Monday 3 May: ITV cancel culture defies the principle of innocent until proved guilty

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/05/02/letters-itv-cancel-culture-defies-principle-innocent-proved/

582 thoughts on “Monday 3 May: ITV cancel culture defies the principle of innocent until proved guilty”

  2. Morning, all Y’all.
    Hope you had a good weekend, and are fit for fight now it’s Monday!

    1. Only 50 years ago, the average man might work a 40-hour week to support a wife who remained at home raising the children. He often had a mortgage on his home but might have it paid off in ten years. He paid cash for nearly everything else that he and his family owned or consumed.

      Today, both husband and wife generally must be employed full time. In spite of this, they can’t afford as many children as their parents could, and they generally remain in debt their entire lives, even after retirement. This is significant inflation by any measure.

      There’s no doubt that the real quality of life has declined sharply over the last fifty years. We have more toys but everything else, particularly the intangibles, Freedom, Security and Hope have almost disappeared.

      1. Inflation and tax – both really being the same thing.

        Money worth less, both partners having to work, fewer children, higher taxes on the productive to pay for and keep a client class.

        The border doors kicked off and burned by the Left to ensure that was irreversible. Poverty for the uneducated and state dependent meant a massive expansion in the state itself.

        More money needed to keep the poor meant higher taxes, more state meant more borrowing which meant more taxes.

        The thought of reversing the issue was anathema to the statists. After all, they got very rich and very fat ensuring we got poor. They took power and control from us and keep it through debt and taxes.

        The treadmill of big state keeps speeding up and inclining and every day more and more people fall off.

        The solution is obvious, but the very people who would enact it are the ones sat at a 7 course quango buffet with 5 wines and brandy.

        1. 1958 I went to a real High School (=Grammar in E,W & NI) – head, depute, secretary, teachers & 550 pupils+ 2 janitors
          Brilliant school – 3 of us made University aged 17.
          Typical Comprehensive today – Head, 6 deputies, 6/7 faculty heads, teachers (plenty arts, short of Maths, Physics Chemistry etc etc), 20+ admin staff, nurse, policeman (covers 2/3 schools), Senior Property Manager, deputy and 3 janitors) 1,000 / 1500 pupils

  4. British Lightning strikes to subdue terror threat in Iraq and Syria. 3 may 2021.

    The F35B jets are multi-role combat aircraft equipped with advanced sensors, mission systems and stealth technology – enabling them to carry out intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tasks.

    Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston said he was in no doubt “violent extremism and the toxic ideology underpinning it is still rooted” in the region.

    Sir Mike said the Armed Forces would continue “to take the fight to them in their sanctuary where otherwise they would be threatening the streets of the United Kingdom and our allies”.

    Morning everyone. While this clown is faffing around in the Mediterranean with his hi-tech gizmos the real threat is crossing the channel in Rubber Boats!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/03/british-lightning-strikes-subdue-terror-threat-iraq-syria/

    1. “Against Islamic State” you say……………..
      Well that’s a radical change of policy right there,we’ve spent the last ten years supporting them in Syria!!!!
      ‘Morning Minty

      1. Morning Rik. You would think they would be more grateful since without our help they would be nowhere!

    2. But the English Electric Lightning is no longer in service!

      Just saying…

  5. ‘Morning All

    The “You couldn’t make it up files” gets a sinister outing

    “Exclusive: Sex criminals, drug offenders, fraudsters and arsonists all serving on police forces

    Calls for rules on recruiting to be reviewed, as forces knowingly allow

    dozens of offenders to join their ranks despite criminal convictions”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/02/exclusive-sex-criminals-drug-offenders-fraudsters-arsonists/
    The fascinating question is WHY??
    Heaven forefend forces want people who will always obey orders no matter how illegal……….

      1. been that way since Blair s[h]at in the big chair. Obviously their “Charity registered support groups” need more money

    3. Set a thief to catch a thief…
      I would like to comment about a recent crime that was in the papers, but now that the alleged assailant has been charged, we will all have to wait for at least six months.

  6. Bill Cash writes confirming he’s still about somewhere. Barbara Chapman obviously hasn’t yet reached the reason her late husband didn’t tell her about keys for safe deposit boxes in the bank: At least Caroline Leeks kept it brief:

    SIR – Why should we ever watch an ITV serial again if, on a virtue-signalling whim, it can cancel the final episode of Viewpoint staring Noel Clarke on the day it was scheduled to be broadcast (report, May 1)? What is the point of a serial without its finale?

    While the allegations against the actor may be serious, they are, as yet, unproved. Has ITV never heard of “innocent until proved guilty”?

    Dr Roger Litton
    Harrogate, North Yorkshire

    SIR – As a youngster I was taught that I would be innocent until proved guilty.

    Some years ago, the then Director of Public Prosecutions told the Crown Prosecution Service that those alleging crime should be called victims and believed by the police. This resulted in senior members of the public being charged on the word of a fantasist.

    We now have progressed to guilty as alleged until proved innocent. The Royal family and our Prime Minister are examples of this reversal of the presumption to guilty until proved innocent. When will we revert to innocent until proved guilty?

    His Honour Lord Parmoor
    High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – What has happened to our world‑renowned legal system? We used to presume innocence until proved guilty. Now users of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram instantly make their minds up about rights or wrongs, with each subsequent post getting more hysterical.

    A series of celebrities have been suspended, sacked, vilified, and on Friday night the finale of a popular series was pulled because of alleged activities of the lead actor.

    Did anyone give thought to how the rest of the cast felt – or the viewing public? It was reported that ITV’s decision followed “media pressure”. Had Noel Clarke been charged and found guilty after due process, this could be understood, but there was no more than a kangaroo court.

    Doug Prewer
    Yateley, Hampshire

    SIR – I, like many people, had been enjoying Viewpoint – although, for full disclosure, I did fall asleep for a few minutes during three of the four episodes, so was not totally sure what was going on. (I made plans to watch last night’s finale of Line of Duty standing up.)

    It is good that the finale of Viewpoint was put on the ITV Hub for 48 hours. However, nothing sums up the strange world that we now live in better than its press statement that said it was available “for a limited time for any viewers who wish to seek it out, and watch its conclusion”. Why use such pompous language?

    James Sneath
    Eastbourne, East Sussex

    SIR – On what basis does Bafta make its awards?

    I do not seek to excuse bad behaviour, but either one has made an Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema or one has not.

    Brian Slater
    Ellesmere, Shropshire

    CofE ethnic quotas

    SIR – As the vicar in a Surrey village, I was called to my vocation to love and serve everyone equally. I deplore the sin of racism and have no qualms with legal initiatives to remove it. However, is that what the important report From Lament to Action by the Archbishop’s Anti-Racism Taskforce is aiming to do?

    A key point of action, being implemented nationally, is that 15 per cent of appointments to the Bishop’s Council, the central decision-making body in each diocese, should be from a UK minority ethnic or global majority heritage background.

    Where does this percentage quota come from? The 2011 census concluded that 13 per cent of the national population are UK minority ethnic. No doubt that has increased over the last 10 years. However, approximately half of this grouping are Muslim, Hindu and Sikh in their faith – and extremely unlikely to aspire to leadership roles in a church.

    Consequently, the maximum Christian UK minority ethnic population is nearer 7.5 per cent. So, on its implementation, this recommendation will institutionalise twice that proportion of minority representation. This is not only inappropriate but, if impacting individual appointments, illegal.

    Rev James McKeran
    Witley, Surrey

    Smart and a half

    SIR – I am 76 years and live alone. I have a smart phone, a smart alarm system, smart heating controls and am awaiting my smart meter. My modern car also has many smart features.

    Smart technology (Letters, May 1) keeps me in touch with family and friends wherever I may be, gives me confidence and control, all with minor additional cost over savings.

    What is the opposite of being smart?

    Barry Broome
    Lichfield, Staffordshire

    Hello, Boris here

    SIR – Comment by those interviewed by the BBC about security and Boris Johnson’s mobile phone exhibits ignorance. There is nothing insecure about his number being accessible.

    The network operator, or the PM himself, can divert all incoming calls to the No 10 switchboard. Using his number to contact him should be seen as a sign of democracy in action.

    If calls are too many, technology can sent them to a call centre for triage.

    Robert Blair
    Farnham, Surrey

    Raspberry jam

    SIR – The row over the Prime Minister’s spending on refurbishment reminds me of the Duke of Wellington being asked to account for 1s 9d in petty cash and “the number of jars of raspberry jam issued to one cavalry regiment during a sandstorm in western Spain” during the Peninsular War.

    His stiff reply ended by asking the powers-that-were to choose between two duties for him to pursue, since he could not do both: “To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of the accountants and copy-boys in London or, perchance, to see to it that the forces of Napoleon [Covid] are driven out of Spain [the United Kingdom].”

    Peter Wigley
    Chester

    SIR – I remember watching a country solicitor cross-examining an evasive defendant charged with attempted theft of fish. It was very similar to Prime Minister’s Questions.

    Mark Solon
    London E1

    Bright idea for France

    SIR – Allister Heath’s article (“The EU’s stupidity will spark a new Brexit war”, Comment, April 30) is well timed. He identifies government preparations for a new phase in our European relations; Lord Frost knows what he is doing.

    Mr Heath remarks that “nobody remembers the wonderful Cobden–Chevalier Treaty of 1860, a pioneering Anglo-French free trade agreement”. I dealt with it in my book, John Bright: Statesman, Orator, Agitator.

    Richard Cobden negotiated the Commercial Treaty and Bright was very much involved. Gladstone backed it, but Palmerston was against. On the French side, Michel Chevalier had read a speech by Bright in the Commons in July 1859 and was deeply impressed, despite Palmerston’s antipathy to France. The success of the treaty prompted Palmerston to claim credit.

    If only the EU could behave as constructively as Chevalier (who in turn convinced Napoleon III) there would be no need for “a new Brexit war”. The Northern Ireland Protocol problem could then be resolved.

    Sir William Cash MP (Con)
    London SW1

    No law against a hug

    SIR – Dr Richard Soper (Letters, April 30) says that the “Government should allow us to embrace those we’ve missed for so long”.

    It is not the Government’s business. The law currently says we cannot meet indoors except as a single household and only six may meet outside, but the law does not stop us embracing when we do meet. That is just guidance.

    It is time the British people assessed their own risk. If the Government saw the people unilaterally reverting to usual social practice, perhaps it would realise it’s time to stop trying to control our everyday lives, through the law or guidance. The Government seems intent on blurring the boundaries between the two in its proclamations.

    Richard Hopkinson-Woolley
    London SW19

    The golfing jungle

    SIR – It always seemed to me that, on country golf courses especially, the competition was to see who could cope best with the prevailing conditions, whether it was fierce rain, pheasants on the green or horses crossing the fairway.

    Crane-fly larvae (Leading Article, May 1) are a minor obstacle compared with onshore winds and dozy sheep.

    Liz Wheeldon
    Seaton, Devon

    What’s left after removing the big smell

    SIR – I remember in the late 1960s a smoker arriving at work complaining he’d had to travel in a non-smoking compartment (“Stalwart scents, Letters, April 30). “It stank of people,” he said.

    Ian Smith
    Wickham Bishops, Essex

    SIR – For me, the most evocative lost smell of all is that of the traditional British pub.

    The combination of sweet, hoppy, freshly pulled pints, mixed with the flatter, more earthy smell of beer dregs languishing in the slop trays, the faint whiff of dampness and yeast rising from the cellar, coalescing in a background of tobacco smoke was a wonderful experience enjoyed by, mostly, men of a certain age.

    I have no regrets at the banning of smoking in pubs, but the aromas encountered in a “gastro-pub” will never compete with the sensory experience of the pubs of old.

    Leslie Mills
    Wansford, Cambridgeshire

    SIR – Sun-warmed cat.

    Caroline Leeks
    Halesworth, Suffolk

    Strangely labelled boxes

    SIR – When helping my husband in clearing the contents of his late mother’s bungalow, I came across a neatly wrapped parcel, done up in crisp brown paper and string (Letters, May 1). The label (everything had a label) said that the contents were “Broken glass”. She, as ever, was quite correct.

    Patricia Twist
    Preston, Lancashire

    SIR – When my husband died, we found in his “little box” a number of unnamed keys on a fob. I saved them, and was I glad!

    Six years later we discovered the keys belonged to three safe deposit boxes kept in the bank.

    Barbara Chapman
    Rotherfield, East Sussex

    SIR – Readers might like to know that it’s worth checking those old boxes. I did that just now and a wine box labelled “Lesley’s old handbags” turned out to contain 10 bottles of a rather fine vintage.

    Lesley Thompson
    Lavenham, Suffolk

    SIR – When I was the professor of surgery at King’s College Hospital, among my active filing system of research papers were two box files, one labelled “Work in progress”, and the other “Work not in progress”.

    When I retired 15 years ago, I couldn’t bring myself to abandon the second box, so it came home with me, with now long-forgotten good intentions. It is still in my home office, and no doubt my children will send it for secure shredding once I am gone.

    Professor Emeritus Irving Benjamin
    Deal, Kent

    1. SIR – On what basis does Bafta make its awards?

      Well not being White is a real boost to your chances Mr Slater!

      2. ‘Morning, Sos, I agree; as soon as I read (and digested) his meanderings and his request for the opposite of ‘Smart’, I immediately thought that in his case it epitomised him – Dim. Bright as a Toc H Lamp springs to mind.

      3. Is he? It’s just a different choice. However my smart meter hasn’t worked for over a year, my smart speaker often ignores me and the car regularly reports engine maintenance needed – just after an MOT.

        Adopting technology does not make you smart, just… well, adopting technology.

  7. #CovidClownWorld

    “The epidemic, in Britain, is over. Yes, the virus continues to circulate,

    as do many adenoviruses, rhinoviruses and, indeed, coronaviruses. But

    Covid-19 is no longer, by any normal definition, a major cause of

    death….”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/02/pandemic-slower-unlock-countries-higher-rates-infection/

    Yet the fear porn is relentless and 21st of June is already fading away………..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cc913b95103f595302e69afe9d5cb0f8b99a6ac8d2975e183eb492586c35ac21.png

    Add the Al-Beeb etc

    https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ol03bHv4eRg/YI4EU2ZfLaI/AAAAAAACj5U/uJpd6cuDh-sQRCBUZnsGZxnuh2VpKBSIQCLcBGAsYHQ/s960/135078125_10225599439718165_6660432833215868433_n.jpg

    1. Something us tin foil hatters have instinctively known right from the outset.

    2. We in CARE Suffolk are currently fighting against Planning Permission for three separate companies, who collectively, will cover 500 acres of good, arable farmland with their idea of a Solar ‘Farm’ at a time when we currently import between 31 and 39% of our food.

      2. Sun-concentration camps. Protected by high barbed wire fences and many have CCTV mounted on poles.

        1. It has been likened, Tim, by those who regularly use the footpaths, to walking through or around an open prison.

    3. Any idiot could have proven that. Not just by the physical space but the materials used, their inefficiency.

      It’s also the land lost that could be used for farming, or otherwise productively. But green was never about climate change. It’s a smokescreen. It’s simply a tax scam!

    1. makes it even easier for those on here that whatever they choose to “post” [past, present, future] – the reverse is the true position. But don’t let facts and evidence get in the advertsing / virtue signalling way. AKA all within Government positions are merely a manufactured construct developed to pretend there is a two party system in the UK when reality is all of them are bought and paid for by the Globalists. I’d made that point to my “MP Damian Collins” the last time I met him [before EU Referendum] – usual response, wobbled like a jelly and wobbled off to have a pic taken with a tree

    2. makes it even easier for those on here that whatever they choose to “post” [past, present, future] – the reverse is the true position. But don’t let facts and evidence get in the advertsing / virtue signalling way. AKA all within Government positions are merely a manufactured construct developed to pretend there is a two party system in the UK when reality is all of them are bought and paid for by the Globalists. I’d made that point to my “MP Collins” the last time I met him [before EU Referendum] – usual response, wobbled like a jelly and wobbled off to have a pic taken with a tree

    3. makes it even easier for those on here that whatever they choose to “post” [past, present, future] – the reverse is the true position. But don’t let facts and evidence get in the advertsing / virtue signalling way. AKA all within Government positions are merely a manufactured construct developed to pretend there is a two party system in the UK when reality is all of them are bought and paid for by the Globalists. I’d made that point to my “MP Collins” the last time I met him [before EU Referendum] – usual response, wobbled like a jelly and wobbled off to have a pic taken with a tree

  16. Given, am sure there are elements of 77 Bde trying to monitor this site. Here’s one for their tea break while claiming overtime on Press Overtime Day and Taking a Knee while stirring their sugar.

    Vaccines offered for kids either voluntary or mandatory, will they, or their parents be given a choice? = Child Abuse

    1. Morning AW. We had one a few weeks ago emerging from Deep Cover. There should be an increase in their activity soon as the PTB have discovered that hardly anyone believes their Anti-Putin/Russia narrative!

      1. Araminata mng. Yes I recall some odd posts but didn’t seem to stay / last long. I guess someone flicked the “wise switch” in their head before they got decimated on here – permanently

    2. Several years ago I posted something truthful but critical. A while later someone turned up on the doorstep wanting to ask some innocent questions; complete coincidence one might think, until the moment they unintentionally mentioned a fact that I had not told them.

      And the PTB can monitor ‘private’ Facebook posts in real time, that includes images not just key words.

      1. another reason to avoid fb. Given the Govt’s laltest proposed White Paper going through the mix, anyone who disagrees or challenges any official line will be immediately pinged. If you’ve experienced that before, your footprint and data is well cemented in the database even if you use vpn. Check the style of different people on here, no repeated use of popular phrases, sayings

  17. Caitlyn Jenner is right about transgender athletes and women’s sports. 3 May 2021.

    On Saturday, Jenner was accosted by a journalist in a car park. There were questions to be answered. Not about jobs, health, education or public services, not even about climate change that seems to be hitting California with wild fires every summer, but about an issue that has mushroomed out of all proportion.

    ‘There is legislation in various states to ban biological boys, who are trans, from playing girls’ sports in school. What is your opinion on that?’

    In three sentences, Jenner cut through the nonsense that has infected politics both here and in the US.

    Some of our own politicians here in the UK might want to take note of Jenner’s answer.

    ‘This is a question of fairness. That’s why I oppose biological boys who are trans competing in girls’ sports is school. It just isn’t fair, and we have to protect girls’ sports.’

    BELOW THE LINE

    A real liberal • 3 minutes ago • edited.

    Is this some kind of hate article? Transwomen are women. Full stop. Not only do 18 year old biological-male mesomorphs have a right to play for the U14 girls netball team and hold the ladies discus world record, but middle-aged, reformed-offender, biological men have a right to join the girl guides. Caitlyn Jenner needs to check her privilege. And the Spectator needs to woke up.

    Definitely not a Nottler in disguise!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/caitlyn-jenner-is-right-about-transgender-athletes-and-women-s-sports

    2. There ought to be a special category for transwomen clubs:

      Male members only

    5. No, the Spectator needs to keep promoting the truth and the 18 year old boy is a boy, not a woman.

      However, it looks like a parody, especially with reference to the ‘reformed offender can join the guides.’ No sane person would think that.

    6. The problem with such satire is that many people will presume they are actually being serious!

    1. note the end of the definitely not virtue signalling slogan message “good, secure jobs for local people” = illegal immigrants

    2. 332262+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Surely virginity in a child is on the table here in regards to the continuing voting pattern and what was initially revealed by the Jay report in 2014.

      A lab/lib/con vote will guarantee to endanger childhood in this vile manner via mass ONGOING uncontrolled immigration.

      May one ask in ALL seriousness
      ” where is the children’s immunity in regards to the herd”

        1. 332262+ up ticks,
          Morning AWK,
          Along with “two little boys” bBc role models.

          1. I understand Rolf’s fully booked as he’s been taken on as an artistic advisor to Johnson’s canine companion

          2. 332262+ up ticks,
            AWK,
            Behold the wretch camerons approach to animal husbandry
            he had it all in hand approaching a pig’s head on a platter.

            Then in opposition we have a certain mr anthony charlie
            lynton …..

            These cretins still have a following & a shout, little wonder we are in very deep sh!te.

      1. 332262+ up ticks,
        Morning Anne,
        I do take the lab/lib/con close shop to be a coalition and as such, one party.
        Mass uncontrolled immigration joins them and makes them libel for shared
        consequences, is how I see it.

    4. Are you joking? Labour do nothing but destroy jobs.

      Yet.. people will believe that. They’ll swallow it. They won’t *think*. They will vote tribally, reflexively.

      One has to ask – should those people be allowed to vote considering how they’ll waste it?

      1. the original, traditional Labour base no longer exists, hence the influx of illegal economic migrants as the replacement. Hence the support from the Home Office, sorry the Minstry of Free Things, to ensure the image of the “tribal voting block” remains extant. The same’s happened to Conservatives. Then again it’s “Press Freedom Day” they’ll be told who to vote for. What, why and how are not in the equation

      2. 332262+ up ticks,
        Morning W,
        How are you going to take it up with the dead ? then you have the family tree voter, grandad, dad, the person holding the baby, the baby & so it continues right up to the doors of the mosque.

        The Conservative people’s voting for a Name only party, labs still thinking that the lab party still, as it once had, a spark of decency in it.

        The end is truly nigh via a lab/lib/con coalition vote.

    6. A corner shop is far too complex for them, Ogga – in my day it was a whelk stall.

  20. From The Grimes this morning:

    “The Colosseum in Rome is about to get its floor back after 1,500 years, allowing visitors to stand on the spot where thousands of gladiators met a gory death.
    The new €15 million floor will feature revolving wooden slats that retract along runners, so that the arena can once again host events without permanently covering ts ancient foundations.”

    Strictly Come Gladiating will be filmed there…

    I’ll get me toga.

    1. very considerate of the Italians to declare where collective C-19 jabs will take place. Unless they call another General Election beforehand and use revolving wooden slats to repackage what passes for Government

      1. “In Rome, I used to go down every morning to watch the Changing of the Government” – Max Bygraves – late 1950s!

    2. “the spot where thousands of gladiators met a gory death.”

      So they are closing the circle, a good number of Opera’s end with people dying and bodies all over the stage….

  21. The Covid fines are a monstrous assault on justice. Spiked 3 May 2021.

    The Covid fines are not set at low levels either. As I have previously highlighted on spiked, they are the heaviest fines to be inflicted on the British people since the ‘Weregild’ (or ‘blood money’) fines of the Dark Ages. These fines include £200 for not wearing a face mask, between £1,000 and £10,000 for a business failing to implement a system to collect NHS Test and Trace data, between £4,000 and £10,000 for failing to self-isolate, and £10,000 for hosting a rave.

    Justice had nothing to do with this! These fines were quite clearly designed to intimidate! All of them should be rescinded!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/05/03/the-covid-fines-are-a-monstrous-assault-on-justice/

    1. MB and I are currently watching “Deutschland ’86”. We watched ’83 a while back.
      This time, the GDR seems like a land of freedom and fun.

    2. Boris Johnson should be fined £100,000 for each promise he made before the election if it has not been honoured within two years of his being elected.

      We could start with:

      reform of the BBC; no border in the North Sea; reclamation of British fishing waters; good arrangements with EU for financial services; protection of N. Ireland veterans from legal prosecution; putting a stop to illegal immigration etc. etc. etc.

    4. According to research, one such eruption negates the total ‘Carbon Savings’ made to date.

  23. Something To Offend Everyone

    What is the difference between a Harley and a Hoover?
    The position of the dirt bag.

    Why is divorce so expensive?
    Because it’s worth it.

    What do you call a smart blonde?
    A golden retriever.

    What do lawyers use for birth control?
    Their personalities.

    What’s the difference between a girlfriend and a wife?
    20 kgs.

    What’s the difference between a boyfriend and a husband?
    45 minutes.

    What’s the fastest way to a man’s heart?
    Through his chest with a sharp knife.

    Why do men want to marry virgins?
    They can’t stand criticism.

    Why is it so hard for women to find men that are sensitive, caring, and good-looking?
    Because those men already have boyfriends.

    What’s the difference between a new husband and a new dog?
    After a year, the dog is still excited to see you.

    What makes men chase women they have no intention of marrying?
    The same urge that makes dogs chase cars they have no intention of driving.

    A brunette, a blonde, and a redhead are all in Grade 9. Who has the biggest boobs?
    The blonde, because she’s 18.

    What’s the difference between a porcupine and a BMW?
    A porcupine has the pricks on the outside.

    What did the blonde say when she found out she was pregnant?
    ‘Are you sure it’s mine?’

    Why do men find it difficult to make eye contact?
    Breasts don’t have eyes.

    What would you call it when an Italian has one arm shorter than the other?
    A speech impediment.

    What’s the difference between a Chinese zoo and an English zoo?
    A Chinese zoo has a description of the animal on the front of the cage along with a recipe.

    How do you get a sweet little 80-year-old lady to say the F….. Word?
    Get another sweet little 80-year-old lady to yell “BINGO”!

    What’s the difference between a northern USA fairy-tale and a southern USA fairy-tale?
    A Northern fairy-tale begins ‘Once upon a time.’
    A Southern fairy-tale begins ‘Y’all ain’t gonna believe this shiiit’.

    Why is there no Disneyland in China?
    No one’s tall enough to go on the good rides.

        1. What’s the speech? You can’t handle the truth?

          Folk don’t want to live in the complex, messy world. They don’t want to take responsibility for themselves, to admit that they’re part of the problem. They like the pretence.

  26. 332262+ up ticks,
    Get rid of domineering raab first to trigger a domino effect
    regarding the whole cabinet / party,proven enemas of the state.

    The lab lot speak for themselves as a thin veneer of ersatz decency covering an islamic ideology / commie torso, no better ,no worse than the tory / lib dems.

    Dt,
    Face masks and glass screens may stay beyond the end of lockdown
    Dominic Raab says ‘some safeguards’ will likely remain in place after Government’s promised end of lockdown roadmap on June 21
    Ps,
    I would agree to two points
    One, regular hand washing.

    Two the washing out of the polling booth of the lab/lib/con anti Brit. coalition in it’s entirety.

  27. Good morning, my friends

    More work to do in the garden – mainly sawing logs which I do by hand. I have seen a couple of accidents with chain saws so I gave mine away several years ago and sawing by hand keeps me fit. But before I go out into the garden I shall have a quick nottle.

    Face masks and glass screens may stay beyond the end of lockdown
    Dominic Raab says ‘some safeguards’ will likely remain in place after Government’s promised end of lockdown roadmap on June 21

    Lucy Fisher: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/05/02/face-masks-glass-screens-may-have-stay-beyond-june-21/

    A couple of BTL comments with which I agree.

    Even though the masks neither protect you from infection nor prevent you from passing it on if you are infected it is still absolutely imperative that you continue to wear a mask to show that you are suitably subservient to the PTB.

    BJ is too busy breaking all his promises (reform of the BBC, no border in the North Sea, reclamation of British fishing waters, good arrangements with EU for financial services, protection of N. Ireland veterans from legal pursuit, putting a stop to illegal immigration etc. etc. etc.) to listen to anyone except his mistress.

  28. Good morning everyone hope all is well. Geoff, did you manage to sort out a lift for Thursday, hope so. I’m sure you could have all the candidates falling over themselves to help.

    I am already shouting at the DT. Well, at the effing government actually. First thing I see – FACE MASKS AND GLASS SCREENS MAY HAVE TO STAY BEYOND 21ST JUNE.

    I hate hate hate BPAPM. I know I’ve said it many times but they just will not let go of their control. And there are too many sheeple happy to go along with it all.

    1. “And there are too many sheeple happy to go along with it all.”
      Morning, VW. I don’t talk to many resident in the UK these days (I think my Mother is in la-la-land…) but if crazed teacher friend is typical of the terror-stricken populayion, they want MORE restriction, not less. That’ll give them a warm, safe feeling, it seems.

      1. I just cannot understand that these people can’t see what’s going on. Why can’t they see? They will happily go along with “booster” jabs every year and wearing masks for ever it seems.

        1. See “the Z man’s” reasoning above in the Taki link, re falling IQ’s

      1. Excellent. We had Libdem candidate knock on the door the othe r day. Nice bloke. Bet he wished he hadn’t bothered. I’m afraid I let off steam at him, politely, and then Alf joined in. The guy was very patient!

        2. We’ve had nothing, though someone I half recognised as possibly being the Conservatives For Remain muppet I crossed swords with during that campaign, did push some blue coloured leaflets into the ex-pub over the road. He saw me and buggered off back up towards Bonsall very quickly.

          1. I think we missed the Con supporter, found the leaflet when we came back in. More’s the pity!

          3. That made me laugh Phizzee. But I guess I’m a masochist. I like to read them first and then Throw them away!

        3. The LDs have candidates in all our contested elections; it seems as though they are going down the “gain power by taking over local government” route again.

      2. I sincerely hope, Geoff, that your postal vote is counted for the right candidate – I understand your reasons for using a Postal Vote but I am deeply suspicious of them as a major vehicle for voting corruption.

        1. So far as our system is concerned, actual legitimately cast votes are not a problem, it’s the extra votes concocted in someone’s garden shed or garage where the frauds begin.

          1. Probably true, BoB, but those fraudulent postal votes get counted without being spotted as fraudulent.

          2. Exactly.
            I used postal voting several times because I was often rostered away on voting day so would be loathe to see it abolished.
            However, the system does need to be tightened up, especially with regards to voter id and the harvesting of postal votes from the elderly in care homes.

            I’d also like to see postal votes being counted separately from the main ballot and, should there be a discrepancy in the percentages of votes allocated, the declaration of the result to be delayed and the postal voting register investigated.

          3. I completed the postal voting forms for my wife in the care home (I have PoA) and posted them myself

          4. Much better than a local party activist doing so on their behalf as happens in many care homes.

          5. I could have done that for MOH (I, too, have POA), but MOH actually made the choices (not the ones I would have made).

          6. Sounds sensible to me, BoB, it’s a pity that the Electoral Commission consists of lefty wanquers.

  29. What the hell is Raab doing wittering on about the plague? And how we must be kept repressed for ever?

    2. Given the apparent enthusiasm for passports/masks/lockdowns amongst the pig-ignorant public I suspect that this is the start of a leadership challenge.

    3. He’s obviously on the local election campaign trail Bill. BTW, was he taking a knee? And if so, where was he taking it to?

      1. No idea – there is just a picture of him in the Mail.

        (I never watch or listen to ANY news or current affairs progs)

    1. it’s reasonably accurate, and those pulling Demented Joe’s strings / levers are in full mode. But the woke lemmings element Stateside don’t have the gumptions to figure this out.

      1. And just how many “white” countries are there where similar isn’t happening with the full connivance of the State?

    2. That they got paid to write an article which in summary spells out ‘the state won’t allow it’ is annoying. We all know this. It’s why everything continues to get worse. It matters not who is elected. The inertia of the state, it’s sheer, mindless incompetence ensures the narrative of high tax, waste and big state continues.

      1. As to being paid; the problem I see is that there are fewer and fewer places where such articles can be posted and fewer and fewer people getting them published.

  31. Good morning all.
    Dry and overcast in Derbyshire with an almost balmy 5°C on the yard thermometer!

  32. Innocent until proven guilty implies a process of law and justice. One where the ‘wrong’ result might be found.

    For the same reason the Left want to undermine society: the family, country to make it match their own ideology so too do they want to dismantle law.

    This is almost a parallel with what they did the last time, in 1938.

    2. He’s not that smart if he’s been conned into getting all these things
      Morning Duncan

      1. In my home we have a laptop (real letters, a bit of spreadsheet etc), 2 i-phones (phone+FaceTime to USA son), 2 ipads (reading), Firestick (AppleTV, Netflix music), Sky(Premiership) – all renewed every 5/6 years. Averaging some £5 per week for hardware ……………… even a 2 minute call to USA is £2.50 – we average 1 hour per week and see the grandkids & the dog (plus son & DiL). Hi-tech in my opinion & low cost.

        1. Same here. My smartphone also does my banking, books and buys rail & bus tickets, lets me read the newspapers, shows me where I am in relation to where I want to go and tells me the route, allows me to compare prices in shops, handles messages, holds my hunting licence, appointments and emails, and just once in a while, handles voice communication. All for £10 a month.
          Oh, yes, takes photos and has a bright light that acts as a torch when necessary.
          All this fits in my pocket.

          1. does your hunting licence allow you to shoot people wearing masks, aside those who wear them for official work [Drs, surgeons etc]? If so, it would generate considerable, wider interest

    3. morning. I think he got his obligatory battering [Nottler greeting] earlier this am. But no harm in further shredding Mr Broome’s smart characteristics

    5. I bet he is one of those bloody old people who finally get served in a long queue then realises he has to pay!
      He then favs about searching all his pockets looking for his bloody smart card !

        1. I have this mental image he’s actually 16 as his points would make a bit more sense, once he gets his weekly pocket money

    7. If he’s got a smart car with no key he’s gonna get out smarted. PDQ

    8. Look Barry. Smart Gun. Smart Rope. With a Smart Meter, of course, the opposite of smart will be Barry’s electricity bill.

    9. The opposite of being smart, is being a sucker, and Barry has been suckered into all sorts of things over which he has little or no control. He’s one of many dupes.

    11. In BB’s case, a wee bit of modesty to alleviate his insufferable smartness? Just saying.

    12. Mr Broome must be reasonably affluent to need an online burglar alarm and he apparently resides in a nice house with double garage, close to the busy A38.
      (edited, with respect for Mr B’s privacy)

      Such information is easy to find on the web, so imagine what various authorities and villains might be able to discover.

      1. the conclusions of people here and BTL on DT confirms what is easy to find when not on the web, when you know what you’re reading and how to interpret the information. With a helping hand of 77 Bde construct, it’s not difficult to imagine how various authorities information is maniuplated. The tone, diction and superfluous, irrelevant information of your post in an attempt to build an emotive character narrative to control validates that.

        As it’s Press Freedom Day the folliowing is the hint your’e exposed: use of “around” / “appear” / “must be reasonably affluent” “apparaently resides” / “the house opposite (immaculately restored…)” / and seems to be an executive employed by…”

        1. Not sure I understand, but I didn’t want to be sued so I used a few weasel words/qualifiers.
          I note Barry’s smugness and satisfaction with these amazing high tech gadgets that help us to do stuff, but the risks are enormous for some elderly people.

          1. tim points noted. People on here are all well informed and am sure you’ll have scrolled through all posts and you’ll get the gist of generic age of the people who visit / contribute to this site, and exist. You’ve no fear of being sued by anyone on here. As highlighted in my previous reply, the elements contained within parenthesis is classic and well used method used to steer readers’ thinking. Anything posted that’s deemed official is taken as propaganda. Contributors here take that as immediate baseline.

            If you need to enquire as to the risks to elderly people, am sure others on here will offer you their perspective. This site is one of the few sites where you’ll glean real information by people who are well informed.

  35. 332262+ up ticks,
    Yer wot, after taken so long to get them here the PTB
    keep em.

    Dt,
    Visa deal that opens door to Indian students will allow UK to send back illegal migrants
    Agreement could be reached this week, as part of a wider bolstering of relations that aims at securing a mini trade deal

          4. If we reached the bottom, does that mean all options are arses and full of shut?

        2. We’d have to get a patriot installed pretty blooming’ quickly, before the authorities could arrest him (or her) for being a right wing extremist.

    2. Cue to repeat:

      A little Aussie humour.

      An Italian, a Frenchman and an Aussie were talking about screams of passion.

      The Italian said, “Last night I massaged my wife all over her body with the finest extra virgin olive oil, then we made passionate love and I made her scream, non-stop for five minutes.”

      The Frenchman said, “Last night I massaged my wife all over her body with special aphrodisiac oil from Provence and then we made passionate love. I made her scream for fifteen minutes straight.”

      The Aussie said, “That’s nothing! Last night I massaged my wife, y’know, all over her body with a special butter. I caressed her entire body with the butter, and then we made love and I made her scream for two long hours.”

      The Italian and Frenchman, astonished, asked, “Two full hours? Wow! That’s phenomenal. What did you do it to make her scream for two hours?”

      The Aussie replied, “I wiped my hands on the curtains.“

    1. In other news…churches throughout Russia held Easter (Russian Orthodox) services yesterday.

        1. Look at the more vocal of the two male officers and consider what his religion might be.

  38. Midday on the first Monday of the month and the village”something’s up” siren has been tested.
    Everything’s right with the world.

  39. I thought that some of the haughtier Nottlers who would not deign to visit the gutter press might like to be kept abreast of the activities of the sixth in line to the British throne.

    DM Story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

    Prince Harry received a standing ovation as he strode onto a stage in LA last night and offered thanks to front-line workers and urged Americans to ‘look beyond ourselves with empathy and compassion’ during the star-studded Vax Live charity concert. Harry was among many high profile stars – including Jennifer Lopez, Selena Gomez and Ben Affleck – to take the stage at Sunday night’s concert taping hosted by Global Citizen at the So-Fi Stadium in Inglewood, where the crowd featured only fully-vaccinated guests. The concert promoting equitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines worldwide marked Harry’s first public appearance in the US since his late grandfather Prince Philip’s funeral and since he and wife Meghan Markle – who was not present at the stadium – gave their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey last month.

        1. Oh yes of course. Just the hair gives it away. No other Ging-ers in the royal family eh. Elizabeth the first might have been.

    2. Shy, retiring man who wants to avoid press intrusion sneaks into high profile event?

    3. Pity he didn’t “look beyond” himself and his guttersnipe wife when he set out to damage his family.

      1. Blimey, I’ve not heard the word ‘guttersnipe’ for years.
        Thanks for the memory.

    4. Nobody seems to have suggested that these poor countries should push the procurement of vaccine up the to-do list, ahead of new Mercs for their ministers. Same for clean water to their natives.

      1. no need to do so re “National Priorities”. World Bank / IMF provide copious amounts of slush fund money for vaccines that never arrive. So the Mercedes / Toyota 4×4 sales continue unabated

    5. ‘look beyond ourselves with empathy and compassion’

      He’s picking up Californian meaningless gobbledook fast.

    1. And in the background the palm oil plantations after the removal of all of the orangutans wildlife habitat. Very sad.

      1. I was thinking,………. a Chinese takeaway,…….. but i didn’t say it. 🤔
        They are such beautiful creatures.

  42. Morning all i hope this clears up a few old digressions.

    Harrison Ford, see below the British government in their false and heavily fake sense of responsibility, are about to or have banned wood burners now or soon people can be fined to using them.

    Moments of clarity

    As I sat, strapped in my seat waiting during the countdown, one thought kept crossing my mind ….every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.

    -John Glenn

    When the white missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land.

    They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes.

    When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.

    – Desmond Tutu

    America is the only country where a significant proportion of the population believes that professional wrestling is real, but the moon landing was faked.

    – David Letterman

    I’m not a paranoid, deranged millionaire. I’m a billionaire.

    – Howard Hughes

    After the game, the King and the Pawn go into the same box!

    – Italian proverb

    The only reason they say ‘Women and children first’ is to test the strength of the lifeboats.

    – Jean Kerr

    I’ve been married to a communist and a fascist, and neither would take out the garbage.

    – Zsa Zsa Gabor

    When a man opens a car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.

    – Prince Philip

    A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kickboxing.

    – Emo Philips.

    Wood burns faster when you have to cut and chop it yourself.

    – Harrison Ford

    The best cure for sea sickness, is to sit under a tree.

    – Spike Milligan

    Lawyers believe a man is innocent until proven broke.

    – Robin Hall

    Kill one man and you’re a murderer, kill a million and you’re a conqueror.

    – Jean Rostand.

    Having more money doesn’t make you happier. I have 50 million dollars, but I’m just as happy as when I had 48 million.

    – Arnold Schwarzenegger.

    We are here on earth to do good unto others. What the others are here for, I have no idea.

    – W. H. Auden

    If life were fair, Elvis would still be alive today and all the impersonators would be dead.

    Johnny Carson

    I don’t believe in astrology. I am a Sagittarius and we’re very skeptical.

    – Arthur C Clarke

    Hollywood must be the only place on earth where you can be fired by a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap.

    – Steve Martin

    Home cooking. Where many a man thinks his wife is.

    – Jimmy Durante

    America is so advanced that even the chairs are electric.

    – Doug Hamwell

    The first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone.

    – George Roberts

    If God had intended us to fly he would have made it easier to get to the airport.

    – Jonathan Winters

    I have kleptomania, but when it gets bad, I take something for it.

    – Robert Benchley

    The weather person is the only person that I know, that can be wrong 99.9 % of the time, and still have a job the next day.

    -Johnny Carson

    1. If you can not swim and need a cruise, always travel on French ships; France is the only country that does not insist on ‘Women and children first’.

      (sauve qui peut)

  43. We have a few weeks without Nottler birthdays to celebrate so please let me know of any faults and omissions. (certain key Nottlers are very shy and are not on the list!)

    Anyone feeling less coy than they were about giving their year of birth?

    PLEASE, Fellow Nottlers, let me know of any errors, omissions or additions I need to make to this list.

    02 January – 1947 : Poppiesmum
    07 January – **** : Lady of the Lake
    08 January – 1941 : Rough Common
    09 January – **** : thayaric
    10 January – 1960 : hopon
    16 January – 1941 : Legal Beagle
    18 January – **** : Stormy
    21 January – **** : Nagsman
    23 January – 1951 : Damask Rose
    27 January – 1948 : Citroen 1
    10 February -1949 : Korky the Kat (Dandy Front Pager)
    11 February- 1964 : Phizzee
    22 February- 1965 : AW Kamau
    22 February- 1951 : Grizzly
    24 February- 1941 : Sguest
    28 February- 1956 :Jeremy Morfey
    29 February- **** : Ped
    05 March—– 1957 : Sue MacFarlane
    08 March—– 1957 : Geoff Graham
    26 March—– 1962 : Caroline Tracey
    27 March—– 1947 : Maggiebelle
    27 March—– 1941 : Fallick Alec
    19 April——- **** : Devonian in Kent
    22 April——–1950 :Jay Sands
    26 April——- **** : Harry Kobeans
    24 May——– 1944 : NoToNanny
    08 June——– **** : Still Bleau
    09 June——- 1947 : Johnny Norfolk
    09 June——– 1947 : Horace Pendleton
    23 June——– 1957 : Oberstleutnant
    25 June——– 1952 : corimmobile
    01 July——— 1946 : Rastus C Tastey
    12 July——— 1956 : David Wainwright/Stigenace
    18 July——— 1941: lacoste
    19 July——— 1948: Ndovu
    21 July———-1960: Tier5Inmate
    26 July——— 1936 : Delboy
    29 July———- 1944 : Lewis Duckworth
    30 July———- 1946 : Alf the Great
    01 August—— 1950 : Datz
    03 August—— 1954 : molamola
    10 August—— 1967 : ourmaninmunich
    14 August ——-1944 jillthelass
    18 August—— **** : ashesthandust
    19 August——- 1951 : Hugh Janus
    04 September- 1948 : Joseph B Fox
    07 September- 1946 : Araminta Smade
    11 September- 1947 : peddytheviking
    12 September- 1946 : Ready Eddy
    13 September- **** : Anne Allan
    15 September- **** : veryveryveryoldfella
    26 September- **** : Feargal the Cat
    30 September 1944 : One Last Try
    07 October—– 1960 : Bob 3
    11 October—– 1944 : Hardcastle Craggs
    25 October—– 1955 : Sue Edison
    12 November- ***** : Cochrane
    01 December– 1956 : Sean Stanley-Adams
    06 December– 1943 : Duncan Mac
    10 December– **** : Aethelfled
    16 December– **** : Plum
    21 December– 1945 : Elsie Bloodaxe

    (E&OE)

    1. Looks like Delboy takes the Grandpa accolade and, although not often seen, ourmaninmunich is the youngest sprog.

      Well done, Richard.

      2. You are one year younger than me. I thought by your writings you were at least 70… :@)

          1. I do appreciate the News reports you give us as we don’t see them elsewhere. So in effect you are broadening my horizons, Grandpa. :@)

        2. Very much better to have a wise head on young shoulders than the sort of head Biden has on his old shoulders!

          2. we’ll find out tomorrow. But all players in what passes for secure bubble. Indian franchise owners have too much money wrapped up in tv

    1. Never been there, my parents went a couple of times on holiday. I seem to remember they said it was a bit stoic. Not surprising after all they suffered.
      But all those brave people who gave their lives for the victory over the vile nazis. But in this day and age all their efforts it seems were in vain, the silent invasion of the UK is now taking place organised by our morally inept and useless political classes.

      1. I haven’t been there, either.

        Amongst those brave people are the ones who think it’s good sport to blast little songbirds out of the sky while they’re on migration. It’s no wonder our songbirds are disappearing.

      2. 332262+ up ticks,
        Morning RE,
        I visited the museum whilst awaiting a libyan entry visa, well worth it.
        ” our morally inept and useless political classes” and their ilk
        major, cameron,clegg, may, johnson have been returned to power again & again over the last three decades by the electorate.

        The great difference being the peoples of Malta in their own way fought back, where are we on the current issue ?

        Lest we forget.

    2. The Fort St Elmo national war museum in Valletta is an essential trip for anyone visiting the Island.

        1. I visited most of the museums and memorials around the Islands.

          An extraordinary feat of endurance and fortitude by the Islanders and those troops, airmen and sailors who arrived and fought too.

    1. It was a complete and utter debacle and a hoax. Moe than one hundred people said it was absolutely pointless.

      1. We watched it and were none the wiser at the end – but it was a pretty crap finish.

        1. Obviously you give too much to the animals and not enough to yourselves.

          1. All the funds that come in go to run the hospital and nothing comes to ourselves.

    2. Blair is very close financially with Kagame in Rwanda. The allocated money re President to Burkina Faso was never touched [or well spent depending on one’s view] as President allegedly died fromC-19 [reality he was kicking out UN agencies and was against implications of C-19]. As for a hub in Nigerian VP’s office is no different to giving Guy Fawkes the keys to House of Commons

  47. Right i’m off,………. got three bags of compost to take out of the car barrow to the bottom of the garden down the 8 steps and pot up my Tommie’s and some Sweet peas (they attracted the bees) in my new home made ex-pallet (tending grey) planter.

  48. 332262+ up ticks,
    Monday 3 May: ITV cancel culture defies the principle of innocent until proved guilty,

    Who was it that erased the treason penalties but one
    anthony charlie lynton ( bow street) AKA blair after feeling the hot breath of justice around his collar.

    He knew as many of his political ilk do what, when the people sheep regain their senses, if ever, is coming.

    1. I find it deeply disturbing that the prime minister, probably egged on by his mistress, managed to cave in over both Northern Ireland and our fishing waters. I know there is no credible alternative as Labour and the Lib/Dems are even worse than the Conservatives but I cannot understand how the general public and the MSM have let him get away with these very serious betrayals and get upset about his flat’s decor in an affort to divert attention from his gross treachery of the Northern Irish and the fishermmen.

      My flabber was completely ghasted when Farage committed suicide as far as his credibility is concerned in saying the surrender Johnson/Gove/Symmonds deal was acceptable.

      1. But, Rastus, do you really think the public is that concerned about the flat décor or is it just the MSM going on about it? I couldn’t give a flying toss whatever that is!) about it. I am more concerned with our “freedoms”, as was, that are inexorably being denied us. So much or 21st June.

    2. Since 1922 a third of the Free State then Irish Republic’s citizens moved to live in England. The Protestant north largely have not. They do not see themselves as British least of all; they are Irish as I have been told to my face. The Battle of the Boyne might be a day to celebrate, but it has precious little to do with the long history of Ireland as a whole. A Dutch King with a Dutch army fought a proxy French army led by a deposed British king in a place no one heard of and few could find. Like Culloden (or Dunkirk) a totally misunderstood episode drafted in to serve a different and often decades later agenda. Like Scotland, Ireland defines its history by dumping inconvenient truths on to the shoulders of the English. It is never remarked that in England such tensions as render life unbearable – life threatening indeed – in Ireland fail to materialise in mixed communities here. The current unrest was created not in Westminster, nor by a democratic vote – that this writer and many more still try to delegitimise – but in Belgium and France, two places where the war cemeteries are full of dead Irishmen who gave their lives for a free Europe, just not the right one.

    3. IMO It’s like 2 divorced parents with 2 children, both brats constantly fighting each other and their parents; neither parent likes the kids or wants the endless aggravation and costs, but the parents had them, have to look after them, don’t want to be seen to be abandoning them and go through endless deceits and hassles trying to dump them on the other whilst appearing to want them.

      Think German reunification with tribal hatred and low level civil war.

      The only sensible option is to have no border checks – the suggestion that an open border between NI and the RoI can significantly damage the Single Market is laughable when sensible procedures will do – and then for the U.K. and RoI to produce a joint framework addressing the main issues for unification followed by votes, one in NI and one in the RoI. But tribal hatred and politics are unlikely to produce any common sense

      FWIW there is a great deal of lazy thinking and ignorance over NI, particularly over Catholic voting intentions. NI and RoI Catholics are really 2 different tribes and, with this and the U.K. taxpayers’ support that would vanish, until recently the regular polls showed that all groups, Catholics included, would vote to stay in the U.K. Similarly, large numbers of RoI Catholics don’t want the hassle and cost of their northern cousins.

      Depressingly, There just doesn’t seem to be a solution. The tribal issues run too deep and no-one wants the hassle and cost.

      1. NI and RoI Catholics are really 2 different tribes and, with this and the U.K. taxpayers’ support that would vanish, until recently the
        regular polls showed that all groups, Catholics included, would vote to stay in the U.K.

        The first time I saw the late Ian Paisley was when he disrupted a visit to Northern Ireland by Seán Lemass, invited to N.I. by Terrace O’Neill. Relations between the two Ireland’s were civil at that point in the early 60s, which might be a clue as to why the extremes went on the warpath to keep their respective personality disorders alive and well. Lemass, a former gunman, angered N.I. Catholics when he told the Dáil on his return ‘you will never understand a northern Irish Protestant until you meet a northern Irish Catholic’.

      2. the first comment BTL in link gave a clear insight in what’s wrong / needed. The GFA, at the time was relevant, but will end up being another utopian ideal sitting on ever shifting sands. As Larkers points out concerning the history

        1. I read the article first when there were no BTL shown. I’ve looked at the BTL 3 times in the last half hour and each time it had different BTL. I therefore don’t know which BTL you mean.

          The situation for the GFA has, as you write, changed. The hope driven by the pragmatism of the early adherents has evaporated and the 2 sides have split apart again, digging in to tribal positions and politics with no middle ground. It was perhaps a worthwhile gamble, but it’s failed.

          1. fair one Dale and when I originally opened link, the BTL comments were decent. As you say, they changed, I can confirm current BTL posts are different from those originally viewed, two being from ROI

            Here’s the latest:

            Dustin Needle

            I worked in Belfast for a while and don’t dispute the general image of NI as presented in para 3. I simply refuse to believe that it was beyond the intelligence of EU/UK mandarins to simply put GFA at the centre of the new arrangement and work around that. But as the author says – “Why would the EU listen? Why would it do as it’s told?”

            Well maybe because they keep telling the world they are a “peace project”?

            The UK politicians who cheered the EU on in it’s attempts to weaponise the border agreement are culpable here. They didn’t have the courage of their convictions to push through and seize the process to openly destroy Brexit, preferring instead to hide behind flying flags and nonsense like the “People’s Vote”. I hope they all rot in hell.

            Chris Bradshaw

            I don’t think England cares any more. I think that, as with Scotland, many here would be glad to be rid of the, pardon the word, trouble. None of the grievances are of any concern to generations under 40 on the eastern side of the Irish Sea; indeed with the decline in Christian practise and lack of focus on the British Isles in much school-level history teaching, they are probably downright confusing to many. I get the feeling that the growing consensus in England is “Leave them to it.” This could uncharitably be translated to “Give ’em enough rope.”

            Andrew D

            Let me suggest two possible solutions.

            The first is that Ireland unites and – since that seems to be its preference, even in the north – remains a detached outpost of the EU,
            physically separated from that trading bloc by a trading partner which isn’t part of it. Prods who don’t like it can be offered a small bribe to go and live in Scotland (whence came many of their ancestors, and which I’m told is keen to encourage immigration).

            The second (and my preferred) solution is that the whole of Ireland becomes part of Greater Britain, outside the EU and enjoying the
            continued benefits of a shared language and historical, economic and familial connections. There are details to be resolved about the extent of devolution, but Dublin would need to retain its own parliament – it might even have more power than it does now as a minnow within the EU (as we’re now seeing with Brussels’ insistence that it raise its levels of Corporation Tax).

            Of course politics and history mean that neither of my brilliant solutions is likely to bear fruit, but can anyone suggest anything better?

          2. Here’s a third suggestion, unite Ireland and make it the 51st State of the USA.

            Dublin to Washington is a lot shorter distance than Honolulu to Washington.

      3. the first comment BTL in link gave a clear insight in what’s wrong / needed. The GFA, at the time was relevant, but will end up being another utopian ideal sitting on ever shifting sands. As Larkers points out concerning the history

      4. There have been no meaningful border checks in NI for over 100 years, if ever. There are apparently some 300 places where a road crosses the border. I went around Ireland at Easter 1966, the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising. Police stations were heavily sandbagged up to roof level, but there were no border checks.
        This whole mess was created by the EU and their catspaws in the Republic, and the UK acquiesced. No reading of the Good Friday Agreement suggests anything at all about the management of the border.

      5. A not dissimilar cultural clash existed in Scotland from the late 17th century to the mid 18th, magnified by the dispute over the succession to the Two Crowns, which culminated in the 1745 rebellion and led eventually to the Highland Clearances*. During this period the prevailing religion in the Gaelic-speaking Highlands was Roman Catholicism, while Protestantism dominated in the Scots-speaking Lowlands.

        The situation, which had been brewing for long enough and began as a power struggle between the two most powerful clans, the MacDonalds and the Campbells, was exploited by certain nobles – most notably the Dukes of Argyll (Campbells) – as they manoeuvred to increase their personal power, wealth and influence. A classic example of this division is the Glencoe Atrocity, from which the modern mythology arises that the English were to blame.

        A Dr. Paul Hopkins wrote an interesting book called “Glencoe and the End of the Highland War”, which is apparently available on Amazon, priced very reasonably at £74.79 (Nottlers who are interested should get in quick as they’re bound to be selling like hot cakes). Anyway,here’s a wee quote from the book.

        ‘The Massacre of Glencoe, carried out by one group of Scottish Highlanders on another upon orders drafted by a Scottish Secretary (John Dalrymple, Master of Stair) and counter-signed by a Dutch king is something for which, naturally, no true Scot will ever forgive the English.’

        * for which nobody has yet apologised – bastards!
        ;¬)

  57. Steve the Beard just noW BLT …

    Steve The Beard 3 May 2021 12:11PM

    Here’s a thought on language and money. When I was a little boy (early 1960s) the term “half a dollar” meant the same as “half a crown”, and
    therefore meant an eighth of a GB Pound (two shillings and sixpence, who needs decimal currency?).
    I believe it’s WW2 usage, when the exchange ratewas about 4 USD to the GBP.
    Here’s Andy Capp using the same term.

    https://archive.cartoons.ac.uk/GetMultimedia.ashx?db=Catalog&fname=AC2000.jpg

  58. Repression of freedom of speech doesn’t happen in a vacuum – we must pressure those who seek to erode it. 3 May 2021.

    Award-winning reporter Bao Choy, who was convicted on two counts of making false statements, is a prime example. Choy was investigating an attack at a Hong Kong metro station in 2019, to which the police took more than half an hour to respond and, when they did finally arrive, made no arrests. The force’s actions were widely criticised.

    This World Press Freedom Day, there are places all around the world where freedom of speech is still, as Lai puts it, a dangerous job. But repression isn’t created in a vacuum. To support journalists being targeted in Hong Kong, we must make sure the authorities know that the world is watching.

    I am, to put it mildly, no friend to the Chinese Communist Party, aka the Chinese Government, but they are merely playing catch up here. The situation described pertains to the UK of ten years ago. Now the UK is a fully fledged Police State where the MSM merely parrots Government and Globalist policy. The arbitrary arrest of Street Preachers and Indigenous Protesters passes without remark and Julian Assange languishes in gaol while bucketloads of tears are shed over Navalny; an Mi6 asset at best, and a traitor at worst.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/china-hong-kong-journalists-uk-b1841214.html

    1. We have all seen TR’s daughter molested by a foreigner and who did the police arrest???????

      1. The treatment of Tommy Robinson – by the politicians, the police and courts – shows just how deep into the abyss Britain has sunk.

  60. British Gas scam sees hundreds receive fake refund emails ‘designed to steal’ bank details. 3 May 2021.

    Worryingly, Action Fraud has received 537 reports within 48 hours relating to fake emails purporting to be from British Gas. The emails claim the recipient is due a refund, as a result of overpayment.

    As part of the scam alert, an example of the message has been released by Action Fraud.

    It states: “Hello, British Gas wants to inform you that you are eligible for a payment refund of £594.

    “Our records indicate that you have paid more than you should have for your British Gas Service from 2017-2019 and because of this reason, we have decided to refund you the total amount which you have overpaid.

    Watch out Nottlers! I get quite a few emails from British Gas!

    1. We have no gas here so I’ll know it’s a scam if I get one!

      I did get a fake text from Hermes the other day.

      1. A dead Greek God. You would think these scammers would do some research. In his day they used Winged Messengers, not texts.

          3. And before anyone says it, the well known story is a myth.

            Allegedly.

      2. Collecting parcels at a price? What with those and bitcoin, thank heavens for my laptop automatically shoving them into junk mail.

        1. The text came through on my phone at the weekend – I’ve never given my phone number to Hermes as far as I know, and the link they supplied was very dodgy, with a dot in the wrong place, so I blocked it.

    2. I would hope the postponed game is played at a neutral venue with Man Utd picking up the tab.

          1. Another premier league club means paying premier league costs. Glazers wouldn’t align with that, it might affect their share price

          1. Glad to hear it. Old Cathkin Park (Third Lanark) would’ve been good but sad to say, it’s been built-on.
            :¬(

          3. The very old Cathkin Park, abandoned in 1903!

            New Cathkin Park is still an open space with some of the old terracing visible.

          4. I thought they were trying to refurbish the New Cathkin Park and Third Lanark was being revived.

          5. There is a new Third Lanark FC that has made the claims but it has a long way to go to reach the organised league structure in Scotland.

          6. There is a new Third Lanark FC that has made the claims but it has a long way to go to reach the organised league structure in Scotland.

          7. Abandoned as long ago as that, was it? And it seems like only yesterday – my, how time flies…

          9. Abandoned as long ago as that, was it? And it seems like only yesterday – my, how time flies…

          12. Rush goalie. Two at the back, three in the middle, four up front, one’s gone home for his tea. Beans on toast? Possibly, don’t quote me on that. Marvellous!

          15. What about taking a stick and marking out a pitch in the Sahara Desert where they can play?

          3. It amazes me that a gadgie from Wallsend knows what ‘tantric” is!

    1. Theyre both builders wearing red safety vests – both the left and the right one.

    2. Theyre both builders wearing red safety vests – both the left and the right one.

  70. Iran ‘almost certainly’ meddling in Scottish election to destabilise the UK. 3 May 2021 • 1:34pm

    Iran is “almost certainly” trying to help the SNP win the Holyrood elections with online propaganda campaigns designed to cause constitutional turmoil within the UK, a think tank has warned.

    A report by the Henry Jackson Society said that online specialists acting on behalf of the Tehran regime were using fake accounts on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to encourage the break up of Britain.

    Really? How do they know this and if it is true what is it? Five guys in a garden shed tweeting away? I doubt that anyone in Iran even knows where Scotland is let alone its politics. I dismiss all these stories about affecting voters because changing someone’s mind about anything, let alone politics, is incredibly difficult. You can live with someone for thirty years and have not the slightest effect on their opinions. To imagine that a tweet is going to arrive out of the blue and bring about an almost religious conversion speaks more to the stupidity of the Sender than the gullibility of the Reader.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/05/03/iran-almost-certainly-meddling-scottish-election-destabilise/

        1. based if I remember right, or unless they’ve moved offices, in Millbank. Another utopian loony think tank who originally wanted to spread democracy and liberal values globally. What they’re trying to cook up now, aside your above post, not sure, other than tin rattling for more money presumably

    4. you mean that Russia and China are otherwise occupied meddling in US politics?

  71. Covid and India and Media hysteria:

    There have been over 4.4 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK and more than 127,000 people have died, government figures show.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51768274

    India is suffering through the world’s worst second wave of Covid, and has today reported 368,147 new cases – the 12th straight day where cases have been over 300,000, taking the country’s overall toll to just shy of 20million.
    Another 3,417 deaths on Monday takes the country’s overall toll to 218,959 – now the world’s third-highest after the US and Brazil, though analysts warn the true toll is likely more than double and could by up to ten times higher.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9536903/India-Covid-Daughter-gives-mother-mouth-mouth-vain-attempt-save-life.html

    Pro rata, given India has over 20 times the UK’s population,

    That gives ~ UK death rates at roughly 30 times that of India
    UK Cases at roughly 90 times that of India.

    Assuming I have the decimal points etc in the correct places.

    Yes, it’s a lot of cases and deaths in absolute numerical terms, but given the relative health services and poverty I think the MSM, and particularly the experts and politicians should be ashamed of trying to instil panic in the UK on the back of it.

    1. But don’t forget that seasonal ‘flu, pneumonia and cancer (oh, and heart disease) have been completely eradicated. Covid is not all bad news….

      1. They estimate it at $1 a head of the population per annum, not a lot when put like that; another example of how large numbers can produce non-intuitive results.

        1. Or put it another way, the rest of the world is paying for their space programme. Works both ways.

          1. Prestige.
            To Indian politicians for the rockets, to the bleeding heart politicians for their generosity with other people’s money.

      2. 332262+ up ticks,
        Afternoon ITP,
        I mentioned it this morning seeing as we had what amounted to a zillion hip ops
        invested in it.

        1. Thought hip op was West Indian in origin?

          ….I’ll get me drum machine.

          1. 332262+ up ticks,
            Afternoon DM,
            Didn’t take long did it , I just knew someone would bite.

    3. The use of ‘case’ for a positive test result rather than a definitive display of symptoms has been one of the more misleading acts of the pandemic.

      1. Indeed.
        The more people tested the more positive results, test everyone twice and lo and behold you probably get more than twice as many positive results.
        It’s a scam.

    4. Come on, you’re not expecting facts to interfere with a good media Covid scare story are you? They haven’t for over a year now and I doubt they’re going to change.

      I despair at how low even our so-called quality media has descended, seemingly competing with our politicians for unscrupulous and cowardly self-interest.

    5. The deaths per million population follow the same pattern, India has a long way to go before it is on a par with the UK or Canada.

      I mentioned these numbers in the comments on a Canadian news site that was doing the Indian horror story. Ouch they really don’t like to hear this kind of comparison.

  72. Well, says she selfishly, there is something to be said for carp bank holiday weather.
    MB and I have binge watched “Deutschland ’86”. What a brilliant series the D ’83/’86 are; I have been warned that ’89 is even more heart wrenching. I think the writers may have a decent knowledge of English culture. I loved Schweppenstette mispronouncing ‘bouquet’ as ‘bucket’. For a combination of espionage, action, humour and even pathos, they are programmes that can’t be beaten.
    The GDR setting now seems horribly familiar.

      1. The Lives of Others.
        Another film where you actually ended up feeling sorry for the apparatchik.

        1. Interesting viewpoint. Virtually none of the 91,000 Stasi personnel were ever prosecuted or held to account.

          1. I can understand people who’ve been brought up in a totalitarian society being lost and bewildered by change.
            What gets my goat is the stupid British people – brought up in a relatively free society – voluntarily succumbing to totalitarianism, particularly for a virus with a 99+% chance of survival.

          2. For years, if anyone from East Germany threw their weight around, everyone in the West said “I bet s/he was a Stasi informer before the wall came down.”

  73. 332262+ up ticks,
    This “flu” has been given a super standing for political purposes IMO and as such a great deal ( as with “the deal”) can be learnt by the politico’s in the early stages.

    For instance how high really can the human sheep be made to jump etc,etc and still give support & votes ?

    The 6th May will be a test bed for future ratchet actions
    on how much we can get away with before gullibility goes into reverse.

    A Not so Great Reopening: Mask Mandate to Remain After UK Corona Lockdown Ends

    When the unmasking finally takes place will it be inclusive of the true figures of casualties of this malady ?

      1. He’s obviously has a good understanding of the uses of bananas and melons.

        1. 332262+ up ticks,
          Afternoon AOE,
          Looks well on it to, big enough to make two metric martyrs.

      2. Great attitude. Once you’ve watched that Professor John Lee video, any lingering doubts about the need for masks or distancing will be firmly quashed.

    2. Follow the money. I just watched that prat Harry advocating vaccines for all. I reckon he is either brain dead or else in the pay of Bill and Melinda Gates.

      The very last thing anybody anywhere should want is an experimental vaccine which will likely not work except to compromise your innate immune system and likely kill you.

    1. Shocking – they should BOTH be black.

      Not wearing cosmetics – I am always amused by the faux-scientific names given to the gunge in the tube/pot/dispenser.

    2. Is Golly the right word? I have run it past the Norfolk Perlice to check that it IS a hate crime word….

    4. Aha, the traditional before and after picture, when selling crap.

      A rub it on face-lift and nose job tanning solution…

    1. Not as good as that. Cold and wet. And a very strong south-westerly wind.

    2. I had such a good, and tiring, day yesterday that I’m happy to just doss around in the house. Cooking a roast and drinking wine with a good book after dinner.

    3. I had such a good, and tiring, day yesterday that I’m happy to just doss around in the house. Cooking a roast and drinking wine with a good book after dinner.

    4. If the bank holiday is on a Saturday or Sunday here in yer France, tough, no day off on the Monday.

      Quite right too.

      Lazy Britisher bastards, get back to work, we’ve got emigrants to send you.

  77. Blowing a hooley here , has been for a few hours , no rain yet .

    It is so cold , so the gch is switched on, maybe a coal fire later .

    We had a lovely walk at about 10am with the dogs , the weather was fine but breezy .

    On the way to our favourite dog walking area , 2 car loads of tourists were priming up a BBQ on top of a large plastic grit bin ( they were on the brow of a hill on a junction to a village near here ) I expect next time we pass the grit bin it will probably be damaged or burnt out !

    Blossom on the trees is being scattered here there and everywhere , and the Ceanothus which is about 20 feet high and in full blossom , sadly the wind has scattered the blue blossom across the pathway .

    We are watching a horrible film chosen by Moh called the Inside Man, a bit brutal , about a bank robbery , it has pace ! Christopher Plummer and Jodie Foster.

    The wind definitely has a voice.

      1. To my inexpert eye, it looks lovely, sweetie ! … x

        Didja have a row ?

      2. Oh no, what a shame , the wind is so fierce , not safe for anyone nor any plant even .

        Is it Iceberg.. If Peddy were to come out of hiding he would know, he was one of the rose experts on here .

        We have a similar rose which is vigorous , has glossy green leaves and copes in all weather , with lovely white flowers and a lovely scent .

          2. There’s certainly been a lot less nastiness here since he and JSP were banished.

      3. That’s a real bummer, Plum. Your picture looks lovely… hope it didn’t get much broken, so you can wire it up again.

      4. That’s a real bummer, Plum. Your picture looks lovely… hope it didn’t get much broken, so you can wire it up again.

    4. Absolutely foul here – was a lull this morning then the wind got up in the afternoon. Been pouring & blowing like mad since then.

      1. Ditto here in Derbyshire.
        Started raining just before mid day and it came down for the rest of the day.

  78. I am off for the evening. Miserable, cold wet day. Brightened, however, by some chums that the MR has known for nearly 40 years calling in – (YES, IN TO THE HOUSE). Their description of three days (in this shyte, bitter weather) of three days in a boat on the Narfurk Broads was wonderful… They couldn’t wait to get home!

    So, with luck, I’ll be looking in tomorrow.

    A demain.

    (PS No sign of any dogs in Citizen Cane…)

  79. 332262+ up ticks,
    Don’t forget our indigenous votes are yet still needed for more of the same on the 6th May, the way one must look at the current situation is “we are obviously intent on taking these isle to the bottom of the sh!te bog so a more of the same vote will bring in the professionals”.

    breitbart,
    Nearly 300 Illegal Migrants Land in Britain over the Weekend, Taking Total to over 2,000 So Far This Year

    1. Our laws are quite simple. They’ve no right to be here. Why are we not returning these characters?

      1. The real motivation is betrayed by Traitor May signing the UN Invasion Pact, and the Haystack pretending to have forgotten about it.

      2. Those 300 – with families arriving shortly – will turn into more like 3000 – and everything they use, do or eat, will be paid for from our taxes. A burden – and a damn good chance of being dangerous too – which would ensure they stay as the little murderous, child abusing darlings have shown before. At least we know where they will be shortly – in all those brand new houses being built everywhere. – That WE will be payuing for obviously. More translators needed at Doctors surgeries – so therefore less time for us to get seen. Schools will be told to take them in – while English pupils will get told to travel.

        1. And Wibbling – they aren’t being returned because someone called Patel wants millions more here.

          1. Signed up to the UN Global Compact on Migration.
            So, that’s OK.

          2. 332262+ up ticks,
            Evening W,
            How do people of partel ilk get into such positions of power ?
            Ans, via the party, how did the party get into power ?
            Ans, via the polling booth via the herd, again.

          1. In Germany some tenants were forcibly moved out – and their homes they had lived in for many years were done out for the new arrivals. Some blocks of flats that were given the same treatment suddenly burst into flames during the night.

      3. 332262+ up ticks,
        Evening W,
        Simple put the lab/lib/con are a close shop mass uncontrolled immigration coalition party, Dover puts that beyond doubt.

        There is no opposition as such so the herd continue to give carte blanche once more, maybe under protest but that still counts as consent.

  80. Crumbs; what’s upset the DT? It’s closed comments BTL the letters.

    3. Maybe the court notices for the Noel fellow?

      Perhaps cancel culture to wipe out any dissenting views to the narrative?

    1. It is a bit windy. Dog keeps lookng outside, looking at me and has that ‘I am NOT going outside in that’ expression.

      Wireless upgrade went well though and the tarp is keeping the rain off the roof – even though the heating is on and mostly vanishing through it.

        1. My tulips are now just stalks; the wind stripped off all the petals 🙁

    2. It’s been chucking it down here since before mid-day.
      I’ve just lit my fire for the evening.

  82. Raining now, and the gale is in full force , I pity the holiday caravan people and those with tents , and even the mobile home drivers who pitch and park wherever they can .

    We need the rain but not the wind !

    1. I am glad that we did not waste today on a bank holiday.

      We are saving ourselves for snow on Victoria day at the end of the month.

    1. I’m not far from Odiham or Farnborough. It has been very windy; I have a large full height window in the lounge, and it was creaking ominously. Closed all the trickle vents, which were whistling loudly. Seems to be calming down now though.

      1. Oh my goodness, I think everyone is having a battering , we have a few trees around us here , and a few years ago a branch came down , hit the overhead wires and result no power … on Christmas day .. so we were well and truly stuffed!

        The temperature has turned from really cold to mild in the past few hours , I have just encouraged the dogs to go out in the garden for last minute wees , and you really can feel the difference , I certainly didn’t feel as cold as I was this afternoon.

        1. 1. Print money.
          2. Transfer it to self and mates.
          3. Buy assets.
          4. Watch inevitable crash from your castle.

    3. Check out the latest Episode 1512 of the Dan Bongino Show on Rumble. Soros and Obama implicated in protecting the Bidens and in removing the Ukrainian prosecutor and going after Soros’s rival a Ukrainian oligarch.

      Dan explains why the FBI and Swamp are going after Rudi Giuliani who has knowledge of their crimes and misdemeanours.

    1. Just occasionally, my love of sailing falters a little …

      BTW, where’s the effing wind?

      1. It’s been roaring and swirling round Shropshire all day, accompanied by torrential rain.

      2. Who Has Seen the Wind?
        BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
        Who has seen the wind?
        Neither I nor you:
        But when the leaves hang trembling,
        The wind is passing through.

        Who has seen the wind?
        Neither you nor I:
        But when the trees bow down their heads,
        The wind is passing by.

        Source: The Golden Book of Poetry (1947)

        We are experiencing a gale at the moment , it is rushing through , a good old S/Westerly.

  86. Hello, Boris here
    SIR – Comment by those interviewed by the BBC about security and Boris Johnson’s mobile phone exhibits ignorance. There is nothing insecure about his number being accessible.

    The network operator, or the PM himself, can divert all incoming calls to the No 10 switchboard. Using his number to contact him should be seen as a sign of democracy in action.

    If calls are too many, technology can sent them to a call centre for triage.

    Robert Blair
    Farnham, Surrey

  87. SIR – For me, the most evocative lost smell of all is that of the traditional British pub.

    The combination of sweet, hoppy, freshly pulled pints, mixed with the flatter, more earthy smell of beer dregs languishing in the slop trays, the faint whiff of dampness and yeast rising from the cellar, coalescing in a background of tobacco smoke was a wonderful experience enjoyed by, mostly, men of a certain age.

    I have no regrets at the banning of smoking in pubs, but the aromas encountered in a “gastro-pub” will never compete with the sensory experience of the pubs of old.

    Leslie Mills
    Wansford, Cambridgeshire

    1. I used to stop off of an evening for supper at The Haycock in Wansford when returning to London from a site in Sheffield on the A1. The Haycock was then a wonderful coaching inn with log fires, comfortable ‘country’ furniture and a variety of rooms.

      Forty years on I thought to renew my memory and was greeted by a chap in a suit with a green carnation in his lapel. The place had been ruined.

      2. It may have got even worse. Macdonald Hotels sold it last year.

        New look Haycock to reopen in June after multi-million pound renovation

        Signalling its serious intentions to make a mark on the region, Haycock Manor Hotel will launch as a member of the prestigious consortiums Preferred Hotels & Resorts L.V.X. Collection and Pride of Britain.

        https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/lifestyle/food-and-drink/new-look-haycock-to-reopen-in-june-after-multi-million-pound-renovation-3200053

  89. Evening, all. Corpus juris (EU law) has never recognised the principle of innocence until proven guilty.

    1. Hmm 9 Drum Majors of which only 8 perfected the ‘Dandy Walk’ and one decided to do his own thing.

    3. Dad strikes a bum note at the end by playing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. Surely the BBC cannot allow this? Shouldn’t there be a trigger warning?

    4. Re the cuckoo – the late lamented organist, Geoffrey Hannant, once recorded Handel’s The Cuckoo and the Nightingale for the BBC at Norwich (Anglican) Cathedral. He claimed that he got it slightly wrong, and played “oo-cuck”…

        2. Not sure. She, like Big Mike, appears to be a man. No womanly features, no empathy and downright creepy like Bill himself.

      3. No idea. Together, under the false notion that they are philanthropic, they have certainly grown their billions together. Their philanthropy amounts to a billion dollars to you, 20 billion dollars of other people’s money to us.

        Their obsession with pushing dodgy vaccines proves the investment return ratio but yet might prove their downfall when the people infected begin dropping like flies and they are both brought to book.

      1. Yes. I think she has heard the drum beat of Nuremberg 2 over the distant horizon. This is a damage limitation exercise.

  96. I blame Bernie Grant…

    Decolonising activists are pillaging Britain’s past for political advantage

    The minority of activists who are pushing the “decolonising” agenda do not care for a scrupulous account of Britain’s colonial past

    NIGEL BIGGAR

    During Tuesday’s discussion at Policy Exchange of the recent report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, Tony Sewell, its chairman, forcefully complained that it had been “vilely misrepresented as the glorification of slavery”.

    He was responding to comments made on the day of publication by the Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary, Marsha de Cordova, who had demanded that the government “urgently explain how they came to publish content which glorifies the slave trade and immediately disassociate themselves from these remarks”. What was the basis for Ms de Cordova’s accusation? A single, innocent sentence in the Foreword proposing that schoolchildren be taught, not only about the suffering of Caribbean Africans during the slave period, but also about how they subsequently transformed themselves into citizens of a multiracial Britain.

    Anti-racist, “decolonising” activists typically prefer noise to nuance. In their zeal to press home a political point, they also run far out ahead of the historical evidence.

    Take, for example, the response to the publication of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s report on the commemoration of the British Empire’s dead during the First World War. This revealed that up to 54,000 Indian and African war-dead had been commemorated “unequally”, and at least a further 116,000 had not been commemorated either by name or at all. The historian David Olusoga was quick to comment. “It’s apartheid in death”, he declared. “It is an absolute scandal. It is one of the biggest scandals I’ve ever come across as an historian”. Casual onlookers could be forgiven for walking away confirmed in the view that British colonialism was essentially racist, and that the sooner the British “decolonise” themselves, the better.

    In fact, the report reveals something very different. Operating out of the metropolitan heart of the British Empire, the Imperial War Graves Commission was firmly committed to the racially egalitarian policy of commemorating all the fallen soldiers of the Empire alike. As Sir Frederick Kenyon asserted in his seminal 1918 report, War Graves – How The Cemeteries Abroad Will Be Designed, “no less honour should be paid to the last resting places of Indian and other non-Christian members of the Empire than to those of our British soldiers”. This principle consistently informed the Commission’s policy in Europe, marking the known graves of individuals while naming those with no known grave on collective memorials – regardless of race.

    Outside of Europe in Africa and the Middle East, this policy was often adjusted out of practical necessity or respect for native religious custom, with good moral justification. In a few cases, it was unjustifiably compromised by racist preference for Europeans over Africans. That is lamentable. Yet it falls a long way short of a scandalously widespread or systematic “apartheid in death”.

    A similarly relaxed attitude to proportioning assertion to evidence has long been visible among those lobbying for the toppling of Cecil Rhodes’ statue at Oxford. The view propagated during the first Rhodes Must Fall agitation in 2015-16 was that Rhodes was “South Africa’s Hitler”, backed up by a set of quotations that had Rhodes compare Africans, in vile language, to children best killed in large numbers. These words were taken from a 2006 book review by Professor Adekeye Adebajo, formerly a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and now director of the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation at the University of Johannesburg.

    Yet careful analysis has revealed that his “quotation” was, in fact, made up from three different sources. The first element was lifted from an 1897 novel by Olive Schreiner, who oscillated violently between worshipping Rhodes and loathing him: it’s fiction. The second was misleadingly torn from its proper context. And the third was a mixture of distortion and fabrication.

    The minority of activists who are pushing the “decolonising” agenda do not care for a scrupulous account of Britain’s colonial past. Their only interest is in pillaging it for present political advantage. To date, their aggressive zeal has succeeded in overawing a majority who know too little history to contradict them. But the problem with running out ahead of the evidence is that it leaves you exposed. Therein lies the hope for an effective resistance. The more that the facts are soberly presented in all their plausible complexity, the more naked will the emperors of wokeness appear.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/02/decolonising-activists-pillaging-britains-past-political-advantage/

  97. 332262+ up ticks,
    Seemingly the Dover potential troop intake is not productive enough,got to be the first time in history these Isles have paid their enemies exes.

    Boris Govt Looks to 30,000 Migrants from Countries Including Belarus, Russia to Work Farms

  99. Just had some bad news; my “new” dog’s foster people want to keep him, so it seems I’m not getting him after all. The search goes on 🙁

    6. So sorry to hear this, perhaps he wasn’t going to be the right dog for you – the right one will turn up though, eager, bright-eyed and bushy tailed

      1. I hope so. I just wish they hadn’t rung me up and offered him in the first place if he really hadn’t been available. I had got everything ready to receive him and was mentally prepared for taking on a dog again and now I’ve been messed around.

        1. Maybe they jumped the gun and hadn’t checked with the foster people. He’s obviously settled in there. There will be another, I’m sure.

          1. I am not sure he is settled in there; they said the foster people wanted to give him another try, which implies that there’s still some work to do. Fostering is not forever, after all. You know if you foster, eventually they are going to leave you. To be honest, it’s knocked me back; it was like losing Charlie all over again. First I had a dog and was looking forward to him coming and meeting the challenges he posed, then I was dogless again.

    8. Please examine the terrier links I put on here 15 mts ago.

      I am sure there will be a dog there for you , the 2nd link has many dogs in rescue

      2. I’ve had a look, thank you. My home would fail the home check because my back fence isn’t 5′ (it’s about 4’6″). Despite the fact I’ve had terrier crosses for 21 years and kept them in! They also have an always on the lead policy. Both my terrier crosses were trained enough to be able to walk beside me. I shall try elsewhere and see what turns up.

        1. Just tell them that you have gone metric and your fence is almost two meters high.

    10. So sorry, Conway. Growing up and having disappointments, my Mum always told me to look on the bright side, perhaps this dog was not meant for you and the right one is waiting for you.

      1. I hope so. It’s a fortnight since I lost my old boy and I thought I was getting over it, thanks to the prospect of having a successor. Now I’ve got to start looking all over again.

    12. Sorry to hear that. I hope another will soon turn up to brighten your life.

    1. Serves the French right, they betrayed the French colonists in Algeria & after independence allowed millions of Algerians to immigrate to France ( ditto for Moroccans & Tunisians )

  101. Goodnight all. It has been a bad day, and not just the weather. See you tomorrow. Sleep well.

      1. It was a very bad day. Tomorrow is another day. Goodnight, Belle, sleep well if the south-westerlies will let you. It is dashing against the windows here in the east.

    2. Sorry to hear it’s been a bad day, pm. Hope tomorrow will be better. My day had been pretty good until a short time ago.

  102. Off to bed, chums. I wish you all a very good night and may God bless you.

    3. “Bill Gates is was the fourth wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes, and is was worth $124bn (£89bn).”

  104. Good night all Nottlers, a little easy listening music before bedtime: Avalon Jazz band – Ménilmontant (Charles Trenet)
    Ménilmontant by Avalon Jazz Band
    “Ménilmontant” was written by Charles Trenet in 1938 as a tribute to the famous Parisian neighborhood.

    http://avalonjazzband.com​
    Tatiana Eva-Marie – vocals
    Kate Dunphy – accordion
    Adrien Chevalier – violin
    Koran Agan – guitar
    Eduardo Belo – bass
    George Chan – video
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4zOi8h-Uds

  111. Bill and Melinda Gates to split!
    Who knows what beans will be spilled? I think she has finally got tired of his craziness.

    1. on the bright side, she won’t be joining the inner woke brigade of Johnson’s canine companion or Wallis Simpson Jnr her side of the pond on Oprah or any other stage managed event

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