Monday 27 May: Young voters will have their say on the PM’s plan for National Service

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

496 thoughts on “Monday 27 May: Young voters will have their say on the PM’s plan for National Service”

  2. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) Tutorial

    ENGLISH – SOME ODDITIES

    Let’s face it – English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

    English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

    We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

    And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?

    If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth?

    One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?

    Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

    If teachers taught, why don’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetable, what does a humanitarian eat?

    Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

    How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

    You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

    English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.

    Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’?

    1. Morning, Tom.
      Some of those oddities are American English.
      Or mistakes, as they are more accurately known.
      (Hah – beaten Grizz to it!)

    2. “If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?”

      An oddment.

  4. Good morning, chums, and thanks to Geoff for today’s site. Today I just managed Wordle in 6, and here are my results:

    Wordle 1,073 6/6

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  5. 387770+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    My belief if, in the future if the “Reunion” is ever made of this,
    What passes as a government and opposition collection of treacherous criminal misfits, it will be made in an undisclosed location in south America,

    Theresa May admits responsibility for treatment of victims of Windrush scandal
    The former prime minister, who is standing down at the general election, is the subject of a new ITV documentary

    in reality should read,

    Theresa May admits responsibility for treatment of indigenous victims of its term of office treacherous scandal.
    The former prime minister, who is standing down at the general election, is the subject of a new very in depth proven patriotic
    peoples inquiry.

    1. May is more in thrall to her reality-light conscience than she is to Britain. Like most MPs, she views humanity through the lens of fiction than how it really is. Ordinary people do not have that luxury. We would have nothing if we did. Migrants are considered to be story-book victims who must be saved by the likes of May or the modern political cohort in the UK. They don’t stop to consider that migrants are actual people with the potential for greed and destruction: traits amplified when they originate from corrupt and lawless countries/cultures.

      All politicians should be forced to live for a few months in the countries which they advocate that we receive migrants from. After all, we, the ordinary people who pay for this bountiless enterprise, are forced to live next door to these migrants and many of them are from cultures taught to hate us. Once many of them have their feet under the table they will flex their muscles. We are beginning to see that already. Still, as long as your fiction-forged conscience is clear, hey Mrs May and co.?

  6. Good morning all.
    An overcast and damp start with 6½°C on the Yard Thermometer, though it looks like the overnight rain may just have stopped.
    Dry morning forecast with rain later.

      1. Turned fine here for now, but forecast rain in a couple of hours time.

    1. 387770+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Just saying,

      Kim Dotcom
      @KimDotcom
      450,000 British died during WW2 to defeat Nazi Germany. This week Boris Johnson welcomed the Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov Battalion as “heroes” in London. No respect for those who died to stop the Nazi ideology. Now the UK Govt is using Nazis to kill Russians.

      https://x.com/KimDotcom/status/1793912349730214040

  8. Good morning folks.

    The DT on line has included this disturbing video of a relatively cheap Ukrainian drone armed with a Heat (High Explosive Anti Tank?) munition impacting a Russian Tank. In the last second the footage shows the Tank driver ducking. WW I introduced mechanised killing in the C20th. It seems the C21st has seen the use of Video Game Digital Technology and mass production to introduce a multitude of Angels of Death….

    https://cf.eip.telegraph.co.uk/daily_production_videos/FPVdrone4.mp4

  9. Good morning folks.

    The DT on line has included this disturbing video of a relatively cheap Ukrainian drone armed with a Heat (High Explosive Anti Tank?) munition impacting a Russian Tank. In the last second the footage shows the Tank driver ducking. WW I introduced mechanised killing in the C20th. It seems the C21st has seen the use of Video Game Digital Technology and mass production to introduce a multitude of Angels of Death….

    https://cf.eip.telegraph.co.uk/daily_production_videos/FPVdrone4.mp4

  10. A letter many here will agree with:-

    Risks to food security

    SIR –
    I am approaching the final stages of my farming career and it has
    pained me to witness the demise of family farms. Traditional livestock
    farms and small businesses in general were the backbone of the British
    economy, yet politicians of all stripes have taken short-term,
    opportunistic attitudes to farming for more than 40 years – as
    illustrated by the dissolution of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
    and Food in 2002, and monopolisation by supermarkets, which have
    relentlessly increased profit margins at the expense of producers.

    The
    Government’s approach is to adopt populist, so-called green
    initiatives, which place more emphasis on expanding newt ecosystems than
    ensuring quality British produce. Ministers seem unconcerned that our
    food security is at risk, and that we are increasingly dependent on
    overseas imports, with the associated carbon emissions from shipping.

    Future
    generations will pay a heavy price for such disjointed and
    ill-conceived policies affecting British farming. As with most sectors
    in the British economy, the only growth appears to be in government
    bureaucracy and complacency.

    Sandy Owens
    Presteigne, Radnorshire

    2. I’ve always had a lot of respect for farmers they are dedicated people and work very hard in their occupations.
      The exact opposite to politicians.
      Who seem to have effed up something else as well.

  13. 387770+ up ticks,

    When you have currently a politico nearing the end of its term I believe there is a tendency to leave a peoples gift behind them, one such gift would be ” mandatory” being brought into play.

    PeterSweden
    @PeterSweden7
    ·
    12h
    BREAKING: Moderna and Pfizer are in talks with the government to make a bird flu vaccine.

    Will you get the Pfizer bird flu injection?

    https://x.com/LeilaniDowding/status/1794979373151326454

      2. 387770+ up ticks,

        Morning MM

        This I believe will become a mass ducking issue.

          1. 387770+up ticks,

            MM,
            I suggest we take a gander at it
            if the local MP can survive a five minute immersion then he is innocent.

    3. I’ve got masses of reminders on my message input telling me that I need to have more effing covid ‘vaccine’ jabs. I wish I could reply but it’s not possible. If it was an actual vaccine it would have worked the first time. And not half killed me.
      Trust has now toppled over the edge.

      1. Block their number. It won’t be from your surgery. Those employed pushing these drugs used to be second hand car salesmen, inefficient traffic wardens and parliamentary hopefuls from the Liberal Democrats.

  14. Good Moaning.
    I’m kicking off a sunny (so far) bank holiday with a rather cheering piece. It is long, but uplifting.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/interviews/poor-clare-sisters-of-arundel-interview/

    ‘We love Bake Off and Bob Marley’: the nuns shaking up the music industry

    Since the Poor Clare Sisters of Arundel became 2020’s biggest-selling classical music debut, they want to set some misconceptions straight

    26 May 2024 • 6:00pm

    In 2019, the sisters at the Poor Clares convent in Arundel received an email. “It was from a lovely man called James Morgan at Decca asking us if we wanted to record an album,” says Sister Aelred, who is 80 years old. “He’d had the idea of recording some nuns and someone had told him we were quite good. We laughed the idea out of town. One sister reminded us that our most recent singing practice had been a disaster. Most of us were completely against it.”

    The following year, Light for the World, featuring 15 of the 23 sisters at the convent, and comprising the Latin plainsong they sing each day at Vespers plus several original arrangements by Morgan and his partner Juliette Pochin, went to the top of the classical music charts, where it stayed for 19 weeks. The release coincided with the start of the second lockdown, and, so directly did the sublime mix of ancient incantatory song and gentle modern effects speak to the fractured soul of a broken nation, Decca ran out of CDs within 24 hours.

    By the end of 2020, the Sisters had become the biggest-selling classical music debut artists of the year, selling 80,000 copies around the world, plus 60 million streams. This week, they release a second album, My Peace I Give You, containing a similar mix of 13th-century Gregorian chant and a new central arrangement of St Francis’s Canticle of Creation.

    The Poor Clares live a very quiet, sequestered life, largely consisting of silence and prayer. Very occasionally, they leave the convent to make a visit to the post office or the doctor’s. They certainly never imagined Light For the World would make them superstars of the classical music scene.

    “Parents wrote to say our music had helped get their babies to sleep. One man said it was the only thing that calmed his wife, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s,” says Sister Gabriel, 53. “I’d have made the album just to receive that one message.” Another wrote to confess he had stopped the car when he heard their music on the radio and had a quiet weep by the roadside. They have given the proceeds to local charities. “Twice a year when the royalties come in we sit down and decide who to send it to. Foodbanks, local schools, a woman’s refuge centre. It’s rather lovely.”

    Yet the decision to record that first album didn’t come easily. “We had about 10 meetings within our community to discuss it,” says Sister Aelred. “Some of them were quite adversarial, really.” “I was very much against it,” says Sister Graça . “I pointed out we didn’t have the time, we already have a lot on our plate.” Most of the nuns at the convent are over 60; several are in their 90s. They cook and clean, tend to their vegetable garden and run a small on-site guest house entirely by themselves. “The whole thing felt like too great an intrusion.”

    They were eventually persuaded by Morgan, who argued among other things that their music could help young people stressed by the pressure of modern life. All the same, the nuns’ lists of demands puts Mariah Carey in the shade. They refused to record the album in a studio, insisting instead that Decca record them during weekly singing practice on a Wednesday, as befitting the rhythm of their daily life – a process that in the end took six months. They insisted the album include the words of St Francis and St Clare, who founded the Order of the Poor Clares in 1212, “because that was the message we wanted to put across – messages of love and peace”. They wrangled at length over the contract. “There were a lot of things in it we crossed out,” says Sister Leo, 69. “They wanted us to do live events, that sort of thing. We said no to all that. I think Decca learned a lot from us. We don’t do things the way famous people do.”

    Yet nor do they make chart-topping music like most famous people. To listen to My Peace I Give You, simple and exquisite, is to feel your very breath grow still.

    The nuns’ respective journeys to the Poor Clares differ enormously. Sister Aelred, who grew up in an Irish Catholic family in Lancashire, joined at the age of 21. Sister Leo, who was raised in a Franciscan community in Kent, was a similar age. Yet Sister Gabriel had completed a degree in engineering by the time she decided to become a nun in her late 20s. Sister Graça, 67, who was born in Portugal, hesitated for years. Sister Eileen, who grew up in Nigeria, had her childhood desire to become one derailed by the death of her parents, meaning she had to take care of her siblings, and arrived at Poor Clares only six years ago at the age of 52. Yet at heart each of them always knew it was where they wanted to be. As Sister Aelred puts it, “it’s something below articulation”.

    Does it concern them that their music – sacred expressions of faith – has been co-opted by many listeners for secular therapeutic purposes? Decca even promoted Light for the World as mindfulness – that icky modern term that can’t help but feel a crass bastardisation of the profound meaning the music has for the sisters who recorded it. “Not at all,” says Sister Aelred. “Someone wrote to say, ‘I don’t believe in God, I still don’t believe in God, but your music has touched something in me that I’ve never experienced before.’ And that’s wonderful. Anyway, even if a person uses our music purely for therapy, who is to put the line where God is at work and where he isn’t?”

    The nuns may live “an unusual life” as Sister Leo puts it, but it’s not entirely without contact with the modern world. On Sundays they listen to music of their choice – Sister Graça is particularly fond of Bob Marley. At mealtimes on Sundays, otherwise conducted in silence, they take it in turn to read out loud a book: Barack Obama’s autobiography was a recent hit. They also watch TV – Bake Off is a favourite. Five of the nuns this time round even went to Abbey Road where the album was mixed to hear it in Dolby Atmos surround sound and posed on the famous road crossing. “It was extraordinary,” says Sister Eileen. “The music was even coming from the ceiling!”

    Yet they are painfully aware that to the average person they are regarded as objects of curiosity. “The fact we are nuns is partly why people buy the album,” says Sister Graça, slightly tartly. “Society has moved on so much that we are no longer a normal part of life,” says Sister Gabriel. “One of the reasons I wanted to do this was to say ‘we’re just ordinary women who’ve given our life to God’. For me, it’s about building a bridge back.”

    But building that bridge can be a struggle. The convent is “top heavy,” as Sister Graça puts it. The youngest nun is 50, the oldest is 96. There have been no new nuns since Sister Eileen arrived in 2018. The sisters have discussed whether removing the habit would make them look more relatable to people considering a life of prayer – the idea was dismissed. “Less and less people opt for the vocational life these days,” says Sister Leo.

    “As old Sister Mary Francis used to say, ‘they comes and they goes, but mostly they goes’.”

    Yet they retain hope. “Our Poor Clare life has been on a journey for 800 years,” says Sister Gabriel. “The Franciscan message will continue. It might take a different form, but it’s still really important to the world.” “Every track on this album is about peace and forgiveness,” adds Sister Aelred. “Blessed are those who forgive. Look at the state the world is in. These are words we need so much.”

    3. Strange choice of name Sister Aelred.

      Aelred is the patron Saint of LGBTs. Aelred, then a Royal Steward, became the target of personal harassment by a knight of the king’s court, (King David of Scotland) which came to a head in the king’s presence and included a degrading sexual slur. He developed feelings of depression and alienation and he left court at age twenty-four to become a monk in 1134 at Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire.

    1. Interesting piece and different viewpoint.
      However, health professionals are not priests. Their job is to try to ensure that the priests are presented with a living body so they can attend to needs of the soul.
      A detail the Church of England forgot during the scamdemic.

      1. Archbishop Welby closed the churches and went on sabbatical. Obviously to pray for us all and not to drink Pimms on the terrace of his villa in the south of France. Oh no.

    2. Morning Tom how are you doing?

      In the last 4 terrible years I’ve found frontline NHS excellent.
      It’s not really easy for a patient to understand if they have actually save their life. Individually we are just one of many millions with health problems. I couldn’t possibly imagine why humans put themselves in such a demanding position. But I for one am glad that they are there.

      1. Sorry, Eddy, with experience of NHS Scotland, I just don’t trust ’em.

  16. Good morning all,

    I’d like to say clear skies overhead McPhee Towers but the chem-trailers were out early today. Wind South-West and unseasonally cool at 10℃ with 13-14℃ the forecast maximum. It’s nearly June! Some rain expected later.

    What happens when you mess around with God’s creation. Will they learn? I doubt it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/06b33074b5a2bfe6049b1dbc3efba35a84273c2391c51428d884b1ade3220f1b.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/26/trans-problems-urinary-bowel-incontinent-young-detransition/

    2. One has to check with the language games. Women pretending to be men. So all things given if it is an argument of presentation what is the need for these biological interventions? Why is this sort of experimentation necessary? Ethically this is not good, as a group it is reasonable to assume they already seem to be a vulnerable set of people.

  17. Guten Morgan:
    Wordle 1,073 4/6

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  18. Under the weather – going back to bed. See you later. Possibly – if spared.

      1. From a seaside village in Valencia, very cloudy looks like rain although not predicted on the website.

        19°C
        Monday Mostly cloudy High: 24°C Low: 18°C

  20. ‘Morning All

    Latest polyticks

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/64c320abb74b89648eefdda36e059135093ab3faaa65b315042b4643964c9021.jpg

    Rest

    Plus ca change Farage/Moslems

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/585219e4082a290ce52e4a56589e588655c59650e8e060a9c252ffe2cc79f1b2.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0bea2e2b9d74c61b8aee3089fc5ec1357e3c6e6a74cc8df4c183c3d8a9fad1c6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ffa1fb93a78f0d4f86dc90c61459ef31d934dea570ac93f253345d3875a2fa11.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ae74d8dec6fb82c0398a4016f613f9fa3a8ee2198e989d737e630ace8338e963.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8e1be0c96fc0df78e70fec4adc06f3f3666c86bea37f98059b16d177a8ff3db7.jpg

    https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=568,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/161/745/337/original/a4d64bf47f18cc87.jpg

    3. Feels like yesterday, but was almost fifty years ago. As the Korean War veterans fade away, there will be obituaries, or at least funeral orations, mentioning Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Does anyone remember the My Canh restaurant bombing?

      1. Just been dipping in and out of a couple of articles I’ve found on it.
        The Viet Cong’s self justification sounded exactly like the IRA.

    4. They will have seen Biden’s Kabul equivalent and assume that’s the reference.

  22. Some of you might remember that I am setting up my own on-line magazine, Free Speech Backlash. I had idiotically thought it could be done in a few days, but of course that’s not the case. My No.2 son is doing all the code-writing from scratch, but can only do it in his spare time. He’s doing a great job and we are almost there.

    This week we (he) will finish enough of the functionality and styling to get the site ready to go live and I will learn how to run/maintain the site. Next week we will run the site as if it was live and iron out any issues and add necessary tweaks. Then, the week after, we will go live. I hope you will come and have a look and support it.

    I am writing articles for it and hope to persuade some of you to contribute your own pieces. There will be articles in politics, conspiracies, book reviews, music, nature and more. For me it is what I can do to preserve our under-attack freedoms and I hope it generates some interest – also for my lad as he’s done a grand job.

    Register your interest by leaving your email address at https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/and you will get a notification when we go live.

    Hope to see you there soon.

        1. You are Vlad Putin and I claim my £5!

          FSB – Russian internal security and counterintelligence service created in 1994 as one of the successor agencies of the Soviet-era …

          2. Good one Stevie lad, though I reckon the other FSB is probably a bit too subtle to use their own initials in a propaganda mag. It could be a double bluff mind. Anyway, come and join us and write your own anti-Russian articles and rave on about how evil Mr Putin is and how the world really needs to get shot of him.

    3. I hope you will ensure it remains very secure as I strongly suspect you might be subject to left wing backlash and cyber attack, as might subscribers.
      Very best of good luck with it.

  23. This made me laugh…

    Accent practice

    SIR – In Salzburg recently, we met a young shop worker with flawless, unaccented English (Letters, May 25). We were surprised to find that she was Austrian. She said she tried hard to get the accent right, as she wanted to sound like a native speaker.

    She asked us to recommend television programmes she could watch to learn regional British accents. We suggested Two Doors Down, so if readers find a shop assistant in Salzburg speaking in a Glaswegian accent, they’ll know why.

    Lynda Cox
    Southampton

  24. A quick heads up on the latest from James Delingpole for those who are not paid subscribers:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fb7ee46e29062e4db32c55ac92f3a469c7817db2997c47e8888a307d2e0ff9c2.png

    Elana Freeland is a writer, teacher, and lecturer who researches classified issues such as geo-engineering, MK-ULTRA, and invasive electromagnetic weapons. A Christian spiritualist she is the authoress of several books, including Under an Ionized Sky, she lives in Olympia, Washington.

    It’s yet another good one. Chem-trails are even worse than you imagine. Don’t miss it when James takes it out from behind his paywall in substack in a couple of weeks’ time.

    1. Corimmobile posted last night re soil testing at Sellafield where they found traces of aluminium oxide. Which should not be there. And it causes alzheimer’s.
      If this is really happening who is behind it, who is giving out these orders? We need to know.

      1. Good morning Eddy,

        Decades ago , experts thought that cheap aluminium saucepans might be responsible for brain decline , as was lead paint and early non stick frying pans .

        We are exposed to more than we think, and shouldn’t we be worried about plastic bottles , chemicals in booze , red wine , white wine , tannin in tea leaves, coffee and everything else ?

        2. Morning TB I remember my good old FiL telling me that about saucepans. He worked in the aircraft industry for Handley Page. As he aged he suffered with severe dementia.
          But had spent 5 years in a POW camp in Poland. We can’t imagine what the nazis fed them on.

  25. Morning all 🙂😊
    Lovely sunny start today. Not sure if it will last as we have a BBQ at number two sons later.
    Young voters 🤔 so far they haven’t had to put up with much from the political classes. A few being trained for, well what for exactly? Won’t be such a bad experience. It might open their minds up to other people experiences instead of living in the fantasy lands of ‘social media’.

      1. I feel I should take my very large golf umbrella ☔ and hold it over number two *-* whilst he does the cooking. *Beer in other hand*. 😊
        Haven’t seen the grandchildren for three weeks.
        Or I can watch…….He’s got a large garden office with a glass sliding door.

        1. Rain or shine the grandchildren will wear you out put a smile on your face.

    2. Damned irresponsible. A barbeque on a bank holiday? Would have thought people might have learned by now.

      1. We are use to the bad weather my family call me Rain Man. It seems our son’s are taking up the challenge number one is on holiday in Southwold and it’s been raining. Number three is in Dubai, he’d only been there a week when the heavens opened.
        We just can’t win.

        1. You’ve got your own personal clouds, it seems. I’m only 25-mins from Southwold, but fortunately live on an imperceptible rise in the ground. Clouds often divide and slip around my place. Now, if you could be a dear and advise your number one, as worthy as I’m sure he is, not to stray too far inland i should be grateful.

          1. When my wife, toddler number one and I were traveling back in land from Gladstone QLD towards Victoria. We parked our LWB land-rover and caravan over night. There were water tankers on the main street, it hadn’t rained there for three years…guess what.

  26. This made me laugh part two…

    Trans men ‘becoming postmenopausal’ in their 20s

    Study found many had bladder and bowel symptoms they would expect to see in a woman after the menopause.

    Transgender men are suffering from “postmenopausal” problems like incontinence in their 20s because of taking testosterone, a study has revealed.

    Experts analysed 68 transgender men who were taking the cross-sex hormone to change their identity from female to male and found that 95 per cent had developed pelvic floor dysfunction.

    The participants, who were as young as 18 and had an average age of 28, had bladder and bowel symptoms that medics would expect to see in a woman after the menopause.

    Experts said the impact of the sex-changing drugs on bodily functions are under-researched and under-reported, with people “not being informed of the risks at gender clinics”.

    Around 87 per cent of the participants had urinary symptoms such as incontinence, frequent toilet visits and bed-wetting, while 74 per cent had bowel issues including constipation or being unable to hold stools or wind in. Some 53 per cent suffered from sexual dysfunction.

    The researchers said the rate of urinary incontinence, where urine unintentionally leaks, was around three times higher in transgender men than women, affecting around one in four compared to eight per cent of the general female population.

    Other trans men suffered from frequent urinating including during the night, burning sensations, hesitancy, urgency and difficulty in going, while others had issues defecating.

    Almost half had an “orgasm disorder”, while a quarter suffered from pain during sexual intercourse.
    Elaine Miller has been working with detransitioners seeking help for pelvic floor issues
    Elaine Miller has been working with detransitioners seeking help for pelvic floor issues Credit: Chris Watt/Chris Watt

    Experts warned that the drugs were putting young people on “exactly the same trajectory” as those going through the menopause. A third of the participants in the study were students.

    Elaine Miller, a pelvic health physiotherapist and member of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said: “A lot of women are absolutely fine until the menopause and then they start to get leaky. That appears to be exactly the same trajectory for female people who take cross-sex hormones, but there hasn’t been much in the way of research.”

    She said she had worked with around 20 detransitioners who sought help for pelvic floor issues – and many more from around the world had been in touch – but that there was a “stigma” around incontinence and that people were “embarrassed” and minimised the issue.

    “Wetting yourself is something that just is not socially acceptable, and it stops people from exercising, it stops them from having intimate relationships, it stops them from travelling, it has work impacts,” she said.

    “The impact a bit of leaking has on these young people’s lives is huge. It really needs to be properly discussed within gender clinics because I would expect that almost 100 per cent of female people that take cross-sex hormones will end up with these problems,” she added, noting that the study was “robust” and probably underplayed the issue.

    “It’s really sad when we hear people say, ‘nobody ever told me this’, and they should have been informed of the risks in gender clinics.”

    The menopause causes a loss of muscle mass and body strength, which affects the pelvic floor and can cause incontinence.

    Women who start the menopause early or prematurely, under the age of 45, should be offered Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) on the NHS because the oestrogen can help prevent the onset of conditions such as coronary heart disease, osteoporosis and dementia.

    Taking testosterone may accelerate the menopausal process because it stops the ovaries from functioning and reduces the amount of oestrogen the body produces.

    Testosterone is also known to affect muscle mass and hair loss, and has been linked to blood clots and gallstones, but there has been little research into pelvic floor issues and incontinence.

    Ms Miller said the treatment for trans men was “the same as with any other postmenopausal female, which seems kind of ludicrous when you’re talking about people that are in their early 20s”.

    “It’s making sure they are not constipated, getting them into a routine where they are not dehydrating themselves because they’re worried about having an accident. A lot of it is about bladder and bowel education about what is normal, and doing pelvic floor exercises, which can make a big difference,” she added.

    Kate Barker, chief executive at the LGB Alliance, said the group had “consistently spoken out about the damage done by these experimental surgeries, the overwhelming majority of which are carried out on LGB [lesbian, gay and bisexual] people”.

    “Our annual conference has heard testimony from detransitioners who live every day with the consequences of actions they took when they were very young – sometimes in their teens – including permanent sterilisation and loss of sexual function,” she said. “This has finally been officially confirmed by the Cass Review.”

    The Cass Review saw the NHS stop prescribing puberty blockers outside of clinical trials and a pause to cross-sex hormones being given to under 18s. It called for more care to be given in the treatment of under 25s and the health service is reviewing adult clinics as a result.

    The authors of the study, led by Lyvia Maria Bezerra da Silva at the Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil, said the findings “showed a high frequency of at least one of the pelvic floor dysfunction symptoms” and that more research into the impact of testosterone was needed because the “long-term effects are still unknown”.

    The research was published in the International Urogynecology Journal.

    1. “detransitioners” – so, being a bloke after all isn’t as good as it’s cracked up to be, then? Hooda thunkit?

      1. I am at a total loss to understand what these young women believe will be the consequence of their so-called transitioning to men. They are perfectly at liberty to sport a short hair cut and to wear conventionally male type attire rather than a sweetheart neckline and mini skirt – many women do and not only lesbians. It seems they feel like they are really men but what does that mean? They are hardly ‘lads’ and the current state of prosthetic surgery doesn’t suggest to me that they will pass as normal men in the bedroom department. They are not going to get a call up from Steve Borthwick or Brendan McCullum, so the trans-women in sport debacle has no parallel for trans-men. Maybe they want a mastectomy if they are well endowed so they look more boyish but, other than that do they really think that a bit more facial hair is worth taking loads of drugs for?
        I am left to conclude that they are unhappy (as many adolescents are) and have fallen prey to sinister ‘influencers’.

    2. They’re destroying their bodies. There’s a surprise…not! Frankly if they do it as adults, as a matter of choice and in pursuit of their sexual fantasies, I don’t care if it kills them. Children, however, must be protected because by no stretch of the imagination have they made a choice, informed or otherwise.

      1. I don’t care either if they make those choices as adults but why is the tax payer paying for it?

        1. Oh absolutely. Medically unnecessary lifestyle treatments should never be provided at public expense.

        2. Equally, why is the tax payer paying for lots of things. We need politicians unafraid to make a few hard choices that just for once aren’t based upon mawkish sentiment.

    3. Millions, if not billions, of pounds of taxpayer’s money being wasted on LGBT transition drugs and operations, only for it to fail, then billions more spent on the effects of the initial treatment. They should not be indoctrinated, encouraged and assisted at the expense of ‘normal’ people. If they want to change what God and nature has given them they should pay for it themselves.

    4. Hmm, I’m tempted to say let them have their heart’s desire. Protecting people from their own bad choices is somewhat above my pay grade.

      Under-18s, yes stop them participating as they’re barely more than kids, but then I wouldn’t be letting them vote or drive, either. After that? Having taken a decision to follow fashion based upon some vague metaphysical ideal? Be my guest. Should help the nappy industry, at least.

    5. “It’s really sad when we hear people say, ‘nobody ever told me this’, and they should have been informed of the risks in gender clinics.”

      Would that have stopped you? Answers on a postcard.

  27. Well fellow Nottlers in a world that is going to the dogs I am having a hard time finding something to write about. The election is a farce. National Service? I wait ten minutes and it soon morphs into nothing of the kind. Plus of course we all know Rishi is not going to win anyway, and even if he did, it would die within six months.

    We are here at the end of Democracy in the UK but no one in the MSM is going to admit to that.

    My main concern at the moment is Ukraine. I’m pretty sure that the PTB have decided to go the whole hog and try to defeat Russia by whatever means are necessary. I of course want Vlad to win. Paradoxically, only that way, is there a possibility of something of western christian civilisation surviving. The rest is lost!

    1. Sunak is playing out the globalists’ plan and anything he appears to conjure up will have been concocted with malevolence: conscription is one item from their bag of dirty tricks.

      Imagine a scenario where the British military is sent to Ukraine and the UK is denuded of internal protection. Now take the second step and recall that thousands of young illegals are sitting around doing nothing, except of course, absorbing our resources. Conscript these men for training and the government will have given them a level of legitimacy that currently they do not have. Deploy these men to do whatever the government decides.

      Fanciful? The idea that these men are UN soldiers has been floated but there is always the chance that the people will see through that scam. However, give them a British uniform and government approved legitimacy…

      Removes aluminium foil headgear!😎

    2. From John Redwood’s Diaries:

      The problem is the present age is cursed with some experts especially in economics and government who keep getting it wrong yet they still expect the rest of us to accept their verdicts however damaging or daft they may be.

      Lord Mandelson summed up the direction of travel when he talked about transition to a post democratic age. Modern governments try to give away their powers and responsibilities to international and national so called independent bodies full of alleged experts. They seek to prevent elected governments changing things by locking future governments into the system by binding International treaties. For years our budgets and economic policy were first dictated by the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and then by the Maastricht debt and deficit requirements. Our energy policy is governed by Climate Change Treaties.

      1. Morning Richard. Democracy is essentially dead in the West. What we see is a pantomime covered with a farrago of lies and deception.

      2. Morning Richard. Democracy is essentially dead in the West. What we see is a pantomime covered with a farrago of lies and deception.

    3. Kneelalot and Sooonak are merely treading water, trying to make some sort of sound that’ll get them noticed. Each knows the other has no intention of sticking to anything they promise in the next few weeks, in any case. It’s just a safe poseurs’ game to them in which it doesn’t much matter what anyone thinks.

  29. Good morning, all. Blue patches amongst the cloud and breezy. Dry at the moment with showers forecast for later.

    After more than a century the USA is about to have a memorial in Washington DC to commemorate WWI. The USA lost around 116,000 military personnel in the conflict, a small number when compared to European nations’ losses but horrific nevertheless.

    The memorial has been under construction since 2019 and when completed will be 60′ long and weigh 25 tons. It is currently in a foundry in the UK where it is being cast in bronze. After being shipped back to the USA it will be re-assembled for unveiling in September on General Pershing’s birthday.

    The artistic work is outstanding and the sculptor talks to Steve Bannon on the War Room about the journey to have this memorial commissioned and created.

    War Room – Memorial to WWI

    Oddly, today on an ‘X’ thread I came across this, it’s in total contrast to the above. It is Memorial Weekend in the USA, perhaps this event prompted Kerik and Dunlap to remind the citizens of the USA of the abomination of celebrating the life and death of a serial criminal.

    A country divided?

    https://x.com/wdunlap/status/1794487219450687541

  31. World-class soprano, Erika Baikoff, 25, denied right to settle in the UK
    She has spent too much time on tour, rules Home Office, despite her global talent visa
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/soprano-world-class-global-talent-english-national-opera/

    BTL
    UK Immigration Policy :
    Keep out the best; get swamped by the worst.
    Do not welcome Christians or Jews

    and the main reason they want to keep her out is that she is white. Three other things against her: she is of Russian/American descent; she has an M.Mus. from the Guildhall in London (where my late sister studied the viola 60 years ago before getting married!); and she is very good looking.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7854d0c16ecf5e602f105e1a26521451c43b5d03df34231563c79066e2f22a5d.png

    1. Pity.
      Erika Baik off
      Perhaps she could start a programme and call it Master Clef…..?

    4. 40% of the London Civil Service are from ethnic minorities. Your comment does make me wonder.

  32. 387770+up ticks,

    You really do need this as much as you need Dysentery, take that thought into the polling stations, if lib/lab/con coalition then reflect on your kiss of consent, and stop giving ALL the innocents the shits.
    Ogga1.

    i dowding 🌸🚜 ☮️
    @LeilaniDowding
    ·
    3h
    Woodburn Rd Sheffield. 22 injured. 10 remain in hospital. 2 fighting for their life… Great use of the NHS… video
    @TRobinsonNewEra

    https://x.com/Bamablue1492/status/1794964117867925653

        1. Yes very good as usual, we spoke to our number three in Dubai his fiancee was with us. Although we were sitting around a table under a large umbrella it rained a couple of times. But we didn’t have to go inside. The grandchildren were good as well. First birthday for our youngest in a few weeks time.
          Our middle son was once an assistant chef at Gleneagles Hotel.

          2. Oh yes. I stayed over for one night with his younger brother, we drove up to collect him after his six month probation was over. I’ve never seen breakfast spread like it. I had eggs benedict.

  35. Morning all. It’s getting pretty dark outside was sunny but now it looks like buckets are about to come chucking down. So light switched on.
    News is pretty boring today. Only thing that caught my eye in the Telegraph was the suggestion that his election is bad for Cameron. May be so, but that is good for us, surely.

    2. Soon to become ex-Foreign Secretary, to add to his ex-Prime Minister status.

  36. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    The logic of national service
    Comments Share 27 May 2024, 6:00am
    It would be hard to argue that the Conservatives have had a flawless start to the 2024 general election campaign. Rishi Sunak’s rain-drenched Downing Street announcement, the removal of a Sky News journalist from a media event, the symbolism of an inexplicable prime ministerial visit to Belfast’s Titanic Quarter – almost every move so far has required immediate damage control. The unveiling of a plan to introduce some kind of compulsory national service seems at first glance like another hasty gambit which has created its own ecosystem of problems.

    The idea that it is an unacceptable curtailment of personal liberty is hard to sustain
    ‘Bring back national service!’ is a well-worn conservative trope. The feeling that we have lost a sense of community and mutual responsibility, and that younger people need to have discipline and self-sacrifice instilled in them, comes together with anxiety about recruitment to the armed forces and parlously inadequate personnel levels. Taking school leavers and making them ‘give something back’ before they embark on their proper adult lives seems a neat solution.

    The social media reaction to Sunak’s announcement has been, naturally enough, eye-blink rapid, vehement and simplistic. The opposition to the idea focuses on three principal arguments: that this is a nostalgic, reactionary instinct with no underlying logic; that it represents, or at least betrays, a deep disdain for young voters; and that it is an outrageous imposition on individual liberty.

    We need to be clear, first of all, exactly what is being proposed. In the past, ‘national service’ meant mandatory conscription of 17- to 21-year-olds into the armed forces for a period of up to two years. This was abolished in the 1960s, with call-up formally ended on 31 December 1960. The last conscripted servicemen were discharged in May 1963. Those who experienced national service are now therefore well into their 80s.

    Most popular
    Zoe Strimpel
    Bridgerton’s big fantasy

    The prime minister’s proposal is more sophisticated than that. He has pledged to appoint a royal commission to advise on a scheme encompassing 30,000 full-time placements in the armed forces, complemented by an option to volunteer one weekend a month to undertake community service, working with organisations like the NHS, the police and the fire service. Sunak hopes this will help young people develop ‘real world skills, do new things and contribute to their community and our country’.

    It is not a bolt from the blue in policy terms. In January, the chief of the General Staff, General Sir Patrick Sanders, warned that the UK would have to approach defence as ‘a whole-of-nation undertaking’, and hinted at more universal involvement in the armed forces. ‘Ukraine brutally illustrates that regular armies start wars; citizen armies win them.’ Sanders stopped short of advocating a return to conscription, and the government was until recently consistent in saying that the armed forces would remain volunteer-based.

    We are not talking about a simple return to national service. There is a defensible logic in trying to harness the willingness of people to undertake duties for the common good which was demonstrated during the Covid-19 pandemic and is reflected in the fact that 13 million Britons volunteer regularly. Making a spontaneous instinct into a systematic programme is one of the abiding challenges of government, and there is no doubt that a shift from a voluntary to an enforced action can change its moral character.

    The Conservatives are open to the charge that this policy appeals to older voters while placing a burden on younger ones. A cynic could argue that it is an appeal to the party’s electoral base, reassuring an older demographic which might be tempted by Reform UK in the knowledge that very few young people currently vote Conservative anyway.

    The idea that it is an unacceptable curtailment of personal liberty is hard to sustain. While the United Kingdom has traditionally relied on a volunteer military, only enforcing conscription from 1916 to 1920 and 1939 to 1960, mandatory military service is very common. In Europe alone it exists in Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, hardly a roll call of brutal autocracies. The United States ended the draft in 1973 but men aged between 18 and 25 are still required to register with the Selective Service System.

    If Sunak’s idea were to be implemented, the important questions would be of effectiveness and fairness. The Home Secretary, James Cleverly, told Sky News ‘There’s going to be no criminal sanction – here’s no one going to jail over this,’ so any means of enforcement remains uncertain. Nor is it clear that the injection of 30,000 conscripts would solve the armed forces’ personnel challenges.

    There is merit in a scheme which would, as Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons, framed it, ‘give every young person the chance to serve, and reap the rewards to doing so’. David Cameron launched the National Citizen Service in 2011 as part of his ambition to create a ‘Big Society’. Many of our strategic allies have some kind of systematic contribution to national welfare and resilience.

    On the other hand, sound policy rarely emerges in the heat of a general election campaign. The government claims it would fund the new scheme from reducing tax avoidance and using the UK Shared Prosperity Fund; the opposition counters that it is a £2.5 billion ‘gimmick, where the sums don’t add up’. Ultimately, this is a complex issue of resilience and cohesion, raised by a government most expect to be defeated, aired at a time of sharp partisan clash and oversimplified debate. It is unlikely to see the light of day in this form – but we may not have heard the last of the idea.

    1. Soundbite politics. Sunak is trying to come across as all trad Con stained with the finest blue. Meanwhile careful to point out he doesn’t really mean it. It’s pathetic.

      Logistically the services are now too small to handle a big influx, since the training programme would be extraordinary. At least Putin was very clear that his recruitment required no training, since all applicants were mere cannon fodder. Ill judged nonsense this one.

      1. Good morning JG and everyone. That is the greatest danger for the Con party; too much Sunak. And he was wrong to have had David Cameron ennobled; he was kicking sand in the face of 99% of Tory MPs.

        PS are you linked to Brookes & Gatehouse?

        1. Morning tim, no relation. And yes, far too much Sunak. Too much Hunt, Cameron and all the other Wets too. No end to misuse of the honours system, of course. I give you “SIR” Anthony Bliar. My case rests.

          So far Sunak has tried to ambush Reform with a snap election and paint himself in as a traditional blue with his latest back of the cigarette packet wheeze involving conscription in order to tempt proper Conservatives to return. Trouble is, he doesn’t seem to have heard that little boy in the crowd shouting, not “he’s got no clothes on” but more like, “but he’s just a managerialist suit”.

    2. There should be a referendum on whether National Service should make a return, with only 16, 17 and 18 year olds eligible to vote in it.

        1. Some youngsters would vote in favour. I remember when I was at school there were lads in favour of compulsory military service. But not if I recall were they in a majority.

          1. They would indeed, yes. Things are not straightforward when it comes to this one.

      1. It isn’t ‘tacky’. It’s a typical Byzantine church interior. The Hagia Sophia would have looked much the same and the Russian Cathedrals are also lavishly decorated in the ancient tradition of Christianity. It isn’t bloodless like a Western Church which conveys the sentiment, to my mind at any rate, that they are only half convinced in a very lukewarm way about the Truth of the Christian tradition.

        1. One of my fellow servers at St Barts is a lecturer in medieval history who believes that when it was built, in the twelfth century, the interior would have been very much more colourful and lavishly decorated than it is now. A former assistant priest also told that me that the monks would have lit the place up with a huge number of candles.

          1. Yes. I think most people don’t realize that the spartan look of most British churches and cathedrals look the way they do because of Henry 8 and the puritans who took particular delight in the drab and dreary. I remember reading that the tomb of St Thomas in Canterbury was, in its time, the most spectacular memorial in the whole of Europe. I think it would be a very good thing if churches revived the tradition of decorating the interiors of churches. It would, perhaps, revive church attendance, so going into an English church didn’t feel like going into a crypt but a place to praise the Trinity and thus life!

          2. Nicholas Hawksmoor designed a magnificent baldacchino for Canterbury but somewhere in history it was lost and is nowhere to be found.

          4. Well, that’s my earworm for the day sorted. Wagner’s ‘Im Treibhaus’, which begins “Hochgewölbte Blätterkronen,
            Baldachine von Smaragd”.

            (I had to look up what a baldacchino was when I learned this gorgeous music. 🙂)

            Thank you!

          5. The Puritans whitewashed a lot of otherwise highly decorated churches. Some of them have had their murals at least partly restored.

          4. “The grave’s a fine and private place,
            But none, I think, do there embrace….”

        4. Westminster Cathedral would have been lined with sumptuous marble and gold mosaic but the money ran out.

          Half of the marble was sold to Norwich Union Fire Assurance and was used on their headquarters building in Surrey Street in Norwich. The ground floor is known as the Marble Hall and is replete with Freemasonic symbols in Lapis Lazuli. The clasped hands (dating from the Clasped Hands Insurance Society of the early C18) can be seen above the entrance.

          Edit: The effect of the unclad upper walls and absence of mosaic leaving sight of the magnificent brick vaulting does not in my view diminish its grandeur yet reinforces it.

  39. Our tumble dryer gave up the ghost last week , we visited Curry’s and JL and Argos on line .. nothing available , and the Curry’s store .

    Revisited the https://ao.com/ site where we bought our dishwasher a few months ago .

    Ordered our new dryer last night , delivered this morning … here now .. all the way from Exeter , and they removed the wrapping etc

    Brilliant service , we are delighted .

    2. Never owned a tumble-dryer. In decent weather I use the sun, wind and a good clothes line. In inclement weather I use a clothes horse.

      1. We have a mezzanine above the woodburning stove in our sitting room so Caroline puts the wet washing on racks it when it cannot be put on the line outside.

      3. When you have had a close look at the detritus in the tumble dryer filter/screen, suddenly a dryer is no longer an extravagance. But clothes line drying helps to keep the electricity bill in check.

      4. There’s three of us here , no 1 son is an industrial electrician , I need to do a wash every day , the weather has been wet , we haven’t had our heating on now for a few weeks .

        I love my clothes line , the wind blows the clothes dry , but when the weather is dank and horrid I use my dryer .

    3. A couple of years ago my i-phone was acting up.
      Trip to retail park, went into Currys, it now includes Carphone Warehouse which was a separate unit for years.
      Cheapest i-phone SE and not fussy about the colour – none in stock – we can order it and it will be here tomorrow afternoon.
      I went home, ordered from John Lewis, £20 cheaper and arrived around mid-morning the following day.

      18 months ago washing machine failed – 12 year old and first problem. Currys had a competitive price, yet again no stock at “local ish” stores. AO delivery within 24 hours IIRC about £30 /£40 less.

      Currys complain business /profitability is hard – easy answer have the popular lines in the stockroom.

      Currys are only here as Comet beat them in the race to going bust

  40. Too much interference on my radio so listening to Radio 3 through the tv. Thought of doing it before but not tried it. Nice having the music details on screen but the sound is mono. Better through the speakers connected to the radio when the sound is clear but too irritating when it’s crackling.

    2. They took Radio 3 off our local transmitter and replaced it with Radio Wales.

        1. Only review I can find, Sue, is this from 2018 ‘The content of the morning news is poor, not enough news stories, Radio Four Today it is not. Puffs from quangoes pretending to be news stories ..’ Maybe a good thing not to be like R4? Maybe it’s better now? Guessing you can find it through the dreaded Beeb website….aaaarghhh…

  43. That would solve the problem but requires that I buy a new device. Just working with what I have!

    1. I picked one up from Asda for £28-, portable battery operated or mains plus USB connection to sit alongside our ancient mains DAB which cannot now receive a lot of the new DAB+ channels. It sounds a bit like a 1970s portable but I’m getting fed up of some of the little scams involving the airwaves. Another of Bliar’s little scams was selling off the FM wavelengths and claiming they weren’t needed because DAB is better, etc.

      1. Possibly. I’ll dig out the manual and investigate. I’m adjusting to the mono sound. At least it’s clear of extraneous noise.

    1. Very silly headlines. Royals have always revelled in the military. What’s newsworthy about this?
      Anyway Sunak is not even going to get close to winning the election.

      1. Didn’t the whole concept of a princely class originate from the need for leadership on the battlefield.

  45. Nicked

    The good news is that the election campaign is an opportunity to air

    and debate the big issues of the day: immigration, the WHO treaty and

    IHR changes, CBDCs, Net Zero, Agenda 2030, the Ukraine war and where the

    parties went wrong during the scamdemic.

    /sarcInstead we

    get bs manufactured announcements about things that will never happen

    and the MSM dutifully manipulate the laser pointer for the pleb

    ‘Bout Right

    Meanwhile……….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/02f44fa3853776b0fd1e79af9560d9ec80035f60303df445c940604df0b64e3b.png

  47. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    What kind of city dweller complains about noise?
    It’s joyful hearing others having fun

    Comments Share 27 May 2024, 5:01am
    I’m a highly insensitive person, which means that I’m rarely perturbed by aural excitement. I love public noise, the sound of the crowd. I would never want double-glazed windows – and I even like the sound of drills and construction because I enjoy living in a boomtown where lots of people want to be. The only noise I don’t like is that of children screeching in restaurants, pubs and bars, but that’s because I don’t believe they should be there in the first place; I love noisy adults in restaurants, having the time of their lives. Little dogs barking in these places I don’t mind – but not big ones as they look like they’re showing off. I like quiet in libraries – and that’s about it.

    There certainly seems to be a lot more complaints about noisy fun that there used to be
    I especially like public music, whether blaring in cars or murmuring in elevators, but especially by water; house music by swimming pools, indie music from transistors on the shore, chill-out music in beach bars. When lockdown eased in June 2020, I was mystified as to why the Brighton seafront watering holes were silent; all became clear when government guidance on the longed-for reopening of places of libation instructed that they should ‘prevent entertainment likely to encourage audience behaviours increasing transmission risk… for example, loud background music, communal dancing, group singing or chanting.’ A bar without music? It’s like that sad old song ‘A Pub With No Beer’.

    I love heritage pop in shops; sometimes I stand back in queues to let people go in front of me so I can linger longer, listening. During lockdown shops were the last refuges of public music. At the height of the pandemic panic I was standing in a freshly-disinfected mini-mart when ‘West End Girls’ started playing and instantly I was right back there in the sexy-greedy 1980s, running with my gang in Wild West Wonderland, all of us so innocently avaricious. I’m not an emotional person, but when I am moved, it’s generally by pop songs, and to affect me they have to be on the radio, not actively pursued, taking me back to the 1960s when I was a shy provincial child still staggering under the first blow of benediction by black music, all day long lapping up great creamy earfuls of it on wonderful Radio 1. I found music sad in lockdown; perhaps because we first come to love it as adolescents, it seemed like a grotesque echo of being bored teenagers, grounded and longing to get away; pop music represented the freedom we took for granted in the past.

    Did Covid make people with miserabilist tendencies more miserable? There certainly seems to be a lot more complaints about noisy fun that there used to be, especially when it comes to pubs. One of my locals – the Paris House in Hove – recently won a long and unnecessary wrangle which started when residents of four nearby properties complained to the council about loud jazz music late at night. You’d think that a pub being noisy in the evenings might not exactly be a revelation; the Paris has been there for as long as I can remember and these neighbours have lived nearby for upwards of 12 years, yet only now they’re complaining that the sound is keeping them from their nightly rendezvous with Morpheus. Which I must say is the first time I’ve ever heard of jazz keeping people awake before.

    Most popular
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    Bridgerton’s big fantasy

    Luckily, the panel who judged the case saw sense, concluding that ‘the area itself is a busy, vibrant city centre location with many other licensed and retail premises and thus a level of noise is inevitable’ and remarking that ‘there are many representations from residents who live closer to the premises than the applicants who are not disturbed by noise from the premises – including those who live immediately next door.’ Could it be that the people who choose to live closest to a pub are cheerful grown-ups while the complainants are glum and infantilised types who expect people In authority to fix every last one of their own errors of judgement?

    The Soho Society aren’t keen on noise either; yes, Soho, whose very name derived from a hunting cry in the 17th century, became a thriving restaurant and music hall sector in the 19th century and has been a busy hub of nightlife ever since, The Soho Society was founded in 1970 and campaigned against the domination of the area by sex shops, gaining conservation status for the district and helping to make it what it is today; a part of London which actually feels like one imagined London would feel when one was a provincial child. If I had to live in London again, I’d live there. But having been wrenched from my beloved Brighton to the fleshpots of W1D, I certainly wouldn’t spend my time involving myself in a preservation society which gets aerated about noise, to the extent that they objected to a restaurant retracting windows in the summertime because of possible chatter from excitable diners.

    Though I’m hardly a raving Europhile, I find few things more heartening than a packed city street filled with alfresco diners enjoying the rare sunshine; with the pandemic, many restaurants were saved from bankruptcy by moving operations outside. But even something both so pleasurable and practical as dining under the stars is problematic for the Soho Society, as the Guardian reported: ‘In Soho, the centre of London’s nightlife, residents say alfresco dining and drinking has disrupted access and created intolerable noise. People who have lived there for decades are considering leaving, according to the Soho Society.’ Off they trot, then, preferably to a place which has not been synonymous with noisy fun across three centuries. And now an ice cream van has been threatened with legal action for its ‘too noisy’ chimes, according to the Daily Mail:

    John Barton, 33, who runs Harrison’s Ices, based in Lincolnshire, was left stunned when he received a council letter saying they had got complaints about his jingles. East Lindsey District Council said there had been reports of ‘undue noise’ caused by the ‘misuse/overuse of the chimes’ from his bright pink and white van. The letter warned him they had a duty to investigate the complaint and he could face possible prosecution at court under the Control of Pollution Act 1974. The council wrote: ‘It is alleged that when the weather is nice the van is in the area nearly every evening from between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. It has been alleged the chimes are overly loud and are used excessively between the above times.

    Understandably, Mr Barton retorted ‘I have come across some weird things in my time and I have to say this is one of the weirdest. The letter basically told us someone had complained that we play our chimes too loud and are claiming we are breaking the law. They’re not too loud, I can barely hear it in my van – it’s 12 second of music! In the middle of the summer season, you don’t expect to get that sort of complaint – someone has got too much time on their hands.’ On Facebook, he exasperatedly elaborated: ‘What has the world come to when you have people complaining about an ice cream at 6 p.m.? If this is you – get a life.’ Lockdown engendered some sad souls who came to fetishise isolation and masking and having stuff brought to them by silent muzzled servants, returned to the pre-birth state of safety like tiny madmen in their padded cells. But we shouldn’t be pandering to these oddities. Why make a silly fuss about a bit of noise on the way to the grave?

    1. As long as the DFLs keep their complaints in the city then I’m happy. It’s when they move into their idyllic retirements then start upstarting about the noises emitted by farm vehicles, cockerels, bells and turkey farms that I draw the line over their complaining.

    2. I live in the country because I can’t stand the racket in towns and cities.

    1. I suspect Douglas Macgregor would counter that by arguing that American military strength is a fraction of what it was when he fought in Iraq. I’ve heard him in interviews saying that, albeit in a different context.

    2. I hardly think the Americans needed to tell the Russians this self evident nugget. I suppose it does, if true, change things slightly in that once upon a time full nuclear escalation would have been the inevitable result. The Pole is playing politics methinks…

    2. Jo Nova publishes some interesting stuff. Around mid-2020 I read an article about some virologists who had analysed the structure of SARS-CoV-2 and noticed that some of the cleavage sites in the genome could never have been produced by the natural process of evolution – therefore the virus must have been genetically-engineered in a lab, with the one in Wuhan being the obvious source. For the following two years or more the lab-leak story was resoundingly poo-pooed in the MSM as a conspiracy theory, but the molecular evidence was there to confirm it from the start.

    1. Good morning Anne

      The ghost of all our fathers call for us to avenge the politicians’ murder of our country. The have done more with the Covid scams and environmental scams than Claudie (Rex Usurpus) could ever have achieved with just a phial of aural poison.

  54. S.S. Colonial.

    Complement:
    100 (0 dead and 100 survivors).
    3,500 tons of general cargo

    At 01.01 hours on 27th May 1941 the Colonial (Master Joseph Devereaux), dispersed from convoy OB-318, was hit by one torpedo from U-107 (Günter Hessler) and sank after a coup de grâce at 01.46 hours about 200 miles west-northwest of Freetown. The master, convoy commodore (Rear Admiral W.B. Mackenzie, RN), 88 crew members, six naval staff members and four gunners were picked up by the British target ship HMS Centurion (I 50) (LtCdr R.W. Wainwright) and landed at Freetown.

    Type IXB U-Boat U-107 was sunk on 18th August 1944 in the Bay of Biscay south-west of St. Nazaire by depth charges from a British Sunderland aircraft (201 Sqn RAF). 58 dead (all hands lost).

    https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/br/colonial.jpg

    1. This reminds me of a comment that I read BTL of an article in the Times, and took a copy of because it was so good.

      An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Corbyn’s vision of socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

      The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Corbyn’s ideological plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for £’s ) something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

      After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

      To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

      It could not be any simpler than that.

      There are five morals to this story:
      1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
      2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
      3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
      4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
      5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

      Originally posted by ‘S Norris’ on: https: //www. thetimes. co. uk

  57. I think our ruling elite need to fix things at home before they shove our young off to sort out problems overseas. In fact, the chaos on our home shores likely adds to the various conflicts overseas. We hardly project strength to even control immigration. The influence and respect we once had has gone so it will fuel those overseas who look to new more self-serving ethics. Our politicians cannot even run our own country, never mind being in charge of our young people’s lives.

  58. I think our ruling elite need to fix things at home before they shove our young off to sort out problems overseas. In fact, the chaos on our home shores likely adds to the various conflicts overseas. We hardly project strength to even control immigration. The influence and respect we once had has gone so it will fuel those overseas who look to new more self-serving ethics. Our politicians cannot even run our own country, never mind being in charge of our young people’s lives.

    1. Ah! Is that why a couple of convoys of bikers have gone down the Via Gellia!

          4. And how are you going to preen those feathers without a beak and a preen gland?

    1. How deluded and stupid and brainwashed can you get? Has she ever questioned, or fact checked anything in her useless life?

    1. 41 climate crises alerts in just 57 years. You would think they would have found something real to worry about.

  65. 387770+ up ticks,

    Monday 27 May: Young voters will have their say on the PM’s plan for National Service

    On the phone no doubt.

  66. Sky Arts Freesat Ch 147 at 7 o’clock this evening

    OKLAHOMA

    Here’s a Tasty Taster

    https://www.google.com/search?q=i%27m+just+a+girl+who+can%27t+say+no+oKLAHOMA+FILM&sca_esv=8870e14de2d74e2a&ei=sYBUZvS0K-eqkdUP2sWy8Ak&ved=0ahUKEwi00d7F7q2GAxVnVaQEHdqiDJ4Q4dUDCBA&oq=i%27m+just+a+girl+who+can%27t+say+no+oKLAHOMA+FILM&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiLmknbSBqdXN0IGEgZ2lybCB3aG8gY2FuJ3Qgc2F5IG5vIG9LTEFIT01BIEZJTE0yBRAhGKABMgUQIRigATIFECEYoAFIzmZQmAxYqEdwAXgBkAEAmAGdAqABmxCqAQYwLjEwLjK4AQzIAQD4AQGYAg2gAu8RwgIKEAAYsAMY1gQYR8ICDRAAGIAEGLADGEMYigXCAg4QABiwAxjkAhjWBNgBAcICExAuGIAEGLADGEMYyAMYigXYAQLCAgUQABiABMICCxAAGIAEGJECGIoFwgIIEC4YgAQY1ALCAgYQABgWGB7CAgsQABiABBiGAxiKBcICCBAAGIAEGKIEwgIIEAAYogQYiQWYAwCIBgGQBg-6BgYIARABGAm6BgYIAhABGAiSBwgxLjEwLjEuMaAHo2s&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:2c3ea8ae,vid:aExjjv2Klrs,st:0

  67. About to rain – and, boy, it’s cold. Thanks, global boiling. Thank goodness – yet again – for the stove.

        1. Oh absolutely. Starmer will be new kid on the block.
          Pre trained, broederbond style…

      2. He’s already booked the plane tickets for himself and his family to go to the USA and he has made sure that his Green Card is still current. US Nationality will be a mere formality and the forms have already been filled in.

        1. And all done while Biden is definitely still in the White House. Just in case.

    2. Silly tart, at 18 years old they’re adults and not their parents’ responsibility.

    3. They can’t have it both ways – either people are adult at 18 and they are responsible for their actions so their parents are not responsible; or they are not adults and should not have the vote until they are at 21.

      1. Depends, dunnit. If they want to be castrated, they’re adults at four. If they want to vote, they’re adults at sixteen. If they want to come in illegally via rubber boat and be armed, they’re children at thirty five.

      3. This reminds me of how countries in the old eastern block worked. I had a Polish friend who had left Poland illegally, married a Spanish girl and had settled in Spain. His mother and family back in Poland were held responsible although he was over thirty.

    4. The kids will be legally adults and outwith parental control. Good luck with that one.

  70. 387770 + up ticks,

    Not to hard to see if one dare look, betwixt them the political lab/lib/con coalition party top rankers,current members / voters
    have successfully turned old mum into a whore,
    “Mother of the free” can no longer be applied.

    She is sitting on assets while screwing the clients she is supposedly serving, take shale gas for instance in the near future
    the only ones getting gas bill relief are those, especially politico’s, who have money mills already on their land and show willing to have a shower block additive.

    1. There is a reference in the Bible to the virtuous woman whose price is above rubies. However it does not tell us what Ruby’s price is!

    1. The article is on a “trans woman”;(i.e. man) Five comments only on Press Reader (beneath a photo of the man in a dress); including mine: “ Men cancelling women. Is this supposed to be progress? Where are all the women winning “best men” categories?”

      For those without access to the Terriblegraph: it is about a man in a dress being presented with an award at a film ceremony, the award being given to all the women in the film.

      Quote from the article: “ During an emotional acceptance speech, a tearful Gascon said: “To every trans person suffering every f——day with hate. With hatred … they denigrate us… this is for you.”

      Gascon also attempted to pre-empt any negative backlash to the choice of a trans performer, urging potential “terrible” critics of the decision to “change you b——-”.”

      Can i just say. As a woman. These men pretending to be women do not speak for me. They do not represent me. By all means, live your parody-faux woman life, as you imagine it might be like if you were a woman, but you are not, never can be and never will be female, so just stop with all this erasure of females. Because real women will only tolerate so much.

      1. Unfortunately this sort of person is generating hatred. He is likely to be turning many people who were once completely tolerant of trans-people into people who are now so sick of hearing outrageous demands and victim posturing that they may well start hating them.

        1. When i lived in Birmingham i had a neighbour who when the children went off to school would put on a frock. He didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. Situation normal.
          Those that make threats and calls for violence should be sanctioned/sectioned.

      2. The game goes like this. He says he’s a woman. You state calmly that he’s not. He hysterically threatens you. He’s the victim.

      4. “Change you b…”.
        No. Why should we?
        These people choose to live a fantasy life. OK, so do it, but please don’t expect other people to indulge you in your life of pretence.
        These people are not women, end of.

      5. “Change you b…”.
        No. Why should we?
        These people choose to live a fantasy life. OK, so do it, but please don’t expect other people to indulge you in your life of pretence.
        They are not women, end of.

    2. The article is on a “trans woman”;(i.e. man) Five comments only on Press Reader (beneath a photo of the man in a dress); including mine: “ Men cancelling women. Is this supposed to be progress? Where are all the women winning “best men” categories?”

      For those without access to the Terriblegraph: it is about a man in a dress being presented with an award at a film ceremony, the award being given to all the women in the film.

      Quote from the article: “ During an emotional acceptance speech, a tearful Gascon said: “To every trans person suffering every f——day with hate. With hatred … they denigrate us… this is for you.”

      Gascon also attempted to pre-empt any negative backlash to the choice of a trans performer, urging potential “terrible” critics of the decision to “change you b——-”.”

      Can i just say. As a woman. These men pretending to be women do not speak for me. They do not represent me. By all means, live your parody-faux woman life, as you imagine it might be like if you were a woman, but you are not, never can be and never will be female, so just stop with all this erasure of females. Because real women will only tolerate so much.

  73. Weather Warning Yellow Alert!!Heavy rain and thunder storms, NOW!!
    Take cover in you deep shelter!

    *looks out patio doors*

    Brilliant sunshine.

    1. Say that on XTwitter and out will come the infantile appeal to authority. Sunshine? But, but…are you a meteorologist?

  74. Matt Goodwin reckons Farage’s strategy is UKIP-2015 revisited.. by making this election & Reform.. an Immigration Referendum issue party.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzmZkHuH208

    It’s what comes out of the other end of the Labour landslide that matters. (keep it clean fnar).
    Kinda makes sense.

    1. Also, worth noting.. it’s the only party that is willing to verbalise the concern that +6 million “British” people that patronise the famous Snack bar openly support Hamas, Sharia Law and loathe UK & its values.

      And Goodwin notes that Farage will just repeat repeat repeat this single message for the next five weeks.

        1. Truth’s a dog must to kennel

          [King Lear]

          That the truth should remain silent I had almost forgot.

          [Antony and Cleopatra]

          Shakespeare might have made rather a good journalist if he hadn’t spent so much time writing plays!

    1. It was probably getting darker and darker in the court rooms and they couldn’t tell who was who so they gave up trying to name them

  82. It’s National Service OR community service.
    So basically 95% of young people will be painting a set of railings one weekend and not bothering to show up the next.

    This latest wheeze bears all the hallmarks of “The election’s coming up soon, what can we say that sounds vaguely conservative?”
    They’ve had fourteen years to do something conservative but never came up with much.

    Starmer is going to be horrendous but you can only take the Mickey out of your loyal support for so long before it comes back to bite you; and that’s where Sunak is now.

    1. Afternoon Sossidge. Of course. It is complete Bull. Even if they won (which they won’t) it would be forgotten a week after the election was over.

        1. I’m making no attempt to follow it. Should I chance upon election news, it won’t be through any effort on my part.

    2. Afternoon Sossidge. Of course. It is complete Bull. Even if they won (which they won’t) it would be forgotten a week after the election was over.

    3. Hang on! We’ll need all those youngsters with one year’s training when Putin’s hordes invade us.

    2. Thanks Sue. Wondering if he’ll say anything he hasn’t said already. We’ll see.

      1. Now that would be a turn up for the books – and I expect that Boris Johnson will come out as gay and say all his liaisons with women were merely in order to distract people from the fact!

  85. Phew! It’s nice out there now but I’m knackered after an hour and a half of heavy duty weeding and scrub clearance.

    1. Nettles. brambles, old rotten trellis, dead bits and a lot of Herb Robert and Valerian – at least they’re easy to pull up. All I wanted to do was clear a spot where I could empty last year’s compost out of the hanging baskets so I could plant them up again. The geraniums I bought are desperate to be planted.

    1. As Matt Goodwin predicted.. simple message.. Farage will repeat repeat repeat this message every day until 4th July.
      Reform will surpass the 4 million votes achieved by UKIP in 2015.

      Cathy Newman on X.. “so what you’re saying is.. people that support Hamas.. people that perform emergency surgical operations on poppy sellers.. smear body parts of children on walls of Arenas.. don’t support our values?”

        1. Not for me as I suffer from Acrophobia – but it might be the time to get as high as the flag for those who are a bit corny.

  88. A snowy Birdie Three!

    Wordle 1,073 3/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Well done, me too.

      Wordle 1,073 3/6

      ⬜🟨🟩🟨🟨
      🟨🟨🟩⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. well done
        Wordle 1,073 4/6

        ⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
        🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Well done. Took me four.

      Wordle 1,073 4/6

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

    3. Oh you are good.

      Par for me
      Wordle 1,073 4/6

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

    4. Astonishingly, me too. Brrrrr…..

      Wordle 1,073 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨🟩🟩
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. He didn’t realise Eve had offered him an apple for another reason and missed the gravity of his situation?

          4. He steered a rowing team at the regatta and played No 2 at rugby union!

            He was a Cox-Hooker.

      2. He’s certainly the greatest British scientist of all time – and only a few (Einstein, Feynman, Darwin, Tesla) could challenge him as the GOAT !

    1. Oh, that explains it. This was in the paper the other day and i commented then about the entitlement of the parents, expecting everyone else to stop what they were doing for them. And now – surprise surprise – we find out the parents work for Al Beeb. Colour me shocked.

      1. A man with the same name and of the same age as the No-peanut-father happens to work for a New York based hedge fund; times must be hard if he has to fly Easyjet.

      1. I think the former, though the casual way people seems to apply them; who knows

    2. When tattoos first became fashionable I predicted that they would soon fall out of favour as people realised how horrible body graffiti is and that the business to be in was tattoo removal.

      How very wrong I was.

      1. It’s not to late for the Tories to announce that they will create a new Government department for standards in tattoos called Ofstats should they be reelected.

          1. A mate of mine lost his liitle finger in a work accident – unfortunately his hands then spelt ‘LOVE’ and ‘HAT’…..

    4. Best will in the world – it doesn’t take a genius to work out that tattoos are probably bad for you

      1. Bad, but how bad?
        Muslims believe that tattooing is a sin, because it involves changing the natural creation of God, inflicting unnecessary pain in the process. Tattoos are classified as unclean.

        Funny how cutting off someone’s limbs or head isn’t.

        1. Likewise Judaism considers tattoos to be a sin, or unclean. That of course brought a smile to the Devil’s disciples during the Holocaust.

  92. That’s me gone. Still not quite 100%. Felt a bit grotty. Also very embarrassed that I forgot today is our 29th anniversary! The MR hadn’t – but forgave me. Sunshine – then, as my bloke was half way through cutting the grass, the heavens opened for ten minutes. Now it is bright sunshine again.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain – possibly.

        1. Happy Anniversary Bill and MR! Sending love and best wishes! 💕🌹🥂

    4. Happy anniversary Bill as well as to your dearly beloved .

      Why do you feel grotty, is it the wind blowing and the weather ?

      You have had a busy week , so relax and take care .

    5. I hope the MR had a happy anniversary, even if you didn’t.

      Make up for it tomorrow by telling her she’s now the sand in your shell and that the pearl will appear this time next year.

    6. In the 36 years of wedded bliss, I haven’t forgotten our anniversary once. I might not have known what the date was mind……………

      1. Whom ne’er the word of ‘No’ woman heard speak,
        Being barber’d ten times o’er, goes to the feast

    3. Is that the gurgling sound I hear of Germany going down the tubes? Again.

      1. The German National Socialist party was very fond of Muslims. One of Adolf’s best mates was the Mufti of Jerusalem, and there was a Muslim SS division as well.

      2. All that’s changed is the branding. Once upon a time this was necessary to protect Germans, Lebensraum, etc. Now? Why, to protect democracy of course!

    6. In times of madness telling the truth is a revolutionary act. The Left have always hated facts. It’s why they have to keep lying to themselves.

    1. We aren’t far behind. We’ve already had a so-called Conservative government putting out feelers to guage how far it can go in pushing the definition of “extremist”. Rely on died in the wool Labour far lefties to push that even further, I predict.

    4. He’s said he will advance the net zero agenda and tax conventional fuels and subsidise windmills. The exact opposite of what should have been done. What staggers me is that if you ask the average sub verage intelligence Labour voter (all of them) they blither on about energy company profits but don’t look at companies house – because they don’t know what it is nor at their bills – because someone else pays them most of the time.

      If our bills were itemised it would become evident very quickly even to the thickest Lefty that the reason our bills are high is because of taxes, green levies and duties which are given to wind mills to socialise the costs while the profits are kept by the owners.

      1. Your last sentence – exactly that. I live in France where bills are itemised. My actual consumption regularly comes to just under half of the total. The rest is levies, green taxes etc. and 20% VAT is added on top of the lot, so taxed on taxes too.

  96. Why are you still online? It’s your anniversary, go and enjoy a happy anniversary with MR.

  97. STOP PRESS – use catch-up to listen to BBC Radio 4 D-Day: The Last Voices. Brilliant.

  99. Phizee asks below was there a reason for calling the GE on 4th July 2024?
    If the Government was being pressured by our ‘cousins’ to up the ante in Ukraine, what better excuse than to say: “Sorry we can’t come out to play right now, very busy with a General Election, ask us (or a new incoming government) again at the fag end of July when we’ve had a chance to sort ourselves out”…..

    1. Surely more likely it was the threat of Reform’s proper mobilisation. He doesn’t fear Labour – they’ll continue the agenda. An active and mobilised reform having had 4 months to get their messge would would really split the electoral vote.

      Either way, the agenda of enforced decline won’t change whoever sits in office.

    1. Folk don’t seem to like that fact that continually pandering to muslim just gets you problems. They’re damned guests, unwanted ones at that. It’s long past time to get rid of them.

      As for these brats – find them and hang them.

    2. Religion if peace.

      A disadvantaged minority.

      Ffs. It’s like watching a nation build its own funeral pyre…

      1. They’re savages. We must treat them as such. Normal laws cannot applly and far more brutal ones – the ones they’re use to should be used to control them.

    4. The magnificent building in the footage is Manchester Town Hall. The way to deal with this behaviour is to identify the individual and deport it and its family to their country of origin.

    1. I can’t be bothered to google* it but if anyone out there knows the difference between a crocodile and an alligator please let me know.

      *other search engines are available

        1. Are Alligators not fresh water and crocs salt water? Junior tells me an Alligator has a ‘stubbier’ nose because it’s prey is different.

      6. Crocodiles’ tails are vertical flat, alligators’ tails are horizontal flat.
        Crocodils live in salt water, alligators live in fresh water.

  103. I’ve no idea what Sunak was thinking over the national service idiocy. Ill thought through, lacking in details, clarity or reason. Just more spending, more tax, more waste.

    None of the parties has the slightest interest in doing what must be done. All of them are thinking the state is the centre of the economy rather than a parasite. It’s ludicrous hearing them waffle on about things they don’t really care about while fanatically ensuring the root causes of the problems they pretend to want to solve are exacerbated.

  105. Parents could be fined if their children refuse to do National Service, a minister has suggested.

    Anne-Marie Trevelyan did not rule out court prosecutions after Rishi Sunak pledged to bring back the scheme for 18-year-olds.

    The Prime Minister’s “new version” of National Service would involve school leavers either enrolling on a 12-month military placement or spending one weekend each month volunteering in their community.

    Asked on Times Radio whether parents would face prosecution if their 18-year-olds refuse to sign up, Ms Trevelyan, a Foreign Office minister, said: “I’m not going to write the detailed policy now. That’s what a royal commission programme of works will be for.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/27/parents-could-be-fined-children-refuse-national-service/

    RB

    Richard Booth
    2 HRS AGO
    First, the Conservatives maybe won’t exist after this election so this is a red herring. Secondly, we are talking about adults here not children. The parents have no way to force an adult to do anything.
    And why on God’s earth would anyone want to fight for a country that doesn’t care about its own people and has let us all down so much up to now? Tell me what we would be fighting for? I am not anti war. In fact exactly the opposite. We are so weak and woke that we couldn’t win a war if we wanted to. The West is broken

    1. How ridiculous. A few months ago, we were told that fourteen year olds iirc are mature enough to decide whether they want to take a jab without their parents’ consent, and Labour thinks they should vote, but you’ll get fined if they dodge the draft?

    2. So much for it being optional.

      The kids who’d benefit won’t bother. You can’t fine them as they’re wasters. The kids who would sign up are already contributing far more, held back by the dross.

      Mr Booth is right. The state has deliberately done so much damage there is nothing to fight for. The values that make this country great are derided, her worth hidden by mobs of Lefty sewage. Plod arrest the innocent and let the criminal go free. The state destroys industry and complains about unemployment. Whole regions are permanently destroyed on an ideological altar to stupidity and farce, all to scam tax.

      The war the Left so desperately want would expose and destroy them once and for all.

    1. My twitter feed is full of ghastly messages from politicians. I had to click “not interested” down a whole row of them!

    2. Much as I dislike Starmer, he’s just another star struck groupie.

      At the time, JS was a “National Treasure” and few people really knew what he was up to and would have been delighted to have been associated with him.

      I suspect that even BT may have unwittingly rubbed shoulders with slebs who were later outed as creeps, or worse.

    3. Well now we’ll know that should KS become PM then JS will have fixed it.

    1. Presumably after Titian had painted her on Sunday?

      While Titian was mixing rose madder,
      Lisa posed nude on a ladder.
      Her position to Titian Suggested coition,
      So he leapt up the ladder
      and had ‘er.

  108. Evening, all. The young will almost certainly vote left because they know no better; they lack the life experience to realise socialism eventually runs out of other people’s money. It’s why Labour and the LDs are so keen to give schoolchildren the vote.

  109. Like the past couple of days, activity has been curtailed by weather, but over the weekend I’ve managed to get a load of logs sawn, chopped & stacked, some of the latter being done by Graduate son, though getting him out of his room to actually do it is a job in its self!

    Moved the saw-horse to the front of the car port and started doing the last bit of cutting needed to complete the stack I’m replenishing, but the saw chucked the chain off.
    After refitting it, it was thrown off again and I found a couple of links had been slightly bent in the earlier incident and they were causing the chain to come off so a new chain needed.

    Sounds like stepson is throwing another wobbley.
    No meds for the past 6 days, terrorfied togo out in case he gets beaten up and then he says he is frightened of having a bath as he’ll see himself naked!
    I’m going to have to make some phone calls tomorrow to try and get something done.

    2. You are important , you are a good man Bob .

      What will be will be , there cannot be a successful future for stepson , we have listened to the drama that has been inflicted on you for years , Bob .

      The man has huge problems , and I do hope he is not an angry person , especially with you .

      I am certain that most of us Nottlers care about you and your safety , and YOUR health .

      Please be careful, wouldn’t he be better off if he were in an institution?

      Care in the community fails loads of families . . Something needs to be done .

      1. My father was violent towards my mother. He was placed in the Mendip Hospital near Wells. On his return home he was subdued but was never healed.

        During this period my mother could not cope with five children so I was placed with my younger brother and an elder sister with Muller Homes in Uphill, a village outside Weston super Mare. I loved it there and excelled at junior school in the village.

        I realised even then as a young boy that my father was an inherently wise, good and clever man whose life had been ruined by his service in the Royal Artillery in Burma during WWII and probably by a tough upbringing in Newport. He was born in 1910 and was the first boy of a family of fourteen, mostly girls.

        My elder brother and elder sister during this period were placed with relatives.

        It is difficult for me to judge anyone with mental health issues. My experiences simply oblige me to ask for great sympathy for those suffering with mental health. My shame is for successive governments who have refused to confront the issue and turned their backs on victims.

        Mental Hospitals were closed and their premises flogged off to the wide boys in development firms or else reduced to the occasional inadequate facility.

  110. 387770+ up ticks,

    Pillow ponder,

    I do believe that many have allowed themselves to say “we are not allowed to say that ” again, again,& again, until it has become the norm for a multitude of Richard heads.

    BREAKING NEWS; A 2nd Night of Disorder & Tension in Sheffield in South Yorkshire where yesterday TWENTY TWO people were hospitalised & TWENTY FIVE people were arrested; A very serious public disorder Incident but hardly any National Media coverage👇🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️

    https://x.com/NormanBrennan/status/1794863328562761782

    1. Hi ogga1,

      The general disorderly behaviour of imported scum from corrupt countries such as Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Albania, Armenia, and on it goes is now revealing itself on the streets of our major cities.

      Earlier we saw the utter disrespect to the Police in Manchester and the corresponding Police failure to do anything whatever about it apart from retreating in their Panda cars.

      Any political party sworn to deporting the shite on our streets would assuredly win the coming election by a landslide.

      1. 387798+ up ticks,

        Morning C,

        Agreed totally,

        As it stands at the moment NOTA
        must surely be leading the field with lab/lib/con/ con top up a country mile behind.
        The allah chaps multi coloured
        stick / club/scimitar is well in evidence and getting decidedly stronger.

        Two options,
        new PATRIOTIC PARTY or civil war.

        Currently, Custers last stand piecemeal or, Custers last stand piecemeal.

  111. Good night, chums. It’s been a very busy day for me today. Off to bed now. Sleep well, and I shall see you all tomorrow morning.

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