonnie-prince-charlies-final-defeat-joins-list-locations

    1. I wish these idiots would go and, and so you say, boil their stupid heads. So sick of all this revisionist history.

  114. The last Nottler Birthday of the year coming up.

    I too am getting on a bit so please spread the word as I was a bit late posting the last one.

          1. So far I am planning a slow cooker casserole dish, washed down with an Argentinian Malbec and followed by a lemon-flavoured Greek yoghurt.

          2. Are you a fan of South American wines? I have always found them a bit off, sour- not quite sure but they didn’t seem to go down well.
            Of course, you did live over there, did you not?

          3. I did indeed, M’Lady, in Argentina. And my preference these days is for wines from North and South America, Australia and New Zealand. I really enjoy them and prefer to drink them instead of supporting EU wines after all the vindictive measures from the EU following Brexit. Two can play at that game.

      1. Thank you so much Richard (and Caroline). I am now celebrating by sipping a small glass of Bailey’s whilst singing a song from “The Music Man” (76 trombones). I am also halfway through watching “Annie” where I was present during its U.K. Film Premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in July of 1982. I was in the same room as Aileen Quinn (Annie), Carol Burnett (Miss Hannigan) and the film’s director John Huston. Because Mr Huston was then an elderly man of almost 76 and young “Annie” was such a small girl who had just turned 11, Carol Burnett held each of their hands as she walked with them out of the Royal Retiring Room to the back of the screen to appear on stage and take a bow in front of the audience just before the screening started. I shall never forget that kind gesture of this wonderful lady with her two colleagues to my dying days.

        1. Happy, Happy, Birthday, Elsie.

          I trust that its proximity to Christmas doesn’t detract from the hosts of pressies you should/could receive.

          Merry, merry days to you and yours, Elsie

          1. Thank you, Tom. I always regretted having a birthday four days before Christmas. As a child I would only receive one small present and be told not to complain as I would get plenty more at Christmas. As an adult I tried to organise drinks for friends, all of whom sadly declined my invitations because they were too busy writing and posting last minute Christmas cards, wrapping presents and so on.

            Then I resolved the matter by holding “half birthday” barbecues at the end of June; the problem with this is that I spent an eternity welcoming up to two dozen guests, cooking for them, pouring drinks, etc. Although I believe they all had a great time, for me it was exhausting and I was glad when it was all over.

            From now on I plan to have simple BBQs or meals at home for just a couple or two at different times of the year, or else arrange a meal out, like my monthly curry evenings, for a very small number of people. Sometimes it takes quite some time to resolve problems!

          4. All my immediate family had birthdays round Christmas – eldest brother 14th Dec, father 15th Dec, mother 25th Dec, and next brother 2nd Jan. I was the odd one out with a summer birthday. The pattern however has been broken with the succedding generations.

        2. Happy Birthday, Elsie!

          I can tell you’re in the mood; have another glass of Bailey’s – not necessarily small 🙂

          1. Thank you, lacoste. I’ve just finished my fourth, and am now off to bed. It’s 2.55 am.

  116. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk. Best Beloved has a hair appointment in the early morn, so, maybe I’ll be alive, alert and as acerbic as always.

    Love you all.

  117. The wheels fell off this Covid fraud months if not years ago. One wheel off its wagon etc.

    The entire Covid 19 episode has been a hoax. The globalists have enlisted and bought vast swathes of the medical profession in order to promulgate their message.

    We have only to reject their mandates and mis-directions.

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