Monday 24 May: Surging demand for GP care means the system is at breaking point

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as 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:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/05/23/letters-surging-demand-gp-care-means-system-breaking-point/

811 thoughts on “Monday 24 May: Surging demand for GP care means the system is at breaking point”

    3. Good morning to you and to all NoTTLers, Bill. (And a Happy Birthday to Tom – aka No to Nanny – and to S Guest – who I can’t recall but is on my NoTTLers birthday list.)

      EDIT: Oops! I’ve mis-read my birthday list yet again, S Guest’s birthday was on February the 24th. Must drink my first cuppa of the day and wait until brain engaged before posting.

        1. Very many happy returns, Tom.

          Hope you have both had a lovely day. I’ve been flying in and out all day so I thought I’d better go to the
          earliest mails to catch you, Sorry it’s so belated…

    4. Thank you for that Bill, Since I was born on Empire Day 1944, I used to think that they played the National Anthem for me.

  2. Lock him up! Why is repeat offender Donald Trump still a free man? 24 May 2021.

    The fact he is not, and has not been charged with anything, is a genuine puzzle – some might say a scandal, even a conspiracy. Trump’s actual and potential criminal rap sheet long predates the Capitol siege. It includes alleged abuses of power, obstruction of justice, fraud, tax evasion, Russian money-laundering, election tampering, conflicts of interest, hush-money bribes, assassination – and a lot of lies.

    Let’s take these allegations one at a time. District of Columbia investigators say they have charged 410 people over the Capitol breach. Some could be tried for plotting to overthrow the US government – a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison – or even for murder, given that five people died.

    Yet Trump, who urged supporters at a Washington rally that day to “fight like hell” to stop Congress certifying his election loss, is not among them. He has not even been questioned over his indisputably pivotal role.

    Morning Everyone. You have to just blink at the blatant untruths in this passage, the most obvious one being about the “murders”. Five people did indeed die and four of them were from natural causes and the other was shot by a policeman. This was the actuality! As to overthrowing the government; who would even attempt such a thing while unarmed?

    The rest are simply unproven accusations, most of them without even the foundation of reality. The article does tell us something important though, and that is that truth itself no longer matters! We can see here that a Professional Journalist and National Newspaper feel not the slightest obligation to it! It is just a hindrance to propaganda. This attitude which extends throughout the MSM and Politics has wider repercussions however. If this is so, why should we believe anything that we are told?

    Societies based on lies seldom prosper long term. One thinks of the Soviet Union where, when it faced difficulties, no support could be found for its few believers and it thus collapsed unloved and unlamented.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/23/lock-him-up-why-is-repeat-offender-donald-trump-still-a-free-man

    1. Edit Yo Minty

      I think his ‘majoreresterer ‘ crime was getting elected to POTUS,by actual living people who used their single vote in the approved manner and then doing good

      Now Biden, with his

      “list of the Dead,

      Hank Rashid,
      a couple of computer hackers
      a ventiloquist’s hand up his backside is undoing

      Will not be charged with any crimes, as he is mentally unfit to plead, but is POTUS

      And the Yanks think we are strange

    2. The Left can’t get any more brazen. Accuse someone of what you are guilty of yourself is standard practice.

      It includes alleged abuses of power, obstruction of justice, fraud,
      tax evasion, Russian money-laundering, election tampering, conflicts of
      interest, hush-money bribes, assassination – and a lot of lies.

      So good of them to lay out in one paragraph what the Clintons are guilty of.

    1. Morning, Bob.
      Hissing down here on the last Bank Holiday of the year 😭

      1. Time was, Paul, when we were a Christian country, Pentecost (Whitsun) would be recognised and today would be Whit Monday and a bank holiday. That has all changed and the last Monday in the month now becomes the supposed gnostic spring holiday.

      2. Shurely shome mishtake, Herr Oberst. What about the August Bank Holiday, plus Christmas Day and Boxing Day?

        1. No August holiday in Norway.
          Christmas is Saturday & Sunday. Norway doesn’t move the holiday just because it falls at the weekend.
          So, today (Whit Monday) is it.
          :-((

          1. How sensible of the Norwegians. Whatever next? You’ll be telling me that Mayday was celebrated on Saturday the 1st of May, instead of Monday the 3rd as was the case in the UK!
            I repeat, how sensible of the Norwegians.

  4. Two Old guys comparing notes…

    One said to the other: “My 77th birthday yesterday. Wife gave me an SUV”.

    Other guy: “Wow, that’s amazing! Imagine, an SUV! What a great gift!”

    First guy: “Yup. Socks, Underwear and Viagra!”

    1. Morning Tom.
      Happy Birthday! One of very many more, I hope. Have a grand day 😁

    2. Happy Birthday Tom! Hope it’s a good one and you have a wonderful day! 🎉🎂🍾

          1. No, Sos, it was my Oops and the joke was not meant to reap birthday wishes, much as they are all appreciated.

    6. Happy birthday, I hope you thoroughly enjoy your eighth decade and that it sets you up nicely for your ninth.

      1. Thanks, Sos, I’m afraid the joke, which I thought was apt, had for me, the wrong age (now edited) and I’m just 3 years off that ninth decade.

        1. So I saw, after I had posted.

          However, it looks as if you are fulfilling my wish successfully.

    1. Hitler was right, 911 was a great action, islam will conquer by womb…I heard all this stuff twenty years ago in Britain, said by muslims.

      1. 333326+ up ticks,
        BB2,
        So the politico’s give them succour within the house & parliamentary canteen, and the electorate by party before Country mode of voting are in compliance with the party.

        Thereby the electorate are voting for their own demise.

        Judging by the islamic ideologies ” shout” increasing in volume we cannot be far from a new party having a ” coming out” party, or a sheep skin being cast from the lab/con parties.

      2. Apparently these are tweets from this woman before her employment with the BBC.

        I cannot believe someone is so consumed with hatred that they would actually agree with burning a child.

        More, I cannot believe the BBC did not know about her political leanings. Heck, a google search brings up her posts.

      1. 333326+ up tick,
        Afternoon W,
        Please stick diddery doo on to the link showing then
        press / read the ” ladies” comment.

  6. ‘Black Panther of Oxford’ activist Sasha Johnson, 27, is fighting for her life after being shot in the head in 3am attack in London after numerous death threats but police say there is ‘no indication at this stage it is a targeted shooting’

    A leading British Black Lives Matter activist is fighting for her life after being shot in the head in the early hours of Sunday morning.
    In a statement, the TTIP wrote: ‘It is with great sadness that we inform you that our own Sasha Johnson has been brutally attacked and sustained a gunshot wound to her head.

    Police said the Peckham shooting occurred in the vicinity of a house where a party was taking place and that a number of people may have been in the area. Officers said there is ‘nothing to suggest’ that the woman shot there was the subject of a targeted attack.

    How can she be brutally attacked and yet the Police say there is no sign of such an event? Easy. They are lying and she was drunk and playing at Russian Roulette. We can only regret the incident and that she is such a lousy shot!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9610439/UK-BLM-activist-Sasha-Johnson-critically-ill-sustaining-gunshot-head.html

    1. Araminta mng. I think i posted comment on this in yday’s thread, can’t immediately recall. But, it’s Peckham, NFTA. Her bullet proof vest may look good on MSM but not with another hole in her head.

        1. yes indeed that’s near the top of the list Sean. Further down the list being Nothing Further To Add. Top of the list being Nigeria Fronter Transportation Authority [use Isle of Wight “pirates” as referral point]

    2. Somehow I have the feeling that this will only be solved if they can pin it on a white person.

    3. The operative word is “targeted”. It could have been some braindead Gangsta at the party f-ing about with a pistol or a drive-by shooting.

      1. Morning Bob. Indeed! I took what seemed to me to be the most likely explanation!

          2. I’m genuinely sick of reading about black kids being killed by other black kids.

            The wretch Khan waffles on and lies through his teeth and kids are dying. We either acknowledge that there’s a problem in that demographic and look to resolve it – and it won’t be what the state wants – or we just keep burying black kids.

    4. I was waiting for reports of riots and looting this morning but all is quiet. Maybe the locals know something eh.

  7. Let’s see what woke dramas surface today: 1st image a man in an apron. Simon Verdon’s still woke concerned over milkman putting milk in the fridge in the 1970s plus the usual offerings:

    SIR – With a practice population of 9,000, my wife’s surgery deals with 3,000 calls a week, the peak being Mondays, with 900 on average.

    Three years ago they introduced a telephone triage system whereby you get a same-day call back from a GP and can be brought in for a face-to-face consultation if necessary. Popular with patients, and with neighbouring practices struggling, her surgery is growing at 35

    registrations a week.

    With this system in place, a doctor can deal with 55-65 patients on the phone, bringing in on average 10-12 for a face-to-face consultation. Reverting to the old system would mean a doctor could deal in total with 30-35.

    Access to a GP should be based on need, not demand, so some sort of triage system has to be in place.

    Classed as three-quarter time, my wife works an average of 56 hours a week. Financially, given tax on pension funds, income tax and national insurance thresholds, she would be better off working less at this point in her career. Approaching 54, she is mentally and physically burning out.

    The system is at breaking point, not because GPs are idle but because demand on their time is exponential.

    Robert Blades

    Leiston, Suffolk

    SIR – Last Friday, my seven-month-old granddaughter became ill. My daughter phoned the local health centre (two miles away) and spoke to the duty GP. He said he would be unable to see the infant as the health centre would be closing in 15 minutes. He suggested she ring 111. The 111 triage operator passed on her findings and my granddaughter was taken by ambulance to hospital, where she was diagnosed with gastroenteritis.

    In 17 years’ service as a paramedic, I never refused a late job (including some that came in after the end of a shift as we were returning to base). I never earned anything remotely close to what a GP earns, but we felt a duty of care to our patients. Indeed, failing to respond to such an incident would have resulted in a disciplinary hearing and possible dismissal.

    It seems to me that some GPs have lost track of why they took the job.

    G P White
    Kingham, Oxfordshire

    SIR – As a GP who continues routinely to try to offer his patients face-to-face consultations, I fully endorse Nick Stokes’s comments on the British Medical Association (Letters, May 22).

    The sad truth is that the BMA has become a Left-wing union that is no longer representative of the vast majority of medical practitioners. In the process, the best interests of patients (which should by rights correspond with the best interests of doctors) have been wholly neglected.

    Dr Anthony Fincham
    Ashford, Kent

    SIR – When I was a GP in Australia, I was only paid if I saw someone in person. That should fix the lack of availability of appointments here.

    Dr John Doherty
    Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

    Fear over freedom

    SIR – Douglas Carswell (“America has chosen to be free. Why hasn’t Britain?”, Comment, May 22) rightly asks why the British are still restricted by Covid rules while in much of America life is back to normal.

    Internal flights there are fully booked. In Florida our friends are puzzled why people from England, where the death rate is now at its lowest since records began, cannot fly across the pond for fear of unnecessary quarantine on their return. They tell us President Biden dithers; well, look at Boris Johnson. At least, in America, state governors can intervene.

    The NHS is far from overwhelmed. Vaccines are effective against Covid. Yet in Britain the fear-mongering continues unabated.

    John Pritchard
    Ingatestone, Essex

    Unfair business rates

    SIR – Dame Sharon White (“John Lewis must adapt or die, says Sharon White”, Business, May 21) raises the thorny issue of business rates, which has pervaded the property sector for years.

    Any form of tax levied on a notional value, whether land or buildings, is always going to be subject to dispute, appeals and complaints. The entire rating system has shown this, and in addition it is extremely expensive to administer and requires properly qualified staff.

    The only solution is some form of turnover tax, which would catch even the large warehouse operators (Amazon, for example) and encourage regrowth and more diversity in the shrinking high street. Local suppliers could provide services knowing that they only pay tax on success, and would not be crippled by an unfair rating system that puts them in the same league as the large multiples.

    I speak as a chartered surveyor who has profited from undertaking rating appeals. Some of my colleagues will object to my view as this is an extremely lucrative source of business, but the rating system has been broken for far too long.

    Jonathan Youens
    Bucharest, Romania

    Darwin in context

    SIR – In his criticisms of Charles Darwin (“Darwin theories ‘warped’ by his prejudices, claims professor”, report, May 21), Has Dr Agustín Fuentes of Princeton University made any allowance for the fact that, in the 150 years since Darwin wrote The Descent of Man, a great deal of further knowledge has accumulated?

    Darwin wrote with the knowledge of his time. Stop judging history by today’s standards.

    David North-Coombes
    Ottershaw, Surrey

    Telling dog tales

    SIR – In Novel Notes (1893), Jerome K Jerome relates hearing a story told to a group of friends of a dog (Letters, May 22) “which every morning went into a bakery with a penny in its mouth for a penny bun. One day the baker, thinking the dog would not know the difference, palmed the dog off with a ha’penny bun, whereupon the dog walked straight outside and fetched a policeman.”

    Jerome notes such stories are some of Noah’s best-known prehistoric jokes, or things Romulus must have told to Remus. On hearing the above, one of the group murmured: “That made the 28th man he had met whose brother-in-law had owned that dog – to say nothing of the 117 who had owned it themselves.”

    Roger Croston
    Chester

    The cost of dementia

    SIR – My husband has been in residential care for four years, funding himself (Letters, May 21). He has advanced Alzheimer’s. I cared for him at home for eight years until he became too difficult to manage. It has cost his life savings, which would have paid for our retirement and helped our children and grandchildren.

    The emotional strain of having a close relative with dementia is indescribable and, coupled with the financial drain on savings – in no way the patient’s fault – takes this trauma to extremes. The effect of this situation on mental health is almost unbearable.

    Where did we go wrong? Should we not have saved during our working lives, or spent our spare cash on cruises? Those without savings have their care paid for and are subsidised by those funding themselves. Dementia sufferers are ill and, as such, should be funded by the NHS.

    Marie Tippins

    Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire

    Gesture politics

    SIR – Your report (“Cambridge dons who raise an eyebrow may be reported”, May 21) paints a misleading picture of life at Cambridge under our revised Dignity at Work policy and Change the Culture initiative.

    We have thousands of students and staff from different backgrounds and countries. They are all entitled to feel welcome and valued. So we are providing a safe way to report concerns and help tackle bullying and harassment while raising awareness that small, often unintentional gestures can be upsetting.

    As is set out in our policy on freedom of speech, the university expects everyone to be tolerant of the opinions of others, while remaining courteous. People in any workplace have a right to respectful behaviour, even when their views are robustly challenged, and that is particularly the case in a close-knit, complex community like a university.

    Professor Eilís Ferran
    Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Institutional and International Relations
    University of Cambridge

    Disconcerting delivery

    SIR – When I lived in North Wales in the late 1970s, the milkman used to walk into the kitchen (Letters, May 21) and put the milk directly into the fridge, which was a little disconcerting for any house guests eating breakfast.

    Simon Verdon

    Adderbury, Oxfordshire

    Left cold by Britain’s open-air theatre revival

    SIR – I was amused to read that al fresco drama is returning to Britain (“Welcome to the revival of British open-air theatre”, Arts, May 20).

    Last week I shivered my way through an open-air production of Emma. For the last 30 minutes it rained heavily and, as umbrellas were forbidden, the remarkably stoic audience was soon soaked as well as frozen. I am not convinced that our climate lends itself to such events.

    David Tomlinson
    Hopton, Suffolk

    Let BBC viewers choose what they pay to watch

    SIR – As one proud to have worked twice for the BBC, latterly as a senior spokesman, it saddens me to agree with your Leading Article (“The BBC needs more than minor reforms”, May 22). The scandal of Martin Bashir’s interview with the Princess of Wales has highlighted the longstanding need for root-and-branch reform.

    Last year Oliver Dowden, the Culture Secretary, addressed this (“It’s time to ask some big questions about the future of the BBC”, Comment, November 10). As he is the Cabinet minister with responsibilty for the BBC’s future, his comments gave me hope, as I wrote to him.

    I also urged that a new subscription service should not only enable one to choose whether or not to pay for the BBC, but be more specific, as is the case with other broadcasters. The BBC needs to allow listeners and viewers to choose more precisely what they want to fund. Why are we forced to pay for extravagances like Radio 1Xtra and Radio 4 Extra? Why resurrect BBC Three, which was so unsuccessful it was taken off mainstream transmission until recently? If it is to attract younger viewers, let them choose to pay for it.

    Edward Rayner
    Chief Assistant to Head of Publicity, BBC News, 1961-67, BBC, 1971-77
    Eastbourne, East Sussex

    SIR – Anita Singh (Commentary, May 22 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/21/scandal-scandal-case-bbc-reform-grows/ ) calls for the appointment of a BBC editor-in-chief.

    The idea is not new. In 1943, in the middle of the war and at a time when BBC top management was exceptionally weak, Winston Churchill asked Brendan Bracken, his wartime minister of information, to offer the job to Edward R Murrow, the highly regarded American news broadcaster, then based in London.

    The idea, according, to A M Sperber, Murrow’s biographer, was that Murrow would take charge of programming at the BBC and be responsible for “everything relating to content, worldwide”. It was an extraordinary offer, and Murrow considered it very seriously, consulting with colleagues in America as well as in London, but eventually he declined it.

    What had prompted Churchill and Bracken to make the offer, no doubt, was a perceived need for a person of Murrow’s international stature, coupled with a reputation for complete editorial honesty and integrity, to lead and give single-minded attention to the need for unfailingly accurate, impartial and flawless reporting.

    Bryan Samain
    Halesworth, Suffolk

    1. With reference to Robert Blades’s letter:

      I am astonished that more has not been made in the MSM about that incompetent buffoon, Gideon Osborne, who made it virtually impossible for doctors and people working in the private sector to have even the remotest chance of matching the pensions of those in the the public sector.

      As a consequence very many doctors – including my nephew – decided to retire in their 50’s at a time when Britain was desperately in need of doctors because there was no financial motive to continue working.

    2. Referencing
      Dr Anthony Fincham’s letter about the BMA i posted last week that the GP’s not offering face to face were probably politically of the Left.

      Doctors just like Teachers should leave their politics at home. To not do so is unprofessional.

    3. Professor Eilís Ferran is a lawyer to trade. However she is completely and utterly wrong to state that “the university expects everyone to be tolerant of the opinions of others, while remaining courteous”. Of course a lot swings on the meaning of the word “opinion”. Does that word relate to preference for coffee over tea? Or does it encompass the deeply held and irremovable beliefs of death cults and cannibals? Are we to be tolerant of the opinions of others when their opinion is that it is perfectly fine to rape small girls?
      The Catholic Church was intolerant of the Cathars, and held them to be heretics and wiped them out, quite properly. The Cathars were a sect who held the “opinon” that the flesh, our physical bodies were intrinsically evil, hence procreation was a very bad thing. The end result of Catharism would have been the sudden end of the human race.
      How tolerant must we be of others “opinions”? This seems to be no more than an exhortation to excuse and pander to the lunacies of those who detest our British heritage?

    5. Edward Rayner made no attempt to answer the obvious question about the Bashir scandal:

      How many other BBC reporters have used the same methods?

      1. he didn’t want to put a permanent hole in his pension jJH so setting parameters for those following him down the slippery slope

    6. Mr Rouens – no. No, no and – oh! No!

      Why do these people not understand the solution isn’t to continually take more, but to take less and spend even less than that?

      It’s funny – if you want something, perhaps to feed a habit and instead of going without, your solution is to steal what other people have, we call that theft and punish the offender.

      When the government does exactly the same, the Left clap and sing about how good it is to hurt ‘da evul wich’.

    7. Ain’t that the truth, Mrs Tippins! Not all things can be sorted by a telephone conversation, Mr Blades. Sometimes a good old-fashioned poke and a prod and noticing the patient’s reaction is what’s needed – otherwise you just send out physio exercises that are useless and already been tried without success.

    1. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the British simply can’t believe that their country will ever be totalitarian. The folk memory has faded.

      2. 333326+ up ticks,
        Morning BB2,
        So it is a case ot “Lest we forget” morphing into self induced
        “We have intentionally forgotten” via the polling booth.

    2. This is a Society and Civilisation in the process of self-immolation! Nothing can be done to save it!

    2. “People in any workplace have a right to respectful behaviour even when their views are robustly challenged”
      Weasel words, Professor Ferran – we all know that the left regard any challenges, let alone robust ones, to their world view as being disrespectful.

    4. These are Weasel Words are they not, and all the worse because the author of them knows them to be false. The text drips obfuscation and hypocrisy!

      1. am guessing school fees had to be paid so adjusted approach, but for sure never went without their post wedding liquid nutrition. Usual Kenya road mentality, quad bike rider with face mask and no crash helmet. At least they had good weather

    2. Morning Bob. I’m not sure that this is an appropriate comment for a mixed blog!

    4. Three large crows and a rat the size of a rabbit are going after mine. It’s the company I keep!

      1. I built a walk-in cage around my feeders covered with 2″-mesh stout plastic netting. Bird up to blackbird size can merrily hop or fly through the mesh to get at the food. Anything bigger has to sit outside and sulk.

    6. I put my balls on the windowsill every morning and the birds come flocking within minutes.

      1. What do your neighbours think of your putting your balls on the windowsill? 🙂

    1. Morning Sos. Lukashenko is a Marxist Dinosaur without the sense he was born with. Any gain he makes from the apprehension of this blogger is vastly offset by the adverse publicity and political consequences of this action! Even his protector Putin will one imagines be enraged by this stupidity!

      1. On 1 July 2013, president Evo Morales of Bolivia, who had been attending a conference of gas-exporting countries in Russia, gave an interview to the RT television network in which he appeared predisposed to offer asylum to Edward Snowden…..The day after his TV interview, Morales’s flight to Bolivia from Russia was rerouted to Austria when France, Spain, Portugal and Italy reportedly denied access to their airspace, allegedly due to suspicions that Snowden was on board.

      2. Indeed, not to mention any future incident when there might really be a bomb on board.

      3. “this blogger”…nice one!
        Roman Protasevich is the editor of Belamova, a Telegram channel established last year by Igor Losik, a consultant for US state-run media organisation RFE/RL. Belamova was effectively outlawed last month, after a court in the eastern Belarusian city of Gomel declared it an “extremist” organization. Losik was arrested last summer in his home town of Baranavichy, and remains in prison.

        Protasevich himself previously worked directly for the Washington-funded propaganda outlet, which supports US foreign policy goals in Eastern and Central Europe.

        Last year, he was employed as editor-in-chief of the popular Polish-based opposition Telegram channel Nexta Live, which the government had previously also declared extremist. He was put on an international wanted list by the Belarusian authorities in November, accused of helping to organize anti-government protests following last summer’s presidential election

        1. According to NRK just now, Belarus has opened an investigation into what happened and who gave instructions.

          1. The bottom line…
            If you’re high-profile,the threat of rendition is now a way of life.
            The US have been at it for at least 20 years.

  18. Off to get my second cup of tea and then a shave and shower, whether I need it or not!.

    1. And a Happy Birthday to you Nanners.
      I’ve got just over 8 years to catch up!

    3. Plenty of showers today, although it was sunny at 0545.
      Many happy returns!

      1. Thank you OLT. I’ll check the link when I’ve gone through the greetings.

        1. Taking into account our banter about jokes ( we have both been around long enough to have heard them all), I thought you might like that web page

    6. Cripes, just caught up. Many Happies.
      Must be lovely to reach 21 39 umm ……. whatever.

      1. Thank you, Anne. Never mind the number, I’m on course, as the youngest of 9, to outlive ’em all!

    1. Thank you, Richard and Caroline. I do get the 77 Sunset Strip but I still prefer Empire Day (as was).

        1. Thanks, J, love to but it’s impossible to get all the NoTTLer family down the pub today – we don’t have one!

        1. Thank you, Sue, it’s taken me ages to get back this far as I have to constantly refresh.

        2. Thank you, Sue, it’s taken me ages to get back this far as I have to constantly refresh.

  20. Sat at home now and it’s a beautiful morning after a bloody wet night. Still not warming up, 4°C in the yard just now.

    The DT’s Ford F-Up has problem. She had to call the AA out on Saturday on her way home for what the patrolman thinks may be an ABS problem knocking the engine instrumentation haywire.
    Just about to do another brew and then call the garage in Cromford to see if that can look at it today.

  21. One might think that all this wokism is just totalitarianism dressed up as caring for minorities, but at least when it comes to sport it will make the trans run on time.

    2. While I thought I was watching Eurovision I realised I was actually listening to a transister.

      1. You watched Eurovision?

        Are you sick or something?

        I watched Fire Saga instead. Had a much better time, and heard better music…

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjuphuG3ndw

        How that song lost at the Oscars is beyond me. It was the only nominated song that formed part of the film rather than just playing along with the credits, and I think it’s a very good song.

  23. It’s about the USA but I certainly get the feeling that very similar is happening and has happened in the UK.

    The term “anarcho-tyranny” was coined by the late great Sam Francis to
    mean a condition in which the state tyrannically regulates the lives of
    the citizens but refuses to enforce fundamental protective law.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/suitable-for-framing/

    1. Welcome to liberalism. Fun isn’t it?! We’ve had 50 years of this nonsense now.

      We liberalised many services and gave them to the private sector and the private sector only exists to make healthy profits so of course they chase you for every penny they can and spend as little as possible on you.

      That’s what you keep voting for!

      1. Good morning, Thayaric

        You are not wrong. The trouble is that the public sector is grossly inefficient and the results can be even worse and more expensive.

        2. I read it, but it’s largely an American problem, like the way they fitted up the ‘Libyan bomber’ of the Lockerbie flight. We had our share of miscarriages of justice in the period 1960-1990 but nothing like the Americans who tend to go mad without a scapegoat killed or locked up. Since then it seems our police have cleaned their act up some. I can’t remember anything like the Birmingham Six happening post 1990. Well hang on. When was Jill Dando killed? Maybe 2000 not 1990, but anyway things are much better now.

          The rest though, the explosion of CCTV and the like, well that’s liberalism. Most of it is run by private companies and they want it to be profitable. Our borough’s CCTV is run by Crapita and has been now for the best part of ten years. The parking control department was privatised 30 years ago, they even send wardens out in the middle of Sunday nights. The effect has been to turn us from citizens into cash cows. Then comes an election and we decide we want more of that every time!

          2. Liberalism isn’t socialism it’s the complete opposite.

            Who said I favour socialism? I never have. I favour a mixed economy. Some things are better run by the private sector and some things just make sense to be public sector.

            See this is what I don’t get….

            Liberals vote for liberalism….

            They freaking hate it….

            Insert blame .

            Don’t actually realise you’re getting exactly what you voted for.

            Complain the government is full of ‘left infiltrators’.

            Whinge more about liberalism.

            Vote for liberalism again at every opportunity.

            And your generation claims to be the ‘most educated generation ever’.

          3. In my view it’s you who doesn’t understand.

            As to “your” generation, brainwashing in place of education comes to mind

          4. Again with the ‘indoctrination’. Exactly why the elder generations claim to be better educated. On the whole they aren’t and if there is any real indoctrination it’s on a very individual classroom basis rather than a nationwide conspiracy.
            The young tend towards social liberalism naturally. It’s a result of their parenting largely. Parents tend to give kids false illusions of the real world beyond their sheltered upbringing. Also the politicians that decide the curriculum and make any rules that the schools must abide by are on the whole middle-aged parents themselves. So perhaps that’s leading to rules that reinforce the illusions causing the young to grow up very socially liberal.
            I think in general economic liberalism is fine, but we have gone too far in places, and there’s been mismanagement for short-term profits. Companies lobby strongly for laws that increase their profits. Politicians get looked after for passing the laws especially after their political life. This has led to massive cronyism.

          5. Having been part of the generation where University places were very scarce and then seen my own children and grandchildren go through the system I stand by the view the young are being indoctrinated not taught.

          6. And from what I’m hearing about actual contact time in universities that’s impossible almost. Remember at university you largely self-educate especially these days. Many people are paying 9k a year for 4-6 hours contact time a week.

  25. Good morning , everyone. 0630 start walk with dog in bright sunshine. 0640 heavens opened. 0730 very wet dog and owner arrive home.

    1. Good morning. You are braver than me and Dolly. She runs away when i get her lead out.

      1. So does Poppie, she is the only dog I know who slinks off when she hears the door being opened where her harness is kept. We then have to prise her out from underneath a chair. She is happy enough to be out once she is out there, though.

        Good morning, Phizzee.

        1. Rumpole had a terrible skin complaint when he was a puppy and the vet prescribed a daily medicated shampoo and a weekly scrub with a stronger lotion. The good news was that he was completely cured and the vet was most impressed as, apparently, it was very rare for dogs to recover fully from this.

          Fortunately it was in the summer and it was warm and we tethered Rumpole to a tree and drenched him using the garden hose. He hated it to begin with but after a moment or two he thoroughly enjoyed it. We threatened any of our students who spoke in English that they would have to wash Rumpole!

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/58f01a15491d8b5774497da369daaabe9c5c5433a1d6bd5426a4c679173007b5.jpg

        2. Rumpole had a terrible skin complaint when he was a puppy and the vet prescribed a daily medicated shampoo and a weekly scrub with a stronger lotion. The good news was that he was completely cured and the vet was most impressed as, apparently, it was very rare for dogs to recover fully from this.

          Fortunately it was in the summer and it was warm and we tethered Rumpole to a tree and drenched him using the garden hose. He hated it to begin with but after a moment or two he thoroughly enjoyed it. We threatened any of our students who spoke in English that they would have to wash Rumpole!

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/58f01a15491d8b5774497da369daaabe9c5c5433a1d6bd5426a4c679173007b5.jpg

      2. So does Poppie, she is the only dog I know who slinks off when she hears the door being opened where her harness is kept. We then have to prise her out from underneath a chair. She is happy enough to be out once she is out there, though.

        Good morning, Phizzee.

    1. Is the sacked P.M.s adviser related to the poet e.e.cummings who deliberately avoided using capital letters?

      I remember being rather surprised when I came across this in an anthology when I was at school and discovering that he was born four years before my father.:

      may i feel said he

      by e e cummings [1894 – 1962]

      may i feel said he
      (i’ll squeal said she
      just once said he)
      it’s fun said she
      (may i touch said he
      how much said she
      a lot said he)
      why not said she
      (let’s go said he
      not too far said she
      what’s too far said he
      where you are said she)
      may i stay said he
      (which way said she
      like this said he
      if you kiss said she
      may i move said he
      is it love said she)
      if you’re willing said he
      (but you’re killing said she
      but it’s life said he
      but your wife said she
      now said he)
      ow said she
      (tiptop said he
      don’t stop said she
      oh no said he)
      go slow said she
      (cccome?said he
      ummm said she)
      you’re divine!said he
      (you are Mine said she)

  28. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a97602d118da3d0d72a257fec174d51ae0c5fccadb75a6d3b316f2ce558d3b6.png
    Scientific research says that drinking tea is good for your health.
    Scientific research says that drinking tea is bad for your health.
    Scientific research says that drinking coffee is good for your health.
    Scientific research says that drinking coffee is bad for your health.
    Scientific research says that taking Omega-3 capsules is good for your health.
    Scientific research says that taking Omega-3 capsules is bad for your health.
    Make your f•cking minds up!

    2. There was , until the present “crisis”, a section of the NHS website that dealt specifically with theses conflicting stories, the research source was identified , dissected , evaluated and then put into perspective . Almost all the time the sources were ill informed popular press articles ( Daily Mail, Sun etc and occasionally the DT ) and the “research” based on a statistical insignificant group with no control group or indeed extrapolated from massive injections of whatever into lab rats. The page is now blank which is a great shame . I hope it will return when whatever becomes normal is restored.

      http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx

      1. Perhaps because they might have had to refute some of the Government’s own Covid stories.

        2. Take a lesson from Al-beeb. Selective reporting, only choose subjects that support the narrative.

    3. There was , until the present “crisis”, a section of the NHS website that dealt specifically with theses conflicting stories, the research source was identified , dissected , evaluated and then put into perspective . Almost all the time the sources were ill informed popular press articles ( Daily Mail, Sun etc and occasionally the DT ) and the “research” based on a statistical insignificant group with no control group or indeed extrapolated from massive injections of whatever into lab rats. The page is now blank which is a great shame . I hope it will return when whatever becomes normal is restored.

      http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx

    4. I found the absolute best thing is just to ignore scientists that talk about food, eat what makes you feel good, and what will be will be. My nan made 99 eating dripping sarnies every day and cooking everything in lard. Great nan made 100 on a similar diet. Grandad popped his clogs at 67 while working part-time because he didn’t like retirement. My other nan lived to 85 or thereabouts. Today’s scientists would tell each of those they’d be lucky to hit 60, particularly as they were all 40 a day smokers.
      I like butter or Clover which is more a spreadable butter than a margarine. I cook mostly with lard or bacon fat. I haven’t joined the anti-cholesterol or omega-3 fads. I don’t eat an awful lot of vegetables. Sure I’m a bit overweight but that’s probably genetic more than anything as all the males in my family have the same body shape and we all changed shape between 35 and 40.

      1. Moderation in all things is the answer, and as few processed foods as possible in the diet.

      2. Added sugar is the big problem. Stuff is everywhere, added to give flavour when salt was bad.

          1. It’s serious when the list all the added sugars separately, as if trying to hide that sugar is by far the major ingredient. Glucose, sucrose, corn starch, fructose… Aaargh! No wonder we’re all fat bastards these days.

      3. All very true.

        Up-to-date research has proved that eating good, delicious fats, such as butter and lard, not only nourishes you, none of it is retained by the body and it soon passes out of the system.

        Frankenstein foods, such as margarine and complex processed carbohydrates and sugars, are retained in the body and converted, by the liver, into the type of bad fat that hangs around the belly and organs causing obesity.

    1. Yo Citroen

      Rangers fans celebrate winning the Scottish Premiership title at George Square in Glasgow.

      I did not realise, that there is a football field in George Square

        1. It’s one of the worse pieces of kremtrollery I’ve ever seen. Even from a nazi skank like her.

          3. So, you are claiming that kremlin propaganda is not propaganda, whereas output from the US and UK governments somehow is kremlin propaganda?

          4. I don’t recall making any statement that Kremllin propaganda is not propaganda. Being ex UK Govt, I know how it works in Whitehall and learnt that a long time ago, and it’s easy to spot, what’s true and what’s false flag. All Govts issue info for public masses, that’s then down to the individual what’s believed. With UK MSM’s head so far up its own arse, the point of the original link was for all to read, digest or ignore being non MSM

  33. Yesterday I whinged about the bias of the BBC (and the day before that, and the day before that…) so today I am happy to report that they have broadcast something non-derogatory about the Jewish community. They found some tapes in the archives spoken by a Jew and broadcast some time in the 1970s. The piece went on for nearly three or four minutes (although it did include something by Tony Benn, who isn’t a Jew but said his name sounded Jewish) and never mentioned the illegal occupation of Palestine once.
    Perhaps the recent scandal concerning Princess Di, and their star reporter on royalty and rectitude, has given them cause for concern – or it could just be a little squirrel scuttling past… ‘Look! Over there!

    I know what I think.

  34. GOSH – who would have thought it?

    “Fears are growing of an emerging cancer crisis after new figures showed more than 300,000 people had missed checks for the disease since the start of the pandemic.”

    The Grimes today, reporting a paper from Cancer Research UK.

    1. I think they are back pedalling, except Hancock, of course. Damage limitation in the offing.

    2. Yep, the over-reaction to Covid is probably going to kill or shorten the lives of many, many more people than died of the disease or were likely to have died from it.

    3. Difficult to get checked around here.

      The Government closed the Covid testing centres last week.

    1. The coming winter will be interesting. Lovely new ‘variant’. “Well, the next one will certainly make them sit up.” – Gates.

        1. Good morning AWK. The next one, of course, being the ‘ferret effect’. The unvaccinated will be blamed and the vaccinated will be encouraged to turn on them. The reality will be very different.

          2. I haven’t seen this one yet. I have saved it for this afternoon. I have seen others with Fuellmich though. Hopefully Reiner will save the day, if we’re not all dead by then, that is. The Delingpod with Nina the Receptionist is one not to be missed also so I am told.

          3. very true. The next attempt will be economic and attempts to shift blame on unvaxxed. They’ve opened the Pandora box and will reap the consequences at a crucial moment in attempting through MSM establishing in the public mind – and above all, within the political context – the legitimacy of such an approach will get questioned and responded to, outside of the MSM bubble, much wider. Despite Govt’s repeated attempts in its current format to present it as a morality play, in which the parts were scripted to meet the moral needs [the paymasters of Johnson, SAGE et al]. Attempts identifying “vaccinated” as defeceless people won’t wash.

            In reality the model [as previously used in former Yugoslava, Afghanistan, Iraq etc] for future destruction of countries seen as potential threats to the hegemony of an “international community” currently being redefined [sanctions, variant strains etc] to exclude or marginalize all but those who conform to the interests of the United States is nothing more than the “corporate’s last attempt” to control everything economically not militarily.

            As you say, the reality will indeed be very different

          4. That is what I fear – many people will die, and the unvaxxed will be blamed for spreading the virus.
            Will people spot that Community Safe Quarantine Spaces is the new name for concentration camps? (joke, but not that far over the horizon, one feels – especially in New Zealand).

      2. I was looking for that clip again, couldn’t find it. When I saw it, I thought two things (a) Gates is a fruitcake and (b) Mrs Gates is very uncomfortable with the situation.

          1. OK. I have seen enough weird clips of Gates talking, autistic is the kindest description.

    2. I don’t quite get this, because new variants will be created all the time, surely? I thought the process of variant creation was just random genetic mutations.

      1. bb2 mng, new strains of “flu / influenza” change over time. Plus the genetic mRNA gene hasn’t been fully researched / studied specifically in relation to C-19. The agenda over creating “feardemic” is built around 2 baselines within the Event 201 computer simulation model to boost numbers for big Pharma;

        False-postive tests. The unrelicable PCR test is being manipulated into reporting a high number of false positives by altering the cycle threshold (CT value). The PCR was developed in mif 90s to increase genetic material found in crime scenes in order to help police identify criminal[s]. The PCR test increases the amount of genetic material by using a Cycle Threshold (CT). Each CT rate doubles the amount of genetic material. PCR patholigists know that running PCR over 32 (CT) provides increased false positives. This is key in that the importance of the CT value was shown in a landmark court case in Portugal in November 2020. Four German tourists were forced to
        quarantine in a hotel in the Azores after one of them tested positive with a PCR test. The Germans brought a court case stating that they were ‘illegally confined’ in the hotel.
        Inflated Case-count. The incredibly broad definition of “Covid case”, used all over the world, lists anyone who receives a positive test as a “Covid19 case”, even if they never experienced any symptoms.

        Add now in the “protein spike” reported as various global variants” [my post yday of Priti Disastrous’ waffle to Marr pretty much sums it up]. the problems with protein spikes within C-19 are well known [nearly everyone I’m aware of on this site is familiar and well versed, for ease of referral https://www.salk.edu/news-release/the-novel-coronavirus-spike-protein-plays-additional-key-role-in-illness/

        The baseline was obviously flawed at inception as there never was any C-19 other than a computer simulation model. Your closing remark re random is pretty much where big pharma are currently, making it up and then attempting to hide it. therein part of the hidden agenda is my original link about ADE is current jabs are proving the triggering antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of infections, aside other well known symptoms. But don’t expect anything uttered from MHRA, it exposes all those involved even further.

        Pole sana for long post we could go on for ages around this buoy but am sure you have other priorities. Talking of which, best get the dhobi sorted and 2nd coffee. Catch up at some point

        1. Hi, ok, I know most of that – I’m glad the PCR test has been proved in court to be fakery – that was Dr Fuellmich, I think.
          You’re saying the covid virus never existed – I don’t think this is likely, because there was a genuine spike in March/April last year, which is most easily explained by a new virus.
          I still don’t understand why the French Professor says that the vaccine is more likely to trigger variants than the normal antibodies from people who have had a similar coronavirus infection in the past.

          I should add, I don’t buy these variant scare stories in the media. We’ve yet to see anything with a death rate higher than flu.

          1. mng again, sorted the dhobi now on 3rd coffee. I had the written core data plus Sue’s video confirmed what Dr Fuellmich stated. The whole scam was intended for 2016, but UK Referendum on EU and Trumpet getting elected screwed theproposed plans. C-19 as you and all of use know is nothing more than seasonal flu / unfluenza but the matrix around it was dressed up via Event 201. Re March / Apr last year, that was all timed and triggered post end of Davos, spew out the China blurb, then from nowhere the whole world is apparently hit at the same date / time.

            Totally agree with you re any BS around variants. the baseline [initial jab] was never intended to cure anything but “cement fear”. It was all attempts to justify numbers game on behalf of big pharma for a non legislated vax to roll onto next round of jabs. To smooth it, use of emergency measures under Coronavirus Act was triggered. The intent of ensuing jabs is to trigger more variants, weaken the normal protection / resistance from antibodies hence lockdown.

            As you say, death rate no higher than flu. Here in Kenya sicne lockdown MArch 2020 = cases 0, deaths from C-19 = 0. And that’s despite all attempts by Govt here, UK and elsewhere and a failing complicit MSM to manipulate figures to bump numbers and cause of death of C-19 failing in UK. But Johnson, SAGE and fellow sociopathic narcissists make all the scheduled noises but care nothing about consequences other than themselves via their paymasters

  36. BLM activist Sasha Johnson is ‘in a critical condition after sustaining a gunshot wound to her head’
    Did you see the incident or know what happened?     D Fail

    No, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a video of the drugs party arguing about the increased price of crack and snow just before the guns and knives came out.

    2. Morning Ped, if she dies & it turns out her killer was white then it will be national news for weeks, but if it turns out & it most probably is, that her killer is a Black gangster – then her death will be recorded as ” Covid-19 “

      1. and if it was the local Imam from nearby New Cross, he’ll be shortlised as the new political leader of the Labour party

        1. Afternoon our man in Nairobi, I have a connection to New Cross, although I lived in Herne Hill, I was Bar Mitsvahed at the New Cross Synagogue. It closed many decades ago when the area became overwhelmingly Black & crime infested & the 200 or so Jews who attended New Cross Synagogue all moved away after the Rabbi got mugged by Blacks & consequently moved to a Synagogue in North London, the one remaining Kosher grocers in the area closed after being fire bombed by Blacks after refusing to pay protection money & the owners left the UK & joined their daughter on a Kibbutz in Israel and so almost the entire community joined the White Flight movement out of Serf London to North London or to Essex or beyond & in my case eventually to Israel.

          1. I remember the New Cross Synagogue, it was on New Cross Road, from vague recollection not too far from Goldsmiths Uni. What you posted of the non gentrification of the area is par for the course. And that’s before you and I even think of recollecting Deptford!

          2. The Synagogue was located in the main road next to the New Cross bus garage & the frequent break-ins and theft or damage to the Synagogue was from Blacks entering the open garage forecourt & climbing over the wall which had no razor wire on anything like that on top of it & often break ins were when the LT staff were there but being mostly Black drivers & conductors amazingly nobody saw anything suspicious like a couple of Black degenerates climbing a wall & them climbing back out with whatever they could steal from the Synagogue.

          3. sounds about par for the course. I remember the bus garage well when taking late / night bus [177] back to Woolwich / Plumstead from town,

          4. Good morning & afternoon Hat.

            Only to say that I misread/misunderstood ‘Bar Mitsvahed’ as Bar Mitsvah Head, and was momentarily thinking that’s a role for the Rabbi.

          5. Morning Tim, excuse my Anglo-Jewish patois for shortening ” that is where I celebrated my Bar Mitsvah ” into ” I was Bar Mitsvahed”

      2. She prolly shot herself – you know, Hatman – women and guns don’t mix…!!

        (Takes deep cover)

          6. T’was a fit up. Everyone knows the KGCIB did it.

            Ha! Mugs! The British royal family did it, probably the Queen herself.

        2. Apart from police and the military, who else is likely to have a handy firearm?

          1. Anybody who wants one. Country is awash with them.
            When I bought my first handgun, the licence hoops and the cost of buying a legal gun was at least twice that of getting one from a bloke down the pub (East India Dock Road, 1981).

          5. I remember in SA after the ending of the wars in Angola and Mocambique and the end of the ‘struggle’ in SA, you could pick a dodgy AK and 200 rounds for R200 (then about £40). Armed robberies went through the roof.

          6. Weapons came into the UK wholesale after the Falklands, Bosnian etc wars, also the East European gangs import them almost unhindered.
            Armed crime didn’t stop it’s rise after the legal owning of handguns was prohibited in the UK. In 1997 when I went to the police station to prove I’d exported mine, the firearms Sergeant showed me some historical pistols that were due to be shipped to the Imperial War Museum, the rest became drain covers. He also said what an utter waste of time it all was, just pissing off the most law-abiding segment of the population. Criminals didn’t bother with permits… he also said “Well done, mate!”.

        4. Drive-by gunmen shot ‘Black Panther of Oxford’ Sasha Johnson in the head as they opened fire on house party after ‘dispute between rival gangs’ – and she was NOT the intended target, says one of her friends
          BLM activist Sasha Johnson is ‘in a critical condition after sustaining a gunshot wound to her head’
          Her party Taking the Initiative Party (TTIP) said the attack happened ‘following numerous death threats’
          Mother-of-two Oxford Brookes graduate rose to prominence after organising BLM protests last year
          But friends believe that she was not the intended victim in shooting fuelled by violence between two gangs

          https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9612115/Drive-gunmen-shot-Black-Panther-Oxford-Sasha-Johnson-head-fired-house-party.html

          1. short re-write to summarise: Mother of two Sasha Johnson / Oxford Brookes [real name and partner identity unknown] as leader of British Buy Large Moats [BBLM] / Taking the Initiative Party [TTIP] took the initiative and took one for the team. The bullet is in a critical condition. Police unable to confirm identity of attacker[s] as it was dark

          2. and she was NOT the intended target, says one of her friends
            They probably have far better judgement than most.

          3. She just happened to be there while a shootout was going on at 3 am. Could happen to any responsible university graduate and mother.

          2. At the moment yes as we prepare to ditch all remaining Covid-19 restrictions next week other than airport testing of both incoming & outgoing travelers

        1. Wot? moi cynical? It woz me who made the connection between the Mossad & the Titanic being sunk !
          3 Mossad agents were aboard the Titanic, Rothsberg, Goldberg & Iceberg. Rothsberg & Goldberg escaped in a lifeboat but poor Iceberg was left on deck after being identified as making a hole in the ships side. The very next day it made the headlines in newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic ” Titanic sunk by Iceberg “

    3. Plod is currently scouring its list of ‘far right activists’ to fit up a handy white man.

      1. If she wants the Police defunding, then will she want the Police to investigate her shooting – or not?

    5. This has the 4 main problems of the ‘Black Community’ on display: gangs, crime, unmarried mother of 3 kids with no fathers around and blaming Whitey for everything. For aftershocks we have a ‘full-time community leader and activist’ and her being at a party at 3am (where were her kids?).

  37. Good Moaning.
    NEWS FLASH.
    Yesterday evening, laughter was heard at Allan Towers during the screening of a BBC programme.
    Upon closer inspection it was revealed that MB had accidentally happened upon an episode of “‘Allo ‘Allo” while flicking through the list.

    2. Good moaning. I was pissing by the door when i heard two shats.

      Still funny now lol.

      1. Yeah, it’s funny til you live in a foreign country and they crease up and kindly point out what you just said, on a regular basis.

    1. I was all set up to cut our grass/lawn and it’s just chucked it down……….. again !

      1. Yup, we’re all set to go with the lawn mowers when it stops long enough for the grass to dry too.

      3. Same here, but I think I’ll need a scythe on it first! I could do with borrowing a sheep to take the top off because it’s more like a meadow than a lawn. Every time I think, ‘I’ll get out and tackle it’, it pours down.

        1. I’ve actually got a scythe it’s probably well over 100 years old and in great condition. It has a huge blade around 28 inches long I could sharpen it and give it a go. Or walk up and down the road in a hoodie after dark with it on my shoulder. 😉

    2. Lovely, Grizz! Jealous! Looks like the result of some hard work – but then, you have the weather for it down there in the Deep South…
      Here, garden is still a sea of mud after last autumn’s shenanigans over sewer replacement – the restoration should start shortly. The constant cold rain isn’t helping… 🙁

      1. Morning, Paul, Eddy and Stig.

        This is an ‘oasis’ of calm here today. We’ll get our rain for the next three days!

      1. Good morning, Maggie.

        Thank you. The little ‘copse’ at the centre rear of the photo (that shrouds the bird-feeding cage) is made up of a 17m high spruce, a large maple, and two lilacs: one white and the other lilac-coloured.

    4. Most impressive. Looks more like ‘grounds’ than ‘garden’ to me!

      1. There used to be a large notice just inside one of the rear entrances to the extensive grounds of Renishaw Hall, seat of the literary Sitwell family. It read, “Please do not stand on Mr Sitwell’s snakes.”

        1. Hmm. Someone in our village has a snotty one about prosecuting unauthorised intruders which I think is aimed at walkers. Advice not to stand on the snakes might be more effective.

    1. Back to the days of hijacks? – I believe those who got here from the Stansted hijacking are STILL here – still on benefits and the rest. Must have cost us millions.

  40. I had to larrf this morning on BBC TV it seems they were blaming social media for the reaction to ‘the jab’ and people not wanting to partake. They suggested that the comments were co-ordinated and simply malicious lies. But there was never a mention of Marcon and that daft bat from the Brussels mafia spreading bare faced lies across the planet.

    1. he still reminds me of Basil Brush after a haircut. And using SM for SB [Social Media for Suicide Bombers] he knows he’s trying to steal block postal votes off Conservatives, as does everyone else

    2. Did I overlook the tweet about Whitsun? Was there one about Passover?

  42. Watching the BBC TV earlier they were talking about the way social media has been spreading lies about ‘the jab’ and it’s varied effects.
    The suggested strongly that it has been a co-ordinated attempt (right wing orientated) to put people off of partaking in the process.
    No mention of the communities that are the most reluctant to take the jab, but more seemingly blaming others on social media for putting them off.
    And also no mention of Marcon and his AZ lies or that daft bat from the Brussels mafia spreading her own lying version of jab phobia around the planet.

    1. Morning Eddy – the intricate workings of the Disqus system is one of the unexplained mysteries of the universe, I’m sure that the software came from Area 51 & consequently the Alien who wrote the program has returned home thus no fix is available !

    2. It just happened again, pressed post and it disappeared !!! Is there some sort of censorship going on ? There was nothing i said that was offensive.

      1. Try refresh.
        It’s poor software (although, to be fair, there’s lots of disqus sites out there) struggling to cope with huge demand.
        Had the same issue with MS Access years ago, trying to do the job of professional database in storing 22 000 lines of over 100 data items, as well as 20+ reference tables.
        You could see the lines vanish from view in front of your face, but they weren’t lost, just “invisible”.

        2. I’m not a techy, I just feel I’ve done something wrong. Which as my good lady points out, is not unusual.

      2. I’ll try here…
        Watching the BBC this morning the staff were talking about the social media involvement regarding the jab and how it’s been putting people off having the vaccine. But there was no mention of the communities where it’s obvious people are boycotting, probably not social media orientated as they suggested it might have been. No mention of Toy Boy putting his oar in over AZ nor that daft bat from the Brussels mafia deliberately spreading fear around the planet over the British made vaccine.

  43. Oh the irony: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9610439/UK-BLM-activist-Sasha-Johnson-critically-ill-sustaining-gunshot-head.html

    If I were being cruel, I’d say this barbarism is par for the course when you let animals run riot.

    However the real problem is hugely complicated:

    For decades now the black community has grown and single parent families have become normalised.

    Masses of cash has been thrown at black attainment in schools to little real avail.
    When they have plentiful freedoms and yet riot to demand more, you haven’t got a generation that needs listening to, you have one that needs slapping.

    A generation lacking discipline, pandered to, with no family values, egocentric, abusive, and indulged you get brats. The looting mob were just children demanding more than they have ever earned. The police – representing the state – knelt to them because it’s what the state has always done. It set about destroying the family and putting itself in place. However, the state is an appalling parent as a child doesn’t just need cash, they need boundaries, borders and to hear the word no from a married, heterosexual, normalised, socialised, integrated couple.

    Big state hates those facts and so we have.. this mess, and the pathetic whelp Khan just keeps saying how great he is.

    1. There was a marvellous caller to a radio station in the US who made the point that “when Obama was elected, they made a great fuss about we’ve got a black man in the White House. Well I say, we need more black men in the Black house! We have too many single mothers…..”

      It’s so true. A cycle of absent fathers is toxic.

  44. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99c27c33e1f4b29f1083d30ae4f91f2a2c29cc92d33864bf4aa0b9dfaa18812a.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a6fd8ea1cf0d4b46eda6072b6404ad98d5c0caad1abee659699e559b51ccadc.jpg Been playing with my iPhone 11 camera and using it to take photographs through my Optolyth telescope with 30x eyepiece (‘digiscoping’). I’ve had some reasonable results with birds using the water bath (such as the tree sparrow and greenfinch seen here).

    1. Sometimes when I vote from the notifications page, it comes through as Guest – that means I can then uptick again, as me!
      “Vote early and vote often”.

    3. Sometimes your votes can show as guest if someone has blocked you when you uptick one of their comments.

        1. His parents wanted him to become a doctor but eventually he became an accountant after obeying the Lords request that the Children of Israel should go forth and Multiply !

      1. Could be mine too. I take the same prescription to the chemist once a month and come away with something different every time!

  47. How simply appalling that a main stream, democratic political party – BLM – could be involved with gang warfare. Incredible. Unbelievable…. (Yawns..)

      1. Those smart arse guys who preached ‘ I hope I die before I get old’.

        Obviously NHS patients….Maybe they knew what was coming….

    1. Still no measures on the “borders” on the UK South coast regarding dinghies though. I’d call her totally useless – but I don’t want to praise her.

      1. agree, though given it’s both Marr and Patel together it’s the equivalent of watching / reading a game of trivial pursuit by delinquents

        1. true, if she were entering UK and asked to pass an English Language test, the above confirms she falls at the first hurdle

      1. as you know Phizz, they invented it. FA to with C-19, as usual it was about making sure Modi aligned the land grab / agri towards US, hence the smokescreen in UK last week re paying off UK farmers. Patel asking Marr “to remember as well” shot herself down immediately. Marr couldn’t even remember how to get laid

  51. One to ponder….

    Why do we thank God when all is well but when it goes tits up it’s our own fault?

          1. Why don’t teachers admit they don’t know the friggin’ answer
            rather than spouting off a load of b*llocks…

        2. Grizz objects to this kind of thing. Not that any of us would think of winding him up…

    3. 333326+ up ticks,
      Afternoon P,
      The “tits up” falls on Polling day then one is on a winner regarding the future, proven by the past and the, ho so obvious mental state of the electorate.

  52. Funny – when one considers Priti Awful’s drivel (as quoted below) and the enormous bureaucracy created to enable a law-abiding, tax-paying British subject to enter his OWN country – and contrast it with the illegals who simply arrive without all the garbage that BB2 described yesterday and are made welcome and paid – you wonder WTF is going on.

      1. 333326+up ticks,
        Afternoon W,
        Peoples agreed to the political butler running ALL aspects of the UK household again,again,& again via the polling booth, really where’s the crib?

        1. Ogga, if they get to roll out their full agenda over the next 24 months, there won’t be any polling booth as they’ll have full control

          1. 333326+ up ticks,
            Afternoon AWK,
            It will be hard to decipher because 51% will be in arabic the props are in place in parliament, there are very few of us realise this, there lies the problem.

            Even so many will still go down to the polling booth area and leave a token vote as in a red / blue / green/ yellow pebble.

          2. If and it’s a big IF, there is any voting it’ll be controlled and online [ltd choices being vote for “Raghead 1 / Raghead 2 / LGBT]. Or pop down to the mosque, vote for same as above]. Anyone refusing to conform, no vote. Precedent set in EU, ask Rastus

          3. 333326+ up ticks,
            Afternoon AWK,
            The truth will out, compulsory vote for party on paper no vote = no head.

          4. if gaining full “corporate control” there won’t be any political party in the Western Hemisphere except for that supranational INGO the EU Parliament

          5. I doubt they’ll be voting for LGBT down at the mosque, so it will be Raghead1 or Raghead 2.

    2. We were led to believe that at last something would be done about this huge and unnecessary no gain invasion taking place. The only unusual occurrence between Miz Pritti and most other politicians as they quite clearly eff up everything they come into contact with. Is, she hasn’t even approached or even been near this issue, that is and will be seriously be effecting the culture and future social structure that was once the UK. I feel so let down and so sorry for my lovely grandchildren.

      1. From the moment May signed the UN Invasion Pact, the agenda was out in the open.

        1. When I proclaimed that Mrs May was evil they said I was being hyperbolic – but who’s talking bollicks now?

          1. I think you are right. She actively enabled evil on her watch, whether through greed or cowardice, I do not know.

      1. Every time Elon Musk opens his gob bitcoin flounders. He often manipulates the market.

        My investments in crypto have halved as they are all heading to the bottom at the moment. Which is why i have just bought more Ethereum and some PolkaDot.

        1. smart move re ethereum. I think it was last Thurs / Fri I got word ethereum would be used as the preferred driver to control the market [may have been zero hodge or something similar]. Musk’s perrenial problem is trying to punt his Tesla gig as you know. Outside shale gas which is semi stable, in US everything else is tanking

    2. Very interesting article. It could be a game changer.
      Why anyone is collaborating with China is a mystery, given their recent attitude to Australia.

  55. Afternoon All

    You’d have to have a heart of stone………..

    When it rains,it pours Al-Beeb!!

    https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/bltb1300e43e0951ede/60ab60174adeb65c03d762c3/E2Dnu63X0AAoDwW.jpeg?format=jpg&width=1440

    The Speccie view

    But now it has emerged that Halawa’s controversial views were made clear

    the last time the Israel-Palestine conflict flared up. Back in July

    2014 the journalist tweeted: ‘#Israel is more #Nazi than #Hitler ! Oh,

    #HitlerWasRight #IDF go to hell. #PrayForGaza’ with other posts making

    clear her views that: ‘ur media is produced by ur zionist government in

    order 2 produce ignorant people’ that ‘#Zionists can’t get enough of our

    blood’ and that ‘they’re are crying the holocaust every single moment

    but they’re practicing it every single moment as well.’

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/bbc-journalist-hitler-was-right-

    1. Stupid little fascist. Oh, she works for the BBC, she’s right at home there.

    1. well done that man! I never realised Sir Kneel Smarmer was already campaigning in Batley. Are they loading “floating voters” in the pic or just bussing them in to replace lost votes?

        2. They are Labour supporters, they are used to weevils in their (intellectual) food.

  59. Hooda thunk it!

    Wind slump risks blackouts as Britain goes green

    Researchers urge UK to invest in alternatives as growing reliance on wind and solar leaves energy grid exposed to extreme weather
    Prolonged periods of low wind and solar power could trigger blackouts as Britain races to ditch fossil fuels, experts have warned.
    Rachel Millard: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/24/wind-slump-risks-blackouts-britain-goes-green/

    Apparently the word for such conditions is a dunkelflaute.

    On Mianda we have solar panels and we used to have a wind generator until the blades flew off in a hurricane. But even so in the winter when we are at anchor we don’t need to have a dunkelflaute in order to have to use our diesel-powered motor or petrol-powered generator if we want heating, light and electrickery.

    1. Power cuts are in the plan. They’ve designed the new computer controlled, internet connected grid so that regions can easily be shut down when capacity is not great enough.

      1. And we won’t be able to afford our own cars so we shall have to stay where we are.

        Some cynics are not convinced that the Covid lockdowns have anything to do with health and everything to do with governmental control and testing what they can get away with.

        1. Yo mr t

          May I fiddle, please

          Some idiots are not convinced that the Covid lockdowns have everything to do with governmental control and
          testing, to see get away with.and noththing to do with health

      1. This message need echoed on high, there’s a lot of ground to recover from the green eejits.

    3. It’s about time people woke up to instead of trying to find alternative energy supplies to maintain usage rates, to using less in the first place.

      Bring back local greengrocers, butchers, fishmongers for a start and make them viable businesses by making their produce cheaper than anything imported and sold supermarkets.

      Put limiters on central heating so that when you try to set it higher than 15C an alarm sounds that says “Put a jumper on”

      Go back to making utensils, machines that last for decades.

      Put a hooooge tax on foreign ‘olidays so people can only afford them every five years. Fewer flights/cruises = less power needed to make aeroplanes and boats plus fuel saving.

      1. Stop importing loads of people from hot climates and stop paying people to breed.

      2. Stop importing loads of people from hot climates and stop paying people to breed.

    1. Strange then that the Spanish town Ceuta was invaded by 6,500 “asylum seekers” over the weekend, and the BBC reports that they’ve already been returned to their last country of origin.

      There you are Priti, IT CAN BE DONE.

        1. Come on, old, troop, get it together, Leopard Print, Kitten Heels.”

          Am I right, girlies?

      3. 333326+ up ticks,
        Afternoon P,
        Supported by 48% and opposing her supposedly, moggy who took us to the restraining wire more times than that and every time forgot the cutters.

    2. 333326+ up ticks,
      Afternoon AWK,
      I sill stand by my three tier semi reentry missile theory
      cameron the wretch blast off, mayday the intermediate stage, the turkish delight the semi reentry pilot ( the deal) triggered on the 25 /6 /2016

  62. Afternoon all on this lovely sunny/windy/rainy/stormy day.

    So now the “experts” are urging Britain to “seek alternatives” to wind and solar power because we may be susceptible to energy blackouts in future.

    My goodness me – these experts are amazing, aren’t they? I’ll bet nobody has had this thought! (I chiefly mean those stupid MPs who gaily voted for the idiotic Climate Change Act). When is somebody in government going to be bold enough to point this out to Carrie? Talk about living in your own little bubble.

      1. The BBC could run all the wind farms in future. There are enough puffs 💨💨💨to keep them turning 24 hours a day – and some spare.

    2. And you worry? What do you think of our chances on a Canadian winters evening when it is minus twenty outside and the wind she doesn’t blow!

      1. I don’t worry Richard I just despair at what’s happening everywhere in the west. Our government is so u it’s own fundament but the HoC is just as much to blame in passing the legislation in the first place. Why is it the west has decided to take us all back to the dark ages, literally?

        1. For those of you who don’t watch Sky Business News, it was interesting that they interviewed the head of EON last week.

          When being questioned about Britain going electric by 2030, he said that by EON’s calculations we needed three times the number of

          power stations that we have now.

          He then said, slightly wistfully “I don’t think that it is going to happen”

          1. Hell, Firstborn calculated that just for electric cars. It’s not difficult.
            Then comes the transmission capability…

        2. Try this vw – it’s a taste of the green future:

          Greta’s Green Day
          One crisp winter morning in Sweden, a cute little girl named Greta woke up to a perfect world, one where there were no petroleum products ruining the earth. She tossed aside her cotton sheet and wool blanket and stepped out onto a dirt floor covered with willow bark that had been pulverised with rocks.
          “What’s this?” she asked.
          “Pulverised willow bark,” replied her fairy godmother.
          “What happened to the carpet?” she asked.
          “The carpet was nylon, which is made from Butadiene and hydrogen cyanide, both made from petroleum,” came the response.

          Greta smiled, acknowledging that adjustments are necessary to save the planet, and moved to the sink to brush her teeth where instead of a toothbrush, she found a willow, mangled on one end to expose wood fibre bristles.
          “Your old toothbrush?” noted her godmother, “Also nylon.”
          “Where’s the water?” asked Greta.
          “Down the road in the canal,” replied her godmother, ‘Just make sure you avoid water with cholera in it”
          “Why’s there no running water?” Greta asked, becoming a little peevish.
          “Well,” said her godmother, who happened to teach engineering at MIT, “Where do we begin?”

          There followed a long monologue about how sink valves need elastomer seats and how copper pipes contain copper, which has to be mined and how it’s impossible to make all-electric earth-moving equipment with no gear lubrication or tyres and how ore has to be smelted to make metal, and that’s tough to do, with only electricity as a source of heat, and, even if you use only electricity, the wires need insulation, which is petroleum-based, and though most of Sweden’s energy is produced in an environmentally friendly way because of hydro and nuclear, if you do a mass and energy balance around the whole system, you still need lots of petroleum products like lubricants and nylon and rubber for tyres and asphalt for filling potholes and wax and iPhone plastic and elastic to hold your underwear up while operating a copper smelting furnace and . . .
          “What’s for breakfast?” interjected Greta, whose head was hurting.
          “Fresh, range-fed chicken eggs,” replied her godmother. “raw.”
          “How so, raw?” inquired Greta.
          “Well, …

          . . .” And once again, Greta was told about the need for petroleum products like transformer oil and scores of petroleum products essential for producing metals for frying pans and in the end was educated about how you can’t have a petroleum-free world and then cook eggs. Unless you rip your front fence up and start a fire and carefully cook your egg in an orange peel like you do in Boy Scouts. Not that you can find oranges in Sweden anymore.
          “But I want poached eggs like my Aunt Tilda makes,” lamented Greta.
          “Tilda died this morning,” the godmother explained. “Bacterial pneumonia.”
          “What?!” interjected Greta. “No one dies of bacterial pneumonia! We have penicillin.”
          “Not anymore,” explained godmother “The production of penicillin requires chemical extraction using isobutyl acetate, which, if you know your organic chemistry, is petroleum-based. Lots of people are dying, which is problematic because there’s not any easy way of disposing of the bodies since backhoes need hydraulic oil and crematoriums can’t really burn many bodies using as fuel Swedish fences and furniture, which are rapidly disappearing – being used on the black market for roasting eggs and staying warm.”

          This represents only a fraction of Greta’s day, a day without microphones to exclaim into and a day without much food, and a day without carbon-fibre boats to sail in, but a day that will save the planet.

          Tune in tomorrow when Greta needs a root canal and learns how Novocain is synthesised.

    3. Our deluded PM’s idea for the future is of many job opportunities for work and training. These workers will be trained to destroy our valued gas infrastructure and to vandalise our private houses by tearing out our gas boilers and radiators . Millions of households will be affected by this turmoil and the cost of this activity to the householder will be disruptive, expensive and of negative value. In addition the grid will be required to furnish millions of charging points throughout the land to all car owners often some distance away from their houses. Driverless cars and electric cars will be dangerous and a menace on the roads to the haulage lorries.,
      The misguided PM is doing this in the knowledge that the drop in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere will be insignificant but he wants to stand up in Glasgow in front of the faithful in November and spout this nonsense.
      It is time to have a serious debate on this topic before it is too late.

      1. And they will all be singing from the same hymn sheet! All the developed nations hurrying us to … ?

    4. Yep, vw, why ship wood pellets from Seattle, Washington State, down the west cost of America, through the Panama Canal, across the Atlantic Ocean to some unidentified port in the UK (probably Hull) in order to run a power station that is sitting on some 300 years of coal?

      That’s green logic for you.

      1. Why can’t yer pollution be avoided by putting filters over chimneys, exhaust pipes and the like?

        1. Of course it can (and has been in places), but that wouldn’t suit the agenda.

  63. I shall be leaving you for a while – have to take G&P to the vet for their first half-yearly checkup. Thirty amazing weeks, they have been with us – and a perpetual joy.

    No probs with putting them in the carrier. For once I had a branewave. When they were tiny, I brought it down from the attic and left it in a corner of the dining room. They got used to it, played in and around it and now are likely to be found asleep in it! I just wish I had thought of that 40+ years ago….!!

    Have a damp afternoon – a bientôt

          3. I see a business opportunity. Everyone likes a pie.

            I’m having steak and kidney in a red wine sauce made with short crust pastry for supper.

            Pies don’t have to be just meat. Cheese and onion pie is quite popular.

          6. If you cover it in mash, cheese and breadcrumbs, it makes a grand fish pie.

            I use this as the base, leave out the potatoes and lobster bisque and cover with mash et al, as identified if you want a pie:

            Easy Fish Stew

            Ingredients

            50 grams butter
            2 tbsp cornflour
            1¾ pints (1 litre) fish stock
            ½ lb (500 gram) peeled, diced potatoes (reds or waxy)
            1 large onion chopped fine
            2 tbsp thick cream
            450 grams firm white fish such as cod, huss or monkfish, filleted and skinned
            200 grams scallops
            200 grams peeled king prawns
            200 grams cooked mussels out of the shell (optional)
            1 tin lobster bisque (if you prefer a thick soup)

            Method

            1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan on a medium to hot hob. Add the cornflour and stir to a paste.

            2. Gradually add the fish stock, stirring all the time, until you have all the liquid in the pan with no lumps.

            3. Add the potatoes and onions, stir well and bring it to the boil; turn down the heat to a gentle simmer and leave it for 10 – 15 minutes.

            4. Add the cream, fish, scallops, prawns and mussels, stir well and cook for a further 5 minutes.

            5. If you want a good thick soup instead of a stew, add a tin of lobster bisque.

          10. Lovely, except for the mash. I prefer a puff pastry top, but with some buttery mash on the side of course.

          11. I’ll try that recipe, Tom. Thanks.

            I always put grated cheddar atop a cottage pie; and I always add a can of Italian tomatoes to the beef mince.

    3. We used to take Chaucer loose in the car and he loved it and went to sleep when he got bored with looking out of the window. He never interfered with the driver. We once drove down to Rennes – about 40 miles away – and found he had joined us for the trip and we had not known it until we got there. I think that cats love riding in cars if you introduce them to it early enough.

  65. Advanced notification for once, power rationing in 5 mins for rest of day. Thanks to all for their posts, responses etc. Ntn enjoy rest of yr b’day everyone else stay well

  66. BBC to launch review into its ‘editorial policies and governance’ following Bashir scandal. 24 May 2021.

    The BBC Board has launched its own inquiry into the ‘culture’ of the corporation in the wake of the Martin Bashir scandal.

    In a statement released on Monday, the Board admitted Bashir’s deceit in securing his interview with Diana, princess of wales and the ensuing cover-up had been a “profoundly sobering period for us all”.

    The Board, which sets the broadcaster’s policies and strategies, said a review was now needed to ensure “mistakes of the past cannot be repeated today”.

    A Fake Enquiry followed by floods of Crocodile Tears!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/24/bbc-launch-review-editorial-policies-governance-following-bashir/

    1. I was going to write a reply Minty but i couldn’t be bothered, the BBC make me sick the way they carry on, as i commented on earlier today there was another example of their duplicity on breakfast TV this morning.

    2. They weren’t mistakes. It was intentional. Including the cover-up that when right to the very top of the organisation.

      Sacking of everyone involved would be a start.

      I hope Earl Spencer roasts them.

      1. yeah, yeah! Lessons have been learnt. Give it a couple of weeks and its back to normal.

      2. And I hope James Dyson does the same. Let’s let some daylight into the murky goings-on within Auntie.

    4. It’s the old, old “Bullshit baffles brains.”

      Except on here you twerps.

    5. Still waiting since 2004 for the BBC to release their own inquiry into the BBC’s well documented anti-Israel bias :- The Balen Report is a 20,000 word document written by the senior broadcasting journalist Malcolm Balen in 2004 after examining thousands of hours of the BBC’s coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The report was commissioned by former BBC Director of News, Richard Sambrook, following persistent complaints from the public and the Israeli government of allegations of anti-Israel bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balen_Report

      1. Had the report exonerated the BBC, it would have been shouted from the rooftops. Their refusal to release it speaks volumes. I’m glad I haven’t paid the TV tax since 2005.

  67. I’ve been thinking about making a couple of gallons of parsnip wine and buying the apparatus to distil it, any other Nottlers ever tried this ?
    A guy who rented for a year or so opposite us had a still, he made excellent Gin that went down rather well at our annual street party.
    Unfortunately when he moved away and I lost contact with him.
    But a fortuitous walk this morning led me to take a short cut where two guys I talked to had just rescued a small dog from the busy road near by, one of them was the owner of an apple tree I have often admired for it’s abundance of eating apples. Most of the apples usually left to rot on the ground. He said give me a knock in September so that’s good news for the cider at Christmas and the new year. And a decent sort of chap. Both their eyes lit up when I mentioned the cider.

      1. Thanks for that issy, I’ve already got some of the equipment, i’ll need to get some wine yeast and other agents for clearing. I read that the results is similar to dry sherry. It’s fairly simple to do it’ll keep me busy for a few weeks on and off.

    2. A still for wine? How potent are you intent on making this witches brew?

      Recipes that I see just call for the parsnips to be boiled, sugar added and a bit of yeast tossed in. Supposedly makes a strong wine akin to chardonnay.
      .

      1. My hydrometer is broken i’ll get a new one of those it must have been when i was testing the cider that turned out to be 15% 😉😃
        We had a wine and beer makers shop near us i think it closed down or moved i believe. It looks as if Wilko might fill the gap they sell lots of bits and pieces.

      1. We have a still. bought from a homebrew shop in Barnstaple.
        Easy to use, it’s a copper dome and cooler on top of a tea urn!
        Makes about 60-ish % spirit. This is good, because you get an amount of water carry-over, and that brings the flavour with it.

      1. No the people had left it in the garden and had gone out and the dog had burrowed under the fence.
        I recently heard of someone whose black Lab has just had a lot of puppies Conners, but you said you didn’t want a puppy, we have a black Lab and she’s such a lovely person, but Lottie gets a bit grumpy now and again. She’s 12 this July.

        1. No, unfortunately, with everything else I have to deal with, a pup would be just too much – the same applies to taking on a dog with “issues” and medical conditions. I am struggling to cope with the workload as it is. I have missed out on five dogs in as many weeks. Whatever happened to the old system where you saw a dog you liked, went to meet it and took it home. Now it’s a lottery and they draw your name out of a hat. I have NEVER been lucky with draws; there were once 13 tickets and 12 prizes – guess who had the 13th ticket!

  68. Just a thought on the BLM activist who was shot.

    The police were extremely quick off the mark to stop any thought that the shooting might have been a white person, stating that it was almost certainly a black on black gang-related drive-by where she was merely caught in the crossfire, as one is.
    If it had been a right-wing crazy I suspect London and many cities would be ablaze.

    1. I wonder what plans the Plod have in place for when drive-by shooting becomes the norm in our cities.

      We get all the bad culture from the U.S a couple of years later.

      2. The London police could Kneel in respect, dress up in rainbow coursers and dance get more tattoos and funny hair cuts, or do absolutely nothing. But of course blame every one they feel is of a far right persuasion who’s not, nor never has been involved.

        2. You forgot “paint their nails and wear high heels” (and that’s only the blokes).

    2. Just think of the lives that might have already been saved if stop and search hadn’t been so godamn racist.

      1. If I may
        Just think of the lives that might have already been saved if stop and search hadn’t been accused of being so godamn racist and stopped because it was accurate.

        1. I was being sarcy Sos. 😏
          It would have been easy to have stopped the type of people who are known to be more likely to carry weapons but once again the police farce were guided by the hypocrisy of freshly woke politics and not the most obvious suspicions and findings, the known perpetrators of the crimes. Remember nobody was ever found guilty of the l killing of PC Keith Blakelock in Brixton, the locals knew who did it. Imagine if that had been the other way round ……as we have recently seen what happened when known criminal and drug addict Floyd died in police custody, now they’re holding an effing anniversary of his death. In this country.

          1. I suspected that you were.
            I was trying to emphasise your point.

            I don’t wish that BLM woman dead, but it would be a terrible irony if she died on the anniversary of Floyd’s death, randomly killed by a random black man.

          4. Hmm,

            One evening in October
            When I was about one-third sober
            And was taking home a load with manly pride
            My poor feet began to stutter
            So I lay down in the gutter
            And a pig came up and lay down by my side

            Then we sang “It’s All Fair Weather”
            And “Good Fellows Get Together”
            Till a lady passing by was heard to say
            She says, “You can tell a man who boozes
            By the company he chooses”
            And the pig got up and slowly walked away

          7. I think they maybe frustrated and stuck for evidence and nobody will say they recognise the 4 black men who arrived at the party and started shooting. But they are still batting on with the Floyd innings a year later. I think I can speak for millions on the planet when I say “Who gives one” ?

  69. Does anyone else here receive Spectator “briefing” emails? I’m not a subscriber but the emails come anyway. The “lunchtime briefing” today contains this priceless item:

    “Sniffer dogs can detect coronavirus in under a second, meaning they could be deployed at airports for speedier testing”.

    Well, they’ll be at least as accurate as a pcr test run at 45 cycles anyway and if the choice is between having something rammed up your nose or your bum sniffed by a hound, the latter might be preferable.

  70. Syrians pay tax to rebuild after war but see little benefit. 24 May 2021

    Available records show that the regime’s reconstruction committee has mostly allocated funds levied from the tax to government ministries and public institutions, making it impossible to track what is spent. Some of the funds that OCCRP did manage to trace, though a small proportion of the whole, went to refurbish military facilities and housing for government forces. Money spent on civilians has often gone to those in pro-government areas.

    These findings are consistent with research from the Carnegie Middle East Center, which found Assad’s regime has used “selective reconstruction” to shore up its political and economic power in some areas, while ignoring poorer social classes that the regime views as threatening.

    I paid Road Tax in the UK for nearly forty years and as far as I can tell it made not the slightest improvement to the roads I was driving on. In fact they got worse! This is one of the great scams of Modern Government; cash is extorted from the citizens under various pretexts and it is then thrown into Common Pool to be dished out; often on things that they vehemently oppose. Syria’s difficulties are of course more profound. Opposed to the West’s idea that they should hand the Country and its People over to the Jihadists it is being sanctioned out of economic existence.

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/may/24/revealed-syrians-pay-tax-to-rebuild-after-war-but-see-little-benefit

    1. Road tax was abolished in 1937 when it became vehicle excise duty. As with other taxes like NI it’s all part of general taxation and not ring fenced for what it seems to be.

      1. Afternoon Alf. It has been known as Road Tax for as long as I can remember!

        1. Strictly speaking it is VED, but everybody seems to call it Road Tax. It isn’t the roads that are taxed (or even where the money is spent), it’s the vehicle.

        2. Good evening Minty
          I agree with you but old habits die hard. It’s been VED since long before I was born.

    3. Sometimes clouds look a lot darker and more threatening than they really are, especially when on the opposite horizon to a low sun.

    4. Love the cloud formation. Would love to be able to paint taht, be an excellent subject for watercolour.

      1. That particular meteorological extravaganza was to the north of us, Cardiff/Newport-ish way , but I didn’t smell leeks or curry.

    1. Perhaps he can join his father and Herr Schickelgruber in a hell of their own making.

      No sorrow here.

      1. I take no strong view one way or the other. I can’t help feeling he suffered for the sins of his father.

        He certainly transformed F1.

      2. Don’t you mean Herr Hitler, Tom? Hitler was never known as “Schicklgruber”, he was invariably Hitler from birth.

        Hitler’s father, Alois Hitler Sr. (1837–1903), was the illegitimate child of Anna Schicklgruber. The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, and Alois initially bore his mother’s surname, ‘Schicklgruber’. In 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Alois’s mother. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler’s brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler. In 1876, Alois was made legitimate and his baptismal record annotated by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Alois’s father (recorded as “Georg Hitler”). Alois then assumed the surname “Hitler”, also spelled ‘Hiedler’, ‘Hüttler’, or ‘Huettler’. The name is probably based on the German word hütte (lit., “hut”), and likely has the meaning “one who lives in a hut”.

        2. Thanks, George, although it may be a popular misconception, it does point to the possibility that Das Führer had more than a smidgeon of Jewish blood.

        3. Thanks, George, although it may be a popular misconception, it does point to the possibility that Das Führer had more than a smidgeon of Jewish blood.

    3. The DM headline mentioned the orgy and the prostitutes. Very bad form in my opinion.

  75. Sorry, Guys (and girlies) I’m having problems keeping up because DISQUS rarely shews any new comments above or below. So I have to read through and then refresh – again and again…

      1. Much like, Hat. I hope you, and your readers, enjoy the finished product.

      2. Much like, Hat. I hope you, and your readers, enjoy the finished product.

      1. Thank you, Mags. I haven’t but Best Beloved has had to dodge the downpours to walk Dotty.

      1. Again, thank you BB2, though I’m not sure I’ve caught up withy the first.

      2. Again, thank you BB2, though I’m not sure I’ve caught up withy the first.

  77. CSMs briefing to new recruits. Opening lines
    “For the next twelve weeks, the Commanding Officer will be your father and I will be your mother.
    I should tell you that the Commanding Officer and I are not married, so you know what that makes you lot!

      1. Love children?

        Why bastard? wherefore base?
        When my dimensions are as well compact,
        My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
        As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
        With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
        Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
        More composition and fierce quality
        Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
        Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
        Got ‘tween asleep and wake?

        1. It’s a word that describes a child who is not at fault.

          But I’m afraid I tend to look at cases where one woman has multiple children by different fathers as a slapper.

          The real bastards are the men who abandon the woman at the drop of another pair of pants.

          1. In the film The Professionals with Robert Ryan and Lee Marvin the Lee Marvin character refuses to go ahead with a plan when he discovers that the Robert Ryan character has lied about the circumstances;

            Robert Ryan: You bastard!
            Lee Marvin: In my case that’s an accident of birth – but you’re a self-made man!

        2. Worse than a bastard is a gimbo (“a bastard’s bastard”). I believe the modern equivalent is a politician or a MSN newsman.

          1. Hadn’t heard of that before. I remember Rimmer from Red Dwarf calling people gimboids.

    3. Had a comment properly censored for using that specific term.

      It’s the erasure of shame that’s done the most damage to society.

  78. Afternoon all,

    What do you think about this monsoon May weather ?

    My car isn’t fixed yet , so Moh kindly drove me to Wimborne for an appointment with my hairdresser .. the traffic was so heavy, where on earth was everyone going to, caravans, lorries vans tractors and tankers on our small A road and the rain sheeted down , poor sheep and cattle and every one else who has t brave the elements out doors .

    Our poor old roads are in a shocking state , worn down and full of potholes , first time we have ventured eastwards for ages. Cost of fuel has rocketed as well.

    We took a flask of coffee with us , and some buns , it was nice heading for different landscapes, but my word , the house building projects have really gathered momentum , Wimborne has undergone huge changes!

    Back home now , dogs were pleased to see us , they are now happy now they have been fed .

    1. I’ve not been to Wimborne for a few years now, but I used to enjoy using a quirky little pub called The Oddfellows.

    3. Never mind the cost of fuel, the Chancellor has hiked VED to force encourage people to go electric.

    4. Been out to lunch today – and we could sit inside! Just as well as it was pouring.

    3. An arab with a ham on his head – Amhed
      An arab with 2 hams on his head- Mohamhed
      Shaking his head? Sheik Mohammed.
      I’ll get my goat.

  80. UK’s Raab says: difficult to believe Russia not involved in Belarus jet incident. 24 May 2021.

    Raab said on Monday it was difficult to believe that Russia was not involved, at least by acquiescence, in the jet incident in Belarusian airspace but that London had no clear evidence of Moscow’s involvement yet.

    Both Raab and Tugendhat are peddling this canard in their roles as anti-Russian shills for the Globalists. There is no proof, or even evidence of it of course, and I’m pretty sure no truth either. Vlad is far too canny an operator to be caught out in such a half-witted scheme!

    https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-raab-says-difficult-believe-russia-not-involved-belarus-jet-incident-2021-05-24/

    1. Raab said on Monday it was difficult to believe that Russia was not involved
      Isn’t that basically what May said about Salisbury?

      2. Raab appears to have almost no experience or knowledge of geopolitics. Come to think of it none of the current front bench exhibit any in depth knowledge whatsoever about any subject, least of all their own portfolios.

        I have never witnessed such a bunch of ignorant peasants as Johnson’s cabinet. None could run a whelk stall on present performance. All mouth and trousers as my late father would declaim.

    2. I doubt that Putin could be bothered. The alliance between the real power brokers in Russia and the CCP is presently strengthening. Putin will likely be retired in the near future. I cannot envisage China wanting to leave Putin in place.

      The Biden White House is so incompetent that the Russians and China are laughing at the weakness of the West. Evidently the Chinese and Russians between them compromised and bought the Biden crime family years ago. The Chinese ensured Biden’s election as will eventually be proven.

  83. Signing off early – another lecture on Rome. One way to spend a damp hour. Beats turning into a butterfly.

    A demain.

  85. Faces of 850 transgender prostitutes, an Eastern European grain silo and a rocket to outer space are latest candidates for Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth D Fail

    Six works by artists including Malawi-born Samson Kambalu and Germany-based Paloma Varga Weisz have gone on display at the National Gallery, which reopened last week, as well as online.

    Faces of 850 transgender prostitutes on line! What’s the point, you can see them every day on all the BBC news channels. More taxpayer’s money wasted.

    1. How about something uplifting? Just a thought.
      A big bowl of daffodils would be good.

    2. 333326+ up ticks,
      Afternoon P
      I reckon the pimponel our milkman should be raised
      upon a plinth, three years and ain’t seen him yet speed & efficiency are his forte I believe him to have
      IOM syndrome, three legs.

  86. Ginge and Cringe were watching the news when the headline came that three Brazilian children died from hunger last month.
    Oh my God said Ginge, that’s like soo sad. We must add it to the list of causes that we are going to make a speech about.
    Remind me first though, how many is a brazilion?

  87. Ginge and Cringe were watching the news when the headline came that three Brazilian children died from hunger last month.
    Oh my God said Ginge, that’s like soo sad. We must add it to the list of causes that we are going to make a speech about.
    Remind me first though, how many is a brazilion?

  88. Ginge and Cringe were watching the news when the headline came that three Brazilian children died from hunger last month.
    Oh my God said Ginge, that’s like soo sad. We must add it to the list of causes that we are going to make a speech about.
    Remind me first though, how many is a brazilion?

      1. Consider yourself very fortunate!

        The woman is everything you would expect a woke Greenie harridan to be.

    4. As the twitter comments state, se is utterly out of touch with reality.

      Her sort are typical of councillors everywhere: incompetent, pointless, wasteful. In a democracy she’d be sacked.

    1. We don’t get them round here – or at least, I’ve never heard one. I don’t think we have the right habitat (it’s sheep and arable country).

        1. Englishness is in even greater danger; it was put on the red list in 1997 and things have only got worse 🙁

    3. Darkling I listen and am already half in love with easeful death;
      Now, more than ever, seems it meet to die;
      To cease upon the midnight with no pain
      While Thou art pouring forth thy soul in such an ecstasy.

    4. Darkling I listen and am already half in love with easeful death;
      Now, more than ever, seems it meet to die;
      To cease upon the midnight with no pain
      While Thou art pouring forth thy soul in such an ecstasy.

    5. Not as pleasant as that, but I heard and saw my 3rd hen cuckoo of the year this morning.

  93. Evening, all. Wet, dull, miserable – and that’s only me, never mind the weather. The dog I thought I’d found has been allocated to someone else, I had a telephone conversation with the MO this morning who then sent me physio exercises to do, which are exactly the same exercises as I’ve been doing for years and which I stopped when they became too painful. I’ve emailed back to ask if I should do them despite the pain – oh, and I’ve got an X ray appointment for 29th JUNE.

    2. Bummer!
      Crazed teacher friend has passed the word round her circle that a medium-sized dog wanted, and keeping a watchful eye to the ground… if you see what I mean… hopefully something suitable will turn up.

      1. Thanks. I am beginning to wonder if I shall ever find a dog, or if I’m doomed to suffer dogless for ever 🙁

  94. This just in – in response to the grounding of a transiting Ryan Air jet the EU has taken firm action and has banned Belarus from taking part in next year’s Eurovision song contest.

    2. That’ll show them the EU is not to be trifled with!

      It is a joke, isn’t it…?

  95. Ah, now the Irish can prove their mettle. Instead of complaining about the UK (the UK that bailed them out of the financial crash), and doing their best to wreck Brexit and complaining ceaselessly, now is the time for the Irish to do something really positive and brave. Yes you, you Irish politicos, that can make fuss about a border that has never really existed, now is your chance to make history. Now is the time for real action! Turn out the Irish Army, declare war on Belarus. Go there, if you can find it, and teach them a lesson. Don’t prevaricate, but act now. Do it now. But you won’t ,will yo?. A fine bunch of men, sure enough. Cower Irishmen on your wee bit of the island of Ireland. Stay in the bars and swill Guinness and talk big. Now it’s the hour to do big things, not talk, but get into your beds and pull the covers over your heads, Irishmen. You are not up to it. The bold speeches in the Dail are the best your politicians could muster, and they are worthless bluster. But they are quiet men now, when they, and you, should be John Wayne.

    1. Eh..the branch of Ryanair that flew the plane over Belarus is registered in…..Poland!

    1. I’d like to see who possesses all the illegal firearms. There won’t be many whities on the list, I’ll bet.

      2. My daughter in law suggests Shropshire Dogs Trust – 10 dogs needing a home..

        I’ll bet you have tried them.

        We keep thinking.

        1. Thanks. There is one there which is a possibility, but I’m hampered in that both my neighbours have yappy dogs which they let out in their gardens at all hours. That eliminates a lot of rescue dogs – they can’t stand other dogs. I’ve applied for one in Yorkshire (assuming that they will allow adoption more than 25 miles/1hr journey from the rescue home (another obstacle to overcome). The Dogs Trust has another couple of dogs in different parts of the country which might be possible as well; I will ring up about them tomorrow.

          2. I am finding it hard to summon up any optimism as the weeks go on, unfortunately. To rub salt into the wound, the one I have just missed out on gets videos put up by his adoptees on Facebook. It’s good he’s so happy, but I would have liked to do those things, too.

      1. My small seaside home town used to talk of the murder in 1963 – in 1999. It was that rare.

        Then Birmingham council gave the local council a wodge of money and… about 8,000 gimmigrants moved in – to a town of barely 20,000.

        Overnight, crime soared, especially violent crime. The town was poor, but neat and tidy in the most part. It turned into a cesspit.

    3. Neither are they the cause… well, yes, they are. Because black kids are shooting other black kids. You can lie about it to suit your own racism but you cannot change the truth. Black kids are shooting other black kids.

      No, the government must DO NOTHING because it is government policy that has caused this mess – the sort of denial that there isn’t a problem in the black community. Your sort of denial.

      What needs doing is simple, but because you’re a gormless statist it won’t occur to you. What is needed is everything you stand against so shut up, grow up and go away.

    4. The worrying fact is not her ignorance but that she is one of our lawmakers.

    6. I presume Claudia is another of the colour blind variant as she’s brown not black. To help her with her post “The Brown community are responsible for the distribution and use of firearms; they are the cause. The white [pink] members of Government must do more to end this ‘Culture of Voilence’. Perhaps that brown chap who Heads the Met Police Counter Terrorism Neil Basu will know who stole his arsenal”

    3. I trust that Ryanair has given them all a full refund.

      Oh, wait a minute, that’s another O’Leary minute.

    4. Just book for India. 20 Thousand managed to return before the gates closed. At that time travel was for ‘essential’ reasons only. Maybe marrying off yr daughter is acceptable.

    1. Achmed / Mohammed the illegal immigrant living in the Grenfell flat where the fire broke out never explained to anybody why he never attempted to put the fire out, packed his bags & did not contact the fire brigade and only as a sort of afterthought whilst on his way out of the building ring the doorbell of another Muslim woman illegal & tell her that there was a fire in his flat. He vamoosed before the fire brigade & police arrived, rumor has it that he hailed a passing taxi or had taxi booked waiting him. The inquiry never called him as he had vanished & his real identity remains unknown & the story of his miraculous escape was edited out of most fire reports in the media. Grenfell was thus iMO a possible act of terror or at least an act of arson for profit.

      1. You know that the whole business stinks, as do I , as do the bulk of the NTTLers and I suspect a large part of the population as well and yet as with many inconvenient truths it is ignored and to try and explain why is likely to require the adoption of a tin foil hat.

        1. The problem with Grenfell can be traced to the transference of ‘building control’ from established qualified District Surveyors to local authority building control. The London Building Act, formulated from 1666 and the Fire of London, was ditched in favour of National Building Regulations administered by local authority bods with little experience or training. In addition Architects were asked to cease consulting with the London Fire Brigade and to leave that consultation to the local authority departments.

          Needless to say, this fundamental change was a result of Margaret Thatcher’s determination to abolish the Greater London Council, run by Ken Livingstone who hung provocative anti-Thatcher banners from City Hall on the South Bank, visible from Westminster Palace.

          Thus many experienced and knowledgeable individuals were flung on the scrap heap and their duties replaced by local authority lackeys.

          The rest is history.

          1. “the rest is history” from which nothing is ever learned, It seems to have been the standard procedure for the last decade or so to abandon knowledge and experience in favour of , well I’m not sure what but it probably involves degraded Degrees and box ticking, the NT and RNLI are prime examples to name but two.

          2. I could not agree more with you. The woke nonsense and promotion of idiots under equality legislation has wrecked many of our institutions.

            The Police are now riddled with dumb people unsure about their sexuality, morons who see their badge as an excuse to propel their personal prejudices in favour of racial mob violence whilst prosecuting innocent folk and causing aggravation to the law abiding,

            The schools and universities are infested with lefty teachers, perverting the minds of both young children and immature students and promoting Critical Race Theory in order to set pupils against their parents and cause societal division.

            We need to bring these governance parties to heel. The Covid farce is likely to rebound on the Tories as the hoax is gradually revealed and the damage caused by lockdowns and vaccines finally quantified.

            They will be brought to justice for crimes against humanity.

        1. Is this the mysterious occupant of the flat where the fire started? I don’t recall seeing a photo of him in the media & IMO he is suspect number one in the fire.

          1. Yes. He is/was an Ethiopian taxi driver. Quite why he was living in Blighty is a mystery.
            There seem to have been no sightings of him since then. I believe his family were fortuitously not at home that night.

          3. That explains the Taxi connection, either drove off in his or had a mate waiting to collect him & if so its for sure a pre-planned fire!

    3. Think this (or similar) was on Discovery channel relatively recently.

    4. Technically, combustible materials are not permitted in wall construction above four storeys and this rule obtained at the time.

      Roofs could contain combustible materials but only where the floor of the roof space was incombustible. The idea was that a burning roof would be contained, on collapse, by an incombustible floor structure.

      At Summerland both rules were evidently ignored.

      From memory the magic transparent material employed was traded as Plexiglas or something similar. It was basically PVC in origin and as such highly combustible.

      As it happens not only the rainscreen cladding at Grenfell was combustible but the insulation behind it, a material marketed as Celotex, a combustible foam material sandwiched between thin sheets of aluminium foil. In addition to its combustibility, when alight, it gives off highly toxic fumes.

    1. Glad to see he is still about. I suspect that his will to fight against the deep state is flagging. Didn’t hear the result of him being sued by that Libyan. Prob can guess.

  104. Perception and interpretation – a BTL comment from an article in the Guardian about the current BBC unpleasantness.

    Gazthegardener
    “I refuse to watch the bbc news as its nothing more than tory propaganda, the local news is even worse in its sycophantic ways.they have the same presenter do the Sunday politics show and time after time he gives the tories cart blanche,barely ever asks them an awkward question and the opposition parties may well as not turn up as he never gives them any time to say anything before he shuts them down and then gives another brown nosing to the tory”.

    1. Extraordinary! But don’t worry, it’s only the Guardian. The very few people that read it are equally deluded.

    2. Fear not. The BBC is about to become a thing of the past, dead, defunct, devoid of life and devoid of an audience. We are all heartily sick of their bias and propaganda.

      Hopefully a flurry of lawsuits will do for them, especially that launched by Prince William whose stock will rise exponentially if he actually sues the bastards.

      1. “Hopefully a flurry of lawsuits will do for them, especially that launched by Prince William whose stock will rise exponentially if he actually sues the bastards.”

        Unfortunately, if he ‘sues the bastards’, I suspect we – the license holders – will pick up the tab …

        1. We are picking up the tab for both the sovereign Royals and the BBC as matters stand.

          I suppose I might just about prefer the sovereign Royals, wasteful spendthrifts that they are, to the traitorous BBC which is of no utility whatsoever to our nation giving encouragement to our sworn enemies at every turn.

      2. I believe that the commercial stations are just as bad .

        We have just channel flicked the news ITV leading with the horrors of Gaza , and a few black trendy adverts inbetween and BBC giving the shot BLM woman rather a lot of airtime .

        We feel really intolerant of all things newsworthy , so now we are subjecting ourselves to Foyles War for the umpteenth time .

        3. The touching report on the dead children of Gaza was totally one-sided. The suggestion that they were killed by one of their own rockets was refuted.

          1. Since I watched the short documentary Pallywood on YT, I have always treated Pally-supplied footage with the greatest suspicion. And anything form the region too.

      3. If I can clumsily paraphrase PGW – that would be a concatenation of circumstances much to be desired, I fear however that the whole wretched edifice will lumber on regardless, I hope time will prove me wrong.

      1. No, I think they are suffering from more-lefty-than-thou syndrome. It’s Karl Marx and trans rights or nothing. They really do rail at the BBC for being too right wing.

  105. As
    it is now the 24th of May in the UK, it is time to post this memorial
    to the men of HMS Hood, pride of the Royal Navy and known throughout the
    world. 79 years ago on the 24th of May 1941, HMS Hood and HMS Prince
    of Wales engaged the German battleship Bismark and her escort Prinz
    Eugen in the Denmark strait. Early in the battle HMS Hood exploded, out
    of a crew of 1,418 only 3 survived. Bismark was sunk 3 days later. HMS
    Prince of Wales was sunk by the Japanese on the 10th of December 1941.
    RIP.

      1. Nah it was Covid-19, her captain & crew’s death certificate clearly states ” Died of complications from Covid 19 torpedoes “

        1. I quite like your witty comments, always have, but a bit of respect for those who lost their lives to free the world of Nazis would not go amiss.

          Without Britain there would have been no Israel so please respect the sacrifices our countrymen made on your behalf.

          My own father spent several years In Burma fighting the Japanese in WWII. He returned to England a wreck and found it very difficult to both forget his experiences and accept the reality of what had meantime become of the country he left.

          My country deserves respect for its sacrifices. You of all people should acknowledge this fact.

          1. You seem to forget that I am an Englishman, a many generation Londoner. A great Grandad served in the British army in the Boer war, both my Granddads & their brothers served in the British army in WW1, Uncles & Aunts on both sides of my family served in the British Army in WW2 , my dad was still a schoolboy during WW2 & after the war did his National Service in the RAF . I lost a number of family members to enemy action during the war including an older cousin of my dad who was killed in Burma & another one in Normandy sometime after D-Day. Several of my mums cousins were killed in action in North Africa & Italy and also by the V2’s , so your post to me is rather out of context & my post was sarcastic & in no way meant to belittle the brave crew of HMS Devonshire .

      2. I understood that Bismarck was scuttled having lost her steering. The pounding she received was more or less ineffective.

        She was about twenty years ‘younger’ than Hood and much more advanced in her weaponry and steel hull belt protections than the Hood.

        The Germans were ahead of the game in battleship design compared with our Royal Navy. They simply lacked the resources to perfect their models.

        My father in law served on MTB’s early in the War. The equivalent German S Boats were superior to our craft in every respect. Flarings protected the crew from spray at speed, they had more powerful Mercedes Benz power units and were faster in the water than our MTB’s.

        Luckily our MTB captains mostly outfoxed them during the night time skirmishes.

        1. Hood’s failing was in having a wooden deck above the magazine lift. One of the very first shells from Bismark found that weak spot.

    4. My late father was posted to HMS Hood as a Royal Marine, along with his two friends who trained with him at Plymouth. By chance he was reassigned to HMS Nelson instead just before Hood sailed. Sadly his friends weren’t among the three who survived.

    5. I have sailed many times with my friend, Terence Brownrigg, son of Lieutenant-Commander JOHN GEORGE PLUNKET BROWNRIGG: Royal Navy H.M.S. Hood. Died 24 May 1941 Age 37 years old.

    6. As a youth, I worked as a farmhand. The farmer was rescued from the Prince of Wales when she was sunk. He didn’t talk about it.

  106. As
    it is now the 24th of May in the UK, it is time to post this memorial
    to the men of HMS Hood, pride of the Royal Navy and known throughout the
    world. 79 years ago on the 24th of May 1941, HMS Hood and HMS Prince
    of Wales engaged the German battleship Bismark and her escort Prinz
    Eugen in the Denmark strait. Early in the battle HMS Hood exploded, out
    of a crew of 1,418 only 3 survived. Bismark was sunk 3 days later. HMS
    Prince of Wales was sunk by the Japanese on the 10th of December 1941.
    RIP.

  108. Park ranger wandering through a petrified forest in California unearths a treasure trove of prehistoric fossils, including a perfectly preserved mastodon skull and the remains of a 400-pound ‘monster salmon’
    Greg Francek stumbled across the site last summer near the Mokelumne River
    Experts have unearthed the fossils of 600 trees and dozens of animal species
    These include a giraffe-sized camel, an elephant ancestor, rhinos and tapirs
    The fossil site has been dated back to 10 million years ago, during the Miocene
    Researchers believe that the fossils were swept there by floods or debris flows

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9612265/Prehistory-Park-ranger-finds-fossil-trove-including-mastodon-skull-remains-monster-salmon.html

    1. And they probably did die of it. Or at least it hastened their death from their other illnesses.

    2. And they probably did die of it. Or at least it hastened their death from their other illnesses.

  110. Good night, NoTTLers all and thank you, family, for all the birthday wishes.

  111. Reading the flurry of information now available about Covid and our government’s reaction to the flu bug, were I Johnson, Hancock, Whitty, Vallance, Ferguson and Van Tam and their minions I would be shitting bricks.

    Time is up Number 10. Nuremberg 2 awaits you, you evil nasty inhuman bastards.

    1. Good night to you too, Conners, and to all members of the NoTTL community.

  114. mng all, the latest on “Taking one for the Team” – we’re listening https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f902b3d7447cf3017913efd9965ee97ff95bca4450d243f982abf20ea36e88b6.png however Flash Gordon despite displaying momumental idiocy confuses himself with his post “we don’t know what has happened here” & “our priority is Sasha’s health and recovery” …. and the kids? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aec6bd8d53e1b9cd055d57cd3838497c9cb7eaf4f522c106557211528d7b47b0.png

  115. mng all, the latest on “Taking one for the Team” – we’re listening https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f902b3d7447cf3017913efd9965ee97ff95bca4450d243f982abf20ea36e88b6.png however Flash Gordon despite displaying momumental idiocy confuses himself with his post “we don’t know what happened here” & “our priority is Sasha’s health and recovery” …. and the kids? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aec6bd8d53e1b9cd055d57cd3838497c9cb7eaf4f522c106557211528d7b47b0.png

    1. Why should I have to pay my licence fee, by law, to listen to racists talking about race?

      Are our legislators and parliamentary representatives determined to make racists of us all?

      1. no re racism, merely cut off the right of reply to challenge. Raise that directly to any MP and they’ll wobble like a frozen jelly and make the usual PC platitudes as a response but we all know they’d never actually answer the question

    2. “It’s my right to rabbit on and on about race and skin colour and bore the pants off everyone within a five mile radius”

      1. has been given the C-19 horse shot in the arse, dribbling out same statements as before. Drs called for Judas Priest in case last wites are required

Comments are closed.