788 thoughts on “Monday 23 September: The current state of British politics reflects badly on all the parties”

  1. Morning Geoff.

    Just curious, in light of the Thomas Cook affair and the serious dosh our politicians intend splashing about.

    Is debt the be all and end all we’re told it is and what happens when the debt-chickens come home to roost?

          1. Once in administration it no longer has any assets to sell. The administrators will try to see if their are any bits of the business they can sell . I doubt there is much of any real value though. THe plans they probably leased and as far as I know they dont own any hotels

          2. The directors have made sure their yachts and prestige cars are well distant from the company.

          3. Company law sees to that. The company is a separate legal entity for tax purposes etc. The Yachts etc will probably be in the Directors personal ownership so cannot be touched

            The problem we have in my view is the Directors of large companies have become far to greedy and are taking to much money out of the business

          4. A report yesterday stated that Thomas Cook had started to buy up hotels in order to maximise their take from customers.

            EDIT: Sorry, Jeremy, this was meant to be in reply to Bill Jackson.

      2. Morning Stephen.

        I wonder how many other companies are operating on a knife edge and what will happen to them if interest rates go up a notch.

        2. Lots. from memory Eddie Stobart were massaging their figures to make them look better. It seems to be the norm for large companies to overstate their profits by using accountancy tricks

          1. They are in the business of boosting renumeration packages for the directors. Nothing else matters in business or in government. Of course they are going to massage the figures to this end. Sod the rest of us.

          3. First time I voted Labour was in the 2015 General Election. I also voted Labour in 2017, if only because both times they put up the best candidate.

            I haven’t supported a party since the 1980s (when I was an SDP/Alliance activist). The Labour Party seems utterly confused and divided right now – I identified them a few days ago as: Red Flag Workers, Smartphone Youth, Blairite Establishment and the Muslims.

        3. For some years I taught in a lovely small independent school called Allhallows, near Lyme Regis.

          The aggressive chairman of the governors persuaded the other governors to borrow money and said that the masters who thought this most unwise were financially incompetent and knew nothing about business.

          Then Major’s ERM crisis and interest rates of 17%.

          This ended the fine old school’s 450 year history.

          (Ten years before the school closed we – two financially naive teachers at Allhallows – left to set up our own business in France. We avoided getting heavily in debt and 30 years later we are still flourishing and all the French courses we run for Sixth Formers are fully booked.)

          1. That sounds like the Marconi story.

            The tragedy for our young people is that they’ll have to pick up the debt-can the politicians are kicking down the road. Unbeknown to them, I suspect it’ll make today’s climate-change stuff seem like a side show.

        4. A business is a machine for making money. Traditionally this would have been done honestly with hard work and careful decision making, often with the external benefit of being on a rising elevator ( change or trend in favour of your business).
          However we have seen some very bad things happening in businesses, where management have done nasty things to keep their pay coming, such as reallocating the pension funds.

      1. What about the 1,000’s of employees, and ancillary businesses who get trade from Cook’s holidays?
        A lot of people are going to finds themselves in financial trouble over this affair often through no fault of their own..

    4. I recently used TC as a ‘price comparison’ before booking through the hotel and airline, as was my original intent. There was only a few quid difference. I’m heading off for a week in Madeira this afternoon, staying in Eira de Serrado, I wonder how quiet the island will be?

      1. I suspect that many people did the same in their High Street outlets before buying elsewhere, often cheaper.

    5. DEBT IS THE CURSE OF OUR AGE AND POLITICIANS LOVE IT

      There are millions of graduates and students who will be permanently in debt, never paying off their loans and feeling completely resentful towards politicians who seem happy that they should have to pay ten times the BoE bank rate in interest.

      Imagine: you leave university with a debt of £60,000. You get a job paying £25,000 a year. After tax, rent and travel and living expenses unless you pay £3,600 pa net of tax (well over £4,000 before tax) your debt will continue to grow and grow.

      STUDENTS SHOULD PAY OFF THEIR LOANS

      But:

      Student loans should be interest free and money paid to pay them off should be deductible from income tax. Employers should also be given tax advantages to pay off their employees’ student loans. Those working in the NHS and state education should have their loans written off after 8 years to encourage them not to leave their professions.

      1. The last time I used my abacus, I worked out that to pay off the current national debt at the rate of £1/second would take almost 50,000 years (and that ignores the fact it’s still rising).

        This, and a lot more besides, is the other legacy we’re leaving our young people and their children.

        1. Many a true word.

          I sometimes wonder whether many young people have been ill-advised into going to university when an apprenticeship plus college would have been a better option.

          2. Morning Bill.

            I was very lucky in being an apprentice just before the unions became all-powerful. Apart from each day being like a variety show (many of those there were ex-servicemen), the company sent me round the various departments and also to college.

            Thinking back, I don’t think much of the college stuff has been all that relevant to the jobs I’ve had.

    1. But clear and briefly sunny this morning so the equinoctial sun could be seen to rise at Stonehenge this morning (witnessed by my son).

  4. SIR – My politics teacher said leaving the EU was too complicated a decision for ordinary people. I asked whether joining had also been too complicated.

    Jacob Solon
    Exeter

    Well, Jacob. That tells you all you need to know about politics teachers.

  6. Oh Let Joy be unconfined! According to Radio 3 News just now – “Boris has announced £1 billion for research into combatting climate change in the developing world…” [The World Meteorological Office announce that the past 5 years have been the hottest on record….]

    1. I wonder if Boris actually believes in man-made climate change?

      Of course the general public has been conned but it would take a very brave politician to stand up and say that the whole thing is a load of nonsense.

      2. Less brave as the days go by Rastus. It’s now a matter of timing so as not to be left as one of the many who fell for this catastrophic fraud. 300 scientists have just protested to the U.N. that there is no crisis, the seaside is not flooded and the earth is cooling.

          2. Thank you! Looking at the list of UK scientists involved, Caroline notes with some pleasure that 9 out the 13 are geologists. Her own father was a geologist who always claimed that man-made climate change was codswallop.

          4. Geologists have always been the prominent and sometimes vociferous sceptics well versed in the earth sciences and the record of climate over millions of years. They soon recognised the absurdity of thinking that the occasional extra molecule of CO2 in the atmosphere could in any way heat the earth catastrophically. Why can’t the DT take the plunge and headline this wonderful dissent?

      4. The real problem we have and almost no politicians will admit ii, is over population and none of them want to do anything about it in fact most want to encourage even more mass migration to an already over populated Europe

      5. Strangely enough, the PM of Australia said that as climate change had been stated by “the experts” as actually happening, then no more taxpayers’ money would be spent on it.

        Good idea!

    2. “Boris has announced £1 billion for research…

      Pissing it up the wall rather than doing something practical e.g. educating the Third World to restrict their birth rate and supplying the means to achieve that. A billion pounds would buy an awful lot of education and condoms. If condoms don’t fit the bill then train a few thousand vasectomy only surgical teams and let them loose. No birth control = no aid of any kind and nature takes its course.
      Flooding out of Africa into Europe because their lifestyle of sexual incontinence cannot be supported in their home continent is unsustainable. The UN and EU will not do anything radical because their joint agenda is to encourage mass immigration and thereby destroy existing settled cultures.

      Not that a billion pounds would do some good at home: repairing a few million potholes in our road system would be a good start.

  8. Re the Thomas Cook affair.

    Profits massaging and accountancy tricks galore it would appear.
    Terry Smith, a staunch Brexiteer, called this fiasco out years ago in a book:

    Accounting for Growth: Stripping the Camouflage from Company Accounts.

    He lost his job as a research analyst, (I think Phillips and Drew) for pointing these things out as they were losing clients on the back of it.

    External auditors were regularly being threatened with losing the account if they questioned the practices.

          1. THat has nothing to do with the ownership of the Company. On Companies house the Ultimate parent company is British

        2. The company’s continued
          success was assured in 1992 when it was purchased from Midland Bank by
          Westdeutsche Landesbank (WestLB), Germany’s third largest bank, and LTU Group, Germany’s leading charter airline. Thomas Cook became a wholly-owned subsidiary of WestLB in 1995.

          1. THats way out of date., It was at one time owned by Thomas Cook AG but was when it folded British owned with the ultimate parent company being Thomas Cook Group PLC

  9. Morning all

    SIR – My mother (the late Baroness Trumpington) would be appalled at the state of British politics. Without being able to take a position on the Brexit debate, she always preached that you should be true to yourself. That is why I applaud Amber Rudd.

    It is amazing that the Labour Party has not benefited more from the Conservatives’ chaos. Labour, it seems, is incapable of making decisions, especially when it comes to leaders. They allowed Michael Foot to survive and now they support Jeremy Corbyn. Contrast that with the Conservative Party, and what happened to Michael Howard and Iain Duncan Smith.

    My mother did not have many favourable words to say about the Liberal Democrats, but at least they stand out as being true to their beliefs.

    Adam Barker
    Hartfield, East Sussex

    1. SIR – Sir Bill Cash (Letters, September 19) lists a number of points on which the current parliamentary stance frustrates democracy.

      More than 80 per cent of MPs were elected on manifestos promising to implement the result of the referendum. That a great many, far from respecting that promise, have actively conspired to defeat it means they were elected on false pretences. No amount of equivocation or pretence can obscure that fact.

      Is there no way in which this most fundamental contempt for the democratic electoral system can be punished?

      Dugald Barr
      London W8

      1. Dugald, a general election appears to be the only manner with which punishment can be administered. Sadly, the Labour Party doesn’t want an election at the moment for fear of receiving a well deserved beating. Whilst an election would likely have an impact on individuals the parties that breed the contempt for democracy would remain and the undemocratic cycle would restart. The country needs and deserves a new party that will break the cycle of corruption and give the electorate some hope.

        1. Morning Korky. The only thing that would save us would be a Brexit Party Government with Nigel as Prime Minister!

    2. A remarkably stupid letter.

      Rudd is a turncoat. The Illiberal Undemocrats have as many beliefs as they have members. They constantly shift their position.

      Good old Lady Trumpington would have given her lad a slap for being so silly.

      1. At the late Lady Trumpington’s Ball,
        She told me her son knew feck all.
        She’d nae time for him since,
        He was thick as auld mince
        She said he wiz jest aff the wall.

    3. The Conservatives recognised they had a problem and dealt with it. The Labour party have a big problem but are failing to deal with it choosing instead to try to sit on the fence although swaying from one side to the other on it and with mixed messages coming out from the Leadership

  10. Morning again

    SIR – Sophy Jubb (Letters, September 20) wonders how Jeremy Corbyn intends to provide schools places for children from private schools after those establishments are abolished.

    In the third part of Labour’s plan it states that: “Endowments, investments and properties held by private schools to be redistributed democratically and fairly across the country’s educational institutions.” This means that those schools will be taken over as they exist and that the pupils will become state school pupils so no need to squash them into the present state school structure.

    If anyone doubted the Marxist ambitions of the Labour Party here is the proof.

    Jennie Naylor
    East Preston, West Sussex

    1. This means that those schools will be taken over as they exist and that the pupils will become state school pupils so no need to squash them into the present state school structure.

      Minus all the foreign pupils and those with rich parents who will be rapidly despatched to European or American schools!

      1. Whose children will benefit from the facilities at the likes of Eton and Harrow etc? If not the rich and privileged then perhaps the privileged political left and their fellow traveller elite, as a reward for their efforts?

        2. Eton may still have large estates abroad, bought when the Labour party last proposed this idiocy in the 70s. They can take the buildings with them, though there’ll be a large hole in the ground when they move College Chapel. And Henry VI will not like it. Not to mention spoiling the view from Windsor castle. Though Slough does that on its own I suppose.

          1. I wondered if it really looked like becoming a reality, whether the public schools would relocate abroad. I’m not sure there’d be enough purchasers for all those stately homes that would all come on the market at once.

    2. Simple there will be an excetion for MP’s as clearly for security reasons the children of MP’ will not be able to safely mix with the children of the plebs

    1. Peter Schweizer broke that story in an interview on Fox which I linked ages ago.

      Uncle George was also discussed as he allegedly scooped massive insider deals with Obama.

      Remember ?

  12. So as expect Thomas Cook have gone under. When rumours emerged that the CAA were flying out planes that told us the game was up.

    Grim news for their staff and disappointment for their customers but clearly the business was not viable and it would have been pointless for the government to throw money at it which would have been very difficult to do under EU legislation in any case

    1. I had a way of saving some money and killing two birds with one stone, send all the illegal immigrants out on the outbound flights.

      1. THe company structures can be compolex but as far as I know Thoms Cook are British. TUI is Germany though

  13. Morning thinkers

    On a sour note , why is the media getting into a froth about holiday makers , and the collapse of a holiday company?

    Why on earth should the government intervene, and why on earth was the twerp John McDonnell licky lipping his condemnation of none government involvement ..

    Labour didn’t utter a squeak about Steel or any other company that has gone down the pan.

    These people should be so lucky any way , credit cards have a lot to answer for!

    How much is it going to cost the tax payer re the government chartering 40 Jumbo jets to repatriate people .. Leave them all alone to enjoy their boozy sun soaked experience . It isn’t the tax payers problem.

    1. Good morning Maggiebelle

      Our son, Henry, and his girlfriend, Jessica, flew back to England from Dalaman on Wednesday with Thomas Cook.

      We are returning from Dalaman to Stansted at the beginning of October but, in order to economise, we decided to travel with Pegasus Airlines via Istanbul.

        1. We’ve used Pegasus a few times without any problems. Very glad we didn’t book with Thomas Cook.

          1. Ok.
            It was just that I thought I’d read a few years ago that they’d b banned from flying into Europe because of a poor safety record.
            But I also thought it was an African-based airline rather than Turkish, so maybe I’m thinking of another airline altogether.

    2. Is not eating cereals and vegetables also ecocide? Surely he does not want to deprive birds and animals of their food supply

      1. We have vegans etc falsely claiming that eating only veritable is better for the environment. That claim does not stand up to examination though nor does their claim that it is healthier

        What we should be doing is eating a good balanced diet which includes meat and not overeating. Avoiding to much over processed food it also sensible

      3. Mentally ill, not retarded. These people are in full control of their faculties but their ideas are crazy.

    4. As plants absorb CO2 isn’t he really killing everyone with his demands for us to only eat vegetables?

    6. Eating meat is surely a crime against animals? Cannibalism is a crime against humanity, but if half the world’s population ate the other half, climate change and hunger would be solved.

      1. Don’t suggest that.
        It’s more than likely that we wouldn’t be the ones doing the eating. We’d be the ones on the menu.

  15. An ignoramus writes.

    Surely T Cook had paid for the hotels where the “stranded” people are staying?

    Surely T Cook had paid for the flights to return the “stranded” people?

    Why is HMG getting involved to pay the airlines a second time?

    I’ll get me deckchair.

    1. Was that Ignoramus me, Bill?

      Good morning to you,, dull day no rain, dead wood pigeon on kitchen doorstep, dogs wondered how it got there .. local cat perhaps, or may have collided with window .

      Fuss and feathers!

      1. You are no ignoramus, Maggie. I know nothing of business finance – but am puzzled. Many NoTTLers know far more than I do.

          4. We took the children on a package holiday to Malta when they were little. We thought it would cure them of the notion. They loved it. We did not.

          5. We did once – to Bulgaria and Romania in 1999. It was the cheapest and easiest way to get there so we could observe the 1999 Solar Eclipse. The eclipse was wonderful; Bulgaria and Romania- less so.

    2. I’d imagine because the assets of the company are immediately siezed and thus the planes are grounded, lest the asset disappear and not be returned to the creditors.

      What annoys is the shareholders lose their money and they’re the ones who own the company. The management walk away unscathed and those who really pay the price are the thousands of workers suddenly unemployed.

      1. Company Law. A Company is a totally separate legal entity. The Directors will have take as much out of the company and into there name as they can, Maybe some big fat bonus were paid recently. May be they sold a lot of the shares recently

      2. The Thomas Cook planes have been grounded and the grounding of the new Boeing aircraft has added to the problem.

      3. About half way through one of my building contracts at Hampton Court Palace (Great Kitchen Chimneys) the builder Dove Brothers went into liquidation. The three men on site were dismissed.

        A week or so later I received a call from the loss adjuster enquiring whether I would be prepared to allow their return to complete the half finished project. The loss adjuster reasoned that it was better to complete the Works and be paid as opposed to abandonment. I agreed and the project was completed successfully.

    3. They probably do not pay for the flights until about 6 weeks after them the same with the Hotels

      HMG will recover most of it from ATOL and ABTA and the insurance companies

      1. And everyone else’s premiums will go up. Happily I have never travelled with a package holiday company, but it’s the CEOs that coin it in while the customers get stuffed. I’m glad I don’t know any CEOs.

  16. I see some migrants are complaining that potential employers and landlords are asking to see their settled status before they will consider them for a job or for renting a property. IT sounds a sensible thing to check their status

    1. Would a valid NI number, which can be checked on a Government website in about twenty seconds, be too hard too arrange?

      1. Given the way NI numbers have been fraudulently issued in recent decades, I would not hold my breath.

        1. You’re not suggesting our Government departments are incapable of administrating without being riddled with fraud? Whose fault is that?

        1. They can have NI numbers too. That number will say all that is needed about their current status.

          1. No it just proves they have an NI number it does not prove they have the right to remain after Brexit

          2. That’s easy to sort out. All non-British EU nationals have NI numbers beginning with ‘EX’. This is changed to ‘ER’ when they have the right to remain. Or their numbers are simply tagged with their current status on the database, which is easily searched these days.

            Any changes of status can be notified in writing in the same way tax code changes are notified.

      3. Morning JM,
        whats one of them then ?
        years ago two of us discovered that
        our individual INs were being used by others also.

      4. What is needed is a simple Identity Card containing little more info than a credit card does. The card would also have you photo but to combat fraud the photo ill also be held on the database so if tampered with it becomes obvious

        It can also be used to gain accesses to NHS treatment. It would stop most visitor fraud and health tourism

        1. Bill – a proper comprehensive ID card is long overdue for people over 16 years of age. It would save the UK a fortune.

          1. Just as long as they are not forged. Being a government document, they will be believed, and so cause even more problems.

          2. And as long as the government doesn’t allow mission creep – ever intrusive details and needing one for all sorts of things which give the establishment even more power over us. Wrong thoughts? Easy – make that person a non-person, unable to access anything.

          3. I was initially against ID cards, years ago. But the way our country has changed (I can’t say developed, because that implies something positive) I now think that ID cards are imperative. But the people who come from countries where corruption and cheating are the norm, will no doubt find a way around that. What the heck have the PTB let in!!?? B*stards.

          4. I’d rather they got rid of the non-home-grown corrupt (not to mention all the illegals). Clamp down on corruption without fear or favour and then, just maybe, we wouldn’t need all-intrusive ID. I still have my wartime ID!

      5. A former Home Secretary stated on a TV programme that there were several million more NI numbers in circulation than there were people.

        1. The Sunday Times claimed that there were 10 million more NI numbers in existence than the population of the UK.

          2. I acquired my NI number back in 1976 and it was still current after I returned to Britain 1997, having been out of the country for 20 years. So I can quite believe this. Maybe what’s required is an expiry date (a la a passport) to enforce renewal.

          3. NI numbers are issued to babies when their mother claims child benefit. The cards are issued when the child turns 16. The number has whole of life validity. Of course those issued to immigrants are another matter.

        2. Of course – someone I knew who worked within NI said that our local processing point was full of blacks – and if you had a black-sounding name, you were in. Her statement.

        3. Perhaps a useful exercise is, when taking the census in 2021, to register NI numbers, which can then be ticked off the database. Those that are not registered are then notified at the last known address that they have to be registered by a set date, or they will be taken off the live system and become invalid.

          Those who have invalid NI numbers will have to register to get issued with a fresh one (or their old one back), using proof of identity and status.

    2. One would assume that such checks are not only expected but mandatory. Heck, I can’t open a savings account without an CIA interview process.

    4. FFS. If they want to come here they should understand that that’s what you get in a grown up country . Employers check ID and status for all potential employees.

    6. Since we moved back here in 97, I’ve had to produce my passport for every job I’ve I’ve been accepted for. What’s the big deal?

  18. Estate Agency chains must be the next in line for extinction. I am surprised they have lasted as long as they have. I don’t think the online agencies have got the business model quite right yet. They probably need a few Regional High Street agencies to give them better visibility and some like the reassurance of seeing a bricks and mortar store

    1. A few years back we had the house on the market and I was very tempted to use an on line agency, but didn’t that time. The house didn’t sell and we took it off the market, but another time I would use one. I did use an on-line solicitor, which worked very efficiently.

      1. There seems to be little difference in time to sell between Online agencies and High Street ones. The housing market seems fickle and some house sell quickly and some stick and it seems difficult to understand why

        1. My personal observation of ‘for sale’ signs is that the on-line ones seem to come down much quicker – I’ve always assumed that they had sold, though haven’t actually checked that was the case. My impression is that on-line agents suggest a more realistic valuation, which might account for a quicker sale (if my observations are correct). There often seems to be a tendency from standard estate agents to overprice (in my very limited experience).

      1. Part of the problem is it is very expensive to move and full of pitfalls and sales frequently fall through. If the new breed of companies that act as dealer take off that might change things. They actually buy you house so you can move quite easily. It comes at a price though at present but with economies of scall that price might come down

        1. People are not moving, preferring to spend their money on extensions instead. For instance there are 4 families extending their houses within 30 yards of ours. Skips, lorries and vans all over the road. It’s too costly to move. Plus the fact that once in this area not many move away voluntarily. (Coz we live here natch!) 😀😉😀

  19. Morning Each,
    May one ask, who’s tax payers are footing the bill for the Cook issue
    regarding return transport ?

    By the by seemingly my up tick total tally is diminishing at a rapid rate daily, am I seen as being that unpopular.

        1. Nothing to do with Germany. The flights are being organised by the CAA. Most passengers et will be covered by one of the protection schemes or an insurance policy

      2. BBC reporting that it will be the taxpayer who will pay for the return of the stranded people. I presumed they meant the UK taxpayer. I just hope the money is a loan and the money will have to be paid back.

    3. From the CAA web site: “ATOL is run by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). It is able to provide assistance by requiring ATOL holders to pay a fee of £2.50 for each traveller, which is held in a fund managed by the Air Travel Trust. This fund is used to refund, repatriate or reimburse travellers for the cost of repaying for the affected parts of their trip”.

        1. Good morning ogga1. I assume that the cost of booking via an ATOL holder includes a small amount (£2.50?) that is used to pay into the Air Travel Trust fund. Of course, the consumer always pays!

      1. Morning HL.
        Yet another assumed judgement, I did think better of you.
        No, but being observant the numbers did stand out in the sudden depreciation.
        All I do is post facts to be judged by others either to agree / disagree, and get behind UKIP
        as the only party of integrity & political decency.

      2. I ‘lost’ about 800 several years back, I’ve no idea even now whether or not my eye was drawn to the difference immediately! I put it down to the deletion of some ‘sock puppet’ accounts that had been suspiciously upvoting me!

  20. Breaking News

    Labour Party go into Administration. They are blaming Brexit

    (Ok in case anyone takes it seriously its a joke well at least at present)

  21. I wonder what percentage of Thos Cook passengers are hen party / stag do’s , Weddings overseas, and other strange wanderings ..

    Well, the climate change wallahs will be so happy re the reduction in Carbon footprint .

    I love the word Schadenfreude.

    1. Surprised they were still doing that much business at this time of year. IT is the very tail end of the summer season

  23. Reforming Politics

    I think most people regardless of party or view on Brexit would admit that our current political system is no longer fit for purpose and is not democratic

    The question is how do we get it changed when itr is the politicians that control the system

    What would you want changed ?

          1. The Swiss are different and essentially are not something for nothing socialists.

            I think direct democracy in Britain would be one massive tax and spend fest just like California.

            It would be much more sensible to restore the hereditary peerage and abolish the Commons.

          2. As an anarchist and republican, when little, I failed to see the value of the House of Lords composed as it was of Cof E bishops, hereditary peers and landed gentry.
            Now, being perhaps a little wiser I see the value in having a moral core and a large bloc of those whose past, present and future wealth is in the very soil of the country. What is good for them is good for the country.
            Instead though, we have a HoL composed of political timeservers, jobsworths whose elevation was a reward for selling the country down the river.

    2. Referism, recall and direct democracy. Alongside that immediate control over pay and expenses – up to and including complete revocation of all – past and present. Should they stsart to disobey, they’re gone.

        1. That depends upon the law being broken. The Ben act is designed solely to attain a political goal and is deliberately mendacious.

          Harm to Man’s traffic offences and Onasanya should of course mean immediate dismissal and their vote going to the government of the day.

  24. THE SENSITIVITY OF SENIORS.

    This letter was sent to the Lions Bay School Principal’s office in West Geelong after the school had sponsored a luncheon for seniors. An elderly lady received a new radio at the lunch as a door raffle prize and was writing to say thank you.

    Dear Lions Bay School,

    God bless you for the beautiful radio I won at your recent Senior Citizens luncheon. I am 87 years old and live at the West Geelong Home for the Aged. All of my family has passed away so I am all alone. I want to thank you for the kindness you have shown to a forgotten old lady.

    My roommate is 95 and has always had her own radio; but she would never let me listen to it. She said it belonged to her long dead husband, and understandably, wanted to keep it safe.

    The other day her radio fell off the nightstand and broke into a dozen pieces. It was awful and she was in tears. She asked if she could listen to mine, and I was overjoyed that I could tell her to fück off.

    Thank you for that wonderful opportunity.

    God bless you all.

    Sincerely,

  25. Thomas Cook executives have been paid more than £20 million over the last five years, despite long term fears that the operator faced collapse.
    Peter Fankhauser, the Swiss chief executive, has taken home £8.3 million since he took the helm in 2014, including a £2.9m bonus in 2015.

    Given the dire straight the compnay was in for several years I dont see how these huge bonus could have been justified

    1. Peter Fankhauser, the Swiss chief executive

      This is a common occurrence. The senior execs just load the company up with debt, take as much as they can out of the business, and everyone else has to carry the can she’s the company folds. Dixon’s was the same. Marconi went under after over 100 years of existence due to an abysmal chief executive who ruined the company.
      Peter Fankhauser is Swiss. Why would he have any sense of loss of a British company that had been founded 150 years ago?

      1. It is a major problem in the UK with the bosses of these large companies taking excessive amounts of cash out of the business which leaves the business highly vulnerable

    2. I don’t understand why bonuses are paid out in general. I thought their wages was supposed to be the remuneration for doing their job. If a company has money to pay out as bonuses I think it should be divided equally between all employees.

  28. Reports of sexual assaults on London Underground soar. Mon 23 Sep 2019.

    Sexual assaults reported on the tube have soared by 42% in the last four years, new figures show.

    Attacks recorded on the London Underground leapt from 844 in 2015-16 to 1,206 in 2018-19, according to analysis by the PA news agency.

    The British Transport Police (BTP) said the force expected a rise following a drive to encourage victims to report unwanted sexual behaviour.

    I know what you are all thinking.

    And you are right!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/23/reports-sexual-assaults-london-underground-soar

    1. Time was when the underground was pretty safe with just the odd bit of pick pocketing in central London and the occasional drunk

      1. Oh I don’t know – in the tube between Seven Sisters and Finsbury Park (quite a long journey) I had a man relieving himself sexually in front of me. We were the only people in the carriage – around 1976.

        All I could do was get off at the next stop.; The eyes show it all – you don’t even need to look further…

    1. Surely the only option is we refuse to rule as this would be interfereing with the political system, and that is not our role.

        1. I’ve been playing it all day (well while I’ve been in). I had a similar obsession with Judas Priest a little while ago…

    1. “Billions spent to undermine the nation state, this is where the real international collusion is” N Farage.

    2. If they represent the 3% who disagree then that must mean there are another 1,033,333 scientists somewhere that agree with climate change. Are there enough universities around the world to support this many scientists?

  32. Some musing on Depression and NoTTL (and other similar blogs)
    We are busy little bees scouring the internet and other news sources collating information about the woes of our country and sharing them I suspect this tends to make us much better informed than the average Normie
    Yet we are virtually powerless to influence or change what many of us see as an impending major train wreck albeit we at least know we are not alone with our thoughts
    Knowledge is Pain
    Ignorance is Bliss
    All in all I think I prefer the Pain

    3. I always think the most stressful situations are those where one has no control to change it for the better, and politics and the running of the country is such a situation. I am fortunate that where I live I am insulated from the worst aspects of what is happening in this country. When I go for a walk (most days if I can manage it) I am reminded that there are still plenty of good things to enjoy as I watch the wildlife and listen to the birds (always like to see the barn owl) and the beauty of the sunset. I sometimes think it would be best to just forget about the politics.

    1. Hooray for mediocrity and dumbing down!
      }:-((
      Why don’t they ask how the state schools can be brought up to the same performance level as Public schools? There was a report recently where a school had indeed done that – I believe it was called “Discipline”. So, why aren’t the lessons of that school being applied everywhere else?

          4. Yes, I know who she is, but the first thing that comes to mind every time I see her is Miss Piggy & really thick with it.

          6. Long ago I worked Fridays only in a practice in Poole. The receptionist there was the image of Miss P & pathologically thick with it.

            Nice girl though.

    3. … and coal was organic matter that fell to the seabed. It’s now typically buried deep; more support for this theory!

    1. Ghastly little person. Really sometimes it might have been kinder to have had them put down at birth…

    2. Dunno about other NoTTLers, but my children (at the muppet’s age) would have refused point blank to follow any agenda that I was pressing….

  37. A tiny extract,an excellent read

    Diversity is the new black, and there is no racial pun intended there.

    As time goes on, the ‘evidence’ in favour of social diversity becomes

    more and more spurious, whereas the social consequences of it become

    increasingly obvious. The creative expression of minorities in

    everything from art and music to cuisine is accepted by most people for

    what it is: a contribution to our culture which, along with cheap air

    travel, has made most of us more cosmopolitan. But the consistent

    appeasement, encouragement and at times illegal protection of minorities

    has not created positive diversity at all; rather, it has created

    splits that cannot heal.

    https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2019/09/22/killing-ideological-establishments-with-ground-up-reform/

  38. The EU has failed again to strike a free trade deal
    Ross Clark – Coffee House – 23 September 2019 – 8:46 AM

    So once again we learn just how committed the EU is to free trade. A trade deal with the South American bloc Mercosur – comprising Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay – has been under negotiation for 20 years. The icing appeared to be on the cake, the ribbon about to be cut – but at the end of last week it was skewered by Austria’s Parliament voting against it.

    Without the agreement of all 28 EU member states the deal cannot go ahead. It is reminiscent of what happened to Ceta, the EU’s trade deal with Canada which was about to clear its last hurdle when, in 2016, the regional parliament of Walloonia in Belgium threw a spanner in the works. Ceta did eventually go through after Walloonia withdrew its objections, but the same cannot be guaranteed with Austria’s objection to the Mercosur agreement. France and Ireland, too, have suggested that they might block it – in a protest at fires in the Amazon.

    You can forget the Amazon fires. This year has been a bad year for fires in the Amazonian basin, but far from the worst year. What is really bugging European governments about Mercosur is the prospect of competition for EU farmers. That has been the basis for Austria’s objections – farmers do not welcome the prospect of South American food been allowed onto European markets with lower or zero tariffs. Fires are just an excuse.

    The experience of Mercosur is a sharp reminder of what happens when you try to negotiate trade deals as part of a vast trading bloc like the EU. We have often heard the argument put forward by Remainers that Britain would have less clout in trade talks if we do them on our own. Maybe, but then neither would we be at the mercy of every other EU country agreeing to what we want. We could act much more swiftly and concentrate on the economic sectors which really matter to us. There is, after all, not a lot of benefit to Britain in opening up exports in olives and tomatoes – countries working on bilateral trade can focus their efforts of areas which matter to them most.

    As it happens, the world’s most successful country at negotiating trade agreements is also in South America. But it isn’t a member of Mercosur. It is Chile, whose 26 FTAs cover countries accounting for 86 per cent of global GDP including the US, Canada, the EU, China, Japan – as well as a partial deal with India. Chile is a model of how a country should go about free trade – and it has succeeded because, not in spite of the fact, it has been acting alone. The failure of the EU-Mercosur agreement shows exactly why we should be emulating Chile rather than throwing in out lot with the EU.

    1. We used to buy frozen steaks from Lidl. Steaks from Uruguay. They were excellent. Then they disappeared.

    2. The experience of Mercosur is a sharp reminder of what happens when you try to negotiate trade deals as part of a vast trading bloc like the EU – one of the reasons why the EU want to remove vetoes. Then the Commission can decide what’s best for the EU, no pesky democratically elected people in the way.

    3. Most free trade agreements outside the EU take 2-5 years to complete.
      On average, the EU takes around 10 years to complete a FTA.

  39. This just in – Labour Party Conference has today endorsed a policy that will achieve zero British people by 2030.

    Jeremy Corbyn acknowledged it is a tall order but with the help of the EU and our international partners we should be able to end our reliance on the votes of the indigenous population by 2025 and remove them altogether by 2030.

    1. To speed things up they are proposing that migrants get two votes. They will also be able to get proxy votes for any family left abroad

    1. The Guardian has clearly cribbed its review from Tatiana McGrath

      https://unherd.com/2019/09/why-ive-reported-douglas-murray-to-the-police/
      “Why I’ve reported Douglas Murray to the police
      Douglas Murray’s latest is an Alt-right handbook: 300 pages of hateful bile – on white paper, no less

      I’ve never reviewed a book before, and I fully intend to follow my editor’s advice and be as impartial as possible. But just to make it clear from the outset, Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds is an abomination. It’s a sustained invective against woke culture, an attempt to reverse all the hard work of passionate civil rights activists such as Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi and Lily Alle

      For the best part of 300 pages Murray spews his hateful bile – on white paper, no less – denouncing social justice, identity politics and intersectionality. Even the font has a certain heteronormative quality about it. He rails against “millennial snowflakes” who all “identify as attack helicopters” and how “you can’t say anything anymore” and that “you can go to prison for singing the national anthem these days”. I mean, he doesn’t actually write any of these words, but we all know that’s what he’s thinking.”

      The Unherd review is a parody, but could easily have appeared in the Guardian without a word changed.

  43. A comment put under an article about Corbyn’s failure to choose one side or other on the question of Brexit :

    What we need and what we shall probably get are very different.

    We need a Parliament capable of carrying out the people’s will – whether this be to Stay in the EU or to Leave it. For the last three years Parliament has shown itself to be incapable of following the electorate’s instructions so we need a general election which produces a Parliament which will actually carry out the People’s will.

    The People’s will may or may not have changed since 2016 but another referendum without a new composition of Parliament will just prolong the existing impasse. Indeed the Lib/Dems have already said that if there is another referendum Leave vote they will ignore it.

    So if Labour, the Lib/Dems the Greens and other parties present a united front for Staying in the EU and together, after a general election, form a majority in Parliament then they can see to it that Britain stays in the EU.

    On the other hand, If the Conservatives have any common sense they will make an electoral pact with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party to promise a complete WTO break with the EU and together form a majority in Parliament in the general election then they can see to it that Britain leaves the EU.

    The tragedy for British democracy is that It seems that those who are in favour of staying in the EU are terrified of a general election and sorting out the muddle.

    1. Published polling shows the Tories currently ahead by a fair margin. It will be interesting to see what shows up after the Labour conference: hearing this morning that they have found another money tree. What we do not learn is what the parties’ private polling indicates. Labour’s disinclination to agree to an election could be indicative that the private results are worse than those published.

      1. I do give a monkey’s.
        The suicide rate among college age men is four times greater than among females.
        I do hope there is someone whom he trusts and can talk to.
        Believe me I’ve been there I wouldn’t recommend it….

    3. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to what people say.

      The search for lasting happiness is long and arduous only you
      can find it….. Be brave do your own thing….love conquers all.

    4. If you are lying to people in order to have sex with them, then you are not in a relationship at all.

  45. The Marxist Labour Party

    Some of the policies they are putting forward at their Conference would put the Communist part to shame. They want to take over all private schools and seize their assets. They want to dictate that Universities can only take 7% of students from public schools

    They are also saying if a General Election occures before we leave the EU that they will not state their position on it. So still sitting on the fence. It leave the Labour party in a very bad position. Those that want to Leave the EU will vote Conservative or Brexit Party , Those that want to Remain will vote Lib-Dem so they will be squeezed from both sides

    1. What’s most likely is that Labour would team up with the Lib Dems and just cancel Brexit entirely, rendering it a null point that they want done with.

  46. Good morning, all.

    Doing some reading about the Liebour Party and I followed a link to a wiki page about one of that Party’s founders, Kier Hardie. Came across this little gem ………..

    Keir Hardie, in his evidence to the 1899 House of Commons Select Committee on emigration and immigration, argued that the Scots resented immigrants greatly and that they would want a total immigration ban. When it was pointed out to him that more people left Scotland than entered it, he replied,

    “It would be much better for Scotland if those 1,500 were compelled to remain there and let the foreigners be kept out… Dr Johnson said God made Scotland for Scotchmen, and I would keep it so.” According to Hardie, the Lithuanian migrant workers in the mining industry had “filthy habits”, they lived off “garlic and oil”, and they were carriers of “the Black Death”.

    I’m wondering if Corbyn has told the Abbopotamus of this “waycist” principle, on which the Liebour Party was formed.

  47. The Union are moaning the Government did not step in but why should they. The Unions and staff could have come up with the £200M but they choose not to

    The unions are quick to say others should step in but they never do

    1. Socialism fails when it has run out of other people’s money.
      (c) Margaret Thatcher, I believe.

      1. I think they had 21,000 UK staff so them alone baling it out would not be feasible as it would be about a £10,000 each but the Unions have deep pockets

        1. Whilst it’s no fun for any that have lost their jobs or holidays, it should be no business of Government to support any industry. There’s the ATOL fund to get the stranded home. The rest, I’m afraid, are screwed.
          That’s capitalism. Government support results in British Leyland, as Government has no idea of how to conduct business, and so inevitably screws it up.

          1. There was though no reason as to why the Unions and staff should not have come up with the £200M . It looks though as if it were another case of the Directors bleeding the company dry

            It might have been able to survive as a much scaled back operation

          2. Would be interesting to see where they were losing all the money. Running an airline profitably isn’t easy, but losing oceans of money running an airline is very easy. The travel agency side must have been suffering from Internet woes, unless they were very clever.

          3. With these large companies it is very difficult to unravel as they have a whole raft of subsidiser companies and money moving around between them. THe accounts are all online. Their Ultimate Parent Company was Thomas Cook Group Plc

          4. Indeed. I once had to unravel loans between companies (which were all the same really). Our law is too lax. Liquidations are too easyl

        3. Do unions really have that kind of money? During the 1984 miners’ strike, ill-informed types said that the NUM owned, inter alia, the Watergate Building and the Cafe Royale. In fact, it was the NCB pension fund – the union had very shallow pockets.

    2. You might be interested to find that Condor, Thos Cook’s airline in Germany is still operating. They have applied for state aid. Spose its only the Brits that stick to EU law. Although I can not understand how part of the Company can keep on going, it must have been a separate financial entity. Seems like I will have the time to watch the rugby now!

    1. Without the US, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Indonesia and China on board, what difference would a billion dollars make?

      Why not just lumber our legacy onto today’s teenagers? We’ll be pushing up the daisies (or perhaps the soya since daisies will be gone) by the time of the Day of Judgement. They won’t be, but who cares?

        1. No, as we know it’s only a cover. The money will go in renumeration packages, but will be spun, as always, as something worthy.

          1. Think of all the £100K plus jobs as Government Climate change advisers it can pay for and of course a luxury car will come as a part of the package

          2. Quite apart from climate change being a subversive initiative to weaken nation states, billion dollar grants leading to more billion dollar grants becomes unstoppable, and very profitable for a select few.

      2. A billion here, a billion there – as a rough estimate the state spends £1bn a day. It then wastes another billion and borrows more.

        There is much that could eb done to assist our power generation and ecological needs: pontificating idiocy about shutting down our economies is not it.

  49. Climate Change Children now protesting that their half term holidays abroad have been cancelled due to the failure of Thomas Cook

  50. Juist been reading the comments on the Guardian page by some of the chavs affected by the Thomas Cook crash.
    To save the planet, why don’t they just stay out there ? They wouldn’t be missed.
    (Yes, one of them did blame Brexit ).

  51. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QvjwrPHTkck

    Jeff Taylor: Talking Brexit and the Law with Robin Tilbrook!

    Very interesting interview of Robin Tillbrook about his court case.
    This case was raised by a woman who called into Nigel Farage’s show yesterday morning. He dismissed it out of hand and cut her off before she could reply.
    Taken together with the interview posted yesterday, of Catherine Blaiklock, who described how she’d been forced to resign from the Brexit Party after accusations of racism for opposing open borders, and despite her being married to a black man. She said that Farage, who is not a details man, has allowed TBP to be taken over by Lib Dems, who are opposed to immigration controls.
    This is not good news and I have to question what Farage is playing at. He wants Brexit, I’m sure, but is it only if he can take credit??

    (Interview with Catherine Blaiklock for those that missed it yesterday: https://m.soundcloud.com/user-545724208/anm-exclusive-brexit-party-ugly-truths#t=0:09)

    1. Morning Is,
      Yes I picked up on it yesterday and put the link up for discussion, Gerard Batten was accused by one poster of being bitter & twisted retweeting such items.
      Ho for a multitude of such bitter & twisted politicians of the same ilk.

  52. Lab proposes a 32 hr working week. That should scare many of the great unwashed, most of them do sid all!

      1. ‘Afternoon, Peddy, you can bet your life that Labour will declare-self-employment illegal. They would hate for people like me to use our hard-earned skills to be paid £500 per diem and use tax-avoidance schemes to pay just 23% income tax thus fücking up their moneyitree.

    2. Since the UK has a reasonable level of employment, I wonder what problem is reducing the number of hours going to solve? – there aren’t 20% more people who need jobs. I assume this is another “bribe the electorate with their own money” ploy by Labour.

    3. Especialy in the Snivel Service. They seem to walk to and fro without actually doing anything. Same for some in the NHS.

      1. A lot of people work very hard, and long hours.
        But that doesn’t mean they work well or efficiently.
        Reducing the working week wouldn’t change that.

  53. Good morning all from the TinTent hunkered down on the Pembroke coast , I’ve been enjoying a break from the imbroglios and squabbling cockwomblery of contemporary politics but in spite of my good intentions I couldn’t resist a quick gander at the letters today. The thing that annoyed me the most was the crass and insensitive DT inserted graphic demonstrating Thomas Cooks problems. ( not least the smoke billowing out of the rear ancillary turbine)
    Note to DT subs – Plane crashes are not funny

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/173e1ecdb8cc27ac432d13ef89b7c528859321c17683f90e254cecf2c6fad68e.png

    1. ?Rear ancillary turbine? I always wondered what that odd hole in the back of twin engined planes was. Thanks. For the electrics possibly?

      1. I always thought so but I’ve just checked and fortunately I was right

        “The exhaust is from the auxiliary power unit, The APU is like a mini jet engine, usually located in the back of the plane, containing a compressor, combustor, and turbine, that provides the plane with electricity and compressed air for the air conditioning system while the plane is on the ground.”

  54. Rudy Giuliani drops Ukrainian Collusion on Democrats !

    “Ukrainian collusion which was large, significant and proven, with Hillary Clinton and the DNC-When the rest of this comes out and we look at China-this will be a lot bigger than anyone imagines possible”.

    Oh goody… who was in lock step with Hillary ?

    Who runs the EU ?

    Who runs the UN ?

  55. Why is the fake news media going crazier by the day about Donald ?

    Because they know what’s in the pipeline and heading towards Donald’s detractors, which will be unloaded at exactly the right moment before November 2020.

  56. A ruling on the legality of Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament will be announced by the Supreme Court on Tuesday at 10:30 BST.

      1. A shame that Robin Tilbrook has allied himself with ‘The English Democrat League’. There’s that word that, to me, says they are anything but Democratic.

  60. If we can bring home 150,000 people stranded abroad by the Thomas Cook collapse, why the concern about getting medicine and the like into the UK after Brexit?

        1. Will is so jumpy as well. It is all those people who keep shooting at him.

          I’ve advised him to lay off the coffee, but he has a hell of a life, so he need his small comforts.

  61. Housing crisis affects estimated 8.4 million in England – research

    Clearly this cannot be true,. The politicians and charities keep telling us we can easily take several hundred thousand migrants and asylum seekers a year

    Remember as well the 8.4M is just for England. include Wales, NI and Scotland and it will be even high

    Until we can stop this total madness from politicians and charities things will only get worse

    An estimated 8.4 million people in England are living in an unaffordable, insecure or unsuitable home, according to the National Housing Federation.
    The federation said analysis suggests the housing crisis was impacting all ages across every part of the country.
    It includes people facing issues such as overcrowded housing or being unable to afford their rent or mortgage.
    The government said housing was “a priority” and it had delivered 430,000 affordable homes since 2010.

    So thats no more than 50,000 a year but our population is growing at over 750,000 a year plus we have over 8M inadequate homes so ho does that work ?

    1. In the survey, one definition of “Overcrowding” includes two same sex children sharing the same bedroom. So by definition unless a Roman Catholic family say with 5 children had a house with at least 6 bedrooms they would be counted in these stats…What happened to the real World?

      2. I agree there is some exaggeration but even dividing it by 2 it is still a very big number

        The problem is like most things in the UK e have no real accurate data as we have charities etc exaggerating it and politicians understating it . WE have the same with poverty and food banks. THe truth is probably somewhere towards the middle

        1. I was wondering whether uncontrolled immigration might just add a tad to the problem of overcrowding – but then what do I know…..?

          1. Well if you listen to the Charities and politicians it is not a problem as we have load of capacity to accommodate them . How many people belive that fiction is another story

        2. I am slightly familiar with an official ‘food bank’ in Spain. You would be amazed at some of the well-dressed people who turn up, some of them in respectable vehicles.
          And a security guard is necessary, just in case the non-starving try to take too much.

      3. I seem as a 9 year old to remember sharing a bedroom with my 7 year old sister and my 3 year old brother. Didn’t bother me…

      4. No doubt that’s why slammer wives can claim for a separate house each. Although apparently they rent them out.

    2. Bill, anyone with more than one functioning brain cell knows that the housing crisis, for that is what it is, can never be solved with the current parties in power, if ever. Even if immigration was stopped it would take, by your figures above, 160 years to build the replacement homes while existing properties will be falling into decay as the new are built.
      I cannot imagine the thinking processes (rather the lack of) of politicians who continue to advocate mass immigration and then in the next breath complain about shortages of housing, GPs, hospital and school capacity, transport congestion etc.

      1. It’s always possible that we could start shipping some of these ‘asylum seekers’ back to the country they came to the UK from – all our borders lead to ‘safe’ countries. Then we should repeal the Yuman Roits Act and…

        …for the rest we can start by deporting those convicted of a criminal offence – any criminal offence – back to their home country. If they have no ID but claim to be Muslims, think up the worst Muslim shithole and tell ’em, that’s where you’re going – oh you’re not (Somali, Bangladeshi etc.,) what is the Muslim country of choice for you.

        Once that is sorted out, I would close all the Mosques, ship the Imams out and then start on the Pakistanis (they seem to be the most hate-filled).

        Wow, look, no more housing crisis, crime has dropped dramatically, let’s go and blow up a few Pikey caravans.

        We need a reputation as a ‘hard’ country. Hard to get into and hard to be a criminal in. But fair, if you are prepared to integrate, work and look after yourself for at least 5 years before you start to earn a pension and use the NHS.

        Next British PM, are you listening?

        1. Or, electorate, are you listening.

          However the electorate does need something different to vote for and so far there appears to be little wish to make any drastic changes.

        2. NtN, nothing positive for the people is going to happen while we have the usual suspects in the HoC. There will come a time when something will break: either the incomers will via extreme violence, because that’s what they do, attempt to take over and be defeated or the people will finally realise that they are being sold into serfdom to the islamics and rise up and take the law into their own hands. The politicos will not have a leg to stand on as they will be seen as responsible for the treachery.
          May’s treachery in attempting to give our military away to the EU is possibly one move in trying to stop the people rebelling: the military will not have sworn allegiance to the Monarch, and by extension to the people, but to some faceless Brussels bureaucrat and will be under orders of a foreign power.

    3. As long as the elderly keep queuing up for their flu jabs and taking their statins there won’t be any problem.

      1. That IS the problem Bob, We knackered old shits have such stamina and ability to keep ourselves going, that we won’t die and leave room for the young snowflakes.

        Oh, and we keep voting the wrong way – ain’t we the selfish bastards, paid all (or most) of our taxes for 40 – 50 – 60 years, in order to keep them in bennies and we refuse to die.

  62. Afternoon dear people..

    Pouring with rain here , really horrible .Sheeting down .. Finished late lunch, Moh and Ray, elderly friend are snoozing ..

    My dogs are hunkered down.. Some good news .. the spaniel that was lost in Puddletown Forest yesterday afternoon has been found with in the last 2 hours , she chased after something ,must have become disorientated and bolted .. was seen near the Puddletown bypass and nr Athelhampton house as well as the village .

    What a lucky dog , and equally how overjoyed the owners must feel . All the risk factors one feared .. yet dozens of people turned out to look for her, yes dozens , including us last night .

    https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/17920417.seen-dog-owner-pleas-assistance-dog-goes-missing-puddletown-forest/

          3. I exchanged greetings with HJ several times, but we didn’t get the chance to have a good old chin-wag. He was in a different group.

          5. Up, John. To go from Budapest to Passau you have to travel upstream, as I had to point out to a member of the Great Rail staff.

            Because I am a Gold Customer, my non-existent wife & I received an invitation to an exclusive cocktail party on board. The message concluded by wishing us a wonderful time as we sailed merrily down the Danube. My reply was as follows:-

            Dear Lori,

            Thank you for your kind invitation, which I have much pleasure in accepting. I should, however, point out that there is no Mrs Viking, but I shall happily drink her glass of Champagne.

            Btw, in travelling from B to P I shall be sailing merrily upstream, not down the river.

            Yours etc.

            Btw, I’m 1/2way through writing your email, which I shall finish in the morning.

    2. Hello Belle.

      You say she’s been seen in all these places but has she been reunited with her owners? That’s what we are waiting to hear.

      1. Yes Peddy , she has been reunited with her owners .. Photos of her on Face book being cuddled .. it was a massive search .. and quite delicate really, lousy weather conditions .. .

        An exhausting search of dense woodland , thick rhododendrons , and the din from the Puddletown bypass, traffic thundering by ..She travelled some territory .. but was found in the Athelhampton area.

        Praise be.

      1. My poor washing is wetter than when I put it on the line this morning .. !

        I am not going to get soaked retrieving it from the line either

        Getting decidedly chilly as well.

      1. There were plenty of people filming him. A woman remonstrated with him not to steal. He obviously ignored her.

        Besides: black kid with a hammer robbing a store in borad daylight. Do you think he’d have any compuntion about using it on a person stopping him?

        1. Wielding a hammer as a weapon isn’t so easy. You can’t move really fast to hit someone (as you might with a punch or a chop), so those who used to fight with hammers in the past would start whirling them around to get up some momentum, then advance towards the shield-wall.
          So, anybody feeling brave could have got close to the tw@t, waited until the hammer had been swung by, then step forward inside the arc of swing, and punch him in the throat.
          Problem solved.

          1. That is quite true, but it might only occur to someone who has had at least minimal training, or experience of operating under pressure. A lot of people might just freeze in the “fight or flight” reflex. I remember reading about that Brevik (sp?) man who was walking around shooting people dead, one after another. There were those who were within 50 feet of him who could see what he was doing, and the people falling to the ground, but they did not run away. They stood still as one after another was killed until it was their turn.

            Obviously, this was reported by those who managed to get control of their legs and run for it, or who were further away to begin with. You also read of those who have had training reacting instantly to a threat, such as that islamic man on the train who’s AK-47 jammed on the first shot. Those guys closest to him had him on the ground with his arms behind his back in seconds.

            I still cannot believe the terrorist was demanding that the rifle was his and they should give it back to him as they pinned him down. But then, if he was a real man he would not be attacking unarmed civilians on a train in the first place. So training or experience can be a big factor.

            You are quite right though, a hammer is not the fastest or most efficient of weapons compared to the fist that you are born with at the end of your arm. With any luck, most of us won’t ever need to put this to the test. 🙂

          2. Yoy got it in one. Islamist males are not real men – that’s why they have to resort to such bullying to try to prove that they are real men. They aren’t.

    2. ” Nathan Thamby, 30, of no fixed address”
      What about the most important thing ? Is he a Leaver or a Remainer ?

      1. The most important thing is that scum like him could potentially have a vote, if he fixed up an address. Is he even here legally?

    2. The Authorities should ban the rebellious group from London ad infinitum. To try and disrupt London and a legal business in London for a fortnight is more than a protest and should not be tolerated. A “green” top Barrister has apparently said that to eat meat in a Public House should be forbidden. It’s time the people drew a line to stop this nonsense.

        1. I only caught a part of this story before I curled up laughing. The barristers line was “Farming meat causes great damage to the environment and produces waste that is harmful. The rights of the animals means none should be eaten, yada, yada.” It was at that point that I tuned out.

          I cannot remember the mans name, but I have heard it before. One of the reviewers said that those who knew him personally have said that he has been acting more and more strangely lately. He may be on the way to the funny farm. It sounds as if he is.

  65. Serious allegations over in the US:

    “Rudy Giuliani leveled serious new claims at the Bidens in a series of Monday morning tweets. Chief among them is a claim that $3 million was laundered to former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, via a “Ukraine-Latvia-Cyprus-US” route – a revelation he claims was “kept from you by Swamp Media.”….

    1. One thing links them – they all know better than the 17.4 million peasants who voted to leave the EU.

      1. Correction, they all THINK they know better than the 17.4 million peasants who voted to leave the EU.

      1. With this shower of manure who are betraying us on a scale not seen before in this countries history, many of whom WERE privately educated, I do not think that label holds any awe for many people any longer. Well, apart from those with middle-class minds. But we discussed those a few days ago. 🙂 “Normal” school for me. I had to work to retire at 45 instead of going into politics.

        Or as we once said in the OTC when our rank was mistaken: “Don’t call me Sir. I work for a living.” (Not within earshot of anyone who had already been to Sandhurst obviously.)

      2. Good point. I had some excellent dental work of a very high quality done in Marmaris and I would recommend my dentist Deniz Pehlivan to anybody. He is a first rate dentist and very good company as well.

    3. Poor woman. From first glance she does not appear to be someone who is rolling in money who lazes her way around the world on private yachts. Much more the “make do and mend” type. Putting money aside until she has enough for her first holiday in Turkey. Who knows how many years she might need to scrimp and save to get another one? If she has the years left to do it on a state pension.

      I hope they had insurance and she gets her money back. The very rich can pish that amount of money away buying drinks at the office party, but she does not look like that type.

  68. It is interesting that Labour professes that diversity is our strength, but that doesn’t apply to having diversity in the different types of education and schools.

    1. Their idea of diversity is the same as most organisations like there’s. Conform to our idea of divers or your out.

  69. DM Story

    Boris Johnson lashes out at Thomas Cook directors for failing to ‘sort out’ the crisis engulfing holidaymakers after the firm’s collapse.

    How about another headline:

    Thomas Cook, The People’s Airline, lashes out at our incompetent politicians for failing to ‘sort out’ the crisis engulfing Brexit.

  70. That’s me for today. Sunny all day – and three more similar days ahead.

    Shall avoid the news for the next year.

    Have a smooth evening. A demain.

    1. The forecast for today in my neck of the woods said rain at 7 pm (changed to 6 pm as the day progressed) but I fortunately finished my painting (with quick-drying paint) by 5 pm so hopefully it was just about dry with seconds to spare. We will see if the rain has done any damage when it stops (not for several days according to the forecast here). I will celebrate the end of the job this evening with a glass or two of anaesthetic. Sante!

      1. Been hissing down here most of the evening, Elsie. At least it will have watered in the fertiliser I applied a couple of days ago.

  71. Labour should scrap state schools, not private ones. Christopher Snowdon 23 September 2019

    It is manifestly perverse to ban the sector that produces the best results. It would surely make more sense to get rid of the sector that produces the worst results. In other words, we should abolish state schools. Every child has the right to an education and the state has an obligation to pay for those who cannot afford the fees, but the principle of universal access does not imply that the state has to run the schools, employ the teachers or set the curriculum. Making it a crime to be educated by anyone but the state would be obscene, but there is no reason for the state to be involved in the provision of education at all. It should give parents school vouchers and let a thousand flowers bloom.

    Education like almost every other UK state run enterprise (including the State itself) is unfit for purpose. You would have received a better education in Victorian England than is now available in the modern UK. The reasons for this are manifold but the solution is not more State. The answer is to dismantle it in its entirety. Education should be funded for the first 3 years and then be left to parents or not as they see fit.

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/09/labour-should-scrap-state-schools-not-private-ones/

    1. I was saying years ago that there should be a voucher system for education. My system would be to allocate a set number of vouchers to eachchild born, which could be redeemed at any time through the course of the individual’s life. After a certain age, let’s say 40, you would be deemed mature enough to trade any unused vouchers, if you thought you were never going to use them, or transfer them on to a young relative or whatever, or you could hoard some till retirement to study for a PhD, when you have developed some good ideas of what is worth researching.

    2. Making it a crime to be educated by anyone but the state would be obscene,

      So would confiscating private property, but that has and never would stop the Marxists.

  72. Last post – having seen on Frog TV the Swedish muppet in tears (how I larfed) – I read that the “rescue” of the T Cook people is going to cost £100 MILLION.

    Now a plane carries 300 people. There are 150,000 needing to be “rescued”. That equals 500 flights. Do yer average round trips by plane cost £200,000?

    Just asking.

    Seems a lot to me. And if the T Cook planes are available (if grounded) and have crews – why on earth can’t they be used to (a) bring people home and (b) reduce the cost to MUCH less.

    I am going to my dinner and will not trouble you again this day.

    1. Claw back the CEO’s bonuses .. I expect that would amount to something .

      There is no commonsense any longer .. Greed is Good according to Gordon Gekko!

      1. The “top people” at T Cook have apparently grabbed some £20-30 million in bonuses recently. That should be a target for starters.

          1. Neither does anyone else – except those who award the bonuses. I’m sure that the people doing the actual W O R K haven’t a clue why these parasites are allowed to get away with it.

    3. The trouble with you, Bill, is that you have too much common sense. Coincidentally, earlier today Caroline said the same about Thomas Cook’s grounded aeroplanes.

      1. There have been numerous examples of other child actors down the years, from coquettish arse wiggling Shirley Temple to the kid turning on the tears over climate change in Australia as featured recently on this thread.

    3. I just watched the scowl towards President Trump and then the pitiful and pitiable ‘speech’ by this deranged Thunberg child. I think the poor child will have to be committed to an Institution for the psychologically disturbed shortly.

      Alternatively, the poor kid has an incredibly inflated sense of both her own relevance and importance and yet no self-awareness or perception of how the sane folk in this world regard her viz. A spoilt brat in need of a clip around the ears and subject to a school disciplinary order. Her parents should be prosecuted for exploitation of an innocent and fined heavily.

      Either way I for one am sick of the sight of her.

      4. Can I say, for a sixteen year old she appears rather underdeveloped physically. By extension, is she at the same level of development mentally and therefore susceptible to a form of programming? Unless she is a climate prodigy, and as far as I can recall no evidence to show her abilities has been provided, she can have no extensive knowledge of the real science. All she has is opinions and the question has to be, whose opinions? If she is being manipulated then the people responsible should be ashamed of themselves.

        1. Her parents have poisoned her mind and stolen her childhood. If they are prepared to do that i see no reason why they wouldn’t interfere with her body. As underdeveloped as she is physically it occurred to me that she might be on hormone repression therapy (drugs) to halt the maturation of her body. Easier to transition later.

        2. I agree. Greta Thunberg is retarded both in physical development for her alleged age but also in her knowledge and understanding of so-called climate science.

          I believe this stupid child is acting at the behest of others doubtless with some ulterior profit motive.

          The one thing I do agree with in Greta’s rant is that she should be back in school, although I wonder whether she might be better placed in an English Private School or Cheltenham Ladies College as opposed to some bog standard Swedish Comprehensive.

    4. Well I am glad that I have been out golfing all day and have missed the opportunity it to see this latest episode of St Greta meets real life. What is more I have a few rugby games recorded for viewing this evening.

      At least we will be spared the sight of boy PM Trudeau fawning over her, he is up to his blacked up neck in career saving campaigning. The amount of public money that he is promising to spend is enough to qualify him for a Corbyn government.

  74. Typical , silly Sussex duchess woman feels more comfortable with her own sort .. Will she visit the widows and orphans of murdered WHITE South African farmers, you can bet like hell she won’t.

  75. John Humphrys was right. The BBC is a political monoculture, incapable of representing both sides of the Brexit debate

    ROBIN AITKEN

    As the drama nears its climax the tone of BBC coverage is lopsided and neurotically pessimistic

    At the end of last week I found myself raising a glass to a one-time colleague who was leaving the BBC, deservedly showered with plaudits. John Humphrys’ leaving party was a starry affair attended by some of the Corporation’s best known faces; but there was also room for some types like myself – an ex-Today hack who worked on the programme for a while.

    It was a very BBC affair; instantly recognisable to anyone who’s worked in the place; there was a celebratory video of some of his best work and then some jokey tributes from distinguished colleagues; oh, and fulsome praise from the top brass for the man who became the dominant personality on Today. The bosses paid handsome tributes to him, spiced with some rueful reflections on how challenging John could be both journalistically and as a performer and employee who wasn’t prepared to sell himself short. However I can’t help but feel there will have been some consternation when those same bosses opened the following morning’s newspapers.

    Released from Corporation Purdah Humphrys gives his unvarnished opinion of the BBC’s failings in a book about his life and times at the BBC. With his trademark acuity he gets straight to the crucial point; the BBC is a ‘Kremlin-like’; organisation, he says, ruled by thought police who enforce rigid adherence to a set of liberal principles. The extracts from A Day Like Today make for amusing reading for someone like myself who has spent years, without much success, trying to get the Corporation to mend its ways and achieve proper political diversity of opinion within its ranks.

    One of the criticisms that Humphrys makes is that the BBC has found it impossible to strike a proper balance on Brexit. He recounts the horror-stricken reaction of his bosses on the morning after the vote; the sheer impossibility, effrontery even of the voters having had the poor judgement to vote to leave the EU! They hated the idea then and still do – and how it shows. On Friday night I picked up opinions from senior BBC journalists, despairing about the prospect of Brexit and the supposed damage it has done to our politics and institutions. As the Brexit drama nears its climax the tone of BBC coverage is lopsided and neurotically pessimistic – and firmly in the Remain camp.

    Through exhaustive discussions of the issue of ‘Fake News’; the BBC has effectively alerted everyone to its dangers. What seems beyond the BBC’s capacity to understand is how its own journalism can seem “fake”; to anyone who doesn’t share its agenda. But then the Corporation’s powers of self-criticism have never been very well developed.

    Here’s the point. A news story can be entirely accurate and yet still deeply unfair. Very few people seem to grasp this essential point about journalism. It’s all a matter of selection; if an editor only chooses to run negative stories she might fulfil all the requirements of accuracy (the right names, dates, quotes etc) and yet still give an unfair view of matters.

    As newspaper readers we understand this: no one buys the Guardian expecting a full-blooded endorsement of No Deal. Readers know what to expect and successful newspapers give it to them; they are under no obligation to be impartial. But the BBC is in an entirely different position. Its whole raison d’être is to be non-partisan; it is duty bound by the terms of its Royal Charter – and by its moral contract with us the license-fee payers – to ensure all shades of opinion are fairly represented. And on Brexit it has signally failed. The hallmark of the BBC’s coverage of the issue has been its instinctive identification not with the British government’s position but with that of the EU and a host of other interests hostile to Britain and Brexit.

    The BBC would say that it is not its job to ‘identify’ with the government’s position – and I get that completely – but neither should it be its job to present every position, other than the British government’s, as more plausible, more rational and what’s more – in our own best interests.

    A good example has been the BBC’s account of Ireland’s position; I don’t think I have ever heard an Irish politician properly put on the spot about the politics of Brexit as understood in Dublin. Why not? There has been an official intransigence about Dublin’s position whilst, in sinister lockstep, voices from off-stage threaten that unless Dublin and the EU get their way the men with guns will re-emerge from the shadows. Meanwhile criticisms of the Dublin government’s position, from within Ireland itself, have remained unexplored. It seems to me that what has been lacking from the BBC has been any sense that it is ‘on Britain’s side’. When I’m listening it very often seems as though – in its eternal search for objectivity – the Corporation has detached itself entirely from the interests and concerns of the people who actually live in this country.

    The concerns that motivated millions of voters to vote Leave are viewed with chilly detachment and ignored, whilst the proffered explanation for leaving – the ability to make our own laws to suit ourselves – is treated with patrician disdain. There has been no proper engagement with, nor effort to understand and sympathise with, the hopes that drove Leave voters; the BBC is not equipped to empathise with those it views as its ideological opponents.

    In the past few weeks there have been negative forecasts about the consequences of Brexit which were magnified with little counterbalance. Warnings of food shortages in the event of no-deal and a highly pessimistic forecast about the prospects for a trade deal with the US both got top billing. Both stories needed balancing. The headline phrase “food shortage”; seems calculated to prompt anxiety: but it is highly misleading. There won’t actually be a shortage of food – there’ll still be plenty to eat – but some foodstuffs might be temporarily unavailable.

    The downbeat talk of Britain getting a decent trade deal with the US came from Larry Summers, Obama’s former US Treasury Secretary who said the UK would be in a very weak position – but then he would say that wouldn’t he? Summers served in an administration wholly committed to the idea of the spread of supranational authority; people who think like him despise what they term ‘populism’; of course he’d pour cold water on the prospects of a good UK-US trade deal.

    He’s a politician, remember, and he has an axe to grind. That is the sort of caveat that people who consume BBC news deserve to be told because it fills in the background and balances the story. The reason why the BBC has such a problem achieving impartiality in its Brexit coverage is because its staff are themselves overwhelmingly Remainers. The Corporation champions ‘diversity’ – but only involving skin colour or gender, which is mere fashionable window-dressing, it never considers trying to ensure there is a proper diversity of political opinion.

    The BBC – like academia – is a political monoculture that dresses to the Left. The Corporation’s website proudly proclaims it to be “the world’s leading public service broadcaster”; and goes on to say that it has five “public purposes”; the first of them being “To provide impartial news and information”. A potent word “impartial”: defined as “the equal treatment of all sides”; which is the very essence of the vow the BBC makes to its audience. And which, as John Humphrys has now plainly stated, it fails to deliver.
    ___________________________________________

    Robin Aitken was a BBC reporter for 25 years; his latest book is The Noble Liar; how and why the BBC distorts the news to promote a liberal agenda (Biteback)
    ___________________________________________

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/23/john-humphrys-right-bbc-political-monoculture-incapable-representing/

      1. I am not sure they would; I saw the coverage when they announced that “Remain can’t possibly win”. They looked as though the maiden aunt they had assiduously been courting for the last forty years had suddenly changed her will to cut them out.

  76. This Greta Thunderstorm business is insane. The United Nations listens to a teenybopper when she says the weather is going to be hot, but they have no ears for anyone who tells them that Iran is developing nuclear weapons with evil intent.
    I am sure that there are aspcts of climate change that need attention, but the end of the world is not nigh.

      2. If she ever discovers how much of what her parents have drummed into her are lies, and how she has been used and betrayed, then that is going to wreck her mentally. With her particular disability, then trust and certainty in your surroundings are more important than those who are better able to take life’s slings and arrows.

        1. If Thunderbug had been churning out a contrary message – global cooling for instance – the child would have been taken into care and the parents banged up.

      3. The only time she’s looked anywhere near normal or happy was in the middle of the Atlantic, presumably without her minders.

    3. That’s probably because she’s allegedly being pushed by Uncle George who controls the UN agenda.

  77. Yay!!!!!! I’m a bloody genie’s @rse.
    Travelled from Dan to Beersheba via Sheffield and Witham – and here I am.
    Laptop has had to return to intensive care for further treatment.
    I am currently piggy-backing on on MB’s pooter.

      1. Long story.
        Laptop is proving to be trickier than first thought. Needs a new motherboard (?). Has gone back for further surgery.
        Last week, MB and I were in Buxton. What a wonderful part of the country. Gawd, people must be dead fit up there.
        I wanted to contact BoB, but all the details were on my eviscerated laptop.
        Had time this evening to play around, so am using MB’s laptop. I’ve even impressed myself!

          1. Years ago, my parents visited the cavern and brought me back a Blue John pendant.
            Of course, I eventually lost it. Looking at the prices, I should have been more careful.

          2. It;s ironic that just over the hill from me is Ball Eye Quarry that has dug into the Ruggs Hall mine complex with deposits of a VERY similar mineral to Blue John.
            However, because it is not from the Blue John Cavern, it can’t be called that.

        5. I think I am on my 5th home computer by now, each one tends to last 5 or 6 years before it gives up the ghost. If I had a laptop that has had as many problems as yours seems to have, then I would do the decent thing and take it out behind the bikeshed and shoot it when it wasn’t looking. There comes a time when it costs you more than it is worth. That is fine when it is a relative, and is a stage of life that can be a wonderful time of bonding as you look after them.

          But with a piece of metal and plastic – send it to a better place. 🙂

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f590702a432bc4251642638a1830b4665eedd5e650cad8caa5cd6ca7cf01e55.jpg

          1. I can do about 85% of my computing on an iPad – all the Microsoft applications such as Word, Powerpoint and Excel are free and printing is easy with a wifi printer, which most are these days. For the other 15%, I have an iMac but a very cheap laptop would do just as well. My iMac is a superb piece of kit but, at £1000, it should be and is far, far more capable than I ever need except for extremely rare occasions.

    2. Blimey, Anne, where’ve you bin?

      Half a million folk in Hi-Viz jackets have been scouring the country looking for you. Some even ventured into the towns but to no avail (possibly because when they reached the first pub, they got waylayed).

      I’ll email my contacts at Search Я Us and let them know you’re back in the land of the living.

      1. Ah, but did they look down the Blue John Cavern?
        Even MB had to pause for breath on the way back to the surface.

        1. They did, but one of their team had eaten too many pies and got stuck in a tight gap – not just tight but stalactite. By the time they got him out, the place was empty so you must have left.

    3. After five years or so all IT kit is outdated. Most recently my wife has experienced great difficulty in accessing on line banking. It seems our Apple AirPort Extreme router is out of date despite assurances from Apple that it is still supported. We switched to a separate HUAWEI device and gained access.

      My MacPro is now ten years old and still performing beautifully but Apple will no longer update its operating systems software. Despite my desire to purchase a new version of my Mac Pro I am unable to discover whether Macintosh have any plans to replace it. In the infamous words of the cretin Sir John Major, it seems I too will have to “wait and see”.

      The whole IT business is designed to enable the software and hardware suppliers to change a few things and then name their price.

      1. I’m using a fairly new Lenovo laptop but the latest W10 update 1903 will not load due to a driver problem. Microsoft have told me there’s nothing for me to do at the moment but give no indication of what they are proposing to do. I check to see if Lenovo are offering an update to the driver but nothing has appeared to date. Limbo.

        1. Supposedly the next major update (or the one after the one after that) to Win 10 is making driver updates optional which may help. However, you need to be able to install the blöòdy thing before it will help you.

          The spring update was only possible when I did a clean install of windows, the latest pile of doo doo would only install if I unplugged all external devices and ran the update on a bare machine.

          Quality is obviously not number 1 at Microsoft.

          1. Thanks, richardl, there was a hint in the Microsoft message that something was being done. The early message was to go to Intel’s site and download the driver from there. However, advice on the Web indicated doing that could cause problems if your hardware provider used their modified version. Up to now Lenovo haven’t offered anything. Checking the driver in W10 informs me that I have the up to date version when I obviously do not.

      2. My desktop is now too old apart from a spot of cannibalisation by Mac geeks.
        Once laptop is sorted, design facilities are the next job.

  78. DT Story

    Duchess of Sussex tells South Africa: ‘I am here as a mother, as a wife, as a woman of colour, and as your sister’

    Does Prince Harry have any idea at all what he has done to his life?

    But maybe my misgivings are misplaced. Caroline says that perhaps he has never been happier or more fulfilled in his life and that he is proud of his wife’s brave and positive utterances.

    3. Does she assume that being one of them helps her to fit in and will make her better liked and trusted by the natives, isn’t that a bit racist?

        1. But…but…the white were there before many of the current “South African” blacks. I suppose logic doesn’t come into it.

    5. How well would it go down if prince harry visited Hungary and said ‘I am here as a father, as a husband, as a man of no colour, and as your brother’?

      3. Some Hungarian people consider themselves to be whiter (paler skinned) than the English. And therefore superior.

          1. No, it’s a racialism thing, purity and all that nonsense.
            Just as the English secretly know that they are i) the best and ii) are never foreigners, some Hungarians feel ‘whiter’ than Limeys.
            Cue Flanders’ & Swann’s ‘Song of Patriotic Prejudice’.

      4. Well, I am white and of the colour white, but no way is Meghan my sister nor Henry my brother.

        PS – Who is this Harry everyone is talking about? Not my employer Mr Lime, surely?

    6. I think Prince Harry has made a big mistake marrying her. I don’t think she fits in with the Royal Family. She wishes to go her own way but I think it clashes with the RF’s way of carrying on and I’m sure she craves the attention she used to get as an actress.

      1. …. I’m sure she craves the attention she used to get as an actress.
        Not much then. Who on this blog had ever heard of her?

        Edit : ever for every. It looked OK when I pressed ‘post’.

        1. I certainly had not, in fact I don’t think many here in the US knew about her until her Prince came on the scene!!

          2. Sniff!
            I don’t live in a trailer or watch soaps all day.
            Suits was on at night, on one of the Sky channels. I just happened to watch it.

        2. Me.
          I used to watch Suits, the tv show she was on.
          I was more than a little surprised when I heard she and Harry were an item, not for any particular reason other than it seemed so unlikely.

        3. I think she became addicted to Downton Abbey, and said to herself , I WANT SOME OF THAT, IN FACT I WANT IT ALL..

          I think she provided Harry with a thrill that no proper English girl could ever have dreamt up.

      2. I think Prince Harry’s grandfather got it right when he said that it was fine for a prince to have a few cuddles with an actress or two but on no account was it remotely a good idea to marry them.

        Indeed the Prince of Wales, Harry’s reputed father, was indignant when criticised for having a paramour and replied: “All the Princes of Wales have had mistresses. Why shouldn’t I?

    7. Richard,

      The Princling appears to be cautious and subservient to his Duchess.. who I believe controls him .. as we noticed so at Eugenie’s wedding .. she ticked him off in public for fidgeting in the pew !!

    8. “Duchess of Sussex tells South Africa: ‘I am here as an incredibly priviledged and rich important woman.
      Bit more accurate.

      2. Very young (12-15 quoted), probably poorly brought up, one or both parents effectively MIA, and they get fussed over, given money, ciggies, clothes, dope, you name, it as part of the grooming. In other grooming cases, it was said that no-one ever treated the girls well, and when the local Asians groomed them, they made them feel wanted. Then they exacted their “fees”.

    3. Interestingly, flag burning in the US was long ago decided to be part of the right of free speech. It still annoys an awful lot of people, but we roll our eyes and think, well at least we don’t lock them up for that sort of thing.

  82. Watching University Challenge. Southampton seem to be enjoying themselves. Goldsmiths sit there trying to look very superior.

  83. An aricle on shortage of student accommodation at Bristol University.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-49773971

    One of the new students says:-

    ” he would consider living in Bath but also Cardiff or Newport,

    but said “considering Wales is a different country, it’s ridiculous”.”

    Will somebody tell him in which countries Bath Cardiff and Newport are ?

    If you see what I mean …….

    2. Horrible little brat. She shows what she is there. And her illness is no excuse for her behaviour.

  85. Late Laff

    A
    Native American Chief had three wives, all of whom were pregnant. The
    first gave birth to a boy. The chief was so elated that he built her a
    teepee made of deer hide. A few days later, the second gave birth also
    to a boy. The chief was very happy. He built her a teepee made of
    antelope hide.
    The third wife gave birth a few days later, but the
    chief kept the details a secret. He built this one a two story teepee,
    made out of a hippopotamus hide. The chief then challenged the tribe to
    guess what had occurred.

    Many tried, unsuccessfully. Finally, one
    young brave declared that the third wife had given birth to twin boys.
    “Correct,” said the chief. “How did you figure it out?”

    The
    warrior answered, “It’s elementary. The value of the squaw of the
    hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides.

    1. She is one sick kid. But I’ve stopped feeling sorry for her, because she is doing so much damage now.

    6. I think she is leaving it to the grown ups, allegedly she’s fronting.

      I also think this is the latest part of the ”international collusion” to which Nigel Farage referred.

    7. What she needs right now is to fall in love. In fact, it’s what I need right now too.

      There is so much pain, so much loathing, and when you come to face-to-face with evil (which Greta Thunberg certain has chosen to do as part of her mission to save the world), does making a stern face make it any less evil? Or does it simply make you a martyr?

      I actually think she is right, but it’s not making the slightest bit of difference to the heart and intention of the likes of Bolsanaro, of Trump, of whoever is responsible for the deforestation in Indonesia and in Africa, nor the dash to rapacious consumerism in China. Their apologists don’t care – they’ll lie and bluster and persuade us all that white is black rather than admit this girl has a point.

      She is scary though. Like a real-life Wednesday Addams who is no Hollywood fantasy. We should be afraid. Very afraid. Terrifying people just with her personality is what she does. Maybe this is the sort of prophet humanity needs right now?

      I still hope love with prevail one day though.

      1. I had to stop going to friends’ weddings because I got fed up with being called a clanging symbol with every reading of Corinthians.

        1. I think we all find our own bogeys in that passage. Mine is “putting away childish things”. I admire and respect the clarity of children, and am all too aware that they have more brain cells than I have. Mine may be better arranged, but who’s to say what is “better”?

      2. She is certainly scary.

        This deluded, autistic child is being exploited by those who should know better.

        She is also encouraging children to skip school – and nothing will make any difference to the world’s climate.

        Nothing any of us do in this country will stop the Chinese exploiting the natural resources of Africa, or the Brazilians stop their slash and burn culture, or Indonesian deforestation for palm oil.

    2. Not one word regarding what their traditional voters think of them. Is it possible they are so arrogant they have dismissed the possibility that voters in Labour heartlands will give their support to another party, one perhaps that favours respecting the referendum result?
      I personally hope Labour fully commit to remain, let them fight it out with the Limp Dums for the 48% share of the vote, it can only be good for the country but not those 2 parties.

      1. Farage, this evening on his LBC programme exposed their ruse to confuse their traditional voters. They will not commit to anything, including Remain, until after a general election and a one day committee meeting to decide their position. Farage and his Brexit Party should be able to make plenty of capital out of this current Labour shower.

    2. I dislike it when information gets misrepresented:

      “The research has also led to the development of a pioneering new way of pinpointing the year in which historic buildings were constructed.”

      It implies that the particular research being reported is pioneering the dating, when this has in fact being going on for a very long time. Dendrochronology got started back in the 70s (maybe even late 60s). I expect the BBC reporter just misunderstood what they were being told.

      1. The biggest error that I came across was a whopper. The “journalist” was talking about the Voyager probe leaving the Solar System and he said the next obstacle would be passing through the Oort Cloud. He then said how far that was from the Sun and said “light years” instead of miles. My mind tried to process the number and attempted to put it into a frame of reference, and just stopped working.

        I needed to use a calculator and look up some numbers from a NASA website to quantify the number. The number the journalist quoted was 13 times the width of the known observable Universe. Not our Galaxy – the entire Universe. That was some error in scale compared to the size of our own Solar System. 🙂

    2. I’m on YouTube on my new whizzy Sky box listening to and watching Phil Collins, In the Air Tonight. Absolutely brilliant. Simply Red to follow with Dire Straits ten and a half minutes of Sultans of Swing live.

      1. LOL The Phil Collins and 10 minute Sultans of Swing are two of the many songs that I tend to listen to with headphones on at the end of the night when the wine has been flowing. That Dire Straits one is tricky though. If I listen to that one then I will often go off on their songs for the next hour without realising how the time is passing. “Private Investigations” – what a chiller when you are in the right frame of mind. 🙂

        I like this version. 5 minutes of bleakness ending with a shotgun being cycled. 🙂

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-xG44ExDwM

        1. The version I’m watching is from their Alchemy tour. The drummer, Terry Williams, is unbelievable. I thought that the manic Keith Moon was good but Williams is outstanding.

    1. So at least five EU countries have agreed to take them in, assess their asylum cases, and repatriate them if necessary – to the UK presumably, via rubber dinghies.

    2. Distribution of migrants should be based on a country’s population density. England and Holland are the most densely populated countries in Europe and so should get the lowest number of migrants: England and Holland are full and their infrastructures are already stretched to breaking point.

    3. T. May has already signed us up to the U.N pact on migration. Leaving the E.U won’t make any difference to that.

  93. RWC:
    Did anyone else think the little black pattern mark on the back of the Italian players’ shorts make it look as though the whole team had developed builder’s b*m?

    Rather unfortunate.

Comments are closed.