Monday 21 April: The BBC’s output is no longer of a standard that justifies the licence fee

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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708 thoughts on “Monday 21 April: The BBC’s output is no longer of a standard that justifies the licence fee”

  2. Good morning Geoff and all you NoTTLers, it's Easter Monday again.
    Today's Monday Giggle is about babies.

    In the backwoods of Canada in a shack with no electricity, a man's wife went into labour in the middle of the night. The local doctor was fetched to help with the delivery. The doctor gave the nervous father-to-be a lantern to hold, partly to keep him occupied and partly so that he could see what he was doing. After a few minutes, a baby boy was born and the husband put down the lantern to hold him.
    "Don't put that lantern down just yet," said the doctor. "I think there's another one on the way."
    Shortly afterwards, a baby daughter was born and the husband put down the lantern to hold her.
    "Don't put that lantern down yet," said the doctor. "I think there may be another one still to come.”
    Sure enough, a few minutes later, another baby girl was born. The father scratched his head and said to the doctor: "D'you think it’s the light that's attracting them?"

    P.S. a little bonus:
    What has thick glasses and a wet nose?  A short-sighted Gynaecologist.

  4. I wonder if those threatening death and abuse on twitter and in person over the trans nonsense will face 3 years in jail or if they'll get let off?

    Hah! Of course we know what'll happen. It's notable that the statue of a suffragete – someone who fought for women's rights – is defaced. It's an indicator of what this whole misandrist mess is about.

    1. Strictly speaking, Millicent Fawcett was a suffragist.
      They were not the attention seekers who arguably delayed the female franchise by their hysterical and often dangerous behaviour.
      WWI did more for the female franchise than any amount of parading and smashing shop windows.

      1. The Suffragettes also planted many bombs. Not the innocent campaigners they are widely believed to have been.

        1. I am walking to town anyway. Market on today. Going for some Cyprus new potatoes. The Jersey ones are £5 a kilo!

          Taking the doggies too.

  6. Good morning all.
    A much better nights sleep at last.

    A dull start with some very half hearted precipitation, but with an almost warm tad over 9°C on the thermometer.

    1. Just muggy and grey here. Did the bins, going to move some furniture in a bit. Rather groggy.

  7. Starmer really is a confused little man. He preaches growth but sets about policies that destroy it. He's a lawyer desperate for law, he has one that defines women and yet he still can't. He is trying to suck up to america while doing the country in to the EU.

    It's as if he has absolutely no idea what he stands for. An unprincipled, insane (nasal) waffler, not a leader, devoid of focus or vision. He seems confused in his desperation to destroy the country and society yet knows he needs it for his own position. It must be hard being a lefty, constantly wanting to press the nuclear button yet knowing it'll kill you at the same time.

      1. Cameron was a weathervane, directionless and vapid. Johnson hamstrung by his own ego and a fractious party that wanted rid of him, Sunak did absolutely nothing, as he was instructed.

        Starmer seems determined to do as much daage as possible while publicly saying the exact opposite of his actions. It'd be far simpler if he was just honest and did all the damage he wants to openly, including pushing the trans nonsense, massive muslimification, taxes of 90% and forced open socialism on the country, forced rolling blackouts under the green communism.

        At least that would be honest.

  10. Thinking of the current rumours regarding TTK, I seem to recall that there was a very quickly hushed up "Well known London Secret" going about a couple of decades ago that a well known couple of Labour MPs were aficionados of Swinging Clubs.

    1. I couldn't care less about the man or his proclivities. Hypocrisy and deceit are expected. I'd have more respect if he simply said he was gay.

      His private life is no one's business but his, what he does in office is ours – and that means he must be removed.

        1. I once went to a wife swapping party – got a lovely set of golf clubs for mine

  11. Swirls and twirls onto the thread, good morning on this cloudy day .

    1. Assuming they are not banned from standing in yet another anti-democratic move by the government.

      1. Local elections are "postponed" in many areas, which tend to be counties where Labour will get a thorough pasting.

          1. Ditto Essex.
            "Postponed" till next year. As if any government organisation can get stuff done in a year!

    2. Farage is good at the talk, just not puttings words into useful actions. Is that what they call a straw man?

  15. I'm one of these forever cheerful sunny people, it can be annoying.
    Time to dance around my kitchen making a cup of tea and do wordle .

    1. Mind you don't spill the tea.
      Hot X buns and coffee under preparation as I type.

      1. I’ll be careful:-) Hot X buns with coffee, wonderful.

        1. These ones, brought home by SWMBO, were pretty well as sweet as you could get without them turning into a stick of seaside rock. Sickly, almost. Wouldn’t have been able to eat them if it weren’t for the thick layer of slightly melting butter…

      2. All their shoes need a good polish.
        Some old skool financial houses in Hongkong only allow lace-up shoes.
        just sayin.

        1. One of the first things I look at is people’s shoes. I don’t even have the excuse that I’m Spanish!

  17. Good morning, chums. I overslept today. Anyhow, thanks to Geoff for today's new NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,402 6/6

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

    1. Up to a point, Lord Copper. If Hitler hadn't tried to march on Moscow, he might have had more success with invading us.

      1. 404501+ up ticks,

        Morning JBF

        If that were the case he would have known he had been in one hell of a fight.

        Currently all i’m seeing is an islamic
        walk-over aided & abetted via ALL authorities.

      2. Hitler always intended to invade the Soviet Union. He tried to knock Britain out of the war so that he could then turn his attention eastward. Two big mistakes – not eliminating the British threat then underestimating the Russians.

      1. Good grief, Grizzly, I had no idea that you were one of the original Keystone Kops. Lol.

    3. What might be kind is for our political classes to have the guts to stand up and explain exactly what they are trying to achieve. It's been pretty obvious for a few years now, that they have all been involved in the wrecking of our country and its culture and social structure. But not one of the 650 have had the plain and simple 'balls' to be honest as to the purpose of letting this invasion happen.
      It absolutely stinks. And so do all of them.

  19. Good Morning!

    In I don’t want to be a plastic Yank Xandra H laments the loss of old British customs and traditions and the Americanisation of our society, Do you agree with her? Please read and leave a comment.

    Futurist Rob Mason tells us how he sees our fate as AI achieves supremacy. It is to be welcomed or feared? Read AI Supremacy: Paradise or a totalitarian dystopia? and let us know how you think about it.

    Frederica’ article, Can Easter Survive? , maintains that the State, the Media, the Monarchy and even the Church have all decided that observances of the Christian Religion are no longer to be encouraged. Do you agree?

    Energy watch 07.30: Demand: 24.09 GW. Total UK Production: 18.08 GW from: Hydrocarbons 32.7%; Wind 17.1%; Imports 25.3%; Biomass 6.9%; Nuclear 15%. Solar: 1.5%.

    freespeechbacklash.com

  20. Surge in sales of dripping as UK embraces Maga diet

    Restaurants ditch seed oils amid Robert F Kennedy Jr’s attempt to ‘make America healthy’. By Daniel Woolfson

    SALES of beef dripping are soaring as Britons ditch cooking oils amid a US campaign over their alleged negative health impact.
    Amy Moring, the founder of food start-up Hunter & Gather, said it had benefited from a 300pc increase in sales of its beef tallow – another word for dripping – since September. The company is on course to sell more than 40 tons of the ingredient this year. It comes amid a growing backlash against seed oils such as canola, corn, soya bean and sunflower. Concerns over their impact on people’s health have been popularised by social media influencers and politicians in the US. Tiktok has been flooded with videos claiming that they are bad for consumers and cause inflammation in the body, in some cases racking up tens of thousands of views.

    Wilfred Emmanuel-jones, founder of The Black Farmer, said: “There’s definitely‘It is absolutely delicious. I was brought up on it, it was quite standard fare to have beef dripping on bread’ a trend away from the vegetable oils. We notice that people are not buying those products as they would have done in the past.” “I’m glad that people are now actually resorting to things like beef dripping, because it always was the case that there’s nothing wrong with it. “It is absolutely delicious. I was brought up on it, it was quite standard fare to have beef dripping on bread, dripping on toast – it was the common thing in my day. So I’m glad to see that people are now resorting back to it.”

    Perhaps the most prominent critic of seed oils is Robert F Kennedy Jr, the new US health secretary who has pledged to “Make America Healthy Again”. He claims that Americans are being “unknowingly poisoned” by mass-produced seed oils. His comments have inspired restaurants chains across America, such as the burger brand Steak ’n Shake, to begin frying their chips in beef tallow. However, while demand for the product is soaring, experts say there is no scientific evidence that seed oils are less healthy than animal fats.

    Tim Spector, the founder of the Zoe nutrition app, said: “Beef tallow is certainly not healthier than seed oils. There’s a huge and unwarranted backlash against seed oils at the moment, but it’s just utter nonsense.” “WE’VE RFK’D our fries,” the chief operating officer of American fast food chain Steak ’n Shake proudly proclaimed, as he announced that the 90-year-old company would begin cooking chips in beef tallow rather than seed oils earlier this year.

    At any other point in history, a recipe change like this would be unremarkable. But it was emblematic of a major shift in America’s food industry under Donald Trump. Restaurants across the US are ditching seed oils such as rapeseed and canola in favour of beef tallow – or dripping – and other traditional fats amid concerns over their alleged impact on health. Robert F Kennedy Jr – known as RFK Jr – Trump’s new health secretary, has claimed seed oils are “poisoning” the nation’s populace and “betraying” its children, calling them “one of the most unhealthy ingredients that we have in foods”.

    These claims have confounded nutritionists and other experts, the majority of whom insist seed oils are perfectly safe. But that has done little to quash a burgeoning backlash. “I think in general our country is hopefully waking up a little bit to seeing that there are too many people that are sick, and trying to look into the reasons why,” says Nicole Davis, regional president of Blue Collar Restaurants, which runs a dozen restaurants in Wyoming and Montana. The company swapped seed oil for beef tallow at the end of 2024.

    Beef tallow used to be the go-to frying fat for brands such as Mcdonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s, and is often associated with the explosion of the American fast food sector in the 1950s. Over the decades that followed, most switched to cheaper seed oils. “I’d love to move away from seed oils in my restaurants, but it’s a balancing act,” adds Kurt Zdesar, whose restaurant group, Chotto Matte, has sites in San Francisco and Miami.
    “We serve a diverse clientele including vegans, vegetarians and those with religious dietary needs, so using beef tallow would exclude many.”
    However, as more and more restaurants swap oils for tallow, there are questions about whether supply will be able to meet demand. US soya bean oil production was about 15bn pounds last year, compared with about 1bn pounds of beef tallow.

    Davis fears the market will be flooded with the cheapest varieties possible as a result. “You do have companies jumping on the tallow bandwagon, but they’re using a really low quality,” she says. Seed oil scepticism didn’t begin with Kennedy. Many in the food industry have been critical of their use for some time. “I’ve been aware of the benefits of beef tallow and the concerns around seed oils since about 2011,” says Zdesar.

    Yet it is the appointment of Kennedy – a long-standing critic of unhealthy eating, in addition to his well-known concerns about vaccinations – that has lit a fire under the movement and brought it more into the mainstream. “There’s been a massive shift in the last six months, and a lot of it has to come from these big public figures,” says Davis. “President Trump endorsed RFK Jr and stood behind him and believed in the things he said, and it’s very much in the news now.”

    Seed oils are not the only food in Kennedy’s cross hairs. He has vowed to clamp down on dyes and colourings in food, backed a ban on certain ultra-processed foods in school cafeterias in Arizona and campaigned to ban people from using food stamps to buy sugary sodas. His rejection of ultraprocessed foods has long been echoed by other figures commonly associated with the Maga movement, such as the “anti-woke” professor and author Jordan Peterson, and the podcast host and comic Joe Rogan. Both Peterson and Rogan have, for instance, endorsed the so-called “carnivore diet”, under which only consumption of animal products such as meat, eggs, seafood and dairy is permitted and processed foods are strictly prohibited.

    Recent reports suggest it is now more popular than the lowcarbohydrate, high-fat keto diet which became popular in the 2010s. However, scientists are less enthusiastic about some of the ways in which America’s approach to food is changing. Some warn there are dangers of consuming high-fat foods like beef tallow and eating too much red meat. “Going back to beef tallow like in the 1950s would be going back to a time when heart disease mortality rates were five times higher,” says Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard University. Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health, suggests the backlash against seed oils and processed foods can in part be seen as a reaction to the boom in vegan diets in the latter half of the 2010s. Often associated with liberal or Left-leaning politics, plant-based foods have fallen in popularity in recent years at the same time as America has shifted towards the political Right.

    Prof Nestle says she supports Kennedy’s aim of making America healthy again. However, she argues that a truly comprehensive plan to do so would involve making healthy food “available, accessible and affordable” to all. This could involve restrictions on marketing, portion sizes and even taxes on unhealthy food and drink, rather than just ditching seed oils and eating more meat. “I don’t see RFK Jr saying much about that, except for getting sodas and candy out of [food stamp schemes]. That too is nowhere near enough to deal with the fact that 75pc of American adults are overweight or obese,” she says. “To make American healthy again, means eating less. And eating less is very bad for business.”

    My highlighting, above, shows just how much the food business is up in arms against this sensible movement back to eating healthy animal fats is affecting the sales figures of their oily poisons. All the 'research' they speak about is funded by Big Business and Big Pharma who are losing their massive profits as people get healthier. It is the same global corporations who heavily fund this 'research', every bit of which can be driven right through by facts, of which growing mountains of empirical proof is now available.

    1. Ah yes. No doubt the same “experts” that brought us the low fat/high sugar” diet in the first place.

      1. That is precisely the case. It all started with the twisted mind of John Harvey Kellogg, a rabid religious fundamentalist fanatic (crank!), who sold his weird Frankenstein cereal products to many stating that "Breakfast (of his crap) is the most important meal of the day." (the fact is that breakfast isn't at all necessary). He went on to state that his corn flakes would stop young men from masturbating!

        Ultra-processed food — especially of grain cereals — is responsible for the massive rise in obesity and chronic ill-health, more than any other product. It makes billions for its producers but does nothing for public health. When you eat carbohydrates the body turns them into sugar and insulin resistance (and sugar spikes) ensue.

        Up to the end of the 19th century our ancestors ate healthy food of — mainly — meat. Breakfasts, when eaten, were invariably of bacon, eggs, black pudding, kidneys and sausages. Time-proven healthy, delicious, and highly nourishing foods.

        1. I looked at the calorie content printed in a box of Special K "slimming" breakfast once. Significantly more sugars than the box of cornflakes in the next rack. And more expensive. Slimming, eh? I think not.

          2. In the days we used to buy it hot to eat at Bury market, you had abour 6 different stalls to choose from then. They had the extra spice we liked and still do.

          3. In Lidl the other day, I bought Swedish blood pudding.
            Same idea as black pudding, I assume, but more like pate and without the spice and herbs.

          4. Our blodpudding (black pudding) is the same as English black pudding — in both flavour and texture — but minus the white bits of back-fat that I love so much.

        3. "He went on to state that his corn flakes would stop young men from masturbating!"
          Only if you coat your willie with them

        4. "He went on to state that his corn flakes would stop young men from masturbating!"
          Only if you coat your willie with them

    1. Paleface
      11h
      Police have issued a warning that anyone caught walking a black-and-white dog tomorrow will be arrested.
      They remind citizens that it is a ban collie day

      Arf!

      James Eaton
      Paleface
      9h
      Dachshunds are permitted in Houndslow.

    2. We created the weather, it's traditional to have a grey Bank Holiday 🙂

      1. Childhood memories of glumly sitting in the car, watching sleet cascade down the windscreen while munching cheese sandwiches and Lyon's Invidual Fruit Pies.

    1. The Left are hypocrites. They are the epitome of doublethink and they lie habitually, most often to themselves.

      It explains why their policies are stark, staring mad – in their heads they probably make sense!

      1. Morning TB In certain areas Especially London you will see large SUVs using blue badges for free parking spaces. No obvious signs of disablement. Owners possibly friends of mayor ?

        1. Morning Eddy,

          Visitors who arrive down here , arrive anyway, the parking charges for Durdle Door and Lulworth are horrendous , I mean horrendous, and yet the carparks are full, and still they still keep coming , and we are shocked that mega expensive cars come down from where ever they come from mostly . 90% Asians , and park in dusty chalky or chalky wet carparks , navigating potholes on our rural roads .

          1. "90% Asians…"

            As they are in the photos from the Lakes and the Cotswolds featured in the Mail article.

      3. We get hoards of them up here doing the NC500 – boy racers in Porsches, in convoy, driving dangerously like they're on a race track, on single track roads. The locals are pissed off with them, a pox on the lot

        1. Might be interesting to what happens if someone accidentally spills a box of nails on the road.

  25. Just had an early Breakfast/Brunch. Bacon and eggs with fried bread and chopped tomatoes. To have this on an early misty English summer’s morning with the prospect of a day in the mountains afterwards is one of life’s greatest culinary treats.

    1. Here we're taking apart racking with rubber mallets. Never had so much fun – although it is a bit defeaning.

      I have to admit though, I'd prefer the bolted sort.

  27. Morning all 🙂😊
    Quite a lot of rain overnight back to grey again.
    We don't seem to get too much of a good thing in any shape or form.
    And yes the bbc is long past its sell by date.
    They're digging out programmes, some twenty years old and shoving them on at prime time viewing.

  28. Good morning. BBC4 are showing programmes from the 1970s onward but to be fair, that is their remit and which channel would you rather keep, BBC1 or BBC4?

    1. Morning SE.
      I totally understand what you say but…..
      The way I see it, no matter the quality of the programme or the taste of the viewers. Because what they are putting on now is often very ancient. By now we have already paid for it many times over.

    2. The bBC could merge bBC 1 & bBC 3, and bBC 2 & bBC 4, thereby reducing the need for repeats on all four channels whilst cutting back on production costs and duplicate staff positions. With reduced programming space, the bBC could focus on their better quality shows and leave the vacuous 'reality' TV to the commercial sector. Or, if that doesn't suit the bBC, stuff there TV tax and join the commercial world. From memory, there were adverts for bBC shows between each and every show anyway.

  29. Good morning, all. Overcast this morning following light rain last evening.

    The government of Eire, such as it is, has lost the plot: what other reason could there be for proposing this outrage? Australia experiencing something similar.

    Has to be agenda driven, and so, how soon can we expect the same here?

    https://x.com/lizt77646036/status/1914128210763370961

      1. Got a good tent? They don’t have to house you if you’ve made yourself deliberately homeless.

    2. How are “unused bedrooms” defined? Many people use a “bedroom” as an office, craft room or storage room – would they be exempt from any pressure to rent them out?

    1. Lammy is going to get all confused and upset again when he sees the white smoke after days and days of black smoke.

    3. Sue, that post doesn't become you. Whatever your view of the late Pope Francis, it is customary not to speak ill of the dead just after their passing. Don't align yourself with the likes of one who posted on The Telegraph's pages "Obama met the Pope in 2001 and he lived for another 14 years. Trump's Vice President met him yesterday and he died the next day". That is a terrible thing to post.

    1. 'Transwomen are women'. Repeating a lie over and over again does not make it become the truth.

          2. They're always so bloody ugly tho, Sue – who the heck in their right mind would fancy that?

      1. There was this morris dancer in Broadstairs who liked to go around the town in a pink dress.

        Every day he had to run the gauntlet of the pub rowdies on the way from the camp site to the venues in the town. He was a big lad though, and handy with his fists if necessary.

        They soon learnt not to mess with him, pink dress or no pink dress.

      2. At 88 and with one-and-a-half lungs and double pneumonia, I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did.

      1. Holy smoke! I wonder if Lammy will put his foot in it again during the election of the next Pope.

    3. Gavin Ashenden is on air at the moment giving a very good assessment of Francis. Some good points, many problems. The question now of course is who will the powers that be put in his place.

  35. They said he was doing better. He was seen yesterday during the Vatican Easter Sunday service .

    1. His swan song. This final exertion killed him off, same as when Queen Elizabeth II had to conduct a handover of prime ministers when she was clearly not well enough.

  37. Unfortunately Pope Francis stuffed the concave with people like himself,
    the most political pope for hundreds of years and a commie .
    They need someone like gentle theologian pope Benedict.

    1. I disagree: What's needed is a fire and brimstone, fundamentalist Pope, something to re-energise the Catholic church and counter all the islamic crap.
      The time for gentleness is past.

      1. They used to call it 'Muscular Christianity'.

        Islam claims that their Allah is the only true god and the Jewish God and the Christian God are false gods.

        The Idiot King – the Head of the CofE – is not prepared to challenge this.

        1. I do not think you are right there. Muslims regard the Jewish One That Is and the Christian God to be Allah, but with another name. They consider Jesus of Nazareth to be one in a long line of prophets culminating in Mohammed, and their beef with the Jews is primarily over the concept of 'God's Chosen People' being limited to one race, rather than anyone truly faithful to God.

          My main criticism of Islam is over their insistence that submission takes precedence over love. Christians in particular have a lot to say about the importance of love.

          1. Theoretically monotheistic religion all worship the one true God.

            But practically speaking the Jewish and Christian God is very different from the Islamic one.

      2. I've just gone through the list of frontrunners.

        The Hungarian Erdo is your man – he even looks frightening. Scola is too old. Parolin has the negotiating experience, but I don't know where he stands liturgically.

        Out of the liberals, there is Tagle, from the Philippines, who is gentle and once stood up to the Trumpist gunslinger Duterte, and there is Turkson, the African, who is hot on poverty.

        I would welcome a radical – someone who can address both the loss of religion and the filling of that vacuum with Islam, by understanding the very nature of Christianity and how best it can be applied to today's tribulations. Tackling loneliness and general disenchantment with all our institutions is a good a start as any.

        [edited to deal with interference from the Disqus text editor]

    2. I disagree: What's needed is a fire and brimstone, fundamentalist Pope, something to re-energise the Catholic church and counter all the islamic crap.
      The time for gentleness is past.

  38. 404501+ up ticks,

    Does anyone have any idea what the indigenous peoples plan is? after letting things go this far I believe the scent of submission is strong in the air, wafting currently from the reform party.

    https://x.com/RadioGenoa/status/1913691898889257219

    One may also ask why are the parents NOT dragging the teachers rhetorically by the hair seeking an answer ? this is, I take it in islamic schools only.

    https://x.com/LeilaniDowding/status/1914196915069079585

    2. Certain this and more is all online. I wonder how Muslim communities deal with X/Fb etc..they must control access in some way?

      1. 404501+ up ticks.

        Morning KJ,

        They have one unbeatable quality they have 100% UNITY, whether Islamic terrorist or Islamic pacifist they are as one.

        1. Morning ogga1…very true. Although happy to live in a capitalist society such as ours. I have two memories..one with my father driving through Bradford 60 odd years ago, didn’t often hear him swear. The other, returning home one day a decade or so ago and passing a mosque, the river of men streaming out was quite something. No-one ever misses mosque. Other hand, when I was a small child in the early ’50s…hardly anyone attended church post-war, the vicar was a drunk (he’d not signed my parents wedding certificate, my mother thought it meant I was illegitimate and became quite hysterical, grandfather had to go and strong arm vicar, luckily still living in the splendid stone vicarage).

    3. The rule about papal succession goes "Fat Pope, Thin Pope".

      John XXIII was fat, Paul VI thin, John Paul I, a thin pope broke the cycle same as a 20th century king on British coins, so didn't last long, John Paul II was a fat pope, Benedict XVI thin, Francis fat…

      So we are due a thin pope.

    4. How are you today, Maggie? Had an email from a friend who's suffering IBS problems and he said his nurse told him it could be pollen related because swallowing mucus can set off stomach problems. Just thought I'd pass it on in case it's any help.

  40. 10:30 (local) already! Must finish the coffee and get out and do something useful – sun's even out now!

  41. I'm wondering if there will ever be pink smoke emitting from that Sistine Chapel chimney?

    1. Another fresh avatar, Grizz? You'll be confusing this old bear of little brane if you're not careful!
      ;-))

      1. 😉 This is my California Highway Patrol helmet, Paul. Kindly given to me by deputy US Marshal David Johnson, back in 1980, when I visited his precinct in Barstow, California. When I returned to the UK I sent him a Derbyshire Constabulary helmet.

          1. It wasn’t me, Harry!😊

            I was, though, taken out on patrol in the front passenger seat of a patrol car. It had five different radios in it [1. Local city police, 2. County sheriff’s , 3. State marshal’s, 4. National FBI, 5. Citizens’ band.]
            And there was a shotgun in a bolted frame on the dashboard between my legs. It was a surreal patrol.

            In the Sheriff’s department I was shown a small dark rubber-padded cell, about 1 metre square and two metres high, with just a hole in the floor and no windows. They told me it was their “Attitude Adjustment Module”.
            They said that the guy with the attitude goes in , and lo-and-behold, two hours later his attitude has been ‘adjusted’. I wished that we had some of those.

      1. I'm certainly multi-ethnic, Alec (good morning 🙂 My blood group is AB+ (the only one at the clinics I attended, the only one whose donation was used overnight) and was suggested a few years ago to have my DNA tested, merely 47% ethnic Brit, rest French, some Russian, some Asian. I'll get me coat…….

          1. Hello, Alec – any time good, lovely to hear from you. Frustrating day trying something new ‘coloured pencils’ aka crayons…aaarghhh x

    3. Reading Damian Thompson a while ago re: Vatican goings on, I would think the chances very high – if we haven't already had a gay pope, that is. Good morning btw 🙂

  42. Somebody needs to be. Some energy input on the Christianity side would be excellent!

    1. Oh indeed but remember the fuss in the Western media when it came to light that the sodomy laws are still on the statute books in Uganda? The Ugandan church pointed out that it was nothing to do with them. The British put that law in place and the Ugandans have neither removed it nor acted on it and see no reason to change. They shrugged it off.

      1. My adaptation of Kenneth Williams's Infamy, Infamy, they've all got it in for me:
        It's odd of me it's odd of me – they all think it's sodomy.

    1. Still one of the greatest BBC productions ever. I have it on DVD. I watch it every now and again to marvel at Alec Guinness' Smiley.

      1. Agree, Araminta. I think it's on Netflix, just been re-watching it. Doesn't it make you want to be there working with Smiley et al. There seems to be some sort of BBC 'update' which bears no comparison, unwatchable imo.

        1. There was a film of it released some time ago which I thought was rather good, even though I was a big fan iif the BBC original.

  44. I recall sitting in front of the telly with my Father every week to watch the Tinker, Tailor programmes. One of the few things we ever did together.

  46. Pope Benedict was the least political Pope, he was a gentle and kind theologian but I see your point, Christianity is in a fight for it’s survival .

  47. Worth revisting this one the last time a Pope died..
    A gem from the Tottenham Turnip. LOL
    .
    The Labour MP for Tottenham was browsing Twitter during a Commons debate and saw a BBC news item about the chimney erected over the Sistine Chapel with the caption: “Will smoke be black or white?” Within seconds he tweeted: “This tweet from the BBC is crass and unnecessary. Do we really need silly innuendo about the race of the next Pope?”

    1. Any master mind we might know of, or we might be familiar with ?
      Or possible the race to be the next pope……..

    1. Massey Ferguson
      1h
      Starmer has not uttered one single word on the ruling. Yet you can't keep him quiet when it comes to wishing everyone Ramadan-a-ding-dong.

  49. I wonder if there is a sort of snobbishness amongst the trans community?

    If you have a beard and a willy and balls you are just a pretend woman; but if you have a willioscopy, and have your balls cut off, a surgically constructed fake vagina and hormone induced breasts you are then considered by the community to be amongst the trans aristocracy.

    2. I find this trans thing very confusing. A serious but probably naive question, does the desire to be of the opposite sex come from natural things, or is it a social development? It doesn't seem natural to me.

      1. A friend of mine said that he could understand lesbians because, like them, he found women sexually attractive but did not find men remotely sexually attractive!

    3. I'll take your word for it, Rastus……do you recall a few years ago there was some sort of fad for people cutting off a leg or arm 'because they didn't need it' or some such. Never cut off a head, although I vaguely remember a report from North Korea doing a head transfer. Whatever, Taiwan the one to watch currently.

  50. https://twitter.com/New_Tolerance/status/1835686242140229638?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1835686242140229638%7Ctwgr%5E3a5bc4352aa02eb6f8c4a9f7e1d801299713f829%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Ft%2Fassets%2Fhtml%2Ftweet-4.html1835686242140229638 https://twitter.com/ASimplePatriot/status/1716462426206401014?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1716462426206401014%7Ctwgr%5E36355b08e49e562cc50ba0d51890a61d2c6a5f84%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Ft%2Fassets%2Fhtml%2Ftweet-4.html1716462426206401014

  51. For some time now I have been experiencing significant unease about the 'fracturing' of the much needed freshness and long overdue shift in the country's political direction.

    I found a particular resonance in Rupert Lowe's words on Twitter this morning;

    "It’s depressing to hear Farage echoing the same fearful rhetoric we’ve heard for decades. He states if we ‘politically alienate’ Islam ‘we will lose’ – he gives a year of 2050 for a ‘terrible state’ we’ll potentially be in. It’s this fatalistic, defeatist thinking that has crippled Western resolve for so many long years – cowardice led us into this mess, it will certainly not lead us out.

    This is not a question of alienating individuals, or of disrespecting peaceful law-abiding Muslims. It’s about whether Western democracies still possess the confidence and the courage to robustly defend our values, in the same way Muslim countries do, or whether we must now shape our politics and our whole way of life in order to avoid offending a particular religion. I say we must not.

    What does Farage mean when he says ‘we will lose’? If Western nations must compromise every political stance, censor honest debate, and soften our principles simply to avoid upsetting Islam, then we’ve already lost.

    In just one example – we allow the brutally cruel non-stun slaughter of millions and millions of animals every year, tearing up decades of animal welfare legislation in order to respect religious ‘rights’. Why do we tolerate it? In Britain, we treat our animals with care and respect. Halal slaughter does not, and therefore should be banned. Will that happen? Of course not – all major political parties silently and glumly just accept it.

    For far too long, crippling fear has dominated conversations around Islam. In the process, we have created a climate where genuine concerns about integration, extremism, and parallel societies/systems are dismissed as ‘racist’ or ‘Islamophobic’. We’ve all seen the very dark places where that bleak attitude can lead – it does not end well, at all.

    Farage’s warning is not a new one – it’s a boring repetition of the same cowardice that has allowed countless European cities to change beyond recognition, for free speech to be radically undermined, and for our liberal values to be eroded away all in the name of ‘multiculturalism’.

    I don’t want multiculturalism. We have a culture, and it works just fine. One that respects women, values free speech, rewards hard work and treats everyone equally under the law. We don’t need parallel systems or separate rules that directly clash with our way of life.

    Our civilisation should not be held hostage by the cultural sensitivities of any belief system – especially one that, in its most politicised form, has already shown a total unwillingness to reciprocate the tolerance we have gifted to it. I would argue that in certain parts of the country, many followers of Islam have already ‘politically alienated’ themselves by electing openly sectarian MPs who are willing to reduce the rape gang scandal to a ‘false right-wing narrative’ and who hold infinitely more passion for Gaza than their own neglected constituencies. For many, their sympathies and loyalties simply lie elsewhere – a sad, but sobering fact.

    Farage believes that the political cost of defending British values is too high, finding himself in emphatic agreement with the rotten establishment consensus. That’s his choice. My view? Our values are worth protecting, even if it’s politically inconvenient.

    For decades, politicians from all parties have pathetically tiptoed around the integration debate, terrified of the vile backlash. My view? Maturity is finally needed, honesty is finally needed, courage is finally needed.

    Because if Britain, and its MPs, won’t robustly and relentlessly defend its values, we will all lose far more than a debate."

    2. Totally agree with all of it.
      Unfortunately NF has always been full of rhetoric but has never been able to follow it up. He's therefore been able to criticise relentlessly and rightly so. Therefore I doubt that he has many admirers in the Lords and if he does become PM he's going to hit a brick wall.

      1. He's not PM material.
        Where is he leading to, to what end? Where's the clarity and singleminded purpose? He can't even manage to lead just the one political party. Flipflops all the time. I have absolutely no trust in him at all, I'm not even sure he could shit in his own pants.

      1. Here is an even better Churchill quote.

        How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

  52. Christian Revival: Record Number of Adults Baptized in France on Easter

    A record number of adults in France are expected to have received baptism across the country on Easter, primarily driven by young people joining the Catholic Church.

    Some 10,384 adults in France are scheduled to be baptized between Saturday evening and Easter Sunday, according to the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF). This comes on top of an additional 7,404 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 expected to receive baptism this week.

    The CEF stated that the record numbers were driven in large part by people under the age of 25, with a 45 per cent increase among adults compared to last year, and a 33 per cent rise among adolescents. This can partially be explained by the fact that fewer babies are being baptized by their parents, and thus, there are more teens and young adults who can request the sacrament.

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/04/20/christian-revival-record-number-of-adults-baptized-in-france-on-easter/

    1. We had 90 take communion yesterday. Only the side aisles weren’t full. We even had to raid the aumbry for additional consecrated hosts.

  53. The fact that the Muslim Reform Party Chairman provides the money and dictates much of the party policy must make people pause and think – even Farage supporters – that their party leader is losing his way.

    Does Farage seriously think that appeasing Islam will not lead to an Islamic state with sharia law replacing British common law once Muslims are in the majority?

    1. I view the "Restoration" and indeed "Brexit" as a gentle process that will take place over decades.

      Similar to the Ireland thingy.. The Irish Free State of 1921 was to remain a dominion of the British Empire and symbolically subject to the king.
      Then, In 1931, with the passage of the Statute of Westminster, the Parliament of the United Kingdom relinquished nearly all of its remaining authority to legislate for the Free State and the other dominions.

      Then the tall lanky one De Valera abolished the oath of allegiance and embarked on an economic war with the UK in 1937.

    2. But plenty of rocks lying around for a good stoning. Every (dust) cloud, …

    2. Oh Dear – and it claims to be a serious paper – if it was, surely they would have an editor!?

  58. The Telegraph keeps on the paid-for lie express. The late pope was an all-in globalist, and if one wanted a summation of his contribution to the peace of the world and the health of the Church one could not do better than to remember his excommunication of Archbishop Vigano, which brought the Vatican to perhaps the lowest place for a century.

      2. Well, the head of the Coptic Church is called ‘the Pope’. The Coptic Church adheres to the Nicene Creed which refers to ‘… One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church’.

      3. Before the passing of the "retired" Pope Benedict, I used to reply "Which one?"

  59. Yes, he was a Marxist WEF placement who did the damage he was elected to do. All the gushing mush being spouted is devoid of substance.

    1. As is so often the way with obituaries. None says, "He was an unutterable bastard and the world is a better place without him."

      1. No, exactly. They’re all saying what ought to be true. We could write the JWKs obit, couldn’t we? A model husband and father. Cared so much for the environment. Such devotion to duty. Etc etc…

    3. Damian Thompson wrote a piece a few years ago on Vatican shenanigans, it didn't seem as though Francis had much control there.

  61. 'Morning All
    I see Satan has reclaimed one of his own,any chance of Blair and Soros going as well??
    Make a nice trifecta

  62. No one seems to have been fond of this dead Pope. I just discovered his name was Francis.

    1. The Argentines were, for patriotic reasons. I expect much wailing and gnashing of teeth. (And thanks for the news; I didn't know.)

  63. A New Pope?
    My wife and I were in Florence for our 40th Wedding Anniversary on April 19th 2005 when a new Pope: Benedict XVI was declared.
    Our hotel was very close to the wonderful Campanile (bell tower – see photo) begun in 1341 and completed 25 years later.
    At 274 feet (84.7m) tall, it was ringing fit to collapse! Nuns were rushing happily around, an unforgettable sight.
    When the noise died down I climbed the 414steps to the top. What a view!

    Completely off topic, I have just renewed my Car Insurance by telephoning the Insurers rather than simply doing it on line as recommended in the telephone preamble. I said I was an 84-year-old Pensioner who had lost my £100 Winter Fuel Allowance and also had my house insured with them (which was detailed on the renewal documents anyway, so was included in the elevated premium). The agent was able to reduce the renewal premium by £143 – that's actually £79 less than it was LAST YEAR. Yay! It pays to talk to an agent (with tiny violins in the background at my end).
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6eeb519dc8bca0fbdd19b0dbb468bc7569c095f6dfdebd7c366dfbed27493c39.png

      1. I visited Giotto's Duomo of the Cathedral as well. They did not use scaffolding for the dome, just started in a big circle (an octagon, actually as I recall) and just built rows of brickwork gradually canting inwards to make the dome. Imagine working on increasingly inclined brickwork above a 200-foot drop, and all they had to drink all day was beer or wine, 'cos the water was unsafe to drink. That may account for the dreadful-looking (but very long-lasting) interior brickwork, visible while climbing up the curve of the dome to stand in the corona at the top.

        1. The Duomo was without a dome for decades owing to its enormous span and the reluctance of designers to take it on.

          Eventually the contract was won by Brunelleschi who completed the construction, as you say without timber centring, but using novel brickwork bonding and interlocking stone chains to contain forces.

          Like you I climbed to the top and observed the curious brickwork but this was back in the early seventies when I was an architectural student.

      2. I visited Giotto's Duomo of the Cathedral as well. They did not use scaffolding for the dome, just started in a big circle (an octagon, actually as I recall) and just built rows of brickwork gradually canting inwards to make the dome. Imagine working on increasingly inclined brickwork above a 200-foot drop, and all they had to drink all day was beer or wine, 'cos the water was unsafe to drink. That may account for the dreadful-looking (but very long-lasting) interior brickwork, visible while climbing up the curve of the dome to stand in the corona at the top.

      3. I visited Giotto's Duomo of the Cathedral as well. They did not use scaffolding for the dome, just started in a big circle (an octagon, actually as I recall) and just built rows of brickwork gradually canting inwards to make the dome. Imagine working on increasingly inclined brickwork above a 200-foot drop, and all they had to drink all day was beer or wine, 'cos the water was unsafe to drink. That may account for the dreadful-looking (but very long-lasting) interior brickwork, visible while climbing up the curve of the dome to stand in the corona at the top.

    2. Ref your off-topic paragraph, my experience is much like yours. Always make a phone call – it might take a bit of perseverance to reach a human being but they seem to be more than willing to offer a reduction in premiums. I recently called Direct Line with a query about my insurance and, a week or so later, had to call again to ask why the quoted renewal figure on my account differed from the original. Oh, they said, we reduced the premium after your recent phone call. I got the impression that a reduction was almost automatic after a phone call.

    1. And God said 'Let there be light'…and there was light.

      You could see for bloody miles !

  66. Cheer the trans verdict if you wish – but the Blairite court behind it shouldn't even exist

    PETER HITCHENS, 15:02, 19 April 2025

    It is true that a woman can't have a penis, but it is just as true that Britain, where Parliament is supreme, can't have a Supreme Court. In fact, we jolly well shouldn't have one. Don't let's get carried away by a rare sane decision from this horrible Blairite tribunal.

    Rejoice all you like over this outcome, but it's just the victory of one Left-wing faction over another. The moderately mad Leftists, who want to abolish husbands and fathers, are still rushing about, mopping up what remains of the married family and private life. Their aim is the total triumph of the state over the individual, and they are quite near their goal. The transgender frenzy was just a tiny ultra-crazy fringe faction of this cause.

    The serious revolutionaries are willing to put this aside for a bit while they get on with the main event. But I doubt that it has gone away. The people who squashed it are themselves mostly Left-wing radicals. Tory males wisely stayed out of it – they would have been chewed to bits.

    But it pains me to watch patriots and Christians blowing up balloons because of a decision by the 'Supreme' Court. The very title of this body is an outrage against the rule that our elected, adversarial Parliament is supreme.

    It is a power grab, carefully prepared and put into action by the cunning Left-wing lawyers who were and are the inner core of the Blairite project. Remember the former head of the court, Brenda Hale, bossing about the elected government over the EU? These over-mighty judges are not elected, or even approved by any part of Parliament.

    The late Tony Benn used to ask any powerful person: 'How can we get rid of you?' It is a key question, and the 'Supreme Court' cannot answer it.

    We can only get rid of it by abolishing it before it gets too powerful. If not swiftly cancelled, it will come to be a sort of tyranny, making all our votes worthless. This danger is so vastly more important than the transgender controversy that our descendants will marvel that we did and said so little about it when we could. Why do we use all our energies instead on whether women can have dangly bits or not?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14627625/PETER-HITCHENS-Women-bossy-judges-power-elected-MPs.html

    1. I consider the conversion of Middlesex Guildhall to the Supreme Court one of the worst acts of vandalism to an otherwise beautiful listed building in my lifetime.

      The architects chosen were from the Norwich branch of the Freemasons whose crap designs were dignified supposedly by Lord Foster but in fact screeching veneered MDF and the symbolism of the knowing eye.

      Everything about the Supreme Court conversion is repulsive including the unelected poseurs sitting on it.

      Who can forget that ghastly Spider Woman from Girton College wringing her hands whilst siding with the Gina Miller cabal. We have come a long way (backwards) from the considered pronouncements of Lord Denning.

    1. I shall have to remortgage then. Not for much, just enough to avoid punishment for being hard working.

      1. "Equity release" – get a new bathroom, better insulation, solar panels, whatever.
        Our new bathroom starts to be installed in 2 weeks.

        1. I had a new bathroom shortly after we moved in and I'm happy with it. I've installed better insulation. Solar panels? Don't know that it will be worth it.

      2. It would have been my parents’ 90th wedding anniversary. It was Easter Sunday in 1935.

  72. Good afternoon folks,
    Bit cloudy here, just back from a weekend away.
    Broadstairs, nice beach and a resort.

    1. When very very much younger we often took our family holidays in Broadstairs.
      Always have had fond memories. B&B and evening meal.

    2. I’m very fond of Broadstairs. Good beaches and walks, a delightful cinema, mercifully just one small amusement arcade, an excellent fishmonger and a couple of good micropubs. Oh, and a time warp ice cream parlour.

      1. Food Miles?
        Broadstairs is just 19 miles from my back door. This side of Broadstairs, just 12.5miles away, lies the huge Thanet Earth ( http://www.thanetearth.com ), the largest greenhouse complex in the UK. It produces (hydroponically) 400 million tomatoes, 33 million cucumbers and 20 million peppers a year.
        In Sainsburys two weeks ago I was looking for vine tomatoes (a major sort produced at Thanet Earth) and eventually found a pack grown locally. All the other sorts of tomatoes were from Morocco, Spain, you name it.
        Last Thursday, in Morrison's this time, I looked and looked for ANY tomatoes from Thanet Earth, but was disappointed.
        Seems odd that it is cheaper for the large retail Greengrocers to source them from 800-1500 miles away than from fewer than 15 miles away.
        I cannot think that it's due to cheaper labour costs abroad, since I'm told that Thanet Earth has highly mechanised picking and packing. I wonder what the real reason is?

      2. Food Miles?
        Broadstairs is just 19 miles from my back door. This side of Broadstairs, just 12.5miles away, lies the huge Thanet Earth ( http://www.thanetearth.com ), the largest greenhouse complex in the UK. It produces (hydroponically) 400 million tomatoes, 33 million cucumbers and 20 million peppers a year.
        In Sainsburys two weeks ago I was looking for vine tomatoes (a major sort produced at Thanet Earth) and eventually found a pack grown locally. All the other sorts of tomatoes were from Morocco, Spain, you name it.
        Last Thursday, in Morrison's this time, I looked and looked for ANY tomatoes from Thanet Earth, but was disappointed.
        Seems odd that it is cheaper for the large retail Greengrocers to source them from 800-1500 miles away than from fewer than 15 miles away.
        I cannot think that it's due to cheaper labour costs abroad, since I'm told that Thanet Earth has highly mechanised picking and packing. I wonder what the real reason is?

  73. Sorry to hear that the old Pope has passed on, but I suppose a new one will be along shortly.
    I wonder if the new Pope be chosen under the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion framework?

        1. The Pope will be elected by the College of Cardinals, but the Archbishop of Canterbury will be appointed by the King on the advice of the Prime Minister (who is an atheist).

        1. Given the papal chair check since Pope Joan, I assume the trans was surgically adjusted.

    4. The best candidates will be some of the third world ones, from countries where they take their Christianity seriously!

  74. Weather was so nice this morning that we put the garden furniture out and sat in the sun for lunch! Clouding over now, and getting chilly…

  75. Wot, no reference to the you-know-whats in King Charles' message of condolence.

    1. She has an extensive knowledge of latin having rewritten her curriculum vitae many, many times……many times.

    2. She has an extensive knowledge of latin having rewritten her curriculum vitae many, many times……many times.

  80. Trans NHS patients can access every women-only space in London

    Exemptions in hospital policies mean patients and staff forced to share bathrooms, changing facilities and hospital wards with trans women

    Michael Searles
    Health Correspondent

    All NHS hospitals in London are refusing to comply with single-sex laws to stop transgender people using women-only spaces, The Telegraph can reveal.

    The NHS in England claims to have eliminated “mixed-sex accommodation” and requires all hospital trusts to have single-sex policies. But these policies include a range of exemptions allowing trans women to share toilets, showers, and hospital wards with women.

    An analysis reveals there are no single-sex spaces for women across the NHS in London, whether for patients or staff, who are forced to share changing facilities and bathrooms with trans women.

    It comes days after the Supreme Court ruled that trans women were not legally women, with the Government saying it would “provide clarity and confidence for women and service providers such as hospitals”.

    But an analysis of 28 hospital trusts in London found none could guarantee single-sex spaces, while some openly opposed Government demands.

    The hospitals often use NHS England’s 2019 policy – which has been in review for a number of years – to justify their guidance to give trans people “equal rights to access single-sex wards”.

    The evidence was collected and shared with The Telegraph by a group of whistleblowers and concerned women.
    *
    *
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/20/trans-nhs-patients-access-women-only-space-in-london/

    ************************************

    DM Barker
    15 hrs ago
    I look forward to the first NHS trust being sued by a woman forced to share a single sex ward with a man.

    M Wheeler
    14 hrs ago
    Reply to DM Barker
    Let’s have the actual Chief Executive in court and a prison sentence as punishment when found guilty. That way these clowns will act.

    Teresa Steele
    9 hrs ago
    Reply to DM Barker – view message
    This kind of litigation costs a fortune and women’s rights activists are exhausted with crowdfunding one identical case after another. There’s no deterrent factor when a case is won, because damages are paid out of the public purse. Neither will any individual be held accountable; nobody is sacked or disciplined for facilitating the harassment of female patients in this way. The NHS acts with impunity and is beyond direct ministerial control; NHS England that is responsible for writing the template policies is a quango.

    Telegraph Telegraph
    5 hrs ago
    Reply to Teresa Steele
    That is exactly the problem – nobody really pays! They are fined and that money comes both from and to the public purse (minus expensive legal fees).

    What is it with the NHS? It is utterly infested with "trans ideology" — clearly loathes women and the concept of single spaces for women for safeguarding and privacy, yet illogically seems to imply that putting trans women in with men would be dangerous for them.

    The whole thing stinks!! I am sick of it, the lies, the anti-science, the anti-women. Get a grip NHS and do the right thing – and STOP with the trans agenda, just stop. Stop.

    Kylie Williams
    4 hrs ago
    Reply to DM Barker
    Already happening at NHS Fife

    1. I assume mixed sex toilets doesn't include two people in a stall? Just the anteroom, as it were. Here in Norway, we have mixed sex anteroom, single occupancy stalls, eash with it's own handbasin. Works fine.
      The bit that I'm concerned about is the showers… fully-unclothed people mixing together as strangers… asking for trouble, and I fully understand why women aren't happy about it. I wouldn't be, either.

    2. I've had the unenviable pleasure of being admitted to mixed ward twice, still under anaesthetic. Not great coming round to see chap opposite staring at me. Couldn't even get out of bed to walk over and punch him.

        1. Thanks Paul:-) I hope never to repeat the experience. I’ve written previously about my husband’s hip replacement op, how he saw an NHS consultant, asked if he did the op privately, yes he did..long story short, was in the same hospital, using same facilities but out of hours when not in NHS use, private side ward with same nurses but with flowers and own diet delivered by nurse…now we’re in a General & Medical Group for private care along with others similar situations – age, conditions etc. Husband was a Type 2 had several eye bleeds, now he follows Carnivore Diet mostly beef, no diabetes or any other health conditions (except mental, obvs, married to me…)

      2. As an inpatient in Lister Hospital in February, the wing I was on had both male and female patients, but the three four-bed bays were segregated by sex.

        1. Good to know David, thanks. My grandmother died on a mixed ward, curtains around her bed, a nurse stepped out and said ‘she’s just gone, she smiled at me first’. Some memories stick with us, that’s clear as a bell to me. I never found much dignity in NHS care, others have their own experiences tho 🙂

          1. The problem is that doctors and nurses get so used to death, they can forget that for many people it may be their first experience or that someone very precious has gone for good.
            It is a delicate balance between taking each death personally and cracking under the strain, or becoming too dismissive through lack of imagination.

          2. She was very young, a junior nurse. I didn’t blame her at all, and my grandmother obviously liked her otherwise we’d have known about it:-)

      3. I remember visiting my aunt in a mixed sex ward – she'd had a hip replacement op and needed peace and privacy, not some old goat leering at her.

        1. Exactly, N. Why the heck anyone thinks the NHS can’t be bettered should think again. Instead, more re-re-re-organisation, Streeting the latest to try.

  83. Currently in the waiting room of the Adult Urgent Treatment Centre of Lister Hospital, Stevenage. Nothing to worry about. I'm only here for a fresh surgical dressing. There's nothing urgent about it but this is the place to go for out-of-hours treatment when the GP is shut at weekends and on bank holidays. Anyway, my ears pricked when I heard the name Dennis Weaver called. Surely not, I thought. Could it really be him?

    https://www.michael-sloan-equalizer.com/uploads/9/6/6/3/96634928/published/mccloud.jpeg?1511928259
    To nobody's surprise, it wasn't.

  84. Currently in the waiting room of the Adult Urgent Treatment Centre of Lister Hospital, Stevenage. Nothing to worry about. I'm only here for a fresh surgical dressing. There's nothing urgent about it but this is the place to go for out-of-hours treatment when the GP is shut at weekends and on bank holidays. Anyway, my ears pricked when I heard the name Dennis Weaver called. Surely not, I thought. Could it really be him?

    https://www.michael-sloan-equalizer.com/uploads/9/6/6/3/96634928/published/mccloud.jpeg?1511928259
    To nobody's surprise, it wasn't.

      1. I remember him as Chester in 'Gun Law', the name that horse opera was first aired as in the UK.

        1. I don’t remember it being aired as Gun Law, but Wikipedia confirms your assertion.

    4. Back in 1982 I was waiting for my name to be called at a rheumatology clinic in Sheffield when a nurse shouted for a 'Horatio Nelson'. An old chap of around 80 answered her call.

  85. I am just going outside. I may be some time…..well, not actually. Half hour max. It is so dreary and cold,

    1. Had a pleasant cosy day tweaking Hot Cross Bun recipe.
      Dead scrummy. But …. why the hull do Yanks have to use different names for flours?
      After a hard day of quality control tasting, fridge soup for this evening.
      (Burp)

        1. 'Cup' measurements are for retards. How the hell do you measure a tablespoonful for butter?

  90. I went into town for the Monday market. Ghost town.

    One stall selling hats. One stall selling phones. One stall selling veg. And they didn't have any new potatoes which i had gone in for.

    Still, Harry and Dolly enjoyed their walk.

    1. Have you seen those tower gro-bags, Phiz…you can grow your spuds in the bottom, and greens on top, don't take up too much room in a small garden/outdoor terrace 🙂

  92. Not any woman, no. In any case, she'd not want me there, I can assure you. My ability to be repulsive to women is legendary…

  94. I was a little surprised to see three police cars parked by Lister's A&E. On a Friday or Saturday evening, maybe, for treating unruly drunken louts, but early on an Easter Monday afternoon?

  98. Kremlin ‘satisfied’ with US proposal to ban Ukraine from Nato. 21 April 2025.

    The Kremlin has said that it is “satisfied” with the US negotiating stance on ending the war in Ukraine after news emerged that Washington had agreed to ban Ukraine from joining Nato.

    “We have heard from Washington at various levels that Ukraine’s membership in Nato is excluded,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

    This of course is what Vlad wanted to hear. It was the reason for the war. A settlement should now be possible.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/04/21/russia-ukraine-war-trump-zelensky-putin-latest-news/

  100. Afternoon all. After a morning of typical Bank Holiday weather, the sun has now come out but I don’t think it’ll be out long. Too much cloud.

    Have they only just noticed the Bbc doesn’t justify the telly tax? It’s been political and pushing an agenda since at least 1997.

      2. Yes, the train staff put out steps.

        It's basically an old coal hauling loco, built for the steep gradients and tight curves of Appalachian coal country. Approx. twice the power of anything BR had in the way of steam.

  105. Gold normally dips on Friday trading but it held its price this week. Mine has gone up £700 today alone.

  107. A good day to ….

    "On the same day Pope Francis—known for his inclusive beliefs—passed away, another globalist fell: Klaus Schwab, the architect of the World Economic Forum's dystopian agenda, announced he was stepping down from the WEF board. It marks the end of an era for Schwab, who championed radical wokeness, bug eating, mass vaccination campaigns, population control, and climate de-growth policies through what often resembled digital communism—social credit scores, central bank digital currencies, and many more China-like policies. Meanwhile, cultural shifts across the Americas signal a rising movement toward traditional values, sending the WEF's ideological woke grip on governments, non-government organizations, corporations, the church, and society into disarray.

    "Following my recent announcement, and as I enter my 88th year, I have decided to step down from the position of Chair and as a member of the Board of Trustees, with immediate effect," Schwab wrote in a statement.

    1. This is at least the third time Schwab has announced he’s stepping down. He clearly doesn’t feel he’s getting enough attention.

  108. He's only doing this so that he can run for Pope…

    Klaus Schwab Announces Resignation as World Economic Forum Chairman

    https://twitter.com/BreitbartLondon/status/1529009310063206400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1529009310063206400%7Ctwgr%5Ee689a30e1f09342f7073a1d93c2caa44aa7c7846%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Ft%2Fassets%2Fhtml%2Ftweet-4.html1529009310063206400 https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/04/21/klaus-schwab-announces-resignation-as-chairman-of-world-economic-forum/

      2. Like the late Pope Schwab is 88 but despite advocating for the Covid jab it appears that Schwab may never have taken the jab. He presumably knew better.

        Not sure about the Pope who was enthusiastic in advocating for the Covid jab, a fact in his disfavour yet lost in the eulogies about this wicked old man.

  109. Message for Jackthelad: a recent post by you was unavailable to me (I logged out to see it) and I wonder if you have blocked me. If so, why, as I don’t recall replying to any post by you?

    2. Even better Citroen1, is the link to my personal number 1….Joni, live in '98 'Song for Sharon'. (Plus quite a few other faves, thanks so much x)

  111. Back in. The only good thing about the bleak, grey afternoon was that there was no wind. Other than that – just glad the stove is on.

  112. Funny thing. On this forum, the comments about the late Argentinian have been generally disapproving. And rightly so.

    However, I looked at both The Times and the Telegraph – and the BTL stuff suggests that many people thought he was an uncanonized saint – much holier and altogether more Christian than the late J Christ.

    Funny that.

    1. I know too little about this pope and about popes in general to form anything approaching an informed opinion. I find that none have had a noticeable impact on my life so I see little point in probing any deeper.

      1. They just seem to me to be corruptible ecclesiastical civil servants with a penchant for dressing up – expensively.

  114. Nicked from The Times BTL:

    "Simon Cowell's been in touch with the Vatican to see if it can be decided via a talent show.

    He's going to call it Pope Idol"

    Made me larf.

    2. Why would anyone risk their life for a country that will turn on them later and drag them through the courts for doing what they were trained to do and told to do, whilst sucking up to the former enemies?

      1. Exactly – I see Liebour are making veterans the object of historical enquiries yet again, despite previous processes finding that there is no case to answer. Potentially we could see Gerry Adams getting compensation!

    3. How recent is the data on which this claim is based.? Official government figures suggest the opposite in that the intake during 2024 was higher than the previous year whilst those leaving were fewer than in 2023.

      ▲12,850 People joined the UK Regular Armed Forces
      in the past 12 months (1 January 2024 – 31 December 2024), an increase of 2,170 (20 per cent) compared with the previous 12 month period.
      ▼14,830 People left the UK Regular Armed Forces
      a decrease of 1,310 (8 per cent) compared with the previous 12 month period.

      https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-2025/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-1-january-2025

      Unless something has happened since the turn of the year, I see no sign of a mass exodus.

      1. The video was posted today. Don't know how old the info is, but SWMBO, recently returned (today) from the UK tells me that anyone with serious money is leaving (that backs up news reports). So, something is going on.

  116. I think because he never went for the usual grandeur, he was seen as a "better Christian" than some of his predecessors – especially the German. Apparently he was not popular with the church hierarchy for the same reason…

  117. Clearly I don't understand…
    "Catholics around the world mourn Pope Francis"

    Shouldn't they be rejoicing?

    1. Excellent – I rather liked that! A very attractive woman – shame about the ear decorations……

  119. They should be tickled pink. He has gone to the house of his feather. Titter ye not !

    DT headline.

      1. Prayers are like meditation. They focus the mind. Then you move on in a mysterious way.

  124. The Pope was once asked if he would ever, under any circumstances, have sex with a woman. He replied that, if it was absolutely necessary then he would do so, provided four strict conditions were met.

    When asked what those conditions were he replied;

    First, the girl must be blind, so that she cannot see who she is having sex with.

    Second, she must be deaf, so that she cannot hear who she is having sex with.

    And third, she must be dumb so that if somehow she figures out who she is having sex with, she can tell no one.

    After a long pause a voice asked, “And the fourth condition?” The Pope replied, “Big tits.”

  125. Wordle No. 1,402 5/6

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

    Wordle 21 Apr 2025

    A deluge for Bogey Five?

    1. Well I made a right hash of this having got four letters in my first guess. Funnily enough, if I'd played in my usual second guess I would have got the fifth letter (the key one , same as yesterday's!) and got a comfortable birdie. But with four letters I felt I had to go for it and nearly bombed! Big Double Bogey Phew!!

      Wordle 1,402 6/6

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

        1. You're right BB2 – I think it was the very last possible option…… Grrrrrrr!

    2. A fortunate birdie.

      Wordle 1,402 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟨🟩
      🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. 1492 – Columbus discovered the Americas – when I was in America I once took a trip to the exact point where he was supposed to have landed, I was more than a little bit awed by the occasion but it was rather spoilt by all the fat Americans on the trip wondering aloud what was going to be for lunch…….

        1. Whenever you are in Las Palmas, Grand Canaria, Argentinian restaurants do great steaks!

    4. Par here. Even with most letters it wasn't that obvious.

      Wordle 1,402 4/6

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

    5. Better luck here for Birdie. Had all five letters including start and middle letter.

      Wordle 1,402 3/6

      🟩⬜🟩⬜🟨
      🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    6. Par but an odd one.

      Wordle 1,402 4/6

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

  127. A mallard mum was trying to keep a new brood out of the middle of the Tamar this morning. The river's almost in spate condition after a lot of rain. What with half a dozen herring gulls patrolling the river, I think she'll be lucky to see 1 or 2 make it into May.

  129. That's me for this dreary day. Let us hope that tomorrow will be sunny and bright and WARM… I have a lot of potting on to do.

    Have a jolly evening getting measured for your papal robes.

    A demain.

  130. And so the sectarian violence begins.. as predicted by David Benz.

    Reform UK candidate attacked and intimated outside Mosque in Redcar.

    1. The Reform candidate was arrested was he/she? Won't have been those followers of the Religion of Peace to blame, of course.

  131. It will be my son’s 21st in November, and it means a lot to me that we have a meal together: our family, – all 4 grandparents – and perhaps the godfathers and their wives, if they are around. My plan is/was to do it in Cardiff, so as to inconvenience my son the least; one set of grandparents is in Wolverhampton, and one in Cornwall, so Cardiff is a good place. 21sts are important in my family; I was in a Germany for mine and it wasn’t much fun. I need to organise it soon-ish a)as I work full-time in a responsible job and i don't know if/when I will have time later in the year and b) i want it booked – hotels and venue, amd at least a cost estimate to aim at. I don’t want a repeat of his 18th (which was a huge success, in the end, but at the cost of throwing a huge amount of money at it).

    My husband is being a pain in the butt about it. He says, it’s up to my son. what does he want to do? My son doesn’t know. He’s 20.

    My view is, it’s not negotiable, just like you don’t let a toddler decide what he is going to wear or eat, on matters of 21st birthdays, it just IS.

    He can do what he wants every birthday after this for the rest of his life – for all I care (copyright Lucy Connolly).

    anyway, husband and i fell out over it this morning and haven’t spoken since.

    Ironically it is my birthday tomorrow. I know he has stuff planned, but has he asked me about what I want? No, of course not.

    Edit. I don’t even care when we do the meal. I just want one with all the grandparents.

    1. DON'T FALL OUT OVERNIGHT

      One morning in 1968, my first mother-in-law had a terrible row with her husband just before she left for work at 8.30 am. He was killed at 11.30 am. She never forgave herself.

      1. I am trying very hard these days to “be the change you want to see” but it is hard.

        2. Since when was being a parent easy? Advice above, replied to your first post.

      1. Apparently. But he does control access to the children (he brought them up while i worked to pay for everything) and sometimes i feel very left out.

        I dare say many men before me can identify.

          3. AI Overview

            Filial infanticide cannibalism refers to the act of a parent killing and consuming its own offspring. This behavior is observed in various animal species, including fish, insects, and mammals. In some cases, it's a natural part of a species' reproductive strategy, while in others, it may be a result of environmental stress or resource scarcity.

            Elaboration:

            Definition:

            Filial infanticide cannibalism is a specific type of cannibalism where a parent consumes their own young.

            Examples in animals:

            Fish: Some fish species, like the small marine fish Rhabdoblennius nitidus, exhibit total filial cannibalism, where males consume all their eggs.

            Insects: Burying beetles, for example, kill and consume some of their offspring in order to reduce competition for food.

            Mammals: Rodents with large litters may cannibalize some of their young, especially if they are ill or handicapped.

            Adaptive benefits:

            In some cases, filial cannibalism can be an adaptive strategy for parents, allowing them to reinvest energy into other offspring or future reproductive efforts.

            Human infanticide:

            Human infanticide, where parents kill their infants, has also been documented in various cultures, and in some cases, it may be associated with cannibalism.

            Not as common as other forms of cannibalism:

            While infanticide is a common phenomenon in many animal groups, filial cannibalism, the deliberate killing and consumption of one's own young, is relatively unusual.

          9. What, my devouring of my own… ahhh, you mean the skyscape. Devouring me, or at least my time, but nearly there, thanks. Currently trying to make a frame. Damned fiddly! I shall post when 8t’s completed. 🙂

            How about you?

          10. Good to hear from you 🙂 Think I may finally, slowly, be ridding myself of the vaccine. Attempting drawing, my first love, I have books full going back years. Looked in a cupboard today, found some hard pastels and eraser (marked ‘useless’)…what a find :-DDD One thing I cannot do is landscape – there’s so much of it! Are you making the frame out of wood? that’s such a hard thing to do…good luck!

          11. Disappearing vaccine effects is great news! Hooray on the return of the muse.

            I am in awe of a mind which would mark a rubber useless and then keep it for years! 🤣🤣

            Enjoy your drawing. x

            I’m actually trying to frame I in painted lengths of cardboard, as those are free. it’ s a bit of a nightmare 🤣🤣

          12. I keep everything, the good the bad the downright ugly – supposedly to remind me to not do this thing again…but…Anyhow I always enjoy it, even tho tiring. Are you saying you are framing one of your paintings in cardboard? Might the cardboard hold up better once in place if you paint/varnish it…? Lemme know! x

          13. Maybe it’s a hint to draw without erasing anything? Great idea.

            Framey bits of cardboard already painted. Trying to find somewhere which supplies thin slats of wood to reinforce… 🤪

          14. I was able to at one time, now trying to turn clock back. Can you get any of that foam stuff, in an aerosol can, hardens as it sets..might do it? Think builders use it.

          17. There was a whole series of very dark, disturbing images. The Asylum, the Madness of Fear, etc. Goodnight, Katie. Sleep well.

        3. A solution is to be a coordinator, rather than a dictator.
          Remember, your children are not you, they have their own lives, likes & dislikes.
          Example: I wanted both my lads to get a degree (they are both more than smart enough) as I and SWMBO did, but neither were interested. Instead, Firstborn took an apprenticeship in the motor trade and is now a specialist technician earning good money; Second Son is a 3-D printing technician. Both happy and fulfilled, and controlled by themselves.

    3. You must relax and relent. Go with the flow.

      Don't get in a muckers fuddle.

      Smile and say yes my dear i am sure you are right.

      Please don't let these memories be tainted.

      If he is a controlling and coercive husband then divorce the fucker.

    4. Why not ask the Birthday Boy? Tell him you want to have a mega-party with family, and of course, he needs to be there – it means a lot to you.. don't gang up on him, or he may suddently be in Düsseldorf that day. Does he have a favourite venue? Favourite meal? A few others he'd like to invite? It's his birthday, after all.
      Cardiff is indeed a good place, but I can't recommend anywhere because I don't know the city any more.

    6. My two cents worth:

      If your son is close to his grandparents tell him it might be the last time he sees them all together and it might be the last time they can celebrate a very significant family occasion together.

      Let your husband know that that's why you are keen on the get-together.

      BUT if there are other children/celebrations of a similar nature I would not take that route.

      Either way; kiss and make up with your husband.

    7. Does your son understand the significance of 21 yrs , key of the door , is it a special occasion so that he can inherit ?

      Leave him alone , he has chums , you were away for your 21st and unhappy, but he might be of a different mindset .. surely the last thing anyone would want is a dinner with family.

      Unless it is a religious birthday celebration of course?

    8. What if he hasn't got the gumption to upset your party plans but is quietly looking forward to doing something special like diving the great barrier reef (substitute more likely expedition as appropriate).

      At 21 a grand dinner with all of the oldies may not be what he wants on his birthday.

      How about arranging the family gathering for its own sake and leaving his birthday open for now.

    9. But – from a bloke who doesn't really do birthdays – you've mentioned that your birthday wasn't fun and that your plan was to have a family birthday and You want to book the hotels.

      He's also not a toddler. He's 20. By 20 I was running two businesses and engaged.

      I fully appreciate you want to celebrate his birthday, but 'you' do. Your son probably wants a quiet dinner with his folks, or to go out with his friends.

      It is 'his' birthday.

      Call your husband. Tell him he was right, but you wanted to do something special because you missed out. If he's any sort of chap he'll get the hint and arrange you a 21st birthday to knock your socks off.

      The Warqueen hates big bashes with loads of friends so our birthdays have been quiet affairs where we make the food we like and don't make a fuss about presents.

      1. I don’t care. But his 86, 82 and 2×80 year old grandparents would like to celebrate this one last thing.

    10. If the men cant decide what they want, booger off on Easy Jet and celebrate his birthday with a couple of girl friends. You did most of the work on that day 21 years ago. Send a Weatherspoons voucher with the card…!

      2. 404501+ up ticks,

        Afternoon C,

        People power will one day win through otherwise even Sovereign states can eventually get taken apart after enough.is enough,is enough, then reassembled to the peoples design.

    1. 🙂

      Edit. I went to a Catholic prep school and vividly remember Paul VI dying and John Paul I being elected (and dying almost immediately).

        1. Seriously? I was only 10 or 11 at the time so have very little idea.

    2. Argentinian, Sue? What have I missed? Correction: gotcha…agree. Successor could be worse, of course, if possible.

        1. Thanks sos. They probably already know their choice. Will anything change? hmm…First cuckoo here, no swifts yet, tawny baby in the box. And caught the cat on camera, looks quite big….thinking is still a domestic tho'…

    1. Is that the dog robot the Japanese came up with a few years ago, Rik? Possibly just a relation, HAL perhaps…:-)

  135. Looks like Farage will be vindicated on May 1st.. despite being out of touch on mass deportations & Tommy Robinson.. and a complete snake.
    Landslide.
    Such is the hate for Starmer.

    1. He's got to start offering something. He can't go to the polls just saying 'I'm not them'. It's not enough any more. He has to say what he's going to do – especially about criminal welfare shoppers.

        1. Yes, I think so. Easier to lose and continue carping than to win and have to put the work in.

      2. I don't know, it seemed to me that Labour won the last one by saying they were not like the Tories.

          1. Yes, exactly.
            It wan't the numbers of Labour voters, but the number of Tory voters who didn't vote.

    2. Precisely why – under the guise of establishing "unitary authorities – many areas do not have local elections the year.
      Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Surry, Hampshire and Isle of Wight, East and West Sussex ….. now, what do those counties have in common?

          1. We've had elections here (once true blue, now limp dim territory), but I suppose transition to unitary authority wouldn't wash because Shropshire already is unitary.

    1. Her experience as Governor of the Bank of England, and CEO of HBOS, will enable her to sort out the pesky dodgy accounts at yer Vatican…

      1. Day 2 the Catholic Church would be bankrupt. Billions in the bank, massive landholder, invaluable uncountable, antiques – rendered worthless overnight.

  137. Bernard Franklin
    2 hrs ago
    Gravy on pudding

    Marmalade on Shredded Wheat

    Please, Please bringback the Triumph Herald!!
    ……………………………………………………………………..
    Hmm I was shocked , shocked , yes and shocked ..

    Moh and I had been married probably weeks and he put butter and jam on his Weetabix, and ate it , the crunching was so off putting so early in the morning .

    Weetabix..

    The only cereal I had ever eaten up until then was Cornflakes and a chopped banana with milk , and porridge ( I am talking 1960's)

    1. Thankfully the only weird cravings the Warqueen got during her pregnancy were for pancakes and satsumas – with mustard.

    2. I've eaten buttered Weetabix with a jam topping. It's a good way of eating Weetabix if you don't want a soggy one.

    3. I first came across buttered Wheatabix when I was a student. I wasn't keen when I tried it.

    4. A Weetabix "sandwich" was one of the ways to eat them that was printed on the box, many years ago.

      We can get Weetabix, but the US (actually Canadian) Weetabix we get is a golden colour. I remember the English Weetabix as being browner, but clearly it might have changed over the years.

  138. Bernard Franklin
    2 hrs ago
    Gravy on pudding

    Marmalade on Shredded Wheat

    Please, Please bringback the Triumph Herald!!
    ……………………………………………………………………..
    Hmm I was shocked , shocked , yes and shocked ..

    Moh and I had been married probably weeks and he put butter and jam on his Weetabix, and ate it , the crunching was so off putting so early in the morning .

    Weetabix..

    The only cereal I had ever eaten up until then was Cornflakes and a chopped banana with milk , and porridge ( I am talking 1960's)

  139. An old memory March 13, 2013

    A Labour MP has apologised for claiming the BBC made a "silly innuendo about the race" of the next Pontiff.

    David Lammy was commenting on a BBC Twitter message, which asked "will smoke be black or white?".

    Mr Lammy, tweeting from the Commons chamber, said the BBC message was "crass and unnecessary".

    He later apologised after Twitter users pointed out the role played by black and white smoke in announcing the election of a new Pope.

    White smoke traditionally emerges from a Vatican chimney to signify a new pontiff has been chosen.

    The appearance of black smoke above the Sistine Chapel means no decision has been reached, as happened on Tuesday.

    Mr Lammy was responding to a message on the BBC News World twitter feed, external, which provided a link to live coverage of the Vatican chimney, which said: "LIVE VIDEO: Chimney of Sistine Chapel as conclave votes for #Pope – will smoke be black or white?"

    "This tweet from the BBC is crass and unnecessary," he wrote. "Do we really need silly innuendo about the race of the next Pope?"

    But after receiving dozens of messages pointing out his error, he tweeted again: "Note to self: do not tweet from the Chamber with only one eye on what you're reading. Sorry folks, my mistake."

    There has been speculation that Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana or Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria could become the first black Pope of the modern era.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21764636

          5. That explains why you're so good with what were once naughty and less loveable dogs.

          6. Could be. Over coffee after church yesterday a friend was saying that she's looking after a Miniature Schnauzer, which is a lovely dog, but not trained apart from house trained. I can't understand that; I can't abide untrained dogs any more than I can children that run wild – as those I taught no doubt can attest 🙂

    4. 'From the chamber'. Obviously not paying much attention either way. Not that his attention would count for much.

      1. Peeking out of the chamber pot, David Lammy admitted he was merely the detritus on the side…

    5. "Note to self: do not tweet from the Chamber with only one eye brain cell on what you're reading…."

  140. Glad to see that William, Kate and family attended church in Norfolk this year – reported in the DM.

  143. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/20/one-upside-to-covid-many-rediscovered-christianity/

    Did any of you read that article ?

    I am still banned from commenting on the DT.

    I think that people felt so alone and scared during the main Covid outbreak, Moh deemed himself vulnerable because of various conditions and I was scared stiff.. Son continued to work ..

    Every death every ghastly bit of news about the pandemic made one/ many question where is God?

    It was like the plague .. doom and gloom ..

    I said my prayers at night and still do, but because I have been recently experiencing a lot of stomach pain and mental pain because 2 of my friends lost their husbands suddenly .. both just sitting down to rest and relax .. gone .. similar stories from both women of how hopeless and helpless they were when that happened .

    Both good men , no pain or drama , but women seem to experience something else .. but , no priest / vicar to console .

    How do we console , and our prayers are a mantra learnt in childhood , the C of E has changed so much , I don't think there is much power in the church , it is sometimes like a society event .. a who is whom?

    I don't believe doctors these days possess empathy or strength of belief with their supposed hands on/ non hands on comforting .. everything is computer orientated .. and my son's new God is an AI chat facility .. that answers every question on earth .

    I believe modern C of E church has a veneer , and the King has convinced me that he has fallen far , deeply , yes .
    His indifference to his first marriage was cruel and indifferent .

    Tim Stanley wrote this ..

    "My mother once said to me: “why are there so many children with Down’s Syndrome in Catholic Churches?” I replied: “Because we don’t abort them.” That’s the practical effect of faith, the risk of choosing life, with its obligations and sacrifices, matched by the reward of having others around to love. And if euthanasia is legalised, we might be one of the last places you’ll find folks with dementia as well."

    1. Ai cannot answer questions. it can search for information and compile this in a form that easy to read.

      The day AI can talk to us about what it believes is the day it is self aware. However, my thoughts on that probably require it to have a body, as that forms so much of our own emerging consciousness.

      Where is God? I was dragged to Sunday school and sang hymns and what not. I hated it, mainly because we were always late due to mother, we always sat in the same wretched place, the noise as awful, my brother would invariably throw a tantrum and the shirts I was made to wear to 'go out and be smart' were made from a combination of sandpaper, gravel and itching powder.

      I respect people who have faith, but I have lost mine. How can a god permit what is happening to happen? I am not qualified to answer the big questions but the world has never felt more damaged, more isolated, more ruined by greedy, bitter, evil people and in the face of that we do not need a god. We need an almighty, planet wide slap.

      1. AI is data retrieval not intelligence? God permits free will because goodness cannot be compelled. That’s submission. Mankind chooses evil. God doesn’t compel it.

      4. Yes, but the fact that we are embodied beings is a great mystery. Why? And the body bit is a huge bugbear, as is the paychology.

      5. I mention the bubonic plague, here, because its effect on humanity was probably more profound than any time before or since.

    2. The eradication of people with Down Syndrome, as achieved through aggressively selective abortion, in certain Scandinavian nations, is, I believe, a human tragedy. Such people do, in my experience, bring a perspective that goes against the political grain but which represents something largely missing from our soulless progressive vision of the future and a quality much needed in terms of humanity.

      1. I agree. Future ages, more spiritual than ours, will look back on the medical practices that we have been brainwashed into thinking normal, with horror.

    3. Don’t worry about the church. God is not confined to the CofE. His power is infinite and He will not let you suffer beyond your ability to cope. I found that very comforting when I was struggling to cope with MOH’s dementia.

      1. Thanks for that answer, Conway. I appreciate that, hadn't thought of it that way.

        1. Hope it helps. There were times when I reached rock bottom and felt I couldn't carry on towards the end of caring for MOH; it was relentless, 24/7 and I never knew what I'd find when I got back if I did manage to escape for a little while. I'd sit in the garage and remind myself of that promise, which gave me the strength to carry on rather than close the doors and leave the engine running.

          2. Fortunately I didn’t have the problems associated with dementia, only the increasing assistance needed as MOH got weaker. There is a spike in suicides of both men and women in the first six months of wodow-hood (is that a word?). Although bereft, I am not going to add to those statistics.

          3. No, I'm sorry to say being left alone was a relief. I started to get a good night's sleep without having to keep one ear and one eye open. I no longer had to clean up excrement (sometimes from the most unlikely places). I didn't have to worry about the house being flooded or set alight. It was like getting my life back. The extra burden of being solely responsible for everything was no different from what I'd been doing anyway, making the decisions, doing the housework, shopping and even cooking as well as the usual maintenance and gardening.

    4. The Covid-19 pandemic altered my perception of deities by not a single jot.

  144. Kendo Nagasaki
    22m
    TIL that Bristol did indeed become rich from slavery – but that started before the Norman Conquest with the export of English whyte slaves to Ireland, for onward distribution. Funny how that is not often mentioned?

      1. may?….have you heard how the women in woollen mills treated new apprentices, times gone by…shudder…..

        1. If you haven’t been there I recommend a day out in Styal at the mill and all the NT areas around it.

          3. Did they enjoy it?
            We knew a lady who lived in one of the cottages, no indoor "facilities", and she loved the hamlet and all its history.
            I would guess she had lived there for the better part of 60 years.
            I lived about a mile away and my sister was a senior guard in the women's prison.

          4. They took everything in very dutifully and earnestly. I'm not sure "enjoy" is perhaps quite the right word.

          5. You're certainly right, particularly if the museum had the looms running and the guides were explaining how children worked under the women's feet to keep things running.

            The noise was deafening in 10 minutes, let alone after 10 hours.

        2. No,but a summer job aged 16 at cheese packing plant with a mainly female workforce was "Educational" if intiminating!!

          1. Oh my, Rik…bet you went home with clothes/hair smelling cheesy…did you get free samples tho…

  148. Popping back in
    "Mandatory Vaccination"
    The bastards haven't given up,I survived peer pressure.untold propaganda and not so veiled threats of camps
    Never masked,never tested and for sure never jabbed try and force your magic juice on me and I'll stab you in the throat
    As per my earlier post become ungovernable it's MY choice
    https://x.com/wideawake_media/status/1914230386982261081

    1. Unelected, thick, greedy over privileged, overpaid woman. WHAT is she doing in a position of such power? And how can we get rid of her ?(Hat tip Tony Benn).

    1. Many thanks True_Belle, that one made me laugh out loud, not a regular occurrence these days

    1. Seriously? Have the prison sentences utterly escaped your attention. Sorry, Belle, but this is sheer nonsense.

      1. Sheer nonsense? Nobody who was complicit in the cover-up has been sent to gaol. Hardly any of those who were involved in the rape scandal have been sentenced and the punishments were hardly draconian.

        1. Dozens of men, and a few women, have been imprisoned for their part in these gang rapes, some for many years. I accept that those who were turning a blind eye have escaped unpunished, but it's simply not true that punishment of Muslim grooming gangs has been "nothing".

          1. While some muslim pakistani paedophile child rapists have been jailed, by no means have all of them been caught or even stopped. There is no doubt the practice continues, shielded by the Labour state. If a full investigation were held dozens of high ranking plod, council staff, councillors, muslim and social workers would be jailed.

            This is why Labour won't permit such an inquiry. They know it would utterly destabilise the country, remove thousands of their people, shine a literal sun on muslim and undo all the work the Left have done in forcing the muslim savage on us. There would be lynch mobs, and rightly so. If plod tried to stop it they be the first to go.

            Labour are hiding it because they caused, endorsed and practically encouraged the mechanised rape of children by pakistani muslim paedophiles. It'd see them obliterated, the entire diversity industry, the organised crime, the state looking the other way, brown envelopes from brown hands – all done so the Left can rape children.

    2. The tax code alone is 17,000 pages long. Add in, say, the EU regulations for carrots and you've another 80,000 pages.

      Suggesting a human could read the laws that control them in a lifetime is farcical.

      muslim savages do get away with far too much. The solution is to simply stop paying them and to remove the lawfare protections that shield them from criticism.

    1. Swinney is a complete and utter moron. However, not only is he thick and stupid, he is vicious and dangerous

      2. Thick-wall pipe – maybe for gas bottles. Get the blank, pierce it and then push the mandrel all the way through.
        Fascinating to watch the handiwork. Skill on view.

  159. The Ten Commandments are a good start – only I expect you'll have difficulty not coveting your neighbour's ox etc as they probably don't have any.

  160. If you’re struggling to keep the aspidistra healthy, it may be time to break out the Lego blocks.

    Waitrose says that the toymaker’s Botanicals range has become hugely popular among people who feel guilty about houseplants dying on their watch.

    Last month, sales of Lego daffodils (£13) were up 103 per cent and sunflowers (also £13) up 150 per cent as amateur “plant parents” sought an easier green option.

    Sophie Hancock, toys buyer for Waitrose, said: “The mini orchid [which costs £20] was up 98 per cent last week and we’re soon releasing a plum blossom and a chrysanthemum. We’re seeing Lego sets really develop as a mindful activity for adults and these sets offer the perfect way to unwind after a hectic day.

    (Pssst, watch out for a fallen petal or leaf, and it will be painful if you do step on it.)

  162. BTL Comment from the Dt's article on Jim Davidson (little known fact a great supporter of Britain's armed forces):

    'Jim was once managed by a close family friend and delivered his eulogy at their funeral.
    It was one of the best stand-up routines I’ve ever witnessed! He took the microphone from the lectern and spent the next 30 minutes humorously roasting the congregation and the person in the coffin.
    It was pure comedy gold. I distinctly remember his opening line: “Looking at some of you sitting here today, there’s not much point in you going home!”
    Jim, if you happen to read this, it was Barry Young’s funeral.'

  163. I've not done much today.
    But hey it's a bank holiday.
    Eye appeared in the morning.
    Good night Nottlers.
    😴

    1. They've got to blame the white boy. Presenting the truth – that the diversity are savage thugs would be intolerable to them.

        1. That would be me, David…I kept the membership certificate in a drawer, when my dad was mad at me (fairly often) he would threaten to burn it :-DDD

    1. If we don't politically (and in all other ways) alienate islam, we, as a Christian Western nation, will cease to exist. It's as simple as that.

      1. The sooner started the sooner it's over, and the less painful it will be. But it will be painful.

    3. I think so too, ogga. The British traditionally wake up at the last second though. I fear it will be gruesome this time.

    4. Infiltrated and subverted. The 'moderate' face swiftly to become the fanatic.

      Islam is sorted by cutting welfare to immigrants, cancelling child and housing benefit and getting rid of the stupid laws that protect them, such as the HRA, leaving the ECHR, race relations, communities, equalities, malicius communications – bin them all and the Left are defanged and the foreigner, no longer paid to breed or live here will go somewhere else.

  174. From the Telegraph

    Easter Monday is past its sell-by date. It’s time to scrap it
    Bank holidays had their place in a time of Victorian factory workers and domestic staff, but not in this era of Work From Home
    Rowan Pelling21 April 2025 6:00am BST
    At the risk of sounding like the Grinch Who Stole Bank Holidays, my heart shrinks to a walnut at the thought of today’s national exeat.

    Cambridge, my hometown, is delightful on a normal weekday; you can stroll down the Backs or across Jesus Green with a sense of ease and calm contemplation. But on bank holidays the city’s arteries clog up with milling crowds, licking melting ice creams, impeding cyclists and taking selfies outside King’s College with the rictus grins of people hell-bent on FUN.

    And all because this particular Monday is a designated day off for workers – except for anyone living in Scotland, who get St Andrew’s Day instead, when they can celebrate snatching seven hours of dim daylight.

    Granted, a few national holidays make perfect sense: Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Good Friday and New Year’s Day should be everyone’s for all eternity.

    I must also confess to a sneaking fondness for the annual May Day celebration. It seems only right and proper that our sleet-blighted land should herald in summer with a little light pagan glorification of rising sap and fertility rites. I can never see a maypole without reflecting on the traditional ditty: “Hurrah, hurrah, the first of May, outdoor tupping begins today.” But the fact I might want to go cheese-rolling or Morris dancing at the local fête, doesn’t mean you should have to.

    I simply don’t understand why, in a world of much-changed working practices such as WFH, the four-day week, flexible hours and paternity leave, we cling to compulsory free days intended for a 19th-century workforce. As things stand, the minimum statutory allowance for vacations is 28 days, including eight bank holidays in England and Wales (nine in Scotland and 10 in Northern Ireland) – four of which have no obvious cultural significance, but just make you feel grouchy and cheated if the weather’s foul.

    It’s galling enough that anyone with school-age children faces obscene price hikes for family holidays because our options are restricted to prescribed dates. But by shoehorning one-day fiestas upon us, we’re forced to brave motorway tailbacks to share a scrap of seaside sand with half of Britain every time the late May bank holiday coincides with sunshine. Or to queue for hours for London’s Natural History Museum with deathly bored offspring, who scream in terror once faced with the animatronic T-Rex.

    It’s worse for those who are not engaged in the vicissitudes of child-rearing: all their sacred spaces are suddenly overrun with a family-outing version of Milton’s Pandemonium.

    And what about the late August bank holiday that arrives, with brain-numbing irrationality, at the end of five long weeks of school vacation? When the Bank Holidays Act of 1871 first created a Monday off in August, it made good sense for Victorian factory workers and domestic staff. But in the modern age, when it’s almost impossible to find anyone at their desk during August, it’s surplus to requirements. Odder still, the former Tory MP Peter Bone wanted to rename the August break Margaret Thatcher Day, which seems a wildly misguided way to honour a PM renowned for four hours’ kip and her Protestant work ethic.

    Lest you think I’m a hairshirt-wearing puritan myself, I’m not arguing for fewer high days and holidays. Merely requesting the right to frolic when we actually want to. You can take June, I’ve bagsed the autumn equinox.

    1. You are not forced to do anything of the kind; you can choose not to queue on a motorway and go somewhere closer to home or even, heaven forbid! use the extra day off to work in the garden or do maintenance on the house. Bank Holiday weather is pretty much guaranteed to be foul, anyway.

      1. Having a bank holiday weekend often gives families the opportunity to be together. I’ve been with my daughter and some of my grandchildren at the beach. The writer of the article should realise it’s not all about her.

      2. Your sober reflection preceded mine, Conway. I should have scrolled down first.

        1. No read undery strikes again! I could have added that I would happily ditch the May Bank Holiday – we'll have three days off in quick succession this year.

      3. Indeed, Conners. We dismantled the kitchen and dining room, readty for the new floor and ceiling in two week's time. Then watched the newly-evicted trees (Olive, lemon, lime) get watered from the skies. Hope they enjoyed it!

    2. Don't live in Cambridge, then. Choose a town that people depart from. Stevenage today was very peaceful. You're not far from Bedford or Huntingdon. Spend the day there.

      It seems only right and proper that our sleet-blighted land should herald in summer

      Something that happens, perhaps, once a year nowadays in this part of England can hardly be construed as blighting. What a drama queen!

      I can never see a maypole without reflecting on the traditional ditty: “Hurrah, hurrah, the first of May, outdoor tupping begins today.”

      It might be traditional for your, darling, but I've never heard of it. Become a prole, like me. and less precious.

      by shoehorning one-day fiestas upon us, we’re forced to brave motorway tailbacks to share a scrap of seaside sand with half of Britain every time the late May bank holiday coincides with sunshine

      For heaven's sake, woman, is a gun held to your head? Show some gumption and refuse to take part in your fantasy world. Seaside resorts in Britain can only pray for that level of visitor numbers in late May.

      Yes, I know that Ms Pelling has written a piece for amusement and entertainment, but some attachment to reality would not be amiss.

      1. The Warqueen and I ried outdoor tupping. We decided it was very cold, grass was wet and midges were a proper turn off.

      2. What a whingefest that was. Don't have to take a day away on a Bank Holiday – stay home and do some research for the next article.

  175. Well, chums, it's now half an hour past my normal 11 pm bedtime. So I shall now climb the stairs to Bedfordshire. Good Night, all NoTTLers. Sleep well, and I hope to see you all bright-eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow morning.

    1. It was hacker who said 'I will not be photographed amongst a herd of Donkeys. It'd be a gift for private eye.'

    2. There is nothing more idiotic than seeing someone perform a salute while not wearing headgear.

  183. Charles Moore. Smuts was not just (or even) “heroic fighter against British imperialism”. Without his Government’s support in the Second World War, the Allies could not have defeated Hitler. (For all the good it has ultimately done us).

    ”Trans rights activists went round vandalising statues in Parliament Square on Saturday as they protested about the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, in that very place, on the definition of a woman.
    They had a crack at General Jan Smuts, heroic fighter against British imperialism; Nelson Mandela, the greatest opponent of apartheid; Benjamin Disraeli, the first Jewish prime minister, extender of the franchise; Robert Peel, who founded the police and repealed the Corn Laws; and Millicent Fawcett, campaigner for women’s rights. It is repulsive to dishonour such people.

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