Monday 29 November: New restrictions show that Britain still hasn’t learnt to live with Covid

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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723 thoughts on “Monday 29 November: New restrictions show that Britain still hasn’t learnt to live with Covid”

  3. New restrictions show that Britain still hasn’t learnt to live with Covid

    Nobody lives with covid dystopian restrictions, they just exist with them

    1. Excellent. Johnson is rich pickings for cartoons, the gift that keeps on giving.
      Sadly, all of Johnson’s braggadocio with regards to investment, development, jobs, improved education and health etc is nothing more than window dressing behind which he is planning to turn this Country into a wasteland inhabited by servile pincushions. The chains in the cartoon are all too true of what awaits the people if they continue to slumber. The affable fun loving ‘Bojo’ was merely a disguise.

  6. America is tearing itself apart. Spiked November 2021.

    So, basically, though it sounds somehow pessimistic, the message is: don’t be disheartened by temporary downturns and moral panics. We have all been here before and we have the resources to re-nourish ourselves and rise again in the spring. To build our sand castles afresh between each high tide of woe.

    And despite everything, I still believe that of the UK. I have faith, and think we underestimate the depth of the topsoil that we enjoy, and that would need to run off before it exposed the hardcore of ruin.

    Obviously Covid has lurched us into debt, not to say revealed an unexpectedly servile inclination in the erstwhile Lion of Liberty. The arrogant, indomitable streak that we fondly imagine when we think of heroes like Churchill and Nelson, and adventurers like Burton, Byron and Rhodes, is certainly close to extinct. But a certain plucky optimism can still be kindled, I reckon. A certain familiar if weary chuckle of resignation to hardship and hard work, the British Sisyphus shouldering the boulder yet one more time.

    I do not like all the changes taking place in this country, much less the Big Chill that seems to discourage acknowledging them. The way that even before the pandemic, everything from football to Christmas TV ads seemed to be harnessed to further progressive propaganda. It does savour somewhat of a mild form of totalitarianism. But I still think of it as probably a rough sea crossing, rather than the first act in a tragedy.

    I’ve chosen the authors view of the UK and not of the US because it is the most relevant to us here. It’s a sort of typical rosy view of the situation. Everything is really going to be OK; something is going to pop up and save us all at the last minute. It isn’t! It is much more likely that something will pop up and finish us off completely. That country that most of us on Nottl grew up with has been completely destroyed. What is left is a shell of its former greatness. That shell is riven with the cracks of Cultural Marxism waiting to split it apart. Is America going the same way? Yes. The West is in terminal decline. It is trying the old trick of seeking an outside enemy to draw its disintegrating parts back together but this will probably cause its final collapse.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/11/29/america-is-tearing-itself-apart/

    3. Lurched us into debt? Gordon Brown ran up some 12 trillion of debt. The Conservatives, by failing to deal with it used inflation to control it. Our real debt is now something like 16 trillion+ the covid debt.

      We are so heavily indebted each of us is some insane 380,000 in hoc. This is why we so urgently need to shred the state, cut taxes and get backk to small, efficient government. Those pointless NHS diversity wonks are just wasted debt we cannot afford. And no, we are not a rich country. We’re massively in debt. Folk argue it doesn’t affect us personally but it does. High taxes, high prices, constrained spending. We’re circling a drain and we are incredibly close to the plughole and proper collapse. Debt has kept us out so far, but it’s just a temporary plurge of the tap.

    2. Nice moggy!
      Would make you spill your coffee if you came round the corner and met him face-to-face, though!

    4. Oh, now and then you will hear grown-ups say, ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots?’ I don’t think even grown-ups would keep on saying such a silly thing if the Leopard and the Ethiopian hadn’t done it once—do you? But they will never do it again, Best Beloved. They are quite contented as they are.

      [Rudyard Kipling]

      My father read the Just So Stories to me as I lay in bed before going to sleep just as I did to Christo and Henry.

  8. Rutland’s Roman mosaics bring the Trojan Wars to life in the East Midlands

    Natalie Haynes
    Recently discovered scenes from Homer’s Iliad show how the influence of the epic poem spread far and wide

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/97e9a082c264cc65a3f3c03b52bff0f7154ceb35/175_0_1195_717/master/1195.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=ea5f1a152c20bb9c5de740905ccae174
    Achilles and Hector fight to the death in the Trojan wars, in one of the mosaics uncovered beneath a farmer’s field in Rutland. Photograph: ULAS/PA
    Sun 28 Nov 2021 10.30 GMT

    Archaeologists always hope for a mosaic. Roman-British sites have yielded some remarkable treasures, from writing tablets at Vindolanda near Hadrian’s Wall to curse tablets at Bath, but there is something magical about seeing tesserae – the little coloured tiles of a mosaic – emerge from beneath the soil. And few have been more remarkable than those recently found in Rutland, which depict scenes from the latter part of Homer’s Iliad.
    *
    *
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/28/rutlands-roman-mosaics-bring-the-trojan-wars-to-life

  9. Morning all.

    I missed the Andrew Marr interview with the South African doctor yesterday but here’s a link to a report of his interview:

    https://metro.co.uk/video/uk-panicking-unnecessarily-omicron-says-doctor-discovered-it-2557451/?ito=vjs-link

    From my observations so far, natural immunity from the COVID-19 virus can be enhanced by eating the stalky bits of a pineapple (which contain virus busting chemicals), drinking alcohol (which acts as an anticoagulant to guard against clots in your microcirculation) and eating dark chocolate once a week (which protects the heart from going into harmful arrythymias).

    1. Morning Angie. Well I can manage the rest but …stalky bits of a pineapple… are beyond my experience!

    2. I don’t mind adding a bit of pineapple to my diet.
      Dr Galland did an analysis into this kind of thing too. It’s educated guesswork, but I am taking quercetin anyway.

    3. … and shagging like a bunny??
      No?
      Damn, there was I getting all hopeful! The list seemed full of all the good things in life except the one.

      1. Shagging like a bunny is helpful for the heart as it is known to be the equivalent of a three mile run.

        However, the PM has not yet updated the concession to exchange bodily fluids in the light of the Omicron variant of concern.

        2. I’ve not yet had the stamina to catch the beasty munching its way through my cabbages, but I hope soon to catch up on my three mile run substitute.

          The field opposite has just been sold. They tell me they are going to put alpacas in there. Might be a bit more practical for an old bloke struggling with bending down. How many miles for one of these?

          1. Alpacas should be ok for you, but if they bring in vicunas you might have to stoop to conquer.

      1. The pineapple stalk is the center of the fruit. Slightly tougher than the rest but is where you find the bromelains.

        Pineapple sorbet is the way to go.

        Good morning.

    5. ‘Morning, Angie.

      The active ingredient in pineapple stalk is probably bromelain, which is available in tablet form from Healthspan. Also good against arthritis.

    6. I didn’t see the interview either. However are there many people left who have “natural immunity” from the virus seeing as most of the population has been jabbed? Interestingly we have fresh pineapple every morning from our local greengrocers – gorgeous – but would definitely not like to eat the stalky bits. We also take 5000iu vitamin D3 daily each, in fact, have doubled up for the beginning of winter on surgeons’ advice for a month. So far so good.

      1. I reckon the fleshy bits have bromelain in them but perhaps in not such a high concentration as the stalky centre.

      2. I reckon I have natural immunity, having recovered from the lurgy in Feb 2020 and refused all jabs.

  10. This reflects the Guardianista mindset.Everybody in the whole wide world should have unfettered access to the UK as a Human Right.

    Opinion – Immigration and asylum
    Migrants are told they must earn a place in Britain. But no one should have to

    Nesrine Malik
    Where we’re born is sheer luck – yet our national delusion of meritocracy lets people shrug when others die in the Channel

    Mon 29 Nov 2021 06.00 GMT

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/29/migrants-earn-place-britain-people-channel

    1. And why is the UK such a pleasant place? Because an awful lot of generations born there, and some immigrants, have worked long & hard to make it so – and continue to do so, with enormous contributions of tax. Why should folk who just turn up, with eff-all to offer except the miserable attitudes that make their abode into Shitholeistan, reap the reward when they have made no contribution? It’s like folk just rolling up at midday on 25th December, empty-handed, expecting lunch and a bed for the night. Frankly, they can all FOAD as far as I care.

      1. Good morning OB

        Immigrants should try and live in certain parts if Dorset , friends of mine don’t have gas central heating , and if they want to cook with gas , they have to order gas bottles , and have a contract with a septic tank company .. no mains drainage either.

        Untill about 30 years ago , many rural properties had a well, as indeed our next door neighbour found out when their driveway collapsed a few months ago. Now capped and repaired.

        1. I have all of these things – a propane gas tank that holds a year’s supply, a septic tank i share with my neighbour and a well I have recently brought back into service.

          No mosque though – just a big old church a mile away built by the Normans.

        2. I also have to cook on bottled gas, a 19Kg canister lasts me 3 years and costs £40 (just risen from £35). Our septic tanks were ripped out a few years ago and we went on a local sewer system which gets emptied periodically.

        3. My Mother’s house, just a few minutes drive from Cardiff, has oil CH, bottled gas, no mains sewage, and a well (now disused). One doesn’t have to go as far as Dorset.

          1. Le Grand Osier:

            No mains gas – bottled methane or propane
            No mains water – artesian well
            Oil fired central heating – oil reservoir filled once a year
            Woodburning stoves – wood felled and cut into logs by occupiers
            Septic tanks
            Sceptic inhabitants.

          2. My house in CT had oil heat, a septic and a well. However, they were all operated by electricity so if the power went, as if frequently did, the well didn’t work so you couldn’t shower or flush the loos and the heat didn’t come on. Such fun 🙁

        4. My Mother’s house, just a few minutes drive from Cardiff, has oil CH, bottled gas, no mains sewage, and a well (now disused). One doesn’t have to go as far as Dorset.

    2. A spokesperson for Caritas said on the BBC yesterday that everyone has a right to go anywhere they like to live. I did not catch her name. Caritas is a big international charity. This is disheartening.

      1. It’s her right to say such things. That it is patently absurd is obvious. It’s a bit like anyone can do anything in a workplace. They can’t. People – countries – are not interchangeable.

    3. Yes – I was lucky to have been born here. So were my ancestors as far back as records go. My family is English which is why I have a right to live in England.
      This country for all its faults is ours. There wouldn’t be much left of it if the whole world had a right to live here.

      1. It was Cecil Rhodes who said:

        “You are an Englishman, and have subsequently drawn the greatest prize in the lottery of life.”

        Given the source of this observation it is little wonder that the mindless and ignorant students feel that all the things Rhodes stood for, said and created need to be toppled.

          1. I reminded junior that he was British, and lived in the best country in the world.

            He said ‘What about America?’ I said, don’t be silly. Americans live there.

    4. Yes, actually, they should. Citizenship should be earned through loyalty, decency and cultural integration.

      That citizenship should then carry the franchise.

  12. Anyone knows what’s going on at BBC Broadcasting House? It seems that the fire alarm has gone off, and all they are playing right now are ads.

    3. The last time that Cumbre Vieja erupted they stopped broadcasting news bulletins.

      It will be interesting to discover what has happened this time.

  13. Morning all

    New restrictions show that Britain still hasn’t learnt to live with Covid

    SIR – The Prime Minister’s suggestion that travel restrictions are needed to “buy more time” in the wake of the omicron Covid variant demonstrated that the Establishment has learnt nothing in the past 18 months.

    The variant is already here and we now have two options: impose further restrictions that we know will simply kick the can further down the road or carry on as normal and trust the various measures that have been shown to be effective.

    No prizes for guessing which way we are likely to jump.

    Nick Hopkins

    Lower Ratlake, Hampshire

    SIR – It beggars belief that a viral variant, which, according to a South African doctor, causes only mild symptoms, has triggered a return to restrictions.

    This ignorant, patently exaggerated reaction, which will no doubt be escalated by our gormless politicians, risks leading to public disorder, as such actions have done elsewhere.

    The majority of us have been vaccinated and are as immune as we will ever be. Let us get on with life.

    David Nunn FRCS

    Port Isaac, Cornwall

    SIR – Israel has banned everyone from entering for a fortnight while the world awaits the data on the omicron variant. Why couldn’t Britain do this, too?

    I’m glad mask mandates have been reimposed, but they should never have been discarded in the first place. Moreover, masks should have been made compulsory in all settings, including in restaurants and pubs for people not sitting at a table.

    Working from home should be promoted unambiguously over the coming months. As for vaccinations, I think the Government could do more to encourage uptake, with wide-reaching, well-funded campaigns. Like other countries, we should also have a vaccine pass.

    Sebastian Monblat

    Sutton, Surrey

    SIR – Just when I felt that things were returning to something like normal, along comes Boris Johnson with his knee-jerk mask rules. What science were these based on?

    Howard M Tolman

    Sudbury, Suffolk

    SIR – Mandatory mask-wearing in shops is the final nail in the high-street coffin.

    For the major trading weeks in the run-up to Christmas, the Prime Minister has taken a decision that will drive custom online.

    Doug Prentice

    Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex

    SIR – Clearly, no one at BBC News did Greek at school, given the newsreaders’ mispronunciation of the new variant, which sounds like “ommicron”.

    The correct pronunciation is “oh-my-cron”, with the emphasis on the second syllable.

    Henry Goodall

    Bramshaw, Hampshire

    The off-putting cost of posting Christmas cards

    Christmas truce: a cat and a dove keep the peace in this festive stamp from 1983

    Christmas truce: a cat and a dove keep the peace in this festive stamp from 1983

    SIR – Amanda Dingle (Letters, November 25) questions a friend’s decision to give to charity instead of sending Christmas cards.

    However, it is not the purchasing or writing of cards that is the problem for many people. The real disincentive is the cost of postage, which is at least 66p per item.

    No wonder Royal Mail needs to lumber its delivery personnel with junk mail to push through letter boxes in an attempt to turn a profit.

    Alan Simpson

    Woolhampton, Berkshire

    SIR – My Christmas card list has barely changed over the past 30 years, but I receive fewer cards in return.

    I remain stoical, and continue to send the same cards to the same people. However, I do now put a return address on the back of the envelope in case the recipient has died or moved since the previous Christmas.

    Paul Blundell

    Daventry, Northamptonshire

    SIR – Christmas-themed lavatory seat covers (Letters, November 24) are not new. Almost 40 years ago, after visiting relatives in Canada, we brought back a cover with a beaming Father Christmas face on the uppermost side. When one lifted the lid, the same face had mittened hands positioned decorously over the eyes.

    Sadly, it had to go to a charity shop, since it couldn’t cover my new, much wider lavatory seat, but I hope it’s still bringing a smile to someone else’s face at Christmas.

    J Eric Nolan

    Blackburn, Lancashire

    1. ‘Morning, Epi.

      Old Moonbat isn’t universally popular with BTLrs it would seem:

      Simon Bell
      9 HRS AGO
      Sebastian Monblat wins the silly letter of the day award. Despite no evidence he believes that masks should be worn standing up but not sitting down, that his Amazon delivery driver should work from home and that we should all carry papers to verify our status. Why do people like this write to the DT when The Guardian and Bedwetters Weekly are crying out for contributions of this nature?

      Mr Turner
      3 HRS AGO
      I don’t imagine that Sebastian expects his Amazon delivery driver to work from home. Nor his refuse collectors, his electricity supply engineers, his Ocada delivery driver, his food supplier staff……….. Just everybody elses Amazon delivery driver………….. EDITED

      Thea James
      2 HRS AGO
      Of course not He’s a leftie elite liberal and so expects to be exempt personally from any restrictions.

      Alan Spooner
      2 HRS AGO
      I call out Sebastian Monblat as a made up person and fabricated letter. No one could be that stupid.

      Bryn Riley
      1 HR AGO
      HE has written letters to the Independent, Guardian and Telegraph amongst others. He also has a petition to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2024.
      Given the poor range from the current crop of electric cars I can only assume he never travels outside the M25.

      1. SB is about twenty, and although naturally at home with Grauniad, it writes to the Telegraph as a dare.

      2. If you can – and want to – wfh, then do. Heck, I’m saving £60 (45 tax and 15 product) a fortnight not having to fill the car up.

    2. Omicron sounds like a transformer and thus cool, whereas oh-my-cron sounds like you’ve lost your keys.

      Monblat should be put in a box and told to shut up.

  14. Asylum reform

    SIR – Charles Moore (Comment, November 27) is right to call for Britain to revisit the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), our own Human Rights Act and the expanding powers judges have drawn from them.

    The cornerstone of the rule of law is public confidence. When the public elect a government with a clear mandate to control our borders and the courts use ever-wider self-devised measures to frustrate that government’s wishes, democracy itself is imperilled.

    The only way to stem the immediate asylum crisis is to end the increasingly hopeless attempts to sift genuine asylum seekers from economic migrants. We should instead fund places for asylum applicants to make new lives – irrespective of the merits of their cases – in safe but poor countries.

    If a sufficient sum were offered per capita we could find such homes for them. It would require heavy upfront costs but, once in place, would stop the traffic for good. The Australian system is not satisfactory in terms of the conditions in the overseas camps but, by ending the prospect of a place in Australia, it has halted both traffic and the loss of life.

    We could then build on the scheme David Cameron started, to offer places to the most vulnerable fugitives of war, but always on the basis that they have not entered (or overstayed) illegally in this country.

    Sir Julian Brazier

    Canterbury, Kent

    1. If a sufficient sum were offered per capita we could find such homes for them.

      No you couldn’t because no one wants them at any price! Even their co-religionists (Saudi. UAE etc.) don’t want them!

      1. It’s like the Palestinians. No Arab state wants them and keep any they have in camps. The only people who like them are Lefties and dim students.

        2. What’s the phrase?

          If a man is not a liberal at 20, he has no heart.
          If he is still a liberal at 25, he has no brain?

      2. Actually, I think that is not quite correct. Their co-religionists want them in the UK. I suppose this as Saudi Arabia funds the building of mosques in this country.

    2. An asylum seeker must stop in the first safe country – there are 84 to choose from – and apply, whereupon the decision is considered and then they can arrive here legally, all paperwork intact.

      There are already funds for this. No more are needed. Yes, the Australian system is more than adequate. Those there are given food, water and medical care. It is not our responsibility to care for the world. Those fugitives should move to other places that suit their ethnicity.

      Frankly, get rid of them.

  15. How to get round the GP’s receptionist

    SIR – To avoid dealing with the GP’s receptionist (Letters, November 25), I write to the doctor explaining the problem I have and either post the letter or deliver it by hand.

    The doctor considers the matter, and I then receive a call from her secretary telling me that I should come to the surgery (we arrange an appointment there and then), or that I will receive a prescription, or that I should go to the hospital and see a specific individual at a certain time – or, indeed, that my symptoms are not a cause for concern.

    This saves time for both my doctor and myself, and means that I don’t have to hang on the phone for hours trying to use the automated appointments system.

    John Seager Green

    Winchester, Hampshire

    SIR – The telephones at my local surgery are now answered by “care pathway consultants”.

    This system means that patients no longer need to worry about revealing their symptoms to mere receptionists.

    Steve Siddall

    Holt, Wiltshire

    1. Dear God! I hate to think what qualifications the care pathway consultants have. Are they even in the UK?

    2. A letter. How quaint. What’s wrong with email? Or even answering the Goddamn telephone?

      1. Because the surgery email isn’t monitored – or at least, ours isn’t. If you send them an email, that’s the response you get!

    3. Newsflash John, the doctor isn’t reading your letter. The secretary is. They then pass it on to the Doc.

    4. BTL Comment:-

      Robert Spowart
      8 HRS AGO
      Message Actions
      Steve Siddall writes, “The telephones at my local surgery are now answered by “care pathway consultants”.
      As in Liverpool Care Pathway, perhaps?

  16. DOMINIC LAWSON: The Left love lockdowns – and few more so than the longtime communist who’s one of the BBC’s favourite ‘experts’

    So who did the BBC line up as its first and only ‘expert’ to pass instant judgment on the Prime Minister’s televised announcement on Saturday of measures to address the new Omicron Covid variant?

    Professor Susan Michie, that’s who. Michie was highly critical of what she saw as the inadequacy of the Government’s response, which includes mandatory face masks in shops and on public transport and self-isolation for contacts of anyone testing positive for Omicron, as well as for anyone arriving in this country until they have a negative PCR test.

    According to Professor Michie, who sits on the Government’s SAGE committee as a health psychologist but speaking to the BBC on Saturday in what was described as ‘a personal capacity’, this was simply not enough.

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/11/29/01/51082853-10252779-image-m-22_1638150555019.jpg
    Professor Susan Michie has spoken at events organised by the ‘Zero Covid Campaign’, which has consistently agitated for Britain to follow the policy still operating in the People’s Republic of China

    ‘What we got is Plan B Light. What we need is Plan B Plus,’ Michie declared. She did not fully elaborate exactly what this would mean.

    Allow me to explain. Professor Michie has spoken at events organised by the ‘Zero Covid Campaign’, which has consistently agitated for Britain to follow the policy still operating in the People’s Republic of China: to lock down whole cities, and even regions, when there is any Covid outbreak.

    Predictable

    That Michie should support this approach is predictable. She has been, for the past 43 years, an active member of the Communist Party of Britain.

    Last year, when criticising the extent to which the UK did not completely emulate the approach of the Chinese Communist Party, she tweeted: ‘China has a socialist collective system . . . not an individualistic, consumer-oriented, profit-driven society badly damaged by 20 years of failed neo-liberal economic policies #LearnLessons.’

    A similar approach is advocated by the so-called ‘Independent Sage’ group, on which Professor Michie also sits.

    Its slogan is ‘Towards a zero-Covid UK’. It was founded by the former Government chief scientist Sir David King, who has accused the Johnson administration of ‘using the Covid crisis to privatise sections of the healthcare system’.
    *
    *
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10252779/DOMINIC-LAWSON-Left-love-lockdowns.html

    1. … anyone arriving in this country until they have a negative PCR test.
      This is now the case, as of today. All arrivals in England must be tested and isolate until the test result comes back negative, regardless of vaccination status. Received email from .gov.uk about it last night.

        1. The water in the English Channel gives you a natural immunity if you haven’t yet had Covid and heals you miraculously before you reach the Kent beaches if you were already infected before leaving France.

          1. Very good, Rastus. Check to see if they’re recruiting for the cabal’s bullshit scripting group, you could do well.😎

    2. Daughter of Donald Michie, Artificial Intelligence specialist who worked at Bletchley in WW2.

    3. “…not an individualistic, consumer-oriented, profit-driven society badly damaged by 20 years of failed neo-liberal economic policies…” Does she then regard the Chinese people reduced to being little more than robots for the Party, as healthy? Is she so blind in her fanaticism that she fails to see how over a billion people have been robbed of their humanity by a murderous regime that counts human life as nothing of any importance unless it serves the Communist Party. Is she really that sick and twisted, that perverse?

    5. Ms Michie ought to leave a job that gives her a generous salary every month and set up her own business so she can experience for herself the full economic consequences of the policies she recommends.

  17. Scots terrorism expert claims second secret gang behind the novichok poison attack on ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal. 29 November 2021.

    Yuill believes the perfume bottle was brought in and planted by the second gang in the bin after the area had been searched and cleared of further contamination.

    He added: “The bottle found by Rowley was almost full, cellophane sealed and professionally packaged – proof it had not been reopened or tampered with after it had been laced with Novichok.

    “There is no evidence to suggest that this was the actual bottle used against the Skripals.”

    A second gang! Wow! Imagine this surfacing just after the announcement of an inquiry into Dawn Sturges’ death! What a coincidence!

    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/terrorism-experts-claim-second-secret-25563414

  19. Ground Hog Day

    I read down as far as Citroen’s Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come cartoon before realising that, looking at today’s Nottl web page header, it seems we have arrived at Ground Hog Day at last, with another November 30th tomorrow.

    Seriously, Geoff Graham has done an outstanding job and never lets us down – we should all bang our saucepans for him on Christmas Day loudly enough that he can hear us.

          1. Hello F_A. I have never imbibed spirits but I have a good go at beer and wine and an occasional glass of port.

  21. Good morning all.

    When Icicles Hang by the Wall by William Shakespeare (1564 1616)

    When icicles hang by the wall,
    And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
    And Tom bears logs into the hall,
    And milk comes frozen home in pail,
    When blood is nipp’d and ways be foul,
    Then nightly sings the staring owl,
    Tu-whit;
    Tu-who, a merry note,
    While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

    When all aloud the wind doth blow,
    And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
    And birds sit brooding in the snow,
    And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,
    When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
    Then nightly sings the staring owl,
    Tu-whit;
    Tu-who, a merry note,
    While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

    From Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V, Scene II
    For all the merry notes, this is not a cheery view of winter

    1. I think it is rather cheerful though. It shows a spirit of fighting against the cold as best one can, not expecting the government to save you with rules about masks, social distancing and vaccines.
      It was written in the little ice age of course. But it reminds me of my childhood!

      1. It reminds me of mine as well, snuggling under layers of blankets and and eiderdown .

        Jack Frost revealing his art work on the window panes, and Grandpa lighting the fires in the house with a frightening gas fire starter.

        The coal house was a huge dark area the size of a sloping roofed room , spiders webs and braces of shot pheasants waiting to be plucked , es it was dark , cold and scary .

    2. ‘Morning, Belle. Gosh, that takes me back…I can still hear my father reading it to me and I can still recite most of it.

    3. A great friend of mine who taught English Literature at another small public school in the West of England had a girlfriend whom he referred to as Greasy Joan. He was a very dissolute chap and liked the occasional puff of cannabis in order to broaden his perceptual horizons and his Greasy Joan friend used to keel his pot for him.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO30p2NSMTk

  22. Boy, 14, charged with murder of Ava White in Liverpool. 29 November 2021.

    A teenager has been charged with the murder of a 12-year-old girl in Liverpool city centre, police have said.

    Ava White had been in the city with friends on Thursday after the switching on of Christmas lights when she suffered “catastrophic injuries” in an assault at 8.39pm, Merseyside police said.

    We are of course all awaiting the description of her attacker. Not because we are racists but because we have been programmed by the Police who have conspired so often to deceive us by concealment! Thus does deception bring its own reward. Not the innocence of the few but the guilt of all!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/28/boy-14-charged-with-of-ava-white-in-liverpool

    1. Excuse me for suggesting this, but is this a case of blacks declaring that white lives don’t matter , and is the clue all in that poor little darling mutilated child’s surname ?

    3. It has become completely counterproductive for the MSM to conceal the race of the perpetrator of a violent crime if the that perpetrator is not white.

      Indeed, on one occasion the MSM did not give the race of an attacker so we all assumed that he must be black or bame. When it turned out that he was white our misty was completely fied.

    4. If there is no description then we have to draw our conclusion *from* that lack of description.

      It’s interesting that they describe her death as from an ‘edged’ weapon, which implies a black stabbing.

  23. ‘Morning, Peeps. Late on parade this morning, after an excellent and uniterrupted sleep following our 90-mile drive home late last night, half of which seemed to be in blizzard conditions…my eyes are no longer out on stalks I’m relieved to note!

    SIR – Mandatory mask-wearing in shops is the final nail in the high-street coffin.

    For the major trading weeks in the run-up to Christmas, the Prime Minister has taken a decision that will drive custom online.

    Doug Prentice
    Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex

    Well now Doug, while no one I know enjoys wearing the face-nappy in shops (mandatory from tomorrow) I hardly think that it will prevent us from routine visits to shops for the essentials.
    However, if you are one of these sad people who (allegedly) regard shopping as a ‘leisure activity’ then perhaps you may have a point…

    1. I shall have to put my exemption card in my pocket again when I go to Morrisons or the post office – I’m not going back to mask wearing.

      2. #Me Too. Not that I ever did in the first place; I wore a bandana until I discovered Smirnoff exemption.

  24. A belated good morning to everyone on here. (And a very belated “Good night, everyone” for last night. (I forgot!)

  25. End of an era: Prince Charles touches down in Barbados to remove the Queen as head of state after Caribbean nation decided to become a republic
    Queen’s oldest son arrived in Barbados on Sunday ahead of a ceremony marking the dawn of their republic
    Her Majesty will no longer be head of state. Dame Sandra Mason will be sworn in as Barbados’s first president
    Barbados is one of the Queen’s 16 realms, countries where she’s head of state, but will this will end on Tuesday
    Island’s constitution allows them to remove the monarch amid disquiet over lack of a referendum on the issue

    I expect the Chinese will treat them favourably , because I have heard that the Chinese are going to be huge investors in those Carib territories .

    It’s all a load of bananas.

    Lets hope many of the communities here decide to clear orf back to their roots.

    1. I suppose Charlie boy must have thought that a nice jolly over to Barbados on his big jet was worth one day less to save the planet.

      Don’t we have an ambassador or something on the island who could have stood in for him?

      1. Good morning Phizzee

        Yep, following in the footsteps of their African descendants ..

        Why are we accepting migrants from countries who demanded their independence from the Crown ?

      2. ‘Morning, Philip, my thoughts exactly and Charles attending, is rather like rushing to be present at his Mother’s execution.

        No sense of decorum or taste.

          1. A triumvirate of Dorkdoms?

            The Dork of Cornwall – The Dork of Cambridge – the Dork of Sussex

            Are there any other suitable counties available should Louis and George grow up in the same family tradition and require dorkdoms too?

    3. The great thing about the Chinese is that they are not at all racist, unlike us. Good luck, Barbados!

    6. Ah, that would explain all the black people on TV this afternoon pictured with a nice beach and ocean rollers. I couldn’t place where in Britain we had such a beach 🙂

  26. SIR – In 1944 Sir Richard Acland gave his 6,400-acre Killerton estate in Devon and his 12,000-acre Holnicote estate on Exmoor to the National Trust with the request that hunting should continue for the benefit of the farming community.

    Now that the Trust has banned hunting on its land, will it give these estates back to the Acland family?

    Robin Thomas
    Exeter, Devon

    Hmmm…probably not, Robin T. To do so would indicate that the NT is an honest and trustworthy organisation, rather than the corporate virtue-signalling bunch of lgbtqwerty-obsessed diversity-merchants it has become.

    1. An old lawyer writes:

      Breach of covenant by the NT. Actionable by descendants of the donor.

        1. Of course – but I have little doubt that it was included as a covenant.

          There was one such over what is now my garden!

          1. Sir William Burrell gifted the Burrell Collection to the people of Glasgow with the only requirement being that they built a Gallery for the collection. There was one major proviso. No item should ever leave the UK and some should never leave Glasgow.
            A few years ago the scenario was changed. The Scottish government ruled that the compact should be broken. Immediately the collection came under the control of Glasgow Life, an ALEO, parts of the collection were sent abroad on exhibition to New York and Tokyo. The reason Burrell had insisted that nothing be moved is that moving artworks is fraught with difficulty and danger. Textiles are particularly vulnerable to stain and stress of being rolled etc.
            International exhibition swaps are big business. Names of those involved include Dr Bridget McConnell, (Chief Executive of Glasgow Life and wife of a former First Minister), and Sir Angus Grossart.

            http://artwatch.org.uk/tag/sir-angus-grossart/

          3. No, that was the Glasgow School of Art. The second fire also razed the O2 ABC, a popular concert venue with three different stages on Sauchiehall Street.
            Whilst I have no doubt funding will be found to restore the School of Art, again, I suspect the O2 will be replaced with a set of inner city flats.

          4. No. The Burrell building won an architectural award. Unfortunately the roof leaked etc and it was not fit for purpose. Now £66m later it has been “refurbished”.

            The building that burned down was the Glasgow School of Art, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. It was destroyed by poor management.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrell_Collection
            https://advisor.museumsandheritage.com/news/architects-and-designers-confirmed-for-burrell-collections-66m-redevelopment/

      3. Yes, but knowing the NT the costs risk would be hideous, and the case would probably end up in front of a leftie/liberal judge…

  27. Good morning my friends:

    From what I gather the new South African variant of Covid only has very mild symptoms – not as bad as a normal cold. However, the good thing about it is that, unlike the other viruses, once you have had it you will be completely immune from ever catching Covid again so your natural immunity will make all vaccination gene therapy redundant.

    (This may be true, it may be nonsense – but if the PTB and the MSM want to try and rob us of our freedoms with their lies why shouldn’t we invent stories of comfort rather than the stories of catastrophe that they peddle?)

    1. 342194+ up ticks,
      Morning R,
      With the majority backing the political toxic trio of lab/lib/con, a lying ,deceiving close shop coalition, and seemingly intending to carry on doing so, just what DO the majority want ?

    3. If this infection does not have a serious effect on our respiratory system how will the cabal sell it as dangerous?
      I expect that the government doom-mongers are writing the scary script as we post. Cardiac? Renal? Hepatic? Everything is on the table. Watch this space.

      1. It will very conveniently produce exactly the same adverse side-effects that the vaccine has been producing, some of which will be fatal.
        Then the Govts and big pharma can blame the variant for such problems, getting the vaccines off the hook.

        1. Just discussed this with poppiesmum. Cardiac problems look to be odds on at the moment, for obvious reasons. However, if the non-vaccinated do not suffer the same rise in cardiac problems as the “vaccinated”, the cabal will have a similar problem to the current growing infection rate within the “vaccinated” ranks. The growing mountain of lies could be a factor in their undoing.
          Here is Dr John Campbell discussing the cardiac problem question.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEBGl8MVE-c

          1. He does some interesting videos but I do think he bumbles a lot and could cut down on the repetition and make them shorter. I usually have to ffw a few times and can still get the point.

          1. I do not dislike Tommy Robinson – indeed I sympathise with him and I think he has been disgracefully treated by the PTB, the police, the courts and the MSM.

            I agree that it was not at all pleasant for Farage to villainise Robinson but he came to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that a vote for an EU leaving party would be greatly reduced if UKIP became associated with the ‘extreme right’ as the MSM claimed Tommy to be. Yes, Farage is vain and arrogant but he is sincere about Brexit – unlike most politicians.

          2. 342194+ up ticks,
            R,
            He was so sincere he done a bloody good impression of Emile Zapopec at a very crucial time, to get his life back.
            If you insist in dealing with him make sure it is face/face do NOT allow him to approach from the rear.

            30000 plus will tell you likewise.

      3. 342194+ up ticks,
        Morning TB,
        That is entirely down to you TB,bearing in mind why would one vote on a graded sh!te level for best of the worst.

        Peoples should, in my book divert funding the odious trio to funding a fringe party for starters.
        When you have a society voting on a least
        abuse & beatings to the peoples policy then you are witnessing the formation of an evil dictatorship, we have just that in spades.

      4. That is a question that our friend ogga never answers very well.

        When votes for None of the Above is an option that is actually counted you will have the option of voting rather than abstaining which is the only option when nobody presents him/herself to whom you can give your vote.

        1. Spoiled ballot papers are counted, Rastus. The number is announced along with the count of the valid votes.

    2. 342194+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Sad but,
      Tis not only the treacherous overseers that put fear into many tis YOUR neighbour and fellow daily traveller.

    1. It won’t crash, but the QR code will be useless and unreadable.

      Which will cause worry for those trying to scan in who are frightened and obedient.

  31. Making a Living

    A young couple were experiencing financial difficulties, i.e., they were stony broke.

    “There’s nothing else for it, Mary,” said the husband, “we need money FAST or we’ll lose the house. You’ll have to get out there and sell your body, sinful as it may sound. God will forgive you.”

    Mary, who happened to be a God-fearing busty blonde agreed. “How much should I charge?”

    “Never having actually paid for sex, I don’t know,” replied the husband, “but I’m sure your clients, scum that they are, will know the right price. Let them do the talking.”

    So, next evening, dressed in her most revealing dress, off she went into the night.

    Early next morning she returned to the house, looking like she’d had a very busy night, and emptied her purse onto the kitchen table. The total came to one hundred and fifty pounds and seventy-five pence.

    “Seventy-five pence?!” exclaimed her husband. “Who the hell gave you seventy-five pence?”

    To which she replied, “All of them!”

  32. Here’s news of Javid the Bald announcing his initiative to save us all. Announcing immediately before the next clamp-down is purely coincidental. His rating has gone excremental on Twitter.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5fab2c05cae18ea1ed2111c0c91bc2aa1332c4169a74c3d907cecc2fd21b8270.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7918f5bb8797b8807e50ae7fe6b4dbde6206bd5ddaef1e38be8a86de26e522e3.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fd3e69d0a27f9be01935f5ce445a280ce33a61cc0435bec13e7091617ee00482.png

    1. That’s a joke, right? Drive away staff via mandatory vaxxing, and then call up people who thought they would be able to enjoy a well-earned retirement?

      1. And if it is anything like the way they dealt with retired medical people in 2020 – it won’t work.

      2. But hang on a minute. The crisis is so severe that mandatory vax for NHS staff isn’t coming in until Spring. Can’t have too many staff leaving the NHS just as winter is here.

    2. Well, no – it isn’t a question of training and paying the adequate number of staff – it’s because the NHS is a political organisation first, a healthcare provider second.

  33. How many years has mankind been seeking a cure for the common cold, and failed?

    My guess is that that is the number of years that it will take the morons in charge to realise that there won’t be one for Covid-19 either and that we’ll just have to learn to live with it.

      2. Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani

        Had God forsaken Christ?

        When he said “Father Forgive Them for They Know Not What They Do” did he hope that they would be punished rather than forgiven if they did know precisely what they were doing?

        I am of the firm opinion that forgiveness is futile and meaningless unless the person whom you forgive is sorry for what he or she has done. An unrepentant person is unforgiveable. There must be a forgivee as well as a forgiver.

        1. I think perhaps Christ realised that the ones who crucified him were agents of evil, who didn’t understand his mission. Or maybe he intended that even evil people should be forgiven.

          1. Evil people should be forgiven. After they’re beaten to a pulp, hung, drawn, quartered, flogged, flayed and chained by the neck in a sewer.

            Then forgive them.

        3. Yo mr t

          This is more accutaesterer

          “Father Don’t Forgive Them for They Know Not Very Well What They Do”

    2. Ah yes, but had the common cold been about during this government’s reign, then it would have enacted this same grevious policies.

      It’s gone beyond common sense now.

    4. There’s no cure for flu, either, is there? Flu jabs for the vulnerable are hit and miss as well.

        1. We’re taking 4,000 iu Vit D already as we did last winter, when neither of us had sniffles at all. Also VitC+zinc. So we’re ok at the moment, thanks.

        1. The only time I had one I was very ill for a month. Th GP said it was, “Pure coincidence”. Yeah, right!!

          1. An acquaintance was seriously ill after a ‘flu jab a while ago, coincidentally. By the grace of God his wife mentioned the rapidly worsening symptoms to medical friends (ie not the local GP or hospital) who diagnosed Guillain-Barré syndrome. Appropriate treatment was obtained, his condition improved, but it has a been a long recovery.

          2. A friend had B-B syndrome. Scared him witless – he could feel the paralysis creeping up his body… :-(((

          3. Exactly, very scary. IIRC the hospital hadn’t a clue. Saw the acquaintance this morning, he is still not 100% but is cheerful.

  34. Deep breaths please

    A man who tried to carry out a sex attack on a woman in Falmouth during the G7 Summit has been jailed.

    Truro Crown Court heard how the incidents took place on June 13 this year, on the final day of the G7 Summit being in Cornwall.

    The International Media Centre was based in Falmouth and the town saw a huge influx of members of the public travelling from all over the UK, many of whom were there to carry out protests in front of the world’s press.

    Among those travelling to Falmouth during that week, for reasons unknown, was Esayas Grmay, a 20-year-old from London, having arrived in the country seeking asylum from a warzone.

    It was during his time in the town that he grabbed a woman from the street and attempted to commit a sex attack on her before she was able to fight him off.

    Grmay had already stood trial at crown court, where he was convicted of false imprisonment and committing an offence with intent to commit a sexual offence.

    For these crimes, Judge Simon Carr sentenced Grmay on Friday to five years detention in a young offender institute, with four years on extended licence.

    He was also ordered to pay a £190 victim surcharge.

    During the same hearing Grmay was sentenced for a sexual assault previously committed in London.

    For this he received 18 months detention, to run concurrently to the other sentence, meaning the overall length of sentence did not change.

    Grmay must also sign the sex offenders register indefinitely.

    https://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/19746767.esayas-grmay-sentenced-attack-woman-falmouth-g7-summit/?ref=twtrec

    Why wasn’t he kicked out of the UK

      1. Young Offenders Institute is an option but will be transferred to adult prison when he turns 21.

          1. Waiting for update from d-i-l. The hospital will call her after doctor’s rounds in about an hour.
            Will post when received.

          3. Considering you were not a Criminal Solicitor (in the correct meaning of the title) you seem to know the system. :-)))

        5. Put him in with those nice ladies demanding that refugees are welcome.

          And forbid him leaving.

    3. And now he is costing UK tax payers even more money to keep him in jail. I suspect some prat of a HR lawyer will try and claim as is often the case, that he has M.H.I. mental health issues.
      I just hope some one sensible in prison beats the crap out of him. More than once.

      2. Gynaecology ……can you imagine.
        My good lady had to go to hospital to see a large African male about a gynae prob a few weeks ago. She felt most uncomfortable.

        1. Which is sad, because there are significant ethics involved in the training.

          A chum of mine is about 9′ tall and 6′ wide – he’s truly massive, towering over me. He’s a brain surgeon – I suppose a cranial neurologist and is the gentlest, kindest bloke imaginable.

  35. Ghastly day, there is white stuff covering everything and it is 31F. I’m not sure if I should say good morning or, we are doomed! According to the papers we are rapidly going into panic mode over a comparatively harmless variation of Covid. It is absurd and childish of the government to continuously behave this way. It’s almost like some neurotic horse that continually shy’s at shadows and can’t be ridden as a result. I’m in the highly vulnerable category but really, let people get on with their lives and stop trying to control everyone. Nanny state in full blown mode, nanny needs to be fired.

    1. They’ve realised that people have got back to ‘normal’ and so they must ramp up the fear again, before the Christmas rush.

      Good morning Johnathan – we had snow on Saturday morning but it didn’t last.

      1. Snow here in West Sussex in November that actually stays on the ground. I can’t remember the last time it happened. We rarely get snow but when we do it is in the new year, not now. It’s global swarming you know!

        1. It’s our weather system showing what a scam Flop26 was – but it’s come a bit late for that!

      1. One degree below freezing on the Fahrenheit Temperature Scale.

        I’d have thought you old enough Wibbles, to remember when we used Fahrenheit.

      2. Because their drug and prostitution businesses are in the UK.
        The police will not intervene because,
        a) they are on the take, and
        b) the Albanians are armed with machine guns, and
        c) the Albanians are muslims

  37. In recent days I am much reminded of the famous medical man, Sir Omicron Pi – a creation of Anthony Trollope!!

  38. Putin, pugilism and pusillanimity. 29 November 2021.

    Do you want to go to war with Russia over Ukraine? You wouldn’t have to go yourself, but you would have to approve sending tens of thousands of young Europeans and Americans to deploy on chilly wheatfields last fought over by the Red Army and the Wehrmacht.

    The best outcome would be that Ukraine remained a western-oriented, oligarchic-capitalist country with a fragile democracy but that what’s left of the geopolitical architecture would disintegrate. The worst would be nuclear confrontation.

    So do you want to start a war over Ukraine? Thought not.

    Yet this month the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, placed 600 paratroops, plus an unspecified number of special-forces troops, on high alert to deploy to Ukraine. The Central Intelligence Agency boss, William Burns, felt he had to fly to Moscow to warn the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, not to invade the country, while his United States counterpart, Joe Biden, reiterated America’s ‘unwavering support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine’.

    This piece is an oddity in that apart from accusing Russia of being the aggressor it is largely correct in both its depiction of the situation and its probable outcome should it come to war!

    https://socialeurope.eu/putin-pugilism-and-pusillanimity

    1. As I pointed out to my old mate this morning at 11:01 the newly invented variant to try to cover the fact that ‘vaccines’ don’t work, it’s all ‘blocks’ it’s a complete lie and a fake.

      1. I saw yesterday a list of symptoms that included heart problems. The new variant will also provide a cover for that. We had lunch with some friends from France last Thursday – they were all boostered up… they have no idea what is going on, didn’t know that sportsmen (and others) around the world were collapsing, dying on the field, why hadn’t it been mentioned in the media? And if so why wasn’t it headline news? It is hard to believe that a large section of the population has no clue as to what it is really all about.

        1. I have family members who have their heads buried deep in the sand. They just put their hands over their ears and shout, “La la la la la la la la!” every time I attempt to educate them.

          1. Same here. You tell them a fact, and they say “Well I don’t know” Yes you bldy do – I’ve just told you!!

          2. I know some people whose response to having their ideology challenged, rather than present a counter argument, is always to say that they’ve never heard that before, implying that means I’ve just made it up on the spot. You’d expect them to by upset when I ask if their ignorance is my fault but they’re not. They just acquire a blank expression, rinse and repeat.

          4. It’s easy to fool people but not so easy to convince them they have been fooled. Especially after the last 20 months of psychological warfare on us all.

          5. I have the same problem.
            My BiL is in a terrible state of health ten years older than me but all religiously and sanctimoniously jabbed up now suffering from very severe myocarditis. As am I.
            Inflammation and damage of the heart muscle known as myocardium. Most commonly caused by a viral infection, but can also be an infection of bacteria, fungi, parasite or a reaction to a drug.
            Funny how those two go together.

          7. We’re in the same club, Grizz. I’ve all but given up trying to get my close relatives to at least THINK about what’s going on let alone take steps to keep themselves safe. It’s frightening that they all seem to believe that the government is actually working to improve the situation. Are they in for shock when realisation kicks in.

          8. Sadly all we can do is write 4 short words on a piece of paper and leave it an envelope for them for later reference.

          9. My family to a ‘T’ too, Korky. I have a nephew who is a BBC employee (poles apart from Sue E) and he indoctrinates his parents with all manner of BBC bullshit, which they devour with gusto. When I once questioned David Attenborough’s propaganda, I was nearly expelled from the family as a heretic.

        2. We had some terrible news yesterday a friend of ours has just died after suffering a massive stroke. Not much over 70 i’m sure he would have had all the jabs and booster.
          A normally fit and healthy jolly sort of chap, good amateur horticulturalist, liked a pint, retired from the pharmaceutical industry. Gone.

          3. He was a bit of an old leftie, but had good sense of humour. I can see his wry smile now.
            I feel pretty sad about it actually.

          7. It seems that as well as the action of the spike proteins causing blood clots, leading to heart attacks strokes and inflammation of body organs, it also wipes out the immune system (whereas the general public seems to think it boosts the immune system) so making a person extremely vulnerable to any passing virus. It also prods and accelerates into life anything tucked away in your genes that would naturally make itself evident later in life, this being enhanced by the lack of immune system which kept things under control. So a three-pronged attack on humanity – spike proteins, wiped out immune system and gene-prodding. This is how I have interpreted the articles available on the web, am I correct about this?

            I am sorry to learn of your friend, Eddy; it is a truly terrible thing that is happening to us. So many people we know have started to become ill from mid-summer onwards, I never thought we would live through times like this.

          8. You make some very important points PM. That;s exactly how i feel about it all. But so many people are defiant when you point out that there have been so extra many health problems. Even today our neighbour who use to be a nursing sister called me a conspiracy theorist. Oh well ……..

          9. If you are called a conspiracy theorist then you are on the right track. Ask her why she thinks you are a conspiracy theorist, to justify the label. We are realists, that is all. To me, everything is as plain as daylight and I can’t understand why others cannot see it. When people attach labels or name-call they have no argument, they are simply going along with the flock. An easy life for them.

          10. There are so many blinkered people out there PM. But I wont be starting an argument, she’s a good neighbour and getting on a bit now.

          11. All you can do is laugh (kindly!).

            I live in fear now, but fear of what is going to happen to us, not fear of the virus. We seem not to have progressed at all since the Middle Ages.

          12. Your saying that has made me think; a friend of mine (fully jabbed and boostered), who is just over 60 had a TIA recently. Am I adding 2 and 2 and making 5?

          13. Another friend of mine had a stroke earlier this year he’s lost some coordination in his speech. It could have been soon after the jab the more you research the medical problems associated with theses so called vaccines the more people have suffered from mishaps. I’m firmly convinced this is one of the reasons that the AZ injection seems to have been withdrawn from the booster program. Because of my own heart problems my GP has advised me not to have the booster.

          14. My riding instructress told me today of someone she knew who died of a massive heart attack just after he’d had the booster. The doctor initially said it was due to the booster, then rowed back! She said she’d been sceptical until that because he’d been healthy until then.

    3. A long time ago I’m certain that I read that the existing smallpox cultures are under very tight security, for obvious reasons. Is there anyone who can enlighten me?

      Is there anyone evil enough to even consider releasing such a pathogen on the World, let alone do it?

      1. Yes, they would. With psychopaths the end ALWAYS justifies the means, whatever those means may be.

      2. “Is there anyone evil stupid enough to even consider releasing such a pathogen on the World, let alone do it?”

        More than plenty in the amended category I’m afraid, Korky.

        1. I suppose you could argue that anything that reduces the population of such a grossly over-populated planet as ours can be justified.

          1. Indeed that is the case, Rastus; however, I don’t trust any of those in charge of the programme; any more than I trust any world leader right now.

            Stupidity is now a worldwide epidemic and the most stupid are those in charge.

        2. Does stupid therefore trump evil or are both symptoms required to have someone do such a thing?

          1. I’m not sure how I (personally) would define evil since it is a subjective topic; however, stupidity is all around us and is growing exponentially.

        3. Look at the vaccine distribution across the world – the African countries are not vaccinated mostly.
          Now re-run that scenario with smallpox and an effective vaccine.
          When Christian (or Buddhist, or Hindu or Sikh) principles are thrown out of the window, any scenario is possible and the end justifies the means.

          2. Interesting, thanks. That Ethiopia, with one of the poorest territories in the world, is on that list, is insane.
            The population of Africa is rising at about 2% a year according to worldometers.info, and is currently about 17% of the world, with a median age of under 20.

            Given the vaccine manufacturing capacity in India and in China, I doubt GAVI or the WHO has much chance of controlling the populations of either of those two countries via vaccines. However, I note from the internet that Indonesia has vaccinated half its people up til now, and Pakistan 19 percent.

            I hope “they” are not insane enough to try anything stupid on purpose. Nature will wipe us out in her own good time.

      3. Smallpox is carefully controlled and monitored. The problem is that there are countries who research such nasty poisons with inadequate safety measures.

      4. Thank goodness I was vaccinated against smallpox in my childhood. As it was a real vaccine, I don’t need constant boosters.

    8. She should have thought about that before she sat in the road. Someone could have run her over………..

    1. During the 700 years (711-1492) of partial occupation of a large part of Spain, there was a time when mountain village inhabitants successfully petitioned for an exemption as otherwise they would have starved during the winter.
      Am I off topic?

    2. I didn’t see the whole section on the pig farming, but was it the fact that most of the people who work in the slaughter houses are islamic ? And obviously will not handle pork, thus deliberately setting out (as they often do) to cause a major problem ?
      I remember another report some time ago made by matey, he was ranting on about packs domestic dogs that had been main maiming and killing sheep.
      I think it was near Wrexham on the edge of a forest. But I believe it was found to have been wild boar attacking the sheep, as is what happens in parts of Australia around lambing season. I contacted CF to point out their seemingly over zealous mistake but to no avail.

      1. “… was it the fact that most of the people who work in the slaughter houses are islamic ?”

        No!

        1. Ah, then it must have been that there are not enough people in abattoirs who will handle the pigs.

        1. It could have been Forest of dean I can’t actually remember, but I can’t ever imagine domestic dogs ganging up to attack sheep.

      1. Précisément!

        The feature looked like being another anti-Brexit whinge, especially when it included the idiot who asked why a foreign worker would want to come here only to be deported when his visa expired. However, it was quite correct to promote the virtue of local abattoirs and processors. It’s not just the organic farming and animal welfare camps who have pointed out the problems of the last 25-30 years. The whole livestock sector has been affected.

        The feature also was also let down a bit by reporting that 16,000 pigs have been culled because of the current problems. That’s sad for the farmers involved but it’s from a national herd that numbered 4.7 million last December.

  43. How can we waste public funds today…..

    An academic is to receive £80,000 of public money to accuse MPs of spreading ‘moral panic’ over China.

    The Government will sponsor a doctoral thesis that is expected to criticise parliamentarians who campaign against Beijing’s human rights abuses.

    The focus of the study is said to be the China Research Group of Conservative MPs and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10252649/Academic-gets-80k-grant-defend-Beijing-thesis-accusing-MPs-spreading-moral-panic.html

    1. £80,000 that is declared. Maybe more riches directly from the CCP. Questioning or criticising blatant, and large scale, human rights abuses should never be subject to limits.

  45. Afternoon All

    #CovidClownWorld

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7462ed8e01f1ff76c43935ca8b18370a5e388a435dbd3220039625080f069484.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e385dc83d6439fb5e1dde33aa6cf26268945c89ee7374e559467dd298936eb59.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/06fd62ee11d9911af043438b4b0f298fde2f8487d6c8ec0d98bbc217dfc81b95.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0ec4466cc274a7430162aaf7da592f82348a90ebbef31c300380a4b5812aa939.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7920a2bfe37502b622edfbe8bb18a987a8a9844ec6b38776f036a0c177633751.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5d8d72b60454c6fa1a53aa23fad31f94eb9767597ac4bc499672539c35758dcb.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9e132f2b50bddaddad71742f208d35a66072f3bf8fd028cb3490e0eb716b7bb0.jpg

      1. Those in charge are in denial of the tsunami of evidence washing over their scheme and that denial drives the illogicality of their responses.

    2. Latest News Headline

      Covid vaccination promotes the spread of the virus and has horrific side effects.*

      (* Source Tastiebits News Inc.)

  48. The Bidens are Chinese property. Pat Lang. 28 November 2021.

    “Hunter flew home the day before the lunch. He already had met with Ye, over a private dinner on the Tuesday night, at which the CEFC chairman made him an offer too good to refuse: $10 million a year, for a minimum of three years, for “introductions alone,” as Hunter would later assert in an imperious email to CEFC executives.

    Ye sealed the new alliance with a rich gift – a 3.16 carat diamond worth 80,000. Photographs of the stunning stone appear on Hunter’s laptop along with a grading report that lists it as a “round brilliant” of Grade F with prime “VS2” clarity and “excellent” cut.”

    “… the diamond was just an appetizer.

    Nine days after Hunter’s meeting in Miami with Ye, $3 million is wired into an account for Rob Walker’s company, Robinson Walker LLC, from State Energy HK Limited, a Shanghai-based company linked to CEFC, according to the Chuck Grassley-Ron Johnson inquiry.

    On March 1, another $3 million is wired to Robinson Walker by the same company. Both transactions are flagged by the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement network in a “suspicious activity report,” filed with the Senate committees as “Confidential Document 16.”

    Using the document as a source, the Grassley-Johnson report of Nov. 18, 2020, says: “At the time of the transfers, State Energy HK Limited was affiliated with CEFC China Energy, which was under the leadership of Ye Jianming. In the past, State Energy HK Limited transferred funds to at least one company associated with Hunter Biden’s business associate, Gongwen Dong .
    . .
    “These transactions are a direct link between Walker and the communist Chinese government and, because of his close association with Hunter Biden, yet another tie between Hunter Biden’s financial arrangements and the communist Chinese government.”

    The Senate report concludes it is “unclear what the true purpose is behind these transactions [$6 million from CEFC] and who the ultimate beneficiary is.”

    We know from the laptop that Hunter received regular payments from Robinson Walker. One document lists $56,603.74 from Robinson Walker as income for Rosemont Seneca Advisors, between June and December 2017.

    Rob Walker paid at least $511,000 to Hunter’s firm Owasco in 2017, according to an email from Hunter’s tax accountant, Bill Morgan.

    https://turcopolier.com/the-bidens-are-chinese-property/

  50. Six new vents tear open on erupting Canary Islands volcano sending lava racing into previously untouched areas at 20ft per minute. 29 November 2021.

    Several new volcanic vents have opened up on the Spanish island of La Palma, releasing new lava that is speeding down a ridge and threatening to widen the damage to evacuated land, roads and homes, authorities said last night.

    The molten rock coming out from the main new vent was very fluid and was advancing at a speed of 20ft per minute towards areas unspoiled until now, said María José Blanco, a spokeswoman for Spain’s National Geographic Institute.

    This is the end my friends! Fortunately it’s not leaking any CO2

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10251447/New-vents-open-lava-surges-Spanish-islands-volcano.html

    2. I’m really looking forward to its lump sliding into sea and brewing a massive Tsunami.

      Let’s see the greenies explain that away.

    1. But they will expect you to wear a nasty disposable plastic mask to protect them them from a virus. I lost count of how many of these horrible things were dropped on the ground.

      1. I have noticed that disposable plastic masks are very much attracted to pavements and grass verges…

        2. Here they seem to gravitate upwards, contrary to all known laws, to lodge themselves in tree branches! Well, I do live in the country.

  57. On a more positive note it is possible, with the evidence seen in South Africa so far, that the Omicron variant is capable of displacing the previous two dominant variants in only a matter of days by virtue of its greater transmissibility. There have been no Omicron hospitalisations or deaths in South Africa because all the old and vulernable people have already died from something else.

    It’s like forest fires. You don’t necessarily try to extinguish them with water that you don’t have – you rapidly create more smaller fires to raze fire breaks that will stop the big one.

    Fight viruses with viruses then just like fighting fire with fire.

    There will of course be a lot of tired people with headaches but that is not a reason to go to A&E.
    Old and vulnerable people will just go back to dying in time honoured fashion of ‘passing away’.

          4. Bath Theatre Royal…..delightful theatre with plush velvet seats …do they sttill exist…
            Spent many a happy day in Bath…shopping, dinner followed by theatre…

          5. As a child I was taken to see Charlie Drake in a panto at the Palladium. It wasn’t remotely funny and put me off Charlie Drake for life. But, I have seen other pantos which made me howl with laughter. Depends on the cast and the script I guess.

          6. Old troupers – who have no delusions about being famous or a ‘draw’ are usually far better at pantomime.

          7. In the early 70s took the boys to a panto at Tonbridge – where the “principal boy” was a man in drag who was totally creepy. The whole thing was a disaster.

            The next year, we went to Croydon where Mike and Bernie Winters were absolutely superb. They knew exactly how to get the audience going.

  60. Just walked down the hill (and back up) to the twice weekly mobile Post Office. I was challenged for not wearing a mask – I said “I’m exempt”. “Oh” she said “don’t you usually wear a mask?” I said – “No – you’ve never seen me wearing a mask”.

        1. Haven’t heard so far today, thank you for asking. DiL was going to “see” the consultant and wave through the window at son but … hoping all continues to improve albeit slowly.

    2. Compulsory mask-wearing in shops in England does not come into effect until tomorrow – Tuesday 30th November.

  61. Some more good news, this time about granddaughter in Dubai. She has an interview with Cam ridge University next month. We are very proud of her. (Except she’s going for Psychology!). She had been interested in Criminology with a view to side stepping into Law but changed her mind. Oh well.

      1. Yes but you know what youngsters are like.
        A couple of years ago she said she wanted to go to Harvard Law School.
        Fickle.

        1. Tell her you are happy for her to do Psychology after she has finished her Law Degree. You can point out to her that she will need both if she is going to be supporting her parents in later life. :@)

  62. Goof Affergurgle …… just practising for the the next decade of wearing face nappies.
    Well, on the plus side, I’m sure getting my money’s worth out of my Mask Exempt lanyard.
    What a bloody shambles/farce.

          3. If you are questioned you can inform them that under the 2010 Equality Act they cannot legally question you about your exemption.

            ©Rik-Redux.

          4. It says that on the website that Ndovu gave me. Also says that you don’t need a letter or anything from your quack to prove your exemption.

          5. Afternoon Pip
            Also ask them for their name and inform them the offence allows for up to £9000 compensation do they think their employer will be paying their legal fees??
            Although this doesn’t begin until tomorrow the masked security guy in Tesco started to approach me today….
            I just gave him the “look” and he rapidly backed away,no mask,not then,not now,not ever

          6. Good arvo, Rik.

            It’s alright for you being over six foot. Some of us midgets can have a hard time with security given the type of untermensch they employ.

          7. I went in to the Jubilee Hall for a Christmas Fayre on Sunday. A notice at the entrance said masks were obligatory, but nobody challenged me and I can’t recall seeing anybody wearing a mask in there, either.

      1. Likewise face nappies will be forced on childrens in schools again but there were none being worn at the National Teaching Awards and they certainly weren’t “social distancing” either.

      3. I understand the point that JHB is making – BUT – you are allowed to sit down and eat without a mask.

        Just saying.

        1. Most restaurants don’t seat that many people. As the gummint said, avoid large groups unless you have been triple vaxxed. I doubt they all have been.

          1. Sadly, the principle remains.

            Though, of course, they are hypocrites – but “important” (© Whittingdale MP) … so outwith the rules.

            I am thinking of becoming an influencer so that I, too, can be important.

          6. I know. That’s another reason.

            The main one is that I can avoid – quite legally – all the paperwork bollox (and testing) that plebs have to do.

  63. Tory council leader apologises after he was accused of ‘victim blaming’ for telling women ‘not to put themselves in compromising position’ in wake of Bobbi-Anne McLeod’s murder
    Councillor Nick Kelly warned against women going ‘in a compromising position’
    His remarks sparked near instant condemnation and he refused to apologise
    The next day he did say sorry and said he had not meant offend anyone
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10254531/Tory-council-leader-apologises-accused-victim-blaming-Bobbi-Anne-McLeod.html

    DM Story

    So Nick Kelly should he have said:

    “Put on your shortest mini-skirts and your most revealing blouses” Try and look as sexy and available as you can. Go out into dark areas where nasty men might be lurking in the shadows”

    And a couple of days ago a photographer was told he was a foul sexist when, after an Oxbridge College photo, he asked the ‘gentlemen’ to give the ‘ladies’ a hand down from the platform. Apparently the feminists object to being called ladies – maybe they would prefer the term gorgons!.

    We would have loved to have had a daughter as well as our two lovely sons – but I am now not as full of regrets about it as I used to be!

    1. It is not a good idea for a woman to be alone late at night unless she can defend herself. Men are sometimes victims too.

      Nick Kelly should not have apologised and told the loud mouthed offended feminists that they do not speak for everyone.

    2. Very sadly for us ladies the feminists have distorted things. It such a shame. Manners as they used to be is all part of the deterioration of our society. I sure these “wimmin” will regret it one day.

          2. Some young women are absolutely vile to other young women.
            Our eldest gd suffered that during her first year at university.

          6. I went to an all girl school and taught in a girls school. Girls can be vicious and nasty- I saw two girls at my grammar school go at each other with forks in the cafeteria.
            When I was teaching in Manchester, I was spending a free period in my room when sounds of a fight became apparent. I went into the hallway and tried to separate two large girls who were seriously getting into it. A history teacher in the next room came out to help. Both these girls were bigger than us! She grabbed one and I got hold of the other and we tried to pull them apart. A small girl went past and we told her to run and get the deputy head. Run, we said. Then we made a mistake, we looked at each other and began to laugh. This stopped the pugilists in their tracks. Wot you laughing at? they said. Deputy head arrived and girls were removed. Anne and I went into my room and laughed until we cried.
            Education is a sticky business at times but I wouldn’t do another job…you never get the same day twice.

          7. Although I retired as a court usher 10 years ago after 10 years service I had noticed the increase in girl on girl violence year on year.
            Similarly the increase in the number of female drink drivers over the same period.

          8. I am not an abstemious person but I have noticed the pictures in the papers of Friday nights etc in various cities. Mainly young women in various stages of inebriation and also their total lack of dignity and self respect.
            If I want to get plastered I stay at home and do it where no-one can see me;-))))

          9. And many of them were very unsuitably dressed. What an old-fashioned, un-reconstructed pensioner might call “Asking for it”.

            I expect I’ll be cancelled, now.

          10. And many of them were very unsuitably dressed. What an old-fashioned, un-reconstructed pensioner might call “Asking for it”.

            I expect I’ll be cancelled, now.

      2. I know a fair number of feminists. The real sort, who believe in equal rights, not the current morons who expect special treatment. They’d be very accepting of a hand down.

        One is a project manager I’ve worked with, another I married.

    3. I never mind when my lovely husband or other gentlemen give me a helping hand. It is a courtesy not being patronising.

    5. I always pull the chair out for the wife. When she goes to sit down, it’s not there. Oh I larf.

      These days responsibilty is so separated from consequence you’d have to be a Lefty to ignore the cognitive dissonance.

  65. “Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy chief medical officer, said there was currently a “high degree of current uncertainty” about the omicron variant.

    He told a Downing Street press conference: “I do not want people to panic at this stage,” saying the current picture was “not all doom and gloom”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/29/covid-booster-vaccines-rolled-adults-three-months-second-dose/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Isn’t it great that we have such reassuring figures at Prof. Van-Tam in charge of our CV response? He’s just great for the nation’s morale isn’t he?

    “Don’t panic yet! Leave it a couple of weeks – then you can panic!”

    1. I wonder how much these dreadful people (Witless, Unbalanced and this Vietnamese bloke) are paid by Globalists and Big Pharma to spout their endless Project Fear…

      1. Chris Whitty was at Malvern at the same time as James Delingpole and Jonathan Myles-Lea. Delingpole claims not to remember him as he was too boring.
        “His father was a British Council officer…” so he comes from that sort of background.
        Whitty’s CV is astonishing in one respect. He was born in 1966 and his education was as follows (from Wikipedia)
        “Whitty was sent back to the UK for his schooling,[4] where he attended Windlesham House School in Pulborough, West Sussex, and Malvern College, Worcestershire. He then studied at Pembroke College, Oxford (BA in Physiology, DSc in medical science), Wolfson College, Oxford (BM BCh in Medicine, 1991, where he was also the founding chair of the National Postgraduate Committee[11]), the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (DTM&H in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 1996; MSc in Epidemiology, 1996), Northumbria University (LLM in Medical Law, 2005), Heriot-Watt University (MBA in Business Administration, 2010), and the Open University (DipEcon in Economics).[1][5]!
        He appears to have been continually in education until 1996 when he would have been 30, and part time thereafter until 2010 when he would have been 44.

        1. Was that when he joined SKG* (??) for a million a year…?

          *Many other similar swindling companies are available.

          2. Whitty was trained for his present role and his education funded no doubt by Glaxo (GSK) and other Pharma interests. He is now paying them back and making a lot from shares in the companies.

            The vaccines he is promoting do not work. The masking does not work. The lockdowns and social distancing does not work.

            The most highly vaccinated countries have the highest rates of infection. The vaccines are having the reverse effect to that promised. Nobody but a fool would continue pushing this vaccination fraud especially given the horrendous adverse reactions from the jabs.

            Nothing spouted by Whitty, Vallance, Van Tam and their minions makes any sense. They are a peculiar excuse for fools but evil liars and on the take.

        2. He certainly looks old for his age (and weird). He’s only 2 years younger than me and i look a lot better than that. And i have a good head of hair. Just ask anyone ! :@)

  66. Laff

    Comment from the Telegraph:

    “I honestly would feel safer if COVID held a press conference telling us that it was going to protect us from the Government”

  68. Evening, all. I’m sure that, given a break from the relentless pushing of project fear and a bit of factual information being allowed to see the light of day, Britain would learn to live with Covid. Unfortunately, the government has no intention of letting that happen.

        1. You have first to deal with that charmer from WHO. The Ethiopian wanted for genocide. That charmer.

  71. That’s me for this chilly day. At least the sun shone for some of it. Frost likely in the next hour – but then it will warm up. Relatively mild tomorrow. “And that’s your weather,” as the wazzocks say on the beeboid radio. Made a loaf. Took the empties to the bottle bank. Put in six pieces of jigsaw. An exhausting day – which calls for a glass.

    Oh, I hear that the Toady prog was off the air for 15 minutes. Did anyone notice?

    I hope you all have a spiffing evening.

    A demain.

  76. I see the Scottish witch is busy stirring hatred.
    She’s also encouraging the least productive to carry on breeding.
    Please give her her referendum and let’s hope she wins and bankrupts the Scots once and for all.
    When they crawl back, scrap all self-governing aspirations and the SNP.

    1. My dearly loved Scots uncle who died last year, rarely said an unkind word about anyone. The one exception was this “wee witch” as he called her. It is the only time I heard him be rude about anyone and he was a RN vet and a teacher in the Glasgow school system!

  78. Our household has just started self-isolation. MOH had fairly nasty cold symptoms since last week, she usually gets the same sort of thing 2 or 3 times each winter. Then on Sunday I felt a bit rough but put it down the the Saturday night party I went to, MOH cried off. Then my son came home from work Sunday evening feeling poorly. The symptoms of each of us weren’t especially Covid like, but when put all together, were suspicious. Got hold of some LFT kits and bing, bing, bing, all double red lines. We’ll post PCR tests tomorrow, just for form really.

    1. Increase your Vit D3+K2, Vit c+zinc and get some Quercetin. Online and it will be delivered tomorrow Amazon Prime. And take the Ivermectin. Hope you’re all feeling better soon, let us know how you get on.

      1. Thanks, MOH has all that stuff, she’s unjabbed. All 3 of us with relatively mild symptoms, my son, like me, had 2 jabs. So we have a little petri dish experiment going on.

    2. Increase your Vit D3+K2, Vit c+zinc and get some Quercetin. Online and it will be delivered tomorrow Amazon Prime. And take the Ivermectin. Hope you’re all feeling better soon, let us know how you get on.

        1. Given so much of it all is flatulent it’s a no win, into it, it stinks, behind you it stinks.
          Enjoy the stink/walks

          1. Thanks, Maggie, but we’re not doing too badly. I don’t want put the mockers on it, but it’s pretty mild so far. I will be making some chicken soup quite soon, but our appetites have almost disappeared.

    6. Cripes Mola, sorry to hear of that. Apparently, alcohol is a good deterrent and analgesic. Guess you will miss open mic night. Make up for it next Monday.

      1. Cheers, I’m certainly testing its efficacy at this moment. Missing tonight and next Monday. Should be allowed out a week on Wednesday. Sigh.

  79. The one show on in the background.
    The omicron variant
    A Marvel super villain
    An unintentional truth!

    1. Those are NOT British. They’re scum, Labour’s children. They are the result of having billions wasted on them, endless opportunities, funding in schools and outside. More, they’re the representation of the breakdown of society. Of the nuclear family. Of discipline. Of two parents. Of the largess of welfare state.

      London needs martial law.

  82. Expert advice, please.
    My tumble dryer is limping along.
    I am looking at heat pump dryers, but they keep mentioning wi-fi connections.
    Quite frankly, all I want to do is dry the washing. From my experience, the more bells and whistles on an appliance, the greater the chances of the thing going wrong.
    Is it possible to ignore the whole wi-fi thingy and just use the appliance to get stuff dry?

      1. Ta ever so. I wish designers of stuff would realise that because you can do something, it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

    3. I have a Creda Advance condenser dryer.. have had it about ten years or more, simple easy, drys well, no gizmos, just a water container at the bottom that needs emptying ever so often.. becomes similar to distilled water .. you don’t have to worry about a tube . Mine is in the utility room, I usually keep a window open , because the room can become warm .

      I think the newer ones have gizmos, but mine suits me , just so simple .

      1. I used a thick piece of string tied between two trees for years. When string is discontinued, then collecting old bootlaces and knotting them together will do.

        I have now modernised, and upgraded to a rotary dryer on the lawn for sunny days and a fold-up clothes horse (flat pack from Lidl) for when it is raining.

        The last time I used a tumble dryer was when I was teenager and my parents had an English Electric from about 1960, which was brilliant with a knob I could twiddle to get the right timing. I think it caught fire in the end.

        2. I have a huge rotary line in the garden .

          When the weather is still , the clothes don’t dry , towels , sheets , duvet covers, trousers socks etc DO NOT dry when there is no wind, nor do the wind turbines turn either .. The only thing that moves when there is no wind are illegal migrants on fragile boats.

          You are quite clearly a fussy old batchelor who washes clothes once a week .

    5. Yo, Annie, What Paul said, below. I bought a Candy condenser washer/dryer when I moved last year, for reasons of limited space. While it claimed to be ‘wi-fi’, in reality, it doesn’t connect to the network, but can be controlled by a mobile app if you hold the phone against a certain spot on the control panel. Largely a waste of time. But I imagine any truly wi-fi connected machine could be controlled independently of an app…

      1. Thanks. I keep things simple. Put in damp stuff. Twiddle knob to what I think is enough time, choose high or low setting.
        I do not need anything that requires struggling with wi-ever-so-fi with its 101 excuses not to work properly.

    6. Just buy a sensor tumble dryer. It stops heating when the clothes are dry. Buy an entry level model of a good quality maker aboput £500 or less.

  85. Sky has got a video of the UK fighter plane which crashed on take off. It is a poor picture but it shows the aircraft crashing just as it left the ramp. It is a surprise that the pilot survived ejecting from such a low level. He certainly had no chance of saving the plane.

    1. I haven’t seen it, bur rocket ejection seats were able to do that back in the early 70s. I don’t know if Martin Baker, ejection seat manufacturer, is still in business, but they were the RAF’s go to seat.

    2. apparently, at least one of the engine intake blanks was left in place. Maybe why it didn’t seem to be going very fast at the end of the ramp. Red faces all round. Wonder who released the film from the carrier bridge/control room.

      1. Pilot Error – he is supposed to do a walk-round check to ensure that things like Engine Covers and Under-carriage locks have been removed.

        1. Indeed! You might even check the engine is developing full power before you head towards the end of the boat.

    3. It’s called a zero-zero ejection seat. It uses rockets and explosive charges to propel the seat upwards to sufficient altitude for a successful parachute descent. It’s called zero-zero as it is designed to work at zero altitude and zero airspeed. In other words it will work even if the aircraft is standing on the ground.

  86. I emailed my friend in GA USA yesterday and pointed out that omicron is an anagram of moronic. She cannot get her tongue round omicron so refers to it now as the moronic variant.
    I also just passed Tier5’s comment on and I could hear the laugh from here.

      1. The idiot probably deserved it. I await the riots, the grafitti, the re-named town squares, the emotional speeches by politicians….with bated breath.

          1. Impressive marksmanship, considering that the police officer had just been running.

            Yes, it is shocking, but the US is a different country, different customs, different risks.

      2. Considering the wretched vermin showed absolutely no respect for anyone, tasering and an arrest is a good thing.

        That’s the sort of spoiled, Left wing, unintelligent, no integrity, petty Labourcrat voting effluent who litters, graffittis and otherwise wrecks nations.

    3. It’s a good job the six plods who recently arrested a terminally ill man for mooning a speed camera van didn’t all use their tasers, otherwise it might have been deemed ‘assisted suicide’.

  90. Having read the original tweet from Professor Tulio de Oliveira from CERI of South Africa he states that the Omicron variant B.1.1.529 can now be easily detected worldwide with a normal qPCR test.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0d4b41ed377663b617adacd6e0c22347d3037a88e912aa3888a626ae0fa48e55.jpg

    So why in this evening’s BBC news was it reported that the UK will be having some difficulties in identifying it with the PCR tests we have here?

    Well here some explanations of the different sorts of PCR tests available which should help UK scientists to choose the right one to find an Omicron variant:

    https://www.enzolifesciences.com/science-center/technotes/2017/march/what-are-the-differences-between-pcr-rt-pcr-qpcr-and-rt-qpcr?/

    1. Just as the Biden administration in America is composed of Obama retreads, Keir Starmer is taking their lead in appointing Blairite retreads.

      This will not end well for the Opposition. Just as Biden is failing in America and is increasingly exposed as a demented but evil old fool, Starmer will be judged as lacking in ideas yet glancing at the past failures of the Labour Party but with no new direction.

        1. I’ve been saying this ever since the stolen election! Hillary lusts after the White House and Harris is no match for her. The mechanism that he proposes is interesting though – and not that unlikely!
          They might go for Michelle instead of Hillary, I suppose, as Michelle is allegedly more popular.

  96. 342194+ up ticks,
    Next time you enter a polling booth take this thought in with you
    the three main procurers are the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration/ paedophile umbrella close shop coalition party’s.

    breitbart,
    39 Men, Three Women Charged After Investigation Into Child Sexual Abuse in England

    The defendants, most of whom have names which would tend to indicate ethnic or cultural links to South Asia, are accused of preying on six children, all girls, “between 1995 and 2015, largely in the Dewsbury and Batley areas of Kirklees”, according to an official statement from West Yorkshire Police.

    The police force lists the defendants and the offences they are being charged with as follows:

    Donna Lynn (41) from Heckmondwike, charged with causing the prostitution of a girl under 16, allowing a premises to be used for unlawful sexual intercourse, procuring a female under 21, and controlling prostitution

    Mohammed Yakub (64) from Dewsbury, charged with an offence of rape.

    Nasir Billimoria (68) from Batley, charged with an offence of rape, and procuring a female under 21.

    Yousuf Motala (69) from Dewsbury, charged with an offence of rape.

    Ebrahim Mamaniatt (52) from Batley, charged with an offence of rape.

    Liaquat Ali (65) from Batley, charged with an offence of rape.

    Hashim Sacha (53) from Batley, charged with an offence of rape.

    Nobhar Shah (69) from Batley, charged with two offences of rape and living on the earnings of prostitution.

    Ibrahim Khalifa (83) from Bradford, charged with an offence of rape.

    Manaf Hussain (47) from Heckmondwike charged with an offence of rape.

    Maria O’Rouke (42) from Batley charged with causing the prostitution of a girl under 16, allowing a premises to be used for unlawful sexual intercourse and controlling prostitution.

    Riaz Shaikh (57) from Dewsbury charged with an offence of rape and an offence of indecent assault.

    Amjid Rangzeb (43) from Batley charged with an offence of rape and an offence of false imprisonment.

    Liaquat Hussain Hanif (45) from Batley charged with an offence of rape.

    Shakeel Haq (44) from Birmingham, charged with an offence of rape and an offence of false imprisonment.

    Rafiq Patel (69) from Batley charged with an offence of rape.

    Mohammed Abbas (60) from Dewsbury, charged with an offence of rape.

    Shafaquat Afzal Hussain (45) from Dewsbury charged with an offence of rape.

    Tariq Azam (52) from Dewsbury charged with three offences of rape and three offences of indecent assault.

    Aurrangzeb Azam (50) from Dewsbury charged with three offences of rape, two offences of indecent assault and an offence of false imprisonment.

    Israr Hussain (46) from Dewsbury charged with three offences of rape, two offences of indecent assault and an offence of false imprisonment.

    Mohammed Sheikh (48) from Batley charged with an offence of rape and an offence of indecent assault.

    Mohammed Tariq (62) from Bradford charged with two offences of rape.

    Sajid Majid (48) from Mirfield charged with an offence of rape and an offence of indecent assault.

    Zulfiquar Ali (42) from Dewsbury charged with an offence of rape.

    Ansar Mahmood Qayum (44) from Dewsbury charged with an offence of rape and an offence of indecent assault.

    Mohammed Jabbar Qayum (40) from Dewsbury charged with an offence of rape.

    Shafiq Siddique (52) from Dewsbury charged with an offence of rape and an offence of false imprisonment.

    Mohammed Ishtiaq Hussain ( 47) from Dewsbury charged with an offence of rape.

    Abbas Kaji (52) from Batley charged with an offence of rape.

    Mohammed Farooq (52) from Dewsbury charged with an offence of rape.

    Tasawar Hussain (42) from Heckmondwike charged with an offence of rape.

    Mohammed Munir Shaffi (43) from Dewsbury charged with two offences of rape.

    Zaheed Ali Novsarka (53) from Batley charged with an offence of rape.

    Nassar Liaquat Khan (42) from Keighley charged with an offence of rape.

    Mohammed Riaz Khan (47) from Heckmondwike charged with an offence of rape.

    Mohammed Luqman Daji (44) from Dewsbury charged with an offence of rape.

    Mohammed Ramzan (64) from Dewsbury charged with an offence of .

    Janine Green (44) from Batley charged with encouraging prostitution, allowing premises to be used for unlawful sexual intercourse and controlling prostitution.

    Ali Shan Waheed (41) from Dewsbury charged with rape.

    Ismail Seedat (51) from Batley charged with indecent assault.

    Mohammed Yasin (48) from Batley charged with rape.

    The alleged offenders are set to appear before Leeds Magistrates’ Court on the 30th of November.

    1. Although it is no longer the exclusive case that in war men are killed fighting and women suffer mass rape. Reading the above list and from previous cases it is difficult not to conclude that we are in an undeclared war.

      1. 342235+ up ticks,
        Morning S,
        Have been, as in coming up to four
        decades the two side can be easily ID currently as
        lab/lib/ con mass uncontrolled immigration / paedophile umbrella, close shop, pro eu, coalition
        …… others.

    2. Oddly, the 3 British females are of an age that would have put them in the victims’ age group in 1995.

      1. 342235+ up ticks,
        Morning M,
        As in the abused becomes the abuser, yes highly likely also helps keep the vile paedophile activist operating.

    1. They are a shower. I have never heard of most of them and I honestly can’t imagine any of them being any good at anything.

      This might be unfair.

        2. Kenneth Branagh made a film of Much Ado about 30 years ago. Branagh played Benedict to Emma Thompson’s Beatrice but the baddy, Don John, was played by a white actor while his brother, Don Pedro, the goody was played by Denzel Washington, a black actor.

          This seemed an unnecessary complication which was a distraction from the duel of words between Branagh and Thompson.

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