Monday 29 April: Dan Poulter’s defection proves the Tories have abandoned Conservatism

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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881 thoughts on “Monday 29 April: Dan Poulter’s defection proves the Tories have abandoned Conservatism”

  1. Morning all. Apparently it isn’t going to rain today, so i will take my chances with my push bike going to work.

  4. The Bucket List – About 3 minutes 20

    Good Morning all. Most of you on here will know what a Bucket List is – a collection of aspirations of things to do or see before you Kick the Bucket. My Bucket List includes a lot of Travel and visiting old friends.

    For three years before she died in December 2022 my dear wife of 57 years was bedbound and was steadily subject to increasing Lewy Body Dementia. If there’s anything to make you a convinced Atheist (if you weren’t already), this is it. Sorry if I upset Believers, but it’s a cruel experience. We had both loved travelling.

    In September 1993 we had welcomed a young Australian lady called Doris (“Dorrie”), who had won a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to spend a year anywhere in the world to study for a postgraduate degree. Each year Rotary International currently awards around 1,100 of these Scholarships, worth US$30,000 each, to foster international relations.

    Dorrie had been married that April and, unusually, decided to bring her husband Pete with her, as he had a 4-year qualification in Care Management and was able to walk into a job in UK.

    We all bonded and when I returned them to Heathrow, I told a tearful Dorrie “When you get your first baby, we’ll come to the Christening in Brisbane”. In January 1997 an email arrived: ‘Baby Carol now arrived, Christening due in June, would you be Godparents?’ I thought: “Oh sh!t!” but we flew to Australia via Hong Kong just a month before Handover to China. Then on to Cairns, to Brisbane for the Christening, then Sydney and Bali on the way home.

    In 2002 and 2007 we flew to Australia again to holiday with them and their second child. Then a long gap, with sporadic phone and Skype Video calls at Christmas.

    My son, his Japanese wife and family (and I) met up with Dorrie and Pete again in Tokyo in April 2023 when, by extreme coincidence, they were celebrating their 30th Wedding Anniversary. That’s when I told them I would visit them in September that year. Sorry this is a bit jumbled.

    So last September, for my Bucket List, I set off on a Round-the-World trip (which amazingly costs about the same as a return to Vancouver so long as you continue to travel in the same direction). Stayed with my widowed Sister-in-Law in Victoria, British Columbia, then on to San Francisco to revisit an old friend from University. His wife had been Matron of Honour at our wedding after my wife had been a Bridesmaid at theirs.

    On to Brisbane to stay with Dorrie and Pete. He told me he would be 60 in May 2024, was planning to spend it in Portugal and would I like to join them? I told him he’d have to beat me off with a stick! Carol (for whose Christening we flew to Brisbane in 1997) has just had her own first baby, Anthony, on Dec 15th last year. It’s the Full Circle of Life!

    So I’m going to fly to Porto in Portugal in May to spend a week in the Douro Valley with these two long-time friends from Brisbane, plus some of their own friends. As I mentioned on last Saturday’s Nottl, I’m then off in late June to the South of France to reacquaint myself with Jeanine and her daughter. It’s called SKI-ing (Spending the Kids’ Inheritance), and my boys are all for it.

    Don’t forget, when Labour get in they may possibly allow you to have ONE holiday flight a year.

    Each time I open the front door to the Postie, I’m glad that it isn’t a tall man in a black robe and carrying a scythe, ‘cos I still have several more Bucket List items to tick off.

    2. What a wonderful story, roughcommon. (Good morning, btw.) And it’s great to discover that I have a fellow Rotarian on this NoTTLe site. I too hosted a Rotarian scholar, Pia – from Argentina, wouldn’t you guess? – and her fiancé. They are now married with two daughters and we keep in touch from time to time. After a spell in France the family are now back in Argentina.

    3. Wonderful tale, man! I’m sorry about your wife and her decline – I’ve only been married 43 years this summer, and cannot imagine life without SWMBO – the person from whom all the wonderful things of my life have come.

  5. 386603 + up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Monday 29 April: Dan Poulter’s defection proves the Tories have abandoned Conservatism

    Abandoned Conservatism ?

    As soon as the political knife went into Mrs Thatchers (RIP) back
    the political destructive squad went into top gear aided & abetted
    all the way by those content with supporting / voting for a party name, but with no honest content,

    What IS the problem with this dan poulter chap changing seats within the same party

    One thing for sure this Conservative Party in name only lookalike has certainly done an odious number on old Blighty, if their actions these past fourteen years had been for the benefit of the nation we would now be world leaders by a good few country miles.

  6. Good morning, chums. Elsie here. Only just made Wordle today.

    Wordle 1,045 6/6

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

    1. Four here

      Wordle 1,045 4/6

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

      1. The first four lines eliminated a lot of letters!
        Wordle 1,045 6/6

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

    2. Luck is what it takes

      Wordle 1,045 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  8. Good morning all.
    A somewhat pleasanter start than yesterday, dry but the blue skies when I first got up have clouded over rather quickly.
    A rather chilly 1°C on the Yard Thermometer.

  9. Dan Poulter’s defection proves the Tories have abandoned Conservatism

    The same old stunts before an election are happening as before the 1997 election.
    A sure sign that Blair and Mandelson are back coordinating things

    1. 386603+ up ticks,

      Morning B3,

      That pair will be seeking a third party to make up a daisy chain, firstly.

    2. Poultry currently has two jobs, both with a chance of advancement and subsequent financial gain. By jumping ship to Labour, he can continue to keep his hopes up. Just another mercenary politician.

  10. 386603+ up ticks,

    Britain must spend £30bn to strip CO2 from atmosphere and hit net zero, experts warn
    System that would remove up to 48m tonnes of carbon a year is touted as ‘essential’

    Jonathan Leake
    28 April 2024 • 6:49pm

    573
    Carbon capture
    The UK will likely rely on some amount of carbon capture and storage to help meet its net zero goals CREDIT: Jane Barlow/PA
    Britain must invest £30bn in a network of massive air cleansing systems designed to strip CO2 from the atmosphere if it is to reach net zero, a government-funded report has warned…

    Then as RESET /WEF/NWO loyal followers WE ALL DIE,

    1. I’m sure they are sitting there at the WEF having bets as to what crazy idea they can force us to comply with.

      1. 386603+ up ticks,

        Morning AAL,

        The end game target for the current lab/lib/con coalition
        supporter / voter, death via the polling station.

    3. We would be better off with net zero politicians and greeniacs. This desperate, moronic fiddling with the planet’s natural ecosystem solely to keep a tax scam going has got to stop. They’ve got to be stopped. It’s a lie. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas. It’s just a tax scam, a control system.

    4. How do you strip the atmosphere of CO2 when it’s being replenished from elsewhere? Do these idiots think there is a 20 mile high curtain round the UK?

      1. 386603+ up ticks,

        Morning FA,

        They will calculate per pubic foot within our border area, then sell in pubic foot lots to the gullible peoples to destroy, thereby they feel inclusive by helping out.

      2. Strange, when every real expert knows it is far more effective if you dig up coal, sell the coal as carbon capture credits for thousands’ of £ a tonne and then rebury it.

  11. Morning all,

    Just heard on Radio 4 that Ireland is complaining about recent UK immigration laws causing illegal immigrants to choose ROI as a preferred destination. Ironically ROI has already legislated to make UK a ‘safe’ country for undesired immigrants but that legislation itself has been deemed unsafe.

    As soon as Ursula VdL gets on with adopting the EU’s own Rwanda policy and ROI is admitted to the Schengen area (like Switzerland) the better. She could even declare the abandoned WWII bunkers in the EU as safe destinations and they could be detainee centres indefinitely until they want to go back to where they came from – after all, that is what the Swiss government does with their unused cold war shelters.

    1. I think that it is important to realise that there will be no return to the England and UK that was. The globalist changes are permanent and will probably become much worse. A full totalitarian society faces us.

      2. There is. Cutting off welfare would be a start. Anyone else noticed that every delivery driver, every deliveroo person (they come to our door by accident) is a foreigner? Simply say no more, stop paying them to breed, stop giving them housing, stop giving them free healthcare and they will go.

        1. And what politician has the testicular fortitude to push that lot through parliament?

          1. More to the point, where are the voters who would elect such a politician? There are nowhere near enough of them.

      3. There may be no way of returning to England as it was but under the Conservatives there may be a way of returning to India as it was before partition.

        How about that for a Modi Operandi?

    1. So nice I played it twice. It isn’t Morning though, it is the third part, Ranz des vaches.

    1. Blair —- The calculating vandal.
      repeal the entirety of the constitutional legislation of New Labour.. and until that happens, I’m sorry it’s bye-bye Britain.

  15. Good morning lovely people I floated in at dawn with William Tell.
    A beautiful enchanting morning with a deep blue sky and quite mild.
    Time for tea and breakfast and then more sorting the house and trips to the recycling centre . I hope you’re all in fine fettle. X

    1. I do like Harry’s Farm. You can see the confused frustration as yet more gormless, mindless, thoroughly stupid legislation is vomited out by cretinous fools.

      Whn the oaf Dimbelby drivelled on about ‘carbon’ it shows how little they understand.

      1. And here. First lot of washing due out on the line shortly.
        Good morning to all.

  19. Good morning, all. Bright blue sky all around at the moment. A fine day in prospect.

    Late comments yesterday on safety of the jab, especially AstraZeneca. As I understand it the AZ jab delivers its payload using a different method to the Pfizer and Moderna jabs. Nevertheless, AZ has had its problems.

    Canada has authorised a range of “vaccines”, beginning in late December 2020, to combat CV-19, including the AZ product.

    Here on War Room, Naomi Wolf, releases research on Ontario’s medical records, around 6 million people are involved. Her report is solely in the area of reproduction issues for both women and men. Death is not the only bad outcome surfacing since the “vaccine” rollout commenced.

    From 6 minutes 35 seconds in:

    War Room – Naomi Wolf Reports on Ontario Medical Data

    1. Yes, it’s odd that AZ has been singled out, while the Yank mRNA genetic modifying vaccines are untouchable – despite being responsible for way, way more deaths than the more traditional type AZ one.

      1. Adenoviral-vectored vaccine. Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine uses a modified chimpanzee DNA adenovirus to deliver DNA vectors into the cellular cytoplasm which migrate to the nucleus afterward to produce S protein particles.22 May 2023

        Different delivery system to achieve the same end i.e. enable the human body’s cells to create ‘spike proteins’.

        There is some debate about the existence of the ‘spike protein’. Some researchers claim that their investigations with a particular “vaccine” have not revealed any organic material.

        And then there is this:

        The Emperor Has No Corona

        What is the truth? If the government etc. are proposing a particular message then that information should be treated with caution.

        1. See Dr John Campbell on youtube on this. He recently interviewed a scientist who said that if the intention was only to get the spike protein into folk, they could have just introduced a spike protein, without the genetic mRNA stuff, which the scientist said is having appalling consequences and is likely to get worse, especially in regard to reproduction. There’s a whole lot we are not being told, so I would say that anything the government says should be treated as being most likely downright lies.

  20. Good morning all, and good day troopers of the 77th,

    Sunny overhead McPhee Towers through some hazy cirrus, wind Soutrherly, 8℃ rising to the low teens today.

    The insanity continues. They are now saying we need to strip the gas of life, CO2, directly from the atmosphere.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7d6427b26b08f359eb2f40efdae9a6114f68322103035ebafb528b0e2f869d61.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/28/britain-30bn-strip-co2-atmosphere-hit-net-zero/

    A far better plan would be to bottle it, compress it then pump it over crop-fields and inside fruit, veg and flower-growing poly-tunnels and green houses.

    1. I think government officials are insane. I do honestly think the whole lot of them need to be sectioned.

      Their demented obsession with continuing the lie for the tax scam is tiresome.

    2. The article even states that CO2 is only 0.04% of the atmosphere – so why in hell’s name are they trying to remove it? Nothing makes any sense.

      1. FFS! No wonder farmers are giving up the ghost.

        “Removing it is a huge challenge because overall concentrations remain tiny at around 426 parts per million, or 0.04pc.

        The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is already spending £100m of taxpayers money on experimental projects to capture CO2 from the air, with plans to turn any successful ones into full-scale industries by 2040.”

    3. Didn’t they shut down the only CO2 bottling plant in the UK because it wasn’t making their global corporate bosses enough money?

    4. Reagan’s warning that the most dangerous words ever to be spoken are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’ has been superseded by the fatal words ‘experts warn’.

    5. This is an important aspect of the whole scam – they’ve created something that they can put a value to out of nothing. Important for financial shennanigans around the end of the debt-based fiat currencies. For example, if they need to print more money, it can flow into the multi-billion dollar industry that they have created out of nothing, that brings no benefit to anyone anywhere.
      They are moving towards tokenising nature and putting a value on every tree, river etc, and those values will be framed as their “contribution” to net zero.

    1. This was always the intent. Put the alien in control of the alien and you get invasion.

    3. It’s all a dirty fix…

      Garrett Hargan
      Sat 27 Apr 2024 at 09:15
      Two SDLP councillors have questioned democratic processes within the party after they were removed from a competition to be selected as Mayor of Derry City and Strabane Council, so that a single candidate could be put forward for the post.
      Lilian Seenoi-Barr is now expected to be put forward for the role, and will make history as Northern Ireland’s first black mayor.

      However, there is internal dissent over how the process to choose the party’s candidate unfolded.

      Following a decision by Sinn Féin, and in a break with recent tradition, there will not be a unionist mayor in the four-year council term.

      Sinn Féin was entitled to nominate a mayor in three of the four years of the new council term.

      The SDLP as the next largest party is entitled to this position in the remaining year.

  22. SIR – I am not the least surprised that there is a serious shortfall in the number of people applying to join our Armed Forces (Letters, April 25). The recruitment system is abysmal and needs a complete overhaul.

    Having waited six months for an interview, which was held online by an outside
    agency, my grandson – who is highly qualified and from a family of
    servicemen – was turned down by the Royal Navy. Whatever happened to
    in-person interviews, where candidates can be properly assessed?

    Hilary C Young
    Hadleigh, Suffolk

    Is your son white, Mrs Young?

    1. Why would young white men serve and very possibly be required to fight and die for this country any more? It’s no longer theirs.

      1. I fear that TPTB are working on that one as we speak, and will come up with a convincing reason.

        2. They’ll come up with a reason – probably the lie that Ivan is about to invade – but it will not be convincing, unless they pull a stunt along the lines of the US blowing up the Nordstream pipeline, but worse.

          2. Yes, you can imagine a ‘small’ nuclear explosion near the Russian border, in Ukraine or one of the Baltics, blamed on Russia and here we go: we’re here, because, we’re here because…

    2. Why would young white men serve and very possibly be required to fight and die for this country any more? It’s no longer theirs.

    4. Morning Phizzee. There is obviously a check list for these positions. Too many downvotes and that’s yer lot!

    5. The MoD is currently using a very large, very expensive consultancy to transfer maintenance of RN ships to private sector ship management. It will be a disaster. So maybe Mrs Young’s grandson is better off out.

    6. I could cheerfully strangle Mrs Young. Though a victim she understands nothing of what is happening.

  23. Good Morning.
    Warm and sunny. I think I need a lie down/oxygen/a peeled grape to recover.

  24. I have a chest infection and won’t see the end of the day. Goodbye cruel world!

    Stop cheering at the back… I can see you!

      1. Mine said ‘While you’re out, get some more milk’. More milk! I’m planning my funeral and she wants more milk!

        1. Well I hope your funeral plans include a cup of tea, for which the milk will come in jolly handy. Not for you, of course…

  25. I have a chest infection and won’t see the end of the day. Goodbye cruel world!

    Stop cheering at the back… I can see you!

  27. Anyone with the sagacity of a seal knows that the Tories are now a far left, woke, globalist party, intent on eradicating Britain as a sovereign state, erasing our history and culture while they are at it, and ending our freedom in the process.

    An example of this is another article in today’s DT, about the little debated but highly sinister transfer of sovereignty to the corrupt UN’s corrupt WHO ‘in the event of a pandemic’ – which was one of the aims of the fake covid scare. The DT says that the WHO bill was watered down, but that is just window dressing. They start with something so extreme and then give way until they get to the sinister core of what they want.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/28/pandemic-treaty-who-power-demand-20pc-uk-vaccines/

    2. The WHO wants everyone to die before they get old – and not just Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend!

      1. Long before they get old Tastey. Look at how many fit young folk are dropping dead because of the mRNA vaccines, and it’s only going to get worse.

    3. The DT trying to paint Poulter as a genuine Conservative fed up with the leftward drift of the party who has himself…. gone even further left!

      The DT is very often an idiot.

      As for handing over sovereignty to foreign powers, well the so-called Conservative Party is like a druggie. They can’t get their fix in the EU anymore, so they’ll spaff our democracy to other dictatorships instead.

      Sweep them all away.

      4. Easy to solve this obsession with handing over democracy to foreign agencies. All MPs and Lords to have their bank accounts scrutinised on a yearly basis and five years after leaving office – same with close relations. No politician to get a job in a supranational for five years since leaving office.

        To recompense for this intrusion, all MPs to have vastly increased salaries with a golden goodbye as long as they have not legally disgraced themselves. The HOL to be pruned mercilessly to 200 members. All HOL and MPs to be given training for the job. If they do not pass exams then they forfeit the job. But wages need to increase to compensate. At the moment we get…for peanuts.

        1. It has merit. My personal way forward would be to enumerate every constitutional reform enacted by Tony Bliar and to repeal every single one.

    4. I read that the fool said he couldn’t look NHS staff in the eye – how can he look his voters in the eye, who thought they were electing a Conservative?
      His conscience appears to be like the curate’s egg…

      1. Good points. I can’t look most NHS staff in the eye either after the way the NHS abandoned us to during covid. (And I might get accused of racism.)

        1. I have glaucoma and attend an annual clinic every January. The test results are sent to the consultant and several weeks later he sends me a letter telling me how the eye is doing.
          I attended the clinic on 17th January – no letter yet!

    6. How the British government can even think of entertaining the bunch of midwit yahoos that calls itself the WHO tells you everything you need to know about our modern British government. 10% of WHO is funded by Bill Gates. Bill Gates makes vaccines. The WHO will decide to vaccinate everyone. How is this state of affairs even possible? I mean, look at the cranks who are crammed into this organisation? Sorry to be trite, but we really should be looking at WHO is in WHO. Handing over decisions of national importance would be stupid enough anyway, even if WHO was stuffed with reputable, non-invested people. And it isn’t. The more supranational an organisation becomes, the less accountable it becomes too.

    7. How the British government can even think of entertaining the bunch of midwit yahoos that calls itself the WHO tells you everything you need to know about our modern British government. 10% of WHO is funded by Bill Gates. Bill Gates makes vaccines. The WHO will decide to vaccinate everyone. How is this state of affairs even possible? I mean, look at the cranks who are crammed into this organisation? Sorry to be trite, but we really should be looking at WHO is in WHO. Handing over decisions of national importance would be stupid enough anyway, even if WHO was stuffed with reputable, non-invested people. And it isn’t. The more supranational an organisation becomes, the less accountable it becomes too.

  28. SIR – My great-grandfather, John Palmer Wallis, was instrumental in the provision of ladies’ lavatories in central London, doubtless encouraged by his wife. My mother was told that prior to this a lady’s only option was to approach a policeman and say: “Officer, lend me your cloak.” She could then squat and modesty would be preserved.

    Bill Marsh
    Bicester, Oxfordshire

    Well, Bill, I used my cape (never ‘cloak’) for many handy purposes, apart from its normal use of keeping my dry when pounding, or cycling, my beat. Most common were to conceal the fact that I was having a crafty drag-or-several of a Player’s No 6 when on duty, or for concealing a bag of chips for the same reason. But I never used it to preserve a squatting woman’s modesty.

    I was, though, on a panda patrol once accompanied by a heavily-pregnant police woman who needed frequent bladder relief. The modern-day paucity of public lavatories (again reported in today’s DT) reminded me of this occasion. This poor lass was bursting for a wee while we were driving through a quiet part of town. The only public lavatory there was a Gents (the Ladies having been demolished!). I pulled up outside the Gents, checked it was unoccupied, then ushered the desperate young lass inside and stood guard on the pavement outside while she gained her much-needed relief. Only one chap approached during this time, wanting to use the facilities, but he understood when I asked him if he would mind waiting for a couple of minutes before going inside.

    2. I was in China last month and to my surprise the place has public toilets everywhere. To my even greater surprise they were all spotlessly clean! When I first went to China many years ago, public lavatories were few and foul – you could genuinely fall in and drown.

      1. I remember having to take a pee in Port Said docks. The stink was eye-watering, so I did it up against the back wall. And I obviously hadn’t been the only one.

  29. UN Agenda 21. The financialisation of the entire world – under ‘their’ control.

  30. UN Agenda 21. The financialisation of the entire world – under ‘their’ control.

    1. I’m worried that that’s exactly what he is going to be told to do, giving no chance or time for these small, but growing, ‘common sense’ parties to coalesce.

    1. “Post birth abortion” has been advocated in parts of the US for years. Or murder, as we old-fashioned people prefer to call it.

      1. I wondered, when abortion became legal, how far it would be pushed. Now I see – post-partum abortion indeed. Baby murderers is a better term.

    3. A move they will soon regret when certain minorities decide to do away with their female offspring.

      1. Years ago my midwife sister-in-law told me that they were not allowed to tell prospective parents the sex of the unborn child.
        Culture came into it, but then it applied to all cases. Presumably, given the gruesome ‘gender reveal’ parties, that rule has been softened.

        1. My wife and I were certainly aware of our son’s gender before he was born.

          1. We decided we would wait and see what turned up. In both cases it was a boy : Christopher and Henry.

        2. In general I dislike the use of the word ‘gender’ to refer to biological sex, but in this case I suppose that ‘sex reveal’ parties might have an altogether different interpretation.

          1. I loathe the word ‘gender’ for ‘sex’.
            But that is what these parties are called.

  36. The villages at WAR: Feud between warring parish councillors is branded ‘Norfolk’s Brexit’ as bitter fallout descends into ‘threats of violence and bullying’, rival fetes, a police probe – and a body buried in the wrong grave.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13347505/The-villages-WAR-Feud-warring-parish-councillors-branded-Norfolks-Brexit-bitter-fallout-descends-threats-violence-bullying-rival-fetes-police-probe-body-buried-wrong-grave.html

    I bet Bill Thomas is behind all this…

    1. I bet every vicar, parish councillor, church warden etc the length and breadth of Britain shudders reading that and thanks the Almighty that their parish hasn’t got that far..

    2. Yet again your ignorance shows. Scratby is 50 miles away.

      Rather like someone saying that Phil Cute of The Bungalow Fareham is responsible for some problem in Windsor….

    3. Normal for Norfolk. When we lived there it was street lights that caused the problem We and the locals did not want them and the townies did. They lost every time. We had a dicount on our rated for not having them.

    4. I would be willing to put money on at least half of the Parish Councils having similar feuds. I think villager think it is fun/clever to elect the village idiot and then sit back and watch the fun.

  37. Morning Nottlers. I’ve been meaning to pass on this recommendation, something I finished a few weeks ago, Andy Ngo’s Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy. It does what it says the tin. A great practical insight into how “by any means” necessary the mad-Left are prepared to go and have gone.

    Mr Ngo is the child of Vietnamese parents who escaped the re-education camp and fleed to the US. He knows from his parents the disaster of collectivist ideology. Sadly for him and his family it manifested and metastasized in his home town of Portland, yes that Portland.

    This book also got Winston Marshall booted out of Marks & Spencer Wurzels aka Mudford & Sons for giving it a positive shout out on Twitter. Because “Andy Ngo is Far-Right” etc. Which in itself is a disturbing example of what the Left has become.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40191921d1cdfc20bd9105c3bc405f75e534c2da8fe184ca877e2f30eb04f95b.jpg

    1. He is a very brave man. Thank you for jogging my memory on this. I wonder if my local library bothers to carry it.

      Edit. Colour me surprised. It doesn’t.

      Further edit. For £7.81, the hard back is winging its way to me, courtesy of Abe Books.

      Further further edit: he was so badly beaten by the #bekind “anti fascists” that he has been left deaf in one ear. Triggernometry has had a few conversations with him – worth listening to. E.g. this one from 2021.
      https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/triggernometry/id1375568988?i=1000506795077

      1. I total agree in your assessment of Mr Ngo. It’s the first thing I think of if I reflect on a description of him.

      2. His Twitter feed is a hoot. He reposts mugshots of arrested violent Leftists. They don’t like this one bit, even though the information is in the public domain and of obvious interest to the community. I’m pretty sure Leftists have tried to argue it’s an impingement on their human right to privacy.

        Similarly we have Libs Of TikToc, compiling and reposting verbatim the actual posts of the mad-Left in their own words. Somehow this is an issue and an act of “Far-Right intimidation” or something.

    2. The fascist Left don’t like being reminded that they’re in the wrong. That they, the jack booted thugs without mandate attacking people convinced of the righteousness of their cause are actually the problem..

      The Left do not like to be told that they’re the greatest threat to freedom, decency and tolerance. They’re just cowards and scum.

      1. I don’t. I’m indifferent to whether or not she visits. She’s unimportant to me.

    6. She’s right…..and we don’t want her husband here either. The pair of them are beyond the pale and need to feel it.

      1. The weakest wet government we have had since the war. The one before that was the Chambelain Tory government.

  40. Brit tourist who was savaged by a Bull shark in the Caribbean is ‘now able to communicate’, his wife reveals as she thanks friends who stayed in the water to ‘battle’ the predator
    Peter Smith, 64, from Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, was rushed to intensive care

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13361159/Brit-tourist-savaged-Bull-shark-Caribbean-communicating-wife-reveals.html

    https://www.sharktrust.org/listing/category/oceanic-programme?_gl=1*4om0q0*_up*MQ..&gclid=Cj0KCQjwir2xBhC_ARIsAMTXk846VkvjbQSFslhiqTQbi6oFdQ0xwKSSfigsTv9xLCyQGw7Ps9NXns8aAveyEALw_wcB

    Whether you agree or not , but who is the real predator?

  41. Good morning – what a dreary set of letters this morning.

    I put the pics of yesterday’s adventure on that days blog.

    1. I must say your horse looked terribly active!! Especially the way it ate grass…

    2. I vary rarely look at them, in utter contrast to the days when – either on paper or online – I’d assiduously read them on a daily basis.

  42. Morning all I won’t rub it in, but a beautiful day here. If we were 20 years younger we probably would have moved here. Our homeland has become a dumping ground.
    Not sure Dan Poulter has moved the ‘right’ way the Labour Party aren’t any better than the idiots we already have.

    1. They’re exactly the same. I don’t know why he bothered. If he thinks the current Tories are right wing he’s staggeringly ignorant.

  43. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2949cfed88e517900569be614e26d0f1ee5e8f977e25ff3abb49aa286191c22f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2b9ba5f4224954670372d960a4400ab9f16ecdaa485cba98bd03929168eee841.jpg Our quiet 60th “anniversary” celebration.

    Supper for two at Hickory’s Bistro, a popular French café-styled establishment in Simrishamn.

    https://hickorysbistro.com/

    A complimentary plate of slices of sourdough baguette served with a pot of pesto butter.

    “Bistro Mule”. A heavy, half-pint tin-lined copper tankard filled with ice cubes and containing a cocktail of tequila, lime juice and wedges, chilli, slices of fresh ginger and ginger beer.

    A glass of a Northern Rhône syrah.

    A glass of non-alcoholic beer.

    An extremely tender charcoal-grilled medium-rare rib-eye steak dressed with a wild garlic sauce; served with red wine sauce; charred pak choi with N’duja (a spreadable Calabrese sausage); creamy ‘sweetheart’ cabbage; local (Österlen) new potatoes roasted in their skins and sprinkled with parmesan and herbs; petals of pickled tiny red onion.

    No starter. No dessert. We eat lightly these days.

    All in, just short of £80, including the tip. It is impossible to find food of this quality and value anywhere else locally.

    The place was fairly full and, incongruously, had an unusual number of young Americans as customers. There was a party of 13 local Swede chaps in one area (all dressed as though they had just come off the allotment!). A party of three Swedish ladies on another table. Two American couples were joined by a local couple (one of the Americans kept his baseball cap on all evening). On another table a young male Swede (who spoke English with an American dialect) was joined by two more baseball-capped Americans! Sitting in the middle, among all this, was Inge and me. Unusually, I had decided to wear a jacket and tie for the occasion and we were the only people in the bistro who looked as though we had bothered.

    I suppose the American contingent were their on “vacation” since Simrishamn is a pretty little coastal town and a popular holiday destination for many; especially Stockholmers, Danes, Norwegians, Germans and Dutch. The place is positively heaving with tourists all summer. Since I live only 20km away I can — and do — visit the town frequently.

      1. Aaaarrgghhhh …….. boiling away merrily when we arrived at school 9.00ish.
        Vegetable corpse slopped on the plate c. 1.0pm.

        1. Er – this was a gentle dig at Grizz who is always banging on about how terrible any vegetables (especially green ones) are for people to even think of eating!

        2. You could actually smell the strong sulphurous stench half a mile away from school. Why was there never anyone around to educate those gormless hags who were devoid of a clue?

          1. It’s how the ladies of that generation were taught to cook. Boil it until it’s dead.

          2. My mother roasted decent beef until it had the texture (and flavour) of a piece of carpet!

            It wasn’t until I was 18 that I sampled juicy rare beef. I thought someone had discovered a new animal!

      3. Had a great pile of sauerkraut (surkål, in yer Weegie) for supper last night, with meat & potatoes, and lots of brown gravy with just a smidgeon of chilli. Lovely!

      1. If you want to gobble down sugar, sunshine, then feel free to do so. I’ve aways had a savoury tooth.

    3. Eating vegetation? Looks good anyway – I hope you both enjoyed the meal and the evening.

    4. Roast beef for us today from yesterdays joint..Home made apple pie for pudding. A bottle of Tanners claret to wash it down.

      1. There was a plate of meat each (only mine was photographed) but the dish of spuds was shared.

          1. Paul, did you not view the second photograph or read my initial text?

            Come on, mate, I expect better from you!😉

    1. As in the description (above) it is a wild garlic sauce, and exceptionally delicious too.

      1. As a general principle I would agree, but a garlic sauce is a different matter

  46. Though it is sunny – it still feels cold outdoors. Stove going….again. Grr.

    2. The Rayburn went out and I decided, given the time of year, not to relight it. Already I think I made a big mistake!

  48. Can’t wait to miss this…

    Doctor Who to star in The Importance of Being Earnest at National Theatre

    Ncuti Gatwa will play Algernon Moncrieff in a new production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy of manners later this year

    Hannah Furness, ROYAL EDITOR
    29 April 2024 • 8:00am

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/04/28/TELEMMGLPICT000375550557_17143308040340_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqUm2wzpY2YxqLXSGuT1rMRk8FchWZRD3tSYOiRwPjWDo.jpeg?imwidth=680

    As Doctor Who, he is a master of regeneration.

    For his next reinvention, Ncuti Gatwa, the 15th and current incarnation of The Doctor, is to make his return to the stage, as he takes the starring role in the National Theatre’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

    Gatwa will star as Algernon Moncrieff in a new production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy of manners.

    The Rwandan-born actor will be joined by Sharon D Clarke, also a former star of Doctor Who, as Mrs Bracknell. Hugh Skinner, who is most well for his roles in W1A and The Windsors, will play Jack Worthing.

    The play will be directed by Max Webster, who recently cast David Tennant the actor who played the 10th Doctor Who – as Macbeth in a Donmar Warehouse production given a five-star review by The Telegraph.

    Rufus Norris, director of the National Theatre, said: “It is a joy to be welcoming Max Webster in his National Theatre directorial debut with a new production of Oscar Wilde’s hilariously subversive comedy The Importance of Being Earnest.

    ‘Extraordinary cast’
    “Max has assembled an extraordinary cast to reimagine one of our greatest comedies, with Ncuti Gatwa making his National Theatre debut.

    “We are also delighted to welcome back Richard Cant, Amanda Lawrence, Hugh Skinner and Sharon D Clarke, who is returning to play one of Wilde’s most iconic roles – Lady Bracknell.”

    A theatre spokesman said: “When Oscar Wilde wrote his play – a society comedy – his cast reflected the city and society he lived in then, and we feel confident that we are honouring Wilde by casting his play in a way that reflects London today.”

    The Importance of Being Earnest was last staged by the National Theatre in 1982, its one and only production of the Oscar Wilde play.

    Then, it was directed by Peter Hall and starred Nigel Havers as Algernon, while Dame Judi Dench played Lady Bracknell. Edith Evans and Dame Maggie Smith have previously also taken on the role, delivering the famous line “A handbag?”.

    It has also become something of a tradition for Lady Bracknell to be played by a man, including by David Suchet in 2015.

    A National Theatre source said they were “thrilled to be welcoming Sharon D Clarke back … to perform the famous role”.

    ‘Joyful and flamboyant comedy’
    Amanda Lawrence, who has appeared in Star Wars: Episode – IX The Rise of Skywalker and Angels in America, will play Miss Prism. Richard Cant (Stan & Ollie, Mary Queen of Scots) is Reverend Canon Chasuble.

    The play is described by the theatre as a “ joyful and flamboyant comedy”. Its marketing material says: “Being sensible can be excessively boring. At least Jack thinks so. While assuming the role of dutiful guardian in the country, he lets loose in town under a false identity.

    “Meanwhile, his friend Algy takes on a similar facade. Unfortunately, living a double life has its drawbacks, especially when it comes to love.

    “Hoping to impress two eligible ladies, the gentlemen find themselves caught in a web of lies from which they must carefully navigate.”

    Gatwa, 31, studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, joining the Dundee Repertory Theatre. His early roles include Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet at Home, Manchester, in 2014 and Demetrius in Shakespeare’s Globe production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2016.

    He found fame on television, with a breakthrough role in Sex Education, and he went on to appear in the film Barbie and became a household name in Doctor Who.

    The Importance of Being Earnest will run in the Lyttelton Theatre at the National Theatre from Nov 20 2024 to Jan 25 2025. Tickets will go on sale from May 23.

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

    Jack Regan
    1 HR AGO
    Meanwhile, it has been announced that Graham Norton will take the part of Kunta Kinte in a new stage adaptation of ‘Roots’ to be staged later this year

    William Jennings
    1 HR AGO
    Reply to paul beaumont
    I’m looking forward to the remake of Zulu

    2. “Max has assembled an extraordinary cast to reimagine one of our greatest comedies” note the world ‘reimagine’. A strong indicator of Identitarian Neo-Marxism.

      1. It should read “… to rewrite one of our greatest comedies into an unfunny travesty of its former self.”

    6. “…casting his play in a way that reflects London today”. It’ll be set in an open sewer then. Also noted, “the Rwandan-born actor”. Are those promised flights really ready and waiting?

      1. 386603+ up ticks,

        Morning S,
        Trouble is same with Scottish hydras , cut off one head encourages two more to grow.

    3. A racist bigot who misused public money has gone. Altogether!

      ‘7 million brown bottles, wallowing in the trough,
      If you take one brown bottle, smash it to bits
      you’ve 6 million 9 hundred and 99 thousand and 999 hundred brown bottles, wallowing in the trough.

    1. Supayalat, also spelt Suphayalat, was the last queen of Burma who reigned in Mandalay (1878–1885). The British corruption of her name was “Soup Plate”. She was married to her half-brother, Thibaw, who became the last king of the Konbaung dynasty in 1878,. She is best known for engineering a massacre of 80 to 100 royal family members, to prevent potential rivals from usurping Thibaw’s power.
      https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Queen_Supayalat_of_Burma.jpg
      This is what Kipling’s soldier’s paramour was reputed to look like.

  52. Just overheard a conversation between two young women in the office. “Have you been paid yet”? “No, but like, I don’t know when pay day is”. I could tell them that it’s always the 15th of the month but I am, in their parlance, too gobsmacked!

    2. Payroll here is done on the last day of the month. It is processed the day before.

      You DO NOT disrupt, talk to, annoy, raise work units with the payroll administrator (Mrs Clarke) during this time. Our solicitor/law/contract writer man did once and was attacked with an umbrella.

    1. We can import wheat for less than our home grown. and many other things. its not all doom and gloom.

      1. ‘They’ said because of the war in Ukraine that wheat prices would rocket and a loaf of bread would double in price. You can buy sliced white for 45p and wholemeal for 75p. Not that the quality is good but people won’t starve.

    2. On a recent tour through Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire,Cambridgeshire ,Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Wiltshire I was remarkably surprised (and pleasantly so) to see that all the farms visible from the roads had well tended fields, the vast majority of which had growing crops. I appreciate areas further North may be affected by the recent inclement weather. But so much for the bullshit!

      Morning ogga1 and all.

  54. Well I see that the Muslim chap who somehow managed to become the leader of the SNP and First Minister of the Scottish pretendy parliament is to resign at noon. At least we are rid of one Muslim in inappropriately high office.

    1. It was Kate Forbes who claimed that she could get Scotland in a fit state for independence in five years. The powers-that-be controlled by the Sturgeon clique are terrified of her. So too is Keir Starmer, who would have to give up ideas of a New Labour breakthrough in Scotland, and have to rely on poor Tory turnout in the Red Wall to bag his entitlement.

      Unfortunately, she is not a lesbian, nor black, nor Muslim, so they have already written her off.

  55. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) stor. Better late than never!
    THE BUILDING PERMIT
    Some have asked what I’ve been doing in retirement.
    Well, I applied for a building permit for a new house.

    It was going to be 100 ft. tall and 400 ft. wide, with 12 gun turrets at various heights, and windows all over the place and a loud outside entertainment sound system.

    It would have parking for 200 cars and I was going to paint it green with pink trim.

    Then I was gonna hire some idiot to stand on top of it and SCREAM as loud as he could three or four times a day.

    The City Council told me: Forget it…AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN!
    So, I sent in the application again, but this time I called it a “Mosque”.

    Work starts on Monday. And here is the best part, it’s going to be tax exempt!
    I love this country. It’s the government that scares me.

  56. Tim Stanley seems to be a man transformed.

    This will be the week from hell for Rishi Sunak and Humza Yousaf. Rishi’s begins with the defection of an MP so anonymous, even he had to google which constituency he represents. Dr Dan Poulter of Toryshire and Suburb has left the Tories for Labour, claiming the Tories are too Rightwing. Well, that’s what happens when you pack your backbenches with liberals. The moment their conscience is compromised, which usually coincides with a dip in the polls, they’re off.

    But May 2 was always marked in Rishi’s calendar with “Arghhh!”, because it’s local elections day. The loss of hundreds of councillors is a given; three mayoral contests are the most interesting barometer of Tory decline. London is a goner. Susan Hall is my kind of conservative – basically Dirty Harry in drag – but the capital is so loony Left now, the only party that could beat Labour here is Hamas. The Tories have more faith in Andy Street, who wisely pretends he isn’t a Tory, but loss of the West Midlands would be in keeping with a Labour swing. So it’s Tees Valley the Conservatives absolutely must hold: Red Wall country, the last stand of Brexit populism. If Labour wins there, allies of Penny Mordaunt – Penny denies encouragement, but she’s already trying on hats – apparently threaten to trigger a leadership race, which Rishi might see off with a July general election. This will guarantee Labour a whopping majority, and Dr Poulter a seat in the Lords.

    It’s tempting to put this chaos down to the unique ridiculousness of the Conservative Party, except that something similar is happening to their ideological opposite at the other end of the country. Both Tories and the SNP are drowning in scandal; both are juggling factions to stave off defeat.

    Doe-eyed Humza lost his parliamentary majority after the Greens swanned off and is negotiating hard with Alba, which has only one MSP, Ash Regan, who joined the party solely because she hates Humza Yousaf. A no-confidence vote is scheduled for mid-week. It’s a good bet he’ll lose.

    The simultaneous collapse of unionist Tories and pinko nats suggests it’s difficult to govern across the spectrum – money is tight, voters are angry – and time is against all incumbents. The SNP long ago realised independence isn’t on the cards, so flipped to pursuing a Leftwing agenda, much of which has flopped. They have u-turned on schemes for recycling, family relocation, alcohol advertising, fishing, named persons.

    It was slowing down on Net Zero that annoyed the Greens, as did the Scottish NHS pausing puberty blockers: developments that find parallel in Westminster, where Left and Right have decided a serial killer in a tutu isn’t a woman after all. Governments seem to have lost sight of their fundamental purpose, sidetracked by progressive causes they’ve latterly discovered we dinnae want or cannae afford. As one disgruntled nat put it on GBNews, “the SNP forgot about independence and the Greens forgot about the environment.”

    And the Tories forgot about conservatism. Explaining his defection to Labour, medic Dan Poulter cites the waiting list crisis and recalls that the NHS had “radically improved” under Blair and Brown. So why did he join the Tories to begin with? In fact, the Conservatives have poured cash into a health service debilitated by a lockdown that was supported by Tories, SNP and Labour. Devolution was meant to be a “laboratory of democracy”, yet it’s striking how administrations elected on vastly different prospectuses have wound up doing many of the same things. They all love taxing, spending, meddling.

    As pencils linger over Labour on Thursday, the worry that “I have no idea what they will do” is balanced by what they’ve said they won’t do – dropping their borrow-to-invest in net zero and joining the rats abandoning HMS Trans Rights. Poulter can read himself into the Starmer’s party because it stands for nothing except winning, and will probably govern much like the Conservatives because the Conservatives govern like socialists.

    My guess is that this isn’t the lowest point for the UK, not by a long shot. We have to sink much deeper, more painfully before the elite acknowledges things aren’t working and try something genuinely new.

    1. My guess is that this isn’t the lowest point for the UK, not by a long shot. We have to sink much deeper, more painfully before the elite acknowledges things aren’t working and try something genuinely new.

      Like the Third Reich it will have to collapse in ruins before that happens.

      1. As is often the case Shakespeare put it very well:

        And worse I may be yet:
        The worst is not so long as we can say,
        ‘This is the worst.’”

        [Edgar: King Lear]

    2. It isn’t only not the low point for the UK – that apples to most other western countries too including the US.

      2. That’s true but the UK is unusual in not having a proper conservative movement represented in Parliament (and no – Le Pen’s lot are not conservative but nationalist Lefties) and the electoral system mitigates against it.

        1. Agree about Le Pen – I’ve been saying that for years! The Republicans are still conservative though.

          1. I have tried in vain to convince my French friends that Marine is not “extreme droite” but actually socialist. Pointing out her left-wing policies seems to cut no ice. I think they would rather voter blanc than endorse her candidature.

    3. Still have slight hope that Khan will be turfed out. There is considerable depth of feeling against him.

      3. I will be praying. I have begged son and daughter in law to put their X next to Susan Hall even if the wouldn’t otherwise vote conservative.

    4. The problem is the state. It isn’t the one to present the solution because it means ‘less government, not more. It means less spending, not more. Lower taxes, not higher. It means leaving people alone with their own money and wishes and getting out of the way. Government simply isn’t capable of that because it wants the recognition for ‘doing things’. The state refuses to do it because it has an agenda.

    5. Mordaunt is so unpleasant, I really don’t want to see her supercilious face everywhere and hear her nasty, immature put-downs to anyone opposing the narrative. Ditto Jeremy Hunt – had enough of his ratty little face.

  57. I see one of the favourites to replace Useless is the “wife” of the former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale. 🤢
    One shudders to imagine their conversation over the breakfast table.

  58. Ukraine says resisting heavy attacks in east amid Russian advance. 29 April 2024.

    Ukraine said on Monday it had foiled 55 Russian attacks in the eastern Donetsk region, a day after it admitted to a worsening situation on the frontline, according to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

    Moscow over the weekend claimed another eastern village, Novobakhmutivka, as struggling Ukrainian forces await the arrival of crucial US weapons.

    The Ukrainian army said it had “repulsed 55 attacks” in several villages north and west of Novobakhmutivka. These included Ocheretyne, where heavy fighting was reported on Sunday.

    This Front Line is turning squidgy! It will collapse eventually.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/apr/29/russia-ukraine-war-live-frontline-moscow-east-ukraine-us-weapons

    1. The covid psyop owed a lot to the Milgram obedience trial. The BBC once made a programme about Stanley Milgram for the Horizon science series. I knew nothing about him then and had to phone Alexandra Milgram about using their footage. She died on 30 March 2020.

  60. Plod on . . . . .
    Wordle 1,045 5/6

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

    1. No body can ever contain it, it woks against every recognised principle of normal life.
      Ban it.

      1. When leaders do try to do something about the muslim hordes they lock up the people trying to defend the indigenous from mass rape. Srebrenica.

    3. A man with both balls and brains.

      None of his sort anywhere else in European politics.

    1. I think that just shows us all just how so far out of touch with reality our political idiots are.

      1. I wouldn’t worry too much about his future.

        He can go and work for his brother. More money, less hassle.

    1. I fundamentally disagree with MacGregor on many issues but there is a lot here with which I agree and, indeed always have, relating largely to the very long term corruption in the US arms industry which is now combined with the corruption of US politics and the judiciary.
      However, he says that Putin “never intended” to take over Ukraine which is palpably untrue. In the summer of 2020 Putin wrote and published as essay which essentially said that the Ukraine belonged to Russia, even if he had to rewrite a fair bit of history to draw this conclusion. As far as the Donbas is concerned, it has only been “historically Russian” since the Holodomor in the 193Os when Stalin repopulated it with Russians having starved to death millions of Ukrainians. MacGregor makes the same parochial mistakes that he accuses the “average American” of making and has a very limited understanding of European history. If MacGregor really supports national identity as he says he does, then he would be on the other side and not supporting Russia.
      Finally, it may well be that the US wants to break up Russia and take over all her natural resources, but I do not believe that most other European countries share the same goal. It is a pipe dream anyway, nothing and no-one is ever going to “break up” Russia unless it comes from the inside which is unlikely, as even a cursory glance at Russian history will reveal. All that other European countries are interested in, especially the eastern ones, is curbing Russia/Putin’s expansionary ambitions with fresh memories of the USSR in mind.

      1. You’re wasting your breath Peta. The ‘Putin the anti Globalist hero of Freedom’ cult is as deluded as the woke cult, the Green cult and the internationalist cult. It’s just that the former predominates here.

        1. Still crying out for yet more unnecessary deaths and crippling are you?

          God only knows how much you must love war.

          2. Anti war actually.

            A peace could have been negotiated months, if not years, ago but instead the warmongers just wanted to carry on.

            Still, there’s lots more killing for you to sit back end enjoy.

          4. Really?
            JD is pushing for more and more war, I’m pretty confident he’d take the battle into Russia.
            You never hear him calling for negotiations.

          5. You cannot negotiate with people like Putin other than with a very big stick and a lot of courage, which is lacking in the west. JD understands that and so do I.
            Ukraine have already taken the battle into Russia as much as they are able to, and compare and contrast. Russia goes for largely civilian targets in Ukraine, especially infrastructure, and with no concern for civilian casualties, while Ukraine limit their targets to military ones. In that respect alone I know which side I am on, and you?

          6. If that was actually true Russia could and would have flattened Kiev.

            This whole war has been driven by the West; had they left well alone instead of expanding their NATO/EU proxy for the USA empire all across the former USSR countries it would never have happened.
            Russia could have been a good friend to the West against the two real dangers to world peace had we tried to co-operate with them instead of trying to smash them.

          7. One real danger to world peace is China, but if the other isn’t Russia, who is it? Aren’t you forgetting that most of the former USSR countries actually wanted to be more closely aligned with the west?
            By the way, the only way Russia could have “flattened Kiev” would have been by nuking it. But I expect you would have cheered them on because doubtless it would have stopped the war.

          8. Never come across the religion of peace?

            There is a huge difference between alignment and become an integral part of.
            Purely for sake of argument, how would you feel in England if Wales Scotland and Ireland decided that they would be better off “aligned” with China, and China agreed, in the NATO way, to put arms and naval bases and airfields and supplied fighter planes and naval weaponry and heavy weapons and missile launchers and train their armies in those countries?

            I’m guessing you would feel somewhat less secure.

          9. That makes three threats then, but the RoP has never entirely convinced me as a world threat.

          10. Then I recommend that you take a closer look at it, and its guidebook and commentaries thereon.

          11. I can see why people think it is, but that is not the same as being one. Muslims are far too fractured among themselves to present a coherent threat, and they are cowards so they don’t make good soldiers.

          12. Tell that to all those countries that have been taken over by various flavours of Islam.

            The cartoon regarding the last Muslim might show how they fight amongst themselves, but they will be united in their desire to see a universal caliphate no matter which sect runs the various parts.

          14. The conquest by breeding has continued apace.
            Look around at all the places it is rife, Africa particularly

          16. My enemy’s enemy is my friend. They all share one goal – to make everywhere submit to Allah.

          17. Islam is probably a bigger threat to world peace than China. Our warmongering government is in the mix as well.

          19. First he has to get elected. I do actually believe that if he had been elected in 2020 none of this would have happened.

          25. True.
            And NATO and the EU didn’t need to encourage Ukraine into baiting Russia and killing Russian supporting civilians.

            I can just picture you in an Azov Brigade uniform, enjoying just that.

          27. That’s not an ad hominem attack, it’s an observation of how you appear to me.
            You appear as a blood thirsty warmonger baying for the West to get more and more involved.

          28. Backing off now, are you?
            I just want the people of Ukraine left alone to determine their own future, not be invaded by Soviet era Russian imperialists. For your information, NATO rebuffed Ukraine’s attempts to join NATO before the invasion and was only supplied with short range defensive weaponry. Ukraine is no threat to Russia other than as an example of a former Russian subject state that wants to be Western oriented.

          29. Hardly.
            You clearly don’t want a very significant proportion of the people of Ukraine to be able to determine their own future as you are obviously happy that you pro Western Ukrainians kill Russian supporting Ukrainians and destroy their cultural heritage.

          30. I would point out that Russian speaking Ukrainians form the East, one of whom is Zelensky, voted in 1991 to be part of Ukraine rather than Russia, that huge numbers are fighting in the Ukrainian armed forces and that armed conflict in the East broke out because Putin sent armed proxies into the Donbas under the command of serving FSB officers like Igor Girkin to stir up violence as a pretext for Russian annexation.
            These things are facts which prove the lie to Putinist propaganda and talking points which are so readily repeated here.

          31. I’m pretty sure that when they so voted they didn’t appreciate how they were going to be treated under an independent Ukraine.
            Tell me, just how many fighting age men have fled Ukraine so they don’t have to join the meat grinder?
            It is a similar “”fact” that US backed proxies stirred up trouble too.
            I don’t claim to be able to tell all the facts from all the fictions.

          32. NATO and the EU’s desire to amalgamate Ukraine into their sphere, was a direct threat to Russia

          33. You clearly don’t realise that NATO has rebuffed Ukrainian attempts to join at least twice before Vlad invaded.

          35. You clearly don’t realise that NATO has rebuffed Ukrainian attempts to join at least twice before Vlad invaded.

          36. You clearly don’t realise that NATO has rebuffed Ukrainian attempts to join at least twice before Vlad invaded.

          41. It is a lot more complicated, which is one reason I get so irritated by all you “Putin bad Zelensky good” war-mongers.
            Ukraine was/is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and the USA has been utilising that fact for many years.

          42. Ukraine ranked several notches below Russia on the corruption scale, and show me an ex-USSR country that isn’t corrupt. Some are doing their best to pull away from it now, but with the break-up of the USSR they were all hideously corrupt.

          44. So that means they have no right to determine their own destiny and it is OK for an even more corrupt country to invade them? You have a strange moral compass.

        2. I know JD, but it takes a lot to shut me up 😆 I was a bit surprised by Neil Oliver though, he is very well informed and and enough of a maverick to have easily have challenged a fair bit of what MacGregor said but didn’t. Perhaps the deal was that he wouldn’t.

          1. Oliver is losing the plot – he’s on the same trajectory into conspiracy theorist paranoia as Lozza Fox etc. His chat with David Crayte last week was another sign of it. He gave an evident crank an easy ride.

          2. I haven’t watched him for a while, but I always enjoyed his programme. I’ll pay a bit more attention now 🙂 The problem with conspiracy theories is that in recent years so many have proved to be correct, especially over Covid, they tend to feed on themselves and draw in more and more nutters.

          5. William Cayte actually on double checking. William Cayte who seemed to think that Common Law emerged from occultism and natural law similarly. Yes, good one.

      2. Ukraine is a fiction, it was an invention of Stalin. Before that it simply didn’t exist. I posted some time ago a video history of Russia from its beginning. At no time until the communist era is such a place mentioned. So I would disagree with you that Putin had to rewrite history to drew his conclusion. On my stepfathers side and one of my wives, I have Russian and Ukrainian relatives, it is why I’m Orthodox. The ‘Ukrainians do not consider themselves to be anything other than Russian, at least in my extended family. So yes, the situation is complex but it is made more complex by projecting a false history onto the land that suits the West and its propaganda, but not the place itself. By place I mean Russia/Ukraine.

        I will try to find the documentary and post it. Worth watching for the sake of clarity. But in essence, Ukraine is a false construct made for the political convenience of Stalin and his ilk.

        1. The history is of interest but what matters most is what the people want now. History tells me that Belgium is a false construct of people who are essentially either French or Dutch, therefore Belgium ought not to exist, regardless of the wishes of its inhabitants.

          1. Britain soon won’t exist. Regardless of the wishes of its inhabitants. Yet we pour money and arms into defending the supposed wishes of others. Land belongs to whoever fights for it and wins. Twas ever thus.

          2. Perhaps there will come a time when the inhabitants of these lands no longer self-identify as British. Britain – geographical Britain, that is – will still exist as the largest island of the British Isles, although it may be known by another name, eventually.

          6. And look at what a mess Belgium is. Take a look at the absurd border problem there.

        2. I’ll wait to see it before I comment, but I do have one question, if Ukraine is a fiction why does it have a language called Ukrainian?

          2. Hmm, well I’ve just looked it up and don’t think it is anything like as simple as that!

          3. Morning Peta. It has a dialect that pretends for political reasons to be a language. The difference, crudely speaking, is that between Scots and English. As you know some people argue that Scots is a language rather than a dialect.
            Ended up to tired to find the video yesterday. I will go and find it now and post it separately in todays postings.

  66. We have just had letters to apply for a Covid jab.to the NHS direct. It took us seconds to tear them up.Dam cheek.

    1. I’ve only heard from the NHS about bowel cancer screening. I’ve sent them the requested sample. Perhaps a bit more would be an appropriate response to any other offers?

      1. I had that test prior to a colonoscopy. After the test and the procedure were done i got another test kit for the national rollout. I did it anyway. The only time you can legally send shit through the post !
        Yet another waste of time and resources. They did say they didn’t have access to my medical records. If they had they could have saved some money.

        1. The NHS, particularly here in Scotland, are about frittering money on wasteful resources.

        2. Same with me but I was actually quite pleased as the colonoscopy (routine 3 year reinspection) was delayed by about a year because of the poxy junior doctor strikes.

    2. I had one last week. Apparently the NHS wants me to book my Spring Covid 19 vaccination because I’m over 75 ‘because it fades over time’! You don’t say! Contact your GO if you need a home visit. Wonder how much GPs are being paid?

  67. I imagine that the Scotch Slammer’s resignation speech will be given by one of his wives.

    1. TBF it looks to me as if the P SO pushed one of the men first. Maybe the complete picture isn’t shown?

  70. I appreciate this summary of the imminent London Mayoral Election: “the capital is so loony Left now, the only party that could defeat Labour here is Hamas” ( Tim Stanley in DT)

    2. The Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is an off-shoot and who openly state that they regard democracy as a one-stop shop. You vote for them once and there’s no further need for elections. The Egyptians keep them under lock and key and we just wave them in?

        1. Corrected. Thank you, Tom. I proof read but the eye often sees what it expects, not what’s there!

  73. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3b97959a48da9d4875f77b3de67dc49594ed429240dc5e8523e3d8f4caecf23f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc9cb46dec2626b18579b57bc90eafe3550194aadb22793671a9f435ab088da7.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a0a15d51ffd1ec94001cde3e5fc20374ac8616b57b97b9927c147db77ef2f34d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0417f349987e5acf4f4b6effa4c2d806fc3a343dee0dda4bf34d9360228500c0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a687040e6d2230b97564f9e5db28b1d44aebc87d78dec7b8b1f59c00f0278af.jpg Many of the spring migrants are now on site at my local pond. I’ve taken a few decent record shots of a number of returning species. The northern wheatear Oenanthe oenanthe is always a welcome arrival as it patrols its favoured territory of open fields and stone walls.

    I have now, this spring, recorded no fewer than five pairs of my favourite grebe, the beautiful red-necked grebe Podiceps grisegena on this pond (in reality a flooded field) and the nearby small lake.

    Finally an annual delight is the arrival of the nominate race of the yellow wagtail, the continental blue-headed variety Motacilla flava flava which occasionally turns up in the UK but is not as common there as the yellow-headed race M. f. flavissima.

    2. AOL published one of their ‘fact checks’ that the MSM love so much for a social media post by someone on X three days ago, pronouncing it wrong:

      “One social media user claimed “Humza Yousaf has resigned,” while another posted “this moron just lost his job as leader of Scotland,” with an accompanying video of Mr Yousaf.”

      I note they haven’t fact checked the observation of moronism in that extract…

    3. What’s the betting that he will not be replaced in office by a red-bearded, hairy-arsed Jock in a kilt, Tam O’Shanter and sporran, brandishing a dirk and a clootie dumpling and pledging to remove all foreign invaders from Alba (including a few sassenachs)?

        1. I expect an Isis leader to take his place. They really don’t like the English for some reason.

  75. (That’s delicacy from an artistic point of view; I have not gorn all French on you…)

  77. Extract from Bruce Anderson’s article The Case for Churchillian drinking.

    I did not need to be reminded what an extraordinary figure Churchill was: the drama was so vivid. After the ‘fight on the beaches’ oration, Josiah Wedgwood, a Labour MP, said that it was the speech of a thousand years. Britain was menaced as never before; France was about to surrender. Despite Churchill’s entreaties, the US seemed set on remaining thousands of miles of cold ocean away from Europe’s agonies. In early June 1940, the UK’s position was desperate. As Churchill spoke, more troops than we dared hope for were making it back from Dunkirk but as the new PM was to remind the nation, evacuations do not win wars. Moreover, the evacuees had to leave much of their kit behind them.
    The British Army was short of everything but not of morale. There, Churchill’s role was crucial. He mobilised the English language and sent it into action. It is no exaggeration to say that Churchill alone saved this country. No one else could have inspired the British people. Any other potential prime minister would have ended up making a negotiated peace with Hitler on humiliating terms. Without him, our history would have been very different, and very much worse

    1. My father was receiving evacuees from Dunkirk. One was carrying a guitar and he asked, “Where is your rifle?” only to be told the guitar was more valuable. My father had him charged with dereliction of duty.

      3. Quite right and I’m a guitarist. Didn’t the man realise there was a war on?

    2. I’d not thought of it like that. Beautifully put, Rob.
      Where is the Churchill we need now?

      1. I always enjoy Bruce Anderson.
        I got the impression from what I’ve seen and read that the civil service, a collection of Sir Humphreys,
        were negotiating peace terms, leaving Germany free to take over Europe and leaving Britain and its empire intact. And if it hadn’t been for Churchill that is what would have happened.
        Very reminiscent of how the civil service reacted when Brexit negotiations began in 2016.

  81. Yesterday it was 11 degrees and today it is 10 degrees. But yesterday was sunny and calm and I could go outside in shirtsleeves. Today there is a howling gale and light rain and I need my shooting coat over a pullover. Where is my promised global warming?😡

      1. It’s a nice cool (but warm in the sunshine )16c here in East Anglia – it clearly gets warmer for whoever responds to the next post, going down the page 😊

    2. Yesterday it was sunny with a biting wind. Today it’s dull, overcast and drizzly with a biting wind. That’s the British climate!

        1. It’s soggy here, too, SirJ here in East Anglia. Very soggy indeed. Today was nice, but with a cold wind. Yesterday (and Saturday night) was awful. Today was a drying-out day, and a recuperative day in that I was also drying out from a streaming head cold over the weekend.

  82. There’s a hard-right tidal wave about to hit Europe – and it will only make the economic crisis worse. Gordon Brown. 29 April 2024.

    By the time of the European parliament elections in June, this year’s rightward drift in European politics will have turned into a tidal wave. Ultra-nationalist demagogues and populist-nationalists are now leading the polls in Italy, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia, and running second in Germany and Sweden. There are two hard-right groupings in the European parliament – Identity and Democracy and European Conservatives and Reformists. Between them, they could secure as much as 25% of the June vote. But even more ominously, in almost every part of Europe including Britain, these factions are forcing the hand of the traditional centre-right parties – which, one by one, are capitulating to ever more extreme anti-immigration, anti-trade and anti-environment positions.

    How I wish Gordon.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/29/hard-right-tidal-wave-europe-economic-crisis-worse

    1. I rarely read The Guardian anymore. The headlines themselves often appear as parodies from Private Eye. But then I never read PE any more.
      Private Eye, The Guardian and the Spectator since I was 16 years old.
      I’m only left with one.

    4. Well, deputy wrecker on the Blair crew, tell us again how you and yours wanted to rub the noses of the right in diversity, or words to that effect.
      You, Merkel and your ilk sowed the wind, we’re now reaping your whirlwind.

    5. Now why would those ungrateful voters turn away from the “traditional centre-right parties” who have run Europe with such competence and success in the past?

  83. Humza Yousaf was even worse than Nicola Sturgeon. 29 April 2024.

    It matters little now. Scottish politics was always that little bit nastier, a little more spiteful, than politics across the UK as a whole. And politics in Glasgow, where both Sturgeon and Yousaf cut their political teeth, was the worst of the lot.

    This pair of nationalists have consecutively bequeathed to their party and their country the toxic legacy of a dead end strategy on independence, a legislative agenda that includes self-ID for trans people (including children) and a Hate Crimes Act that has generated more hatred towards it than ever existed in Scotland before, and a wider record of delivery on key services that is among the worst in the developed world.

    Sturgeon whatever her administrative incompetence and criminal tendencies was a consummate politician. I’m not certain that Humza even understands what politics is. Whenever I looked at him he reminded me of Mary Queen of Scots. At the summit of power and not the faintest idea of what to do with it. Both thought that all they had to do was decide a course and it would all magically appear. They were both wrong. Unfortunately in the latter case beheading has been abolished.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/29/humza-yousaf-was-even-worse-than-nicola-sturgeon/

  84. Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024

    UK’s Alan’s Snackbar customers dwindle as ROI Halarmed by number of new Tea Shop customers.

        1. No I don’t – it’s Guardians Quitter who lives in Verwood. He posts here most days.

          1. Thank you for replying. And you are not in Devon either? (I don’t know where I got the idea from but I needed to ask).

          3. In which case I should be very grateful indeed if you would kindly just drop me an email at the address I gave (don’t worry. I’m safe – I’m also the NoTTL List-keeper, originally set up when we thought that we might be disbanded by Disqus or such other outfit, when Geoff moved the site). We are also looking at Devon, and I really only know the South of Devon, but do have some queries that only someone there could answer.

  85. “A quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing”

    Neville Chamberlain’s famous quotation isn’t literally applicable to what’s happening in Scotland but it does have a sentiment which resonates with me. Frankly, what happens in Scotland feels like none of my business and I’m not much fussed about the outcome. Several contributors to this forum either live in Scotland or have strong links to the country and what happens there matters to them. Not me, though.

    1. Scotland would matter less to England if the Scots didn’t receive any financial backing from the English.

      2. ‘Backing’ is overly polite and inaccurate. Outrageous subsidy and bribes more accurately.

      3. They are vastly over represented in the U.K. Parliament.
        We need a total rehash of parliamentary boundaries with constituencies af a similar size and a reduction of MPs from 650 to 500.

    2. It is sad to think we have reached this state.
      Great Britain has always been greater than the sum of its parts.
      Maybe, after the last divisive quarter century (thank you, Bliar – spit!!!) we can now start afresh.

    3. I have English, Irish and Scottish ancestry., however I consider myself to be English (British for passport reasons). It was only when the SNP became increasingly more vocal about Independence that eventually I thought “Sod it – if they want it so badly, let them go”. I still think that a United Kingdom is best for all, but it is very tiresome hearing calls for Independence from the SNP all the time.

      1. I have English and Welsh ancestry. Since I spent three years at a Welsh University being a second class citizen, I’ve become totally English!

        1. My uncle Denis, died 1960, said the best thing to come out of Wales was the road back to England.

    4. It matters to me. Quite apart from having part Scottish heritage, I do not want to have a state on our doorstep that might try to solve its financial problems by giving the Chinese any more than the UK government and our universities have already given them.

  87. A beautiful day in the neighbourhood, here in West Virginia, temps already 26degs c. at 10.00am, clear skies and plenty of sunshine promised!
    (Until storms come in late afternoon, so they say!)

  89. Indeed. I wish this country would not get involved.

    It should give up its place as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, too. The position gives it ideas above its station.

    1. There is still one thing that always persuades me that it’s worth being there, the right to a veto.

  90. Pure English since 1580 and !685, so no other reason than to be proud of my heritage.

  91. A very, very sad case.

    Brit, 93, who smothered his dementia-suffering wife, 92, to death in ‘mercy killing’ before trying to take his own life believing they had ‘lived too long’ is jailed for nine years in Australia
    Donald and Jean Morley met in the UK aged 16 before emigrating to Australia
    Jean was smothered with a pillow by her husband of 69 years in July 2023
    The man is expected to die within six months due to his ‘grievous state of health’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13362665/Brit-93-smothered-dementia-suffering-wife-92-death-mercy-killing-trying-life-believing-lived-long-jailed-nine-years-Australia.html

    Part of me agrees with the judge that murder is murder, but in Donald’s shoes I rather suspect I might have done the same and if I was in Jean’s I would hope it would be done to me.

    Compare and contrast how criminals get treated here.

      1. Possibly.
        When we did all the testing for year 2000 if something still worked it wasn’t changed.
        I suspect that something similar regarding someone moving from 99 to 100 years old might not even have been considered or tested in our systems.
        We only had one problem.
        Come the day everything went swimmingly until the chairman of the bank’s chauffeur discovered that the turntable needed to release the car from the basement no longer worked. I can’t recall why not, but it was on a standalone system and nobody had thought to check it.
        Ooopps.

        1. Funny!
          My son (birth registered on first working day of new year) has a hand written birth certificate because the printer at the council hadn’t been checked either.

          1. When it was all done and dusted I used to be irritated by the “we told you it wouldn’t be a problem” brigade, who conveniently ignored all the time and effort involved in making sure it wasn’t.

            I have a very vague memory of there being similar Y2K type problems lurking in systems that are due to manifest themselves around now. They didn’t get as much publicity at the time and the assumption was those that had the problem would probably be redundant by now,. Perhaps the centenarian baby was one of those problems.

            Aha, I’ve found a reference:

            At 3:14:07 AM GMT on January 19, 2038, the UNIX Epoch timestamp runs out of new values and resets to zero. This raises the prospect of Y2K happening all over again.

            https://www.thinkbrg.com/insights/publications/kalat-nervous-system-y2k-revisited/

          2. Yes, I’m aware of that one. Am relying on it to provide me with lucrative freelance work nearer the time :-))

          3. Thankfully I will not be involved in that little fiasco, I spent enough time upgrading poorly implemented systems to get them past 2000. Even though we had been warning clients for yonks about the problem, there were still a few that just waited and hoped.

            In the end we just jumped on a flight down to Charleston and enjoyed a blisteringly cold Christmas and new year. The lost hotel and car reservations were a travel agent error, not y2k.

          5. Thank you
            Interesting selection.
            Not many can be regarded as ubiquitous in quite the same way as Y2K but it clearly shows how easily a glitch can be written in by mistake.

    3. That’s a really sad little story. I’m not sure I could smother SWMBO, but I guess if she were suffering so much… one-way air fare to Netherlands would be one solution.
      The husband would likey then have called the police and turn himself in.

    6. We had a case some years ago where a farmer couldn’t take any more of seeing the pain that his severely disabled daughter was suffering , so he killed her then immediately called in the police and served ten years for murder.

      Nowadays of course, the Canadian government would be recommending assisted suicide.

  92. I’d like to know why I can’t put down English for official documents. It seems I cannot be English, only British.

      1. I suppose it just shows how stupidly polite the English are by not protesting vociferously. The next official document I’m asked to complete I shall challenge. We’re too damned polite.

        1. I cross out “forename” and write “Christian name” on forms. If I can I write “English” as well.

          7. I’m content with forename. As my forename predates the Christian era, it can be argued that it’s not a Christian name, anyway.

        2. Anyone here read that novel whose name escapes me wherein a young woman who knows herself to be stalked by a maniac acquiesces in order to be polite? (Written from the stalkers point of view) Enderby. Just remembered

    3. ‘They’ want us to forget there is a country called England, from whence springs the adjective English. They want it lost in the hazy, far off mists of time, no longer to exist.

  94. A puzzled pensioner writes:

    What has Gaza to do with running Scotland?

    Just asking.

    1. He sent oodles of Scottish money to Hamas c/o the P.O. Box in Gaza to ‘persuade’ Hamas to do the Good Christian thing and release wifey’s family from Gaza….allegedly

  95. By the way, it is bad enough when senior women politicians weep when leaving office (eg: Treason; Mrs Murrell…) but a grown up Hamas supporter shedding McCrocodile tears takes the halal biscuit.

    1. What beats me is how he managed to rise to the top of the SNP in the first place. They hate the English, despite being of identical genetic stock with a shared history, but along comes a Muslim from God knows where and he’s OK? “Oh yes indeedy, I am most completely Scottish. My ancestors fought in the Civil Jihad against that silly fellow Caliph Charles I. Allahu Akbar!”

  97. Robert Wilkinson
    @robertwlk
    Thought for the day.
    If you rip a hole in a net, there are actually fewer holes than there were before.

  98. Say it aint so.. who wudda thunk it.
    Hamburg in chaos as march calls for ‘caliphate’ with ISIS-style flags
    More than a thousand people descended on the streets chanting ‘Allahu akbar’.

    Well certainly not the Lefties.
    but but.. they all want freedom and democracy, all the girls want to wear mini skirts, drink lots of Coca Cola and watch Friends. Underneath they’re just the same as we are — but they’re not, this is the catastrophe of course with immigration here that so many of them are different, and are determined to remain different.
    D Starkey.

  99. There are some ugly things in Essex..

    Amateur angler lands biggest ever fish caught on rod in UK

    Darren Reitz hadn’t had a single bite for 14 hours before he pulled 143lb catfish out of an Essex lake

    Alex Barton
    29 April 2024 • 3:51pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/04/29/TELEMMGLPICT000375676110_17144019439240_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqyuLFFzXshuGqnr8zPdDWXhbQKbwj1ZsnNMhuR7O6ySI.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Darren Reitz, 34, landed the huge catfish at Chigborough Lakes nature reserve in Maldon, Essex

    An angler reeled in what is thought to be the biggest ever fish caught on a rod in freshwater in Britain.

    Darren Reitz, 34, from Rainham, in Essex, said it took him and three others 50 minutes to haul the 143lb (64.4kg) catfish out of the water on Saturday night.

    The dustman said he had started fishing in Chigborough Lakes nature reserve in Maldon, in Essex, at 8.30am and hadn’t caught anything the entire day.

    But at around 10.30pm, soon after changing his bait, Mr Reitz said he had his first nibble. Just under an hour later the amateur angler was weighing his catch.

    Speaking to The Telegraph, he said: “I’d just changed my bait after a long day of catching nothing and it was raining quite a bit, which puts pressure on the water so the fish come up to the surface. My friends started panicking as it was clearly a big fish and they were telling me how I should pull it out.”

    Mr Reitz, who started fishing in 2017, decided to ignore the advice of his fellow fishermen and “do it the way I know how”.

    He added: “I did it how I wanted to, and about 50 mins later I pulled that huge catfish out of the water. I think this is one of the biggest fish ever caught in the UK. If I get the record that would be nice.

    “I’m over the moon, I can’t stop talking about it, you never think you will catch something like that. And that is the joy of fishing, I guess I was just in the right place at the right time.”

    Nick Simmonds, secretary to the British Record (rod-caught) Fish Committee, said the record for catfish was set in 2000 at 62lb. However, record listing for catfish was closed in October 2000 to discourage the illegal importation of large catfish.

    On Nov 9 2023, the BRFC decided to reopen the listing for claims, with 130lb set as the benchmark. Mr Simmonds said: “If the captor of the fish wants to make a claim, the BRFC will consider it.”

    After weighing the fish, Mr Reitz released it into a different lake and the fishery bailiff paid him £143 in cash as the angling club is looking to remove catfish from the lake Mr Reitz was fishing in.

    A pound for every pound
    He said: “The bailiff paid me one pound for every pound of weight, so I came away with £143 in cash. You expect to pay to go fishing, not to get paid. I’m hoping to go back next weekend and hopefully I’ll get another.”

    Mr Reitz said he started fishing after being attacked in a nightclub in Southend-on-sea, Essex, in 2017.

    He took up the hobby, alongside motocross, after being the victim of an unprovoked assault at a nightclub. He said he required four metal plates in his face owing to the incident.

    The Wels catfish is a non-native species from Europe, but has now established a self-sustaining population in British waters.

    The 143lb weight of the catfish caught by Mr Reitz is thought to be both the biggest catfish caught in Britain and officially the biggest of any fish caught on a rod in freshwater.

    The current official British carp record is 68lb 1oz, according to the BRFC, although Naomi Turner caught a 72lb 12oz carp at Holme Fen Fishery in Cambridgeshire, on April 27.

    1. 1 It might explain his lack of luck.
      2 I hope it is now fertiliser or similar.

      Bloody idiots who import such things should be fed to them, bit by bit.

    2. “Mr Reitz said he started fishing after being attacked in a nightclub in Southend-on-sea, Essex, in 2017.”

      To practice right hooks to the jaw maybe.

    3. So did he put it back in alive or did he kill it?
      Edit: I see it says he put it back into a different lake.

          1. They should have sold it to the local chip shop. It’s an invader species. They eat everything. Soon there will only be catfish in those lakes.

        2. It would have been technically alive. Fish do not enjoy catch and release. Ask Molamola, our resident consultant on all matters fish

          1. I have always felt that fishing, particularly competitions, was much crueller than hunting. It is, however, a pastime popular among the working classes and fish don’t have a cuddly image so fish come way down in the list when it comes to banning things.

    4. My goodness! I didn’t know there were monsters like that lurking in our lakes!

          2. Not any longer…….Three generations is the cut off for being foreign unless you adhere to an alien religion. Or are black, obvs.

  100. Afternoon, all. I’m here early because it started raining just as I finished cutting the lawns and before I could finish tidying up so no more outdoor work. Then I’m off to a (hopefully my last) PCC meeting tonight (the normal day is the second Monday in the month, but since the new rector arrived it has become a movable feast, based on her whims). It clashed (predictably since I am a busy person) with another meeting, but I am not obliged to go to that unlike meetings I chair and the Parish Council. The APCM I went to yesterday was a model of order and good sense. Should I make it to my former church’s APCM – it’s yet to be called – it will be chaos and disorder, judged by last year’s. My present vicar remarked that the PCC was important and it was vital to have a range of opinion rather than just the vicar’s. Compare and contrast the tyrannical and dictatorial method of my former rector.

    As for the headline; most of the “Con” MPs would be far happier and better aligned with Labour and the Lib Dems. At least if they crossed the floor they would be slightly more honest.

  101. A naive Bogey Five!

    Wordle 1,045 5/6
    🟨⬜🟩🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Par today.

      Wordle 1,045 4/6

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

      1. Same here.

        Wordle 1,045 4/6

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

      2. Likewise….

        Wordle 1,045 4/6

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

    2. A four but I saw trouble looming.

      Wordle 1,045 4/6

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

    3. Oh well I shall post my birdie score again.

      Definitely a lucky guess.

      Wordle 1,045 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Busy snoozing in the oh-so-comfy sofa, after a hard day and a couple of pints.

  106. I gather that the Scotch Slammer is to be appointed the Human Rights Director for Hamas…

  107. That’s me for today. Though it was sunny – there remained a distinctly cold edge to the wind. They say it WILL be warmer tomorrow. Better had be.
    Th greenhouse is now ready for the second lot of sowing.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain. Prolly.

  108. I am going to leave you for a while to grapple with the rector’s idea of running a meeting. I hope to return later if my sanity holds out.

  110. Here is an interesting study – CO2 Emissions Can’t Warm Atmosphere Because it is “Saturated”

    https://dailysceptic.org/2024/04/24/new-scientific-evidence-that-co2-emissions-cant-warm-atmosphere-because-it-is-saturated-published-in-peer-reviewed-journal/
    There are other news sites with the same story.

    The saturation hypothesis is complex, but in simple terms, it can be described by the example of loft insulation in a house. After a certain point, doubling the lagging will have little effect since most of the heat trying to escape through the roof has already been trapped.

    Although the paper sets the saturation level at 400ppm, an earlier study published by German Physics Professor Dieter Schildknecht in 2022 set the saturation level of CO2 at just 300 ppm and concluded that beyond this, further increases cannot affect the Earth’s climate. (To me, 300ppm and 400ppm are rather round numbers, I would have preferred to see something a bit more specific!)

    Edit – corrected the link.

      1. I like that and I’m going to nick it! Ta, Citroen…..(I could only ever quote pi to six decimal places!)

    2. Something more specific, at those already miniscule levels, would smack of spurious accuracy and make me even more sceptical than I already am.

    3. In my first year of undergraduate study we found thermodynamics particularly challenging and none of us got more than 35% in the first year exam.

      What was counterintuitive was the requirement in one test to prove mathematically that when a pipe was increasingly insulated there would become a point where the pipe’s heat loss would actually increase – negating any further effort to prevent further heat loss.

      Being in this mindset it seemed pointless to attempt a proof. What would be the point of a politician even believing this could even happen?

  111. Extract from the Heir of Orwell (Spectator Australia)(by Alexandra Marshall)Long before the Harry Potter movies came out (a franchise that grossed $9.5 billion globally) we had the books.

    The Harry Potter books were nothing short of a cultural phenomenon.

    I was a child going through senior school when these books were released and I remember the extent of their social impact.

    For Millennials, those who are now in their thirties, there is nothing to compare with Harry Potter aside from likening it to the moon landing.

    These books were an escape. They presented school life as we wished it was. The world of Hogwarts did not treat children as idiots or pawns of the State raised to stick themselves to roads and cry about the weather. Instead, this magical world valued history, cultural lore, and adventure. The books were an antidote to an increasingly pathetic and Woke schooling system that had begun handing out participation awards to children who were reading about fighting monsters and defeating the Big State.

    Teachers hated Harry Potter. They did not want us to read it. They tried to ban it from classrooms and dismissed it as not being ‘intellectual enough’.

    Never mind that for the first time in living memory, young children were begging their parents to line up for hours every time a new book was released. Try and recall any other book in history where kids aged between 9 and 18, in their thousands, across multiple countries, were prepared to sit outside on the street for 24 hours just to buy it on the first day of release.

    These children, of which I was one, would then vanish into their bedrooms to read the books cover-to-cover and pity anyone who disturbed them.

    Today, teacher unions have decided that novels are ‘too difficult’ for generation TikTok to read. Their attention spans, it is argued, are not long enough to make it through anything as archaic as a book and so children are being deemed ‘too dumb to read’ and handed short stories and fragments of text. It is no wonder English literature is denounced as colonial and evil … students are too embarrassed to admit they cannot read it.

    Harry Potter was on every desk, in every classroom, for every age group. The Year 7s took it just as seriously as the HSC students.

    600 million copies have been printed, making it the best-selling book series in history.

    This exposure allowed JK Rowling to reach into the minds of hundreds of millions of children and the messages she chose to promote are fascinating.

    1. rob232

      rob232

      a day ago

      “Teachers hated Harry Potter. They did not want us to read it. They tried to ban it from classrooms and dismissed it as not being ‘intellectual enough’.”

      Very interesting. Teachers often dislike books written for children and/or young people. Teenagers are encouraged to read ‘Lord of the Flies’ and disdain ‘The Coral Island’.

      When I was at school in the early seventies Orwell was never encouraged and ‘1984’ was frowned upon. Only ‘Animal Farm’ was on the approved list. ‘Brave New World’ was the correct alternative to ‘1984’.

      So if Rowling is the new Orwell then she cannot expect acceptance from the academic establishment.

      2 Edit View in discussion

      1. I never remember teachers dissuading us from reading anything. Obviously there were the books that we had as class readers and then the set texts for public exams. Lord of the Flies was a set book for O’level for years and years.
        I was lucky enough to have access to both a public library and a series of school libraries that had a good variety of authors . I feel sad for children who come from homes without books because I doubt that many of them have the same access to libraries today.

        1. No, we were never dissuaded from reading anything either, and all the books rob232 mentioned were among our set-books.

        2. No, I too read a lot when I was young thanks to the public library system. I couldn’t have done that if I had had to buy the books (or rely on the school library for that matter)
          Whilst I only ever remember ‘The Godfather’ and of course anything by Ian Fleming on the black list, more than anything I did know that 1984 was disapproved of and anything by my literary hero Graham Greene.
          I named ‘Lord of the Flies’ because I have always disliked it, a silly schoolmaster’s parable, badly written, confusing without the accompanying notes and not at all an answer to the delightful boyhood fantasy ‘The Coral Island’.

          1. Why Grahame Greene? At least two of his books were on our A level curriculum, though I forget which two now as I have read quite a few of them.

          2. No idea. But most of the great writers of the time were conspicuous by their absence and should they be mentioned a slight frown might be perceived.
            Evelyn Waugh, PG Wodehouse even Orwell himself were not on the list of the favoured.
            And one A level literature student was reprimanded for reading The Godfather, ‘not suitable for a child’ she was told. Possibly one of the most important novels of the 20th century, often known as a watershed in the history of crime novels.

          6. My wife and I saw the movie not too long ago on Netflix i think.
            Some years ago I read the book but its title was the First Lady C. a more pastoral version they said. Cleaned up I think.Was it because I bought it in Spain?
            Many years ago I bought a Spanish translation of the Godfather which had also been cleaned up. Whole sections had been deleted by Franco’s workers I think.

          7. The original title was simply “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”. I don’t of course know if the version you read had been cleaned up, but by today’s standards it is pretty mild anyway!

      2. We read ‘Lord of the Flies’, ‘1984’, ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘Brave New World’, as well as “Rites of Passage” and at least one of Dickens.

        Great Expectations.

        1. Oh, ‘Brave new World’ was very much on the approved list.
          One thing I do very much appreciate from literature classes was the insistence that we read Jane Austen, perhaps the mother of modern English literature; something I otherwise would not have touched with a barge pole. Introduction to Shakespeare, Chaucer. School has its uses even if it includes ‘Ring of Bright Water’.

          4. Just back from the pub. No Jane Austen at the ‘boy’s grammar school’, but yes, I now have a problem reading them.

            Edited a bit because I’ve had a bit to drink.

          5. My uncle who was a university lecturer of English literature told me when I was in my teens that to appreciate her writing you had to have achieved a certain maturity. I began to enjoy the books in my late fifties. Some people never become old enough and despise her novels until the end of their days.

          6. Despise isn’t the word, and I’m still willing to read ’em, but there’s a lot of other stuff I’ve yet to explore.

          7. My uncle who was a university lecturer of English literature told me when I was in my teens that to appreciate her writing you had to have achieved a certain maturity. I began to enjoy the books in my late fifties. Some people never become old enough and despise her novels until the end of their days.

    2. The genius of Rowling was to take a format that children have loved down the generations: the boarding school ripping yarn (eg Mallory Towers, Jennings, and Tom Brown) and find a way of making them politically acceptable because the criterion for admission to Hogwarts was being a wizard, not having affluent parents who could pay the fees.

      1. This is true, but her real genius was to draw a very clear line between good and evil for them. Children instinctively understand this.

          1. I think that is a bit harsh, and actually not true of all of them. The extremes of left and right are indistinguishable from each other anyway.

      2. Didn’t George Orwell and Frank Richards have an abrasive exchange of articles about boarding school stories?

        1. You have the advantage of me there rob. I never read the Bunter stories apart from an occasional one in an annual and don’t know about any exchange between Richard’s and Orwell. Now I come to think of it I suppose that children’s annuals have died a death. We used to love getting them for Christmas and some of them were a great way of introducing kids to new authors if they included short written stories as well as graphic comic type stories.

    3. I was in my 50s before the books came out but kept reading about this phenomena called the Harry Potter books that children were going mad over so one day picked up the first one at an airport to read on the plane. It opens with a cat which naturally grabbed my attention immediately! I think three or four were out by then so I gobbled up those then anxiously awaited the sequels as they came out. I loved them all and was especially intrigued by how she took the children through all the stages of “growing up” and discovering themselves as the books went on. Quite brilliant. She deserves all her millions.

    4. Both my boys enjoyed all the Harry Potter books. Older granddaughter, aged 8, is currently working her way through the Harry Potter books, and is able to retell parts in great detail.
      At a primary school near us, a now-retired teacher used to read Harry Potter to his class of 8 & 9 year olds every single day,. A bit tough on those children who didn’t like the books. We were fairly sure he must have known parts of the text off by heart, as he started from scratch with each new class every September.

  112. Oh well, numb nuts strikes again.

    Trudeau (dressed in appropriate fancy dress) made a speech at some Indian celebration yesterday. He wax interrupted by some Sikh separatists shouting for a Free Kahlistan. Rather than ignoring the hecklers, Trudeau gave a wave that is being taken a acceptance of their cause.

    The Ambassador to India has just been called in by the Indian Foregn Affairs ministry for yet another rollicking.

      1. At least it wasn’t bud light.

        Trudeau is in a bit of a bind with Sikh nationalism, the leader of the minority party that keeps him in power is a Sikh so denouncing Sikh separatists is very touchy.

    1. “He has given principled and empathetic leadership to our country and has worked tirelessly to bring people together.”” states John Swinney. Shows what a lying man Swinney is.
      From what I know of the devious creep, Yusaf’s ‘leadership’ has been anything BUT principled.

      2. Hamas Useless wouldn’t recognise a principle if it hit him in the face. And Swinney is a well practised liar.

      3. Launching a racist rant against white people was clearly aimed at bringing people together…..

        2. Just the old divide and rule. It’s the British way. He learned his lessons well.

  114. One gets the impression that Ross Clark was trying not to pee himself laughing while writing this…

    Who could possibly have imagined that the Irish public would turn out to be no more keen on illegal migration than people in Britain? This is, after all, the country of Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who still travels the world lecturing us all about how the rich world is oppressing the poor and weak through climate change.

    The lectures don’t end there. Ireland has prided itself on “standing up” for the Palestinians, to the point it tried to persuade the EU to issue a statement demanding that Israel refrain from any kind of military response to the October 7 terrorist attack. And just last month, its High Court ruled in March that it would be illegal under Ireland’s constitution to designate Britain as a “safe third country” for refugees on account of the evil Rwanda policy.

    Ireland was supposed to be the shining human rights citadel on the hill, rising above nasty, racist and xenophobic Brexit Britain – or so the country’s liberal elite loved telling the world.

    And yet. The Irish public is suddenly marching the streets waving banners with slogans such as “Ireland is Full”, “Ireland for the Irish” and “Irish Lives Matter” – the latter of which could well earn you a trip to court if transposed to “English Lives Matter” in an English street.

    What’s more, it’s not just the Irish public bleating about migration. Suddenly, the government is fed up with migrants spilling over the border from Northern Ireland into the republic. It wants to change the law so that migrants can be returned to the United Kingdom whence they came – the United Kingdom which a few weeks ago was deemed to be unsafe.

    Isn’t that what welcoming Ireland is supposed to be doing: offering sanctuary to anyone who fears for their safety in a brutal country like Britain? Yet it seems that Dublin’s enthusiasm has begun to pale a little now the numbers are rising. Rather than an exceptional paragon of woke virtue, it is, in other words, just like Britain – and indeed every other country.

    If you needed further proof, just look at Germany. Nine years ago Angela Merkel was chirping her country’s moral virtue through her willkommenskultur policy – which said to refugees: if you can make your way to Germany, don’t worry, we will put you up, feed you and clothe you. What is Germany doing now? Er, considering deporting asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

    No western country can sustain a policy of complete openness to migrants for long. There are just too many people in the world whose living standards could theoretically be raised by migrating to the West. Any Western country which opened its doors wide to migrants would quickly have its public services, housing stock and welfare system overwhelmed, making everyone poorer. The fact that Ireland is suddenly moaning about migrants spilling over the border from the United Kingdom just goes to show that virtue signalling only goes so far.

    It also suggests that the Rwanda scheme is beginning to work. It might be expensive, and few migrants may ever be deported there, but that misses the point: the scheme is a powerful deterrent which tells economic migrants that if they are thinking of posing as refugees to come to Britain, don’t bother. We will protect you if you are in danger – but your safe berth will be in Rwanda, not here.

    Perhaps goody-goody Ireland will soon start threatening to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda, too.

    1. Nothing now can stop the flood that our representatives have signed up to. The virtue signallers are now beginning to feel the squeeze. That’s why these so called devolved leaders are tumbling like dominos. And good fucking riddance for destroying everything good about being Welsh. English. Irish. Scottish. Fuck them all.
      *Beg pardon….Meds are taking effect.

      1. Ross touched on the intrinsic anti Semitism of the Oirish too – no wonder they sucked up to the Nazis like the SNP.

        1. There is lots to say about that but i can’t argue. We in the UK have a long history. It is difficult but not as difficult as importing warring tribes from the middle east and africa FFS.

  115. All hail Billy Vunipola – proper Rugby bloke – having a bit of a laugh in Majorca. Tasered twice apparently to bring him down (At 6’2″ and 20 stone he’s about the same size as me, but a little heavier (are you sure – Ed.?), Rock on Billy!
    Makes you proud to be British! (or Tongan?)……

      1. Yes, they said the first one didnt work – my ass.

        It reminds me of the story when the British Lions were on tour in New Zealand with the great Willie John McBride as manager. Apparently the boys were having a real knees-up in a bar and causing a bit of a ruckus. The manager stormed up to Willie-John and threatened to call the police.
        Willie-John dragged slowly on his pipe and asked the manager – ‘And exactly how many of them are there going to be?’…..

        1. Actually apparently he said it hadn’t worked and invited them to try again, so they did :D!
          Love the Willie-John story – hope it is true!

  116. Suzi Feay

    The slave’s story: James, by Percival Everett, reviewed

    A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the voice of Huck’s companion the runaway slave changes the nature of the pair’s relationship – not always for the better

    rob232

    a day ago

    ‘In James, this is another pretence; white people must always be made to feel intellectually superior.’

    I don’t know how many times I’ve read Huckleberry Finn over the years but I never got that impression. Jim was an argumentative guy as I remember and liked to win. Indeed Huck described him as stubborn.

    As to adopting ‘slave talk’ only when talking outside his group, reminiscing the Chinese cook in ‘East of Eden’. Mark Twain’s reproduction of dialect was very clever and it is a disservice to the writer to pretend Jim used RP pronunciation.

    Huckleberry Finn is unique as an historical record of people’s attitudes and speech during a short time in a particular place. We know how we feel about the injustices wreaked on vulnerable people in the Deep South. I would submit that this alternative version is a little offensive to all who have read this book and know how to interpret it.

    1 Edit View in discussion

  117. Poor lass, and especially poor Dad. Imagine having to kill your own beloved child…

    1. Answers on a postage stamp. One of the old type will provide more than enough space.

    1. Seems you’ve been here a lot yesterday, nice to see you on this lovely site which is better then a previous one:-) but sadly Peta J and Sos were poisoning the day with blasted Russia / Ukraine subject that poisons every otherwise charming debate. It may have upset Opopanax, I’ve had a word with her just now . Maybe Peta J isn’t suited for here.

      1. I wouldn’t blame Peta – she was just arguing her case quietly and reasonably. It was the others who were aggressive and insulting as they always are.

  121. Good evening all you lovely people! I have scanned through the days comments and just can’t cope. Am going to put my head under the blankets in my basket. Good morrow to all.

  122. – Breaking News – The government have announced that all the stolen artifacts in the British Museum will not be given back.
    As they were all worth less than £ 200 at the time

  123. Good evening lovely people a brief visit from me, I will just put some evening music up and will say good night .

  124. To the title –

    We know the Tories have abandoned conservativism by the gender bending and profligate spend on everything we do not need.
    How on earth does some opportunistic shyster stepping to the nominal Left while treading political water prove anything besides what a bunch of wankers they are?

      1. I don’t know but it does look like Turner.
        You ‘re rather cultured for someone from the place of satanic mills mosques. Sorry but gravy on chips .

  128. My word we’re supposed to be on holiday.
    Despite a to and from bus trip to Portamaio a massive town with a huge harbour but lacks interesting areas.
    I’m worn out with walking, just had two medium glasses of medical relief. 20% tawny port. A delicious local product of course.
    Beautiful sun set again. I’ll be in bed by 9pm.
    Goodnight Nottlers.

    1. I went to Portimao in the summer of 1978. It was a charming little fishing port catching mainly sardines. The fishermen’s cottages along the harbour doubled up as restaurants during the day run by their wives. You sat down on rickety chairs outside the front door – water, bread, olives and a carafe of perfectly drinkable white wine was immediately put on the wobbly table. Then someone appeared with the sardines in a wooden crate and you chose which ones you wanted. They were BBQ’d somewhere at the back and returned to the table with a huge salad. Then a slice of a local cheese arrived which was followed by generous slice of fresh pineapple. The bill? £2 per head, coffee, digestifs or more wine were extra. How times change…. :(( I expect the sunset is the same though :))
      Enjoy your holiday!

      2. Sounds great, but all gone now it’s filled with blocks of flats and cars everywhere.

        1. So I understand, and I think it happened quite quickly too because about 10 years later a friend of mine was going to the Algarve so I told him he must visit Portimao and go to one of the restaurants. When he returned he told me that he had sat in a traffic jam for an hour to get into the village, spent another hour trying to park, then when he got to the harbour it didn’t remotely resemble what I had described!

    1. Soon on the heels of President Biden last week signing into law a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine’s defense, President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday indicated that he’s working with Washington on a bilateral security agreement which would last ten years.

      “We are already working on a specific text,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address. “Our goal is to make this agreement the strongest of all.”

      1. Zelensky said:
        “Ukraine will give away 90% of its agricultural and mineral worth to repay our friends. Principally the USA.

        The Ukrainian Government (OK me and my mates) will take 10% as an advisory fee for services rendered.”

        He also said, with a snigger, in an aside off camera. “PS that’s rendered as in meat grinder”

        1. It’s difficult to disagree with your assertions but no doubt one or two will do so….

          1. I should be tucked up in bed but have to intervene. None of us know the truth of this invasion. I do find the rabid anti -Zelenski rhetoric to be on a par with the anti-Jew demonstrations that are supposedly legal within the new “Hate Crime” legislation. I usually do not comment on this war because I am well aware of the complexity of the history of that part of the world and its demographic. There is an undeniable fact, which is that the Russian forces invaded a neighbouring country. For me. that is enough to pinpoint the bad guys.

          2. If I recall rightly in his interview with Neil Oliver (posted below) Col McGregor points out that the US has been provoking Russia for almost two decades before he decided to support the Russian population in Eastern Ukraine….. Victoria Nuland did her bit ….

          4. I agree he must be very very bad. Just look at the lengths those nice Democrats and their media supporters have unstintingly gone to, to ensure that President Trump couldn’t come to a rapprochement with President P, during his presidency; and how they are pulling out all the stops to make sure President Trump can’t stand for election.

          6. Not quite. Russia went into Ukraine because Russians were being murdered by Azov Brigade nazis. Crimea was being deprived of water. Russia could no longer stand by and watch.

          9. Please Opopanax, I know its difficult but try very hard to look past the discussion of yesterday, in regards to this topic . The most wretched subject and fly in the ointment on every UK site . I’ve seen many a site and many friendships on sites destroyed when the ugly subject is brought up . Peta J and Sos started it off and it destroyed the atmosphere of a lovely day. I know it’s a difficult subject, but we’ve seen all the arguments at the Speccie over it and I’ve seen the end of many close online friendships over It . I just bite my tongue for the sake of harmony and hope the subject ends soon. Please don’t stay away, this is a otherwise lovely site and I for one would miss you .

          10. I should be tucked up in bed but have to intervene. None of us know the truth of this invasion. I do find the rabid anti -Zelenski rhetoric to be on a par with the anti-Jew demonstrations that are supposedly legal within the new “Hate Crime” legislation. I usually do not comment on this war because I am well aware of the complexity of the history of that part of the world and its demographic. There is an undeniable fact, which is that the Russian forces invaded a neighbouring country. For me. that is enough to pinpoint the bad guys.

        2. So the millions that the British government British taxpayers have sent (without our permission), doesn’t count? Is our contribution greater per capita than that of the USA?

          1. I can’t help myself from thinking so.
            It strikes me that the US Govt. and its money men, bio-weapons researchers et al were all over the place, unsettling the political balance and putting in their placemen in power long before Putin’s invasion.
            I hope that when the dust eventually settles, assuming we all survive, that the real truth of what was happening under the Bidens comes out.

            I won’t hold my breath

    2. If Ukraine is safe enough for a high ranking member of the British Royal family to visit, then why did hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians need to flee to other countries, including the much smaller UK, and why are they still here?
      I hope Sophie enjoyed meeting the delightful Zelensky.

      1. Quite, Putin’s invasion force is indiscriminately bombing everything that moves.

        Remind me, did British Royalty wander around Belgium paying their respects in 1942?

        1. No, because Belgium was entirely under Nazi Germany control in 1942, a regime with which we were at war, whereas the majority of Ukraine remains under Ukrainian control, nor are we at war with Russia.

      2. I expect she counted her fingers and wiped them on her handkerchief after shaking hands!

      3. I rather doubt that she’s visiting the Donbas, nor will she be put in the front line of the conflict.

        When it comes to displaced Ukrainians, Ukraine hosts most, followed by Russia, Germany and Poland. The UK hosts rather fewer.

        Ukraine: UK aid and humanitarian situation 2022 to 2024
        Research Briefing
        Published Friday, 08 March, 2024

        Many people have been displaced
        Around 6 million refugees from Ukraine are recorded across Europe, and an additional 3.7 million are displaced within the country. Russia currently hosts the highest number of Ukrainian refugees (1.2 million), followed by Germany (1.1 million) and Poland (956,000). Around 253,000 refugees are in the UK.

        https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9467/#:~:text=Around%206%20million%20refugees%20from,refugees%20are%20in%20the%20UK.

        1. So, tell me why the Ukrainians of military age (18-65 roughly) who have fled are not pouring back to fight for their homeland?

          2. True.
            But if their country needs to be defended shouldn’t it be their responsibility, rather than ours or anyone else’s?

            When the war eventually ends will they return to rebuild and take whatever they can or will they rebuild and give to those families whose members have been killed or maimed?

            Forgive my cynicism but I suspect that if they even return at all it will be to take.

    4. FFS! That’s not doing the royals any favours.
      I’m fed up with seeing them gurning up to some of the most despicable people in the world. I’m not talking about foreign heads of state, they can’t avoid that. This was absolutely avoidable! They have no principles, they just carry on doing as they’re told to keep their privilege.

    5. Another load of bollox. The Royal family need to keep its distance from this nonsense.

    6. So long as it’s not US bodies returning in bags, the $$$ will keep flowing to fight the proxy war where no one will be a winner.

    7. That is disgusting. ever since our Queen died we have witnessed a total collapse in the authenticity of our Monarchy. We always knew that King Charles is a globalist stooge but the evidence now suggests that this idiot king has infected his entire tribe.

      I would do away with the present monarchy as it is no longer aligned with the interests of the British people.

      1. I’m a staunch believer in the concept, but it seems to me they are moving into areas they should not be treading.
        If it turns out that the Ukrainians have been committing war crimes too, she isn’t going to look good.

    1. Stop being silly, I’ve already been told by one of the new Nottlers that Islam isn’t really a threat.
      /sarc.

      That’s to them not to you MumisBusy

      1. I’m happy to put my hand up and say that was me, but it might have been fairer if you had said why I said that.

        1. I didn’t want to call out your ignorance so clearly, but as you’ve asked:

          PetaJ doesn’t see Islam as a threat to world peace, she/he thinks it’s harmless and the Muslim hordes happened centuries ago and they don’t outbreed and subjugate countries when they become the majority.

          Better?

          2. 10/10 plus 2 for neatness!

            sosraboc tends not to take prisoners – after all a spade is a spade!

          5. Only when roused.

            PetaJ did not need to draw attention to themself.
            If interested, people could go back and look for themselves.

          6. Fair enough – but I hate when posters quote other posters by name – it strikes me as borderline bullying.

            Apologies If that’s not what you meant.

          8. Why on earth does anybody need to name another poster (in a disagreement, obviously) unless it is to intimidate?

          9. Oh good grief! Intimidation now? We all read the posts, and contribute on the basis that we understand that it’s a public space. Some of us use our own names, some don’t but we’re all aware that anyone can read what we say. Hardly ‘bullying’ or ‘intimidation’!

          10. I’m surprised you dont get what I’m on about.

            If I started posting ‘Sue Macfarlane is posting a load of rubbish elsewhere on this site’ you might take a pretty dim view of it and respond accordingly, if you were robust (which I’m sure you are). If you werent that robust you might just find it a little unsettling?

          14. I’m a big girl now and I can fight my own battles! And as the ghastly sos points out below, I’d be thrilled someone is actually taking notice. I do think that if you can’t take the flak you probably shouldn’t be posting anything – controversial or not.

          15. Agree 100% – apologies but as I pointed out to Sos, I’m scarred by some real battles I’ve had with psychos on other sites and I still tend to respond to the same cues. What the hell, I like your posts and maybe you have a fine Scottish phrase that can sum up this nonsense!!

          17. Geordie? In that case I would have hoped for ‘Hadaway and shite!’ (As an old Geordie Rugby mate of mine, ex-Ponteland RFC, constantly said!)

          18. Ah! That well known firm of Newcastle solicitors!
            Rugby eh? My Dad and grandfather played for North Durham!

          19. Amazing! yes he always maintained there were solicitors there called Hadaway & Hadaway (I think)….

          20. I never actually played against them , but they were known as being pretty good – and a bit ‘tasty’ like a lot of the North Eastern teams (I recall a particularly painful experience against Gosforth……).

          22. Thank goodness, he’s a bit of a naughty boy (Stuart, that is!) – Fabulous Rugby player though….

          25. I don’t think this is the right site for some people, Sue. And I don’t, of course, mean you! It is no longer peaceful as once it was. Mostly we come on here to get away from the aggro that is the outside world, especially as the sun is setting.

          26. I understand pm, and I scroll past a couple of names. I think it’s called burying my head in the sand! And yes, I do like to get away to Nottl!

          27. Me too. I have blocked a couple of newbies, I feel that our welcome has been thrown in our faces. I know Sos argues about freedom of speech and non-blocking, but honestly enough is enough and had I met these people at work (those whom I have blocked) I would not have joined their social group, I would have passed on by, and I regard blocking as the same – I am not preventing them from spouting their stuff, other people can read it, I am just preventing me from getting involved with it.

          30. Re-read the thread.
            PetaJ was the one who jumped in, I deliberately didn’t name the poster until they raised the point themselves.

          31. Understood – I still have a problem with naming people, but that goes back to some real psychos I’ve come across on another sites.

          32. Understandable.
            You’ve probably noted that several Nottlers will never resist the opportunity to have a gentle go at each other, usually it’s banter but we all have our trigger points.

          34. There will be some of us Speccie exiles who know exactly who you mean – or at least one of the “psychos”!

          35. There are no psychos on this site, I have posted here for years and previously on the Telegraph, many moons ago.

            There are disagreements, for sure, but these are always amicably resolved.

            I confess that years ago I was inclined to fight fire with fire but perhaps with approaching old age and acumen I now stay clear of confrontational language.

            My advice to all is to desist from personal confrontations.

          37. There are no psychos on this site, I have posted here for years and previously on the Telegraph, many moons ago.

            There are disagreements, for sure, but these are always amicably resolved.

            I confess that years ago I was inclined to fight fire with fire but perhaps with approaching old age and acumen I now stay clear of confrontational language.

            My advice to all is to desist from personal confrontations.

          38. “Herself”. And I was not drawing attention to myself, I was taking responsibility for what I had said.

          1. I said that Islam itself is very fractured within itself so I didn’t see it as a cohesive threat. I also said that they are cowards as they have proved time and time again. They always resort to terrorist tactics and whenever they have had to face a proper army (ref: Israel) they have collapsed like a pack of cards.

    2. Quite obviously this needs to stop. And the invasion of Europe has to be stopped and turned back.

      1. We, and the majority of the British people, know this needs to stop, but the government has absolutely no intention of even slightly reducing the infestation by the dangerous, parasitic invaders.

        1. We have to vote Reform it’s the only hope we have. Our main parties are all lying 24/7/365. It’s never ending.

          1. We’re told to vote Tory to keep liebour out. Well, it’s looking like liebour are likely to win by a landslide, so a vote for the scumbag, lefty, eco-loon Tories wouldn’t make any difference anyway. The main parties are the red rosette socialists and the blue rosette socialists. Both are eco-loons, determined to ruin this country while allowing encouraging the wiping out of civilisation and indigenous Europeans with their support for the non-stop invasion by uncivilised (and unciviliseable) savages.
            The So-called Conservative party is no longer conservative.

  131. You reap what ye sow…

    “A military spokesman for Yemen’s Houthis announced on Saturday that their forces downed a US MQ-9 Reaper drone that was operating over Yemen and was carrying out a “hostile mission.”

    US officials confirmed to CBS News that a US Air Force MQ-9 drone “crashed” in Yemen early Friday morning and said they’re investigating the cause. MQ-9s are estimated to cost $30 million each, and Friday’s incident marked the third time the Houthis downed one since November.

    1. 200 Guineas of education goes down to a 4 shilling jezail……….
      Plus ca change

    2. American weapons are extraordinarily expensive and in modern warfare completely useless against sophisticated jamming mechanisms. Moreover the cheap weaponised drones used by Russia in Ukraine and Iran in Israel are highly effective against the most expensive missile defence systems in the world.

      Basically, weaponised drones are cheap to produce and may be launched in the hundreds or thousands against, say, a Patriot missile defence system where every Patriot missile launched costing several million dollars might account for a single drone costing a few thousand dollars.

      The US has lost it in every conceivable sense whether in Ukraine, Israel/Iran or for that matter the conflict with the Houti tribes in Aden/Sudan.

      Talk about asleep at the wheel. Biden should be put to sleep to avoid yet further embarrassment and exposure of the collective west to more humiliation by small countries but with functioning brains. I despair.

    1. All anti Muslim propaganda, they mean us no harm…..
      Ha bloody ha
      Our children on the other hand are fair (as in blonde) game

    2. Thank you Merkel and thank you Tony Blair, you fucking idiots.

      As others have noted we in the UK need to reverse every single Blair instrument to stand any chance of survival as a nation state. I would suggest the same applies to Germany and those policies implemented by Merkel. ”

      Refugees welcome”, my arse.

  133. I have/had huge respect for her as a working Royal, but I wonder what pressure was put on her.

  134. Enough is enough. Another day is done so, I wish you a goodnight and may God bless you all, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen früh.
    .

  137. Home Office lost contact with thousands set for Rwanda flights
    The department has until now relied on the incentive of free accommodation and a £49 weekly allowance to prevent people from absconding

    The Home Office has admitted it is unable to locate thousands of migrants it intends to deport to Rwanda as it prepares to detain the first individuals this week.

    A document quietly slipped out by the department states that more than 5,700 migrants had been identified for removal. However, only 2,145 of them “continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention,” the document said.

    The Home Office has insisted that the remaining 3,557 have not necessarily absconded but are not subject to reporting restrictions, which means they cannot be located for detention.

    Sources in the department accepted that there was a significant risk that they would abscond following the implementation of the Rwanda deportation scheme.

    The Home Office has until now relied on the incentive of free accommodation and a £49 weekly allowance to prevent people from absconding, but officials fear that the threat of deportation would outweigh that.

    Officials are due to start detaining migrants this week ahead of the first flight to Rwanda. The information was included in an update to the department’s equality impact assessment.

    The migrants identified for deportation to Rwanda all arrived in the UK illegally — most in small boats — between January 2022 and June 2023. It means that nobody who arrived in the UK in the last 10 months will be on the initial flights.

    The migrants will be detained at one of the UK’s six permanent immigration removal centres, which has a maximum capacity of 2,175 people.

    Home Office sources said there will be between 400 and 700 spaces reserved for migrants due for deportation to Rwanda. The remaining places will be needed for the detention of foreign criminals and other immigration offenders such as those who have broken the terms or overstayed their visas.

    The document also revealed concerns that MPs could succeed in delaying or cancelling the deportation of migrants by submitting last-minute representations. There is a long-standing parliamentary convention that removal is suspended until a case has been considered and a response issued to the MP.

    More….

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/home-office-lost-contact-thousands-migrants-rwanda-flights-psc2grw7b

    T A Rider
    18 MINUTES AGO

    The UK is a failed state.

    Reply

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    Share
    Rowan Young
    22 MINUTES AGO

    £49 and a free international flight?! Where do I sign??

    Reply

    Recommend (1)

    Share
    Patricia Rees
    18 MINUTES AGO

    Just travelled with a Rwandan Uber driver in Vancouver. He says Rwanda is a great place for holidays and is very safe with no corruption.

    1. Home Office ‘lost contact’ with thousands of the parasites? What did they expect, when they let them roam around unhindered. Anyone with any common sense knows the only way to deal with them is to take them them in a well guarded, secure facility (as basic as possible, and no spending money) as soon as the Channel taxi services have landed them, and keep them there. When the facility gets overcrowded, let them send supervised messages to their friends back home.

      1. Yes, and if us girlies can work that little problem out , why can’t the Home Office wallahs ?

        Oh, I know why, because they are lazy, probably taking back handers , have IQs of 90 and don’t have an ounce of nous with regard to kicking the interlopers out .

        1. What proportion of them are still ‘working’ shirking from home?
          How many of them are slammers? Definite conflict of interest.

    3. The moment the first boat landed and the criminals were not arrested and immediately returned to france we failed.

      They should have been rounded up, chained together and dragged behind the boat returning them.

    4. The moment the first boat landed and the criminals were not arrested and immediately returned to france we failed.

      They should have been rounded up, chained together and dragged behind the boat returning them.

    5. According to Twitt, they’ve all hopped across to Ireland and are currently guests of the Irish taxpayers. They’ll be on the boat back as soon as the UK government gives up this Rwanda farce in about five minutes.

        1. It was like the Chinese curse; we lived in interesting times! The rector started off by telling one of the members she wasn’t on the PCC but she claimed she was because she’d filled in all the paperwork and contacted the Archdeacon, the rector got quite heated and then accused the member of starting an argument! Then she said that she was only going to stay an hour because she couldn’t stand more than an hour in the member’s presence! Very Christian. In the event she stayed an hour and a half.

          The accounts have gone to the examiner, but the PCC hasn’t signed them off! The Churchwarden kept saying “I don’t know” and “I haven’t got that with me” when asked questions. The former Treasurer wasn’t happy (her face was a picture at the “answers” that were being given). The Tower Captain wanted to know why he’d been sacked and the rector said that was confidential (her answer to everything that is inconvenient). We finally (after about 10 minutes of pushing) got a decision on going ahead with repair of the window (for which the Friends had raised the money) so that we can apply for a Faculty.

          It was really a text book example of how not to run a meeting. The rector said she was going to hold the PCC meetings on Saturday morning in future! We all said, she’d be on her own because we couldn’t make it. The rationale was for families with children. None of us has children that aren’t grown up if we have children at all and anyway, Saturday morning is for taking the children swimming, playing games, music lessons or whatever. Despite trying to get an answer we still don’t know when the next PCC meeting will be, nor the APCM. As I pointed out, yet she still wonders why people don’t want to get involved in the life of the church! Thank goodness my term expires at the next APCM!

          1. For what it is worth my experience of senior clergy in the Church of England would turn any normal moral person away from Christianity.

            At meetings in St Albans Abbey the Dean would effuse in Latin knowing damn well that the Bishop at the time, Runcie, had no grasp of Latin. We knew Runcie was a war hero and a most honourable man.

            When working on the upgrading of clergy apartments at Amen Court (C17 dwellings behind the Old Bailey) we found the then Bishop of London insisted on all the latest mod cons and the provision of an Island kitchen for his dear wife. He would have ripped out historic ornaments and oak panelling to achieve some mad modernistic scheme.

            The fact that the building was Grade I listed was a mere inconvenience to this wretched man and his grasping wife.

            As I have stated on this forum before, the higher up you go in the Church of England, the worse the grasping materialism and hypocrisy you find.

            Robert Runcie was the single exception to my rule, particularly so when he ordered the restoration of Lambeth Palace Chapel and the Laudian Screen for which the architectural practice with whom I worked at the time was responsible.

          2. Someone is not allowed to know the reason why he was sacked? That sounds a bit unethical….

    1. ? Character map? I haven’t a clue what that is.. I did a search for how to produce an umlaut letter, but it didn’t work.
      Maybe I should try again in the morning. Unless I have another night like last night. Literally every couple of minutes, two blasted search lights security lights kept coming on for about 10 seconds on the house at the back. We have blackout curtain linings, but the bright light shows up at the top of the curtains. We need proper, old-fashioned pelmets.

      1. If you have a PC it’s a Windows Accessory, you can have it running in the background all the time. You just click on the letter with the Umlaut and copy it to your script

        1. Thanks for the explanation. I will ask MH tomorrow.
          I was following an instruction to press shift key while putting in a 4 digit code, then release the shift key. Nothing happened!
          Ah, well, goodnight.

          1. That’s because, with the Num Lock on, you need to press the Alt key and it’s usually a 3 number code 🙂

  140. I went to watch KIDNAPPED this afternoon (an interesting film, but rather biased; the poor Jewish family against the nasty Pope and his Roman Catholic advisors). Good music. Earlier this morning I did four lots of clothes washing, went shopping, wrote up an account of my secondary school education, and in the evening I visited my monthly Book Club. Now ready for bed.

    1. With an ipad, just hold the letter down on the keyboard and options will appear if available, öõœoëęẽ, just like that!

    1. The sooner those two retrobates and traitors sod off to Nigeria, or any other shithole for that matter, the better, excepting this shithole, the UK I might add. A shithole created by Blair and his policies.

    2. The sooner those two retrobates and traitors sod off to Nigeria, or any other shithole for that matter, the better, excepting this shithole, the UK I might add. A shithole created by Blair and his policies.

      1. I think they’re taking orders from someone else entirely. Folk think voting matters. They want a different party, they wantthe Tories out. It simply doesn’t matter while the machine rumbles on,, rewarding failure, corrupt to the core, slavishly following an agenda deliberately removed from democratic oversight.

        Green is not about the environment. It’s a control system.

  146. Goodnight, all. I’m off to bed to get warm. I may be without internet for a while (I’ll certainly be without electricity on Friday), so if I don’t appear, don’t worry.

  147. 386603+ up ticks,

    Pillow ponder,

    Again,again,& again either side of the English channel decent peoples take daily loses, tell me do these that organise the invaders boats also supply the knives etc.

    These crossings are financed via the two countries political overseers and both countries governing criminal security
    wretches employees, police & channel life-savers are as seen daily, pro invasion.

    Channel life savers rnli are in point of fact, bringing in life takers,
    rapist, and paedophiles.

    If the General Election comes before the civil war remember that your lab/lib/con coalition party vote is still needed for more of the same.

    https://x.com/smoaea/status/1784704648005243276

    2. Good morning Geoff, thank you for the early start at 5.40am uk time.

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