Monday 27 July: Holidays needlessly ruined by heavy-handed quarantine measures

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/07/26/letters-holidays-needlessly-ruined-heavy-handed-quarantine-measures/

944 thoughts on “Monday 27 July: Holidays needlessly ruined by heavy-handed quarantine measures”

    1. Why? It seems completely out of character.

      The Rwandan conflict has been between two tribes, and I would expect a revenge or factional murder.

      African Catholics do not tend to burn down their churches, whereas there is an ongoing threat from Muslims. 2% of Rwandans are Muslims; the overwhelming number of them are Roman Catholics. You’re more likely to find a Muslim insurgency from the French than from Rwandans.

      If there was mental instability in the fellow, then surely they would have known about it by now, and not trusted him with the keys. Likewise, if he found himself caught up in an organised crime racket, or even an Islamist cell. He should have been known by military intelligence.

      The most likely explanation for me is that it is an insurance fraud from a church, like most public institutions during the Covid lockdown, which is desperately short of money.

      1. I believe it was the then French President’s son (Mitterrand?) who facilitated the Rwandan Genocide by importing thousands of machetes into the country during the weeks before the violence started.
        Could that be the motive?

      2. Church buildings in France are owned by the State, so probably not an insurance fraud. Motive unknown. The Rwandan chap was probably hired in line with the story of Les Miserables, that is out of charity. Charity does not ask questions.

  3. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – My wife’s recent experience of passport renewal is at odds with the situation you report.

    She sent off her application on July 11 and received her new passport on July 22: that’s a turnaround time of 11 days, three of which were at weekends. We thought it was an exemplary service.

    Alex Taylor
    Thame, Oxfordshire

    Similar experience here…with an expiry date in June I waited until May to renew mine on line.  The new one was received in 10 days.  Just one minor observation; instead of the expected return to a dark blue cover, mine was black. I hope it’s a case of BPM…

    1. Morning Hugh. At a guess they are not carrying out any security checks and just stamping them out regardless!

      1. ‘Morning, Minty. I do hope not, but anything is possible of course. Acksherly, I was quite impressed by the online renewal system; Mrs HJ took the photo on my phone and the system accepted it first time…so you may be right!

        1. My renewal went easily this spring. Much to my amazement, as previous family renewals were an absolute chaos.

    2. If it is (a case of BPM) then don’t stand near to a statue of Jules Verne’s Passepartout; it might topple over and hit you on the head.

      :-))

    3. There was a lengthy exchange on this forum some years ago about the true colour of the old passport. Looking at a passport issued to my mother in the 1990s, and one issued to her mother in 1939, I had to admit that they looked more black than navy blue. But my first passport, issued in 1964 and somewhat worse for wear, does show signs of blueness.

    4. I have been trying to track down the rewards (or otherwise) on some premium bonds that we found in one of roughly 47 bags (hand and shopping) full of paperwork in elderly chum’s house.
      You’ll be unsurprised to learn that because of Covid-19, that particular facility is unavailable. I just try each week to see if a few civil servants have drifted back to work.

    5. Buenos días Hugh and others.

      In Spain, a Spanish citizen can renew his or her passport in an airconditioned office attached to a Comisaría of the Policía Nacional, situated in each provincial capital city.

      You make an appointment online, turn up with the correct documentation and wait until your number is called. The processing generally takes more than 5 but less than 15 minutes. A plastic ID with microchip (useful for EU travel and online official paperwork) costs 12 euro and a passport costs 30 euro (approximate, prices may change from year to year, E&OE).

  4. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – My wife’s recent experience of passport renewal is at odds with the situation you report.

    She sent off her application on July 11 and received her new passport on July 22: that’s a turnaround time of 11 days, three of which were at weekends. We thought it was an exemplary service.

    Alex Taylor
    Thame, Oxfordshire

    Similar experience here…with an expiry date in June I waited until May to renew mine on line.  The new one was received in 10 days.  Just one minor observation; instead of the expected return to a dark blue cover, mine was black. I hope it’s a case of BPM…

  5. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – My wife’s recent experience of passport renewal is at odds with the situation you report.

    She sent off her application on July 11 and received her new passport on July 22: that’s a turnaround time of 11 days, three of which were at weekends. We thought it was an exemplary service.

    Alex Taylor
    Thame, Oxfordshire

    Similar experience here…with an expiry date in June I waited until May to renew mine on line.  The new one was received in 10 days.  Just one minor observation; instead of the expected return to a dark blue cover, mine was black. I hope it’s a case of BPM…

  8. SIR – The Government’s suggestion that pints of beer should be labelled with the calorific content is, frankly, ludicrous.

    I consume my pint(s) of stout for the sheer pleasure of it. I don’t care whether it contains 100 calories or 1,000. With what else could I wash down my steak pie or chocolate cake?

    Charles Dobson
    Burton-in-Kendal, Westmorland

    Heroic!

    1. Morning Michael,

      I was once told 2 pints of larger contain the same number of calories as a cheeseburger and chips. 🙁

      (The lowest calorific alcoholic drink is a single measure of Gin with diet tonic water just 40 calories which means two triple gins and tonic contains the same amount of calories as two chocolate digestive biscuits! 😉

        1. Depends whether you have a slice of lime or lemon in it.

          ‘Morning, Anne.

      3. Good idea! As you hint all alcoholic drinks should be renamed. You have given us “larger” for lager. So how about “wider” for wine, “obeser” for beer, “stout” is fine as is.
        Other suggestions..?

    2. SIR – Of course obesity is a concern in this country, but it is a matter for individuals, not the Government, which has enough to deal with.

      Christopher Robson
      Bedale, North Yorkshire

  9. Good morning all.

    Cloudy, South wind but it’s quite chilly. Rain expected.

  11. GPs to give ‘cycling prescriptions’ to patients as part of PM’s obesity campaign. 26 July 2020.

    Boris Johnson is expected to announce plans for the 12-week Better Health initiative on Monday, including the PM’s obesity strategy which will expand the NHS weight loss services and drive the ‘biggest ever step change in cycling and walking’.

    The programme is set to target 35 million people to help them lose weight and adopt healthier lifestyles in a bid to take some pressure off the NHS this winter. Downing Street said the coronavirus pandemic has been a ‘wake-up call’ to the immediate and long-term effects of being overweight, as it announced the initiative.

    I don’t know which is worse here: to believe that the Government is serious and is seeking to reduce (something that has nothing to do with government) peoples weight, or that they are indulging in an ostrich like distraction from the real world problems they face!

    https://metro.co.uk/2020/07/26/gps-give-cycling-prescriptions-patients-part-pms-obesity-campaign-13039521/

    1. Next year the Government will embark on requiring all adults to have an annual obesity check. Those whose BMI is in the obese range will be sent to “conditioning camps”.

        2. Maybe. It is almost impossible to spoof reality as mangled by our Government and other strange forces. This suggestion, along the lines of reductio ad absurdum, is a joke. Except of course, that masks are also a “joke” being useless, yet not wearing one might end up with you sharing a prison cell with a murderer if you refused to pay the fines.

    3. ‘Morning, Minty.

      Instead of fussing about obesity, perhaps it would be better if the Govt would enforce the use of apostrophes.

    4. Behaving like a nagging wife is not going to sort out the malaise, by making people feel even worse about themselves.

      It is comfort eating, and retreating to the bed and the sofa because going out in the world is so very gloomy and dispiriting. False optimism is no more convincing that the jolly laugh of the Redcoat, and is often so damned irritating one has to turn the clown off and face up to real life with another bar of chocolate and a box set.

      So the treatment for this is an alternative set of comforts. Rather than pushing divorce and separation, as the moral uplifters have been doing for the last fifty years, perhaps we should now be pushing the benefits to morale through the traditional family? Rather than pushing a “hire-and-fire” American crassness to managing the people one employs, we should make use of the skills and talents of the people we’ve got, and not waste them and send these demoralised “job-seekers” to their sofas in the futility of their applications?

      Sometimes, a cup of tea, a good moan with a neighbour and a long walk, can achieve more than most psychiatric treatment for depression and anxiety, or rather stress, since there may well be good reason to be miserable.

      Boris was chosen with a large majority, with a brief to improve national morale. He fancies himself as Churchill, and has the personality to be able to do this. Far more than the gloomy eeyore Matthew Hancock. It cannot be done though without some substance behind the optimism.

      Our cultural heritage, from the BBC right down to the church hall, is in serious peril. So too are all the local cultural activities that give folk something to take their minds off the gloom. If there are megabucks to be splashed around, let them go to street football, rather than the Premier League divas and their corporate executives hanging onto the teat. Let them go to choral societies, youth clubs and amateur dramatics rahter than the South Bank.

      Let us banish social distancing right now, and use our ingenuity to do this without catching a cold.

      3. With Boris not seeming to be up for it any more, Jeremy, do you feel you could step in? You already, in the post above, show you have much more understanding of the issue than the government.

    5. Yo Minty

      Recently, Governments have been rewriting history to suit the demands of an unelected and unwanted Deity, The Woke

      They just now need to eradicate from history the invention of

      The Steam Engine
      Internal Combustion Engine
      Compression Ignition Engine
      Radial and Axial Compressor Jet Engines

      Inhabitants will then HAVE to use the Bicycle or Shank’s Pony to get about, as the above things will not exist

      Before you mock this idea, rewrting the history of the world of how some African Tribesmen collected other ‘native’ and sent them
      ports to be transported, by sea or land to work elsewhere, seems to be working. The Evil Whitey did it all

      1. Producing bikes involves some evil industrial processes. But that doesn’t count as long as the pollution takes place in China.

        1. There are barely a handful of bicycle manufacturers left in the UK. They are quite small and build bikes by hand. Pashley is maybe the best known. However I do not know where the steel for the frame tubing comes from.

  12. Morning, all.
    Back at work :-(( God, I hate being woken by the alarm to rain…

        1. Yo back, Mr Strive.

          Mine sounded like a nuclear warning. That’s why I retired.

      3. We have a radio. Opens with the shipping and weather forecast 05:45, then lurch out of bed 06:17 after local news.
        Can’t abide being shocked awake by bells or buzzers. Too stressful.

        1. That’s why I gave up having the clock radio tuned to Radio 4 – far too many cacophonous bellends……

          1. Similarly, I decided that a bit of Radio 3 in the mornings might wake me up in a less jarring fashion. It did, but only after I’d set it to come on after the bBC fake newz headlines.
            These days I only set the alarm when I’ve booked an early tee. 😉

    1. A beautiful piece of work:

      We should follow the advice of Tom Lehrer and:

      Bow your heads in deep respect and
      Genuflect, genuflect, genuflect.

        1. Still going… slowly. Tried to get another blood test for Lymes Disease but they refused, too busy with ‘coconut’ virus perhaps. I am so ill I nearly missed going to the pub once – but I keep b*ggering on (in a non-gay way I’ll have you know). 🙂

    5. Crumbs. I will go down the garden and eat worms.
      They are seriously good.
      Morning, Willum.

  17. 321766+ up ticks,
    Maybe surgical knee capping is the answer, as in neutering
    for paedophiles, & boycotting MPs/ parties in the polling booth at the first HINT of treachery.

    2. And you can even put you glasses on the out side of the hood.
      How’s law abiding Hackney goin’ these days abbotsky ?

  21. Mail to a Conservative MP………..

    What do you think are the signs of bribery and corruption in government ?

    I think politicians promoting illogical and irrational policies which are damaging to the nation, substantial politician wealth and politicians promoting repeatedly the same policies as billionaires or foreign governments, particularly when it is known lobbying is happening or likely.

    When it comes to successive British governments since 1997, all those warning signs of corruption are present in abundance.

    That certainly looked true with Hinkley Point and even more now it is known that EDF was never going to complete the project without Chinese technical expertise. What rational politician would risk something so potentially catastrophically dangerous as a nuclear power station on their territory to an undemocratic expansionist communist regime which is challenging global norms ?

    Of course a further sign that this project was of particular importance to China was the fact that President Xi Jinping personally signed the agreement with David Cameron in 2015. We know how the Chinese operate from the Biden and Kerry corruption scandals relating to trade deals. Did the same thing happen with Hinkley Point ? The warning signs look present in abundance.

    So what are you going to do about Hinkley Point now ?

    There is only one thing to do and that is terminate the project. The risks of allowing the Chinese to continue are huge particulalry as it could easily be already full of bugs, and only the Chinese know how it works. Any confrontation with China would obviously be impossible with this trojan horse in existence and it will always mean China holds all the ace cards over the UK. Hinkley Point could even mean the UK forever becomes a satellite of China.

    When are you going to take likely corruption in the UK seriously and discuss it ?

    Polly

      1. 321766+ up ticks,
        Morning TB,
        Feeling betrayed is surely now the norm as it has certainly been up and running for at least three decades.

        Remember party first regardless of consequence
        is the order of the day.

    2. “It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.”

      ― Joseph Heller, Catch 22

      1. “Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”

        George Orwell

        Animal farm

    3. Remember Theresa May called it in for a review and then went ahead anyway? She obviously saw the “benefis” as well.

    4. That is a trick question in Canada.

      PM and Finance minister dropping $900 million on a charity where both have interests that include the charity paying PMs family members over $250,000 in speaker fees and the charity paying for finance mans family holidays. No conflict of interest they say and none of the opposition parties ready to pull the p,ugly on a minority government.

      Locals are not amused

      1. David Cameron’s government gave George Soros’ Open Society $774,000 in 2012.

        I wonder where that went ?

      1. Morning ogga1 🛴🛴🚲🛴🌈🚜🛵🛴🛴🚲🚲🚣🚲🚲🚜🎠🎢🏖🏝

    2. Youngsters these days just can’t do anything without looking at their laptops!

      :-))

          1. I don’t think so. The rider in front was drinking, the rider behind appears to be eating something like a pot noodle.

          2. You are perfectly correct. It is as plain as day that it is a pizza box. That’s the whole point of the joke.

    1. Even if you got one, what would be the point? HMRC certainly won’t have a unit to investigate any pfishing! Most of these emails are aimed at Americans and just sent by bots.

      1. They might be aimed at Americans but it doesn’t stop locals being conned.
        We sometimes hear of Canadians being taken by a phone call about unpaid taxes, even though the caller uses US tax terms.

    2. Even if you got one, what would be the point? HMRC certainly won’t have a unit to investigate any pfishing! Most of these emails are aimed at Americans and just sent by bots.

  24. A good case of the ‘head in the sand’ syndrome:

    SIR – Of course obesity is a concern in this country, but it is a matter for individuals, not the Government, which has enough to deal with.

    Christopher Robson
    Bedale, North Yorkshire

    Problem is, Christopher Robson, even without C19 the problems caused by obesity are clogging up the NHS. Your view may change when you find yourself requiring treatment but stuck at the back of a very long queue of fatties seeking treatment due to their gluttony. Think on that, matey.

      1. ‘Morning, C1. Apart from extending the middle finger, I wonder what sensible ideas he has to reduce the incidence of diabetes, heart disease, worn out hip and knee joints, cancer…

        1. Isn’t he following the advice of ‘our’ NHS? FOAD, you boring, non-Covid patient.
          Morning, HJ.

    4. He is, however, correct, that it is not a matter for the government. Such interference costs us taxpayers a fortune and is almost inevitably ineffectual.

  25. As the NHS is a world Health Service Boris should be preaching about weight loss to the whole world not just us here in the UK if he wants to save the NHS some money.

          1. (Deep intake of breath.) I’ll leave you to duke out the finer spelling points.

          2. ‘Guz’ is the northern English for ‘goes’ (‘guzunder’ = goes under). I suppose ‘gaz’ might be its bladdy sathern equivalent, but it would then be ‘gazander’.🤣

        2. ‘Morning, Anne.

          When I was in Hinchinbrook 2 years ago I was put on strong diuretics, which meant I had to leap out of bed every 1/2 hour or so to piss into a papier-mâché bottle.. At reveille one morning I was so peed off that I decided to go in the bed. It was amazingly difficult to overcome the inhibition not to do it, although my bladder was bursting.

          1. My first few hours in bed after stroke treatment – a pretty young nurse offered to help me with the whole apparatus of willy & paper bottle. Nope, fixed it myself. Actually, was rather shocked at the suggestion… then had to be ultrasounded to make sure I’d P’d properly…

    2. A spokeslady for PHE has asserted that obesity costs the NHS £357 million a year. There’s precision!

  27. So the bean counters reckon that if everyone that is over weight lost 5 pounds then it COULD save the NHS £ 100 million over five years, but don’t they lose that a year already treating health tourists and they don’t want to do anything about that.

    1. Strange really, the NHS winges too much .

      Young nursing staff are grossly overweight , they are enormous , why don’t the NHS start by advising their staff to lose weight , obesity in young people is appalling .

      1. Only last week I heard two young women, one with the biggest spare tyre i’ve ever seen, the other with her arms covered in tattoos, telling a man how to remove a hard cyst on his leg. “Stick a craft knife in it and squeeze – it’ll be just like falling over”. No mention of sterilisation, anaesthetic or stitches. They were, incredibly, an ambulance crew.

    2. I’ve lost 38lb over the past seven months. Does that mean I alone would have saved the NHS £12,666,667 to date?

      1. Indeed. And I think you should charge them 10% commission for being so considerate.

    2. I reckon in another month my hair will be longer than the Cellist’s….. :-))

        1. No – it’s already longer than that chap’s ( and for the avoidance of doubt I don’t sport an earring, cravat or double-breasted blazer!)

          1. It was a TV series starring David Essex. He was a bargee and part time pikie..Hmm..sounds familiar. 🙂

          3. His mum attended the same Methodist church as MOH…..

            Actually that’s bollox – I’m confusing Essex with Bowie (I know, I know) –

            It was Bowie’s mum not Essex’s

  29. I think I must hold a record for being on a facebook group for the shortest time before being kicked off.
    As it was raining yesterday I thought I would join this pro Brexit group that was flagged up, just to pass some time, I lasted about four hours.
    They wouldn’t tolerate any criticism of Boris and the Government for some reason.
    Not sure what happened, the site and my posts all just vaporised.
    What is it with Facebook? I can’t even get along with what I thought were like minded people.

    2. Soros in effect runs the Facebook censorship board.

      I’ll send you a link later.

      Nick Clegg has his mega job at Facebook and it looks like he’s behind it.

    3. I don’t think so, Bob3. Last week I was setting up my Facebook account and fell foul of their censorship when asked for a a favourite quote: I used WSC’s KBO – much used on here recently – and I was OUT. I can’t think of any other transgression I made, it had to be that quote.

      Good morning, All.

      2. I was banned from Twitter before I’d even set up the account. Don’t know how that works.
        So, Ner ner nee ner ner.
        Morning, Korky!

        1. Morning, Anne. Thank you.

          Not hanging around, I just dipped in as I couldn’t let Bob3 get away with his outrageous claim to Facebook fame.😎

    4. That’s pretty impressive, B3! My one and only foray into Arsebook was some time ago and lasted about a week. One acquaintance in particular used it as a boasting device – here is me rock climbing/canoeing/bungee-jumping etc – and he wasn’t alone by any means. Tiresome and irritating. It took me a while to find the exit in order to terminate the ordeal, but persistence eventually paid off. Never again.

  30. 321766+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Any chance priti showing some initiative and asking matt digit dick if a weight restriction could be imposed on the Dover incoming replacement
    movement.

    There lies a major health & safety threat as in, do we want to protect our
    churches & remaining untainted children or turn Dover into a dormitory town, a holding pen until the build,build,build campaign is up and running
    to accommodate the invaders.

  32. As far as i could make out there is no official holiday caravan park in Craven Arms ?????
    Perhaps it’s migrant workers, or others.

    Twenty-one new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed at a Shropshire caravan park.

    The council fears the number of cases at the site, which is in the town of Craven Arms, will continue to rise before infection control measures start to take effect.

    All residents who have come into contact with one of the positive cases have been asked to self-isolate with their households for 14 days.

    The 21 people who tested positive for coronavirus were asked to self-isolate for at least seven days from the time they started showing symptoms or from when they received their positive test result.

      1. I looked for a website for CPs in Shropshire and on Google earth, there didn’t seem to be a caravan site in the location mentioned.

      2. Bit far from Craven Arms. I hope they haven’t taken over the grounds of the wonderful medieval fortified house, Stokesay Castle. I haven’t been there for some years, but when I last went you could still climb the wooden staircase to the upper floor and view the indoor/outdoor water closet.

        ” Originally designed as a prestigious, secure, comfortable home, the castle has changed very little since the 13th century, and is a rare, surviving example of a near complete set of medieval buildings. English Heritage has minimised the amount of interpretative material displayed at the property and kept the castle largely unfurnished. ”

        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Stokesay_Castle_from_churchyard_1.jpg

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokesay_Castle

        1. You have to go through the churchyard to get there, as I recall. It’s a very interesting place.

  33. Good morning from a dull, grey & wet Derbyshire.
    Absolutely tipping it down outside at the moment.

    Not bad. Three entries in the top comments of the Letters page yesterday! Two with well over 100 vites!

  34. Morning all

    SIR – The Government’s about-turn on its quarantine policy for Spain is typical of its wider approach to the Covid-19 pandemic.

    As a result of some outbreaks in mainland Spain, all holidaymakers returning from the country are to be quarantined. This will ruin many travellers’ plans completely unnecessarily.

    The Government needs to adopt a much more nuanced approach, perhaps only quarantining people arriving from certain airports. The European authorities are getting better at controlling the virus with localised lockdowns – and travel restrictions should be localised, too.

    Andrew J Smith

    West Malling, Kent

    SIR – The Government’s decision on quarantine is disappointing.

    Not only will it be an inconvenience to holidaymakers but it will also do more damage to the economy.

    Moreover, why can’t returning travellers be tested on arrival, instead of having to self-isolate? The Government’s failure to develop such a system is perpetuating people’s misery and delaying Britain’s recovery.

    Nigel Legg

    Norwich

    SIR – The Government was right to act decisively on quarantine, but people are entitled to a little more warning.

    Perhaps there could be an intermediate status between safe (green) and unsafe (red) for countries suffering spikes. Amber, say.

    Had this happened to Spain, many travellers would have thought twice before committing themselves.

    Jonathan Firth

    Royston, Hertfordshire

    SIR – One can understand the consternation of those either on holiday in Spain or about to go.

    However, the current situation is the result of flawed public attitudes. Lockdown is seen as a kind of on-off switch: as soon as restrictions have been eased, people have immediately headed to places such as Bournemouth or Snowdonia, congregating en masse, or booked holidays in Spain and elsewhere, in the bizarre belief that the infection risk has disappeared overnight.

    Covid-19 is still an international threat, and governments need to act quickly, often without notice, to contain it. Those booking holidays abroad without recognising what can go wrong are frankly delusional.

    Mike Owen

    Warwick

    1. Mike Owen clearly hasn’t seen cattle and sheep being let out of the barn in Spring, after 6 months or more indoors over winter. They leap and gambol about – even the older cows, and run around to ease the creaks of little sunshine and less exercise.
      Why would people be different?

      1. Mike Owen would probably like to see everyone issued with an Ausweiss before they were allowed to go anywhere.

    2. Why cannot all international travel be stopped? We have managed very well despite air travel being reduced by 90%. Moreover the nasty emissions complained of by the greenies have been vastly reduced in consequence. Why restart?

    3. “The Government’s about-turn on its quarantine policy for Spain is typical of its wider approach to the Covid-19 pandemic.” Are you sure you didn’t mean to type wilder policy, Mr Smith?

  35. Morning again

    SIR – Regarding your feature and letters (July 25) about the fate of iron railings requisitioned in London during the Second World War, I used to be a shareholder in a family firm, J P Knight Ltd, which was a tug business.

    The company undertook a number of tasks for the government during the war, such as marshalling small ships for the evacuation of Dunkirk, towing sections of the Phoenix breakwaters for the Mulberry harbours used in the Normandy invasion, and towing a captured German U-boat up the Thames to bolster the morale of the blitzed population.

    I was told by an employee of the company at the time that many of the requisitioned railings were made of poor-quality iron and were badly corroded, so not suitable for the manufacture of munitions.

    The government decided that they should be secretly disposed of at sea. A number of barges were tied up at a disused jetty on the Thames; at night a fleet of lorries arrived, loaded with the unwanted railings, and tipped them into the barges. J P Knight was contracted to provide a tug to tow these down the Thames and out to sea, where they were deliberately sunk.

    John Wilding

    Petworth, West Sussex

    1. It was to make people feel they were contributing. Like donating aluminium saucepans for Spitfires.
      The railings at the back of the block we lived in in Bow were replaced after the war, by welding in metal civil defence stretchers, complete with the mesh that the body would have lain on. That was very common in East London.

    2. The owners of the donated iron would certainly have been railing against the dumping if they’ed known.

  36. SIR – Before a war, there must be an exit strategy – otherwise, like the Americans in the Gulf, you hang around for years, not knowing how to get out. I would like to see an exit strategy for the wearing of face masks. When will it end? Not, I hope, only when there is no trace of coronavirus, since it is here to stay.

    Jane Adams

    Knaresborough, North Yorkshire

    SIR – On Friday, my 23-year-old son attempted to buy beer at a shop on the high street, properly masked.

    At the counter he was asked to prove his age. He showed his Railcard – but was then asked to reveal his face. What to do?

    In the end his thirst for ale overcame his Zorro-like fear of being caught unmasked – and I am pleased to say that he arrived home safely with the booze.

    Antony Mannion

    Battle, East Sussex

    1. Did Antony Mannion’s son really have a fear of removing his mask? Have people been so conditioned that they are scared of ‘breaking the rules’?

      1. Have people been so conditioned that they are scared of ‘breaking the rules’?

        Yes they have is the simple answer. Long years of Nanny State conditioning and accepting it’s values have made them “fearful” in the true sense of the word. Oddly enough the real rebels in today’s UK are the old!

        1. 321766+ up ticks,
          Morning AS,
          As in a prior post, the establishment governance parties have found a rhetorical straight jacket regarding the collective gullible mind is far more effective, far reaching, than the individual material one.
          Not odd, just common sense.

        2. The conditioning really has been a success.

          When the New World Government is in power, then the peasantry will actually thank Big Brother for controlling them.

      2. The rules allow you to unmask yourself on request of a constable or the owner of the shop.

        1. Does this mean that a couple who are both shareholders of M&S can ask each other to remove their masks?

          The rules are so stupid that it wouldn’t surprise me.

        2. I would imagine there are very few people who are aware of all the rules concerning masks etc. Personally, I would just use my own judgement.

          1. I am using my own judgment; I am avoiding, as far as possible, places where I have to wear a mask. I’ve called in favours from friends to collect medicines and get groceries (they would be in town and shopping anyway), so that I can put off having to comply as long as I can.

      3. Yep. The govt did such a good job of terrifying everybody that some people are afraid to venture out because they are convinced they are going to catch the lurgy and immediately die of it.

    2. The rules allow you to unmask yourself on request of a constable or the owner of the shop.

    3. Good luck with expecting the government to have any strategy, let alone an exit one. They only do knee-jerk reaction.

  37. Roles reversed as St. Bernard dog rescued from England’s highest mountain. 27 July 2020

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a811dd2878976b8ad51181a90685fde3cc17465e8b34f87c67988cf31f43248c.png

    LONDON (Reuters) – A rescue team has had to rescue a St. Bernard dog named Daisy after she got into difficulty on England’s highest mountain, in an unusual reversal of the traditional roles.

    Daisy collapsed last Friday while descending from the summit of Scafell Pike in Cumbria, northwest England, so the 16-member rescue team scrambled to the scene and carried the 55kg dog down the mountain on a stretcher.

    The old girl looks a little overweight there. Perhaps she needs to be put on Boris’s program! Mind you Scafell Pike was always a grind!

    https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-dog-rescue-idUKKCN24S1AN?utm_source=34553&utm_medium=partner

    1. According to the news this morning 16 rescuers involved. Plus the camera crews etc.
      Has Daisy got a new book out ?

    2. The look on that dogs face is wonderful. I can just imagine the mind in overdrive thinking how good the taxi service is.

      Maybe take shorter walks in future.

    3. I’m a bit suspicious about the missing barrel and the fact that she collapsed.🤔

    4. Gosh, she and I weigh the same – but I’m a tad taller. Was she wearing a covid mask?

    5. Good to see them all masked up out in the fresh air, miles from anywhere when they all work together as a team. Can’t be too careful, you know.

      1. I glanced out the window today to see a child of about 6 (exempt) walking down the empty street with a face mask on.

        1. One of the Wardens at church yesterday brought her grandson with her – he was exempt, but he was wearing a mask. It’ll be the new fashion statement 🙁

  38. We watched a film called “The Post” last night. It was about the Washington Post taking on the US government (under Nixon) to publish top secret material relating to the history of the Vietnam War. The NYT was also involved.

    Naturally (and in reality) the WaPo won – the Supreme Court said that freedom of the press was to protected the governed, not the governors.

    My conclusion was that, in 2020, no newspaper would dare to challenge the government (or any other institution) – in any country; and that if it did – the woke staff would band together to hound the editor from office – as we have seen very recently.

    1. Hmmm! Washington Post and Tricky Dicky Nicky.

      That one was never going to end well.

    3. We also watched “The Post”. It was close run thing. Our Press has no freedom enshrined in law.
      Our Government can ban the publishing of anything it does not like. Ostensibly, that power is to prevent risk to our safety and defence. However that power has been used to hide embarrassment and to protect reputations, where as the US Constitution is intended to allow the precise opposite.

    4. I thought that the worst example of ‘freedom of the press’ was the Chicago Tribune’s June 7, 1942, front page announcement that the United States had broken Japan’s naval code which was the revelation by the paper of a closely guarded military secret. The story was not cleared by censors, and had US President Franklin D. Roosevelt so enraged that he considered shutting down the Tribune.

      1. With freedom comes responsibility. Now about giving our dear UK journals complete freedom…

  39. My elder son loves fast motorbikes and is an avid hang-glider – he also loves his food.

    He is in danger but Boris will protect him from eating the wrong food and it will only be a matter of time before he will not be able to have a powerful motor bike or continue hang-gliding as the government will ban these things for his own safety and his own good.

      1. Looks like a tarts handbag. Has it got tasseled leather?

        BTW. that’s what we used to call them when at my motorcycle club. 1000cc Virago’s.

        1. The record speed on the school drive was well over 100 mph held by a boy who owned a vintage 1,000 cc Vincent. Not bad, given there was a sharp bend at one end and a public road at the other.

      2. My baby…

        https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fpictures.topspeed.com%2FIMG%2Fjpg%2F200904%2Fkawasaki-eliminator-.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.topspeed.com%2Fmotorcycles%2Fmotorcycle-reviews%2Fkawasaki%2F2009-kawasaki-eliminator-125-ar72935.html&tbnid=V4ENXp2nzZsL4M&vet=12ahUKEwjz3Lr59O3qAhVG_hQKHeq3BZ0QMygAegUIARDRAQ..i&docid=-veLMjrROzJxJM&w=2700&h=1831&q=kawasaki%20eliminator%20125&hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwjz3Lr59O3qAhVG_hQKHeq3BZ0QMygAegUIARDRAQ

    2. My elder son has two motor bikes .. A Royal Enfield and new Yamaha something or other , and loves dangerous sports.

      His weight yo yos, unlike his father who is a racing snake , BUT has type 2 diabetes for over 20 years.. Moh’s mother and father had type 2 diabetes at an early age in their lives.

      We have a healthy diet , and I am strict with Moh . Son enjoys a lager or 2 or 3 or 4.. There in lies the problem!

      1. I had a Honda motor bike in the UK long before i passed my car driving test. But i was knocked off twice from behind at traffic lights.
        I also had one in Oz i inevitably came off twice, bush bashing and was knocked off by a motorist who suddenly changed lanes with out due care and attention.
        I gave it up after that.

      2. As your son enjoys drinking beer, switching from lager to ale will cut down slightly on the sugar content. Cask ale tastes better, too!

        1. Since ale isn’t carbonated like lager, it’s easy to drink more than would have been the case with lager. Just saying…

          1. Yes, when I used to drink lager and keg bitter decades ago, I was burping continuously after the first pint. Much better all round to drink real ale.

    4. After his Yamaha beast. Our eldest had a Triumph Street Triple 675 cc. After being knocked off twice by idiots on roundabouts he had to give it up.
      We were glad, he’s has two small children now

    1. However many beans she spills there are enough people like the Clintons with the money, menace and blackmail to ensure that the bean counters’ findings are not revealed.

      1. 321766+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        The rhetoric of a thousands tongues starts with one.
        Ogga1, 27/7/2020,10.32 am.

  41. Putin’s bombshell plot: Russian chief aiming to break up UK and weaken pound – ex-KGB spy. “6 July 2020.

    Boris Karpichkov, 61, a former KGB and FSB spy who fled to the UK in 1998, has claimed Russia’s efforts are continuing..

    A message he says was sent to him by a source in February, five months before the publication of the ISC Russian Report, details why the Kremlin would like to see Scotland secure another referendum.

    It also said Russia was “devoted to Britain’s exit from the EU” and spoke of a “plot” circulating among Russian security services.

    Describing the plot, the message stated: “It outlines primary goals to ensure the concentration of all efforts to divide Britain as a single state, including the separation of Scotland and Northern Ireland and organisation of the collapse of the British pound to such a level as to ‘bend’ the English and force them to start begging Russia for political, financial, material and economic assistance.”

    Old Boris has clearly been on the Vodka. As a story it’s a sort of Russophobic cross between James Bond and the New York Times and even less believable than the Skripal Saga. Just supposing that Russia possessed the financial muscle (it doesn’t) to bring about the collapse of the pound (utterly mindboggling) the last people to go to for relief would be the Russian Federation. China maybe. Russia no! The only people loonier here than Boris are the people who wrote the article!

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1314307/Vladimir-Putin-russia-latest-uk-security-threat-Boris-Karpichkov-kgb

    1. As a former Russian agent who fled to Britain he will now be working for MI6.

      Guess who wrote the memo for him.

    2. Does Putin hide in an island lair complete with extinct volcano? One that opens up and erupts rockets to nuke Buckingham Palace?
      Anyway, there’s another Boris working very successfully to collapse the pound.

      2. In the very unlikely event of Scottish independence ( the last thing the SNP actually wants) a deal would be struck over Faslane. A bit like Guantanamo in Cuba.

          1. Well reminded. I wonder what will happen when Turkey takes over the whole island? This may happen in the next year as relations with Greece deteriorate beyond words, and move on to pushing and shoving.

    1. The American Patriots in the Thirteen Colonies defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) with the assistance of France, winning independence from Great Britain and establishing the United States of America.

      Ah yes, of course, with the assistance of yer Frogs. I wonder what the outcome (and the State of the Union) would be today without that Gallic interference back yonder.

          14. Oh let us never never doubt
            What nobody is sure about,

            [Hilaire Belloc]

      2. I wonder what the outcome (and the State of the Union) would be today without that Gallic interference back yonder.

        It would just have taken longer Grizz. The Colonies were essentially unconquerable by British forces if only because of the size of the country and population growth.

        1. I don’t know wether it was an honourable intent or not but the British did propose a vast area of land along virtually the whole of what is now the Canadian border as exclusive territory for the native peoples.

        2. The lines of communication were too long. For our Generals in America to ask the Government of the UK what they should do next and get a reply took many weeks. Requests for stores and ammunition took longer.
          “Excuse me, General Cornwallis sir, but we have run out of ammunition.” ” Don’t worry, my boy, a fresh delivery will arrive from England in six weeks and three days.”

          1. Wasn’t the Battle of New Orleans the one that began before news that a peace treaty had been signed arrived?
            When the dispatch schooner arrived with the news, the reinforcements that were being embarked for the battle were stood down, leading to a British Defeat.

          2. Yes. The Treaty had been signed in Europe about three weeks before. The defeat was a result of incompetence.

      3. No good deed goes unpunished; the people who fought against the English in 1776 helped the French Revolution in 1789, leading to the Terror and ultimately Napoleon. The war also pushed France near bankruptcy, making a bad situation far worse.

    2. White supremacists, nazis, cancel them, wipe them out!
      …oh, wait a minute they’re black.
      More public money!

        1. It’s changed its name to KFC of Monrovia Phizz. Its speciality is oddly enough Monroe Chicken. Probably now owned by the President!

          If you want a takeaway the number is – +231 77 777 0777

        2. It’s changed its name to KFC of Monrovia Phizz. Its speciality is oddly enough Monroe Chicken. Probably now owned by the President!

          If you want a takeaway the number is – +231 77 777 0777

    4. Everything therefore hinges on who Biden chooses as a running mate.

      Trump is too unreliable and too dishonourable (down in part to the company he keeps, and the rest down to whom he regards as kindred spirits) to be able to protect the nation from insurgency, and Pence is too complacent and compliant and does not have the power to over-rule the President, whereas a Vice-President to a Biden Presidency would be a sort of Regent. As for Kanye West – need more be said?

      It has to come from the Democrats, and those Democrats who despise racism however it manifests itself, including and especially BLM militancy. The less racial awareness, the better and the much persecuted “All Lives Matter” is not a bad place to start to bring back order.

      I hope to God Biden doesn’t pick a militant factional hard-voiced feminist. There must be women somewhere in America who are not horrid.

      1. Hi Jeremy, Biden can never be President, he cannot even read a teleprompter without making errors. It is actually cruel that the Democrat party are insisting on him as their candidate. The puppet masters behind the move are the real dangerous people – extreme woke and racist.

        Trump is getting good favorability ratings for standing up to the rioters. Despite the Democrats supporting/enabling the rioters, along with the majority of the MSM , the masses are appalled at the violence, murders and anarchy.

        https://youtu.be/aqQrFPJmb-I

        1. He is also a bit ‘hands on’ around women and young girls. Can’t post the link but go to youtube and search for ‘Creepy Uncle Joe’.

        2. Ah the Kamala Suitor…….No matter what positions she or the Dems hold it seems to me the US is Fupt!

          “President Trump, who appeared to be a deficit hawk as a candidate, and promised to “eliminate the national debt in eight years” has increased the country’s debt load by at least $6 trillion, or about 30% in his first term.” ( an extra $1 Trillion since May 5th 2020)

        3. I’ve just gone through her Wikipedia page.

          A lot of it is motherhood and apple pie stuff. A top lawyer, specialising in human rights similar to our own Sir Keir Starmer.

          I don’t care a jot about her race, and nor do I care a jot about her sex. What I am concerned about though is wokeness and feminism, where it excludes non-blacks or men from rights that should be there for all. I welcome any dirt anyone can dig up on her.

          I don’t know if she’s been caught taking the knee, but she has joined in a Gay Pride event, wearing a rainbow waistcoat, which in California is an emblem of gender-correct orthodoxy. Again, any dirt that can be dug up is welcome.

          She has one huge asset, that in effect renders her papabile – she has a Jewish husband. Nobody gets anywhere in American politics unless they have some Jewish connection even though in woke circles, it is considered “antisemitic” to suggest this. It has to be said that one unforeseen consequence of the Holocaust was that some of the best surviving Jewish talent made it to America, and America treated them well.

    6. Do we need apartheid? Perhaps we should establish black areas and white areas in Britain? If the whites are so despised, hated and resented then how can blacks and whites live harmoniously together?

      Even if the English cricket side seems to be doing quite well on the field at last I was very deeply shocked to see the cricketers humiliating themselves and going on bended knee to the memory of a dead black criminal.

  43. Printer ink is no longer the most expensive liquid.

    The last batch of printer ink I bought was four 11ml cartridges, at £17·68 each, which works out at ‘just’ £1·61 per ml.

    The other day I bought a minuscule dropper of eyedrops to combat hay fever. It cost me £8·26 for 4ml, which works out at a staggering £2·07 per millilitre!

      1. My Canon printer displays a message that the ink absorber is almost full, contact service department. Reading Mr Google, it appears the advice from service departments is to buy a new printer, it will be cheaper.
        With this in mind, I have discovered there seems to be a shortage of photo quality printers, (Epson is my preference) and only expensive tank type printers can be easily found. A result of home working during lockdown I presume.

        1. There’s a Nina Ricci for inkjet printers that prints on door knobs!
          Takes a long to dry though.

        3. I purchased some colognes recently from Geo. F Trumper. They had some similarly priced. Sod that for a game of soldiers.

          There are plenty of people out there who can afford it and others will pay the price because they know a lot of people couldn’t afford it.

          3. I went to Cologne a couple of years ago at Christmas time and visited the perfume museum.
            I thought I’d buy some Eau de… but it smelled disgusting.
            Also visited the LD Haus (former Gestapo HQ) which was interesting

          4. The dry down is good, but like so many Creeds and similar, the use of natural ingredients tends to mean it’s pretty short lived. Pretty generic long term.

          5. I know. I bought one with lime from Geo.F Trumper and it disappeared within 10 minutes. I know because i became suspicious and timed it.

            Given that i was paying around £60 i complained.

            They told me it was supposed to be like that and to just give a fresh feel. I told them they should describe it better in their description.

            Excellent customer service though. I replaced it with an item of higher value and got loads of free samples.

      3. I buy compatible cartridges for my Epson from Ebay. Cost about one pound each.

      4. Throw away the printer, and buy one with cartridges of powder.
        They cost more up front, but they last forever and print squillions of pages.

      1. I am amazed you think the EU could sort anything out, Johnny! They couldn’t even arrange a bunfight in a bakery (although they do manage to arrange piss-ups for themselves).

      1. Thanks, Steve, but I don’t get it anywhere close to what you suffer. It doesn’t affect my nose, mouth or breathing at all. All I get is running, stinging eyes, and then only on dry days when there is a lot of pollen in the air. On damp days I’m completely unaffected. The eyes drops I use on bad days are very effective.

      2. One of my friends has an injection each spring/summer.
        Costs him about £100 but it covers him for the entire season.

        1. Get your friend to try the above….as I haven’t had to repeat the prescription since the first course 15 years ago.

          1. I find it unbelievable that GP’s don’t prescribe an effective treatment more readily.

          2. If they gave effective treatments not only would it cost them more money through having to use patented drugs but they would also lose money through not having to repeatedly prescribe cheaper generics.

          4. If they gave effective treatments not only would it cost them more money through having to use patented drugs but they would also lose money through not having to repeatedly prescribe cheaper generics.

          5. I have a suspicion they are tied in to big pharma so we carry on buying the less effective treatments more often. For ever.

          6. GPs don’t even need to take the Government’s two for one meal offer – they all get an invite to a pharmaceutical promotional dinner and get a free pen with Big Pharma printed on it!

          7. Where they then are offered indulgences to push certain Meds. You can forget about NICE. They are probably involved in it as well.

          9. Not linking it to corona.

            Besides hay fever i have athletes foot too. I have probably spent thousands over the years trying to get rid of it.

          14. I think so – in yellow tube – just checked – “Boots dual -action athlete’s foot cream “.

          17. Avoid GP’s like the plague but i do see a private Doctor occasionally. It never occurred to me to ask him about Athletes foot at a £100 a throw. I’m normally in front of him for a far more serious condition.

          18. My old GP said I’d be “dead or better” by the time I got the treatment she’d referred me to.

          20. I’ll stick to peeing on me feet in the shower.

            Or is cider vinegar a more effective treatment?

          22. If you do try it be aware it does smart a bit but believe me it’s been well worth it.

      1. Oh, I’ve got plenty of eye wash similar to that from the chemist’s and it is very cheap. Problem is it doesn’t stop the itching and irritation that comes from the grass pollen, only eyedrops formulated for hay fever do that, and they are the costly bit. £8·26 for a tiny 4ml dropper.

  44. I am now thinking like a government minister.
    This morning I woke with the following goals for the day.
    1. How many voters can I seriously p!ss off?
    2. How many businesses can I ruin?
    3. What arbitrary action can I take that would impress King John?

    1. King John was not a good man, he had his little ways, and sometimes no one talked to him for days and days and days. On the other hand he was very fond of big red india-rubber balls and the sycophants are probably placing orders for these on Amazon..

    3. I do hope you are not advocating burning down Worcester Cathedral, where King John resides.

    4. Saving the planet from climate change, creating world government and punishing whitey was never going to be a pleasant experience.

      1. 321766+ up ticks.
        Evening BB2,
        The only way to go, in the main it’s worked before
        this orchestrated movement commenced.

    1. Presumably if situation had been reversed – whites attacking sole black – it would have been headline news around the world.

      2. That video of Cameron which somebody posted here yesterday was very shocking. He clearly wanted his country and it values to be overwhelmed by aliens from a completely alien culture.

        In my book this is treachery and both he and Blair should face the gallows, bullet or the electric chair.

          1. Was. Now it’s a gold-plated pension, at least a knighthood and a sinecure for life 🙁

      1. It looked as though the Muslim women were trying to stop the attack on the white boy by the black men.

      1. That is either a very small dog or a very large animal disguised as a rabbit….{:¬))

    1. I think England is being punished by the Rain God for ‘taking the knee’ before the match.

  49. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle ‘bring out the worst in each other’ because she’s ‘a mega-watt attention grabber’ while the Duke has ‘faded in her shadow’, royal biographer claims
    Prince Harry, 35, and Meghan Markle, 38, ‘bring out the worst in each other’
    Royal biographer Angela Levin called Duchess a ‘mega-watt attention grabber’
    She went on to comment that the Duke’s ‘shine has faded in Meghan’s shadow’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8564381/Prince-Harry-Meghan-Markle-bring-worst-royal-biographer-claims.html?ito=push-notification&ci=25104&si=7271111

    2. I feel sorry for him but he has brought everything down upon himself.

      I cannot see of what further use this silly man can be to his voracious wife and the sooner they go their separate ways the happier both of them will be.

      But who will be given custody of the child?

      2. She will. And she’ll plot the destruction of all the others between him and the throne.

        3. I doubt this, however I was dismayed to see the Cambridges travelling together on the same plane last year. We were one plane crash away from Queen Meghan.
          Really hope they will NOT repeat that.

        4. I doubt this, however I was dismayed to see the Cambridges travelling together on the same plane last year. We were one plane crash away from Queen Meghan.
          Really hope they will NOT repeat that.

      4. He didn’t sign a pre-nuptial agreement and they are living in the States so he will be lucky to leave with a pair of shoes!

    3. They say to any man meeting a prospective wife – take a good look first at the mother – this may well be what she will turn into.

      It is also true to take a good look at how she treats her father.

      1. And make no mistake, the same goes for prospective brides looking at prospective FiLs.
        Aksh, MM’s mother looks quite sweet.

        1. If I ever get as far as a prospective bride, she might have a bit of bother with my father. Had he lived, he’d be 100 this year, but is currently lying under the trees twixt two women.

          I agree about MM’s mother. Pity about her relationship with her father.

    4. Sorry, he’s made his bed now he’ll have to lie in it. No sympathy (or interest) whatsoever.

    1. Surely the purpose of face masks is to make people keep adjusting them which makes it more likely they’ll get the virus which makes it more likely Boros and his best friend Bill Gates will make a fortune from Gates’ vaccinations ?

      1. When said vaccine is ready, they’ll say we can stop wearing masks so long as we get vaccinated. Then only the mask wearers will be the rebels.

    2. I wash my hands obsessively anyway; I don’t need to wear a mask to remind me to do it.

        4. What’s the temperature of the pool? Mine’s hitting 30 by the time I take my pre dinner swim, too warm really, but HG loves it..

          4. I could easily believe it, if it was in direct sunshine, the car is like an oven when we go out in the evening.

            Don’t all the plants die? My potager was looking very sorry for itself when I watered it this evening even though it was still damp this morning.

          5. Nah – they seem to thrive. Auto-ventilation was the best “optional extra” I ever paid for. Plus open doors …and a breeze.

          7. 30. But I’ll be topping it up tomorrow morning, that should cool it down a bit. If this heat continues I will expect 31-32. Far too hot – and the chlorine becomes ineffective.

          8. We went up to 34 a few years ago and I’m half-expecting similar by the end of this week.

            It plays absolute havoc with the chemicals.

            With cottage guests and the Covid threat we’ve been using more than usual anyway, and keeping the water clear, with re-filling as well, has been a nightmare this year.

            Topping it up makes almost no difference to the temperature, due to the volume of water we have.

          9. Because I have a solar heating system I have to use the pool as a ‘heat dump’ in this weather. I can’t afford not to dissipate the heat generated, it generates more than enough domestic water by midday and the rest of the day’s heat goes into the pool. This is great for extending the swimming season in spring and autumn but a problem this time of year. The alternatives are to either fill the bath with hot water, let it cool and water the plants with it, or run the underfloor heating to lose some heat. Not ideal….

          10. An aspect of solar heating I doubt too many people need to be concerned with.

            An interesting problem though, can you use the “waste” heat to accelerate compost heaps?

          1. Yes. Grown from seed extracted from a garden in Bucks. 11 years ago. Not a particularly good variety of lavender but the bees love it.

  54. I see that the woke couple are in the limelight again. At least sixteen articles in the Daily Mail that I will not bother reading.

    1. There is also a similar number of such articles on the Daily Express ‘news’ page! Who on earth do they think reads this stuff?

      But the Express also reports that ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s brother denies coronavirus pandemic as he claims UK ‘taken by aliens”’. This is probably connected to another story today whereby an alien base has been found on one of Saturn’s moons!

        1. He seems to have lost the plot! Gone from Climate change denial to denial of everything!

          1. He was mis-quoted. The UK in lockdown makes it look as if we have been taken over by aliens. Is more like what he said.

    3. They must be mad, and I expect they are snorting /sniffing funny stuff.

      We KNEW she was a minx , and now she has proved it.. She has one hell of a chip on her shoulder , and she really destroys everything and everyone in her path.

      She is not nice .

    1. You might have thought that with her views she would have been banned from social media already.
      Batten down the hatches peeps, she might be looking in here.

          1. Know it all. She always reminded me of somebody but I could never figure out who it was!

          2. Know it all. She always reminded me of somebody but I could never figure out who it was!

          3. She did know her stuff though. But then if you disagreed she would suddenly come over all Cruella De Ville.

          4. She did know her stuff though. But then if you disagreed she would suddenly come over all Cruella De Ville.

        2. She was horrible, i thought she had something to with farming. Rear end stuff using a shovel perhaps.

          3. Yes. I got the idea that she worked for a number of farm businesses, possibly in the manner of a contract crop-sprayer as seasonal demand, and subsidy applications, required.

          5. I felt sorry for her.

            She had no husband and no children and clearly wanted both. She was also at war with her own mother and sisters who, she thought, exploited her and did not respect her. She liked to vent her spleen on somebody so she vented it on us.

            She was far more to be pitied than censored – but the last thing she would have wanted was sympathy

          6. Did you meet her Richard ?
            I tried to be friendly but she just spurned the gestures. And was extremely rude.
            Maybe she has other issues…….
            A few years ago we had a very troublesome neighbour early 50s who was supposed to have been suffering from Asperger’s syndrome. He was very troublesome in our cul-de-sac and people soon became very annoyed with is variety of targeted and illogical mannerisms. He harassed females on their own door steps. He caused no end of trouble with close neighbours either side of his home. My wife and family included. He use to park his car as awkwardly as he possibly could to annoy others. The police were involved on several occasions. And one of the shortest chaps in the road punched him in the face. Because he had been harassing his daughters. And Banging on their front door.
            He himself punched an old guy in the stomach whose stomach Ulcers burst leading to his death. He was arrested and detained for a possible act of manslaughter, but now fortunately has long gone from the area.
            The local police use to make excuses for him saying he was ‘different’.

          8. She did more than vent her spleen, Rastus – especially when she was accusing you of being a “dirty old man”.

          1. I made a point of always being excessively polite to her when she insulted me. I think this infuriated her.

          7. 😏 But not much fun eh.
            Like the recently departed doggo she was extremely rude.

          9. And received as much aggro from the in crowd as max has done recently.

            This driving away of opposing views is not something that nottlers should be proud of.

          17. It wasn’t the opposing views that got us going – when he was polite he was fine. But he would deliberately wind people up by being offensive.

          19. I would not ban anyone, but don’t fool yourself into believing that MTD wasn’t out to Troll harras and hound individuals he dislikes. He was very clearly targetting many of the regulars to wind them up.

          20. There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats,.
            For I am armed so strong in honesty.
            That they pass by me as the idle wind,.
            Which I respect not.

            [Brutus in Julius Caesar]

            It is almost always far better not to respond to nasty threats and insults.

          21. Cochrane was a Troll and came here for no other purpose than to disrupt proceedings!

          22. Give her our love next time you’re in touch then. She had certain male friends that she liked.

          23. A little like Cochrane. His juniors on here always supported him even though it was obvious that he was a moron.

          24. No, you just had to accept that even if you were right, her views took precedence!

          27. She’s all right. You just have to be precise and factual, then the conversation goes OK. I thought she got a raw deal from some on NTTL, unnecessarily so.

          28. She didn’t like being contradicted. I appreciated her superior knowledge on some topics but not when she turned offensive, which was quite frequently.

  57. Afternoon, all. Had a torrential downpour here this arvo – just as I had reached the farthest point when walking the dog and was about to turn for home 🙁 It soaked through my jacket, my sweatshirt, my trousers and my underwear! The roads were awash because the drains couldn’t cope and there was a lake in front of my studio for the same reason. Then, to add insult to injury, just as I was squelching my way to my back drive (also awash), the sun came out! On another note (whether it’s lighter or not I leave you to judge), here’s a report about C19 cases in Salop from my local rag:

    A “small secondary coronavirus peak” was expected and planned for in June but didn’t materialise, health bosses have revealed.

    Across Shropshire, Covid-19 case numbers were proportionally lower and peaked later than nationally, CCGPlanning Director Sam Tilley told governors.

    Performance Director Julie Davies said coronavirus was being factored into the 2020-21 winter plan, and NHS England has asked CCGs “to plan for
    worst-case scenarios” during the season which usually sees an “additional surge for critical care”.

    The Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commission Group Governance Board held a remote meeting, that was not publicly accessible, on Tuesday, July 14. Minutes were released two weeks later.

    The report says Mrs Tilley, who is also Planning Director for Shropshire CCG, updated board members on the coronavirus pandemic in the county.

    “Prevalence rates are declining both in the community and within hospitals,” the minutes say.

    “A small number of outbreaks are being seen in a range of settings and these are being managed by the local authorities and Public Health
    England.

    “There has been sufficient critical care and community capacity to meet the demand which has not been as acute as expected. Activity levels in relation to Covid continue to decline.”

    At the time of the meeting, she added, there had been no Covid-19 patients in intensive care at either the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital or the
    Princess Royal Hospital for two weeks.     Antibody testing, offered to CCG staff, including part-time and agency workers, had been “well accessed”.

    Lay board member Neil Maybury asked how the CCGs and other NHS bodies were preparing for a possible “second wave” of coronavirus.

    “Mr Maybury sought clarity on how the surge capacity would be identified, where it is going to take place and what numbers are involved,” the
    minutes say.

    The report says Mrs Tilley replied: “Shropshire’s peak was lower than a lot of areas nationally, therefore modelling would be on similar levels.

    “The surge arrangements in place for the first wave were sufficient and restoration plans regarding re-invoking surge plans continue.

    “Dr Davies advised that a contingency plan is in place for the unknown. The only difference will be in winter when there will the additional surge
    for critical care.

    “Planning has been undertaken for a small secondary peak from the middle of June which has not materialised.

    “NHS England has asked the CCGs to plan for the worst-case scenarios during the winter as was seen in March this year, which is a small contingency
    to provide assurance.”

    My emboldening. So it was all scare-mongering and we are being forced into masks unnecessarily, in my reading of this.

    1. Only one torrential downpour?
      We’ve had three or four!
      Lovely bright sunshine at the moment.

      1. There was one before I left (I waited until it had stopped) and another couple afterwards. The only one that mattered, as far as I was concerned, was the one that drenched me!

      1. I’ve just telephoned my order for Sainsbury’s to a friend who goes there regularly. It will be delivered Wednesday morning. He’ll collect my and MOH’s prescriptions while he’s in town as well. Another friend is bringing me some milk, so I have put off going into a shop for another week at least. More lost revenue as I shan’t be browsing and making impulse buys.

        1. Ocado are beginning to have more delivery slots. They are even texting me to say so. Visits to supermarkets have been few and far between. Usually on the way home from Eye Clinic appointments at Frimley, or following visits to the Pharmacy in the next village to collect another 56 day’s worth of meds. Then I’ll take the bus to Guildford, a quick shop at Waitrose, and an Uber home.

          Meanwhile. I’ve found Iceland are useful for deliveries, although much of their stuff is cheap and nasty. I’ve had one Sainsbury delivery in four months. ASDA, Tesco, and recently, Morrisons have all delivered. Waitrose – not so much.

          1. My friend shops in Sainsbury’s once a week. When he does his shopping, he’ll buy my items and drop them off on the way home. Saves me queuing. I don’t have to buy stuff from Sainsbury’s very often, so this suits me very well and he’s happy to do it.

    3. Radio 4’s PM programme has just interviewed David Nabarro, a British doctor who is one of the special envoys to the WHO’s DG. He solemnly assured us that because of the threat that the virus presents, some form of social control will remain in place indefinitely. He was particularly keen on social bubbles and travel bans. His opinions were based on the rising number of cases being recorded around the world (this was mentioned more than once before the interview). No comment was made on this being a consequence of the greater level of testing.

      I switched off at the end of his interview. Of course, some will say I should have listened to the end of the broadcast to get the other side of the argument but I just have that feeling that the BBC won’t have presented one (I might listen later on playback). I have yet to hear on the MSM a proper debate on the subject. We shouldn’t have to rely on ‘fringe’ media outlets like Lockdown Sceptics and Planet Normal to get another perspective.

      I don’t share the tin-foil-hatters view that this is a mad experiment deliberately inflicted upon the world but the authorities have certainly grabbed their unexpected opportunity with glee, alternately terrifying the suggestible with their death threats and then assuring them that everything is being done for their safety. When the death count rises because of the denial of treatment in closed hospitals (and this will surely happen to some extent elsewhere, even with better health services) what will they say then?

      I am mentally exhausted and thoroughly depressed by the whole affair.

      1. I wonder if he’s any relation to Gerald Nabarro (NAB 1) who was MP in the sixties.

          1. Wiki informs us that he is the son of the late Sir John David Nunes Nabarro, also a medic.

        3. Wiki:

          Nabarro characterised himself as an old-style Tory: he opposed the European Economic Community project as well as drugs, pop music, pornography and students.[10] He was a supporter of capital punishment and backed Enoch Powell following the latter’s “Rivers of Blood” speech. Even five years earlier, on 5 April 1963, while appearing on Any Questions?, he said, “How would you feel if your daughter wanted to marry a big buck nigger with the prospect of coffee-coloured grandchildren?”, remarks which were excised from a repeat of the programme the following week.[11]

          Despite humble beginnings, he had the style of a conservative toff, sporting a Jimmy Edwards-style handlebar moustache, a booming baritone voice, and a Terry-Thomas accent. He enjoyed driving, and owned the personalised number plates NAB 1 to 8, which he attached to his large garage of cars including three Daimlers. He considered that a Conservative candidate’s car should be substantial but not too substantial and did not own Rolls-Royces or Bentleys.

        1. I was chatting on the phone to one of my friends (to whose husband I gave the Sainsbury’s order) and she said the same. She could have gone into town on Saturday with him, but she thought there was no point. She had lost the inclination and the will.

          1. My attitude completely, there is no joy in a trip into town for shopping, some lunch and a leisurely stroll round.
            I choose to stay home and will only shop if absolutely necessary. No more 20mph zones with plod and his motor cycle speed guns, no more ever decreasing expensive car parking to name just a couple of frustrations.
            Boris, you are an absolute clown if you think the petty rules and regulations are going to help the high street.

  58. HAPPY HOUR – ” I can’ believe it’s not Buddha”.

    “https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/578bf1772f6c4eebf0e4c4e1b02824eee36b1c5171f5618ef6bd410b1c80ff07.jpg

    Overweight people will receive cash or gift vouchers if they lose weight….

      1. Can you “offset” weight gain” by not giving money to ActionAid?

      1. Why is the drummer constantly looking to his left and then his right and so on? Can he not see the conductor?

        1. Would it be a symbol of distraction and proving the stage is level ?
          Surely you have heard the old music joke.
          How can you tell if the stage is level ?
          The drummer dribbles from both sides if his mouth.

    2. Well, perfect timing PT I’ve just finished some chores and sat down with a coffee and hey presto you’ve done it again 😍

      They might have taken the chewing gum out of their mouths before the performance eh. 😄

      We did a tour of the opera house but no one was on the stage. One of my favourites in Sidders is to jump on the Manly Ferry and go for a lunch along the beach front.

        3. Don’t leave it to long, there is so much to see PT.
          My mother sister lived in Brisbane she lived well into her 90s.

          4. Stay over in Singapore, it’s a great and very safe place to spend a few days.
            So much to do and see.

          5. 25 hours to Melbourne with a landing in Belgium and a change at Changi when I went to the Race that Stops a Nation.

          6. Break the flying time with a couple of nights in Singapore. There’s plenty to see and do there, great food and you will be blown away by the botanical gardens.

      2. Manley was my preferred place to stay when working in Sydney. Forget a nice hotel in the city, enjoy the ferry ride.

        I wonder if we will ever be allowed back?

        1. I used to land at Sydney, have a couple of days in the city before heading inland to visit family. I did notice how expensive Sydney had become, for example a breakfast would cost more than a complete meal inland.
          We hope to return in a couple of years for another visit, virus permitting.

        2. I had a long term ozzie friend and his wife who lived in north Sydney just off the pacific highway. She worked in Manley, she took the bus across the bridge twice a day and then the ferry.
          It’ll be 5 years since we last went. We were hoping to be able to go back next year, we have lots of friends and relatives all over. It saves a fortune on accommodation and is much more fun.

    3. Hi Plum,

      This is beginning to resemble “Cello Magazine” 🙂

      PS The Benedictus which I listened to at 4:30 am this morning was sublime….

  60. Phone call from hospital asking me to get some things, clothing, toiletries etc. for Stepson, so trundled in to his flat via Belper Aldi to pick up the necessary.

    Had a look at the bathroom & kitchen, both pretty disgusting, especially the kitchen sink full of dishes that looked as if they’d been left there for several weeks. Picked a couple of plates out and was immediately struck by THE STINK!
    The closes I’ve come to throwing up for a long time!

    Also noted a load of maggots on the plates, so filled the sink with water and added a generous dose of bleach!!

    Also dropped a load of bleach down the toilet pan & hand basin.

    When I get round to sorting that lot out, I’ll definitely be using rubber gloves!

    3. Dettol might be a better bet than bleach when you go back.

      I’m guessing bleach was all that was to hand.

  62. The outbreak on a ‘caravan site’ in Craven Arms Shropshire, is actually a Travellers’ site. 40 people live on the site, 21 of whom have diagnosed with Covid-19, and have been asked to self-isolate for seven or fourteen days.
    However, few seemed to be keeping to the rules with cars of residents from the site seen entering and exiting an open gate on Long Lane – and not a sign of police, local authority or health officials present to enforce self-isolation orders.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/27/locals-demand-answers-outbreak-shropshire-caravan-site/

    Self-isolate for fourteen days? Travellers? Good luck with that.

    1. Social cohesion don’tcha know. We can only hope that the people responsible for not enforcing get infected too. Damn them.

      1. As long as they are wearing a mask, plod will consider that perfectly acceptable.

      2. As long as they are wearing a mask, plod will consider that perfectly acceptable.

  63. ‘Afternoon All

    Two weeks ago the Govt launch an ‘eat out to help out’ discount scheme giving people across the UK a 50% discount, on meals out – Participating restaurants Burger King, McDonald’s Pizza Hut

    Today they announce a crackdown on obesity……………………
    #ClownWorld

    1. God save us from The Nanny State. Its for peoople to sort their own lives out not the government. Boris is becoming a pest.

      1. Boris only had one redeeming quality, his commitment to Brexit and seeing through the referendum result. (At least that’s what most people believe he will do).
        Now it is fast becoming crunch time, watch what he really does, a lot of people are going to feel betrayed.

        1. 321766+ up ticks,
          Afternoon VVOF,
          I did long ago likened it to a three stage semi re-entry rocket the wretch cameron
          blast off then mayday in position after the
          “all fall down” leadership farce, to burn out
          middle stage, leaving her successor as the nose cone.
          And so it came to be………

        2. Not me, I never trusted him in the first place. It will only have my suspicions confirmed.

    3. Rik, the backstory appear to be a non-black invisible man caught in a blinding snowstorm. Could you try and re-post it please?

    4. “But officer, I think you have a chip on your shoulder – cats don’t need a licence!”

  65. From Dukes of Hazzard to Kanye West: the curse of the Confederate flag. Mon 27 Jul 2020 06.00 BST

    The reality was quite different. For one thing, General Lee wasn’t some good soldier who happened to be on the losing side. “When Robert E Lee’s army marched into Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863,” says historian Kevin Levin, “it was with the intent of kidnapping upwards of 200 free blacks. That army was carrying the Confederate battle flag. That army was a slave-catching army. It was functioning as the military arm of a government that had one purpose: to protect the institution of slavery.”

    One suspects that had General Lee had the resources of the North the Confederate States of America would be a very different place to what they are today!

    https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jul/27/from-dukes-of-hazzard-to-kanye-west-the-curse-of-the-confederate-flag

    1. I don’t suppose there is any reference in the article to the then Democratic Party having a policy of retention of slavery?

    2. (The lost post). It seems unlikely that taking prisoners would be the objective of a military foray. Prisoners are a hindrance. The North had manufacturing resources but the South had cotton. Cotton was important. If there had been no cotton in the South I doubt if the North would have felt the need for a war. The secession would have been greeted with the words “Goodbye then”.

    3. We are often told that slavery was on its way out for hard-headed economic reasons. I have my doubts.

      1. I have never seen any information on the value of a slave in terms of Return on Investment. Slaves were expensive. They had no understanding of the idea of work as they were taken from a culture where men did no work. The managers of plantations were inculcated in the work ethic from birth. As neither spoke the language of the other the result was a relationship founded on mutual incomprehensibility.

  66. 321766+ up ticks,
    Is this a consequence of the Dover plus invasion that the NHS are seemingly farming out more work to the pharmacies as in diagnoses & treatment ?
    In the course of time & due to Dover plus ILLEGAL intake that the pharmacies are overwhelmed, maybe garages can come into play.
    Could you check my brakes,change the oil and is the hemorrhoids bay open for a check ?

    1. Here we can get a Covid-19 test at the local Walmart. Same as they offer flu jabs in season.

      1. 321766+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Jtl,
        Here as you know we have the NHS which until
        b liar lifted the latch and let in the best and very very worst of humanity en masse.
        The NHS up until b liars treacherous actions was very well respected.

        By the by does your local surgery do a line in meat & veg ?

        1. There are two shops just over the river from the pub in Knightwick (next village but one from where I live). The butcher (which also sells veg) is next door to the surgery. They still do bacon which they slice up to order, and the same sausages the pub serves up. I had a good moan about them about the short life of their sausages when I get them home. They suggested buying another load for the freezer.

          I am pretty sure the sausages and bacon come from the farm that advertises in the parish magazine “our pigs have a short life, but a happy one”.

          1. The butcher next door to the surgery reminds me too much of Sweeny Todd. Perhaps that’s why the sausages are so short-lived.

      3. 321766+ up ticks,
        Afternoon N,
        The blood & bandages sign will show the way for that.
        A ” top & bottom please” AKA a short back and sides Plus toenails.

    3. and is the haemorrhoids bay open for a check ?
      Would that be by Dr Ben Dover ?

      1. 321766+ up ticks,
        Afternoon RE,
        You have made a very good & correct diagnosis now wipe your hands on the candidates shirt tail and we’ll have some lunch.

  68. I have spent the morning attempting to do the MR’s tax return – plus the CGT return for the sale of the house in Laure. You can imagine the fun of trying to find French builders’ invoices from 1987 to 2003..

    More work is required – and I have set the MR to do it. (“Tasked” her, I believe they say these days).

    I shall spend the afternoon asleep…..

    1. Transition into an MP.
      As an MP claim Laure was you PPofR which you sold. Narfolk was your constituency office.

      Resign as an MP.
      Narfolk becomes your PPofR

      No CGT
      Simple

      1. Ed and Yvette Bollocks will help you avoid tax on having two residences at the same time.

        2. Escape to the Chateau.
          A massive renovation project in yer franse. He seems to infer he’s carried out most if not all of the building work.

    1. Afternoon Belle. It won’t need to be 30%. They are by far the most cohesive force in the country. The opposition are weak and divided with no beliefs to sustain them!

      1. Someone suggested that now that Buck house would never be inhabited by the Queen again , that the palace be converted into a huge mosque!

        2. They don’t convert palaces into mosques usually. They convert churches – it signifies their power over the infidel. Look at Algeria.

      2. They meet with no opposition because GK Chesterton was right. “When a man stops believing in God, he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.”

        1. Afternoon Sue. There is no doubt in my mind that the erasure of Christianity has played an important part in the UK’s decline. Without belief there can be no ethics or morals. It explains the corruption and depravity that surround us on every side.

          1. Sargon of Akkad was speaking about this as an atheist. https://www.bitchute.com/video/eXrjwLBEOwo/

            It was interesting to hear his point of view, but I still cannot see how you can get people to accept one man’s morality and ethics are more valid than another’s, without reference to a higher power/being. By destroying Christianity, I fear that the morality and ethics that has been graduallly established over about 10,000 years through Judaeo-Christian and classical belief systems and culture is about to be destroyed (to the world’s detriment).

    2. I have suspected for some time that we are ‘being trained’ to accept this and i think it absolutely stinks. Pubs closing mosques springing up all over the country. Pork being maligned on a daily basis dogs on leads …..leading to no dogs allowed…. leading to no dogs at all. We have seen the kneeling practicing already. It’s not really associated with a felon who died in police custody, it’s opportunism and being used as part of the education agenda.
      We already know that where ever it goes islam is disruptive and people are murdered in appalling ways for non believing.
      They have spread their own version of Serpula lacrymans throughout western cultures and possibly in our limited life times we might be able to say to you next generations we told this would happen.

      1. Face masks.
        Instant divorces.
        Expect multi-party marriages to be legalised soon, but there won’t be a mention of Islam, it’ll be presented as white people in “thouples.”

    3. So we must remove all formal connection between the State and religions (including Christianity) as soon as possible, otherwise the peace that knows no peace lot will claim discrimination and they’ll be pasting stuff into the civil law books before you can say ‘halal’.
      Whilst we are very different from Turkey, for example, there is typical case of the ratchet effect as this religion takes over an ostensibly secular society. It’s what it does.

    4. 321766+ up ticks,
      Afternoon TB,`
      The instruction manual is in place between the two dispatch boxes and a take over is on the menu.

  70. ‘The protests were whiter than the police department’. Spiked. 27 July 2020.

    ‘I find it interesting now, with this recent increase in violence, newspapers won’t mention the race of victims. The New York Times is obsessed with racial disparity. And there’s a chance that 100 per cent of shooting victims recently have been black or Hispanic. I mean, normally it’s like 97 per cent. So, there might be a white person in there. But there’s a chance that it is literally 100 per cent of shooting victims in New York are black and Hispanic this year, and they don’t even mention it… at some point, that’s just racist negligence.’

    Of course if you were a White Supremacist the smart thing to do right now would be to sit back and watch these clowns destroy themselves!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/27/the-protests-were-whiter-than-the-police-department/

  71. Wonderful English from Around the World

    In a Bangkok Temple: IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ENTER A WOMAN, EVEN A FOREIGNER, IF DRESSED AS A MAN.

    Cocktail Lounge, Norway: LADIES ARE REQUESTED NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THE BAR.

    Doctor’s Office, Rome: SPECIALIST IN WOMEN AND OTHER DISEASES.

    Dry Cleaners, Bangkok: DROP YOUR TROUSERS HERE FOR THE BEST RESULTS.

    On the main road to Mombasa, leaving Nairobi: TAKE NOTICE: WHEN THIS SIGN IS UNDER WATER, THIS ROAD IS IMPASSABLE.

    On a poster at Kencom: ARE YOU AN ADULT THAT CANNOT READ? IF SO, WE CAN HELP.

    In a City restaurant: OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK AND WEEKENDS.

    In a Cemetery: PERSONS ARE PROHIBITED FROM PICKING FLOWERS, FROM ANY BUT THEIR OWN GRAVES.

    Tokyo hotel’s rules and regulations: GUESTS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO SMOKE, OR DO OTHER DISGUSTING BEHAVIOURS, IN BED.

    On the menu of a Swiss Restaurant: OUR WINES LEAVE YOU NOTHING TO HOPE FOR.

    In a Tokyo Bar: SPECIAL COCKTAILS FOR THE LADIES WITH NUTS.

    Hotel, Yugoslavia: THE FLATTENING OF UNDERWEAR WITH PLEASURE IS THE JOB OF THE CHAMBERMAID.

    Hotel, Japan: YOU ARE INVITED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHAMBERMAID.

    In the lobby of a Moscow Hotel, across from a Russian Orthodox Monastery: YOU ARE WELCOME TO VISIT THE CEMETERY, WHERE FAMOUS RUSSIAN AND SOVIET COMPOSERS, ARTISTS, AND WRITERS ARE BURIED DAILY, EXCEPT THURSDAY.

    A sign posted in Germany’s Black Forest: IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN ON OUR BLACK FOREST CAMPING SITE, THAT PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT SEX, FOR INSTANCE, MEN AND WOMEN, LIVE TOGETHER IN ONE TENT, UNLESS THEY ARE MARRIED WITH EACH OTHER FOR THIS PURPOSE.

    Hotel, Zurich: BECAUSE OF THE IMPROPRIETY OF ENTERTAINING GUESTS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX IN THE BEDROOM, IT IS SUGGESTED THAT THE LOBBY BE USED FOR THIS PURPOSE.

    Advertisement for donkey rides, Thailand: WOULD YOU LIKE TO RIDE ON YOUR OWN ASS?

    Airline ticket office, Copenhagen: WE TAKE YOUR BAGS AND SEND THEM IN ALL DIRECTIONS.

    A Laundry in Rome: LADIES, LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES HERE AND THEN SPEND THE AFTERNOON HAVING A GOOD TIME.

    And finally, the all-time classic, Seen in an Abu Dhabi Souk shop window: IF THE FRONT IS CLOSED, PLEASE ENTER THROUGH MY BACKSIDE.

    2. Peddy, your final all-time classic reminds of the American phrase “It’s in back of…” since they view “behind” as a rude word.

      1. “Life’s just like a box of choc-lits: you never know what you’re gonna git.”

        Of course, if you use that handy little slip of paper that comes in the box …

      2. “Life’s just like a box of choc-lits: you never know what you’re gonna git.”

        Of course, if you use that handy little slip of paper that comes in the box …

        1. Life is like a tin of sardines, there is always a little bit in the corner you cannot get at.

    3. Nope but it’s given me one. I’ve made bad choices and I have limitations but mostly I’ve made the best of whatever opportunities have arisen.

      3. Same here – although the lousy (at the time) decisions turned out to be better than expected.

      5. I’ve always been a believer in one making one’s own luck.

        What has now become an aphorism often (wrongly) attributed to Gary Player

        “The Harder I Practice, the Luckier I Get”

      6. Good evening (on Tuesday).

        Today’s part of the extended funeral of Bill Scott (they are all so high they ae poking through the church roof!!) – the Homily (sic) was by Bishop Jonathan Baker. He praught well – and brought Bill Scott vividly to life.

        Do you know of/approve of said Bish? He had a nice, subtle dig at the current hierarchy (Welmeaning/Midwife etc etc)

        1. The Bishop of Fulham? Yes, he looks after the parishes who’ve resisted third wave feminism? Would be interesting to hear him preach.

        1. I think what I actually meant was, can a well paying job or business, dictate how you live generally? But it’s getting late.

        1. The new Director General of the Bastard Broadcasting Corp.

          A career beeboid – so ideal material,,,(sarc)

          EDIT: No – I tell a lie – is some other flucker beeboid. Our Susan will know.

          2. I am obliged to my learned fried for her helpful intervention.

            Who was the man in the dodgy tie?

          3. No idea, Bill. Could be a very old pic of Purnell. A manager in my former dept once asked Bal Samra (finance director) at a big corporate gathering, how is it that whenever she wants to recruit staff, due process has to be followed yet James Purnell has risen up through the organisation without ever having to apply for a job. Watching him literally squirm for at least 3 long minutes before producing a totally unsatisfactory answer was priceless.

        1. James Purnell, ex Labour MP and currently head of BBC radio.

          Or.. it could be Mark Thompson, also ex BBC and has just left the New York Times having successfully destroyed it by turning it hard left.

          2. Has lefty SJW written all over him/her/it. Obviously, as otherwise ze wouldn’t have got the job.

      4. If that’s the best picture he can come up with, shudder to think what the ‘out-takes’ were like!

    3. Must be fake news. Only 93% think it is bad….shurely shome mishtake…{:¬))

  79. Two gunmen are shot dead in church by brother of South African rugby legend Joost van der Westhuizen as they tried to rob the congregation during Sunday service. 27 July 2020.

    Two gunmen were shot dead by the brother of South African rugby legend Joost van der Westhuizen as they tried to rob a congregation during a church service.

    The two robbers were killed and a third was possibly wounded when they stormed into the Querencia Ministries church in Wierda Park, Centurion, South Africa, on Sunday.

    They then proceeded to try and rob members of the congregation at gunpoint.

    Nice bit of work! Needless to say they were Blek!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8563751/Two-gunmen-shot-dead-armed-worshipper-tried-rob-congregation-South-Africa.html

  80. Asda have said that those people with a “Mental Impairment” do not have
    to wear a mask whilst shopping in their stores.

    But they have asked that those with the condition to continue to wear
    their football shirts so that staff can spot them and avoid any
    misunderstanding.

    1. Wall Mart have had that facility in operation for years. Including 30 stoners on electric ride-ons, pyjamas, bikinis, leather thongs, (the knot can sometimes be a problem), one piece sheep skins. You name it.

        1. People of walmart is…strangely addictive.
          Half way down the second page, the guy with the “Nobody knows I’m a secret Lesbian” T shirt….you just don’t see that kind of thing in Waitrose.

          1. It’s a great site to dip in and out of by page number. All manner of horrors live within.

          2. I don’t see them as horrors though, I see them as life’s rich tapestry.
            The horrors are in Waitrose, busy buying the Guardian and ruining our country, or in Aldi muffled up in hideous old curtains.

        3. I think you should have posted a bad for your mental health warning – I’m almost out of mind bleach!

          1. The extraordinary thing is that the first link runs to thousands of equally weird and appalling pictures.

    4. Mother’s microwave went up in smoke today.
      :-((
      Fire brigade called. No damage. New micro ordered by me from small retailer in Penarth, who delivered straight away.
      :-D)
      Thats me £130 lighter, though…

    2. The real scandal – as I say repeatedly – (Sorry Peddy) – is that Boris Johnson managed to avoid being interviewed by Andrew Neil before the general election.

      Andrew Neil was probably the only journalist who would have managed to winkle out the truth that Boris Johnson’s so-called ‘brilliant WA was no more than Evila May’s surrender to the EU WA in a yellow wig.

      Are we ever going to get the full truth again from either our politicians, the BBC or the rest of the MSM

    4. With the demise of the Andrew Neil programme – and the recent and appalling interview of the Prime Minister by the boorish, discourteous and impertinent Laura Kuenssberg, i shall no longer listen to – or watch – any BBC news and/ or political programmes.

      IMHO, the BBC has lost its last vestige of national credibility and journalistic integrity.

      1. ..and the BBC expect us to pay £157. smackers for this cr*p…

        If BBC 4 hits the deck in view of youngsters (do they watch telly?) I will cancel DDebit.
        Nigel kennedy at the BBC was quality viewing….we want more please Aunty!

      1. end is nigh!
        endis nigh!
        ends nigh!
        end nigh!
        endnigh!
        endigh!
        endgh!
        endh!
        end!

    2. I wonder if anyone has told the experts that the more tests they do, the more cases they are likely to find. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that things are actually getting any worse and could mean they are getting a lot better.

      1,000 tests find 10 cases. A bit of concern.

      1 million tests find 1,000 cases, blind panic.

    1. In rural France I often choose Bavette with onions and chips and sometimes mushrooms. The French cut the beef skirt thinly and flash fry. I have found nowhere in England matching the French Bavette.

      1. My experience of flash-fried bavette in France is not good, it has all the flavour and texture of shoe leather.

        1. This particular piece of Bavette had been in the freezer for almost a year. I marinated it 24 hrs, cooked it on a griddle & during the 10 mins it was resting under foil I reduced the marinade to a thick sauce, carved the steak across the grain & it was perfect.

    1. I still have some WWII earphones like that.
      I used them to listen on BBC radio to Jimmy Edwards and June Whitfield in the Glums in the 50s.

      1. It’s not as if they didn’t know it was coming. We have had at least 5 waves of different Corona/Sars. They have been making it.

        Then we get a smokescreen of Novichoc and prior to that the radioactive substance that was supposed to have killed Litvenienko in a pot of tea while the agents left a trail of it on an Aircraft FFS.

          5. Once upon a time (long, long, long ago) I’d have liked to have put some balls in her net…

            TTFN

          7. All I see is her tongue sticking out as she licks her lips…

            But then… I’m like that.

  91. That’s me for this rather wet and very windswept day. Bright ‘n sunny now – and apparently will be so for most of the week.

    Have a jolly evening self-isolating. Avoid ANY news/current affairs/politics programmes on TV or radio – makes life much more bearable.

    A demain….one hopes (well, I do).

    2. Night night. Hope dawn breaks with a sunny disposition. If she does…say Hi for me. 🙂

        1. I enjoyed the first half more than the second. Pointless modern dress “audience” of ?prisoners? watching the the poor chained up Florestan. Very distracting from the music.

  92. BBC news holidaymakers returning to uk
    ‘Devastated’ travellers react to quarantine rules.
    Sheren Pugh, 32, from Crynant, Neath, and her friend only booked a holiday to Ibiza on Thursday and feels there should have been more warning that a rule change was on the cards.
    “I’m gutted. I was really looking forward to going. I was super excited,” she said.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53541301

    Tough, Sheren.

    1. She should go.

      By the time she’s due to come home, the rules will have changed again.

      1. As I said yesterday, I don’t understand why these lemmings (lemons) are rushing back to Blighty anyway. There will be planes at the end of the fortnight.

        Panic-stricken woke folk. God knows how they would have coped in the Blitz.

    2. The recent UK quarantine rules are naïve and destructive.

      The Canaries should be treated as a separate country; to a lesser extent, perhaps, the Balearics.

      It would be simple to impose rules to arrivals from specified airports; the rule applying to whole countries is inept, unfair, economically damaging – both ways – and should be remedied forthwith.

      1. Like most of the muddled thinking and silly rules from this manufactured crisis.

      2. We have rules based on which county (län) in Sweden you visit. So, it’s not difficult.

  93. This dangerous heretic won’t get another invitation from the BBC.

    The virus has taken our liberty. Must it take our humanity as well?

    There have been far worse diseases in the world. We just have to learn to live alongside Covid-19

    JONATHAN SUMPTION

    All our current debates about lockdowns, social distancing and masks ultimately end up with one uncomfortable dilemma. Do we get on with our lives and put up with Covid-19? Or do we try to hide away from the risk of infection in the hope that one day it will go away?

    Let us remind ourselves of how we got here. The Government was panicked into imposing a lockdown in March by Professor Neil Ferguson’s Imperial College modelling report. The report is notorious for predicting a “reasonable worst-case scenario” of 510,000 deaths. But it made another important point which is often overlooked. A lockdown would only save a significant number of lives if it was kept in place indefinitely, until there was a vaccine, “which could be 18 months or more”. Otherwise, the virus would simply rebound, probably worse than ever, after it was lifted.

    Professor Ferguson’s team had previously put the point like this. Aggressive isolation policies “merely push all transmission to the period after they are lifted, giving a delay but no substantial reduction in either peak incidence or overall attack rate”. The current spikes in countries that have lifted lockdowns, such as Spain, Germany, Japan and Hong Kong, bear this out. Some of them had longer and stricter lockdowns than we did.

    It follows that, as far as the lockdown was concerned, there were only ever three coherent options. Option one was to have no lockdown. Option two was to have an indefinite lockdown, putting our whole national life into cold storage for the duration at unimaginable cost. Option three, which the Government chose, was to have a lockdown for long enough to allow the intensive care capacity of the NHS to catch up. In the event it caught up within a month.

    The Government lifted the lockdown in June, six to eight weeks after it had lost any justification even by its own logic. But let us declare a truce on whether it was imposed too early or lifted too late. The question now is what happens next.

    The Government’s position appears to be that the famous R-number can be kept below 1 without a lockdown but with social distancing. Some epidemiologists agree with this. Others do not. I do not propose to venture into those murky waters. But assuming that the Government is right, there are some awkward issues to be confronted.

    One is that if the R-number can be kept below 1 with social distancing alone, then we could have done it in March instead of locking down. This is not hindsight. It is what Sweden did. It is fashionable to rubbish the Swedish approach. But their deaths per million of population are substantially lower than ours. Their hospitals were never overwhelmed. They never closed their schools. The predicted damage to their economy is about half of ours.

    The most awkward question, however, is about the exit route. Assuming that social distancing can keep transmission of the disease low, it has to be kept in place indefinitely until there is a vaccine. What does this mean for our world?

    Physical proximity to other people is not some sort of optional extra which can be ironed out of our culture. It is fundamental to our humanity. Conversation round a table, friendship, love and tears, children at play, most educational activity, depend on physical proximity. Our whole transport infrastructure, the buildings in which we work, play and eat out, depend on our being close together. With social distancing, physical cooperation becomes impossible. The social dimension of work all but disappears. The House of Commons, a great national forum in the crowded chamber, is reduced to a poor phone-in programme in a half-empty space. With social distancing there is no crowd around the bar, no singing at weddings, no orchestras or choirs, no theatre, no sport, no live audiences – in short, no collective activities, only the dismal solitude of the electronic screen. We have surrendered our liberty to the virus. Are we to surrender our humanity as well?

    Masks, by comparison, are a minor issue. They are uncomfortable and depersonalising. They conflict with a basic instinct of Western society to interact visually, showing our faces. But if they encourage people to come out and live together again or to send their children to school, that can only be good. People will soon tire of them.

    The brutal reality is the same, masks or no masks. We are going to have to live with Covid-19 whether we like it or not, unless and until there is an effective vaccine. And not just with Covid-19.

    Shocking? Perhaps. But only because in Europe we have had a false sense of security for so long. In the last two decades there have been Mers and Sars. Before that there were Asian flu, Hong Kong flu, H1N1, and non-respiratory epidemic diseases like HIV, Ebola and Zika. All of them had higher case mortality than Covid-19. But, apart from HIV, they barely touched Europe.

    This seems likely to change. International movement of people and other organisms is increasing. A major UK pandemic has been top of the National Risk Register since it was first published in 2008. It estimates that a new strain of flu could cause between 50,000 and 750,000 additional deaths in the UK and that emerging diseases, usually originating in animals, are a growing threat whose impact is unpredictable but may be very high.

    Covid-19 is a serious disease, but historically it is at the bottom end of the scale. For any one under 50 the risk of death is tiny, less than for seasonal flu. In the great majority of cases the symptoms are mild or non-existent. Our ancestors lived with far worse epidemic diseases without rushing to put their heads in a bag. In other parts of the world they still do (world-wide, tuberculosis kills many more than Covid-19).

    We all need to make our own personal risk assessments in the light of our age and state of health and the sort of activities in which we engage. For some people, social distancing will remain a sensible precaution. The rest of us should respect their choice but drop it and get on with our lives. We cannot keep running away.

    Jonathan Sumption is a former Justice of the Supreme Court and was BBC Reith Lecturer for 2019

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/27/virus-has-taken-liberty-must-take-humanity/

  94. Statue-smashing critics of Britain’s history risk driving Scotland out of the Union

    DANIEL HANNAN

    “We are here for each other in sickness and in health,” said Boris Johnson during his visit to Orkney. It was a well-chosen line, invoking more than just the massive resources that the United Kingdom was able to mobilise when Covid struck. The PM knows that the joining together of two peoples, like a marriage, must be more than a contractual relationship.

    A similar point was made by that ur-unionist James VI & I when he addressed the House of Commons as England’s new king. “Hath not God first united these kingdoms, both in language and religion and similitude of manners?” he asked sceptical MPs in his Scottish accent. “Hath He not made us all in one island, compassed by one sea?”

    The Union would not have lasted had it been only an amplified economic alliance. It rests on shared habits. Throughout the British Isles, we dress the same way, sing the same songs, watch the same TV shows, shop at the same chains, speak in the same half-sarcastic tone. Yes, we have our regional differences, but they are less pronounced than in many countries whose unity is not in question.

    Because of our linguistic and cultural cohesion, debates over independence tend to be about party politics. Scottish nationalists cannot appeal to ethnic separateness in the way that, say, South Sudanese nationalists or Kosovan nationalists could. So they present independence as a way of avoiding Conservative governments (not a wholly unreasonable argument given that the Tories have won majorities in Scotland only twice since the Great Reform Act – in 1900 and in 1955).

    Unionists make their case in largely transactional terms, arguing that the UK has an integrated economy, that an independent Scotland would have to establish a new currency, that a smaller country would me much more vulnerable to oil shocks and so on. These arguments may be true, but they don’t determine referendums. In the end, identity almost always trumps economics.

    Suppose, by way of illustration, that the Irish Republic were suddenly to become vastly poorer or vastly wealthier than the UK. How many votes would it swing in a Northern Ireland poll? Maybe a few thousand at the margin; but most people would vote on the basis of whether they felt Irish or British. Feelings are necessarily hard to quantify, but they are no less real for that.

    Which brings us to the current spike in support for a breakaway Scotland. Conventional wisdom has it that it owes something to Brexit and something to Covid. But my hunch is that it owes rather more to the statue-smashing we have just witnessed – or, rather, to the intellectual trend that gave rise to the statue-smashing.

    The Brexit referendum was in fact followed by an opinion poll swing to unionism. That surprised most commentators, who had assumed that, if Scotland voted differently to the UK as a whole, there would be a surge in secessionism. It didn’t happen, partly because it became clear that Scotland could not rejoin the EU without cutting itself off economically from the rest of the UK, and partly because Brexit revived a sense of British particularism. Nicola Sturgeon was forced to drop her promise of an early independence poll, and her MPs at Westminster worked hard to overturn Brexit, fearing that it would put Scottish statehood out of reach.

    The coronavirus may have contributed mildly to the current mood. Epidemics make people turn inwards, which is why Sturgeon can get away with suggesting that she might quarantine English visitors. There is a vague but widespread feeling north of the border that the Scottish authorities handled the epidemic better than their English counterparts – though, in reality, both pursued similar policies.

    It now looks, though, as if the high death rates in England may have partly been an accounting error: Public Health England was, incredibly, counting everyone who died having had the virus as a Covid fatality, even if they recovered and then died of something else. Despite carrying out more tests per capita than almost any country in the world, the UK has lower infection rates than much of Europe. Meanwhile, Oxford leads the pack in the race for a vaccine and a Southampton-based biotech company may have found the closest thing to, if not a cure, at least a way of mitigating the disease’s worst effects. We may all soon be glad to live in the same jurisdiction as these companies.

    But even if businesses and researchers based in England lead the world out of the crisis, even if the UK economy surges, that will not determine the future of the Union. Nationality is determined by the heart, not the head; by poems, not ledgers.

    And it is here that we find the true danger to the Union. Britishness, never popular on the Left, is nowadays systematically associated with racism, colonialism and xenophobia. In an age which treats victimhood as the supreme virtue, there is no longer merit in being the greatest country in the world. A perverted version of our history is propagated by public bodies and academic institutions. Slavery, for example, is portrayed as a peculiarly British vice when, in fact, it was Britain that extirpated an institution that had been widespread on every continent for thousands of years.

    Scots (and, indeed, Irish people) were disproportionately involved in Britain’s global expansion: there is a reason that no one calls it “the English Empire”. Our imperial venture was, inevitably, morally mixed. It had heroic and shameful moments – just as any national story does. Britain exploited its subject lands, but also worked to end slavery, build schools and leave behind a functioning legal system. Some territories were acquired violently and held through repression; others were brought to independence without a shot being fired in anger.

    As long as our cultural and intellectual elites see Britishness as a synonym for bigotry and bullying, though, the peoples of the home nations will grope back towards older patriotisms. Yet, paradoxically, there are few states of which the Left should be prouder. Where else, down the centuries, would you rather have been poor or female or from a religious minority? Seriously, where? Russia? Persia? Abyssinia? Which countries did more to elevate the living standards of ordinary people?

    The United Kingdom has extraordinary achievements to its name. It developed and exported the sublime idea that laws should not be passed, nor taxes raised, except by elected representatives. It elevated the individual above the collective and the rules above the rulers. It exhausted itself in two world wars and the Cold War – not because it had been attacked, but because it felt honour-bound to defend the freedom of others. It did these things as one country, drawing on the strengths of all its constituent parts.

    The Union, in short, has contributed mightily to the happiness of the human race. Let not man – nor woman – put it asunder.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/25/statue-smashing-critics-britains-history-risk-driving-scotland/

    2. This is part of the problem though. We are a rich, safe (relatively, no thanks to Labour) tolerant country.

      Those living here have nothing to whinge about. They live lives of utter excess able to do and say whatever they please. Because they have such phenomenal liberty, of course, they hate it. They’ve never suffered for it, never earned it, have no investment in understanding what it cost to build it so their entire attitude is to complain, bitterly about the perfect world they live in. They are spoiled children. Nothing more. They should be treated as such and sent to bed without any dinner.

    3. “Throughout the British Isles, we dress the same way, sing the same songs, watch the same TV shows, shop at the same chains, speak in the same half-sarcastic tone. Yes, we have our regional differences, but they are less pronounced than in many countries whose unity is not in question.” Has he visited Tower Hamlets, Luton, Bradford and like places?

    2. It’s one of those memes where one just has to double check, and lo and behold:

      “Diet Water” is essentially water with a bunch of nutrients mixed into it – think Japanese Vitamin Water. Details are few and far between when it comes to this product, as Diet Water never made its way out of Japan and was discontinued after it didn’t perform too well on the market (go figure).12 juil. 2012

    3. Just a few drops of Entamoeba histolytica, and Bob’s your uncle. The weight’ll fall off you, or out of you.

  96. That overpaid half caste twat Hamilton is organising one of his ‘Black Lives Matter’ stunts for Silverstone. Just as well patriotic Brits, who might otherwise have supported his racing skills, will not be in attendance. Were they in attendance I would hope banners and Union flags would put the bugger in his place.

    I trust that after his stupid anti-British and fallacious claims and antics he will never receive a knighthood. Unfortunately with our current crop of civil serpents and politicos I suppose the git could afford to purchase one from the corrupt cabal.

    Edited.

    1. No cricket today but when the Third Test started there was a shameful display of genuflection.

      1. If they were really penitent, the white English would bend the knee, lick the boots of all the black players and give them the series without a ball being bowled.

        The advertisers might take a dim view, but that would be hypocritical.

      2. I hated to see that. I just presume that they’re told, “Do it, or go back to village club teams.”

        1. My goodness, that brings me back! I once worked with the fellow, about 50 years ago. He was sinister then.

    4. You’ve got a double negative in your second sentence, corim – a superfluous ‘not’.

  97. I received an email from a former colleague, an architect with whom I worked successfully at Paternoster Square and then on the Restoration of the Interiors of Christ Church Spitalfields.

    My former colleague hails from Edinburgh and bemoaned the ruination of his cherished city by rubbish Modernist ‘architecture’. He is a classicist and hates much Modern Architecture.

    I quoted him one of the best Architects of the C20 who worked tirelessly to produce good buildings against an RIBA stuffed with followers of Corbusier and Mies. Here is the part of my response intended to give encouragement:

    “Like you I am a sort of classicist. I loathe what passes for architectural education and recall having Corb rammed down my throat at University. I have an aversion to flat roofs and oblong plate glass shop windows. If you have not studied them I recommend for encouragement the works of McMorran and Whitby, architects of the extensions to the Old Bailey and City Police Station Wood Street. McMorran was heavily influenced by Emmanuel Vincent Harris, architect of Bristol County Hall, Manchester Central Library and the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall along with many civic buildings. Vincent Harris was famous for his acceptance speech when awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal: ‘Look, a lot of you people here tonight don’t like what I do and I don’t like what a lot of you do, but I am proud and honoured to receive the Royal Gold Medal’.”

    1. I can’t abide flat roofs. Locally they are building a new health centre in a conservation area – it’s hideously modern and has flat roofs. In my presentation about why planning permission should be refused, I pointed out that in 50 years they would be pulling it down and having to rebuild it because the roofs would be leaking. Needless to say, it got the go-ahead.

      1. Sorry to repeat it, but there are three certainties in life: death, taxes, and flat roofs leak.

      2. Find me a flat roof over 10 years old on a large building that does not leak. They are done to save money in the short term and nothing else.

        1. Our greatest C20 architect, Lutyens, preferred roofs to be both pitched at 50 degrees and also to overhang the external walls such that any leaks or blockages in gutters would discharge outside of the building envelope. It is really that simple yet idiots persist with their discredited methods.

          1. I hate hidden gutters ever since our first, architect designed house was built with a flat roof over the garage and a hidden gutter. It leaked within four years.
            Many years later when we were clearing a deceased aunts house I got drenched with water as I moved a luggage case from a bedroom cupboard – yes, the cupboard was beneath a hidden gutter!

          3. I have often had to repair parapet gutters. These are on buildings with stone or brick parapets and the narrow gutters behind the parapets are generally lined with lead.

            Problems occur mostly where clay tiled roofs drain into lead parapet gutters. Moss and lichen builds up on the clay tiles and the run off from rainfall over time is acidic and eats away at the lead guttering and flashings.

            The cure is to place thick Copper wire or tape at intervals of a metre along the tiles, fixed with copper tingles or tacks under the tile courses.

            The copper neutralises the water run off.

            In addition I specify extra ‘sacrificial’ lead flashings fixed under the eaves tiles which add extra protection to the acidic run off.

            Edit: with parapet gutters it is a good idea to have sumps at the outlets with an overflow bypass, in case the sump outlet becomes blocked. I perfected this system on several major buildings, but as with most inventions, it was bloody obvious.

          4. I hate hidden gutters ever since our first, architect designed house was built with a flat roof over the garage and a hidden gutter. It leaked within four years.
            Many years later when we were clearing a deceased aunts house I got drenched with water as I moved a luggage case from a bedroom cupboard – yes, the cupboard was beneath a hidden gutter!

      3. Newly designed buildings, as seen on “Build my new house” tv, all look like small provincial airport terminals. Square, glass, DULL!

    1. I believe that we are in serious trouble. There are going to be millions unemployed and social unrest as people loose their homes. Thank goodness the NHS has been saved to deal with the fallout.

      1. The lock down will prove to be the greatest folly of our time. The virus should have run its course, it it had thee would have been no second waves and more lives would have been saved. Regretably Boris turned out to be a follower and not a leader, not strong enough to stand up against the W.H.O. and the health lobby.

        1. I agree but I reckon that since the virus was manufactured by and released by China, evidently in order to disable the West, it is highly likely that the Chinese are releasing further more potent strains of the virus. This would explain second spikes in countries which had all but defeated the first infections.

          In normal infections the virus mutates and becomes diluted and far less infectious.

          Short of a nuclear assault by the USA on Beijing who knows where this will end.

      2. 321766+ up ticks,
        Evening KP,
        We have been in very serious trouble since b liar
        lifted the latch, from then on ALL the infrastructure
        was put under strain & got worse on a daily basis.
        The mass uncontrolled immigration is weighing down the Country and gone well past the acceptable level.
        Nothing has looked good since the mid 70s with the same set of self interest politico’s in the same parties, and a multitude of peoples playing “our party first” before Country games.
        All the time a stronger force was building awaiting the right moment all the while placing people in positions of power, look at london for proof.
        Afraid these governance parties have proved without doubt, these last three decades,not to be friends of the people, anything but.

    1. The High Street has been in its death throes for years – and it is never coming back in its traditional form – online shopping has changed all that. A local town nearby is typical of the US model. The town’s “High Street” is (normally) vibrant with restaurants and bars – no charity shops or bookies – and outside the centre there are multiple “big box” stores – Walmart, Target, Costco, etc., all of whom do pretty well, plus other essentials like big DIY stores, car dealers, supermarkets, etc,

      What the town does well, is to make it easy (and not expensive) to park in the town centre, knowing full well that if they did not, no-one would come.

      p.s. we see people wearing masks all the time while shopping. It’s just accepted as a necessity.

    2. The High Street has been in its death throes for years – and it is never coming back in its traditional form – online shopping has changed all that. A local town nearby is typical of the US model. The town’s “High Street” is (normally) vibrant with restaurants and bars – no charity shops or bookies – and outside the centre there are multiple “big box” stores – Walmart, Target, Costco, etc., all of whom do pretty well, plus other essentials like big DIY stores, car dealers, supermarkets, etc,

      What the town does well, is to make it easy (and not expensive) to park in the town centre, knowing full well that if they did not, no-one would come.

      p.s. we see people wearing masks all the time while shopping. It’s just accepted as a necessity.

      1. Our local High Street was thriving before the lockdown; lots of individual shops, a farmers’ market once a month and a regular weekly market. It all shut down. There were no shops open at all and the markets didn’t take place. Now, we’re being forced to wear masks and they have blocked off the High St to traffic, making it extremely difficult for the disabled to access it. Needless to say, there is hardly anybody in town.

    3. If he and his colleagues stopped instilling a climate of fear regarding the act of shopping (face masks) perhaps the high street footfall would improve.
      More people on the high street can only improve the economy, driving people away with pointless rules and regulations does no good whatsoever.

  102. 321766+ up ticks,
    If you had left laying legs to get your life back starting by the by, with the mass knifing in the back of the UKIP membership we could now be dealing with a completely, more honest, pro UK political structure.
    breitbart,
    Farage: Boris Must Not Go Down ‘Weak and Cowardly Route’ of Brexit In Name Only

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