Monday 23 September: Understanding the full extent of the damage inflicted by lockdown

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

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

741 thoughts on “Monday 23 September: Understanding the full extent of the damage inflicted by lockdown”

  3. Morning all.
    Somebody's got to take over from Tom (AKA Sir Jasper) so here goes with a couple of Irish tales:

    One Sunday morning after church, a pretty young churchgoer was knocked down by a truck as she crossed the road. She was hit with such force that by the time she hit the road, all her clothes had been stripped away.
    The parish priest rushed to her assistance, and to preserve her modesty, removed his hat and placed it over her golden triangle.
    O’Hara staggered out of the pub on hearing the commotion, pushed his way through the gathering crowd and stood beside the priest. He stared down at the naked girl and pronounced, “Begorrah! May the saints preserve us! The first thing we’ve gotta do is get that man outta there!”

    Irish John was complaining to his mates in the bar. His wife was pregnant again, and he already had eight kids.
    ‘I’ll bloody well hang myself if this happens again,” he said.
    But sure enough, one year later, John announced that his wife was pregnant again.
    “You said you’d hang yourself if this happened," one of his mates reminded him.
    “That I did," said John. “I got the rope, tied a noose in it and threw it over a branch of a tree, then I thought to meself, begorrah, maybe I’m hanging the wrong man!”

      1. Yes Tom.
        A few years ago I downloaded and enjoyed your first E-book “Not a bad life”. I too had visited RAF Halton about 1956 and watched as a Sergeant chopped some holes in the side of a disused Supermarine Swift aircraft and told the apprentices to "get on and mend that hole". Never forgot that. P.S. where can I get your second book?

        Alas, my own Joke Book is called “Rude and Politically Incorrect Jokes”, so I’d better be careful what I post.

        Having said that, the first two upticks to my yesterday’s rather misogynistic tale about a thief were both from women.

        I’ll test the water again tomorrow.

    1. Good morning, Lewis. Clearly it IS The LAB Four. Had it been The Fab Four, the singer would have been the drummer and one of the other three would have been playing left-handed.

  5. Morning all 🙂😊
    Early to bed early to rise……not sure about the rest of the saying.
    I'm just an old triwrly today.
    Cuppa tea I think, slayders.

    1. Early to bed…

      My auntie’s a consummate flirt
      and always wears a mini skirt
      Uncle sees her toned thighs
      and quickly gets a rise
      It’s early to bed says old Bert

      He deftly removes her silk stocking
      And quickly their headboard is knocking
      Much to their neighbours chagrin
      The party wall’s very thin
      Their bedroom antics he finds shocking

      Dear Auntie Eth’s ninety years young
      (And Uncle Bert’s very well hung)
      They’re old, but not wrecks
      They adore having sex
      Both glad their mattress is well sprung

      Good morning !

  6. Good Morning All. 13C broken cloud, stopped raining.
    As we live on chalk downs no floodin problems.

    1. A friend sent me a clip yesterday as he and his wife were driving home through Dunstable axle deep flooding.

  7. ‘The democratic world can prevail’: Zelensky begins US visit at ammunition factory.23 September 2024.

    Ukraine’s president will this week present to US leaders Kyiv’s plan to end the long war with Russia.

    This is just a ploy. You have to contrast the US attitude to Israel/Hamas and Ukraine/ Russia. On the former there is endless diplomacy; Blinken must have amassed more air miles than many test pilots, there are perpetual cries for cease fires, negotiations and peace. There is just silence for the latter.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/09/23/zelensky-begins-us-visit-at-ammunition-factory/

    1. Ukraine is a disaster that NATO, despite it not being a member should have stepped in to bring Putin to the negotiating table.

      The public should also have been presented with the truth, but that's difficult for slow minded thickies to understand.

      Israel… Israel is showing huge restraint.

      1. Putin was more than happy to sit at the negotiating table and indeed sat there twice, figuratively speaking, offering very favourable terms to Zelensky. But Johnson and the West (Biden) said under no circumstances were these terms to be accepted. Putin wants to negotiate, the West wants war, it wants the land and other natural resources that belong to Ukraine. It also has designs on Russia's land and rich mineral and natural resources. There will be no peace under the present US administration, such as it is.

    2. What does a man who has cancelled, firstly, opposition parties, and then actual elections, know about democracy, pray ? As of now, this is all about saving his foul, warmongering little neck, since he knows that the moment he has to admit Ukraine has lost it'll be a race between the CIA and Azov to see which one has the pleasure of executing him.

  8. ‘The democratic world can prevail’: Zelensky begins US visit at ammunition factory.23 September 2024.

    Ukraine’s president will this week present to US leaders Kyiv’s plan to end the long war with Russia.

    This is just a ploy. You have to contrast the US attitude to Israel/Hamas and Ukraine/ Russia. On the former there is endless diplomacy; Blinken must have amassed more air miles than many test pilots, there are perpetual cries for cease fires, negotiations and peace. There is just silence for the latter.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/09/23/zelensky-begins-us-visit-at-ammunition-factory/

    1. Note the silence from the media about the endless corruption and fraud perpetrated by Labour? Why did Raynor's jaunt cost £250? Because that's the maximum that can be claimed on expenses.

      They're sickening. She used corruption to get a free house for her and her husband. She is clearly on the take here, not even willing to pay for a holiday. She's never worked a day in her life. A useless, sly, arrogant, gormless bag of effluent without an iota of ability but posessed of low, vicious cunning to abuse every system possible – typical of Labour.

      1. In a proper job, you would be sacked for gross misconduct with loss of pension entitlements. In the public sector, you get promoted.

      4. Does anyone still remember Penny "the cock" Mordaunt? The high spot of her career was at the Despatch Box when tackled by Angela Raynor over Tory sleaze. The pneumatic sailor calmly and with flattery worthy of Leslie Phillips reminded the Gobby Growler that her dodgy expenses far outweighed any of the Tory examples she read out.

      5. Just so: thick but cunning is exactly the m.o. of Rayner and a whole bunch of others, notably Lammy, Abbott, and Jess Phillips.

    2. Has anyone noticed how alike Bridget Philipson, Rachel Reeves and Lucy Powell look – same brutalist brown bob, flat voice and sour expression. They are like Data's daughter but without the charm.

    1. It is notable that Reeves looks at the debt and thinks 'more taxes' and 'service cuts'. She doesn't think #what do 250,000 people in the department for education do all day? She doesn't think 'with NHS trusts, what's the department for health doing?' 'Why are there more administrators in the home office than serving police officers, prison wardens and sundry combined?'

      No. Her first thought is 'cut services. Punish the citizen. Don't address the waste, incompetence, inefficiency and grostesque overmanning – cut services.

        1. By not doing the right thing.
          She is buying their votes, and once again robbing the rest of the British public to pay for her favours.
          In the form of a Bung.

    2. Well, John, I like what you’re saying now but what did your Conservative government do for the last 14 years? You hardly restrained spending yourselves, did you.

      2. They had on this Israeli Government spokeswoman talking about how Hezbollah was raining missiles on innocent people's homes. "And some of them were CHILDREN!!!". As if that makes what they've been doing to Gaza, and now planned for Lebanon ok then.

        Strangely, those exploding pagers were destined largely for military targets, and whilst giving all sorts of terrorists ideas (think twice before talking into your mobile without hands free, or working the app without a stick), it was one Israeli tactic that was probably legitimate.

        CHANGE Uk's answer to 14 years of Tory sleaze is MUCH MORE of the same. That's change, I suppose.

    1. The EU and freedom are anithetical to one another. There is no freedom of speech in the UK, either. If the state doesn't like what you say, it throws you in jail.

      The worst bit isn't the hypocrisy, the corruption, the open, blatant fraud, the back handers, the brown envelopes, the appalling legislation, the sheer pointlessness of it – it's that we, the people voted to get away form the hateful thing and our government refused that instruction.

  12. 'Morning All
    Laff Time
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  13. Good morning, chums. Geoff posted this page half an hour earlier than usual – drat and double drat! (But thanks all the same, Geoff.)

    Wordle 1,192 6/6

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    1. Good morning Elsie
      The second guess is crucial today….!
      Wordle 1,192 3/6

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    1. Biden did this. It didn't work. To address the problem the tax code needs to be re-written and the Treasury won't permit that as they like the complexity. It hides the disgusting levels of tax we pay. Reeves hasn't the intellectual ability to understand why (they won't re-write it nor why it needs to be re-written).

      Always they bleat 'we're going after the tax avoiders to make da wich pay more… err, their fare shaire!'

      And the very well off just look at 17,000 pages and find another way to avoid the grasping thieves. I forget if it was Corbyn who said it – sound slike him – but he said 'tax competition is a race to the bottom'. Well, no. You see, socialist, competition is a good thing. Competition forces better goods and services. It means we have to offer more to sustain our prices. It ensures only the best get investment.

      It shows the mindset of the Left – they think what's ours is theirs by default.

    2. How long before buying second hand goods and clothes or choosing plain food over 'prepared' food is treated as 'tax avoidance'? Evasion, even.

      1. Not to mention giving anything to your kids. Somehow it is OK for Labour apparatchiks to take thousands worth of gifts from comparative strangers but, even on current rules, if I were to give my son a bike for Christmas it might breach the limit on gifts that are potentially IHT exempt. If rumours are true of Reeves possibly moving to a lifetime limit on what an individual receives as gifts, can we expect to find that we need to submit a list with our tax returns. Does it mean that parents will beg people not to give their children any presents during childhood in case it queers the pitch for them being given help with a house deposit in their 20s or 30s?

      3. I avoid paying tax as much as I can; I buy working dog food (VAT exempt) and cooking, rather than snacking, fruits and nuts (ditto). Rather than buy freshly squeezed orange juice and pay VAT, I buy fresh oranges and squeeze my own, thus avoiding the tax.

    3. Labour once employed a decent honest lady who use to check the expenses claims of the crooks in Wastemonster. Elizabeth Filkin. She was so very good at her job that they removed her to the HoL.

  15. Good morning all.
    A dull and damp 8½°C outside with overnight rain continuing.
    Looking at the forecast I might just go back to bed!

          5. When are you off there Jules ?
            Our prospective DiL is flying out to live with our youngest in Dubai
            Both Fed up with life in the UK.
            we're planning to go and stay on our way to Perth next year.

  17. Understanding the full extent of the damage inflicted by lockdown

    The damage inflicted was intentional from the outset, they already knew what would happen.

    1. I'm not sure. Boris was against lockdowns initially. It was only when the statists pushed them that he gave in. After a certain point I think they just enjoyed the limelight and power too much to admit they were completely wrong and there was no point to it all.

      For example: they lifted lock down over Christmas not for medical reasons, but simple political ones. As soon as lock down ended and testing began, suddenly they found more cases. Well… durrrhh. That's how it works.

      Then of course we had the magic vaccination that if you had it protected other people – again, playing on the ignorance and fear of the weak minded.

        2. I think that Boris caught Covid and was very unwell. For maybe the first time in his life, he was faced with his own mortality and this was just as he had gained the Precious and had a new girlfriend and a new sprog. That made him very receptive to the doom-sayers and Dominic Cummings was pushing for lock-downs.

          1. Someone I know had flu in 2015 and spent a couple of weeks in hospital. When he came out, he had lost about a third of his body weight.
            Boris looked as chubby as ever.

      2. Well he did disappear for a while with Covid, like most leaders did.
        I think they took him in to get reprogrammed.
        He was never the same afterwards
        He was fully on board with all the globalist agendas from then on.

        1. I think that little token rebellion was just so that the public would carry on thinking he's a good guy who had to cave into greater forces. He always knew he was going to do his masters' bidding.

          1. He has always been a eugenecist. (As was his father.) He was never going to pass up a chance like this. See his Oct 2008 article in the DT on overpopulation and 'grasping the nettle'.

  18. 393340+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Monday 23 September: Understanding the full extent of the damage inflicted by lockdown

    Did not take long for the moderately astute to see through the weaponized flu variant, and the manipulating, brow beating, fear generating political / pharmaceutical joint scamming campaign.

    Take the "mask" for instance, maybe of use to protect against frostbite in summer, but used by the simple minded as a safeguard against a politically manufactured, make believed malady.

    The fallout from this political/ pharmaceutical / Wef/ Nwo
    via conduits lab/lib/con coalition party campaign, has cost the innocents dearly in the fear element alone, without adding the deaths & life long injuries

    LEST WE FORGET

    For the good of the "party"and our continuing death dealing, fear riddled cost.

    1. I saw a woman, alone, in a car, with the windows open wearing a mask the other day. It just reminds me how thick some people are.

      In the hospice we go to there are some of the old folks who wear masks because their immune systems are too fragile. I'll say this – despite being very ill, breaking down and near the end, almost all want a huge from a great big bear – and dogs are a veritable germ factory.

      2. When I was in the hospital recently, only one nurse was wearing a mask, the others were not. But the one mask-wearing nurse had managed to bully all the patients in the area where the new patients were brought and their families into wearing masks. As she passed me, she spat "Where is your mask? You are endangering vulnerable patients" because I wasn't wearing a mask. I pretended to be rummaging in my bag for it until she had gone.

      3. Two people I saw in a National Trust shop in Cornwall recently, a healthy looking couple in their 30s/early 40s, were each wearing TWO masks.

      4. Two people I saw in a National Trust shop in Cornwall recently, a healthy looking couple in their 30s/early 40s, were each wearing TWO masks.

      5. What you have to remember when it comes to dogs and germs is that you can catch relatively few diseases from another species. From the same species, on the other hand …

  19. I heard that just to cheer everyone up attending the Labour Party conference, on GB News that Ed the climate Tsar is bringing back plans for a boiler tax, thought to be £ 150 on every one sold.
    The plan is to make heat pumps look more competitive.
    That is exactly what they have done to fossil fuel power generation to make wind power appear more competitive and why our bills have gone through the roof.
    I note when an expert appears on the mainstream media that say that wind generation is now cheaper than fossil fuel.
    They never really get challenged on that.

          1. Yes. It's done all the time. Corporation tax, then employer NI, then business rates, then energy taxes. Look at fuel duty – fuel duty and then 20% VAT added on to the whole cost – including the duties – not withstanding the taxes contained in the retailers costs.

    2. Nahh. If you ignore all the subsidy, all the levies, duties and taxes then yes, wind is cheaper – for about 11 days in September. But once you factor in all the costs, the grid upgrades necessary, the 20-30% output (a 100 mw farm produces at best 20mw over it's 15 year life, yet gets paid for 200 mw wind is one of the most expensive 'energy producers' going. Also, it's very unreliability ensures we need another power station on standby – costing even more – to provide when the wind fails – which is at least 60% of the time.

      A heat pump is an ugly, brutalist nasty thing. The pipework is horrible – there's half a metre wide swath of thick cabling going up our walls into the attic. The device itself is a metre square and half deep, now covered in dirt and droppings.

      The install cost is hilarious – we were quoted £9000 after the subsidy. If we hadn't got the grant I wouldn't have considered it. £14,000 for a ugly box? No, thank you.

      Then there's the other side of it. Electricity is 4 times the price of gas. Most of that is tax, but fundamentally it's to restrict use. The other day when it was a bit chilly – 17'c or so, the Warqueen asked if we could put the heating on. I said no, as it'd be £7 to run it for part of the day. Yes, we can afford it, but we only wanted to take the chill off and then turn it off again. A heat pump is utterly inflexible. It can run like that, but it just costs too much.

      The Tories – and Labour – prove how stupid they are. They thought they'd force the manufacturers to pay and thus make them install heat pumps. People don't want heat pumps and the cost – like all costs toa business – are passed on. It was staggering to realise the big fat state simply has no idea how business works. All costs are passed on. They're not magically invented by businesses. You work out what profit margin you want from your industry and competitors and for future growth and add in the rest of your costs and send customers the bill.

      The state thought manfuacturers would swallow this additional cost as punishment. That utterly moronic conceit shows the entire stupidity of the public sector.

    3. Cheaper to whom, though? It is like 'diversity being our strength'. Their strength, not ours. I suppose wind power is cheaper at the point of generation.

    1. The other day we had a bloke demanding a doctor's appointment. When he was told he had to make one and the earliest was 2 weeks away, he started ranting. Then when that didn't work, got on the phone – in the surgery waiting room – and started blithering on out loud. He was asked very politely by a lass to go outside. He said – 'why?'

      Same colour as well. Some of them just don't know how to behave in public.

      1. Failed countries fail for a reason and no, they've had a fair bit of time to get over colonialisation, 'if' that was ever the cause. Priorities, ethics, sense and attitude make countries fail, or succeed, in general.

    1. I think people were told to be afraid, they made decisions based on fear and thus those decisions were the wrong ones.

      Looked at logically, coldly, rationally the vaccine didn't work.

  22. Morninng feed is normally a simple affair. Mongo is fed first – just a tiny bit – a few seconds and then the other two. We've done it this way since Oscar joined us. When Wiggy was about he would be fed first and Mongo would wait.

    Today Lucy cleared her bowl, nudged Mongo (he outweighs her by about 30 kilos) and with a huge look of surprise, he just got out of the way. She then started eating out of Oscar's bowl and he whuffed and grumped at her but also, moved aside.

    I put two more scoops into Lucy's bowl and hefted her back, got Oscar some more and left Mongo to it. Junior spoils him anyway.

  23. Good morning all,

    Back home at McPhee Towers. Heavy rain all day, wind South-West, 14-15℃. Last week's warm, sunny days in Cornwall seem to have been the last hurrah of summer 2024.

    I used to think highly of Lord Matt Ridley but then he goes and writes something like this. Wake up, Matt!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c296833c73a3f552af73c57ba551e33846449b8df63f6f8fe18f54da7a6cd09.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/21/dont-believe-the-chinese-wet-market-theory-for-covid/

      1. As this story (both versions) has been trailed in front of us since the start, and several people have pointed out that the spread of covid did not look like a convincing novel virus spread, I am inclined to believe that the spike protein (upon which there are many patents, so we know it is real) only ever existed in the jibby jabs.

        1. According to Sasha Latipova who has done the research and knows the Pharma business the spike protein is real but the 'virus' isn't. The jabs are the real bio-weapon.

          1. I agree. The way the symptoms kept changing, flu disappeared, the spread of ‘covid’ wasn’t like the spread of a novel virus, ‘covid’ was never isolated, the white blood clots were only seen after the jabs, ‘variants’ kept being unveiled at intervals, the message kept being pushed about the shape of the coronavirus, all the ludicrous rules about sitting down and standing up in restaurants. The public was asked to believe ever more unlikely things. It was just gaslighting. A theatre performance to get people to take the jabs.

    3. Well it didn’t come from a wet market and it sort of came from a lab. Not leaked but nicely sealed in a vial to be transferred to a syringe. But I’m just a far right thicko conspiracy theorist of course. Oh and the clever lab people still haven’t separated a viral pathogen from an infected tissue sample and grown it in tests that meet Koch’s Postulates. The nature of the infected tissue still doesn’t prove the cause.

    4. I heard that the wet market theory had re-emerged on BBC radio news last week. It was treated with respect, as you would expect. Not the slightest hint of scepticism.

      Here's the piece in full:

      No, there is no new evidence that Covid originated with a raccoon dog in a market in Wuhan. The public relations blitz that surrounded the publication this week of a paper in Cell from a team whose previous papers have been debunked caught some headlines, as it was designed to do. The market theory is still implausible, as George Gao, the man who led the investigation of that market, Ralph Baric, the world's leading coronavirologist, and many others insist.

      The new study says there were mammals on sale in the market. We knew that: it was in our book published three years ago. It says there was SARS-CoV-2 in the market; yup, in our book. It says there were two strains in the market, A and B. Well, every human infection in the market was the B strain; the only sign of the older A strain was on a single glove, possibly contaminated in a lab. It says both animals and viruses were concentrated in the south-west corner of the market. Yes, that's because, the Chinese scientists say, they focused their search on the stalls that had been selling mammals!

      None of this is new. What the new paper does not say, because it cannot, is that there was an infected mammal in the market; or a market vendor infected by a mammal. These are the bare minimum clues that in every other zoonotic outbreak scientists have demanded to see. Other viruses that do infect raccoon dogs are in close association with raccoon dog DNA in that market, whereas SARS-CoV-2 is less associated with raccoon dogs in the market samples even than fish.

      The new paper’s reasoning demands that a single infected raccoon dog somehow souped up a bat virus enough to spark a global human pandemic without sparking even a single other case among, er, raccoon dogs – and then vanished into thin air.

      Bizarrely, the one new piece of data in the new paper points away from the market: the geographic origin of the mammals. The raccoon dogs came from central China, near Wuhan, where close relatives of the pandemic virus have never been found.

      Shockingly, but not surprisingly, the paper also shows evidence of biased reasoning. In trying to pin down the date of the most recent common ancestor of the human infections, it uses an inappropriate statistical technique which conveniently excludes most early cases, inferring a late November-December date that coincides with the likely market outbreak. All the other good studies have concluded that the first infection occurred much earlier.

      There are thousands of markets selling raccoon dogs all over China and south-east Asia. Yet by spectacular bad luck, the virus turned up only in the one city in the whole of Asia that has a laboratory focused on collecting, studying, growing and genetically manipulating SARS-like viruses and infecting humanised mice with them: Wuhan.

      The lab was doing risky experiments that made bat viruses more infectious in the years leading up to the pandemic. It had a reputation for being unsafe. It was planning to switch its focus to viruses precisely like this one the year before the pandemic. It worked on a close relative of SARS-CoV-2 in 2018. It was party to a plan to insert a special feature into a virus's spike gene, a feature found uniquely in the virus that caused the pandemic.

      To the delight of the Chinese government, western virologists are keen to deflect the blame, even when they cannot point to an infected mammal in the market. Yet even the Chinese authorities have concluded that that raccoon dog won't hunt.

      Matt Ridley is the co-author with Alina Chan of 'Viral: the search for the origin of Covid-19'

      1. It's laughable. The lab-leak is laughable. Any virus (if viruses even exist) was re-badged influenza. The scamplandemic, (survival rate 99.7%, average age of the deceased nearly 83) was manufactured from a test programme. It was a testdemic. The aim was to get us all to accept the potentially highly dangerous medical intreventions (jabs) which are the real bio-weapons. They are doing their work now with the excess deaths being seen, especially sudden unexplained deaths of young and fit people.

  24. Good Moaning.
    Well the bulbs MB has planted should feel jolly happy. They've had a darn good drink.

    "Now Angela Rayner hires £68,000-a-year 'vanity photographer': Deputy PM is the first to have taxpayer-funded staffer to burnish her image – as sleaze controversy grows"
    They really just cannot help it, can they?

    4. How did they survive in Opposition without all the freebies? And what were the Tories getting that we weren't being informed about?

    5. Actually whoever takes that post will probably earn every penny – trying to make Rayner look good!!!

    8. Worked there offshore but never got a chance to see anything outside of a city on land. Even so, I saw some wonderful birds and marine life.

    1. The manager of the machine.. The uber HR dept.

      The great she-elephant in the room. An object of fear. A deeply disturbing figure. She really runs the country then & now. The first chief civil servant without an education whatsoever. Previously as Head of Propriety and Ethics she controlled; Downing Street, the Garden and Privy Office, offices of Whitehall and both Houses.

      The uber HR dept has the power to discipline both Houses with its rules. The power to destroy Johnson.
      The power to issue passes and veto passes to the inner circle of govt, like the all purpose sugar daddy.. Lord Alli.
      The power to destroy Nigel Farage with new rules..
      In the modern shameless world we must have rules. rules. 2TK & 50Shades of Gray are passionate believers in rules. Principles nah. The rule of law doesn't have wit imagination or political sense. NO SPIRIT. Obey the rules, no matter how useless, how malevolent you are.. you will do fine. Like Paula Vennels.

      Until the bubble bursts.

      Starkey at his best.

  28. Pasted from Shropshire Lass' post in the Telegraph, regarding Rachel Thieves' 22bn black hole.

    £11 billion a year on foreign aid
    £4 billion a year on immigrant hotels
    £3 billion a year on foreign wars
    £2 billion a year on foreign quangos
    £1 billion a year foreign climate aid
    £500 million on foreign debt relief
    £500 million on foreign criminals
    £200 million foreign research grants
    £22.2 billion British taxpayer money the British taxpayer doesn't see a penny of.

    We'd be a lot better off if Labour would disappear into that black hole.

      1. Getting cloes to 40,000,000,000 for 'an app' thta almost no one used, that was dependent upon miniscule chance encounters and configuration was simply taking the urine.

    2. We are now being told that "hard decisions" are to be made, transferring what is left away from pensioners, public toilets and libraries, farming, non-woke culture, and pretty well everything that makes life worth living, and instead invested in prestige infrastructure projects that create jobs and opportunities for hardworking entrepreneurs who can spare a bit for backhanders and freebies in the right places. Above all, anyone with savings will be ordered to hand it over, and laws will be passed to put them in the prisons cleared of criminals if they resist. This is "justice" so we are told.

      Remember Starmer sacrificed the Regents Park hedgehog sanctuary for parking facilities for HS2 contractors, after saying categorically he would not do this? HS2 is the model for CHANGE Uk's intentions, and Rachel Reeves has been programmed to make it so.

      The sheepies at Conference will no doubt give them all a standing ovation. It seems they really do not know any better, or still have romantic delusions about what Labour ought to be. [edit- missed a bit]

          1. We weren’t told that all those thousands f Green jobs that would be created were going to be in China snd that we would continue to import hundreds of thousands of unemployable people who will be aneven bigger drain on the few taxpayers who will remain in the UK.
            Apart from Remain all parties are now socialist wasters.

  30. Dozens from UK take up Putin’s offer to ditch ‘woke’ West and move to Russia. 23 September 2024.

    Dozens of Brits have taken up Vladimir Putin’s offer to ditch the “woke” West and move to Russia instead, Moscow has claimed.

    At least 34 people have requested to move to Russia from the UK after Putin changed immigration laws in an Executive Order on Aug 19, according to the Russian Embassy in London.

    Putin said the aim of providing such “humanitarian aid” was to “save” those who identify with Russian “spiritual and moral values” from “destructive neoliberal ideological attitudes” in the West.

    The depressing fact is that there was very little to choose between Russia and the West anyway. Recently even this “little” has vanished. The political Show Trials in the UK and the attempts on Trump’s life in the US appear to be a tipping point. A move to Russia would involve a vast cultural change best tackled when young. The irony is that in an age where travel is easier than ever before there are very few other places to go. You can, if you have the cash, go and veg out somewhere but you would simply be a long term tourist. The responsibilities and rewards of citizenship are closed to you. I am resolved to sit it out here and go down with the ship.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/09/23/russia-woke-west-putin-uk-liberal-agenda/

    2. They need a much larger version of one of the treadmills in hamster cages.
      That'll generate some energy and keep them all warm.

    3. You can see the problem.
      The rest of us would put on an extra jumper but there isn’t enough wool, even in Yorkshire, to make jumpers for this lot.

    10. Get your facts right – They are from Lancashire –Ramsbottom to be exact!

      The Chawners were cruelly branded the "fattest and laziest" in Britain as they appeared in the limelight, dubbed as 'The Teletubbies'. The family gained notoriety when it was revealed they had claimed £342,000 in benefits over 18 years, and Emma claimed she was too fat to work.

      Just a couple of years after X Factor, the family had been forced to live in their car after being booted out of their home in 2012. Police evicted Emma, Samantha and their parents Audrey and Phil when they refused to hand over the council house keys.

      They had been branded neighbours from hell for playing loud music and all-night karaoke. Residents in Ramsbottom, Lancashire, lodged 130 complaints. The Chawners then starred on Nightmare Neighbour in 2016, following over 500 complaints from residents.

      Full story here: https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/samantha-emma-chawners-family-now-32360295

  32. Good morning, all. Just passing through. Expect to be cut off (in my prime) any minute now. Thank goodness for the AGA – we'll be able to cook, boil a kettle and have hot water come what may..

    Have a spiffing day NOT being at the Liebour conference.

    A demain.

        1. I've looked it up and there aren't enough letters there. The full name is apparently, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

      1. I have a dim n distant, James (good morning btw 🙂 of previous United Nations scandals, seem to recall child molestation issues? I could be completely wrong, I think you'll know, thanks? (correct re Mossad, no matter the time it takes)

        1. You’re thinking of that Oxfam one a year or two back maybe? In the far east. I can’t recall exact details without looking it up.

          I don’t think the UN is on my side whatever they do so it’s easy for us. Same with Israel.

          3. Thanks James, looked it up – yes, Oxfam in Haiti, still a sorry situation there. Israel will do whatever it takes, they’ll always have the Lobby support.

  34. I put this on FSB but I supose it should be here too.

    If you subscribe to James Delingpole's substack you'll have listened to this already. If not, don't miss it when it comes out from behind the paywall in a week or two.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7e60588657ad5be4ddec6898fa4cde863f24c4fedb176855fcdfcb4a0bad850b.png

    "Alexandra 'Sasha' Latypova is a former big pharma industry exec. Her research has exposed how all covid countermeasures, including the biological warfare agents marketed as ‘covid-19 vaccines’ were created, produced and distributed in a covert military program, where the pharma manufacturers only worked as subcontractors".

    Sasha Latipova's latest research has been into the history of vaccines and vaccination programmes. Unbelievably they have been entirely unregulated. Everything people suffer from in the modern world – hay fever, IBS, autism, you name it, stems from vaccines. They are vaccine damage. She has the receipts.

    Here's James's account of the podcast.

    https://substack.com/@delingpole/p-149202537

    Sasha Latipova's 'Art and Due Diligence' is one of the most important substacks you'll ever read. Her art is rather good too.

    https://substack.com/@sashalatypova

    Don't miss this Delingpod. You'll be astounded.

    1. RfKJr says similar re: vaccines relating to autism etc. He thinks illnesses like mumps, measles, rubella aren't as prevalent due to better living conditions, nothing to do with vaccines. From my own medical history, I think he may be correct.

      1. Steve Kirsch has also been onto this for ages – surveys of his many followers have shown a huge rise in autism since the American children were given a huge number of jabs for everything.

        As a child, I had measles, whooping cough (nasty) chicken pox, but mumps not till I was 25 (very nasty).
        I had jabs for smallpox and polio.
        My children had more jabs than I did but nothing like as many as children these days. My younger son had a reaction to the dtp jab – I should have stopped him having more but I trusted the doctor then.

        1. I hope your son fully recovered ok? Your final few words are telling, Ndovu, I no longer either know mine nor trust him/her. I too had everything going, one after the other, away from school weeks on end. One of my aunts was getting married and chose me as one of her bridesmaids – yellow dress, my mother said my skin colour matched it, pale and pasty…needless to say they never got on with each other…:-D

          1. He was four months old and went very pale and sweaty in the evening. Later passed an unusual -looking motion. Was ok next day but didn’t gain any weight for quite some time though his development was normal. He just stayed around 16 pounds. Doctor said not to worry and I believed him but it’s something I’ve always remembered. I still have the boys’ vaccination records.

            Last time I saw a GP for myself was in 2019 when I had shingles. He looked about 12 – the practice takes on a lot of students for their pre-reg year.

          2. Good signs something amiss, I’d say. Why the heck do some medics think mothers/parents are off-limits when it comes to assessing their own child’s situation – they know their usual demeanour better than anyone. Some babies move more than others, kicking more almost from birth, some early walkers (nine months one of mine, another more or less double that). GP wouldn’t even see me when I had shingles, that’s painful and demoralising, was low for weeks even though had hardly any rash. There’s apparently medication but has to be given prior to rash appearing (wta). My dad had it, apparently a bad sign if the rash all round body and joins up. Neighbour had it in one eye..ouch, that was bad…I’ve never seen my GP, no idea who he/she is. Yes, have heard that, they qualify here then work eg AUS/NZ where pay and conditions better than UK (this after they’ve been given grants UK, we should say grant – stay five years post qualification, never happen tho.)

          3. My shingles started with an intense pain in my right ear, so I thought it was an ear infection. The rash came out a couple of days later, but one side only. I looked on the NHS website and there was a photo of my rash. So I phoned the surgery and got a call back (when they did them) and as the rash was within 48 hours she made an appointment with the young boy and his supervisor. They agreed with my diagnosis and prescribed anti-virals – five a day for five days. Apart from the intense pain I didn’t feel ill but I got through lots of paracetamols. The tablets are supposed to stop post-herpetic neuralgia and they seemed to work as I had no after-effects. Unlike my poor aunt who was plagued with nerve pain for the rest of her life.

          4. I’m somewhere in between you and aunt. Seem to recall mine a bank holiday so surgery not open, told later medication has to be taken even prior to rash if possible (?). Pain was in my side, bottom of right ribs, lasted for weeks, started to think I’d have it for rest of my life – your poor aunt, I feel for her, how awful to have to live with that pain.

          5. Yes. I don’t think the anti virals were available in her day. She had the shingles round her waist I think – and the neuralgia afterwards. My uncle was not the most sympathetic of people. They are both long gone now. She died in ’99 I think, and he in ’01. He desperately missed her, but too late by then. Apparently you can have it more than once, so the shingles jab was one I did have. None since though.

        2. I had no jabs apart from diphtheria and scarlet fever, then later smallpox. Didn't have any childhood illnesses (apart from whooping cough, which I caught in hospital when I had my tonsils out).

    2. That's 100K after tax, pension and NI. £100,000 wasted on one grifting woman. That's 5000 winter fuel payments.

      Has this loathesome waster any idea how long it takes to earn that money? To go out, fight for contracts, deal with customers? What a waste. Her entire job is a waste. Her entire existence is nothing but a waste of tax payers money.

  38. Well my earlier efforts didn't succeed although I posted over two hours ago that I was going to make a cuppa I've rolled over and went back to sleep. 😅😂
    Never mind eh. It's still raining and an old washing up bowl we sometimes use around the garden was left on the top of one of our waste bins. 4 inches deep It's now overflowing.

    1. Education Secretary, doesn't understand the meaning of certain words. Whilst trying to demolish Freedom of Speech Act. We're down the rabbit hole.

  42. Good morning, all. Heavy rain woke me up around 04:30, a couple of heavy pulses since but now light rain.

    Here's one for Grizz re animal fats and also for those on statins or under medical pressure to take this medication. I followed my doctor's advice for a few years with no adverse effects and similarly no change in how I felt and performed in my daily life. Reading an article some time ago convinced me that I was being over-medicated and I gave up taking statins. Again, with no noticeable effects, good or bad.

    NB. Some bad language.

    https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1837668435066490963
    If the disastrous CV-19 scam has had one good effect, it has heightened many people's awareness of just what is happening in some areas of the medical field.

    Another area that has been revealed in this period is the widespread corruption across many areas of life: often suspected but never fully exposed, it can no longer be denied.

    1. Afternoon, Korky.

      The entire human population of the earth has been lied to, browbeaten and deceived for the best part of the last century by the Medical-Industrial Complex. These creatures want you to buy and eat their Frankenstein food in order to make vast profits for them. Then, when you get seriously ill as a direct result of eating their crap, they want you to buy and take the countless drugs made by their Big Pharma arm.

      They are powerful enough and rich enough to be able to bribe 'health authorities' and universities to provide 'studies' that show eating their putrid effluent is healthy and good for you. It is anything but.

      They care not about you, or your health, as long as you keep buying their 'food' that makes you ill, then buying their drugs to combat that illness. You don't matter to them one iota, but your wallet does.

      Trouble is, that when I attempt to warn people about this, I am lambasted by lame-brained halfwits as being a "one-eyed zealot". My reaction to that is, sod them. If they are crassly stupid enough to go on eating crap, and getting progressively more ill, despite wasting money on drugs, then they can't say they weren't warned.

  43. SIR – I was baffled by your report (September 15) that large numbers of children starting school are not lavatory-trained because of lockdown.

    They were at home with their parents or carers during this period, so there would have been even more opportunities to concentrate on potty training.

    Jennie Naylor
    Hereford

    I always smile to myself when I see a car parked in a layby and mum or dad supervising the potty stop.

    I used to do that with mine , years ago. They were clean by about 2years of age .

    1. Cats, dogs and children must be properly house-trained as soon as possible. Both our boys were 'clean' before the age of 2.

        1. I am 78 and have been 'clean' for over 76 years!

          We have a dear old friend who is 89 and completely incontinent and has to wear nappies. He has recently moved into an excellent nursing home where a high proportion of the 'inmates' have the same problem so he is well looked after with efficiency and compassion. How miserable and humiliating it is for decent people who become incontinent.

      2. Snap. It is degrading for children who can already walk and talk to waddle around in piss and shit filled nappies.

        1. Exactly so. Mine were proud of themselves for no longer needing (daytime) nappies, and night-time followed pdq.

    2. My wife potty-trained all our three children, who were all clean by the age of 2 (maybe even slightly younger). Our eldest daughter did not start potty-training her youngest child (a boy) until he was three. My wife had to bite her tongue and not say anything further after mentioning it once.

      1. Disposable nappies make parents lazy.
        Soaking, washing and drying towelling nappies was an incentive to sort matters out pdq.

        1. My wife used to take pride in hanging out gleaming white nappies on the washing line. She used to boil them in a bucket on the gas hob. She turned up her nose at other people's 'grey' nappies on their lines.

        2. My wife used to take pride in hanging out gleaming white nappies on the washing line. She used to boil them in a bucket on the gas hob. She turned up her nose at other people's 'grey' nappies on their lines.

    3. Immigrant families have a similar routine They take their brats to an aisle in the nearest supemarket and encourage them to squat.

      If no supermarket is available, any doorstep or pavement will suffice.

  44. 393340+ up ticks,

    If this be the case then these anti British political forces are encroaching on to decent English peoples soil, as in fraternising and giving comfort to the morally illegal invading alien enamas.

    ‘Four million homes to be built on green belt’ under Rayner’s planning revolution
    Radical definition of ‘grey belt’ land is likely to accelerate housebuilding, research finds

    Be far better ALL ROUND to people arrest the politico's, no discussion ( they'll understand) hold on remand until some future court hearing date, ( they'll understand).

    This is achievable via, sheer weight of numbers.

    1. Simpler to arrest anyone complaining about it. Why do you think they are clearing out the prisons of villains?

      1. There will always be future Labour voters, Katy.

        An increasingly imbecilic population will invariably make sure of that.

  45. Is there any way around the culture of "planned obsolescence" that has taken over in Britain, thanks in part to American "throwaway and buy buy buy" sales practice.

    Here is an article https://www.theheatinghub.co.uk/articles/boiler-lifespans discussing why the same Worcester Bosch boiler seems to have ten years more life in it in Germany than it does in the UK.

    A flat I am selling has an old WB boiler that has been condemned by the gas board for venting gas through the flue. I am told it is uneconomic to repair, since we cannot get the parts for it, and anyway new condensing boilers, designed to last 7-10 years are "more efficient", and the fitting costs are a major part of a gas engineer's livelihood. In Germany, they regard the lifespan of a product to be part of the efficiency and must be included in the calculations.

    It's the old chestnut – how does one avoid getting ripped off in the UK, other than going hermit and avoiding the professionals if at all possible?

    1. I guess that's why they want to control (and eventually ban) wood burners. You can have a pellet oven with a hot water system. If you want to be extra safe, you can have an oven that takes logs or pellets but logs are a lot less convenient.

        1. With pellet ovens, you just tip a box in in the morning, and it feeds itself all day. With logs, you have to keep feeding it, and they do bring dirt into the house.
          I still wouldn't rely on pellets but friends who have switched rave about them!

          1. My logs are stored in ventilated purpose built containers outside and brought in as needed, my woodburner is actually a multifuel burner so I also burn coal and peat. Mine costs very little to run as I chop the trees down and log them then let them dry out for a year before using (or when my moisture meter tells me they’re dry enough). My logs don’t bring any dirt in. How much does a pellet oven cost – my burner was £150.

          2. A lot, I think. I think the pellet / log burners are good for simple convenience, but I would never rely on pellets alone.
            Your setup sounds ideal.
            I do get a bit tired of sweeping up around the woodstove! Our logs always seem to bring bits of sawdust, cobwebs etc in with them!

      2. Depends on where you live.

        I am having a "sod it" day today because I never got round to cutting up my firewood while it was still dry.

    2. What 'Gas Board'? Look around for an experienced independent Gas Safe heating engineer who is familiar with Worcester Bosch. You could ask (off the record) at a WB main stockist (eg City Plumbing) if there is anyone they might recommend.

      1. It was British Gas that raised that nonsense about the meter cupboard, whereas it was Cadent who shut off the boiler claiming there was raw gas in the flue. The first independent Gas Safe engineerI brought out would not open up the chamber to see if there was a problem with the burners. I am trying with one recommended by my estate agent, but I don’t hold up much hope. “Beyond economic repair” is the usual catch phrase when they want to sell a new boiler.

        It was working fine util it was “serviced” in April (I did not ask for this – he just went ahead and did it, charged me for it, and it would have cost me a lot more to take him to court. I don’t know if Gas Safe engineers use the same trick as garage mechanics work for the MoT – to tweak something out of adjustment or throw in a bit of dust, so that it may cause trouble in a few months, and then recommend a full replacement. I lose confidence in the “service” because of this, especially since the law is on the side of traders, not customers, who cannot shield behind the Regs. The Gas Safe register may vet operators for knowledge of the current regs, but they won’t vet them for honesty, especially when there is a common interest to install new boilers. Almost certainly a main dealer would recommend chucking out the old and replacing with new.

        I so wish I could learn to trust people again.

  46. Rang the surgery at 8.30am. I was 49 in the queue. Had another hour's sleep. I was down to 24. Just rang again:17.

    What's the point?

      1. Why is life so complicated ?

        Years ago you would queue up in the Doctors waiting room , the old style doctor would be hands on , would look at you , take your temp and B/P, or ask for a urine sample .

        An animal vet spends longer diagnosing your pet than a doctor does for a human .

        I think that many doctors are a different calibre these days .. They don't have the sturdiness or empathy that older doctors used to have .

        Am I right or am I wrong ?

        1. I think the problem is there are just to many people for them to cope with. True there are cold obnoxious doctors and arrogant ones, I had an arrogant doctor that caused open warfare between us because of his attitude Then I requested that I be assigned to another. My present doctor is a wonderful person that I would not want to change for the world. But, at root, the problem is, as we all know, there are now to many people in England which makes it all but impossible for doctors to provide the individual care they used to. It's crazy, at my surgery you can only discuss one problem at a time. Thus if you have more than one thing going you have to make multiple appointments. Thankfully my Doctor ignores the rule but he has to deal with everything within 15 minutes before he is obliged to call in the next person.

          1. You're lucky to have a named doctor that you see each time. That seems to have gone out the window at most places, including ours.

          2. Gordon Brown started the rot with GPs – paying them more for working less. Then they realised during the Covid farce that they could get away with "working from home" they don't care because they are paid according to the amount of people registered with them, so they can do (or not do) whatever they like thereafter.

          3. It was more complicated than that. He broke the link between the remuneration a practice receives and the number of GP partners so that the sector could eventually be passed to the big corporates. The existing partners thought this was super because, when one left, they could divvy up the profit between fewer numbers of partners while paying a salaried doctor at a lower rate. At the same time, the requirement to provide 24/7 cover was dropped because that provided another business opening and the existing partners were in clover again. Unfortunately, Gordon had no clue about how general practice really works and how patients behave. For example, the out of hours demands soared once patients felt no embarrassment about calling a doctor at 10pm for minor illness since they would not have to meet the eye of their own GP to explain why the whole family suddenly needed to be seen at that hour for sore throats. Eventually of course it all foundered because the OOH service degenerated into a helpline staffed by someone with a triage flow diagram that nearly always pointed to ‘go to A&E’.

            The net result of all this (and of many concurrent factors such as onerous student loans, the cult of ‘me’, filling the country with cultural aliens etc) was to strip GP s’ of a sense of responsibility for a community they got to know.

          5. I've never seen the same doctor twice since I was transferred to a new practice after the old one closed.

        2. You're right, plus they only work certain hours and days. My husband has a term for it (sorry to say as I'm a woman)…'binted'. He's correct.

          1. At my surgery, we have one doctor, a woman, that works one day a week. It's an utter joke.

          2. Had a tick bite a few years ago, got the bullseye ring so rang surgery for antibiotic prescription, as had done previously a number of times. This time, told to go to A&E and get there as quickly as I could because waiting times can get very long (this was 9am) – got there soon and triage system so had to wait almost three hours, then another half hour in pharmacy. Our local surgery is now a limited company, with the head GP now the Managing Director, (who has an Electric Jaguar which he charges at work) they’ve mortaged the Victorian building where the surgery and pharmacy are located. They’re a long way from when the NHS was set-up..

          3. Ours is also now a limited company and the non-medical staff are apparently all on a minimum wage.

          4. No surprises, but sorry to read about the minimum wage for non-medical staff…receptionists, cleaners etc. Our NP was a good chap, think he’s retired now, and not replaced.

        3. J was unable to collect his meds last week before they were due to run out today. He phoned the surgery and actually managed to speak to someone who told him his meds were due for review but he'd be able to pick them up Monday.
          This morning we had a call to say they were puzzled as to why he no longer wanted the statins – so they put a hold on the other things he needs.
          Hopefully he'll be able to pick them up this afternoon.

        4. Can't complain about my doc or the service from the practice but there again I'm in the sticks

          3. Plus you are in the so far unenriched sticks. I'm in the sticks, but we've had a lot of unwanteds foisted on us.

        5. They should have more paramedics who can make the initial examinations and even prescribe medicines.

        6. To be fair to the vet, they need to know about ruminants, cats, dogs, mice, horses, whatever. Doctors only need to know about humans.
          Over here, only if urgent do you call the Doc. otherwise, book through the web.

        7. You get a better service from the vet. Even the vet diagnosed himself (he broke his ankle, but A&E insisted it was only sprained – he X-rayed it himself using the equine X-ray machine and yep – it was broken).

      2. Why is life so complicated ?

        Years ago you would queue up in the Doctors waiting room , the old style doctor would be hands on , would look at you , take your temp and B/P, or ask for a urine sample .

        An animal vet spends longer diagnosing your pet than a doctor does for a human .

        I think that many doctors are a different calibre these days .. They don't have the sturdiness or empathy that older doctors used to have .

        Am I right or am I wrong ?

      3. 11:30 – still 9 in the queue…

        Nothing to do with immigration. Obviously Tory austerity.

        1. Good grief. Hang in there, btw wouldn’t mention it when you finally get through, they don’t seem to care for that ‘attitude’.

          2. Ah…might that mean you just go to the back of the queue each time, i.e. an even longer wait? Good luck, William, guessing lunch breaks coming up soon. :/-

          6. Do they have an "E-consult" facility on their website? Ours insist we use that as a triage. No wonder A&E is always full.

    2. This is why so many go straight to A&E. Even if it takes all day, they still see everyone who turns up in the waiting room, as used to be the case with GP practices.

    2. She claimed "events" on her expenses form.
      Which it was; but the implication would be something connected to her parliamentary duties.

      1. Which is sort of what she was claiming. But why connect it in any way to her birthday? What has her birthday got to do with her work, that's a rather large giveaway. Apart from the fact that it's what we are coming to expect from the hypocrites in Government.

        1. Just watch her on GBN catch-up.
          Apparently photos her with cake were not the office beano but a family do.
          Nobody asked who bought the cake, bubbly etc…

  49. I stumbled across this just now while looking for the song by Ann Peebles I posted below. The second song he sings is an old English folk song that Tim Hart and Maddy Prior used to sing. Perhaps some people here remember them, English folk singers from the 1960's. There are a lot of old folk songs that are sadly neglected. It is yet another English tradition that we seem to have lost as our past is being systematically erased.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPFvVqSSnKQ

    1. Remember them? Who, Maddy Prior, the famous folk & rock singer, one of the founders of Steeleye Span?

  50. A very touching piece by Tim Stanley in the Tellygraff.

    "A fond goodbye
    Columnists do read correspondence. For the past few years, every time I wrote for the Telegraph I received an email from one Daphne Pearson, offering words of wisdom on Britain’s decline. We never met, I don’t even know where she was writing from, but I always tried to reply.

    Last week I received an email from Daphne’s son to say that she had died. I took the news hard. It felt like losing a friend.

    Going back through our old conversations, I realise that she must have been in her eighties – as she recalled being three when the War broke out “and did not see a banana till 1946, when an uncle brought me one from London as a curiosity”.

    Daphne was a Christian; she often wrote about the importance of tradition, family and civility. She is the kind of person I think of when I’m writing, and I will continue to write as if she were reading."

  51. Three threes in a row. Time to check my Lotto tickets.
    Wordle 1,192 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
    ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Ooh, three for me today! (I'm not clever like you Ped, I don't do them in a row x)

      Wordle 1,192 3/6

      🟨⬜🟨⬜🟨
      🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  55. Well, a pause in the rain has allowed me to sort out some of the wood I cut yesterday.
    Now in for a mug of tea after 1½h work.

    1. There was also consensus among the panellists that Reform UK's high command were members of the Far-Right.

      Georgie Laming, who penned Hope Not Hate's strategy plan against the populist party, labelled Reform UK "authoritarian bastards" at another fringe event held shortly after.

      Let us hope that these are fringe views…

      1. I think we have to face the facts as we known them WS, any one who disagrees with the trash that is ruining ( running it into the ground) the country and anyone who hates this ongoing planed invasion, in fear of our future, culture and social structure can only be ‘Far Right’. Our fathers and grand fathers were all extreme ‘far right’ when the stopped the nazis invading. sarc.

      2. Would that be the ‘charity’ Hope not Hate, or is Hope not Hate merely ‘affiliated’ to a ‘charity’?

  60. Revealed: The glossy shots of Angela Rayner hard at work (and drinking whisky through a straw) taken by her taxpayer-funded 'vanity photographer' – after she slammed Tories for doing the same
    Labour conference latest updates: Rachel Reeves rules out return to austerity as Chancellor is grilled over freebies row engulfing party
    By David Wilcock, Deputy Political Editor For Mailonline

    Published: 10:22, 23 September 2024 | Updated: 10:26, 23 September 2024

    View comments
    Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner beams as she drinks whisky through a straw while posing for pictures taken by her 'vanity photographer'.

    The lighthearted image captured on a visit to Scotland sits alongside more serious shots of her hard at work in the short weeks since Labour won the election taken by Simon Walker.

    She is shown variously meeting her Pakistani counterpart, hosting a Make Work Pay breakfast meeting and visiting a John Lewis department store with London mayor Sadiq Khan in other glossy PR photos.

    The Mail today revealed Ms Rayner, who has been mired in controversy over freebies from Labour donors and could face a sleaze inquiry, has risked a fresh storm over Mr Walker's appointment on a salary of £68,000.

    He has been given the title of Chief Photographer to the Deputy PM and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He previously worked as Rishi Sunak's chief photographer.

    Labour officials have denied that it amounted to recruiting a 'vanity photographer' for the DPM, something Ms Rayner condemned while in opposition.

    In 2021, when Boris Johnson was PM, she said: 'The public will be rightly questioning why there is apparently no limit on the money that can be found to pay for a coterie of vanity photographers for the Prime Minister.'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13881175/Angela-Rayner-whisky-vanity-photographer.html

  63. Peter Jay, ‘the cleverest young man in England’ who later came unstuck as ambassador to Washington
    There were cries of nepotism when the young journalist, who happened to be the prime minister’s son-in-law, bagged the top job in diplomacy

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2024/09/22/peter-jay-washington-bbc-economics-callaghan-maxwell/

    Peter Jay, who has died aged 87, was, as a 37-year-old journalist, billed by Time magazine as one of 150 future world leaders; but the early brilliance which saw him promoted, only three years later, to the post of British Ambassador to Washington was undermined by certain traits of character.

    Aj Arn
    17 min ago
    Channel 4’s own Inquiry into how Blair came to invade Iraq with his pal Bush was far more timely and succinct than Chilcott’s unread tome, and owed a good deal of that to Jay’s masterly account of events.

    Comment by Vicki Lester.

    VL

    Vicki Lester
    17 min ago
    Hadn't heard much about him for donks. A champagne socialist from a totally privileged Labourite background who reached the zenith of nepotism when his father in law as PM gave him the plum UK ambassadorial role in the USA at scarcely 40 – Maxwell was probably penance for that. RIP

    Comment by Steven Ward.

    SW

    Steven Ward
    22 min ago
    Aristotle of course was not "Greek" but a Macedonian. Although the land comprising of ancient Macedon is now a part of modern Greece, in Classical times Macedonians were generally considered barbarians, i.e non-Hellenes, by their southern neighbours.
    In Athens, Aristotle was unable to purchase property due to this. Hence, his Lyceum school became Peripatetic, inasmuch as they were obliged to be taught moving around.

    Comment by Gaynor Price-Jones.

    GP

    Gaynor Price-Jones
    27 min ago
    Very attractive man whatever his faults.

    Comment by Harry Hornet.

    HH

    Harry Hornet
    29 min ago
    Some things you think are new now seem to have been ever present. The well worn route of the connected to the opportunities, public school, Oxbridge and a PPE degree. And the view that they arrogantly know best but hiding skeletons could be the epitaph of our new one term Government edited

      1. In his defence he had a beautiful classic 40 foot sailing boat and he was a keen sailor. I was once tied alongside him in my boat, Inca, at the Royal Lymington Yacht Club pontoon.

        I see that he was top of his year in the civil service exams after leaving Oxford with a first class degree. My dear old father was top of his year in the Civil Service Arabic exams after leaving Cambridge with a first class classics degree before going out to the Sudan.

        Funny how brains can skip a generation! My father's children were not as bright and talented as he was but some of his grandchildren showed promise!

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0bc07b535886fba32ee6e0a2b9fc64d7839d1c10051838fd5268bd77d469d337.jpg

          2. I have to agree that they are all pretty disappointing. None of them are fit to stand in Churchill's shadow, let alone fit to honor his memory by their actions.

        2. Son of Labour cabinet minister Douglas Jay
          1st cousin via his mother Peggy of Virginia Bottomley nee Garnett.
          Ex husband of Sunny Jim Callaghan’s daughter Margaret Jay who was gifted a peerage by the Thatcher administration after being ‘appointed’ as head of a government funded AIDS quango.

          Connections, connections, connections

      2. In his defence he had a beautiful classic 40 foot sailing boat and he was a keen sailor. I was once tied alongside him in my boat, Inca, at the Royal Lymington Yacht Club pontoon.

        I see that he was top of his year in the civil service exams after leaving Oxford with a first class degree. My dear old father was top of his year in the Civil Service Arabic exams after leaving Cambridge with a first class classics degree before going out to the Sudan.

        Funny how brains can skip a generation! My father's children were not as bright and talented as he was but some of his grandchildren showed promise!

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0bc07b535886fba32ee6e0a2b9fc64d7839d1c10051838fd5268bd77d469d337.jpg

    1. This is only going to get worse under the fool Lammy. He will have no interest in stopping the horde: he's one of them.

      Increasingly it's going to be down to the public vs the state. We need to start fighting back. When the wasters are ofloaded, we fill them full of arrows. If plod turn up to stop us then we turn our weapons on them.

      The state is the enemy now. We gave them the tools to stop this invasion, countless thousands have been slaughtered. It's long past time it was stopped. If the government refuse to, the people will have to.

    3. This continuous invasion footage is becoming more difficult to watch each day, is it possible to claim compensation from the government for the disturbing effect it is having on all of us ? For Mental 'elf isshoos ?

      1. If the French are in on it then it's a pincer movement with the Palace of Westminster, irrespective of who is in power.

  65. 393340+ up ticks,

    The daily siren call of the United Kingdom.
    Every death is another hideous scar on the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled / governance controlled / paedophile umbrella pro eu coalition parties political overseers record.

    Dt,
    ‘I’m 15, don’t let me die’: Last words of teenager stabbed to death
    Metropolitan Police officers called to reports of a disturbance in Woolwich, south-east London, on Sunday evening

  67. Labour delegates booed today as a showdown vote on the winter fuel allowance was delayed until Wednesday.

    Unions have been trying to force a debate at Liverpool on the controversial move to strip 10million pensioners of up to £300 a year.

    But the timing has now been pushed back after intense wrangling on the party's organising committee – with claims the schedule is 'too busy' for a debate this afternoon.

    Instead the clash – which the leadership is resigned to losing – is likely to take place after the PM has given his keynote speech. And Sir Keir will not even be present as he is due to be travelling to the UN general assembly.

    As the session opened this morning, Lynne Morris, who chairs the conference arrangements committee (CAC), was heckled as she said: 'This is a really busy conference and we are trying to accommodate as much as we can, and I'm going to take this back straight to CAC and I'll come back to you with an answer ASAP.'

    Activists were then admonished from the stage for booing.

    Despite the open revolt, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has insisted there will be no U-turn on the plan, and the vote will not be binding on the government.

    In other developments at the conference today:

    Ms Reeves has admitted Labour's freebies bonanza 'looks a bit odd' reassured unions there will not be a return to 'austerity';
    Angela Rayner is facing accusations over a taxpayer-funded 'vanity photographer' who has been taking glossy pictures of her at work;
    Health Secretary Wes Streeting has risked fuelling infighting over No10 chief aide Sue Gray by swiping that people are acting like she 'shot JFK';
    A poll has found Labour's election-winning coalition is 'eroding from the inside' amid the meltdown over winter fuel and freebies.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13881287/Labour-conference-delegates-BOO-vote-winter-fuel-allowance-Starmer-Keir.html

  68. Listening to Reeves speak I'm reminded of a Dalek. Complete certainty in what they're saying, absolute conviction that they, and they alone have the answers and achingly obvious vaccuity between the ears.

    She is as dumb as a box of rocks. She has no idea what needs to be done and is just another tax and waste, Left wing psychopath who'll do tremendous damage to this country.

    1. Looking at her latest photos, she has morphed from Wendolene to Morticia Addams.
      Is that an improvement?

          2. A further response, wasn't there a Labour couple in Parliament who, according to rumours of before they were elected and became public figures, were apparently well known in "swinging" circles?

      3. What'd be an improvement is for Labour to just go away.

        A single, solitary announcement of adopting the Swiss tax code and then nothing else for, oh… 5 years?

        The next lot in then cut taxes again and also go away.

      4. I don't think she can have changed to Morticia – I quite fancied her [the Anjelica version or Catherine Z-J, whereas …. ]

      5. My bifocals slipped and I read Wendolene as that glass cleaning liquid. A quick application, a rub up and you could clearly see through all of it.

    2. Thank you for listening for me Wib. Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate! could easily be Labour's motto.

    1. I wonder how many pension companies might be pushed close to insolvency problems if they are overwhelmed with withdrawals in addition to their normal requirements to pay pensions..

      It could even cause a bond or stock market collapse as funds try to raise cash.

      Keep it up Labour, let's get the country ruined as quickly as possible rather face the inevitable death by a thousand cuts that we appear to be sentenced to.

      3. I think Canadian public pension funds will get into trouble just as quickly. They are being told to move investments from abroad and focus on Canadian entrepreneurial investments.
        Not content with throwing taxpayer money at windmills and battery farms, they are now intent on throwing our pensions in the same direction.

        Psst. Does anyone want to buy an unwanted EV battery plant? We have several flavors including VW and Chrysler!

      4. Don’t Sos, I recently withdrew a small sum from my modest private pension and for the first time although it’s the lowest withdrawal I have ever made, those bastards stole 256 quid from the total.
        I’m not a tax payer I have been retired for close on 10 years.
        And my annual state pension is less than effing politicians take in expenses every two weeks.
        It makes me worry about how we will cope in the close future.

        1. As the “beneficiary” of an Equitable Life pension I have every sympathy.

          What was projected to be a comfortable retirement figure in the 15-20K range, before they crapped out, gives me the princely sum of just under £1,600 PA.
          And I was very lucky. I translated into an annuity just before the market crashed again.

          1. Mine was also Equitable life.
            Now Utmost.
            My main concern is how long will it be before the same thing happens.
            If you draw down the lot those bastards will tax the arse off it all.
            And we have already paid tax on the money we invested. But not of course the interest.

  70. Titter Ye Not.

    "Rachel Reeves’s speech was interrupted by activists including a pro-Palestine protester."

  71. Apparently Israel is shortly to ban citizens from holding more than a small amount of gold, silver, medals, coins or any other monetary substitute.
    Goodness gracious me.
    Why on earth would they do a thing like that?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d89PL4mTi3Y
    See also the X accounts of Willem Middelkoop, Rafi Farber and Efrat Fennigan. (the latter two quote Israeli sources)
    All the more reason to own it, perhaps!

    1. I went to Israel in 1994 and shopping was interesting. I don't know how it is now but then you couldn't buy or sell shekels outside Israel so all retailers accepted pounds and dollars and change was given in shekels, which of course had to be spent there because they were useless otherwise.

        1. We do?

          Quite simply, retailers do not carry a USD float and most will accept US cash from visitors that are too lazy to change USD into CAD – they will even calculate some equivalent exchange rate before giving change in CAD.

          Unlike Shekels, Canadian dollars can be exchanged outside of the country.

          1. Yes you do. My experience in Vancouver. They have the operation down pat with little machines that do it for the cashier. When you say you want your change back in USA they tell you to get stuffed!

      3. The Market In Alencon that we used to shop regulary ( Mondays) many stalls take English pounds. The cheese stall we used gave us masses of cheese for a Fiver. oh and a free lettuce for some reason.

      1. Because they plan to abolish cash and implement a CBDC, would be an obvious reason. This might happen in the aftermath of dollar hyperinflation.
        They don’t want people to have alternatives to the government digital spy money. In Nigeria, people have been quite ingenious in ways to avoid using the cbdc.
        In Venezuela, people used single links of gold chains to buy food with at one point.
        There is also a big plan view that says they don’t want citizens to be buying building for a few ounces of gold as happened in Weimar, as they want the bargains to be available for oligarchs only. The sheep must be shorn at the end of a long economic cycle, ordinary citizens are NOT allowed to amass real wealth.
        maneco64 discusses it in the video.

      2. Gold has a 5000 year history of taking citizens’ wealth through financial crises to the other side – as long as you don’t get killed in the crisis of course, and your gold dug up by a metal detector a thousand years later!!
        For some reason, it seems THEY don’t want us to hang onto our wealth…or they don’t want us to be able to use it to buy things cheaply.

      3. Also, the public in the west are just beginning to wake up to buying gold. If the entire public starts wanting gold, the game’s up? The price will go to the moon and the stealth loading up by central banks and family offices would be a lot more expensive.

        1. I was thinking of buying gold sovereigns myself. Just doing an article for it on FSB as it happens.

          1. As a rule of thumb, gold is for carrying wealth over, silver is for buying things. Plus silver is so undervalued that many are holding it as a bet. Enough silver circulating in the economy would scupper a cbdc

  72. Questions for Wallace over war crimes bill change that would have protected SAS. 23 September 2024.

    Former Defence Secretary Sir Ben Wallace is facing questions about a change made to a draft bill that would have protected the SAS from prosecution.

    The allegations against the SAS are now being investigated by a public inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, which was launched following a BBC Panorama investigation. Panorama revealed that an SAS squadron killed 54 people in suspicious circumstances on one six-month tour.

    There is no lack of War Criminals in the UK. Blair and Cameron spring most readily to mind though they had plenty of support in Westminster. These two men make Vladimir Putin look like an absolute beginner. The wars they instigated and waged have been disastrous not just for the people we attacked but for ourselves. To start accusing the SAS of exceeding their mandate seems hypocritical to say the least since they were obeying the orders they were given. I have no idea if they exceeded their instructions in these night raids in Afghanistan. The only comment I can make is that if I were kicking some Pashtun’s door in at midnight I would shoot first and ask questions later. Which I would suspect is probably what happened. This most likely ensured in the majority of cases that they lived to come home.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy5ynkdxx9zo

    1. if I were kicking some Pashtun’s door in at midnight I would shoot first and ask questions later

      Having watched Yesterday's series of accounts of battlefied operations in WWII that is exactly what squaddies had to do when facing the enemy in built up areas if they wanted to stay alive.

  73. Free Speech today has a humorous account by Grumpy Old Man Graham Bedford about the myriad irritations he suffers when driving. And if you didn't read them, Iain Hunters second part of his account of the evil Fabian Society is very good, as is Paul Sutton's shocking 'Presents From My Boyfriends.

    freespeechbacklash.com.

  74. Good Day Nottlers!

    i am currently very much enjoying re-reading "I Capture the Castle"; I think the positive outlook has a lot to do with that, and would like to read more in a similar vein. Necessary antidote to the news.

    I would be most grateful for your recommendations. English literature preferred, but as I'm currently learning Spanish, that's a possibility too. Good writing is a must; thank goodness I don't have to explain that on here!

    Thank you in advance.

    Katy

    PS Obviously I already have a Kindle full of P. G. Wodehouse.

    PPS Works out of copyright much appreciated as they can often be found free or cheap in e-format. 🙂

    2. 'ello 'ello, good to see you here. I like Sci Fi kind of stuff.LeGuin, Ballard etc but that might not be for you:-)

      1. Big sci-fi fan here. I generally found Ballard a bit bleak, but may revisit some LeGuin. Thanks!

        1. Welcome, he can be – currently Millenium People. I like Mervyn Peake too, Titus Groan etc. LeGuin – Left Hand of Darkness a good start, just got my grandchildren on that one.

          4. If you can get hold of them Dorothy Dunnett's – Lymond series of novels starting with 'The Game of Kings' – Historical fiction, lots of real people in history included along with events together with the fictional Lymond (think James Bond in tights with a trusty sword!). Brilliantly researched with a wealth of historical social detail. Six novels in all

          8. Loved the book, still having trouble making the connection between lizards and seagulls…

            (Yes, yes; I know about feathered dinosaurs etc, but I suspect the nearer cause may be excellent Maltese cocktails.

            In which case, CHEERS!!)

          1. Excession is a 1996 science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks. It is the fifth in the Culture series, a series of ten science fiction novels …One of the largest space operas i have read.
            Ships the size of small planets with Minds larger than time.

          1. My wife enjoys Kate Mosse books.
            Mosse is very well known and the Languedoc trilogy was very highly rated.

          3. Can't help you there, Katie. The last fiction I read was a "Dick Francis" (actually his son, Felix) novel. 99% of the books I read are non-fiction.

          4. I liked Dick Francis. Taught me all I know about racing except not to hop across the fence with the dogs when there is a slight thundering in the distance. (My family lived near Beverley racecourse at a time when I yet had no sense…).

            I read a lot of non-fiction, too, but stay in my own mind while I do so, and sometimes I wish to travel further afield. Just different ways of getting there, I suppose.

          5. Beverley is a flat course, surely? Or did you mean the rail at the side of the course? I still occasionally revisit Captain W E Johns for a bit of nostalgia, but less often nowadays. So many books, so little time …

          6. The rails around the course! We used to hop over them on a regular basis instead of going all the way round…

    4. I'm working my way through Evelyn Waugh but as a fan of Plum, you've likely also been there, done that?

      1. Have you yet come across 'Chatty' Corner, the friend of Apthorpe, and Apthorpe's Thunderbox which was placed out of bounds to anybody under the rank of Brigadier by Brigadier Ritchie-Hook, the biffer and collector of coconuts?

        (I wonder if llanabba College will survive the imposition of VAT on its fees?)

        When, as a young schoolmaster, I was doing Decline and Fall – which was a set book for Eng. Lit "O" level – the kinder boys identified me with Paul Pennyfeather while others saw me more as Captain Grimes!

        1. Isn't there a garden party scene – or is it sports day – in Decline and Fall where a woman is described as being married to a n*gger? That must rule it out as a GCSE text book these days? I'm trying to buy as many of his books as I can before some ass decides to censor the language!

    6. Re-read Trollope?
      New stuff must pay lipservice to political correctness, which I find very tedious.
      I have had luck with several self-published books on finance and health, which were very interesting, but I hesitate to buy self-published fiction that hasn't been under the knife of a very good editor.

      Not very literary, but this is one of my all time favourite books:
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b63b1b70aa14f963575a606af5e4e01c279cbdcfc3a9accaa72229b4f2458dd1.jpg

    7. Re-read Trollope?
      New stuff must pay lipservice to political correctness, which I find very tedious.
      I have had luck with several self-published books on finance and health, which were very interesting, but I hesitate to buy self-published fiction that hasn't been under the knife of a very good editor.

      Not very literary, but this is one of my all time favourite books:
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b63b1b70aa14f963575a606af5e4e01c279cbdcfc3a9accaa72229b4f2458dd1.jpg

    8. Have you come across Tom Sharpe? Very scurrilous but great fun.

      Sharpe was a great fan of Plum Wodehouse and also of Evelyn Waugh who, like Sharpe, was at Lancing.

      I have a complete collection of Richmal Crompton's Just William stories – it is a great error to dismiss her as simply an author for children – she was a brilliant satirist.

    9. Hi Katy. Have you tried "Far Away And Long Ago" by W H Hudson about his childhood experiences in Argentina around 150 years ago? (Not to be confused with the classic Jerome Kern song "Long Ago And Far Away (I dreamed a day one day)".

      Glad you have a Kindle full of P. G. Wodehouse – a very funny author and one of my favourites who is guaranteed to have you in stitches despite any bad news – which, as you are aware, we hear of these days in abundance.

      From my childhood days in Argentina my primary school teacher spoke of two classic books by Argentine authors: "Don Segundo Sombra" by Ricardo Guiraldes and "Martin Fierro" by Jose Fernandez, although I must confess that as yet they sit on my bookshelves unread. I hope that this post is helpful.

      1. Thank you, dear Elsie!

        I hadn’t realised you had lived in Argentina, I don’t think. Where were you?

        I am making my way through Martín Fierro as we speak (well, not literally, as I am wending my way home on the tube). Hadn’t heard of either of the others and am very grateful for the recommendations.

        Un abrazo x

  75. Thanks Grizzly :-)) I’m doing my bit with family/their friends/others I meet. Green Agenda/Net Zero another subject we often chat about. They used to think I was a bit mad, not so much now….

      1. "joke".. Let's kill all the retards (average person).. then hold the brexit referendum.

        And didn't the London audience scream with applause.

    2. Thanks Grizzly…still laughing, the funniest of comedians. Reflects my dopey life, daily basis. Side bar: why are male comedians so much funnier than female ones…

      1. Do you ever watch Headliners on GBN? Comedians reviewing the newspapers. When it started they had a male/female balance in the panelists but over time that dwindled to just one female. One more has just been introduced. It'll be interesting to see if she stays.

        1. Thanks for h/t, Sue…will definitely look out for it, need all the laughs we can get – although I suspect Labour Conf might give us a few 😀

          1. If you haven't already watch Ricky Jervais present the Golden Globes. Massive takedown of so called Hollywood royalty.
            What was telling was his joke about G. Epstein's death. He knew how they would react and he was ready for them.
            Then there are his shows Supernature and Armageddon.

            The paedo joke had me laughing so much i had to keep pausing it because i couldn't hear what he was saying next.

          2. I love him, he always, always, makes me laugh – and think. Much more sombre note, also a Steyn fan, very sobering today, just been reading him.

        2. This jury is out on the new one based on my viewing of last night’s Free Speech Nation, Sue

          1. Yes. Cressida Wetton is the only one who really fits in with the guys. JoJo Sutherland may well go the way of all the others they've tried.

  78. Every sane person knew Labour would be an absolute disaster but didn't expect it to happen this quickly.

    1. Hello Grizzly, I think you and I have previously mentioned the Carnivore Diet – my husband says he hasn't felt as well for very many years, been taken off a lot of his meds having been Type2 for decades. Sugar/carbs – well known addiction, and we can add processed food to that list. It is very tempting for working mothers to rely on fast/processed food rather than cooking at the end of a working day, another factor. RfKJr is convinced the modern American diet is responsible for modern childhood ailments such as autism. But you know all this – thanks for posting the video 🙂

      1. My pleasure, Katy.

        Intelligent people, such as yourself and your husband, are clearly concerned about proper nutrition that promotes health, fights disease and improves ones physical strength and mental acuity.

        Stupid people, on the other hand, dismiss it all. This is because their brains have been atrophied by a constant diet of unnatural substances, such as vegetation, carbohydrates and sugar. Their nastiness matches their stupidity. I've given up taking to that type, they are beyond help.

        Those who genuinely care, though, will have my undivided attention in learning how to eat a natural human diet.

      2. Advertising is also a guilty party. Children see these things then demand them. Cook a nice T-bone steak for hubby and chuck the bone to the kids.

        1. Agree it is. ‘Children should be seen and not heard’…try our best 😀 I’m not ‘allowed’ near cooker due to syncope (which is much improved but he still likes to cook his own steaks).

    2. We have been onto this for some time.We have changed what we eat away from these things.We only eat butter olive oil and lard, no seed oils for about 5 years. We eat how our grand parents ate. No fad diets lots of meat and never 5 a day, its far too much. We do not have a microwave as the truth about them will come out some day. You have to keep things simple to know what you are eating.

    1. If they can't use vibrators what shall they do for pleasure? Their husbands are dickless pieces of shit.

      Having said that, what use is a vibrator to a woman who has had her entire vulva butchered?

      1. But if the poor women have also suffered FGM they won't be able to get any sexual pleasure at all.

  83. 1.33 US dollars to one pound sterling today. The dollar is steadily weakening. I wonder what impact the presidential election will have?

    1. Rates.. Sue.. rates..

      Last week The Fed surprised everyone with the jumbo half-point cut in interest rate.. everyone expecting a more traditional quarter point. Gotta to make the S&P500 look great for Harris in the run up to the rigged-election.
      So expect BoE & ECB to follow with same.

    2. "We're gonna change the subdises.."

      Memo to US security agencies.. "Make that two assassinations, and try not to mess it up this time."

    3. I'd suggest it's not our food – which, yes, is easier to get than ever before – but more that we don't 'do' anything.

      I have spent 6 hours in front of a comp, getting up to get coffee and to feed the beasts. That's it. I don't lift or carry anything. My most vigorous exercise is going downstairs to make coffee.

      Conversely one of our cable guys spends his day crawling through conduit, carrying great reams of cable about and pulling wire. He's invariably stood up and active most of the day. I write the software to run on those devices.

      The difference is in activity, not necessarily consumption. My bean pole uncle works his small holding all day, every day and eats huge amounts of food with every meal.

      1. Without doubt exercise is vital. Couch potatoes will not survive or be healthy. But it is the food that is the main culprit. Most people eat inappropriate diets, mainly sugar-laden. If you consume sugar, in any form (and that includes fruit), your health will suffer, you will become physically weak and mentally stupid.

        Carbohydrates are also sugar.

  85. First-time buyers offered mortgages six times their salary
    Easing of mortgage rules comes as banks lower rates in fresh price war
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/mortgages/nationwide-offers-lend-first-time-buyers-six-times-salary/

    So someone on £50,000 pa will be able to borrow £300,000.

    And when mortgage rates rise to 8% – the rate they were at when many of my generation bought their homes:

    The cost of interest alone would be £24,000 pa.
    Tax and NI on that level of income will be £11,229 pa
    Leaving only £14,771 pa for all the man's or woman's food, travel to work, heating, clothes, holidays, repayment of capital borrowed on mortgage loan, and a myriad of other costs.

    Just about do-able with mortgage rates at 2% but not realistic at an interest rate any higher.

    And if the poor sod or soddess has a student's loan on top of all this?

    1. When we originally bought, interest rates hit 15%. SO when Labour want to tax us on the "value" of our homes, perhaps they could take into account not just improvements that we might have done, but how much interest we paid in order to buy it. The price we bought at compared to the price it might be now is a ridiculous comparison.

      1. If you factor in the loss of purchasing power of the pound since people bought their houses, I doubt there'd b e many who are sitting on a "windfall" too!

          1. Do you remember we also got indexation allowance for capital gains, to strip out the effect of inflation. Broon stopped that and gave us the CGT allowance. And now that has been reduced to £3000 for a year and the most you can claim is two years. So most of any gain now being taxed, for example on a second home, is pure inflation

          2. I didn't experience the CGT part because I never bought anything that I might have to pay it on! But Broon was a cretin financially and politically – he might have got to university at an early age but he never developed beyond an undergraduate brain.

          3. Like all Labour chancellors (all chancellors, perhaps) he saw taxation as a way to engineer political success, not economic stability. Thus he removed countless working systems and punished savers and investors in favour of rewarding short termist, welfare dependents.

            Working tax credits being a case in point: he could have just cut taxes, but he wanted to hurt higher earning Conservative voters, so he gave their money to the lower paid Labour voter.

        1. That was quite a lot though back then. I do recall it going from per person to per property in c. 1988 which led to a house price boom

        2. They kept changing the rules.

          When MIRA was first introduced there were no limits and you could charge mortgage interest against higher rates of tax; you could also charge contributions to private pension plans again all earned income tax.

          1. You can still offset contributions to private pensions against all earned income – but only up to an upper limit (which is still relatively high for most earners). You just have to claim the tax back.

            Edit there was always an uppper limit of some kind on contributions.

          2. Before going into teaching I spent a couple of years flogging life assurance.

            At that time there was something called a single premium pension bond with 8% guaranteed growth and you could charge this directly against your earned income tax.

            So if you invested £2000 at the age of 64 into one of these and paid income tax at the top rate of 75% your investment would actually cost you 25% of £2000 = £500 and it would mature one year later for £2160. You could then take out 25% in a lump sum and the rest of the sum would give you an annuity for life at a rate of 12½%.

            So:

            Net Outlay £500 will be guaranteed to become £540

            (Capital withdrawn 25% of £2160 = £540. (A guaranteed return of 8%)

            An income for the rest of your life of £200 (12½% on £1620 = £202.50)

            And this was not a con!

          3. You can still offset contributions to private pensions against all earned income – but only up to an upper limit (which is still relatively high for most earners). You just have to claim the tax back.

          4. I remember my Dad saying he could offset mortgage interest against his salary.

            I know times have radically changed but it's just a complete mess now that a family either lives in a tiny house or a flat.

            We're a bit lucky in that we had a very small mortgage on the farmhouse and it was worth a lot and we sold a lot to buy this place – my toy car, the horsies and brought some of her savings back from overseas.

            Doing that required a flipping series of shell companies to avoid tax. It was so damned gormless. It's her money! She earned it, dumb state does not deserve to destroy 70% of it just out of spite.

          5. Sorry to hear the horses have gone. I hope they have gone to good homes. I understand, though. Keeping horses is a very expensive hobby. The rewards are not monetary.

    3. Labour's solution: Kill off granny or grandpa and inherit (Labour will help that). There might just be enough after IHT to help.

    4. Advise them if the risks, then let them decide if they will take it or not.
      Personal responsibility.
      All else is socialism.

      1. It's a way to get the young indebted so that when the lenders foreclose they will have to sell to them and rent their own homes back. "You will own nothing" etc.

        1. If you want to buy a house down here and you've no equity you… can't. You can afford a 2 bed terrace but you're making huge compromises, will be uncomfortable and what not.

          Much comes down to inflation and house prices. As government has poured ever more people into the country and paid duffers to breed so too has property climbed in value.

          Equally with taxation and inflation wages are worth far less than they should be. That 50,000 should buy north of 70,000 today.

          1. Get all the young indebted (edit: in an impossible debt), same intention as in getting all banking and monetary transactions electronic/digital.

          2. There's no other choice now to buy a home. Making all transactions digital would be fine if government had no control over them. Instead it wants to control what you can spend it on.

            Even then moving money digitally takes forever.

          3. It's the government (and the puppetmasters') control that is the main problem with making banking totally digital.

    5. I earn a bit north of that and the Warqueen now brings in (for her 180 days working a year) about a third less. Leaving our combined monthly net income just under 6000.

      Our expenses come to 1500 for mortgage and bills.
      Overpayments are currently 300 – just under 30% of the mortgage
      The dogs _alone_ consume £300 a month each.
      Our food bill is 750 – it used to be 500, fuel and dentists and repairs add in another 200 a month.

      Then there's birthday larks to buy for, the occasional spend on furniture or house stuff like broken /new plates

      If our mortgage were twice what it is it'd simply be unaffordable.

    6. The buggers are working together, not a single government program is developed independently. At the end of last week our mob announced that to make home ownership easier for newcomers to the market, thirty year mortgages would now be permitted and they also increased the maximum amount of an insured mortgage to $1.5 million.

      as Rastus put it, heaven help the poor sods that take a maximum mortgage.

    1. The WHO is having another go at their wretched global government 'pandemic' treaty behind our backs too.

      1. What are the chances of: "If you haven't had the latest vaccination you won't be allowed to access the NHS?"

        3. Well they might change their minds with all the dead bodies in the streets and people start complaining about the smell.

        4. Under this government, quite likely – but no let-outs for muslims etc. If it's against their "beliefs" it's certainly against mine.

          2. We are no good to God, dead in our shoes. Or dead in anything else. We can cross our fingers behind our backs.

    1. We're heading straight into slavery thanks to our disgusting, evil politicians – and the other quisling organisations and individuals in this country. As Dylan sang "money doesn't talk, it swears". I can't help sometimes wishing that the USA had never been discovered. Most of the people are decent and lovely people;and by no means not all evil eminates and eminated from there – but a heck of a lot of it does.

        1. I’m starting to think the masses will get what they deserve – some may not mind being told what to do an given a pittance to live on, especially if they don’t have to work for it, just vote the required way. But they will bring the rest of the country down with them. However, I wouldn’t put it past reasonable probability that it is fixed as well.

          1. History tells us it will be sorted out in the end, even if it is like the DarkAges and takes hundreds of years.

          2. “Past performance is no guarantee of future performance” – with technology, internet etc. the world is a very different place now. The past really is a foreign country. in a way I don’t think it ever had been before.

  90. As usual loads of distraction news containing UFO's for the feeble minded. Then i came across this…

    In space, two aliens are talking to each other.

    The first alien says, "The dominant life forms on the Earth planet have developed satellite-based nuclear weapons."

    The second alien asks, "Are they an emerging intelligence?"

    The first alien says, "I don't think so, they have them all aimed at themselves"

      1. Yes Belle, last Tuesday. Tuesday night i started a coughing fit. Fever and chills. Managing about an hour sleep a day in total so not doing much.

        Probably the best seafood restaurant i have ever been to. I also had the best table right next to the water. The little fishing boats bobbing away… https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g190323-d14209607-Reviews-Harbour_By_Johann-Marsaxlokk_Island_of_Malta.html

        And this one… Where i had mussels and a side order of Sicilian red prawn, considered the finest in Europe. They should be at 4 euro each ! This time on Sliema Strand with views of https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cf5f54c7bf1eae5fcf0af5fd23222b3e0eb376d8423d6b81fb220ee3ea55621b.jpg https://lemajolichemalta.com/trattoria-del-mare/

        Edited for correct link.

        1. Oh no, perhaps you need an antibiotic?

          What a shame , could be a virus on second thoughts .. Cabin fever .. ?

          In th 1960s when I was out there , there was a fish called lampuki and then we would eat tuna and swordfish.

          Loved octopus and prawns , and there was a sea urchin , spiny , that you sucked the content out raw ..

          Loads of of vege recipes and everywhere smelt of garlic .. even the buses .

          1. I know about lampuki. Had it before but not this time. Nowhere seemed to have it.

            I think it might be the case that higher end restaurants require a guaranteed supply of fresh seafood so the lampuki go more to the mom and pop type places now.

            The red prawns and sea urchins likely come from Sicily and come over each morning on ice.

            You know the part of the urchin you are eating are its gonads? :@)

          4. There were lots of very young children on that flight. I should have machine gunned them all before i sat down.

      2. Yes Belle, last Tuesday. Tuesday night i started a coughing fit. Fever and chills. Managing about an hour sleep a day in total so not doing much.

        Probably the best seafood restaurant i have ever been to. I also had the best table right next to the water. The little fishing boats bobbing away… https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g190323-d14209607-Reviews-Harbour_By_Johann-Marsaxlokk_Island_of_Malta.html

        And this one… Where i had mussels and a side order of Sicilian red prawn, considered the finest in Europe. They should be at 4 euro each ! This time on Sliema Strand with views of https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cf5f54c7bf1eae5fcf0af5fd23222b3e0eb376d8423d6b81fb220ee3ea55621b.jpg https://lemajolichemalta.com/trattoria-del-mare/

        Edited for correct link.

    2. Enjoy! sorry I've missed quite a lot: where are you going to? Wherever it is, I hope you have a lovely time and come back refreshed by your trip/

    3. Wow , so soon, how long will you be away for.

      So exciting , you certainly get around , are you flying BA or something posher?

      Take care , both of you . Bon Voyage.

    7. One of the hazards of a poor memory is that I've forgotten where you are going. I thought those going to a care pathway clinic in Switzerland or Canada zip up the bags after the visit, not before.

      Apologies for my mood – too much Rachel Reeves for one day!

  92. We have eaten sardines on toast , with salad for a few days , quite delicious really, squirt of lemon, fresh tomato, mini cucumbers .

    We ate pilchards the other day , nice canned pilchards in tomato . Sometimes the simple easy things in life are in tins .. Baked beans , yes , The Branston variety .. nothing complicated .

    We have some chicken thighs , will probably cook them in my Wok then add a packet of frozen Mediterranean vegs, easy simple , then add a Knorr condensed jelly type stock cube , and finish off with a small packet of fresh spinach on top of the meat and veg , lid on steamed ..

    Making a chocolate fudge cake in the Air Fryer..no need for the oven .. 40minutes.

    1. Are you not using your pressure cooker so much now?

      |I've given up on ovens – it's air fryer or my combi microwave/oven. Fine for two, and with an air fryer you can cook for quite a lot of people if you need to – just not huge joints!

          1. Thanks Belle…yes, electricity prices higher and possibly come down later, but once a habit's changed it may stay so 🙂

        2. Yes I forgot the slow cooker. I would be happy without a conventional oven now – between air fryer, slow cooker, pressure cooker and combi oven I have everything I need. I know that some combinations do all of these, but you can't do things all at the same time!

          Edit and gas hob.

          2. The old ones certainly were scary with the whistling steam and the release bobbin dancing away. Improved now. Provided you don't buy the old style.

        3. Airfryer/mini oven/Pressure King Pro here.

          The Pressure King will brown the beef and cook a stew in 20 minutes.

      2. Hello HL

        I gave my pressure cooker away .

        I haven't used my oven for a year , and what a saving on electricity , I use my gas hob and airfryer . much cheaper and easier.

          1. We have induction. The speed and convenience of gas, but no troughs under the burner to collect & burn a spill. No massive plate to heat up and cool down over a 3 month period. Never going back to anything else.

          3. I'm with you on that, OB, best ever type of hob by a huge margin.

            I am considering buying an air fryer before winter. The problems are the large range available and the space available in my galley kitchen. The kitchen was designed for my wife who sadly never got to use it. Another worktop rearrangement will be required or I may be able to squeeze one into the utility room. The latter is unheated but popping in and out shouldn't be too much of a task with tasty food as the end result.😋

          4. We bought a Cosori mini-oven / air-fryer a couple of months ago. It is tiny and sits on my worktop, perfect for a couple or a single person. I hardly ever use my main oven now as apart from the air-frying function, it bakes, roasts, and toasts. It has replaced the toaster on the worktop but Richard finds the toast from the oven rather too dry; he prefers the toaster. So we might bring that back out of storage. Our model is an Amazon exclusive.

            Have a look at it here : https://www.amazon.co.uk/COSORI-Rotisserie-Convection-30-Recipe-Accessory/dp/B0C2BVQMGD

          5. Thank you for the tip, Caroline. I have been considering a Ninja, I have one of their coffee makers – a 'present' when I bought a Shark vacuum cleaner – and it is a very good piece of hardware, still going strong after about 7 years.

            I got rid of my toaster a few years ago and I haven't missed it.

          6. MOH set our toaster on fire and I didn't replace it, but about a year ago, one of my friends gave me a replacement for Christmas. I hardly ever use it. The best toast, in my opinion, is made on an open fire.

          7. I have a circular, single drawer Ninja and have found it very good, especially for sausages which can be cooked quickly and with much less fumes than if I grill them. It’s also fantastic for chips – very useful when grandchildren are staying and for garlic mushrooms. The drawer can go in the dishwasher but the surface is beginning to look a bit worn at the edges.

          10. Hmm – my induction hob comes with a warning – Mr Sapola now has the perfect excuse not to cook.

          3. Don't be disgusting, Maggie. Both you and Richard are each one half of a married couple. Lol.

      3. I don't think I've ever used the oven on the old 1970s Moffat electric cooker my parents were throwing out. I keep my pans in it. First thing it did was to trip the power, so I've not bothered with it since. Three of the rings and the eye level grill work though. I have a Panasonic combi, with knobs rather than those horrid touchscreens or menu buttons, and use it all the time. 1 minute 10 seconds on full microwave to warm up tea and coffee. 3 minutes at 150C to warm a plate. Frozen baguette is 200g on chaotic defrost, followed by 3 minutes at 150C to crisp up the crust. I even did the Christmas turkey in it. I ate the last of it about a fortnight ago, when I reinforced some watery tinned chicken curry from Lidl.

        The air fryer is not really that successful, but it was only a cheapy from Lidl, so I haven't lost much. Doing oven fish & chips is just as good in the combi, which is on top of the fridge. Finding somewhere to put it is the problem, since my kitchen is only 9 foot by six foot, with three doors and an open fire I've blocked off and the boiler. Those folk on 'Grand Designs' have kitchens that are bigger than my cottage, and yet they probably eat about as much as I do.

      4. I've considered an air fryer, but I simply don't have the space. There's a stretch of worktop which – to the last millimetre – can accomodate my free-standing microwave, a filter coffee machine, a coffee grinder and a Panasonic breadmaker. Before I moved from the last place, I completely refurbished the kitchen (the parish couldn't afford to), but it was done 'on the cheap'. Farnborough B&Q had a massive clearance sale before refurbishment of the store, and I grabbed as many kitchen unit doors as I could find of one particular type. Some were marked down to £1.00.

        Appliances were either Siemens or Bosch, all sourced from Ebay. I only really used the combi microwave / fan / conventional oven as a microwave. The full-size fan oven did all the rest. It had the benefit of being-self cleaning. This was awesome. Turns all those nasty grease deposits into easily-removable ash. The 'tall' oven housing also had a Siemens 'Bean to Cup' integrated coffee machine.

        I got to know the subsequent tenant, and was invited round there for 'drinkies'. He'd installed a huge free-standing microwave on the granite breakfast bar (also Ebay), and had only used the combi one as a conventional oven, which was now dripping in grease. He never used the self-cleaning one. The guy is clearly bright, entrepreneurial, and a director of several companies. But not technically-minded. I had offered the parish a 'briefing' for my successor, but answer came there none.

        Here in the '*new' place (*I'll have been here for 4 years next Wednesday), the former housing society happily adjusted the kitchen units, and replaced a section of worktop, cutting an aperture for my induction hob from the last place*. And installed an oven housing (supplied by me), which I happily filled with another Siemens self-cleaning oven from Ebay. The last tenant had a 520 mm free-standing gas cooker. No thanks.

        *I had installed a conventional Bosch ceramic hob in the hole vacated by my induction hob. Another Ebay purchase…

        1. I use my free-standing (Calor) gas cooker quite a lot. The electricity will be going off next Monday morning so I am holding fire on lighting the Rayburn as without electricity* to run the pump the water will boil in the tank with the Rayburn running. Once things are back to normal it will be cooking with anthracite 🙂

          * While I have a generator, the electrician still hasn't got around to installing the changeover switch so I can use it to run the pump in a power cut. He assures me he hasn't forgotten – yeah, right.

      5. Hello HL
        There are so many different air fryer’s available and vary in price enormously. Which one do you have?

      6. Hello Herslass , I'm pleased I found you. I understand you have the email address of another Nottl – JD . Could you kindly inform him that Peta J is very sick with a terminal illness. I don't believe he'd know and they were good online friends that lost contact.. he'd be very upset not to know . I'm sure he'd want to know and to contact her himself so could you also pass on Tom's site email http://Freespeechbacklash.com and Tom can see if they can make private contact. Thank you .

    2. We caught some sardines last Monday on tiny feathers in the Sound but used them as live bait I'm afraid.

  94. Get all the young indebted (edit: in an impossible debt), same intention as in getting all banking and monetary transactions electronic/digital.

    2. 'Everything I did was allowed', says Raynor.

      Absolutely no moral compass. No concept of right and wrong.

      1. Even if it wasn't allowed, some tame ethics commissioner / watchdog would declare the expenditure above board and quite acceptable.

      2. You are allowed to do lots of things but it’s a different matter if you get caught.
        In it for yourself and sod the people you are meant to be representing. The lowest scum in this country.
        Labour are making the Conservatives look positively beneficent but that’s not true.

      4. ‘Allowed’ perhaps but only if the correct declarations are made and it appears that they weren’t.

    3. Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?

      [The Thane of Glamys addressing three secret, black and midnight hags]

  96. ‘At least 182 people killed’ in deadliest day of fighting in Lebanon
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/09/23/israel-hamas-war-gaza-latest-news14/

    And to think that it was so long ago when Lebanon was a mainly Christian, peaceful and democratic country.

    It did not take long for You Know Who regimes to turn the place into another hell on earth.

    Make no mistake – the same You Know Whos are planning to do the same to the UK and will probably succeed in less than fifty years.

  97. 4:02 PM

    Labour conference: Asking me about donations isn’t nice, says Lord Alli

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2024/09/23/TELEMMGLPICT000214693703_17271036547360_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqdEqAMEttOZuT-PaLZVJpqQ1nAVTofmZ9dzmCIXrFWXk.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Lord Alli, Sir Keir Starmer’s biggest donor, has donated tens of thousands of pounds in clothing to the Prime Minister
    Key moments
    Updated 22 minutes ago
    4:02pm
    Lord Alli: Don’t ask me about donations row – it isn’t nice
    3:04pm

    Reeves: I will not duck tough decisions
    The Labour peer at the centre of a sleaze row has told a journalist not to ask him about donations, saying “this isn’t nice”.

    Lord Alli, Sir Keir Starmer’s biggest donor, has donated tens of thousands of pounds in clothing to the Prime Minister and Lady Starmer, his wife.

    He was also granted a rare Downing Street security pass, prompting a “passes for glasses” row.

    Lord Alli was spotted at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, which has been overshadowed by the revelation, by Sky journalist Serena Barker-Singh.

    When Ms Barker-Singh tried to ask him about the donations, he replied: “Please don’t. This isn’t very nice.”

    There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on Lord Alli’s part, and The Telegraph has repeatedly contacted him for comment.

    4. Don’t ask me about donations row – it isn’t nice

      Reminds me of Tom Lehrer's song for Boy Scouts: Be Prepared!

      Don't solicit for your sister that's not nice
      Unless you get a good percentage of her price.

      (Please listen to this song until the end – We always thought that the last sentence was an advertisement for Durex.)

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEb9cL3-kf0

    2. After a run of threes and fives, I'm back to par.

      Wordle 1,192 4/6

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

    3. Oh you are good, I still try to identify more letters before guessing the word.

      Wordle 1,192 4/6

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

    4. Nearly blew it!

      Wordle 1,192 6/6

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

  99. Man stabbed in Quay St Fareham at 11am this morning opposite Tesco's.

    The only thing opposite Tesco's is the Police Station.

      1. A year or two ago i had a knock at the door. A policeman was standing there looking all of his seventeen years and asked me if my cameras had recorded anything unusual.
        It would have been too easy but i decided to play it straight.

        He said there had been an incident at the railway station. A mile away.

        I told him my cameras don’t even reach the public space because that would be illegal.
        Apparently there had been a rape there. First time that has ever happened in this sleepy town.

        Since then they have built a second mosque.

      1. Not me. I was abed. All the servants are in all of a flutter. Luckily i keep my mini crossbow by my bed so when one pokes their head round the door i fire.

        Obviously not to hurt them. Though i might need some replastering done.

  100. Explains a lot, thanks Phiz, was a number of years ago. I’m no longer allowed to cook because I occasionally faint, doh, but I’ll tell the-one-who-does-cook.

    1. I have an idea of what you mean. I have clots in my leg. Suddenly my leg loses all sense and the next thing i know i’m getting up off the floor. Though with my thinners that hasn’t happened in a while.

      1. Very sorry to read that, Phiz…I’ve heard others say thinners helped them. I hope your clots are dissolving (?) if that’s the correct expression. Good to read not happened in a while 🙂 Would you say if you’ve found any side effects please?

          1. Good to read 🙂 I’ve not taken many meds in my life other than otc ones. Covid vaccine the exception, no more of those.

    2. I see you're replying to Phizzee. Whose posts currently display as 'Content unavailable'. I haven't blocked him.

      1. I’ve seen that occasionally, too. No idea who it is, someone who’s blocked me perhaps. No idea why. Disqus available on a few platforms, I see some of my messages elsewhere if I click on the big red D.

    3. I see you're replying to Phizzee. Whose posts currently display as 'Content unavailable'. I haven't blocked him.

  102. That's me back and ready to sign off. Leccy came on late arvo. Drama this morning. The MR had a very urgent work item to proof read – and she intended to go to t'internet via her phone linking to laptop. Works every time. Except this morning. So an urgent run into Fakenham and the Library – where free facilities are available. Phew. Then the window cleaner came – you can tell when rain is coming, can't you? Gus hid behind the settee…like a dope.

    Anyway, have a jolly evening.

    A demain

  103. A very courageous woman.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13881791/Hatun-Tash-Christian-preacher-Metropolitan-Police-Speakers-Corner.html

    Scotland Yard has paid a Christian preacher £10,000 in damages for a second time after she was arrested while preparing to talk about the Koran at Speakers' Corner.
    Hatun Tash was pulled away from the famous spot in London by Metropolitan Police officers while being jeered and shouted at by a mob chanting 'Allahu Akbar'.
    The evangelist was then kept in a cell overnight – despite her own supporters having called the police after her Koran was stolen during the incident on June 26, 2022.
    Now, the Met has given her £10,000 in damages and costs, nearly two years after it paid her the same amount for two other arrests at the same spot in Hyde Park.
    The 42-year-old Christian is a former Muslim from Turkey who is now a prominent critic of Islam and believes Muslims should be encouraged to convert to Christianity.

  104. 393340+ up ticks,

    Must surely have reached the point now where the indigenous are not considered at all in regards to the infrastructure as in
    education, incarceration, accommodation,medication.

    Being kept on purely as a working / money source, still if the tax paying herd is satisfied as they seem to be, then what is there to do ?

    https://x.com/PeteJacksonGMP/status/1838244011212951827

    1. There's absolutely nothing you can do.. Sue Gray is in power for the foreseeable future.
      The only entity not under her control is the Military.

      She's working on that one, so you had better hurry up if you desire a coup.

      The Royal Air Force aims to hit targets of 20% for minority ethnicity and 40% for women among new recruits by 2030.

      1. The RAF has been going down the woke route for at least five years. I despair at the posters I see in No. 1 Radio School when I visit and RAF News, which I get as a freebie, is full of DIEversity and LGBTQWERTYUIOP nonsense.

  105. Does anyone honestly believe that this isn't a proxy war by the US and Britain, identifying and doing the real firings?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13880899/Humiliation-Putin-unstoppable-Satan-2-missile-explodes-obliterating-Russias-test-site-hypersonic-weapon-potentially-delaying-project-YEARS.html
    Humiliation for Putin as 'unstoppable' Satan-2 missile explodes, obliterating Russia's only test site for the hypersonic weapon – potentially delaying the project for YEARS

    1. Probably.
      I see Ukraine debuted its shiny new longish-range drone missile system called the Palianytsia. A swarm of about 100 hit a ammo depot halfway between Kiev & Petrograd or Leningrad whatever its name is.

      That's probably more advanced than anything the MOD can come up with. Certainly cheaper.

    2. Probably.
      I see Ukraine debuted its shiny new longish-range drone missile system called the Palianytsia. A swarm of about 100 hit a ammo depot halfway between Kiev & Petrograd or Leningrad whatever its name is.

      That's probably more advanced than anything the MOD can come up with. Certainly cheaper.

    3. Probably.
      I see Ukraine debuted its shiny new longish-range drone missile system called the Palianytsia. A swarm of about 100 hit a ammo depot halfway between Kiev & Petrograd or Leningrad whatever its name is.

      That's probably more advanced than anything the MOD can come up with. Certainly cheaper.

      2. If it happens i sncerely hope Vlad only hits Wastemonster and Whitehall.
        I believe the people of the UK would be able to cope with that.

  108. Evening, all. Wet again today so I got nothing done. My SIJ is giving me a lot of problems so I sent my apologies for a meeting that would have meant a longish drive. It was dark by 17.30. A miserable, unpleasant day.

    It isn't just the covid lockdowns, it's the full extent of the damage inflicted by successive governements.

  109. Labour are now claiming that they have put an end to austerity.
    Not too sure though what they call freezing 10 million pensioners in Winter?

  110. Labour fixer who worked for Lord Alli helped select MPs

    Matthew Faulding, who was in charge of candidate selection for this year’s general election, was on secondment to the Labour donor

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2024/09/23/TELEMMGLPICT000395231496_17271102787320_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqNr7buqbkV04AEATLFYLNjIyt3BU7yimAYJ8YD28sfCE.jpeg?imwidth=680

    Sir Keir Starmer faces a fresh backlash over his relationship with Lord Alli because of the role played by one of the donor’s former staff members in choosing prospective Labour MPs.

    Matthew Faulding, who was in charge of candidate selection for this year’s general election, worked in Lord Alli’s office on secondment from his firm BM Creative Management in the months before the poll.

    He was blamed by critics of Sir Keir for “parachuting” favoured candidates into constituencies, imposing them on local Labour associations. He is now secretary of the Parliamentary Labour Party, “keeping them all in check” according to one former member of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC), who described the arrangement as “rotten to the core”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2024/09/23/TELEMMGLPICT000395239295_17271129175970_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq-IWLY18X4-CzgyIcjLEAj0k9u7HhRJvuo-ZLenGRumA.jpeg?imwidth=680

    https://cf.eip.telegraph.co.uk/story-carousel/content/2024/09/23/1727113175611.jpg
    Some Labour members are angry that Lord Alli’s influence appears to have extended to the selection of Labour candidates, many of whom are now MPs.

    Mark Seddon, a former Labour candidate who served on the NEC and is now Director of the Centre for United Nations Studies at the University of Buckingham, said on X: “The same Matt Faulding who fixed the selections is now Secretary of the Parliamentary Labour Party, keeping them all in check. Rotten to the core.”

    The journalist Michael Crick reported before the election that candidates parachuted into constituencies included Josh Simons, the former director of the Starmerite think tank Labour Together who is now MP for Makerfield; Calvin Bailey, MP for Leyton and Wanstead; James Asser, former chair of the NEC and now MP for West Ham and Beckton and Luke Akehurst, MP for North Durham who was seen as Sir Keir’s enforcer on the NEC.

    Sir Keir had previously promised not to impose candidates on local party associations, but during the general election this year he was accused of breaking that promise and “riding roughshod” over the wishes of members.

    ‘Starmtroopers’
    Those on the left of the party accused him of flooding the country with “Starmtroopers” to purge Labour of anyone deemed to have diverged from the party line.

    Some members resigned in disgust after having candidates imposed from above rather than being able to interview and select their own candidates.

    Mr Faulding, 35, was a deputy director of the left wing think tank Progress and was also a director of the Lowick Group, a strategic communications consultancy, before he worked for Lord Alli.

    At a Labour conference fringe event on standards in public life Lucy Powell, Leader of the Commons, said she would “very strongly refute” the suggestion that the Government is “in hock” to “vested interests”.

    She acknowledged there were still “many” issues around “culture and behaviour” in politics.

    But she said Labour politicians hold themselves to higher standards than the Tories, which is “why we are transparent, and we want to be even more transparent around some of these things as well”.

    Defending her own record on taking handouts, she said the “vast majority of the so-called freebies” she had accepted were “attending official events” in her former role as the shadow culture secretary.

    Lord Alli and the Labour Party were both contacted for comment.

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

    Pop-corn time. There's lots more to come out. Real third-world league.

    2. All that they've done is to adopt Tory tactics of candidates being selected by the central orifice.

      Why the surprise?

          1. Yes, the Tories stuffed their chosen berks in place, but that's a political group – The allegation is this Ali fellow (why is he a Lord, anyway?) cose who went where.

    8. Did anyone that counts notice that manhandling of a heckler by a pair of brownshirt bouncers? This occurred as Robochancellor Reeves said there was no room for dissent in Britain, only positive applause, the sort considered appropriate by the likes of Kim Jong Un. I think the protest was about Israeli bombardment of Gaza and Lebanon, with a nod to Just Stop Oil.

      Whether one agrees with either campaign or not, silencing dissent by thuggery rather than wit from the platform is rather disappointing. Does the Programmed One lack the subroutines to take on hecklers and use them to advantage? It says a lot about the poverty of talent among today's software developers, and how much things have gone backwards since Windows 95.

      People may recall the shock when Walter Wolfgang was arrested under terrorism leglislation for heckling Jack Straw.

      So much for change!

      1. When I was attending political meetings in the sixties (I was still at school studying British Constitution A Level) it was a matter of pride for those on the platform to deal with hecklers wittily and with good humour. Not so these days. All shall toe the party line or else.

        1. There are pockets still around today.

          A few days ago, I was subjected to a splendid put-down over a comment I made that would have got me cancelled in higher places.

          We were discussing the BBC show ‘The Repair Shop’. I love this programme, where treasured heirlooms, smashed by fate, are brought back to life and love with a lot of craftsmanship we thought was lost forever. The stars of this show are two ladies who fix up teddybears. Comfort telly.

          Someone here then went for me, saying that it was sentimental tosh, where the producers were exploiting and emoting all over the viewer and there was no place for this sort of thing. I responded by saying that this commenter had no soul. The response was brilliant “On the contrary, I have many. They are in a little box by my bedside. Occasionally I take one out and torment it.”

      1. The correct response, of course, is that the planet does not need to be saved and will still be orbiting the sun in a million years' time.

      1. We have indeed. I cannot understand why people cannot see and work out these fundamental facts for themselves. It is as though they are a thing apart from all this, that it will not impinge on their lives in any way.

    2. The green scam is a difficult issue for the Right – normal people. You see, we fight it on the basis of science, of life being made worse, of the problems it causes, of the hypocrisy, of the detriment to life it will cause.

      The Left DO NOT CARE about these things. They are the end goal. They are the intent. The entire tax scam has nothing whatsoever to do with the environment or ecology. It is about forcing social control on the public through the fundamental driver of society: energy. That's why they'll ensure they have it and we do not.

    1. All the Labour sleaze is distracting nicely from the Pact for the Future meeting, which is either this week or next, I believe.

    2. From Coffee House, the Spectator

      Fans have ruined Wodehouse and Monty Python
      If you’ve been put off by a work’s admirers, I’d recommend giving it another go

      Gareth Roberts23 September 2024, 7:58am
      Why do we decide something is not for us? This is a question I’ve been pondering as I’ve got older, and started to take a liking to various cultural products that I’d previously marked down – in some cases, for decades – as absolutely unpalatable. Is this a sign of a maturing, more tolerant palate? Maybe – but I think it’s mainly because the fans of some (it turns out) very good things that you might well enjoy can really put you off.

      If you have cultural bugbears, I recommend checking on a few of them, every now and again
      For decades – even though he was recommended over and over again by friends, and by writers whose work I really liked, and latterly by Amazon algorithms – I avoided the novels of P.G. Wodehouse. I thought his oeuvre was unutterably twee, shallow and pleased with itself. I can’t remember what finally tipped me over the edge of saying ‘Oh, go on then, just this once.’ Now I discover, belatedly, that these really are the comic masterpieces that their zealots raved about. The sometimes quite acrid – well, OK, just a little taste now and again – nature of Wodehouse’s writing was totally hidden by its enthusiasts. Yes, they are trifling and daft, but so are any number of other things I love. Something about the chatter of his fans put me off.

      And then there was Monty Python’s Flying Circus – which I was warned off by lots of sixth formers quoting it ad nauseam when I was barely a child, even though I liked the solo work of some of the members. There was something cringey about its admirers – annoying blokes putting hankies on their heads or saying ‘they mean to win Wimbledon!’ Again, one day I decided to give it a whirl – far easier to do in the age of scrolling through streaming services – and was converted. Red Dwarf is another example – endlessly referenced by smelly people in ill-fitting ‘Starbug’ T-shirts. I discovered 30 years on, it’s very funny and inventive.

      Most popular
      Brendan O’Neill
      The plight of Hatun Tash shames Britain

      And there’s more. People’s rhapsodies about Bach left me mystified – to me, it just sounded like endless, monotonous fiddling and diddling and twiddling. I am now horrified that I wasted so many decades thinking this, during the early part of which I was listening to music by artists including the Thompson Twins and the Rubettes.

      Such judgments often seem to have formed in early adolescence, when setting your own identity through your tastes and tribal loyalties is a vital priority. And then, if you’re not careful, you’re stuck with them.

      All humour that you don’t immediately get looks smug and self-satisfied. All music that doesn’t click after a few spins seems like a lot of notes. This is made worse when the thing is at its popular height. I find it almost impossibly hard to judge something while it is at the peak of its popularity. I can’t put it into context, I don’t know how it will end. There can be so much social hullabaloo that I don’t trust my reactions, caught in the full beam of their headlights. Am I liking – or disliking – this because it is the thing right now? And I’m sure I’ve been part of putting other people off good stuff thanks to my enthusiasm for it.

      The terrible truth here is that as you advance through life being bored and jaded, you could be missing out on material that helps to ease it all.

      Another example. Based on hearing a couple of tracks on the radio in the early 1980s, and the keenness of a few long-forgotten schoolmates of my acquaintance, I wrote off the band The Monochrome Set as ineffectual jangling also-ran indie of the fey kind. I’ve now ‘caught up’ with all 16 albums made over 44 years. They are magnificent. There are only a very, very few pop groups I feel this fondly about, so I’m slightly sad I wasn’t following along from 1979. Like all the best art, they are sad and funny and intelligent and dumb all at the same time. And so many, many hooks.

      As I caught up, I kept waiting for them to tail off or serve up a duffer… and they didn’t. In fact their second and third comings are generally more accomplished than their (glorious) first. That shouldn’t happen, should it? It’s not supposed to.

      It’s like one of those collages of a person who takes a photo of themselves in the same place once a year. In a very short time I’ve seen the singer/composer/guitarist lyricist Bid go from precocious young chap to septuagenarian, taking in a marriage or two and a life-threatening seizure (which he typically used as material to make an incredibly catchy album about spending months in ICU).

      These discoveries always come as a shock though. You start to wonder what other bits of culture you’ve missed there. And the music, television, films and books are nowadays often to blame – when even watching a TV series, with their in-jokes and ‘values’, can feel like committing to a lifestyle choice. Their makers have started to act like off-putting fans themselves, which is disconcerting and presumptuous. So if you have cultural bugbears, I recommend checking on a few of them, every now and again, just to make sure you are right. Try gradual exposure, like psychiatrists do with phobia sufferers. Back slowly into a room with an X book or a Y album in it. Forget their fans, and take another look.

    1. Yes – what a pity. She is so sweetly pretty and very likeable. Didn't get where she is by not being nice to the right people, though. Her voice is unremarkable but coming from such a pleasant person has triumphed in the soppy-poppy "Land of Song" world of Wales. Fair play to her, though, she has maximised her assets. She will not be slurred by this, either – nor should she. He was the sleaze bag.

      1. Yes, I have always rather liked her – she is pretty and usually smiling – and I was certainly rather surprised that GBNews is repeatedly showing her with Fayed.

        I suppose many people rather wish they had never had anything to do with some of the people with whom they had something to do.

        1. She is a Very Nice Person, Rastus. Really very sweet (as she seems). I do not rate her voice, however – maybe that's just me ( I don't like cloudy, thin mezzos). I so agree with your last sentence!

    2. As Hacker said 'I've had drinks with the Russian ambassador at the embassy. That doesn't make me a Russian spy'. The Warqueen has been a grid girl. Doesn't make me a racing driver.

    4. A manipulator like Fayed would seem all sweetness and light to Jenkins and others like her and if they heard a rumour that he preyed on women they would say 'but he is nothing like that'.

  118. Breaking News
    It's virtually impossible to source a pair of Speedos these days
    As Starmer now takes the credit for breaking the Budgie Smuggler Gangs

    1. Hi, BoB. If you tune into Serenade Radio every Sunday from 5 pm to 5.30 pm you will hear a half hour programme of Sing Something Simple. Stay tuned for the next half hour (5.30 pm to 6 pm) and you will hear a fabulous programme about popular songs and their histories written and presented by musicologist Mark Steyn. There are repeats of each programme at various times during the week.

    2. Argh! I hated that theme tune. Sunday was a great day when I was a kid. Dad did the only cooked breakfast of the week. Off to mass and back for dinner – steamed up windows, smell of cabbage and sprouts (!), Clitheroe Kid on the radio wireless and, or, better, Round The Horne.
      Then Sunday tea with tinned peaches with Carnation milk. A perfect day. And then…the dreary tones of Sing Something Simple. This signalled the end of the weekend – school tomorrow – must get my homework finished…glum face…

  123. Goodnight, all. The fire's gone low, so I'm off to bed with a hot water bottle (Kadi sleeps in his own bed – he doesn't need a hot water bottle since he wears a fur coat).

  125. A couple of days ago Jacob Rees-Mogg drew attention to the fact that someone used due to when he should have used owing to.

    I was not altogether displeased to hear him on GBNews this evening make a howler himself: he used disinterested when he should have used uninterested.

    I sent him an email to mailmogg@gbnews.uk but if he did receive it he was too ashamed of himself to fess up!

  130. A good evening at the openmic. Left earlier than usual because I'm getting tired and can't drink so much. Scary times.

  131. This is for Ashesthandust, who's plea for novels worth reading I observed earlier but cannot now find:

    Anything by Grahame Greene
    " " Evelyn Waugh
    " " Joseph Conrad
    I was trying to think of something with the charm of "I Capture the Castle" and could only come up with "The Go-Between", which which I know you are also familiar . Maybe "Le Grand Meaulnes" (Alain-Fournier), if you read French (translated into Endlish as "The Wanderer" but nowhere near as lovely).

    Plenty of cliches – i also love "The Great Gatsby", but not S.F's other works

    I think you would very much enjoy "Bad Blood" by Lorna Sage, which although an autobiography, is very much in the field you seek – funny, wry, intelligent and enlightening.

    Also, try "Lucky Jim", if you haven't already (Kingsley Amis).

    1. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your thinking of me.

      Lucky Jim I just bought; I think that's the nearest I have ever read to the sort of innocence I am so entranced by in "I Capture the Castle".

      "The Great Gatsby" made me cry for ages. So maybe not that one… 🤣 "The Go-Between" made me sad, too – but I can't remember how I felt when I was actually reading it. I shall retry.

      "Bad Blood" sounds interesting.

      Thank you!

      Katy

      1. O-Zone by Paul Theroux. A post apocalyptic America. Where we are introduced to mass migration, a barricaded protected elite, Digital ID, 'swarmers', 'starkies' and 'trolls'.

        Swarmers are where a group of 50 people swarm a shop and strip it bare.

        Starkies…see Bianca Censori

        Trolls. Brutal thugs who rape, kill and rob you.

        Published in 1986. I would say he was prescient.

      2. The Go-Between is my favourite book. I reread it at least every 10 years, to check. I suppose it is sad, but it’s beautifully written and so evocative of times lost. To think how the world has changed in 110 years. But I first read it when it was only 60 years distant from the events it described.

      3. I don' know about being literature, but I really enjoyed, many times, the Len Deighton "Faith, Hope & Charity" trilogy of spy stories.

    1. As far as I remember, they are fine breathing in the same air they just breathed out.

      No idea how they do it, mind!

  136. After self & DT waking to pump bilges and then tossing & turning for an hour, we're now sat up with mugs of tea!

  137. from Michael Deacon’s column:

    ”Three years ago, when Boris Johnson was prime minister, Angela Rayner angrily attacked him for spending taxpayers’ money on hiring personal photographers “for the sake of his own vanity”.
    Now we learn that, since becoming Deputy Prime Minister less than three months ago, Mrs Rayner has decided to spend taxpayers’ money – £68,000 a year of it, reportedly – hiring a personal photographer of her own.
    The creatures outside looked from pig to man…”

      1. We all know they don't really eat that stuff. Just photoshoots to get 'in with the kids'.

        They actually eat newborn babies.

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