Monday 21 February: Water meters leave customers at the mercy of extortionate providers

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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763 thoughts on “Monday 21 February: Water meters leave customers at the mercy of extortionate providers”

    1. Well done, vvof. And, looking at your avatar, reminds me that I need to visit Aldi after my first cuppa in order to top up on groceries.

      1. Stay safe Elsie, I have spent the last day and a half making fence panels safe. I think I deserve a cuppa now.

    2. Good morning, likewise, here on the Costa Clyde we had stronger winds prior to ‘Eunice’, which passed as a normal February breeze, missed the fun during the south coast blow and made up for it last night – carnage, two of my empty bins fell over.

      Still, it’s getting lighter in the mornings and it’s above freezing. Which is helpful as my gas boiler is ‘resting’ at the moment. If there was an Olympic event for quick showers I’d be looking at medals. My friendly boiler man is currently away from his phone but I know where he lives.

    2. ‘tips by local residents’. The questions are often asked about how the Nazis get away with the things they did. This is how.

      I’m still ploughing through the carnage of ‘Himmler’ by Peter Padfield, having already read ‘Gulag, a history’ and ‘The Crushing of Eastern Europe’ by Anne Applebaum.

      ‘The Whisperers’ by Orlando Figes covers the same ground under Stalin, as ever, the authorities never seemed to lack an ‘army’ of willing snoopers to bring grief to their countrymen.

      1. The last two years have reinforced the fact that most Britons would have lived perfectly happily in the old GDR.

        1. Horses will usually do their utmost not to step on people (or other horses if they fall in front of them in a race).

          1. I felt that was the case.
            Sensitive creatures, horses, in the way they ‘read’ situations…

    2. This is typical of a Police State. Canada (like Australia) has now become an overt Globalist Province!

    3. But shirley that can’t be true ‘cos the Telegaffe said yesterday that no protesters were injured? /sarc

  9. US reports to United Nations that Moscow has lists of Ukrainians ‘to be killed or sent to camps’ following a military occupation. 21 February 2022.

    Russia plans to carry out a host of human rights abuses – including targeted killings, kidnappings, torture and forced disappearances – against ethnic minorities, gays and journalists after it invades Ukraine, according to a frantic letter penned to the UN Human Rights Commission.

    This is as blatant a piece of Disinformation and Propaganda as could be concocted. The letter itself was “Leaked” (how unfortunate) and predictable! The subjects as might be expected are all Darlings of the Woke though why they think that the Russians would be interested in them is something of a mystery. The rest I assume were gleaned from US experience in their activities at Guantanamo and Abroad though they have fortunately omitted missile strikes on children and wedding parties.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10534167/US-diplomat-warns-Russia-planning-human-rights-abuses-Ukraine-including-targeted-killings.html

    2. The Z man on Taki today.
      A discourse on what is happening in the MSM

      A good example is this item in the war propaganda about Ukraine. The three “journalists” were given a story by the State Department that claims Putin is organizing death squads for after the invasion. He plans to unleash these death squads on the LGBTQI+ community in Ukraine. They also plan to fan out around the world to assassinate Ukrainian and Belarusian political opponents.

      The whole thing is laughable nonsense, but the people authoring the story are unqualified to question any of it, even if they possessed the self-awareness to wonder why they were handed this scoop by government agents. Of course, that is why they were selected for the leak. That node on the network instinctively looks for the most gullible and compliant nodes on the media side for these selected leaks.


      https://www.takimag.com/article/the-all-powerful-leviathan/

        1. As you probably realise, I like takimag; the Z man is usually excellent.

          I’m looking forward to the second part of Cole’s piece “I Really Hate My Color Because I Look Like You” which should be up tomorrow.

          2. I like his pieces too. I first read him in the Spectator, I think it was in the late 70’s early 80’s.

          3. I regard myself (modesty aside) as being well informed but on reading my first book (I now have six) of Dalrymple’s collected essays I found myself gobsmacked. He said things that contradicted everything else that I had read. Particularly about the Criminal Justice System and Health. This is almost certainly the reason that though he has appeared extensively on television in France and the US as an expert on them he is almost unknown in the UK.

  10. Convoy!!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/80e9056a4d223c9d10e572610d50f49adff6dd8c5d277e369c69833c3e4ff4c7.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b8d378880b46efc64cb0c829e2a24a82b26f06a05ae2342cc523b685222a4f30.jpg

    https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/02/download-9-2-1.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/74024f87b3cce8fe4bdbb0c5cd6db29a817a7260a2ae79da2c9e5e8ccf89cb35.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f11c4bed549c30426b3105ffd8cbec1693320e6aaaa9cf847b11d4e42c0ee20b.jpg

    Hold The Line…….

    https://twitter.com/TrueNorthCentre/status/1495543927646085122?cxt=HHwWhICzlenRnsEpAAAA

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/82afb243f2bc3412ec89c7d941f3238b9141ccf42259869924dd2ee58ee4545e.jpg

      2. God moves in mysterious ways.

        The Reverend Clare Thomas is the Piest of St Thomas Church, Wells, Somerset

        Which had its’ spire blown down in Storm EU nice

    3. When the Church abandoned the congregations, the congregations abandoned the Church.

      Ironically, the very act of ‘modernising’ was the precise opposite of what the public wanted.

        1. I remember the introduction of the New English Bible in 1961 when I was at Blundell’s where we had a daily chapel service and two services on Sundays. Schoolboys are instinctively conservative and so we detested it because it stripped out all the poetry which the King James Version had in such abundance.

          And then they stopped using the Book of Common Prayer and by the time that the freak Welby was AofC the game for the CofE was already over.

          1. I am a determined user of the BCP. I say the BCP prayers even during the Sunday “modern” service.

    4. My sister and my mother both had their funeral services in St Thomas’s Church, Wells. But this was before the Reverend Claire Towns was there.

  15. Late yesterday I mentioned that Dr Paul Alexander was on the run to avoid arrest by Trudeau’s goons. He was interviewed, from the safe house where he is in hiding, on Steve Bannon’s War Room. Here is that interview in a segment that also contains input from Ed Dowd, the financial expert, who has added his knowledge and insights to the debate on the “vaccine”, deaths, Pfizer and Moderna, and the impact on Wall Street. Bannon’s War Room is an excellent production and source of current information.

    War Room – Paul Alexander & Ed Dowd

      2. To me he sounds West Indian. Wikipedia doesn’t state where he was born but apparently he was educated primarily in Canada, Bachelors & PHD, with a Masters from Oxford.

  16. Morning all

    Share

    Water meters leave customers at the mercy of extortionate providers

    SIR – Compulsory metering cannot be justified where the supplier is a private monopoly, and certainly not by a Government whose central plank is competition (“Water meters may be forced on households”, report, February 19).

    Privatised monopolies, where customers are held to one supplier, inevitably become a law unto themselves. This indefensible system is not ameliorated by ombudsmen and regulators, as demonstrated by the fact that, having cursorily evaded all questions put to them, the monopolies are so self-assured in pushing complainants towards these bodies.

    It is not just leaks that are a scandal, nor the dumping of sewage into rivers: it is the wildly inaccurate billing that can occur when meters are part of a mishmash of networks under roads.

    My wife and I are an elderly couple being charged thousands of pounds by our water provider for allegedly using on average an impossible 531 litres per day. We do not water our small garden, do not use a dishwasher, rarely use a modern washing machine, do not have a power shower and pull the lavatory chain infrequently to save water.

    Impervious to rational explanation, our provider plays deaf to common sense and coolly carries on billing and threatening, having made our lives hell since forcing us on to metering.

    The Government should stop this kind of abuse, which absence of competition actively encourages.

    Richard Lloyd-Jones

    Eastbourne, East Sussex

    SIR – The biggest source of wasted water in Britain is leaking flush valves on push-button-operated lavatories, not leaking pipework (report, February 19). As a retired plumber, I know that they all eventually do it and are a fundamentally flawed design. A constant dribble into the pan is the symptom.

    Replacing them with traditional lever-operated lavatories, which cannot leak in this way, would see a dramatic decrease in wasted clean water. As we were forced into having them to avoid an unfair barrier to trade with the European Union, this could be an immediate Brexit benefit.

    Joe Greaves

    Fleckney, Leicestershire

    SIR – The arrogance of officials in wanting to ban householders from having paved drives (report, February 19) is astounding, given how many car parks have been constructed in recent years with absolutely no concern for where the rainfall will run off to.

    Forty years ago, while visiting Dent in Yorkshire, I saw what looked like a green field covered with cars. It was the village car park, made out of criss-cross concrete that let grass grow through the gaps, giving it an overall green appearance. The rain just ran through the gaps into the ground.

    Why have all car parks not been constructed like this? It would have made a huge difference to run-off and the drains would have had much less water to manage.

    Andrew Rixon

    Hertford

    1. The Government should stop this kind of abuse, which absence of competition actively encourages.

      The “Government” are of course complicit in these activities. How to explain this to Mr Lloyd-Jones who still lives in a now non-existent UK?

      1. Reminds me of a hotel where the plunger operating the flap that allowed the water out of the cistern stuck not only allowing a continual flow into the pan, but preventing the cistern from fully filling.

        I fixed the bloody thing myself in 10 minutes then told the manager what i’d done!

        1. I have done the same thing in the past. The worst thing is when they are built into the wall and there’s only a small access window. We once rented a house with that arrangement.

    4. I suggested to an architect that instead of solid paved driveway to the house, blocks, concrete, or tarmac, We could have two parallel lines of slabs, with small gaps between each slab in the line, like two rows of stepping stones. “Not allowed under regulations”.

  17. Trouble for toads

    SIR – Clive Aslet is quite correct about badgers (“Spare the tears, Chris – badgers will never change their stripes”, Features, February 19).

    We moved to our current home in 1978. Come the first rain in February, the toads would start their migration from the woodland in the north of the village and head towards the brickyard pond.

    There would be a sea of toads and, as they had to cross a road, we would go out with buckets to collect as many as we could and move them to the other side to prevent them being squashed by the traffic.

    I still have the sign the AA kindly gave me to warn the traffic. A few weeks later, our garden would be full of young toads on their return journey.

    Gradually, numbers decreased as the badgers colonised the woodland. It takes four years for young toads to mature and the breeding stock was gradually being wiped out. Today, we rarely see any toads.

    Michael Glover

    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    1. I have seen little temporary fences along the side of the road as well, and people go out from time to time with buckets to collect all the toads or frogs that have got stuck against the fence. Works pretty well.
      Badgers are destructive blighters.

      1. Yet you cannot cull them. Here they undermine the road which is then closed as the council cannot do anything until August (breeding season to produce more of the destructive bastards).

        Makes you want to weep.

        1. It is the same with the invasive species red signal crayfish. They eat every living thing in the rivers and they also destroy riverbanks with their tunneling.

          They taste great but you are not allowed to hunt them without a licence. Rarely approved.

          1. There should be a bounty paid on these crayfish. They destroy salmon and trout rivers.

    2. BTL Comment:-

      Robert Spowart JUST NOW
      Message Actions
      Well said Michael Glover. The damage to wildlife caused by the explosion of the badger population is immense and people need to wake up to that fact.

    3. BTL Comment:-

      Robert Spowart JUST NOW
      Message Actions
      Well said Michael Glover. The damage to wildlife caused by the explosion of the badger population is immense and people need to wake up to that fact.

    4. ‘Morning, Epi. It is not only the toad that is targeted by badgers; the huge decline in the hedgehog population has been brought about mostly by badgers. As badger numbers have been uncontrolled, the numbers of these delightful little creatures have been decimated. Naturally enough, Packham and his sanctimonious greenie chums will never acknowledge this fact.

          2. Badger is almost unknown as a meat in England, but badger ham has occasionally been a local delicacy.

            A wartime correspondent to ‘The Western Morning News’ on Saturday 22 February 1941 wrote that; “In Italy they eat the flesh of badgers, and so they do in Germany, boiling it with pears. Incidentally, badger hams were a local delicacy in parts of England less than a century ago and a badger feast – at which a roasted badger eaten with penknives, no forks being allowed – is an annual event at the Cow Inn, Ilchester. The diet of badgers is different from that of foxes; except in spring, when they eat many young rabbits, badgers do not themselves consume much flesh, and there is no reason why they should not be good to eat. They are said to taste much like pork, but travelers say that bear meat provides a closer comparison.”

            Original Receipt in ‘The Country Housewife and Lady’s Director’ by Prof. R Bradley, 1728 (Bradley 1728)

            A Gammon of a Badger roasted.
            From Mr. R. T. of Leicestershire.
            The Badger is one of the cleanest Creatures, in its Food, of any in the World, and one may suppose that the Flesh of this Creature is not unwholesome. It eats like the finest Pork, and is much sweeter than Pork. Then, just when a Badger is killed, cut off the Gammons, and strip them; then lay them in a Brine of Salt and Water, that will bear an Egg, for a Week or ten Days; then boil it for four or five Hours, and then roast it, strewing it with Flour and rasped Bread sifted. Then put it upon a Spit, as you did before with the Westphalia Ham. Serve it hot with a Garnish of Bacon fry’d in Cutlets, and some Lemon in slices.

            http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/badger.htm

          4. Badgers are protected by the 1972 Wildlife Act. They have more rights than people. Another instance of legislation causing problems.

      1. I’m just hoping that those war-crazy nutters in the White House and Westminster don’t try to “help things along” with a false flag bombing or two.

    2. Immanently according to Dopey Joe. Vlad keeps missing his appointments so the CIA is having a busy time provoking him with car bombs. They will probably blow up an old people’s home next.

      Good morning.

  19. Waiting for operations

    SIR – I am a surgeon with a full-time independent practice, part of which involves treating NHS patients in the private sector under the Choose and Book scheme.

    With ever-increasing waits for surgery and no real way to increase capacity in the NHS, I am disappointed that some clinical commissioning groups (the purseholders) have blocked GPs from referring patients via that scheme. It’s no time for playing political games and I’d be interested to know their reasons, as referrals incur no extra cost for the patient or for the NHS.

    Each patient I treat is one less on the NHS list.

    Richard J Sinnerton

    Woking, Surrey

    1. The extraordinary socialist beliefs of many in the NHS hold it back. They act as though healthcare is a precious, limited resource that should only be open to those virtuous people who are not willing to pay directly for it.

      1. And of course when improvements to “Our” NHS are proposed we get the same hysteric knee-jerk reaction and demented screams of “SAVE OUR NHS” and “THEY WANT TO PRIVATISE OUR NHS” and always from the same vested interests of the Unions & bureaucratic REMFs.

        1. Yet people believe these liars. Comically, they keep bashing awawy with the idea that the NHS is better than an insurance system, or better value – and people believe this because they are frightened.

          Politicians don’t help. The Right want it to work and treat the argument as a medical one, the Left treat the NHS as a whipping post for the proles because it’s an incredible fortress of unionisation and through fear, controls so much public opinion.

    2. Around three years ago the government employed a new group of regional NHS
      management, all receiving large salaries. They are the reason why the NHS is on the downward spiral. It’s part of the adgenda to reduce the costs and scale down the NHS. Also another problem has arisen, that is in private hospitals there are no facilities to treat emergencies, if a patient usually elderly has underlying health issues they can’t be operated on in case something goes wrong. There is no backup.

      1. But that situation has only arisen because the private sector has been so ruthlessly frozen out over the years. Nobody is allowed to opt out of the public sector, therefore there’s never been enough financing for private medicine.
        Sensible would be to drop this ridiculous distinction and have only one kind of hospital, which bills either the government or the private insurance companies for each patient that they treat.

        1. That would be a sensible approach but I think that the current NHS disdain for seeking payment from ‘health tourists’ would be hard to change. The claims I’ve seen over the years amount to, ‘It’s not our job to bill patients’. No doubt yet another layer of administrators would appeal to some.

          1. My daughter worked on the reception team of a private hospital, and the team handled patients’ insurance forms!
            Of course the NHS would have to have its own vast department with its very own Diversity officer, no doubt!

        2. The problem goes back decades BB, for many years people who have paid not a penny into the kitty to support the NHS coffers have been quite often deviously accepting treatment for free.
          And many people who have private insurance are paying twice.
          But what you suggest would be effective but there are still people out there and always will be who are stealing health care.
          There was a lady in the same hotel in Singapore as we were 6 years ago we were all on our war to Australia she had to put up three thousand pounds on her bank card because her 3 year old son was taken ill. She had insurance but I suppose had to to claim it back.
          And i’ll bet as we speak in the UK some on is in hospital having treatment right now, who has never paid a penny towards the cost and will have the right to get out of bed get dressed and walk off as soon as they are better.

      2. I can remember little of the details but I listened to a story on the BBC a good few years ago. A Liberal MP, a lady, lost her husband. He was in a private hospital in London. There was a problem and he died because the hospital did not have the resources of an NHS hospital, resources that might’ve saved his life. It was heart-rending listening to her.

        1. I was told by a surgeon at the local Spire Hospital that because I’d had previous heart problems, as in Afib and I really needed and still do surgery on my left knee, they could not carry out the op it as it was too risky. My wife had a hip replacement at the same hospital a few years ago and she came out in great form. Great shame I couldn’t do the same. That’s often why the queues are getting longer. The age factor of the patients doesn’t help either.

    3. Some people just hate the thought of private medicine. The patients and their needs are irrelevant.

  20. Greetings from a cold, wet & windy Derbyshire. Certainly not a day to do outside work.
    A feeble 1½°C, though it feel colder and the wind is in the right direction to blow straight up the valley!

    1. Good Morning from North Somerset , 8C and 29mph gusts, In answer to your observation :-
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0a173e44e4f26fd63278612c9c2a03e03d66e8212572984a2e399f49c5322a3d.png
      As a raw young telephone technician in February 1971 I was drafted into the team responsible for the converting of the mechanisms to digital coinage of Public Telephone Boxes across Somerset. To find a village box that wasn’t also used as a “pissoir” was unusual.

  21. Vladimir Putin agrees to try to secure ceasefire in Ukraine in last-ditch talks with Emmanuel Macron. 21 February 2022.

    Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin have agreed to try to secure a ceasefire in Ukraine after a phone call lasting more than two hours.

    The two countries’ foreign ministers will meet in the coming days and will work on a possible summit at the highest level with Russia, Ukraine and allies to establish a new security order in Europe, Macron’s office said.

    The Elysee Palace said both the Ukrainian and Russian leaders had agreed to work toward a diplomatic solution “in coming days and coming weeks.”

    Vlad is in something of a quandary here. He is trying to deal with a Political Alliance that is not only evil but insane. Put simply these people want war! Macron is outside this so is still amenable, to some extent, to reason.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/02/20/russia-ukraine-invasion-news-latest-putin-war-attack-nato/

    1. I do wish they would get on with it. Though they will probably string it out like Brexit for 6 years and counting.

    1. When did the wishes of the indigenous population become completely irrelevant to the PTB?

      2. From the first caveman who realised he could get out of the hunting yet still get fed if he acted as the mouthpiece for the oldest man in the vilage – the one who told the tribe how to manage fire, floods, wild animals, where to drink from…. you know, the things that were embellished, expanded and became every religious text.

  26. Definition of classical music. Debate where the BBC is trying hard not to bring in race and gender.

    The two they had on argued whether classical music is such because it is notated and not improvised, but I think this is nonsense, since lots of classical music right up to this day is improvised.

    Another argument was that categories are unhelpful and should be dropped, but then this raises the question of what is “music”. Another piece on a rapper DJ who died talks about his music, which to my ears and heart, is horrible, sickening and not music, and less still classical.

    My definition needs to ignore the performer and even the sounds coming out, and concentrate instead on the emotional reactions of the audience, and whether they are benign or malign. Classical music uplifts and raises our spirits to better things. Other music does the opposite.

    That requires a definition of what is uplifting and benign, which is up to argument. Once we have cracked that though, we know what classical music is.

      1. Yet Beeboid R3 seems to fill the air with bames promoting mind-bogglingly dull “classical” music by black composers.

      2. Not necessarily, there are some amazing Japanese composers with some very modern ‘top end of the piano’ work out there.

        It’s a lot more delicate than most.

      4. How did you get on with the Tchaikovski novel? I enjoyed his 2 novels Children of Time and Children of Ruin. I’m just buying a book online and thought I might buy Shards of Earth at the same time.

        2. For me it was Children of Ruin that dragged whereas Shards of

          Earth was the best Space Opera I’ve read in some time,eagerly awaiting book 2

          1. Spot on, the 2nd one did drag a bit and took me a lot longer to read, whereas Children of Time shot by. I’ve bought SoE anyway along with Supernature which I haven’t read for forty odd years.

      5. Well, I know this lady born in 2005 who has already written two concertos, two operas, two symphonic overtures and a fair haul of chamber music. She is now working on another opera and a symphony. She might disagree with you.

    2. Louis Thoroux did a prog on rap in the US last night. The genre and its gutter musicians are little more than a festering sore on society. Uneducated, violent and lyrics of pure filth spouted by those who live off grid and perpetuate gang culture. No cause of death yet of Edwards, the young NI MP or a young Dr from round here, all who have just dropped dead in the last few days.

      1. NI MP’s father died from a congenital heart defect, at around the same age. Reminds one of Ted Ray’s family, he and his sons also died at approximately the same early age.

      2. NI MP’s father died from a congenital heart defect, at around the same age. Reminds one of Ted Ray’s family, he and his sons also died at approximately the same early age.

    3. Music has harmonic structure, based upon precise mathematics & physics.
      Arbitrary sounds do not, & are usually dissonant.
      Notations, as I see it, are only notes – like a sketch to remind one about how the music needs to be.
      In one sense, there is always some improvisation in ‘classical’ music…especially in the timing & pausing, which is very personal.
      The differences between the playing, of Beethoven piano, for example, by Solomon or Barenboim or Claudio Arrau are distinct – yet follow the same notation.

      Finally, around the ‘uplifting’ aspect: experiments were done to observe plants’ growth to different kinds of music. They grew the most & most beautifully to classical music such as Mozart, & also Indian classical music, sitar usually.
      Other so called music such as monotonous heavy rock produced stunted growth.

      Brain scans (of humans!) were also done with different types of music.
      It was clear that Mozart’s music ‘lit up’ the brain most comprehensively, extensively…followed closely by Beethoven, I recall.

      1. Did you read Supernature by Lyall Watson? I seem to remember he had a section on plant growth.

      2. I also heard that Mozart improves the milk yield of cows. What would be interesting is whether sacred Hindu music has the same effect, much of which is about worshipping cows. In Switzerland, the Alps resound with the sound of yodelling, six foot long horns, and cow bells. Nobody can get away from the bells in Switzerland, human or bovine.

        1. When I travelled around Switzerland (in the early seventies), I always seemed to stay in an hotel or guest house near a church, so yes, the bells, the bells! 🙂

    4. Those of us who are into “international music” are quite aware that classical music exists in other cultures too. It strikes me as rather disingenuous to single out the West on that issue and pretend that it is somehow racist etc. Since I lived in North Africa, I like to listen to Malouf, it is the Arabic music of the Court of Andalusia, that state ended in 1492. You could not get more “classical” than that. The same holds for the music of Indonesia, there are many classical music pieces that go back several hundred years.

      Here’s a piece of Malouf. The music of the Andalusian Court. Libya is the country that has, more than any other, preserved it:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBmp0eMPavE

      1. If you like Arabic music then have a listen to “The Astounding Eyes Of Rita” by Anouar Brahem. A Tunisian oud player.
        It’s worth looking out for any of his music on YouTube, mostly from the ECM label.

        Sorry this site will not allow me to post YouTube links.

    5. In the context of the western musical tradition, the classical period dates from the mid-18th century discoveries at Pompeii and Herculaneum to the onset of romanticism in the early 19th century and the Victorian era and corresponds to the neo-classical movement in the visual arts. Yes, I’m pedantic about some things and this is one of them.

  27. Speaking as a military man (!! – the Queen and I had a very short engagement – 2 weeks), I’d say that Vlad runs the risk that his millions (© Prof Branestorm) of troops run the risk of getting stale if he doesn’t start the war soon.

      1. I imagine that Toy Boy and Vlad have lotsa personal proclivities in common….(nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

          1. I did watch the YouTube video that came from, a superb dancing sequence with two separate groups showing off to each other.

    1. It seem a piffling amount to divide between 5 executives considering that more than 200 civil servants are paid more than the PM. But, as you imply, this is not about fairness, this is about the left finding anything to erode the monarchy.

      1. It’s hardly a large operation.
        I’m afraid I get very tired by the PM salary comparison.
        When one takes into account all the perks of the job, the PM is extremely well paid and when you also consider the pension, the future security and the non-jobs and speaking engagements etc that he/she can look forward to, the PM is actually somewhat overpaid for what he actually does.

        1. Actually, I can’t disagree with you. There should be some mechanism by which his pay is suspended due to false pretences, until he starts acting like a Conservative!

  29. Joe Biden agrees to summit with Vladimir Putin if Russian invasion of Ukraine does not proceed

    Joe Biden has offered to meet Vladimir Putin if the feared Russian invasion of Ukraine does not take place.

    Is there a timescale for non invasion

    Will Biden go there, thinking he has to persuade Mr Putin to invade

    Crap reporting from the Tellylaffhttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/02/20/france-russia-hold-talks-last-ditch-effort-secure-ceasefire/

      1. Actually Plum, since the agitprop is coming from the American side. It would be better if Biden and his warmongers didn’t jaw, jaw, but shut up entirety.

          1. Biden: “Who are you?”
            Putin: “Vladamir, President of Russia.”
            Biden: “Why do you need to rush?”
            Putin: “No Russia, the country.”
            Biden: “How much money do they have for my son and I?”
            Putin: “Pardon.”
            Biden: “You know, Easter eggs, nudge, nudge, say no more.”

    2. Does Biden know who Putin is? Addlebrained old fool. Putin will eat him as an hors d’oeuvre before moving on to the heavyweight, Liz Truss. However the danger with her is that she might confuse Moscow, Idaho, with Moscow, Russia and end up talking to the famous Idaho potatoes and not the reincarnation of Genghis Khan.

      2. There is no way. If they do find a photograph then it is photoshopped. Trump has a phobia about germs, he doesn’t even like to shake hands. The idea of him hobnobbing it with a dealer in prostitution is zero. That is why many of us knew, instantly, that the accusations against Trump and his supposed dealings with prostitutes and “golden showers” in Moscow was a a lie.

    1. A friend of mine, now batting on a pristine wicket somewhere above, played for his school at Lords. He was also clean bowled first ball. He told me the tale years later; how disappointed he was and how an old boy at Lords presented him with an MCC tie with a duck on it, explaining that it was a rare object as it’s only given to players who are out for a duck on their first appearance at Lords. It hardly made up for his ‘failure’ but he appreciated the memento.

    2. A friend of mine, now batting on a pristine wicket somewhere above, played for his school at Lords. He was also clean bowled first ball. He told me the tale years later; how disappointed he was and how an old boy at Lords presented him with an MCC tie with a duck on it, explaining that it was a rare object as it’s only given to players who are out for a duck on their first appearance at Lords. It hardly made up for his ‘failure’ but he appreciated the memento.

    1. Could not care less about the “extreme right” in the USA, they are inconsequential unless, of course, you are a liberal trying to make a mountain out of a molehill in order to justify the criminals on the left. Believe me Plum, the extreme right really are inconsequential, in 40 years of living there I never came across a single one.

      3. I strongly suspect much of what they call “The Extreme Right” is made up of ordinary Americans whose political opinions, the bulk of which were once shared across the board, have not changed in the face of the Leftward drift of politics.

        1. I lived in Albany for a year, it’s next door to Berkeley. About 4 doors down from me there was the John Birch Society Office and bookstore. You probably know they are or were extreme right, not sure they exist anymore. Anyway, not once did I see in that entire year a person enter or exit the building. I think that is indicative of the importance of the extreme right in the USA.

          If you lived in Albany you were shamed. It was commonly referred to as Albania because if you were there it meant you were in exile because you couldn’t afford Berkeley and therefore, existed in a state of mortification. I’m glad to say that I then upscaled to Stuart & College, Berkeley, which is just below the magnificent and largest wooden structure in the West, the Claremont hotel. I was in strolling distance of UC Berkeley campus. I had thus arrived to top of the pile. Here is an images of the beautiful Claremont which during the Berkeley hills fire of 1991 became the line of last retreat. Hundreds of firefighters and engines massed around it. There was no way that was going to be allowed to burn down. Inside it is Art Deco, including the furniture & all the fixings. It’s heaven if you like Art Deco.
          https://s.hdnux.com/photos/72/44/00/15351841/3/rawImage.jpg

  36. Morning all. Light breeze and sunny outside.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4qzPbcFiA
    3 years or so ago, I had dealing with the water company on the impossibility of using the amount of water they were charging me for. After a year of arguing in which the lying b*strds claimed they couldn’t be wrong because the meter was accurate blah, blah, blah. I got a nice lump sum back from them of almost £1,000.

    1. My meter is at the ‘company’ Stopcock* mini *manhole in front of the house and read by a *man”

      If they wish to replace it with an electric Smart Meter the electricity charge, (to them from me) will be Water Charge + £100.00 per billing period

      *These are not a FeminstaLGBERTYUJHGFTYHGYH statements

      1. Some time last year, I noticed a ‘man’ replacing the cover on our water meter which is in the pavement. He then stuffed a note through the letterbox. Apparently, we were being ‘upgraded’ to a smart meter, no request from us nor advance warning from them. So far, it is still being operated as a regular meter but will be ‘switched on’ in due course.

        1. What would happen if the cover were removed by a local delinquent and the cavity filled with rain water?

      2. Ahem. It is however, entirely possible that the man might be using software written by a woman to read your meter….

  39. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    It is difficult to imagine a more hazardous task than cutting undersea cables from a mini sub in enemy territory…

    John Beams, officer who risked his life in midget submarines cutting Japanese cables in the Far East – obituary

    Half the men who served in X-Craft in the Second World War perished, including one of Beams’s closest colleagues

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    21 February 2022 • 7:00am

    Sub-Lieutenant John Beams, who has died aged 96, was one of the small cadre of Royal Naval personnel who served in midget submarines, known as X Craft, in the Second World War. Fifty feet long and with four crew, they were hazardous vessels; half the men who served in them perished, a quarter through accidents.

    John Arthur Francis Beams was born in Upton, Cheshire, on September 8 1925. After schooling in Kidderminster, he volunteered to join the Royal Navy and was sent to HMS Collingwood in Gosport for basic training in January 1943.

    He joined the training carrier Argus in Glasgow in June as an able seaman; on one occasion he was lowered down the ship’s side on a rope to rescue a pilot trapped in his aircraft. This taught him the necessity of being able to tie his own bowline upside down and underwater, a skill he claimed he never lost.

    In August 1943, he was sent to HMS King Alfred, the officer training establishment in Brighton. In addition to learning navigation, ship handling and gunnery, he received training in social graces, and enjoyed the Saturday-night dances at The Dome next to Brighton Pavilion.

    However his marginal colour blindness ruled him out of commanding major warships. Consequently, he volunteered for submarine training and was sent to HMS Dolphin at Gosport as a newly commissioned officer.

    He was the sole member of his course selected for midget submarines, and in December 1943 reported to HMS Varbel on Loch Striven to train on the then new X-Craft.

    It was there that he met Susan Hinton, his future wife, a Wren who was part of the boat crew that had picked up (in her words) “a frightened sailor” after the submarine caught fire on his first dive, forcing the crew to abandon ship.

    The X-Craft formed the 14th Submarine Flotilla on board the depot ship Bonaventure and they sailed in February 1945 for the Far East via Panama, arriving in Brisbane that April.

    After VE Day, Bonaventure sailed to Townsville in Queensland, where they were first told of their mission – to cut the submarine communication cables extensively used by the Japanese forces – and the ship moved to Hervey Bay to practise for this hazardous role. Sadly, it was there that one of his closest colleagues, Lt David Carey, died on June 21 1945 during such an exercise.

    In August that year, with Bonaventure based in Labuan, Malaya, Beams then supported the three successful X-Craft operations cutting the cables from Singapore to Saigon and from Hong Kong to Japan, and permanently disabling the heavy cruiser Takao in Singapore harbour.

    Once hostilities ceased, he headed back to Sydney, contracting dengue fever en route. There they demonstrated the X-Craft to the RAN and took press on board, with a striking photo taken of Beams on the casing of XE4 with Sydney Harbour Bridge as a backdrop.

    He was then directed to travel by train to Brisbane (where he first discovered the quality of Australian wine) to embark a trooping liner transport back to the UK. He completed a sea transport management course in Cardiff and worked for a period in Liverpool docks, where he discovered to his chagrin that wharf labourers were an entirely different breed to sailors.

    He was finally demobbed in November 1946, marrying Susan Hinton that year. In March 1950, they emigrated to Australia with their young daughter. Two further children arrived once they had settled there, where John served in the RANVR as part of the Sydney Ports Division.

    In 1980 he remarried, to Stella Sophios, and they lived in Canberra and the Gold Coast, where John Beams remained an active member of submarine associations.

    John Beams, born September 8 1925, died December 31 2021

      1. Good morning all.

        Yes, IMHO the nuclear deterrent on British submarines is now the sum of all the United Kingdom’s defence.
        I cannot explain it adequately, but along with support stuff, radar, etc, those few submarines are now the thin red line and everything else.

        1. It was a MAD, MAD Safe world, that we used to live in, even if the Comminists and Non-Communists fought against each othet
          in wars by proxy,

          Kores
          Vietnametc

  40. Storm Franklin roared through the night, featuring horizontal sleet. Now the air is calm and the sun is shining.

    2. Alphabetically the next one will be a name starting with a G.

      How about Gene?

      Not after Gene Kelly of Singing in The Rain or Gene Hackman of French Connection fame or Gene Tierney the film actress but after the deadly Covid Gene Therapy!

    3. Interesting that the met office missed Franklin developing and predict untold damage. Just managed to name it before it blew through. Eunice was a low of 973mb, Frank 950mb.

      1. Forecasting is so much better than in 1987 (!) and the storms of Wednesday and Friday were predicted well in advance. Yet ‘Franklin’ came out of nowhere, sneaking in the slipstream of Sunday’s unnamed depression. There are still limitations to forecasting the weather. As for the climate…

        A Met Office spokesman said it was ‘unprecedented’ to have three named storms in five days – you know what he’s getting at. Given that naming started as recently as 2011, it’s not much of a claim.

      2. Still whipping the trees around in N Essex. Slight sign of easing but was really blowing hard earlier.

    5. I’ve complained to some friends of ours their name is Franklin,…………….told them to ‘ave a word 🤩🤔

    2. If it don’t look like tea or taste like tea it ain’t tea 🤗

      I remember years ago after visiting a friends house after school his mother who hailed from from Argentina made some Patagonian gaucho tea, the bicycle ride home seemed much easier.

        1. Just getting fed up with the continual nannying and fear/panic mongering, on to of the other Common Purpose inspired Politically Correct bullshite we have to endure.

  42. Good Moaning – a trifle blowy.
    Just finished clearing up after one of MB’s birthday bashes. (Like the Queen, he has several birthdays.)

      2. I commissioned grandson to make a Tiramisu; he had to do one for his GCSE and practised for several weekends running. All I had to supply was the Marsala as the po-faced exam system doesn’t allow booze.
        Thank goodness he has now taken his exam; the family were getting fed up with an Italian themed dinner for several Sundays running.

        1. That’s daft. How do they make French sauces?

          Good use of the grandson. We’ll make a slave driver of you yet.

  43. Good morning. The Canberra protests have been met with radiation weapons by the Australian police, With the evidence of troops being flown in to Ottowa by UN jets last week a real picture of Mr Global’s global coordination of oppression is emerging. These are attacks on ordinary people protesting their God-given rights peacefully. In my opinion the 30 or so evil psychopaths who form the core of the war on us are desperate to frighten the rest of the world into submission, and similar tactics will arrive here as the `Johnson regime renews its nonsense later in the year. A recent extensive 170 page report on the group in pdf form has been suppressed on every website referencing its URL – the first real cyberwar measure I have yet seen. If I can find a copy it will be published in full. Here is the article about it from Dr Mercola and the Cairns News report on microwave attacks.

    https://cairnsnews.org/2022/02/21/canberra-cops-deploy-real-weapons-of-mass-destruction-against-protesters-at-saturday-rally/

    https://www.tarableu.com/the-bad-people/

    1. Attempting to hide information on the web doesn’t work. There are too many places for it to move to.

  44. Bloody bin men haven’t collected the bins for the second week going. It had been put to the side of the drive out of the wind.

    If it had been left out, there’s be rubbish everywhere. It’s barely a 2 metre walk to cross the driveway. You can see it from the blasted road, it’s just not chucked in the road as, if it had been, there’d be rubbish everywhere. Why are they so damned obtuse?

      1. I’m forced to pay their salaries regardless of how well they do their job. I’d call that a tip.

        Another one would be ‘do you damned jobs!’

    2. But it was not placed as ordered, out on the road. It’s more than their jobsworth to deviate. When I came down my path this morning, my green bin (it was full; it won’t be emptied until the next fortnight) was on its side and most of the contents on the path.

      1. It’s called Franklin according to my local rag. Whether Benjemin or D Rooseveldt I’m not sure.

  47. So strange , howling gale in the night and now , but very little rain .. how can that be .. fine drizzle last night , but the gale shrieked , howled and our living room was full of smoke from the chimney.. real sooty smell here this morning .

  49. Just had a call from my Consultant. He apologised and told me i had been mis-informed about the bypass. That op is only if the patient is in danger of losing a limb.

    He said i am still quite a young man (laughs) and have many years of life left. He told me to walk as much as possible and to keep taking the Meds.

    So that’s that. Thank goodness. No more appointments. Hurrah !

      2. There is still a blockage in my thigh but i will just have to live with that. I walked Dolly around the park and for the first time i was mostly pain free. Just a cramp in the calf.

        Thanks for asking.

        1. Cramp? I have had night-time cramp for years – increasingly painful and annoying. I followed sos’s advice (yes, yes, I know) – and drink a small can of tonic water when I go to bed.

          No cramp.

          2. I must try it. The trouble is I cannot tell when I shall get the cramp. Sometimes I go for a couple of weeks cramp free and then I have two or three bad nights on the trot. I usually find I have to walk about for 5 – 10 minutes and then it gets less horrible.

        3. Have you tried doing some simple squats? Those ‘pump’ your leg muscles which are the big ones to move blood about.

          I’m not talking about a thousand or so, just say 3 sets of 6, shallow ones if you’re not used to them.

          1. The site where they entered is heavily bruised and stiff. Squats too painful at the moment but i shall bear it in mind.

  50. Oh dear.
    Went up the “garden” and managed a bit of tidying up before it began raining.
    Came in for a cuppa and, as I sat down with it, saw it had stopped raining.
    Finished cuppa and, it still being bright & sunny, went to get boots & overalls on again.
    Got as far as the “garden” steps and another shower of rain arrived.

    Bright & sunny again now, so do I risk it again?

    2. Just discovered that my big greenhouse has lost a panel, so that is one ruined lean to greenhouse and disaster at the main greenhouse. Also a large fence panel has slid down the hill onto a public walkway that separates my back garden from the woods. Fortunately, the hill is covered in brambles and so presents a formidable barrier to anyone trying to get into my garden. I would rather the fence wasn’t there because the steepness of the hill, forms a sort of haha and thus gives the impression that the woods and my garden are a seamless whole.

        1. Have you managed to do that? I would imagine it could be quite injurious. Especially if you aren’t one of the peasantry.

    3. Rain , whats that ?

      I know all about gales and bashed around plants , but how can you have a gale with out rain..
      Moh and I are rather mystified .

  51. These reports of lots of people dying “suddenly”.

    I have an open mind, for once. I suspect that people have always “died suddenly” for no apparent cause – though the PM often reveals something unknown or unexpected. It is just that such deaths were not reported.

    I remain sceptical…ish.

    1. My father ‘died suddenly’ @ 69.
      In his case, there had been a great deal of delay in doing heart tests – which would most probably have revealed he had Marfans (which they believe I inherited from him).
      Hence without this knowledge he had been prescribed an inappropriate drug…in most people with heart trouble, arteries are constricted – in the case of Marfans arteries are dilated (a lot, sometimes double).

      It is estimated that between a third & a half of Marfans in this country are not aware they have this condition…so this can be a cause of ‘sudden death’.

      A pertinent question, though, would be : what triggers a catastrophic heart event, causing the sudden death?

      1. We recently lost an old friend i am still not sure is he had just had his booster. By out of the blue no pervious issues he had a massive heart attack was taken to A&E, then had a fatal stroke. It sounds like a similar pattern of recent deaths.

        1. MB’s blood clot appeared a fortnight after his first jab.
          We think he’d had covid about a year earlier.
          So which caused the problem?

          1. My elder sister and BiL caught covid but can’t figure out how or where. Fully jabbed and with much elderly caution. Think they almost felt affronted by it. But they are almost over it now.
            I’ve been saying from the outset that I have believed that it’s not actually a vaccine. The situation didn’t seem to feel right somehow. Too many people were dying and the only explanation was straight forward covid. It was never even publicly considered it could have been the jabs causing the problems. Can you imagine the absolute panic and outpouring if it had been, was or actually is the causes of most of the deaths.

      1. Apparently Blair has a heart condition; yes, I know it’s hard to believe.
        Blair has a heart.

    4. Well, that is just it…nothing is proven. All I can say is that two of my daughter’s teachers have died this school year, and I don’t ever remember a teacher dropping dead on the job in either my school career or any one of my four children’s!

    5. Sudden Adult Death Syndrome is a phenomenon well-known to medical science. Our current death-rate is below the five-year average; many people who would have died this year dies last year because of the plague.

    6. Hard data is scarce, but here is some.
      Here are two tables of “Übersterblichkeit” (= excess deaths from all causes) in Germany for the first and second half of 2021.
      Bear in mind that the jab campaign in Germany got underway a bit later than in Britain, so it wasn’t really up and running until the middle of the year. A few people were jabbed before that, mostly medical staff and very vulnerable people, I gather.
      The right hand column gives the % that the death rate from all causes is above or below the five year average.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/71ea8e35e7fadfa615a9cb6c2b3ec6414e5552c0ea2014e07d1b3ae91c278e95.jpg
      and
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5e9b5e1745cc19b858efba08bf4d94d7d1b1d7aa30adbc8a08d1aa4f05dea355.jpg

      Todesfälle = death rate
      Durchschnitt = average
      Übersterblichkeit = excess deaths
      Article here, in German https://reitschuster.de/post/uebersterblichkeit-durch-die-impfung/
      In another article, I saw the death rate plotted month by month, and since the start of the mass jabbing campaign in the middle of 2021, it hasn’t dipped below the five year average once, which is extremely unusual.

    1. Just read his obituary, Belle and your lovely comment. The Christmas book has been a huge favourite in this house for years, and is next up for the grandchildren. Meg and Mog are classics!

    3. Fifty years ago that ‘story within a story’ was nothing unusual, but now it seems incredible. The Telegraph sadly but correctly does not share any information about his gynie granny during WWII, but the web does:
      “A few years later Jan’s grandmother in Warsaw, a leading gynaecologist who had supervised Jan’s birth, was caught harbouring a Jewish medical colleague and a British pilot, whom she was nursing back to health. The
      Jewish doctor was shot on the spot, the pilot sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, and Jan’s grandmother and her daughter who lived with her were sent to Auschw1tz, where they died of typhoid. After the war, the pilot became a senior civil servant – and helped Jan to be given British citizenship.”
      “During the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 an eight-year-old Jan saw things that no child should ever witness.
      He spent time among wounded and dying. When a firebomb landed on the hospital across the road, Wanda covered Jan’s head but could not shield his ears. Since then he has never been able to stand screaming or any loud noises.”

      1. Thank you for supplying more to the story. How very frightening and terrible ..

        Why were good people persecuted so, and who were the rats who revealed the whereabouts of the doctors.

        How could people do such a thing , what base instinct in humans makes them such monsters , the ability to harm and do away with good people .

        Who was the British pilot , is there anything written about him?

        1. See what happened in Ottawa just recently, Belle.
          One is surrounded by perfectly nice and civilised traitors and fascist scum.

        2. Those who hid the Jews were breaking the law; those who betrayed them were obeying it.

          After the past two years, that is precisely why I look askance at the mask wearing, hand sterilising numpties.

          1. The Norwegian resistance were formally criminals, as Norway had settled peace with Germany. So, it was easy to get the police and law-abiding citizens to dob them in.
            It’s not a recent phenomenon where people don’t think for themselves.
            Oh, yes, and the UK started the War by declaring war on Germany. Just for once, the right thing to do.

    1. Watch out for flooding though – A6 closed near Matlock Bath and Crown Square/Dale Road in Matlock is supposedly also closed

          1. It’s a narrow road that goes through Starkholmes from Cromford Bridge to Matlock Green. VERY handy for avoiding Matlock Bath but you need to be aware for oncoming traffic at pinch points and be ready not only to give way and reverse up where necessary, but be ready for the vehicle in front of you to reverse.

            On the way back the Chelsea Tractor behind me failed to do the latter and, whenever I stopped to give way, decided to shove his nose up the van’s arse and got rather upset when, to give room for a couple of preceding vehicles to reverse so they could give room to allow a 7 tonner to pass, I had to reverse towards him.

    1. If I tried that in my son’s bedroom, he would probably just start feeding it bits of cheese.

      1. My mother used to feed hers, after the flat management committee refused to allow her to keep other pets. I got a call at 10 o’clock one evening because they kitchen had flooded. The mouse had chewed through the water feed to the washing machine. I told her to feed her mouse outside, but the squirrel got in and scoffed the lot.

        Anyone know how to tame a squirrel?

      1. Yo bb2

        When I, and a lot of other Nottlers were at Primary School, the on TV that you could watch
        was through Radioredifusion/Radio Rentals shop windows

        1. ha! we had no TV when I was a child – I’ve watched my share through the Radio Rentals shop window!

    3. Good bowler. And he shared in that 128 run last wicket stand – all those years ago.

      I’ll get me cap.

        2. He won it for passing his 11-plus. (The local grammar school insisted on caps as part of the school uniform.)

        1. I have a Christie’s bowler. I used to wear it for stewarding at horse shows (and riding in Best Turned Out classes).

  57. Wind has dropped; sun is out – logging calls*. Back son. Play nicely.

    * I set these up for you….{:¬))

          2. Yes, it’s a Disqus-wide bot programme. Sadly they can only be zapped if they comment. Could be worse – they could be downvoting?

    1. I liked this BTL – “Why can’t there be a shortage of Bog Rolls again, I got cupboards full of them ready to make a fortune on the black market“. Most comments castigate the DT for promoting panic buying!

    2. Cue panic at the pumps (I’ve just got my panic-buying in early, without realising it – needed petrol and filled up as I would normally do).

    3. BTL Comment:-

      Robert Spowart 5 MIN AGO
      Message Actions
      Earwigo, Earwigo, Earwigo!
      Roll up, roll up!
      Begin your Panic Buying today!

  65. MESSAGE FROM GEOFF:

    GEOFF HAS ASKED ME TO SAY THAT HE IS IN THE DARK AS FAR AS INTERNET IS CONCERNED AND WON’T BE ABLE TO POST NOTTL TOMORROW – he may not be able to communicate until Saturday, although he is just about managing to get texts.

      1. Dunno! Will do. If anyone is able to, can you post Geoff’s message at the top of the page please? Thanks.

    2. We will just carry on with this page then Herts? We should get the biggest comments score ever!

      1. ;o) Who is it who kindly has uploaded the page in Geoff’s absence before? If anyone can remember could they please say?

    3. We will just carry on with this page then Herts? We should get the biggest comments score ever!

    4. Thank you for the message. It really is good of Geoff to provide us with these pages – his internet connection has an impact on many people’s lives!

    5. You say that Geoff “is in the dark as far as (the) internet is concerned”, Maggie. With all this “false news” circulating I am driven to conspiracy theories, and at present have two: (a) he has sent a cheque for £20 to the Ottawa truckers, or (b) he has clicked on the links provided by the uptick lipstick brigade and has run off with a voluptuous female to Russia! Lol.

  66. Sunshine , gale , no showers , and I have just exhausted myself cleaning the kitchen floor , really cleaning it .. Before and now is an amazing difference .

    I told Moh I was an Olympic Curling hopeful for the next games . I really had to scrub hard .. muddy paw marks and grime can be hard to lift.

    1. Spray with water mist, then leave for a bit.

      Huff at beast for walking over floor to be cleaned.

      Wipe off, rinsing cloth regularly in no detergent water.

      Then clean floor.

          1. I used to belive there were some decent politicians but I’m hard put to believe that anymore.

      1. I believe he made another deal with them recently, can’t remember what it was because I was not paying much attention. And you probably know about the 31 million from the Chinese to the entire Biden family made about 3 weeks ago.

        1. A trip to the supermarket this morning and into town to watch a film with the Wrinklies. On both occasions the small number of masked persons was noticeable. This is good news: the bad news is that THE BATMAN returns in a couple of weeks.

  69. That’s all the logs barrowed and stacked. The MR gave me a pat oin the back. Just the trimmings to sort out – a much less tiring job. Will do tomorrow.

    I gather that police were called to separate Fishi Rishi and the Spamhead Slammer at the “Cabinet” meeting…..

  71. Well, A6 shut so went over Starkholmes to Matlock Green and did the shopping I needed to do.
    Going there, I noticed a Council van sat just before Cromford guarding the detritus from a large ash that had fallen over. As I drove past on the way back and I noticed some decent sawn logs, so I dropped off my shopping and the pallet I had in the back of the van to make space for them.
    Then a quick run down and I assisted in the clearing up by removing all the sawn logs!
    Now stacked in front of the lean-to waiting to be chopped.

  72. 8 days ago
    Worry not.Russia will not invade Ukraine………….
    Unless,of course,Ukrainian forces enter Donbass.Then all bets are off.

    All bets are off.

      1. I watched the Russian Security Council this afternoon.Unanimous agreement to recognise The Donbass region.
        Putin promised to give his decision tonight.

    2. Afternoon Harry. I’ve just watched Vlad on TV. He’s decided! It’s everything up to the Dneiper!

        1. Probably Sue. What he takes has to be defensible or I would have said the entire Black Sea coast!

        2. Probably Sue. What he takes has to be defensible or I would have said the entire Black Sea coast!

    3. Afternoon Harry. I’ve just watched Vlad on TV. He’s decided! It’s everything up to the Dneiper!

  75. Some nice news today! My niece and her partner are expecting their first child. I’m already a step-grandma and now I shall be a great aunt.

    2. Hopefully not like the Blackett girls’ Great Aunt in a couple of the Swallows & Amazons books?

    3. As I am the afterthought in the family and both my sisters married at the age of 20 and I married at the age of 41 four of my nephews and nieces are older than Caroline who became both an aunt and a great aunt on our wedding day. She is now a great, great aunt and she isn’t even 60 yet!

    4. It’s nice being a great aunt. My niece’s daughter is now 13…& has more in common with me than her mother.
      Favourite subjects: art & music.

        1. Never had a granny. What are they like? My Great-Aunt Hilda stood in for my mother’s mother – she always wanted children, but was never bleesed so. I miss Hilda.

    5. It’s nice being a great aunt. My niece’s daughter is now 13…& has more in common with me than her mother.
      Favourite subjects: art & music.

      1. Grandma Ann to the grand monsters. My niece calls me Ann so guess the wee one will call me Auntie Ann.

        1. Those lying, thieving, murdering bastards. I hope they all die by lethal injection.

          Trump proven right again.

    1. Precautionary dose?
      Oh please get our potions injected as a “precaution” against The Bogeyman!

          1. It may be OK if you are visiting family.

            We don’t go away to stay in an expensive flat/hotel room for ten days!!

    2. He should have made them nation wide. That’d put Sturgeon and Drakeford back in their tin boxes with the lid firmly shut.

  78. HAPPY HOUR – How was it for you NoTTlers?

    Was there life before the internet ?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37512fa7694fbf62a96285bcf01fb8032bca1f2e4818fb7ed3a563a62e42f7e0.jpg
    My Storm Eunice power cut is a taste of life before the internet. And no, I DON’T want to go back there. DOMINIC LAWSON
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10533971/DOMINIC-LAWSON-Storm-Eunice-power-cut-taste-life-internet.html

    Not for me..
    Life was more relaxed and undemanding before the digital world. More jobs, less pressure and good manners . People were almost human. We have become a nation of robots dependent on technology.

    2. I like the internet and email. My family and friends are all over the place and the mail is hopeless- snail mail that is. I love being able to keep in touch in a few minutes and to get replies within a short time. I like being able to listen to music that I don’t own on CD and I also like being able to watch something on I-Player or You Tube that I either missed or is from years ago.
      Have no intention of doing social media at all but I enjoy the rest.

      1. I like it, for personal stuff, too. Well, the first two. I wouldn’t touch sochul meeja with a stephenbargepole.

        I am also thankful that I gave up being a solicitor BEFORE e-mail and the WWW. THANKFUL. The pressure before 1994 was bad enough – now it must be awful.

        1. I can see that, however, it did enable me to send the solicitor handling my late uncle’s estate the relevant documents via email so he could proceed with matters.

        2. Solicitor friends of mine told me that the rot set in with the invention of the photocopier. Draft documents no longer being sent by courier or Royal Mail greatly reduced latitude for a day at Lord’s or Ascot.

          1. Nonsense. It was the typewriter – put all those scribes out of business.

            I’ll get me quill.

          3. No. She married ME. Because of the garden.

            The first time she visited – after we had been in correspondence (how old fashioned that sounds today) for three months – she just took one look at the 1½ acres and said, “This won’t do.” She has been in charge of the garden ever since!!

          4. My sister did something similar. Went to work as a housekeeper for a wealthy singleton and ended up marrying him. She has become the most appalling snob.

            Didn’t take long for her to drop her knickers either.

        3. As someone pointed out to me some while ago when I posted that I “didn’t do soshul media” – that’s what this forum is!

          But not Instagram or Facebook.

      2. As someone pointed out to me some while ago when I posted that I “didn’t do soshul media” – that’s what this forum is!

        But not faceache or telegram.

      3. On those lines: MB received his letter today informing him about last Friday’s appointment.

    3. I wouldn’t miss TV, but I would miss the Internet. For one thing, I’d find it hard to do without my daily dose of Nottl.

    1. “Leoaai Elghareeb, 37, had a bucket full of syringes as he walked down a
      stretch of Fulham Palace Road in Fulham and entered the three
      to contaminate the food products, it is said      .”

    2. He was admitted as a solicitor but never practised.

      I think it is a tad unfair to tar the whole profession just because of one wog.

    2. The “Conservatives” have done little else but speak. They should have gone out to the Truckers and make common cause with them. Jordan Peterson urged them to ‘seize the day’ He said: “Now is your time”. And like the cowards they are, they fritted it away. All they did was just talk, talk, talk.

      1. Did you expect them to produce a six-gun? Words are swords respelled, and this speech is profoundly important even if its timing does not please you. I understand that debate in the House was shut down by the police last week (!!), so the opportunities for this may have been limited hitherto. But parliament was the right place for it and here it is. Easy to call a man a coward – you should, I think, reflect on that.

        1. The point I was making is not one of them has actually addressed the truckers, not a single one. And yes, it is very easy to call people cowards under such circumstances because it is true.

        2. As a PS. Brian Pickford, one of the writers of the Canadian Charter of Rights & Freedoms went to the truckers and gave a speech to them in person in Ottawa. So what exactly have the MPs got to fear? It is one thing to talk in Parliament and quite another thing to appear in front of the truckers and say to them, as Brian Pickford did, that he was with them. So I will most definitely insist that these are politicians are cowards.

  81. Reverting to the earlier thread about “unexplained” deaths – funny how anyone who dies in a car crash, falling off a ladder, hit by a falling tree is always a “Covid death” – while the unexplained ones just die without any cause…

    Just can’t get my head around it…..

    1. Yes. Dying within 28 days of a positive covid test is a covid death.

      Dying within 28 days of having the injectate has nothing to do with anything.

      Oh look. A squirrel.

  82. That’s me for this funny old day. Logs done; sunshine, hardly any breeze – raining now. In theory a nice day tomorrow. The MR is taking part in a protracted “process” to choose a new rector. Four applicants. That’s all we are told! One is coming tomorrow; two on Thursday; the last on Friday.

    I bet they are all woke, Janet and John Bible users and hate the Prayer Book.

    Have a jolly evening staying safe. The new policy announced by BPAPM is all bollox. Unless and until he BANS masks and forces people to mingle – 90% will go on bagging up and crossing the street to avoid an unmasked, normal person.

    Anyway….à demain.

    3. That’s why we haven’t ended the vacancy yet; the applicants we’ve had have all been unsuitable. We use the BCP once a week and have a magnificent choral tradition (which is still being augmented – we had the Sanctus, Agnus Dei and a Latin motet on Sunday, all sung a capella). Anybody who isn’t happy with that is rejected out of hand.

  83. Apols if this has already been posted.
    I’m posting it in two parts as it is rather long.
    Part 1.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/19/david-frost-three-point-plan-save-boris-conservative-party-country/?WT.mc_id=e_DM1546839&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_Edi_New_Sub&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_Edi_New_Sub20220221&utm_campaign=DM1546839

    David Frost: My three-point plan to save Boris, the Conservative Party and the country

    As he joins The Telegraph as a columnist, the ex-Brexit minister outlines what’s wrong with the Tories… and how the PM can win again

    19 February 2022 • 5:00am

    Conservative government plans

    ‘We can set out what we are trying to do and why, and how it will make our country better, stronger and more prosperous’

    All successful governments are alike, but all unsuccessful ones fail in their own particular way. Successful governments explain their objectives, adopt policies that can achieve them, bring on board skilled people to deliver them – and connect with the instincts and wishes of their voters. Unsuccessful governments fail to do some or all of these things. As a result, they lose the confidence of the electorate long before they actually lose office.

    Boris Johnson’s administration risks going down this road.

    Admittedly, it has two huge achievements to its credit: getting us out of the EU, and delivering an exit from the pandemic without the coercive measures we have seen elsewhere. Merry England is one of the freest countries in the world.

    But voters don’t give credit for past glories. They want to know “what now?” And here the prospectus looks thinner. The Government doesn’t seem to be able to decide whether it is a traditional, low-tax Tory administration, or whether its ambition is to turn Britain into a European-style social democracy. Consequently, it isn’t pleasing anyone – and the sense of drift is palpable.

    Whatever happens with partygate, things need to get back on track. If we don’t stop vacillating between inconsistent objectives, and failing to make the case for any of them, we won’t take people with us – and we will deserve to lose.

    This is all the more frustrating because our voters wanted us to set a clear course, to develop a new popular and modern Conservatism for a newly free Britain. They wanted Brexit and they wanted change. Boris Johnson still has great instincts for sensing what people want. The cause is not lost. But barely more than two years remain until a general election – so we must get on with it.

    There are two false trails we could go down.

    The first I call the “Red Wall fallacy”. It is the idea that the Tories’ 2019 voters, especially the new ones, aren’t interested in Conservatism. Instead, it is said, they want to rebuild the country with a post-Brexit culture war on identity politics coupled with high spending and lots of government programmes. I even hear Conservative politicians arguing that free markets are inherently corrosive of solidarity and community, and that “levelling up” requires an expanded role for the state. In short, it is said, if you believe in the nation state of Britain, you must also believe in high public spending and socialist economics.

    We can’t go down this road, for one simple reason: we know free markets are the only way of building prosperity. In my experience, our voters in the Red Wall are perfectly aware of this – indeed, they are keener than most on attracting new investment and supporting business.

    To adopt the Red Wall fallacy is to choose defeat and decline. It is the way of the traditional post-war Labour Party – of steadily declining British industrial power, rooted in a world without global competition, where the Empire gave us illusory strength by hiding domestic economic weakness.

    The second false trail I call the “Davos fallacy”. This rests on the opposite assumption: that if you believe in free markets, you must also be a globalist with no regard for place and history, and that you don’t care what is happening in your country as long as you are doing alright yourself.

    The Davos fallacy can’t be accepted, either. People do care about their country and their communities. They don’t think that the outcomes of free markets are the only things that matter. They know that, in a dangerous world, we can’t be indifferent to where economic activity is and who owns it.

    Adopting the Davos fallacy is to disempower and ultimately dismantle ourselves as a country. It is the way of the globalisers – those who were quite happy to offshore business to China, who favour unlimited migration, who don’t think that national identity and history much matter, and who think economic and political judgments are better made by international institutions than by national democracies. In a classic case of Orwell’s “transferred nationalism”, some make up for the psychological void left by their lack of belief in national identity by a fixation with identity politics – an obsession which, if taken to extremes, risks destroying the cohesion and sense of fairness that democracies need to survive.

    Both false trails contain elements of truth. That is why they are dangerously attractive. But neither on its own can be a modern Conservative approach.

    Boris Johnson still has great instincts for sensing what people want

    Boris Johnson still has great instincts for sensing what people want Credit: CARL RECINE / POOL / AFP

    The centre of gravity of Conservatism is to be found in blending the best of both. That has been the historic genius of the Conservative Party: to bring together the maximum amount of political and economic freedom with a belief in our country, what it stands for, its cohesion, and our collective solidarity. Free markets, low taxes, freedom of speech and ideas, within a strong national democracy with which we all identify – that is the right way forward for our party and our country.

    Some say these ideas are contradictory. They aren’t. They go together. If free markets, with all their churn and turbulence and messiness, are to be supported by everyone, they have to work within a framework – a common national endeavour, with an understanding that “we are all in this together”, where the price of being supported when things go wrong is that you have to work hard when things go right.

    Historically, this concept would have seemed unexceptionable, obvious even. But it has been damaged by our 50 years of EU membership. The EU’s deeply embedded belief in regulation, corporatism and, too often, protectionism meant that we were stuck in a fundamentally social democratic organisation that frustrated our efforts to preserve free markets and which actually weakened our decision-makers’ belief in them.

    Moreover, the EU systematically undermined Britain as a country. We lost far too many powers to the EU. British elections decided fewer and fewer things in practice. As a result, some began to focus their loyalty on the EU, rather than their own country – as we have seen from the furious reaction from extreme Remainers to the events of recent years. We have to live with that unhappy legacy. But we can now change it. After Brexit, we have re-established our democracy. Now we can begin to deliver.

    The situation is urgent. Many things need doing. But it is crucial to have a plan and a direction of travel. So here is my three-point plan to help the Government begin that work – to rebuild our country, to boost economic growth and to create an effective state not a big one.

    Step 1: Unite the kingdom

    Nicola Sturgeon

    We should put an end to “devolve and forget” in Scotland Credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Pool via REUTERS

    First, we must rebuild the UK nation state as a collective endeavour for everyone within it.

    The democratic nation state is the best way human beings have found to create political community and loyalty, to facilitate solidarity, and to make people feel part of something bigger. We should be proud of what we have achieved in this country. We should be respectful of our history, though be ready to debate it. We should be supportive of the institutions that underpin our democracy.

    A country with self-respect cannot have its laws set by others. We must therefore finish the business of re-establishing our sovereignty in Northern Ireland – step by step, if necessary, but with no doubt about the final goal.

    We should put an end to “devolve and forget” in Scotland and Wales. Local decision-making is fine, but it should come within a sensible national framework. The pandemic made clear the nonsense of having four different travel and public health policies.

    We need to control our borders effectively and reduce the inward migration that is still adding a city the size of Manchester to the country every decade. We must also be ready to insist that people who come here to live permanently should be committed to this country and determined to make it a success – to build a more cohesive Britain. This may require some difficult choices.

    Bringing people together means helping them when they face disadvantage – as individuals. It does not mean conceding special privileges to people purely because they are members of a favoured group or have some supposedly “protected characteristic”. Nor does it mean genuflecting to the Marxism of groups like BLM, or the craziness of Stonewall. We believe in people as individuals, with rights, aspirations and duties. Any other path means fragmenting and ultimately undermining our collective life in this country. People are often scared to comment honestly on this. Far too many people feel their lives might be destroyed if some enforcer comes for them because they express themselves in a way that is not in line with the latest fads.

    So we must return to our long-established tradition of protecting free speech. When I was young, I often heard people say, of some doubtful opinion: “Well, it’s a free country.” I don’t hear that so much now. Indeed, during the pandemic, social media companies have prevented far too much perfectly legitimate debate; unfortunately, our Government has not always pushed back on this; and the Scottish Government seems to positively revel in it. Let’s recast the Online Safety Bill; let’s put more protection for free speech into law, and let’s make this a free country again.

    1. First step…..Tear up the Race Relations Act of the mid sixties and give us British back the right to freedom of speech and opinion.
      Without fear or favour…..

        1. Tear it up, burn it in front of the Lefties and have them eat the ashes. Do the same for the equalities act.

        2. Tear it up, burn it in front of the Lefties and have them eat the ashes. Do the same for the equalities act.

    3. Strewth – I just wish that what I’ve been advocating for years (since 1997) could come true.

  84. Part 2.

    Step 2: Make free markets attractive again

    Second, we need to turbo-charge our country’s productive capacity through a return to free markets and competition.

    We need a whole-hearted focus on competitiveness, productivity and growth. One per cent growth is not good enough for Britain. Other priorities are important, but unless we are creating wealth we will not be able to do any of them.

    Our aim must be to get everyone around the world looking at Britain and saying: “Yes, they are on the right path.” Then investment and growth will follow. So we have to make freedom and free markets attractive again. This is not a simple return to Thatcherism, as so many of our critics assert. Thatcherism in the Eighties had to deal with some very specific problems, notably the power of trade unions. Today’s problems are different, but free markets are still the best way of tackling them. We can make a modern case for economic and political freedom that reflects the conditions of today, and make it attractive to people across the spectrum.

    Specifically, that means abandoning the planned tax rises – National Insurance and Corporation Tax. On present plans, taxes will be the highest they have been for 50 years. That is fundamentally un-Conservative.

    Instead, we should make our domestic economy super-competitive. We need to get on with reforming our regulatory frameworks. We should instruct the Competition and Markets Authority to break up inefficient big businesses, and break down cartels like the house-builders. We should not automatically be the friend of big business, but of good customer service, of new business ideas, of innovation.

    Our vision is not that everyone should be an employee of some mega corporation, but that everyone should have the chance to be the master of their own destiny. So we want to help people build businesses and make them successful – which means the intrusive new IR35 rules need to be scrapped, too.

    Let us also open our economy to the world – getting the best products and high-quality food at the best prices – by reducing all our tariffs to zero as fast as we can. That would be a real Brexit dividend, help tackle the cost of living crisis and send a very powerful signal to the rest of the world.

    Step 3: Stop useless state intervention

    Boris Johnson’s Parliament must reform the Civil Service in a serious way

    Third, we don’t need a big state – but we do need an effective one.

    Modern governments try to do too much, and do much of it badly. Our government spends £4 of every £10 the country produces. We have reached a limit.

    We have seen far too much government failure, from the shocking case of poor Arthur Labinjo-Hughes to extraordinary levels of waste and mismanagement at the centre. For too many people, the state does not help solve problems, but creates them. Yet while the Government constantly expands its remit to solve every social problem the Today programme deems to be the state’s responsibility, basic functions that people care about like policing the streets or running the court system are neglected.

    Yet there is no sign of any reduction of ambition. The Government thinks it knows best how to achieve the immensely complex task of net zero by picking unproven and unready technologies that push up energy costs for everyone. It proposes to create an entirely new social care service bolted on to the NHS. And, at the micro level, time and effort are wasted on laws to recognise animal sentience or to ban the advertising of muesli.

    The Government takes on these ambitious tasks with machinery that is fundamentally ramshackle, Victorian and Edwardian in its underlying concepts. The problems this generates have been made worse by an increasingly assertive Civil Service sense of right and wrong, which reflects the views of an establishment elite not necessarily those of the people who elected the Government. That is why, every time a new problem is faced, whether it is vaccines or Brexit negotiations, we have had to bypass the existing bureaucracy and create new teams, with outsiders, to do the job.

    Labour will never understand this. Their solution to everything is more government. The Conservative Party can do something different. We can call a halt. That doesn’t mean a libertarian nightwatchman state. It means stopping taking on new tasks, with the constant growth in spending that entails, and instead do the current ones better. It means putting much more reliance on individuals, families and communities to deal with problems. And it means reforming the Civil Service in a serious way, so that this and future governments can put their trust in a state machine that will help them secure their objectives, rather than get in the way.

    In setting out this three-point plan, I know I am advocating an ambitious programme. We can’t deliver it all in the remaining two years of this Parliament. But what we can do is begin the work and explain it.

    We can set out what we are trying to do and why, and how it will make our country better, stronger and more prosperous – and, eventually, invite the voters to come with us. It would be a truly Conservative prospectus and a truly Conservative approach: to trust the people, to bring everyone together to create a new, free Britain.

    1. Two interesting posts.

      To summarise:
      Get rid of Carrie and her crap (that includes Boris).
      Find a real, hard-nosed old fashioned conservative.
      Put real, hard-nosed old fashioned conservatism into practice.
      Boris has probably blown that approach for ten years, because two years will only get Starmer.

        1. Oddly enough I suspect that to revert to a proper conservatism sacking the woke white ones would be a better start.
          Followed by the peaceful brethren.

          2. Probably fewer than 50%.
            Asian covers a multitude of people and peaceful people are actually a minority, although a violent one.

        2. Sack the managers, not necessarily the people doing the work.

          The power of the state doesn’t come from the people, it comes from the money it has access to. With radical, permanent tax cuts and a much simpler tax code, the state is rendered powerless.

          Thus any and all tax cuts must be put to referendum – or referism, as that’s much simpler.

          That’s followed by recall, so any MP trying to force through tax hikes or their own special interests is sacked.

          Hammer the nail home through direct democracy and the entire establishment is a toothless, powerless impotent group reliant on serving the tax payer rather than themselves.

          With a much smaller voting base and the state machine controlled and MPs actually having to do what their consitutents want, the country recovers.

        3. What about the African ones? Plenty in the office doling out NI numbers…wife of a friend of mine told about a local office (she worked in another office but had visited) where numbers were effectively automatically conferred to anyone with an African-looking name. By guess who?

    2. “It means putting much more reliance on individuals, families and communities to deal with problems. “

      Look what happened to Mrs T when she said the same thing in 1987.

    3. “Our government spends £4 of every £10”

      Hmm… it spends £1 on something we want, and wastes £3 on things we do not.

  85. Russian President Vladimir Putin has told foreign leaders that Moscow is likely to officially recognize the sovereignty of the Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) People’s Republics, two states that de facto broke away from Ukraine in 2014.

    In a statement released on Monday, the Kremlin revealed that Putin had notified French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that he intends to sign a decree recognizing the two separatist Donbass regions.

      1. First word try to capture the most common letters, second word should depend on which letters are retained.

        Usually can get it by about the third attempt.

  87. Blow the BBC

    Former BBC giant Andrew Neil returns to political TV broadcasting… for Channel 4 in a blow to the BBC.
    The new political show has a working title of Sunday Politics with Andrew Neil
    The half-hour weekly programme is due to air in May in a blow to the BBC
    While at the BBC, Neil presented This Week, Daily Politics and Sunday Politics
    He stepped down as chairman and host of prime-time show on GB News
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10533963/Former-BBC-giant-Andrew-Neil-returns-political-TV-broadcasting-Channel-4.html

      1. I for one, sos, am not sure why AN abandoned his new-born GB News; the Babe appears to be doing well …

  88. Blow the BBC

    Former BBC giant Andrew Neil returns to political TV broadcasting… for Channel 4 in a blow to the BBC.
    The new political show has a working title of Sunday Politics with Andrew Neil
    The half-hour weekly programme is due to air in May in a blow to the BBC
    While at the BBC, Neil presented This Week, Daily Politics and Sunday Politics
    He stepped down as chairman and host of prime-time show on GB News
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10533963/Former-BBC-giant-Andrew-Neil-returns-political-TV-broadcasting-Channel-4.html

  90. Yet another little guy killed during the pandemic…5 years old of multiple internal injuries and blunt trauma. Then just chucked into a canal. How many others have already slipped through the cracks and how many others will do so because of this shut down of social and other services.

    1. 5 years old of multiple internal injuries and blunt trauma. Then just chucked into a canal.

      And still people won’t restore the death penalty.

      1. I think the next 70 years in abject penal misery would be better. Followed by an eternity in Hell.

        1. If that actually happened I would agree, but it doesn’t, the bastards will be out in under ten years is my bet.

      2. As I have said, I am never sure about the death penalty but- abuse of children and animals is not acceptable. The deliberate abuse and killing of children should be a capital offense, in my opinion.
        I am still haunted by that image of that little guy Arthur.

        1. I have the same feeling about state sanctioned murder?

          But and it’s a big but; when someone is caught and there is absolutely no doubt that murder was intended or committed, the perpetrator should be shot.
          I once suggested that hijackers for instance should be taken off the plane, if captured alive and on the tarmac shot, rather like in the photograph of an officer shooting a handcuffed prisoner in Vietnam.
          For some reason it didn’t endear me to some of the group I was in conversation with.

          1. It’s a tricky topic. Having been a teacher for all my working life, I have strong feelings about children. Some of them are so vulnerable- not all.
            Re capital punishment…there must be absolutely no doubt whatsoever. Nowadays, there is DNA which should make a big difference. Also, the mental capacity of the person accused.
            It is a very touchy and tricky subject and not all will agree with others.

          2. Excuse my choice of words:
            It’s a buggers muddle – which is why I used ‘hijackers’ as an example.
            If one stands up and says “I have a bomb” there is no doubt, likewise a suicide vest.

            It gets more complicated with family members because as you rightly say ‘mental capacity’ should be taken into account. We then get experts for the defence using it as mitigation when it may not be true.
            In my own mind, I think that the crime passionnel should be used in those circumstances.

          3. No, I do agree re the mental health claims. But in the past, far too many people with mental incapacity have been executed in this country and also the USA.
            Wasn’t there a case over here about a young fellow who was hanged and then years later was found to be innocent? Many years ago- natch. I think he was retarded and I wish I could remember his name.

          5. I just looked it up. Derek Bentley was the one I was thinking about. He was given, I believe a posthumous pardon.
            From what I have read- this lad couldn’t read or recognise any letter in the alphabet. Chances are he had no idea what he was doing but just easily led.
            This is the trouble… easily led kids and awful consequences.
            .

          6. In those circumstances I agree, then again if I can use this thought; that is the ‘dichotomy’ of state sponsored execution.
            I was totaly against the death penalty until plane hijacking and suicide bombing became a political tactic.
            The problem is that even these perpetrators can have been so totally indoctrinated, they become ‘not of sound mind’.

          7. I agree with that. Planned and prepared is one thing. Someone mentally inadequate is another matter.

          11. Didn’t Bentley just say “let him have it”, and there was an argument that he had meant Craig to give up the gun.

          12. “Give it to him.” was the story I heard.
            I think that our current politicians are a disastrous waste of space.

          14. DNA can be a wild goose chase, too.
            If I have a hair on me that came from your head, and you are dead, how did the hair get there? Maybe I travelled in the same shabby minicab as you did, a day or two later… but “infallible” evidence can be seized on by the state wanting a conviction at any cost, and suddenly, one is plant food.

          15. An iconic picture which destroyed a lot of what support there was for the Viet Nam War.
            Later, when the photographer gave the background as to why the prisoner was executed, being caught in the act of murdering the family of an officer in the South Vietnamese Army, he said the act was entirely justified.

          18. You’re probably right, having read Bernard Fall, Robert Mason, Harold G. Moore among others, I assumed those I was with would have been a little better informed.
            As is often said ‘the back story’ can be more informative.

        2. I’m sure. The state should not be killing people, for whatever reason, unless unavoidably in hot blood.
          It’s strange how many killed by the state turn out not to have been guilty, after all, but too late to do anything about it.

          1. That’s all well and good when you keep the killers in prison until they die.
            We don’t and killers are released to kill again.
            And again.
            And again.

            The number of innocent men killed is a tiny tiny fraction of the number of rapists and killers released to kill and rape again.

          4. Easy enough to fix. Like stopping illegal invasion by rubber boat over the channel. Just takes some desire to fix it.

          6. Nope. POjnt is, it’s a matter of will. If the politicians wanted vicious bastards to be locked away, then they would be. But, they don’t. Don’t know why. Perhaps they prefer that the occasional small child is brutally killed? God kows.

          9. Agreed, 100% Paul but the softies here, in Parliament and the EU, are aware that if such measures were introduced, they would be on the receiving end! Hence, no action.

      1. Always has been but people have been able to get away with so much more because of lack of care.

  92. Good evening hugso, I’m sure that the Nottlers would be delighted if you joined in with us.
    New faces and new voices are always welcome.

  93. On a brighter note I was just informed that open mic is starting at 1920hrs due to extra musicians wanting slots, so an extra Guinness to squeeze down.

    1. Please have two extras- one for MH and a half for me. I know you are a selfless and noble man;-)

    1. Black Belt Barrister has a video on when you don’t have to give the police any information.

  95. Discus- if these lippy, stupid tarts are a program of yours then turn them off. It is in singular poor taste to flash in an upvote when people are discussing child abuse and or murder.
    Sort it out you fuckwits because you are not doing yourself any favours at all. Turn the bloody things off NOW!

      1. As you say, they are just lippy stupid tarts. Pathetic really – thank goodness I don’t know any like that.

  97. Well done Vladimir.
    Kiev has had 7 years to implement the Minsk agreements……enough is enough.

    1. Kiev didn’t implement the agreements because Putin immediately broke them and insisted Putin stop first. Cue a pissing contest where everyone loses.

  99. Evening, all. I was thinking today, as I washed my hair, that I was glad I wasn’t on a water meter; I’d paid for the water I was using no matter how much or how little I chose to use. I much prefer that, even if it means I pay a bit more.

    1. We are in one of those area that will have compulsory metering in 1 1/2 years whether we like it or not. The water authority have installed the meters outside and send us comparison charges now, to get people to agree voluntrily before then. If we don’t agree, it will be imposed on us and there is nothing we can do about it.

      2. We’ve had a meter for years and pay £24 per month.
        They’re not like the electricity meters that are controllable.
        We pay for the gas and electricity we use, why not water.

        Edit – It reduced our bill enormously.

        1. I don’t dispute that it might in some cases be cheaper to have a meter – just that it should be a matter of choice, given that we didn’t start off with meters.

    2. I just wonder when someone will make a paint stripe, flag, celebration day that is aimed at celebrating me: Hetero, pale, male and stale. Like a significant proportion of the population. Oh, yes, and the daft bugger whose taxes pay for this carp.

      1. If you think about it, we are in a minority i.e. less than 50% of the population. So we deserve special treatment.

          1. They don’t though – p’raps we should stop paying taxes. One day that will happen anyway as the way we are going, a majority will be not working and receiving benefit. Our diverse guests are well on the way to making this their norm.

    4. And that caused a bit of a Tw@ter pile on.
      Looks like one of my critics called up the reinforcements!

        1. Oh my skies. Inner homophobic tendencies. Their desperation to label in the face of facts is unending. AS The Drinker said, calling someone racist in an argument is now de rigeur and has no impact.

          As for a charity paid – no doubt that ‘charity’ was solely funded by the tax payer.

          1. It is funded by the taxpayer in the form of the tax relief it receives as a “charity”, quite apart from any donations.

  101. The Vladdists on ‘ere will be having a good evening. The dictator (I am now sure that is the right term) of Russia, ‘President’ Putin, has effectively declared war on the now-independent country that was once part of Stalin’s Soviet Union. God help us all.

    2. No, Biden is driving this.
      He’s got problems at home and needs a diversion.
      How would you feel if China or for that matter Putin’s Russia parked a fleet in the Irish Republic, armed with nuclear missiles?

        1. Quite!
          Biden’s Democrats and Geoffrey’s beloved EU are stirring up trouble for the world.
          Bastards, and they are blaming Putin for their own warmongering.

          1. They need a bogeyman to make people lose interest in their own incompetence, and a war to mask their destruction of the economy. Galtieri’s Falklands adventure springs to mind, for example.

          2. ‘Evening, Oberst.

            We seem to have been inundated by stupid little tarts trying to make themselves apparent today. Look at almost anyone’s upticks and we see some by some little twit.

            Why they should waste their time is up to them, they don’t seem to have much in terms of brains, but is there a way just to remove them?

          3. No, they can only be removed if they comment. It’s an automated bot. At least it isn’t downvoting or gobbling up votes?

          4. How silly of someone to bother with a bot. I’m one of the zero heroes anyway – my upvotes were gobbled ages ago and I never get any that show now. Quite nice that there is no tally, in a way.

          5. Must be a bot – they are all the same.
            Don’t go to the profile, there’s likely harmful links. But it’s quite clever, since we can’t stop or zap them, only Disqus Central can do that. All over Disqus, too, found on several other locations that use Disqus.

          1. EUgenics – a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population only possible through unconditional surrender to, and membership of the EU

      3. Kennedy and the Cuba crises, in the UK things were a little tense as I remember until Khrushchev backed down.

        1. My parents were delighted to be sailing to Nigeria at the tensest time. Elder Dempster line.

        2. Khrushchev had a good reason: the US had deployed nukes to Turkey. And he got what he wanted: after Khruschev’s nukes turned back Kennedy quietly removed his. Honour and results satisfied all round.

          Putin has no such justification.

          1. I think he has. Ukraine is a politically unstable and as far as Russia is concerned, dangerous entity.
            In some ways I think both the EU and USA should keep well out of the whole debacle.

          2. The Ukraine fiasco lies at the feet of Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, GCMG, PC

            A Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, GCMG, PC (born 20 March 1956) is a British Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the European Commission in the Barroso Commission from 2009 to 2014.

            Her political career began in 1999 when she was created a Life Peer as Baroness Ashton of Upholland, of St Albans, in the County of Hertfordshire by Tony Blair’s Labour Government. She became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills in 2001 and subsequently in the Ministry of Justice in 2004. She was appointed a Privy Councillor in May 2006.

            Ashton became Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council in Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet in June 2007. She was instrumental in steering the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon through the UK Parliament’s upper chamber. In 2008, she was appointed as the British European Commissioner and became the Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission.

            In December 2009, she became the inaugural High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy that was created by the Treaty of Lisbon. As High Representative, Ashton served as the EU’s foreign policy chief. Despite being criticised by some, particularly at the time of her appointment and in the early stages of her term of office, for her limited previous experience of international diplomacy, Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the European Commission in the Barroso Commission from 2009 to 2014.

            Her political career began in 1999 when she was created a Life Peer as Baroness Ashton of Upholland, of St Albans, in the County of Hertfordshire by Tony Blair’s Labour Government. She became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills in 2001 and subsequently in the Ministry of Justice in 2004. She was appointed a Privy Councillor in May 2006.

            Ashton became Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council in Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet in June 2007. She was instrumental in steering the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon through the UK Parliament’s upper chamber. In 2008, she was appointed as the British European Commissioner and became the Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission.

            In December 2009, she became the inaugural High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy that was created by the Treaty of Lisbon. As High Representative, Ashton served as the EU’s foreign policy chief. Despite being criticised by some, particularly at the time of her appointment and in the early stages of her term of office, for her limited previous experience of international diplomacy …

            She is the root of the current potential Ukrainian disaster and a potential European (World?) War …

          3. limited previous experience of international diplomacy …
            For most of the EU I would say that statement is right on the mark.
            Unfortunately when we look at the USA, international diplomacy has never been their strong position. They have never had a successful diplomatic policy – ever.

          4. The Ukraine fiasco lies at the feet of Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, GCMG, PC

            A Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, GCMG, PC (born 20 March 1956) is a British Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the European Commission in the Barroso Commission from 2009 to 2014.

            Her political career began in 1999 when she was created a Life Peer as Baroness Ashton of Upholland, of St Albans, in the County of Hertfordshire by Tony Blair’s Labour Government. She became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills in 2001 and subsequently in the Ministry of Justice in 2004. She was appointed a Privy Councillor in May 2006.

            Ashton became Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council in Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet in June 2007. She was instrumental in steering the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon through the UK Parliament’s upper chamber. In 2008, she was appointed as the British European Commissioner and became the Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission.

            In December 2009, she became the inaugural High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy that was created by the Treaty of Lisbon. As High Representative, Ashton served as the EU’s foreign policy chief. Despite being criticised by some, particularly at the time of her appointment and in the early stages of her term of office, for her limited previous experience of international diplomacy, Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the European Commission in the Barroso Commission from 2009 to 2014.

            Her political career began in 1999 when she was created a Life Peer as Baroness Ashton of Upholland, of St Albans, in the County of Hertfordshire by Tony Blair’s Labour Government. She became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills in 2001 and subsequently in the Ministry of Justice in 2004. She was appointed a Privy Councillor in May 2006.

            Ashton became Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council in Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet in June 2007. She was instrumental in steering the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon through the UK Parliament’s upper chamber. In 2008, she was appointed as the British European Commissioner and became the Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission.

            In December 2009, she became the inaugural High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy that was created by the Treaty of Lisbon. As High Representative, Ashton served as the EU’s foreign policy chief. Despite being criticised by some, particularly at the time of her appointment and in the early stages of her term of office, for her limited previous experience of international diplomacy …

            She is the root of the current potential Ukrainian disaster and a potential European (World?) War …

          5. Ukraine attack Russia? Ukraine’s forces are a fraction of Russia’s. Ukraine can’t even take back the areas of the Ukraine Russia took back from it. The suggestion that Ukraine is a physical threat to Russia is complete nonsense. A successful Ukraine is an ideological threat to Putin, but that is all.

            The EU and Russia should both keep out. The US is only interested because a Putin invasion is a threat to world peace and the standing of the US. We’re Putin not threatening invasion the US would not be interested.

          7. The Ukraine is the toy of the US and the EU. It upsets Russia. So why do the US and the EU do it?

          8. Two things:
            I didn’t say Ukraine would directly attack Russia, it’s the political ramifications of an unstable country that worries Russia.
            As for American, just look at their internal problems and that should tell you why the Democrats are doing the usual thing when things get politically difficult, find a distraction.

      4. Who’s parking any troops in Ukraine. Have you not seen Putin parking half his army on the Ukraine’s borders.

        I think Biden’s useless, but what the heck has he got to do with causing this? It’s all on Putin’s head.

          1. Ha ha. There is zero chance of nukes flying over Ukraine. Putin doesn’t need to use them on Ukraine and using them on the western powers would be suicide.

          2. As they didn’t in October 1962.

            Have you ever been shit scared. Wait for the bang, you idiot.

        2. If the EU and NATO, driven by aggrandisement and expansionism, were not proposing to do a Cuba on Putin’s borders do you really think he would be doing as he is?
          I equate it to how I would feel if the EU or China started placing armed forces on the Eire NI border and arming them with nuclear weapons. At the same time encouraging and arming the IRA to cause trouble.

      5. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. …

        I remember it well.

        I was an undergrad student in Ireland; for 13 days, we were faced with the prospect of the first & final thermonuclear war …

        Fortunately, JFK had good advice and acted accordingly.

        1. I was a serving airman at the then RAF West Raynham, in North Norfolk and, with every available aircraft fully armed and ready to leave at a moments notice, I knew that we would be a prime target for a nuclear attack but just had to carry on, on the squadron without a return to barracks (a shower and sleep in a bed) I had to stay at the hangar for over 72 hours.

          Frightening times. Now, at 77 rising 78, I don’t give a shit! Do your worst, you stupid idiots.

    3. The interview has been removed but last Wednesday morning the bbc news reader Victoria Derbyshire, was asking questions of Lord Dannatt and he told her that in international law any country that had a current border dispute was by law not allowed to join NATO. Interview or no part of it has been seen or heard of since.
      It puts an entirely different perspective on the matter. As in, he hasn’t attack but is clearly in dispute.
      I tried for at least one hour to find the interview perhaps someone else might have more luck.

      1. Careful now – the myth that the EU has kept the peace will start to crumble.

        It has caused more conflict than can be imagined but for some reason the media don’t report the facts. I assume that’s because that requires research rather than a cheap 1000 words.

      2. The UK recognised Kosovo within 24 hours. Kosovo has never really been a state. Bishopric, I think.

      3. Whilst there Is something in what you say, the situation in each country was complex and arguably different. Yugoslavia was formed from various Balkan states after WW1, and arguably artificially held together until the collapse of the USSR led to its break up into something close to its former situation; the vast majority of UN members recognise the newly independent states. . The disputed enclaves were populated by Ukrainian people until the Russian empire took over and populated them with Russians’ the UN recognises them as belonging to the Ukraine. Similarly, whilst the Crimea was once part of Russia, it was part of the Ottoman Empire before then ant the UN recognises it as part of the Ukraine.

        1. “The disputed enclaves were populated by Ukrainian people until the Russian empire took over and populated them with Russians”

          One could say similar about the influx of Albanians into Kosovo.
          The Ukraine was long known as Little Russia and, I believe, was the area where the Russ, the founders of Russia actually originated.

    5. If Trump was still president it would never happen. The west has become weak and soft so what do you expect with all these leftie actions.

    6. Good evening Geoffrey Old Fruit

      What do you make of Justin Trudeau? The sooner he is is Just Out the better as far as I’m concerned but I wonder if you agree.

    1. Goodnight to both you and Connors, should we all be here in the morning’s light, I wish you both – and all NoTTLers a good good night.

  106. All outlets are reporting that Putin has recognised the 2 disputed enclaves in Ukraine and sent in peacekeeping troops to protect them from the nasty Ukrainians and their plan to get nukes to destroy Russia. The UN has already condemned Russia.

    This is going to run and run.

    Can the mods please set up a separate area for discussion on this as I fear it will otherwise swamp other discussions.

    2. Not so long ago, when Germany recognised the breakaway Republic of Croatia, an act that triggered the series of Yugoslav Civil Wars, there was no great outcry.
      Neither when the EU & NATO assisted in the breaking away of Kosovo from Serbia.

      So what is the difference now?

  108. Evening nightowls.
    I should apologise for my long absence sans explanation from Nottle.
    Jill emailed me today to check if I was OK, and to say that some Notlers were worried about me. I must say I am very touched by your concern.
    I had drifted away because, as I said to Jill, I felt I had run out of things to say. That, plus the ridiculous hours was doing at work meant I had lost my oomph, but I’m pleased to report that things are settling down and I plan to start checking in again and making a nuisance of myself.

    To that end, I saw a car today with what I considered an unfortunate (if it wasn’t deliberate) number plate. Would anyone drive a car with the plate BJ69 LOW?
    I wondered what the driver thought of it, but then to the pure, all things are pure. It probably reflects the worse on the way my own ind works 🙁

      1. Morning Rastue.
        That is nice to hear, thank you.
        Another year older – only a year left in the under sixties club., but a year closer to retiring.

        I hope you are well.

    2. Around 20 years ago a mechanic friend had an opportunity to resuscitate a lapsed car registration which was JOO 80Y.
      So I phoned a Jew with a good sense of humour, but IIRC it was too much hassle to get the old banger through its MoT.

    3. “The answer my friend is blowing in the ind,
      the answer is blowing in the ind…..”

      Morning Stormy

    4. Urgh, I know what you mean about having nothing to say; it’s usually a sign of over-work!
      I’m surprised that number plate got past the censors at the DVLA.

      1. Happy birthday, hope you enjoy your day! This was intended for Griz!
        However, hope you have a great day lacoste!!

  110. A very Happy Birthday to you today, young Grizzly. Lots of love from your favourite Auntie Elsie. Lol.

      1. I thought that damson crumble was your favourite. And throughout the year there was no sign of damsons in the shops. The good news is that my Timperley Early is now beginning to shoot up (no sniggering at the back, there) and there will soon be enough for this year’s first batch of rhubarb crumble. Lol.

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