Monday 30 October: Shortsighted calls for a ceasefire that would only embolden Hamas

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

631 thoughts on “Monday 30 October: Shortsighted calls for a ceasefire that would only embolden Hamas”

      1. Ground a bit lighter here due to about a cm snow. Alarm call for all the idiots to drive out on summer tyres…

    1. So does that mean that a few more sheep may safely graze in future?

      Morning Grizz & all.

    2. Those Labour Welsh politicians do like to be first to rubber stamp every great reset globalist agenda
      I wonder who funds them?

      1. To accommodate this way of thinking one creates other complications. When it comes to assessing who sits where in the privilege league table, are trans-men more privileged than cis-women now that they are deemed to be true men or are they less privileged by virtue of being trans- rather than cis-?

          4. Cis: “on the near side of, on this side,” from Latin preposition cis “on this side” (in reference to place or time).
            Cis-gender, “not transgender”. . . Not one of them !

          5. Cis-Alpine vs Trans-Alpine as far as the Romans were concerned. I think Hannibal (and probably also his elephants) weren’t troubled by “gender issues”.

      1. I think they’ve always seen themselves as gods; they just don’t realise they are of the little tin-pot variety.

  4. Shortsighted calls for a ceasefire that would only embolden Hamas

    Best to stay neutral and out of it, whatever we or our politicians say will upset one side or the other.
    Mind you, so will saying nothing.

    1. We have been drawn into it .Its started and where will it end. It started when we imported so many muslims.

  6. British society will pay a terrible price for indulging extremism. 30 October 2023.

    The desire to play things down, to convince ourselves that this is all about a quarrel in a far away country, might be understandable, but it is profoundly wrong. The people chanting this hatred are almost certainly mostly British nationals. They are doing so in such huge numbers that the police have opted not to enforce the law for fear of wider public disorder. And while the hatred for now is targeted at Jews, it is also meant for the rest of us. One man yelled, “white trash!” at those who lined up to protect the Cenotaph from protesters. One speaker promised an intifada “from London to Gaza”.

    And this is just what we can see on our streets. We now know the truth about the systematic sexual abuse of vulnerable white girls by gangs of mainly Muslim men, inculcated with a belief that these dehumanised “kuffar” were worthless. We know about the Batley school teacher who, two and a half years on, remains in hiding with his family after he showed pupils a depiction of the Prophet Mohammed. We know about the show trial, held in a mosque with the police participating, when a Wakefield schoolboy was accused of desecrating a Koran. In all these cases, state organisations themselves were complicit in criminality, threats and violence.

    If the pogrom in Israel has any benefit it is that it has exposed the lies of the Elites. The myth that is multiculturalism has been revealed for the sham that it is. Though the truth is gradually emerging in the MSM after years of being suppressed the politicians dare not yet face up to it since they are responsible. There will be considerable backing and filling while they try to adjust to the new realities.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/29/british-society-will-pay-a-terrible-price-for-indulging-ext/

    2. Coming to a town near you???

      Terror on Flight WZ4728: How hate mob demanded passengers’ passports as they hunted Jews when plane from Tel Aviv landed at airport in Russia’s heavily Muslim Dagestan region – sparking horrifying stand-off that saw shots fired and dozens hurt
      Hundreds of protesters stormed the Makhachkala airport in the Russian republic

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12686933/Flight-targeted-Dagestan-Airport-anti-Semitic-mob-diverted-thugs-runwayJewish-passengers.html

          1. I expect they were tipped off by a muslim that works at the airport. We have seen how quickly they can organise a flashhatemob.

          3. Indeed – I’m coming to the conclusion that the world-wide expansion of Islam is organised, lrading to the eradication of Jewry & Christianity – the two most civilised religions. Then they turn on Buddhism…

    3. It’s an ill wind….
      However, will our Establishment or the Great British Sheep actually listen to it?
      Or ( gasp ) do anything about it?

  7. Morning, all Y’all
    Snowing. Fortunately, have appointments today at the “tyre hotel” for swapping the cars to winter (snow ‘n ice) tyres. Sitting drinking machine coffee waiting for the first to be done.
    The Blondeness of Snow already kicked in, with folk walking out behind the car as I reverse, and trying for racing starts off the roundabouts…

      1. The Nordic rubber compound is very soft and wears out horribly quickly when it’s warm, and have snow crystal gripping treads, rather than water clearing – and many use studs, too. Most effective over here to change with the season.

        1. Presumably, they keep the tyres on wheels – so it is just a case of swapping the 4 wheels?

          4. Indeed. The Weegie is “Dekkhotell”, which means tyre hotel. Wheel is “hjul”.
            The first car needed new winter tyres as well, fitted, balanced, valve etc. The summer wheels are taken off, washed, inspected and stored until next spring.

          5. Thank you. I wondered why one didn’t just keep the other set at home and change them oneself. I’d have thought there was ample opportunity for the “hotel” to lose them…!

          6. We used to keep them at home, but the storage & swapping fee is small, and it means SWMBO can easily take care of it if I’m not able to. Just a call, and off she goes.
            The tyre/wheel sets are bar-coded to your account number.

    2. I just tend to fillet me cod or bass before eating ’em, I don’t like fish bones either.

    4. Talking of boarding schools I was sent away to a boarding school at the age of 8 and stayed in boarding schools for ten years to the age of 18. Who are the other Nottlers who went to such places?

      Caroline was never at boarding school and her father – who worked for a multinational company – had it written into his contract that he would only be sent to countries where there were good quality day schools in range of where they were.

      We sent Christo and Henry to boarding schools in the UK for their Sixth Form studies. Caroline thinks the British are barbaric to send their children away at such a tender age but they say it is character-forming.

      1. Watching the 1984 Australian production of Bodyline, a drama highlighting the story of the infamous 1932–33 MCC tour of that country, it brought it home to me just how barren and desolate a boarding-school life could be for some boys.

        The father of the young Douglas Jardine worked at the Indian High Commission during the Raj. He chose to send Douglas, aged 8, to Horris Hill preparatory school. The timid boy hated it at first but was befriended by an associate of his father who took him under his tutelage and coached him in the skills of batting. Douglas grew in confidence at Horris Hill and this was honed when he progressed to Winchester College and then on to New College, Oxford. He continued to study law while playing cricket for Surrey as an amateur; it wasn’t long before his selection to play for England led on to the captaincy of his country.

        Public school life may well be barbaric in some ways, but it certainly built the character of Douglas Jardine.

      2. I never went to boarding school and my brother, when told he was going to be sent away (to get him away from his unsavoury mates from the council estate), said it was a waste of time as he’d run away. I went to a state grammar as a day pupil. My brother, influenced by his mates from the local council estate, went to the local Secondary Modern. Strangely enough, he blamed ME for his not getting on as well in the world as I did.

    5. She should try pike (as I did in the Loire Valley); not just fearsome teeth, fearsome bones, too.

      1. I had a freshly-caught pike (still alive when delivered) brought to me by an angler friend. It remains the most disgustingly-flavoured fish I have ever suffered.

  10. Good Moaning.
    You will all be glad to know that I am now an expert on late mediaeval attitudes to surgery.
    Or, as it’s better known, helping granddaughter with her precis of a very American article on the subject.
    I managed to get her word count down to the required number! Slash the ‘howevers’, cut out the adjectives ….. really took me back xxxxx and counting years.
    p.s. there actually was a chap called Fallopio. And no, he didn’t invent underground trains.

    1. Was his first name Ian?

      Cue: Schoolmaster Rowan Atkinson, marking the attendance register: “Fallopio Ian?”….

  11. Good morning, all. Overcast and wet from overnight rain.

    An employer concerned for the health of those under her authority writes:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4b1c6a55529eae90d7fcfd91b9c887c6a0085c2210a7a183c3e4776f03b13055.png

    They’re not giving up any time soon.

    Latest info from USA points to a 1.6% take-up of the latest ‘booster’. Little wonder that TPTB want to ban what they consider misinformation.

    Had lunch yesterday with parents who were avid jabbers (they had their children jabbed) who are now against having anything more to do with the potion. It may be too late for one of them who has suddenly developed a condition that is requiring a lot of tests and strong medication.

    1. 378241+ up ticks,

      Morning KtK,

      Once again sorry, my habit of posting then
      scrolling is at fault.

  12. 378241+ up ticks,

    Morning, Each,

    Monday 30 October: Shortsighted calls for a ceasefire that would only embolden Hamas

    Seems like the Israeli / hamas conflict is fodder for the English homeland conflict as in a WEF riddled hierarchy, ,any fall out from that WE are “supposedly trying to help solve” as in
    taking in “refugees” who, we may very well meet in combat shortly on what is, at this moment in time English streets.

    Keep what passes for an English government and their treacherously meddling nose OUT, give ALL of the English nation who are, on what at the moment are English streets,
    seeking to make their point via mob gatherings free passage
    to the combat zone.

    Israel MUST be left to settle its own problems without outside
    interference.

    Collateral damage of the innocents is inclusive of ALL wars
    and has to be accepted, there ain’t no nice wars.

  13. Hamas calls Russia ‘closest friend’, promising to release eight Russian hostages. 30 October 2023.

    Mousa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas political leader, said his officials were now looking for the Russian-Israeli dual nationals in Gaza after the Kremlin handed him a list of captives.

    “We are very attentive to this list and we will handle it carefully because we look at Russia as our closest friend,” he told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency. “As soon as we find them, we will release them.”

    Well Vlad’s got his people out for the price of a meeting and a few handshakes!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/29/hamas-russia-islam-support-release-eight-hostages-gaza-jews/

    2. “We’re very sorry Vlad but the Israeli’s killed them with a bunker bomb.”

      “Really? Well if you hadn’t taken them in the first place they might still be alive, you now have another furthest enemy”

    1. They must have learned a lesson from the suffering of the British public.
      I expect our political classes Lords and senior civil service will be avoiding the death poke.
      As I suspect many if not most of them did previously.

    2. On the one hand the vaccine is clearly pointless. On the other ‘got covid’ is the easiest excuse going to bunk off work.

      We have a simple policy here: if you need time off, take it. You won’t get clobbered or nobbled or whinged at or have a back to work meeting. You get 25 days holiday and whatever sick leave you need. Work where you want. The hope is that if someone has a cold they can stay at home and work because, again, we hope that the permissive culture encourages a decency of character.

      No one really cares when you work, just that you return the results needed. yes, there’s 7 of us and we know one another and have seen each working late into the night or starting at stupid o’clock – one of us likes to start at 4 and finish at midday to go off to play golf.

  15. G’morning all,

    A bright start, showers later, wind Sou’-West10℃ > 13℃. I’m going grayling fishing but, before I do, this Delingpod is a corker:

    https://odysee.com/@JamesDelingpoleChannel:0/2023-10-27_Ole-Dammegard:1

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3aa83642757f542800cee7e317797e93f00212a4d8500c2411a698113aef9a4c.png

    I’ve listened more than once to the bits about Maui and the Gaza attack but the whole thing is mind blowing stuff. Even if only half is true, the governments of the West, including that of Israel, are truly evil.

    3. This is his email.

      Today I’m going to give you the definitive version of what really happened during the Hamas incursion into Israel. As usual, I shall be providing lavish footnotes and copious hyperlinks to relevant web pages, plus lots of insights supplied to me by high-placed sources within the intelligence, military and political community.

      Nah. Just kidding. As anyone who has been following me for any length of time will know that sort of approach just isn’t my style. I’m not a details man. I’m a big picture person. More specifically, I’m a pattern recognition person. It’s a skill I think may have picked up when I was an English Literature undergraduate and it’s something that, in all modesty, I’ve got pretty good at of late. You can take or leave what I say here, I really don’t mind. But as with Turner, the Robert Redford character in my favourite conspiracy thriller Three Days of the Condor, you underestimate me at your peril.

      How do I know what I know? For the same reason Turner does. There’s a famous line from the movie, just after his entire office has been wiped out by mysterious assassins and Turner is forced to go on the run, where he explains where he gets his insights. “I am not a spy. I just read books! We read everything that’s published in the world.”

      When you study literature, one of things you’re doing is looking for patterns. Suppose you’re studying Christopher Marlowe, you’ll read all the key plays – Tamburlaine, the Jew of Malta, Dr Faustus etc – and then try to establish in your mind what it is that makes all those works so quintessentially Marlovian. What is it that is most distinctive about his style, his voice, his world view? What are his strengths and weaknesses? How successful is he at saying what you think he is trying to say? In order to support your points – and this is why, despite what I said earlier, I am also to a degree a details man – you have to provide textual evidence which illustrates your claims. This in turn means that you have to develop a good memory and also a brain capable of scanning the works you are reading a bit like a computer would. The hard part is that often you don’t know what you’re looking for while you are reading: you have to work it out afterwards, hence the memory bit.

      This, by the way, is a complete digression from the subject in hand. It’s just something I’ve wanted to get off my chest for some time, as much for my own benefit as for anyone else’s. I know I’m right about a lot of the stuff I write and podcast about, but I’ve often been a bit puzzled as to why I get it right, so quickly, when often people more clever or ‘expert’ than me just don’t. How, for example, did I know within seconds of the Israel/Gaza story breaking that we were being sold a pup? And how, more importantly, can I be sure that my take is the right one?

      In a word – well, two – pattern recognition. Once you’ve looked into a few conspiracy theories – and worked out that they are all conspiracy fact – you start to realise that the people behind these events have what poker players call a ‘tell’ and what serial killers call their ‘naked disembowelled corpses arranged in a circle, their heads decorated with stag antlers and their genitalia with deadly nightshade pattern.’ That is, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all because these ‘events’ all to a greater or lesser degree, evince the same motivation, modus operandi, and psychopathology.

      You start with the big picture premise: the world is run by Luciferian psychopaths. If you haven’t yet grasped this fundamental truth, you’re never going to understand what is really going on because you’ll be too busy deluding yourself with mental blocks, like: “But WHY would they do this? What’s the motivation? Why would our elected leaders act against our interests? Why would they actively set out to create chaos, destruction, immiseration whereas what we want is peace, prosperity and stability?”

      Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu is a case in point here. If you think the guy responsible for one of the most aggressive ‘vaccine’ programmes in the world gives a smidgen of a damn about Jewish lives or Israeli lives then I’ve got a big canal across the Suez to sell you. If you’re still stuck in the ‘cock-up not conspiracy’ mindset, if you’re still persuaded that for all his faults ‘Bibi’ (or any other politician anywhere) is your guy, then you’re never going to progress to the next level of understanding, which is…

      …that the Hamas incursion was an inside job. It is not essential to understand that Hamas was funded and created by Israeli intelligence, though obviously it helps. All you need to know is really basic stuff, stuff that everyone knows without needing to be say Defence Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph or Head of MI6 or Jerusalem bureau chief of the CIA, stuff like the fact that Israel has arguably the best intelligence services in the world, the best trained military in the world, the best technology in the world and the most closely protected borders in the world.

      If you don’t trust me on this point, look on the internet. There you will find copious instances of bemused Israelis – who are, let’s remember, just as much victims of this psyop as anyone – expressing disbelief that a two-bit terrorist organisation could launch a deadly incursion by hang-glider and pick up truck along a border guarded by tanks, aircraft, drones, watchtowers, wire and surveillance technology so sophisticated that barely a rat can fart without triggering a maximum security alert. And they know whereof they speak because they themselves have served in the IDF, as all Israelis must. They know the protocols, the territory, everything.

      WAre they all shills, working for Hamas’s famously well-funded and powerful propaganda division? Or is it more likely, perhaps, that they’re just ordinary folk waking up to the shocking reality that their own government must have allowed this operation in cahoots with Hamas because there’s no way it could have happened otherwise?

      If it’s the latter – as Occam’s Razor surely tells us it must be – then a range of possibilities opens up. One is that having stood down its defences for a few crucial hours, the Netanyahu regime allowed a thousand or so terrorists to let rip, unimpeded rounding up and torturing and killing innocent Israelis, be they pensioners on bus trips or pilled up kids at a trance rave. This, if that’s what happened, would be despicable: the Israeli state colluding in the murder of its own citizens. Another possibility is that some of the atrocity stories being related in the media are in fact based on fabricated incidents, that the number of deaths attributed to Hamas (as opposed to a shoot-first-asked-questions-later IDF) have been inflated and the circumstances misrepresented. This, in its way, would be equally despicable: the Israeli state making shit up in order to justify unleashing hell on the Palestinians.

      Either way – and I suspect it’s a mixture of both – the whole business stinks. Let me stress before I go on that I’m not doubting that large numbers of innocent people, both Israeli and Palestinian, have suffered horribly as a result of this cruel and needless bloodshed. I feel for ALL of them, and their families, whether they were killed, wounded, kidnapped, traumatised or deprived of their homes. So, if I use words like ‘psyop’, I’m certainly not belittling the reality of the victims’ suffering. What I’m questioning, rather, is the veracity of the narrative currently being presented to us in – or, more accurately, rammed down our throats by – the mainstream media.

      Consider, for example, the current noisome trend in both the MSM and on social media for what you might call ‘atrocity porn.’ Here is a picture of a mangled baby, with some of the bits blurred (for reader sensitivity, supposedly), together with a prurient message warning readers that this is the most graphic image the newspaper has reluctantly but necessarily chosen to publish. And there is a YouTube video titled Unbelievable Interview: Israeli Volunteer Collects Body Parts from Music Festival.

      This is NOT normal. Imagine if, every time there were a war or a natural disaster or any other incident involving violent death, the media felt pathologically compelled to rub your nose in every last graphic detail. It doesn’t generally do so for reasons including taste, propriety, sensitivity and the well understood principle that some things are better left unseen. So the fact that the media is now breaching all these basic rules ought to tell you about the trick being played here. Someone, somewhere, has decided to pull out all the stops here; to bludgeon your senses and your emotions as almost never before; to direct you, in case you were in any doubt, to understanding that this is the most hideous injustice you ever witnessed – and one that cries out for the bloodiest of retribution.

      It’s the equivalent of the hypnotist telling you to look into his eyes, not around the eyes but into his eyes. It’s also the equivalent of one those infamous Covid posters with messages like “Look him in the eyes and tell him the risk isn’t real.” It’s what conjurors call ‘misdirection’. By encouraging you to focus on the distraction, they make you ignore the bigger picture.

      What is this bigger picture? Essentially, it’s that the latest events in Gaza/Israel are part of a strategy which dates back many decades, perhaps even centuries. On a tactical level, it’s classic Problem; Reaction; Solution. On a geopolitical level, it gives the Israel regime the excuse to wipe the Palestinians off the map (while pretending to have the moral high ground), and also to engineer the Third World War (hot stage) which the Predator Class needs in order to distract from vaccine injuries and the imminent financial collapse, as well as inaugurating yet more totalitarian policies in the name of public safety. On a spiritual level, it is designed to hasten forward Revelation, from the rebuilding of the Third Temple to the coming of the Antichrist.

      Anyone who is truly Awake ought to be able to see this for what it really is. Christians, especially, with their Biblical insights and their much-vaunted ‘discernment.’ But the devil, who is ultimately behind all this, is the prince of lies, so I suppose we shouldn’t find it altogether surprising that Christians have been among the primary targets of his deception operation. This deception dates back to the early 19th century, the promotion of ‘dispensationalism’ by the extremely dubious preacher John Nelson Darby, and the promulgation of the Scofield Bible by yet another religious charlatan Cyrus Scofield, which popularised the notion of Christian Zionism.

      You can find out more about this in Whitney Webb’s deep dive piece The Untold Story of Christian Zionism in the United States https://www.mintpressnews.com/untold-story-christian-zionists-power-united-states-israel/260532/. David Sorensen has much to say on this too – and on the Satanic connections of John Nelson Darby – in his chilling documentary The Mystery of Israel Solved https://www.bitchute.com/video/pyT1S85dqEPG/.

      I apologise for not supplying as many links as you might like. Though I read widely, I don’t always take notes. Readers so-minded are welcome to link to relevant material in the comments below. It goes without saying that the more widely you read, especially outside ‘official’ sources, the better placed you’ll be to understand that ‘bigger picture’ I keep mentioning. You’ll also become much more proficient at ‘pattern recognition’, which becomes easier after a time because They – the Rulers of the Darkness of this World – use the same tricks again and again. And again.

      One of the things I’ve noticed on my Awakening journey is that the historical events most imprinted on our consciousness are often the ones most factually suspect. It’s the history equivalent of Miri AF’s “If you know their name they’re in the game.” That is, there’s a reason why we ‘Remember, remember the Fifth of November’ [in Britain at any rate: this commemorates the psyop in which a Catholic Guido Fawkes was falsely accused of trying to blow up Parliament], why the Titanic sinking was commemorated by a film called ‘A Night to Remember’, why we’ve all been encouraged to remember exactly where we were when we heard the news that Kennedy was shot or that the first plane had hit the Twin Towers: it’s because They made damn sure you couldn’t not remember it.

      It’s terrifying but also not a little exhilarating when you realise that what you used to think of as ‘history’ is in fact just a succession of stage managed events created for the amusement, enrichment and empowerment of a handful of psychopaths. The exhilaration part is the sense of relief and excitement which comes from knowing you are no longer the hapless prisoner of someone else’s fake narrative: you are free, finally to think for yourself, and see the world as it really is.

      At least that has been my own experience. But not everyone on the Awakening journey, I’ve noticed, is quite so eager to go all the way. Rather than face the ultimate truth that this IS a millennia-old spiritual war between good and evil, one or two of my comrades cop out by taking what I call the ‘purple-pilled’ option. That is, they insist on keeping at least one foot in the old paradigm in order to demonstrate to themselves and their old friends that they haven’t completely lost the plot.

      On the subject of ‘conspiracy theories’, for example, this tendency manifests itself in a form of ostentatious, overzealous scepticism. I mean the sort of people who want ‘receipts’ for everything; who are dismissive of anything that strikes them as too outlandish – ‘flat earth’, say, or ‘terrain theory’, or Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs), or ‘false flags’ – because it ‘discredits our cause.’

      Of course, I understand that the impulse behind this tendency is a well-intentioned one: its emphasis on the importance of rigour and hard evidence; its desire to prove ourselves to be better, more trustworthy, more consistently sceptical than the purblind dupes of the Matrix system whose credulity we so regularly deride.

      But there’s a flaw with this approach. It presupposes that the information we seek in order to confirm our suspicions is readily available, that – for example – if only we look hard enough, we’re going to find the signed mission directive from the US military’s Space Force giving orders for the deployment of DEWs over Maui, plus, perhaps, various emails to privileged landowners like Oprah Winfrey warning them to make sure the tiles on their roofs are painted blue.

      The likelihood is, though, that this evidence will not be available. That is the nature of the asymmetrical war we are fighting. Our enemies have at their disposal almost unimaginably powerful tools of disinformation and deception. They control the media, the entertainment industry, the technology companies, the military – and, also, of course, the entirety of the world’s intelligence apparatus. When they plan these operations they leave nothing to chance. They’re hardly going to leave us the kind of clues that would properly enable us to expose their schemes.

      Like Mr Wolf in Pulp Fiction, they are masters of the clean up. And masters of other tricks too, like the one where they deliberately plant information which seems to support our case, but which they then use to pull the rug from under us by revealing it to be a hoax and casting doubt on everything else we claim. This was the purpose of discredited witness Carl Beech in the UK government’s child sex abuse enquiry: “Here is a man claiming to be a victim of sexual abuse by the rich and powerful. But his claims are fraudulent. Therefore all people who claim to have been victims of sexual abuse by the rich and powerful are fraudulent.” Another example of this, in the early days of the Israel psyop, was the release of fake news that Israel had bombed and destroyed the world’s third-oldest church.

      So how do we negotiate this Hall of Mirrors, where reality is distorted, and where no one can be fully trusted for fear that they might be a double agent, a Judas goat, controlled opposition or a gatekeeper working either deliberately or inadvertently for the enemy? How can we ever hope to discover the truth in a world where the entire system is designed to keep us in the dark?

      Well there used to be a popular phrase, which you don’t hear so often these days, “He can’t see the wood for the trees.” That is, if you focus too exclusively on detail, you tend to lose sight of the bigger picture. I think the people behind psyops like the current one in Israel are very aware of this. Indeed, I’d argue that it lies at the root of their strategy. Notice how the thing we’re being encouraged to do above all else in response to those media reports is to focus on detail: the body parts, the personal tragedies, the gore, the part-blurred photographs. Almost never are we allowed space to consider the wider context, for that would give too much play to our intellect rather than our emotions.

      I observed similar techniques used in the ten years or so I spent fighting the climate wars. Every day the climate alarmists bombard us with emotive images: floods, wildfires, airport thermometers showing record temperatures, lonely polar bears, cracked earth. It’s that conjuror at work, again: he needs you to focus on his misdirections because otherwise you’d see through his trick.

      Indeed, now I think about it, it’s the method they use for ALL their psyops: Mohammed Atta’s evil staring eyes; the miraculously unburned passport; the dead little boy washed up on the beach; President Nixon on his phone call to outer space; Nigel Farage banging pots and pans for our NHS; more massacre victims of the evil Russians in Ukraine; etc.

      This calls to my mind something my first driving instructor told me. He was a laid back person called Paul, quite unsuited to being a driving instructor because he was so laissez-faire. But he did once give me a tip, which clearly I’ve never forgotten, on how to negotiate your way through tight gaps – say, those metal barriers guarding the entrance to some London streets which always make you fear you’re going to get your wing mirror pulled off or your side panels scratched. He told me not to focus on the obstacles (such as those scary upright metal poles) but rather to see the picture ahead as a whole. It would help, he suggested, if I squinted so as not to get distracted by the detail. He’d got this tip from a movie about gunfighters in the Wild West, one about Annie Oakley, possibly.

      Maybe too much detail is part of our problem. Maybe this is one of the reasons so many people fall for the latest thing, even people who should know better like the Awake types who saw through the Covid psyop, the climate change psyop, and the Ukraine psyop but have yet fallen hook line and sinker for the “Hamas are the most dangerous and evil threat in the world and only the annihilation of Gaza followed by war with Iran can possibly make amends for all those babies they killed” psyop. We’ve been encouraged, culturally, to believe that details are the key to understanding everything; that to be a ‘details man’ is a desirable quality. But what if actually that’s just another way of distracting us from the bigger picture? What if it’s another part of the trap.

      2. Has Delingpole given any thought as to why he’s not yet been bumped off? Here he is, claiming to have joined the dots, yet these ruthless shadowy people have left him virtually unscathed, other than denying him a mass media platform on which to reveal his truth. Perhaps it’s too soon . After all, they wouldn’t want his sudden demise to be too closely associated with his revelations. Then again, perhaps they can see how ineffective he has been thus far. Maybe he doesn’t pose a sufficient enough threat to those seeking to dominate the planet to be worth bothering with. Or is it that they leave him to rant and rave secure in the knowledge that, if left alone, most people will think him bonkers. Whatever the reason, these dark forces will remain free to stealthily kill billions of people without the rest of us knowing the identity of the nefarious actors behind the veil, safe in the knowledge that viruses, vaccines and war will take the blame and celebrity deaths and tittle-tattle will be the distractions.

  16. An American television actor unknown to me has died, and people on the wireless can’t stop banging on about him.

        1. Didn’t work, though. Didn’t solve the underlying problem, just weaned him off the drugs/booze for a while.

          1. Sometimes it doesn’t. The fundamental problems still exist. I remember one day not long after we’d met the Warqueen said quite plainly – “you wouldn’t be here if not for him, would you?” – pointing at Wiggy, who was sprawled over our laps.

            She was right. There but for the grace of God go I. Life’s bloody horrible. It’s lonely, exhausting, frustrating and there seems, sometimes to be nothing to look forward to except more pain and worry. This can be controlled by minutiae of existence to get to the next day but for some they live the same day, over and over again.

            Been there, done that.

          4. Same goes for me when I was struggling to care for MOH at home during the last stages of dementia with no help. Only my dog, Charlie, and church kept me going (and then I lost Charlie, but thankfully, Oscar took over).

          1. Mathew Perry. He was in a U.S sitcom. Dead at 54 after a life of drug and alcohol abuse. Drowned in his Jacuzzi.

          2. What is the BBCs obsession with him? Is it just an excuse to fill in news time which would rightly be devoted to the defeat and retreat of Ukrainian forces? Why do hard left communist organisations like the BBC always fall out with their equivalent tyrannies in other parts of the world?

          3. They don’t want to drop the dead donkey. If they did they might have to report actual news. Which of course doesn’t support the false narrative their ideology demands of them.

    2. The reason for the banging on is that Friends was one of the most successful tv sitcoms of all time, that the show is subject to endless repeats and that merchandise continues to sell steadily. Furthermore, I suspect those on the wireless doing the banging on are likely to be of the generation or of the type which keenly followed the sitcom. Matthew Perry will be their Bobby Charlton.

      1. I never watched Friends as the short clips told me it was the most unfunny American crap ever

          10. No. They are completely unconnected with one another. One thing they have in common is that they centre on friendships rather than family. Taxi, Seinfeld, The Golden Girls, Third Rock From The Sun and The Big Bang Theory are similarly structured,

        2. It wasn’t aimed at our generation, Alec. I agree, I didn’t fine it even remotely amusing, but our 18 year old son never missed a programme. (Not for nothing are they called ‘programmes’…!)

        3. I’ve watched every episode and I’ve laughed out loud at least once in all of them. Some I’ve seen several times and I still laugh at the same points. It’s wonderfully acted and written.

      3. Never heard of him before he died. Recognised his face from the tens of thousands of repeated adverts on the tele.

        Jimmy Savile, Jeffry Epstein, Matthew Whateverhisname . . . what was their link to the BBC?

    3. A part of me is now thinking ‘leave the man alone. He was obviously a private fellow struggling, stop making a spectacle of his death.’

  17. Good morning all.
    A damp and dull 5°C start this morning. Not actually raining, yet, but the forecast is damp with fog.

    A heads up.
    Had a missed phone call today from 01606606860. When I dialed back I received a recorded message that “Nationwide Network Services” are unavailable.
    Asked Nationwide BS via a Tw@ter DM and it’s not one of their numbers.
    Now reported as possible fraudulent.

    1. We have at least one a week. As soon as they hear our not available message, they ring off. I sometimes pick up and tell them where to go.

    2. OOPS! Cancel my last!
      Nationwide Network Services is the head office of the vehicle repair franchise that has been tasked with repairing my van!

    3. Whenever I get a call from a number I don’t recognise I Google it – I’d never ring it back

  18. OK, I’m now off to the local cop shop to be mug-shotted and fingerprinted. I may be back, but who knows!

  19. Morning all 🙂😊
    Fluffy high cloud again but had rain overnight.
    I expect the next weather front is well on the way.
    And political classes interferring again in the middle east again ? Those poor people have never been able to recover from the Blair, Campbell and Daft Vader era.

  20. Increasingly I think that muslim should be kept in their own country and left there. Stop flying people in and out, just keep them in their own stone age barbarism.

    They’re too uppity, too arrogant and cannot play well with others, so must be contained.

    1. Was South Africa a better and happier place in which to live under apartheid? This is a question that no politician or journalist in the MSM would dare to ask.

      Jeremy Taylor wrote a satirical song about the New South Arica. The final verse subtly posed this question: “Viva, the New South Africa, Though at times it’s going to irk, Viva the News South Africa, it may be fair, it may be just, but will it bleary work? I think the answer is that it doesn’t work, it hasn’t worked and it will never work.

      I am beginning to think that it is impossible, impractical and mad to expect Islam to co-exist with other religions or within non Sharia political and legal systems

      I am not in favour of violence as Hamas is but an impossible dream would be for all Muslims to leave Christian lands and for all Christians and member of other faiths to leave Muslim lands. Do we not need a global religious and political apartheid or must we just live with the fact that it will only be a matter of time before British Law is replaced by Sharia Law?

      1. I think it’s pretty much the case all Christians have been driven out from permanent residence in muslim lands, Richard.

    1. It was notable how quickly the killer in Maine was identified and vilified and how desperately anything embarrassing to the state is covered up.

    2. Ooops, Arkansacide.

      Heart attack, RTA, gun accident, robbery gone wrong….take your pick.

    3. Epstein has his client list in his back pocket, and living of the proceeds on his Carrabean island.

    4. Don’t some people think that Trump is on the Epstein Client list as well as Clinton? If so, even if he wins the election the list will continue to be suppressed.

  22. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6949a769f25b05729a6463f9eb02c5318600d0027c754028832b0f2a9fb51733.png
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/cripes-welcome-to-the-bojo-tv-show/

    BTL

    There is an article in today’s Daily Telegraph exculpating Johnson because, poor chap, he wanted to go for the Swedish approach but, poor didums, he wasn’t allowed to.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/29/boris-johnson-covid-swedish-model-avoid-lockdowns/

    But he was the boss. Why did he not impose his authority?

    This shows how weak he is!

    And while we’re at it why did he not give us a proper Brexit? Why did betray Northern Ireland and the UK fishermen? And why did he not cancel the Net Zero misery that his predecessor, Mrs May, initiated?

  24. 378241+ up ticks,

    breitbart,

    Currently, and if the facilities were in place, due to the continuing voting pattern it would not in the least surprised me if that had read Dagenham.

    WATCH: Muslim Mob Storms Airport in Russia’s Dagestan in Search of ‘Jewish Refugees’

          1. They already tried that but people began to notice Granny was being given drugs by people other than Doctors.

  26. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99beeb560fd058ca19da11f644b766b7f0ae08e67587711351ec435b9f72d97c.png https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/29/british-society-will-pay-a-terrible-price-for-indulging-ext/

    Britain is a nominally Christian country with an Established Church.

    Is it possible for Islam to live peacefully within Britain without wishing to overthrow Christianity and impose the Muslim faith in its place and to impose Sharia Law and scrap British common law?

    Does anybody in the PTB or the MSM dare ask this question?

    Does anybody dare answer it?

  27. Keep the hatches battened down, Storm Ciaran is on the way. 30 October 2023.

    The weather is only expected to worsen as the week progresses with rain warnings in place until Wednesday and the Met Office yellow warning in place until the day after.

    A “deep area of low pressure” is set to arrive on Thursday, which has been named by the Met Office as Storm Ciaran, threatening strong winds and heavy rain to southern parts of England and Wales.

    Mr Almond said: “This deep low-pressure system will also bring heavy rain to much of the UK, but the heaviest rain is expected in southern and western areas with 20 to 25mm quite widely across the region, but up to 40 to 60mm potentially over higher ground.

    Ahhh! The horror! The end is nigh! We are all doomed. What I want to know is what happened to Storm Sid?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/29/keep-hatches-battened-down-as-storm-ciaran-is-on-her-way/

      1. Is that unwoke up as in D.E.D, pining for the fjords etc….?
        Offload your Disney shares now.

  30. I am having problems with a certain person on our site. He wishes to deny that anti-Semitism is of significance, I quote from his post of yesterday:

    “Paul Craig Roberts, the distinguished commentator puts it well:
    Anti-semitism Is No Longer a Meaningful Term. The slur has been destroyed by massive over-use. Everyone is an anti-semite who doesn’t grovel at the feet of Israel in the manner of US politicians. The Israel Lobby has accused President Jimmy Carter of being anti-semitic. They have accused Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein of being anti-semitic. Today they accuse Amnesty International.”

    Only, Paul Craig Roberts is a well known anti-Semite, even the ‘Southern Poverty Law Centre’ one of the most left wing organizations in thee USA condemns him as an anti-Semite. It takes a lot for that bunch to do that.

    On the first post that this person wrote I could smell the stench of an apologist for Hamas and their kind from the get go and all he has done is confirmed my suspicions. His wish for a cease fire is an invitation for Hamas to regroup and in the future commit more mass slaughter.

    Yesterday he also accused Netanyahu of being a perpetrator of genocide.Which, apart from what you might think of Netanyahu is about as deeply offensive as you can get concerning a Jew.

    When I was married to my first wife we would spend time in Forest Hills, New York. I met people who had concentration camp numbers tattooed on their wrists. So for me the victims of the holocaust are not abstractions. I know it is real and that the victims are real people.

    Today we have Jews being hunted in Russia by Muslims, hunted down with the intent to murder.

    In the UK we have Jews hiding out for fear that these Islamic savages will murder our fellow countrymen and women because they are Jewish.

    I find it intolerable that a person who wishes to minimise and dismiss anti-Semitism as: “No longer a meaningful term”: should be allowed to post on this site. Such people are a pestilence, a cancer that should not be tolerated in decent society.

    I believe in free speech but I do believe there is a limit. The limit is when a persons behaviour and utterances seek to minimise the very real harm done to people because that person has a malicious mind set dead set in serving evil.
    And I know it has been over quoted so I will not repeat it but I am reminded of the words of Martin Niemöller.

    1. Someone can give lip service to free speech, but then condemn as a terrorist anyone who argues with his viewpoint. What a hypocrite!

      I actually agree with both Rackham and Roberts in that the antisemitism that tattooed those numbers on the arms of countless innocents is too an important a concept to be buried in the flim-flam of political criticism, and that the IHRA and Keir Starmer and much of the hotheads on this board have got it very wrong.

      They risk antisemitism becoming like opposing communism, confusing the rough-and-tumble of political debate with the the far more serious intent to conduct genocide on the grounds of race or creed.

      I am in favour of criticising in the strongest possible term’s the Israeli intent to conduct genocide on the pretext of a few murderous cut-throats among their number. Better the latter be brought to justice sharpish and done for mass murder, rather than making a whole people guilty by association. I also have great reservations about a religion founded on submission by the sword, which daren’t use the word ‘love’ in its scriptures, but feel a certain amount of sympathy for those caught under their thumb.

      However, I equally condemn for precisely the same reason those who attack Jews because the Israeli leader decides to adopt a scorched earth policy in Gaza, making a big fuss over 1200 murdered victims, but with no thought to the “collateral damage’ he is imposing and currently standing at 8000 dead, with very many more deprived of their homes and civic infrastructure.

      1. Thank you Jeremy. But I wish to point out that Hamas inflates the number of people killed by deliberately including in that number the members of Hamas that are killed by the IDF. They do that in order to gain the sympathy of people unaware of their tactics in pulling the wool over peoples eyes. So the majority killed are Hamas. The IDF goes out of its way not to kill civilians. In fact it has been called the most ethical military in the world because it is so careful in not killing civilians if it can help it. The IDF has not destroyed the central command of Hamas although they know exactly where it is, directly under the largest hospital in Gaza.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN1MkAGuVyY

    2. I choose rather to ignore that person and not engage. The pro-Islamist people will point out that the Arabs are descended from Semitic tribes and will flaty deny that European Jews are, insisting rather that all Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Khazars of the Caucasus, some of whom converted to Judaism. Modern genetic testing has disproved this theory but it still proves useful to those determined to hate the Jews. The other myth being passed around on social media is that the Talmud describes Jesus as boiling in hell. Well, in the original Hebrew, it doesn’t. There are fraudulent copies originating from medieval Christian sources.

      1. I’m familiar with the Khazar nonsense and I think you are right Sue, I should ignore the serpent.

        1. You can block if necessary. Although a mid, I have blocked one regular poster due to ceaseless copy ‘n paste blether. Lowers the blood pressure nicely!

          2. I look on it like swatting a midge that has nothing to contribute except to make one wave one’s arms and get blood pressure.

    3. There are lots of items and views on here that I disagree with but I don’t think any malice is intended.
      I must admit I don’t really understand what antisemitism is. I’ve always thought it to do with Semitic people and languages and this extract from Britannica makes it clearer.

      Semite, name given in the 19th century to a member of any people who speak one of the Semitic languages, a family of languages spoken primarily in parts of western Asia and Africa. The term therefore came to include Arabs, Akkadians, Canaanites, Hebrews, some Ethiopians (including the Amhara and the Tigrayans), and Aramaean tribes. Although Mesopotamia, the western coast of the Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Horn of Africa have all been proposed as possible sites for the prehistoric origins of Semitic-speaking populations, there remains no archaeological or scientific evidence of a common Semitic people. Because Semitic-speaking peoples do not share any traits aside from language, use of the term “Semite” to refer to the broad range of Semitic-speaking peoples has fallen out of favour

      Are you saying that is wrong and now only applies to Jewish people?
      I am genuinely confused.

      1. The usual understanding of anti-Semitism is anti-Jew, but yes, it does have a wider meaning.

        2. Do they expect dictionaries and encyclopaedias to be changed?
          If so where will all this stop?

        3. ‘Did have a wider meaning’. The meaning of words often change, sometime to the near opposite of the original.

          Nice, originally “foolish, ignorant, frivolous, senseless,”. ” From Latin nescius “ignorant, unaware,” literally “not-knowing” It still retains that meaning when used to describe politicians , the BBC, television and film personalities, the media etc.

          Amended.

        4. ‘Did have a wider meaning’. The meaning of words often change, sometime to the near opposite of the original.

          Nice, originally “foolish, ignorant, frivolous, senseless,”. ” From Latin nescius “ignorant, unaware,” literally “not-knowing” It still retains that meaning when used to describe politicians , the BBC, television and film personalities, the media etc.

          Amended.

      3. By convention it only applies to Jews. I don’t know exactly why. I assume because of the holocaust?

          1. This was helpful. Just looked it up

            Due to the root word Semite, the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who interpret it as referring to racist hatred directed at all “Semitic people” (i.e., those who speak Semitic languages, such as Arabs, Assyrians, and Arameans). This usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus (lit. ’antisemitism’) was first used in print in Germany in 1879[17] as a “scientific-sounding term” for Judenhass (lit. ’Jew-hatred’),[18][19][20][21][22] and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone.[18][23][24]

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

      4. In Paul Kriwaczek’s book, Babylon – Mesopotamia and The Birth of Civilization – the people of Ur/Mesopotamia talk of the Semitic-speaking barbarians as westerners i.e. from the general direction of Arabia.

        These people infiltrated in good times as peaceful immigrants but eventually turned on their hosts – “…like a dog turning on its master…”

        Sound familiar?

    4. I believe in free speech but I do believe there is a limit.

      Morning Johnathan. I don’t believe that there is a limit to free speech since once it is limited it is no longer free and someone has decided for you what you should be allowed to hear. This is the plaint of all tyrannies. “It’s for your own good!” You, I might point out have read something you disagree with and object to it and yet you are denying this right to everyone else. The Freedom to Speak is the first and last of all Freedoms!

    6. So long as he doesn’t resort to personal abuse, it’s best to ignore his opinions (for that is all they are) and don’t rise to the bait.

          2. That’s normal though…we may occasionally – heaven forbid! – even learn something from hearing other sides of the argument….

    8. They have accused Jewish scholar Norman Finkelstein of being anti-semitic.

      Better known as Professor Norman Fenton of Queen Mary University of London?
      (A mathematician who is a world leading expert on risk assessment and statistics with a focus on Bayesian probability who has done a lot of work on the covid-19 potion’s impact on the population.)

    9. There are several differing yet valid positions taken by Jews and non Jews on this question. Having just come through covid, with all the de-humanising and other-ing of anyone who deviated from the One Truth, I think we ought to tolerate each other’s opinions even when they differ from our own.
      The term “anti-semitism” has been thrown at anyone for anything (cf Andrew Bridgen), but that doesn’t mean that persecution of people for being Jewish isn’t happening, and it must be stamped out where we can, in Britain. People have to obey our laws in our countries. I am waiting to see what will happen in Dagestan – is it autonomous, or does Moscow have any say, for example. I doubt it is in Moscow’s interest to encourage islamism.

      2. ‘People have to obey our laws in our countries.’

        But they don’t do they. Those muslim rape gangs haven’t gone away. Though there have been prosecutions they are now mostly back on the streets. We hear of FGM and forced marriages and a few of them are prosecuted for window dressing but the majority get away with it. The police and courts have been infiltrated by wokism and play softball with these perverts.

        1. I agree Phizzee. In France and in Germany there seems to be genuine will to rein in attacks on Jews. In Britain, I can’t see much beyond tutting. People have been groomed over years to the idea that muslims do what they want, and the authorities have boldly led the way in doing nothing.

          1. Attitudes in France and in Germany are led by the fact that the Holocaust was actually carried out in these countries. The British Isles, although instrumental in ending the horror, never suffered in the same way as the continent.

          2. Same in Norway, Caroline (morning, btw).
            Norwegian Jews also joined that particular party, and I went to Auschwitz with one, leading a school party.
            Powerful experience, that was.

          4. It was really hard work. The case of poor, broken shoes was the most poignant and upsetting.
            We had a group of teenaged girls with us who just chattered and sat down everywhere. They settled on a small grassy heap, with bit of white in the grass. When they were told that the white bits were the remains of burned people, they stood up in absolute horror, and at that moment understood what their “Polish Holiday” was all about.

        2. continuation of my previous answer

          And that’s our battle – not flying off to the middle east, but enforcing law and order at home.
          Guess which the government will do.

      3. Bridgen’s use of holocaust was a faux pas for two reasons. One is that it grossly exaggerated both the risk of Covid-19 vaccines and any immorality involved in promoting their use while at the same time belittling the holocaust of European Jews and other persecuted minorities during National Socialism’s reign of terror, especially in the 1940s when the brutality became an atrocity of industrial proportions. One thing it wasn’t, though, was anti-Semitic, albeit rather insensitive.

        1. My take on it was by the numbers. Six million Jews and the disabled, Gypsies and Homosexuals were murdered and the vaccine is responsible for as many deaths worldwide of industrial proportions.

          1. I simply do not believe that Covid-19 vaccines are responsible for anything remotely like six million deaths.

          4. Correct. This is the British Heart Foundation’s take on the decision to withdraw it in the UK.

            AstraZeneca Covid vaccine: safety and side effects
            vial of vaccine

            Updated 25 January 2023

            The latest on the AstraZeneca vaccine, from why it is no longer available in the UK, to information on the risk of blood clots.

            Is the AstraZeneca vaccine still being used in the UK?

            No, the UK government is not ordering future supplies of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.

            Evidence shows that mRNA vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, are more effective at boosting protection from Covid-19, so these vaccines are being recommended for the seasonal booster programme.

            The Novavax vaccine has also been approved for people who can’t have mRNA-based vaccines due to allergies.

            What side effects can the AstraZeneca vaccine have?

            While the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is no longer being offered in the UK, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) still monitors potential side effects from this vaccine.

            The vast majority of side effects that have been reported for the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine are mild and short-term. The most common side effects are: discomfort at the injection site, or feeling generally unwell, tired, or feverish, or a headache, feeling sick or having joint or muscle pain.

            Visit the NHS for the full list of possible side effects for the AstraZeneca vaccine.

            Can the AstraZeneca vaccine cause blood clots?

            There have been rare reports of people developing blood clots in combination with low platelet levels (thrombocytopenia), after receiving a dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca in the UK. This is listed as a ‘very rare’ side effect of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

            In April 2021, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) confirmed a possible link between the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine and these rare blood clots, but emphasised that the benefits of the vaccine continued to outweigh the risks for the vast majority of people.

            The cases of blood clots that the MHRA reviewed were accompanied by abnormally low levels of platelets in the blood. Platelets are involved in blood clotting, and these abnormally low levels can be a sign that your body’s normal clotting mechanisms are not working properly. Some of the blood clots were an unusual type of blood clot in blood vessels that drain blood from the brain called a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST).

            Visit the MHRA Yellow Card report for the latest data on the reported side effects of Covid-19 vaccines.

            Why might these rare blood clots happen?

            Research from Cardiff University and Arizona State University, published in December 2021, found a possible explanation of the link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and rare blood clots. They discovered that the adenovirus in the vaccine (which is used to deliver genetic instructions to the cells) can bind with a protein found in the blood, called platelet factor 4. They think that in extremely rare cases, this may trigger a chain reaction in the immune system, which could result in blood clots developing.

            More research still needs to be done in this area. The study authors hope that scientists will be able to build on these findings to reduce the risk of these extremely rare side effects, as well as informing the development of future vaccines.

            Study shows risk of blood clots is far greater from coronavirus than the vaccine

            A study by the University of Oxford shows that having Covid-19 puts you at a much higher risk of developing dangerous blood clots than the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccines.

            The study, based on the health records of 29.1 million people in England, suggests while there is a slightly increased risk of developing low platelet levels and blood clots in the veins after a first dose of AstraZeneca, being infected with the virus raises this risk much more, and for longer.

            The researchers estimate that for every 10 million people who are vaccinated with AstraZeneca, there are 66 extra cases of blood clots in the veins and seven extra cases of a rare type of blood clot in the brain. Infection with Covid-19 is estimated to cause 12,614 extra cases of blood clots in the veins and 20 cases of rare blood clots in the brain.

            This research is more evidence that the benefits of the vaccine far outweigh the risks for most people.

            Does the AstraZeneca vaccine cause stroke?

            There have been a very small number of reports of young adults under the age of 45 having a stroke within a month of having the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

            Ischaemic strokes are the most common type of stroke – they are the kind caused by a blood clot that blocks the arteries that provide oxygen and blood to the brain.

            We don’t know whether these strokes were caused by the vaccine, but we do know that they are very rare. Even if a link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and stroke was proven, it’s important to remember that the chance of having a stroke due to the vaccine is extremely low, and that stroke is more common in people who get Covid-19.

            https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/coronavirus-and-your-health/astrazeneca-covid-vaccine

          5. It may be rare but for someone young and fit to have a stroke after having the vaccine is hardly ‘safe and effective’. The numbers may be small but they downplayed any risks.

          7. I already took Pradaxa to thin my blood because I had a mild stroke 13 years ago owing to a blood clot. Françoise, our lovely doctor, advised me not to have the jabs. Caroline, with Coeliac disease – an auto-immune disease – was also advised strongly by Françoise not to have the jabs. Remember the hoo-ha when Novak Djokovic refused to have the jabs because he too has coeliac disease?

            In my view Françoise has been proved wise and we have been shown to be lucky to have avoided having the jabs

          8. I begin to wonder if the anti-covid vaccination people are fiddling numbers in the same way that the covid pandemic people did.

            Dying within 28 days of a vaccination and blaming the vaccination and dying within 28 days of a covid diagnosis and blaming covid are equally disingenuous.

        3. I think you dislike disagree with Bridgen because he does not accept the conventional views that the PTB and the MSM want us to accept.

          I think we would both agree that I am rather more rebellious in my attitudes and less willing to conform than you are.

  31. “Everything I have ever told you is lie – including this!”

    The trouble with the news is not simply that the PTB and the MSM don’t want us to know the truth – they want us not to know whether they are telling us the truth or not!

    I am a great admirer of Billy Joel’s lyrics as well as his music.

    She can kill with a smile, she can wound with her eyes
    And she can ruin your faith with her casual lies
    And she only reveals what she wants you to see
    She hides like a child but she’s always a woman to me
    She can lead you to love, she can take you or leave you
    She can ask for the truth but she’ll never believe you
    And she’ll take what you give her as long as it’s free
    Yeah, she steals like a thief, but she’s always a woman to me.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx3QmqV2pHg

  32. Yesterday Al-Beed forecast rain quite late in the day and regular rainfalls during the remainder of the week. Therefore I decided to do some washing today and by 08:30 it was on the line.
    This same crew that are telling us the weather and climate are going to dramatically change over the next decade or so and as a result put life as we know it in great jeopardy, got the weather completely wrong for 24 hours ahead. It’s been raining for at least half an hour and my washing is more wet than when I put it out.
    Their current forecast is now for rain at 15:00 hours.
    I’m thinking about popping down to West Mersea and finding a large piece of seaweed!

      1. Link returns, Privacy Error. Thanks anyway.
        I do use Netweather Weather Radar on occasions.

    3. They are more interested in climate change that forecasting weather. The standard is so very poor. Too many computers and not enough brain power.

  33. That Perry bloke – THREE pages in The Grimes today. What IS it with these so called broadsheets?

    1. In other news my weight has dropped to 9 stone. My normal weight is 10.5 and i have not been dieting.

        1. I have seen 8 GP’s in the last two years. I have already put in an official complaint about follow-ups and consistency of treatment.
          I have an appointment at 3.15 today.

      2. Have you changed your diet?
        Or maybe you have lost muscle bulk due to being more immobile than you used to be. My OH is much older than you but he is now much thinner than he was but still eats the same as before. He has little muscle left.

          1. Barn door eagles have been spotted in Norfolk. I suggest you don’t go out without a pointed hat.

        2. No change but loss of appetite. I no longer eat in the evenings because of painful bloating keeping me awake all night. I suspect it’s the medication i am on.

          1. I don’t eat in the evenings either for similar reasons, but over time, I automatically adjusted how much I ate in the morning and at midday. Are you eating the same amount for breakfast as you did before?

          5. That’s why we, as far as possible, have our dinner at dinner time.
            I know you’re all going to say it’s lunch but did your school have lunch ladies or dinner ladies?

          6. Yes. As i explained to Mr Grizz, children have dinner at lunchtime because they are children and it is the main meal of the day.
            Adults have dinner in the evenings.
            Of course i wouldn’t expect Northerners to understand this simple concept as they are used to taking their ‘lunch’ to work in their pockets. :@)

  34. The 7 companions of Snow Whitey. Strange, they don’t look like I imagined them as a child – every one of a different ethnicity. The name Whitey is offensive but Disney defended its use as she is of Colombian decent and is the unfortunate result of a brutal ravishing of her mother by a White supremacist from central Europe.

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/10/29/21/73212119-12685847-Pictured_over_the_summer_the_seven_magical_creatures_who_were_su-a-3_1698615399816.jpg

      1. Serious question: do long beards work with mining? You know, those mines which involve dust, machinery, intense heat and sweat.

        1. Alfred E Neuman thinks not.

          Old photographs of miners would suggest very few beards were worn.

          1. Working with whirly round stuff, long hair, bears would be a suicide note, as would dangly clothing.

  35. Words Whose Meanings Changed Over Time (Thanks to Penlighten)

    BULLY
    Back in the 16th century, the word bully was used to describe a beloved person. Over time, it gained notoriety to be used for someone who was a show off, until today, when it refers to someone who takes pleasure in intimidating and harassing the weak.

    AWFUL
    The word ‘awful’ lived a simpler existence in the older times when it actually meant “full of awe”. It was used in a reverential manner, just as the language gods meant things to be. Cut to this day, when it has become an adjective used to portray negative feelings. On a slightly different note, hilarity ensues when people tend to confuse ‘awful’ with ‘awesome’, which happens to be its antonym.

    GAY
    This one’s fairly recent, until a few years ago, ‘gay’ used to mean ‘happy’ and ‘carefree’. In fact, we still tend to spend a day at the beach with ‘gay abandon’, know what we’re saying? The younger lot, however, only seem to be acquainted with its recent association with male homosexuality.

    EGREGIOUS
    There was a time when ‘egregious’ used to be a compliment, referring to distinguished or outstanding individuals or things. But this was the 16th century, and things have changed for worse, especially in the case of ‘egregious’. We now use it to describe something that is outstandingly bad or blatantly offensive.

    GARBLE
    ‘Garble’ actually used to mean the exact opposite of what it’s understood as today. We know of the word to mean ‘confused or incoherent language’, while its erstwhile meaning was ‘to sort out’, indicating a sense of clarity.

    CUTE
    ‘Cute’ was derived from the word ‘acute’, which originally meant shrewd or sly. But this was the 18th century. Over a hundred years later, American slang shortened and transformed ‘acute’ to ‘cute’, even changing its meaning to ‘pretty’ or ‘dainty’.

    NICE
    Just as with ‘cute’, the word ‘nice’ had a completely different meaning back during the 13th century, when it meant ‘foolish, stupid, or senseless. From then on, its negative associations only grew to include extravagance and ostentation. However, it was the 18th century society’s fondness for these qualities that brought it to its current usage.

    MYRIAD
    Myriad was a word coined by the Greeks to denote 10,000 units. Although we still use it to indicate volume or abundance, its mathematical usage has more or less been phased out.

    MATRIX
    No, it’s not the movie. The word ‘matrix’ reminds us of puzzles or grids that may need some solving. In the actual, ‘matrix’ has its roots in the Latin word “matr”- or mater, meaning a pregnant being, and went on to be understood as womb.

    BUXOM
    ‘Buxom’ has indeed come a long way from when it used to mean humble and obedient back in the 12th century. Over time, it progressed to mean ‘compliant’ (think ‘bendy’), to healthy, plump, and down to the way we recognize it today―well-endowed.

    This was just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The English language, or any other language, will continue to evolve alongside the humans who use it. But long words or short, remember to have fun while you learn this amazing language.

    1. Myriad has indeed come to mean an indefinite volume or abundance but I also think of it as indicating variety. I wouldn’t use myriad for a large quantity of identical things. Maybe that’s just me.

      Before coming to represent male homosexuality, gay was used in the context of female prostitution.

      The word may have started to acquire associations of immorality as early as the 14th century, but had certainly acquired them by the 17th. By the late 17th century, it had acquired the specific meaning of “addicted to pleasures and dissipations”, an extension of its primary meaning of “carefree” implying “uninhibited by moral constraints”. A gay woman was a prostitute, a gay man a womanizer, and a gay house a brothel.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay#Sexualization

    1. Then there was a big bang.

      There was one in Nice airport a day or so ago. Some bloody teenager having a “laugh”.

      In addition – 10 days ago – bomb scares at:

      De nombreux aéroports, dont Bordeaux, Nantes, Lille, Toulouse, Carcassonne et Brest ont ensuite confirmé avoir été menacés, ainsi que Perpignan, Bâle-Mulhouse et Toulon-Hyères.

      1. If they catch these hoaxers perhaps getting the same prison sentence as would be given to a “genuine” bomber might put them off.
        Bloody idiots.

      2. I suspect it is more than just a teenager having a laugh. With all these other hoaxes it looks coordinated to use up the resources of the security services.

  37. Is Gaza crisis raising the risk of terrorism in Britain? Rishi Sunak to meet top police and security officials in Downing Street today to discuss UK threat level
    It has been set at ‘substantial’ – meaning ‘an attack is likely’ – since February

    err… do Muslims worship in mosques.

    Of course it is you morons, can’t you see what’s happening on the streets?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12687825/Gaza-crisis-terror-attack-Britain-Rishi-Sunak.html
    edit for typo

    1. Armed security around Synagogues and Jewish schools?…Why would anyone think there was a problem with muslim terrorists?

      1. No – only round mosques, stupid.

        Anyway – time you were off to the jolly doctor. Good luck.

      2. When I was in Strasbourg there were armed guards outside the church while Mass was in progress. Coming to us any time soon. We is so enriched.

    2. Conclusion is that frothing right wing xenophobes have upset the slammers and they have every right to call for the mutilation and death of all and sundry. Gotta remember the EqualityAct, you know… Next on the agenda, why isnt Tommy Robinson in jail yet.

  39. What a strange headline in the DT for the Celia Walden article.

    I like to think Matthew Perry was optimistic when he died

    1. Wouldn’t that make his death all the more tragic? If you’re feeling upbeat about your future when you’re suddenly felled by a mishap, the expectation of a happier life cut short must surely hurt the bereaved all the more.

      1. It’s worse if you die thinking that life is worth nothing, surely?
        I think they’ve just run out of things to say.

          1. And I’ll bet that nowhere in those 4 1/2 pages does it say that he was actively promoting the jabs in 2021.

          4. If he was promoting the jabs, he was probably paid to do so.
            That money almost certainly came from the public purse.
            It would be of public interest to know whether celebrities who promoted a particular product with public money were killed by it or not.

          5. As we don’t yet know it would be mere speculation, not that speculation is forbidden in entertainment news coverage. At the time, his promotion of vaccines was criticised for seeming to profit from public health fears. It was a slogan on one of a series of promotional t-shirts and other merchandise which he was selling for a hefty price. I cannot summon any agitation about it. I was unaware of it until just now.

            https://entertainment.ie/tv/tv-news/matthew-perry-friends-vaccination-shirts-484823/

      2. I haven’t read any of the articles as I’d never heard of him.
        Was he ‘mishap’ overdosing on an illegal drug?

        1. I don’t think a post mortem has yet been carried out, although a search of his home found no recreational drugs.

        1. I have been half in love with easeful Death,
          …………………………………………………
          Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
          To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

          [Ode of a Nightingale: John Keats]

          The fear of pain is probably a greater fearfor many people than a fear of death. We all know what pain is and have experienced it to a greater or lesser degree – but none of us has experienced death.

          “Cowards die many times before their deaths;
          The valiant never taste of death but once.
          Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
          It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
          Seeing that death, a necessary end,
          Will come when it will come.”

          [Shakespeare: Julius Caesar]

          1. Our dear dog Rumpole had a perfect death.

            He was 12 years old and for a Boxer that was a good age – but he still was as playful as a puppy.

            We had been warned by the vet that he had a weak heart and that he could go at any time. At the time we had a group of young people with us and he had had a marvellously happy day full of joie de vivre playing boisterously with everyone in the garden. He joyously bounded up to the house for supper, had a heart attack, lost consciousness and died on the doorstep in Caroline’s arms.

            I’m not ready yet but must say I wouldn’t mind going like that!

          3. I wrote that quote when my friend committed suicide. As it was midnight when I received her goodbye note it seemed most appropriate.

      4. Do Hollywood producers condone the use of narcotics? Everyone on the production team of ‘Friends’ must haver been aware of Mr Perry’s addictions, so why wasn’t his contract written to allow suspension?

        1. I would guess almost all are at it, off-set & off duty. Thus, there’d be no actors left.

        2. Given the popularity of the show in its prime it would have been a bold producer who gambled on taking such a step. That said, Jeff Garlin was fired from The Goldbergs for on-set misdemeanours, but The Goldbergs never hit the heights of popularity achieved by Friends, Perry’s misconduct was off-set and it didn’t seem to impair his on-screen performances..

          https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/03/jeff-garlins-exit-from-the-goldbergs-was-a-long-time-coming-says-wendy-mclendon-covey#:~:text=Garlin%20played%20Murray%20Goldberg%2C%20husband,sexual%20comments%20and%20unwanted%20hugs.

  40. Rain radar – a couple of days ago we were bemoaning the change for the worse with the meteoradar.co.uk website. I dropped a note through their feedback facility and to my pleasant surprise have had a proper reply.

    “Thanks for your mail. We’re sorry to hear you’re not happy with the update.
    The website has been updatet to a more modern design and technique. You now have a home page where you enter, and you’ll get to the city page when you fill in the location in the white area on top. The City page has a 14 days forecast and on the satellite image you can select rain, wind or temperature. In the satellite there are some icons that activate more features.
    Hope this makes it clear.
    Our team is working hard to accomodate our users as much as possible.
    Thanks for your input.”

    1. I had the same. What they FAILED to address is that one can no long “pin” ones location on the map. And each time one goes to the website, you have to start from scratch.

      One step forward, three steps back.

        1. I use http://www.yr.no
          In Norway, I have favourites as our address, for us & firstborn.
          It works for the UK, too, although text is initially in Weegie, but go to “Menu” on the right of the screen and select “Language”, and you get yer Ingerlish.

          1. Fairly similar results for here on both.

            On first comparison weather.com is easier to navigate, probably because I’m used to it.

          3. My browser shows security issues.
            I find the one I linked to to be pretty accurate, certainly good enough for my needs.

          5. Your connection is not private
            Attackers might be trying to steal your information from maps.meteoradar.co.uk (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards). Learn more
            NET::ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID
            To get Chrome’s highest level of security, turn on enhanced

  41. “Gaza on brink of social collapse”….. (Fail headline)

    Would one be able to tell the difference?

  42. “Police take 40 minutes to clear JSO wanqueurs from Parliament Square”.

    I expect they shouted “Jihad”….

      1. What are they even doing in our country?
        The only time I can think of where they would have been here was that Glasgow climate jolly last year (?) where the UN were given the right to bring troops onto British soil to police it, which was a very bad precedent.

    2. When someone dies suddenly or of turbo cancer, probably yes. That doesn’t mean that all such deaths are jab-related, just that it’s a possible factor.
      If you are referring to my comment about Perry, he was photographed wearing and promoting the sale of a T shirt that encouraged people to get vaccinated in 2021, using his clout as a famous actor. Therefore, it is of public interest to know whether the jabs were a contributory factor in his death. Hell will freeze over before the mainstream media will be interested in uncovering the truth on that though.

  45. A few weeks ago I reported on the fecundity of the Mirabilis plant. It grows to H30″ W30″ Thick Roots D24″ . It produces masses of flowers which in turn, if like me you innocently put in 6 plants, produces thousands of seeds. The seeds are very quick to germinate. Just before my five day break last week I pulled up around 500 seedlings. This morning I harvested another 224 seedlings. Prior to those crops I must have harvested hundreds more seedlings. I expect over the next couple of weeks there will be a couple of hundred more. Here endeth the lesson.

          5. If one is really lucky some other poor sod has already mangled the dumped bike (and his prop) and left the offending article on the bank side……

      1. The small pink ones? I have those and they’re no trouble – they come up each year, flower and then die down till the next year. I like them and scatter the seeds around to encourage them.

    3. Dig up the tubers and burn them.
      I bought a plant called Miracle Vine. It has now completely covered a 20 foot Hawthorn. Still, it’s good cover for nesting birds.

          1. No longer what it was.
            Regarded as too carcinogenic for general use.
            What is now labelled as Roundup is useless for roots.

          4. Thanks to the EU and their risk averse attitude. We always used to accept the hazard and manage it.

  46. 378241+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    British society will pay a terrible price for indulging extremism
    We have imported hatreds and lost our common identity. Policy will have to be more muscular as a result

    Far to late for policy to be muscular, the Country needs reinstating to something like normality via deportation starting NOWand that will will have to include no mercy, muscular force.

    When and only when we have given 99% of the politico’s the choice, the wall, or leave these Isles, do we start on the “illegals” before they ,sure as hell seriously start on us.

    I say seriously because this internal war started in rotherham
    when the JAY report revealed what it did, lest we want to forget, for the sake of the party.

  47. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8a0b5594e9bd36bf7799b078ce820cbfcb06ce5daf43f3aa394a55d8eae3cd07.jpg Back again from my visit to Ystad cop-shop this morning.

    Yes, Jules, I am a Swedish citizen (have been since since 17 Oct); and no, Paul, I no longer need a residency permit since I now have full Swedish citizenship.

    My visit today was to apply for a full Swedish passport, which will be with me in a week’s time. The process is quick, swift and cheap; much less red tape (and faffing around with references) than in the UK.

    I am now able to wear an old suit that hasn’t fit me for 20 years. It was 15 years ago since I last put on a tie and it will probably be the last time that I do.

    5. Excellent, Grizz! More power…
      but who is the dude in the suit? No beard, glasses… don’t tell me you are mortal, like the rest of us? Congrats on the recycling of clothing, BTW. Most impressed that you can do such things.
      ;-))
      Good one, man!

      1. Grizz’s gain is Oxfam’s (or other charity’s) loss. My 1970s loon pants, bell bottoms and Oxford bags await in a cupboard for a hoped for restoration of my former figure.

    6. Seems like the ideal sort of thing to deter migrants who I’m sure would prefer to go elsewhere!!

    7. I have some lovely bespoke tailor-made tweed suits. Sadly they seem to have been made for someone with a totally different shape from the shape I have now,.

  48. WT actual F?
    The Viennese Are Different…this would go down like a plate of cold sick in the rest of Austria (apart from Graz perhaps, they’re very left wing).
    https://twitter.com/Culture_Crit/status/1718932851461087311

    Still photo of the horror for non-Twitts:
    Never mind the water supply, it looks as though it’s celebrating the sewage system!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8329d9bfbdea6809f2ab36b2dfa0fb96985c63f8b0539c3fe44c301e9b46efd7.jpg

    2. A computer model must have told them that this attraction will generate sufficient tourist income – from those not drawn by the palaces, churches, architecture, Prater park, gardens, music heritage and the Danube – to pay for itself in due course.

    3. What an utter pile of shite. Typical of the modern built enviroment. Make it ugly so it destroys people’s minds.

    4. Seems like the ideal sort of thing to deter migrants who I’m sure would prefer to go elsewhere!

    1. Dennis Locorriere (when he was the lead singer) had a sensationally emotive voice. Ray (eyepatch) Sawyer is not in the same league.

      I saw them at The Theatre Royal in Sheffield and Dennis asked the audience, “I want every pervert in the audience to raise a hand.”
      99% of the audience raised a hand, but I got told off (by my then wife) for raising both of mine.😊

      1. Better than i expected. The adverse results for the two stool tests were caused by a stomach bug. The other Doctor wanted to send me for a colonoscopy on those results but i refused as i was having an ultrasound the following day and wanted all the test results in before any other testing. The second lot of stool tests returned normal except for a slight rise in the inflamation one which will require another blood test.
        The ultrasound was the same result as the one i had two years ago.
        So all in all i’m going to live a bit longer than i thought.

          1. Dr Lakes said that given the timescale it is because i have been eating a lot less than i did and nothing to be concerned about.

          3. Hmm. Try eating more from now on and see whether your weight increases.

            You could always try Grizz’s “diet”….!! Oh no – that is for reducing weight….

          4. I have listened to what Grizz has said about protein and vegetables so…..a plate of rare roast beef and a large VodkaTini for me.

          5. I think he is barking in his dislike for salad and green vegetables. Still – each to their own.

          6. It was something from a book i once read. Mockingbird. no not that one the sci fi one ! Where all the food was made, processed and served by robots. We seem to be getting closer to that.

          9. I think it’s for optimising weight, but I agree it wouldn’t suit me as I enjoy vegetables, fruits and the occasional desserts

        2. Oh well – some good bits, after all.

          Was the GP very apologetic for all the previous buggerment (if you’ll forgive the word)?

          2. She looked a bit flustered when i said i had made an official complaint to the Practice but no.

        3. Why do you make such faces? When all’s done,
          You look but on a stool.

          [The Scottish Play – The fiend-like queen at the banquet when her husband looks at Banquo’s empty place]

          1. When visiting a friend in hospital after an operation i remarked they were serious about the furniture. They even count the stools. Not the best thing to say when someone still has stitches in.

    1. Wasn’t he wonderful? He just opened his mouth and out it all flowed – effortlessly. Just wonderful.

      1. Very little tuition, it was all talent.
        Performed here in Oslo about 20 years ago… utterly sublime.
        My favourite was the 3 tenors, back in 1990 – you have the three greatest recorded tenor voices together, and you can hear the chest size in the voice…

        1. Sadly I never saw him in person. The 3 tenors was interesting, to my mind it just showed up how inferior the other two were. I haven’t heard all tenors I admit but his was the best ever. Don’t know of any current ones.

          1. Couldn’t believe he wanted to sing in a rainy Norwegian park.
            Never heard such a voice before or since.

        2. Bit like one of my favourite pianists – Alfred Brendel – desrcibed as “virtually self-taught”…!! WOW!

          3. He taught Paul Lewis and Till Fellner. I once went to hear Paul Lewis play at the Wigmore Hall and the person sitting immediately behind me was fidgeting and fiddling about and being annoying so I turned round to ask him to stop and found myself eye to eye with Alfred Brendel. I said nothing.

    2. So reassuring to see that he is looking at the words (apparently he couldn’t read music, so I’ve been told!). Makes me feel a bit less of an idiot by always needing to have the score when I play the organ!

      1. Church organists generally get paid (modestly) for services in England; if you were to play from memory, the customers might think that it is too easy and that you don’t need any reward.

    1. A load of bollocks hyped up by the former landlord of the Barley Mow.
      Bonsall is directly underneath one of the main trans-Atlantic air corridors and also on the lower level flight paths of Donnington and Ringway so there are often strange lights in the sky caused by nav lights in thick cloud.

  55. Love the way this is played -in relation to the echo from the building. Superb!
    My Father couod play a big organ like this, but unfortunately, I never herad him play such a beast. Enjoy!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHNLdHe8uxY
    Heard similar played in York Minster, forget the organist, but equally majestic!

    1. Thanks. I adore organ music. Some of the greatest treats that the MR and I have had have been walking into a church in France or Spain or Italy and hearing the organist practising. Spell-biinding.

      1. About 30 years we had a girl called Alison on one of our French courses who had won an organ scholarship to Cambridge.

        We took the group to Dol-de-Bretagne and went into the cathedral and Alison was delighted to see the organ. Caroline sought out the priest and asked if the girl could play it and he kindly said she could. So they fixed a time a couple of days later. We smartened ourselves up and went to hear her play which was lovely.

          2. Since you ask: “Une tranche de brioche façon “pain perdu”, pomme caramélisée et glace.”

            The place no long exists. It has been turned into an insurance office. How are the mighty fallen.

    2. Very very good.
      Pity the video doesn’t show which stops are used; I’d have liked to see that.
      My organ teacher always tells her pupils that any piece we play should be adapted to the acoustics of the building, which is easier said than done, quite frankly. It is surprisingly difficult to hear what the public hear when you’re up in an organ loft with the pipes so very close to your ears.

  56. Here’s a question for the numerous gardeners amongst the Nottlers.

    Brief intro: I kill plants. The only plants that survive me are the ones I have nothing to do with!

    We have an enormous garden, all laid down to grass. It is mostly rectangular with a wide spur going off on one side. This spur has very poor soil on top of a vast collection of local stone, which mark the ruins of a number of walls that were still half-standing when we bought the house 35 years ago.

    I would dearly love to transform the spur into a flower meadow but have no idea of how to proceed. The articles I’ve read on the internet seem to make it all so complicated… and yet I read here that you lovely gardeners plant stuff that then takes over and you have to fight to get rid of it! Can any of you come up with a plan so that our spur is miraculously transformed into a flower meadow with minimal effort? The minimal effort is vital as I’ll manage to kill it all if I have very much to do with it!

    1. Improving a plot of thin, stony soil takes years of backbreaking hard work – or an hour or two with a JCB followed by a delivery of soil from a property developer…

      There’s plenty of advice on the species of native wild flowers you could use and the type of soils they prefer. Some will actually do well in poorer soils. Beware of imported species.

      1. And that’s exactly why I don’t want to “improve” it. But how to plant a flower meadow on thin grassy ground, when digging brings up great big clumps of stone?

      1. Mushrooms grow there – they look a bit like inkcaps but someone once told me they’re poisonous. A friend of mine spotted wild orchids in the lanes; I wouldn’t recognise them, I’m afraid, being a bit of a dunce as far as plants are concerned.

        1. The trick is spotting the leaves (see my other reply).
          What I did was to use sticks to mark anything that looked even remotely similar to leaves that I knew were orchids.
          I then made sure that I didn’t cut them and I’ve been rewarded.
          I say I have 20, there are very few on this link that I don’t have at least one representative
          https://wildlifeinfrance.com/wild-orchids-france/wild-orchids-helleborine-in-france

          We have a French handyman/helper. He thought I was utterly mad, bloody Anglais!
          Having seen what I’ve done he’s a convert and has been chasing his Mairie for special protection on the verges in his commune!

    5. Have you thought of sowing wild flower seeds that will grow and self seed in poor stoney soil.
      Perhaps you have centre de jardiniage close to you who could give you advice.

      1. The garden centres here are ludicrously expensive and the advice they give presumes we have thousands of euros and lots of time and energy. They simply won’t believe my capacity for killing stuff, either.

        Basically, what I would like to know is to what extent any wild flower seeds I sprinkle around over the grass (not very good quality) will actually grow. I’m quite happy to rake them in but there’s no way we can remove all the grass; the area is too big.

        1. Sprinkle and be damned.
          If the soil is poor, something will come up.
          There are several companies in Britain that sell wildflower seeds in bulk.
          I don’t know if France has similar companies.

          1. Nope. So far I’ve only found teeny packs that will do 30 square metres at a time – our spur must be at least 800! I’ve thought that I might go around some of the village town halls, though, and see if they can suggest a good source as some of the road banks now have wild flowers planted on them.

        2. Re my earlier question and funghi.

          The funghi are essential, there is a symbiotic relationship with them and so many plants.

          Look at what is growing in your patch and what’s growing locally. Try to do similar in your spur.

          When we came to Bergerac we had 3 or four orchids varieties in the garden, now we have 20+, all down to doing nothing other than marking the likely looking leaves and being careful not to mow them.
          Those 20 varieties produce between one or two orchids up to literally hundreds and in some cases thousands.
          We leave a large area almost to its own devices ( a hectare+) encouraging things that seem to grow well.
          Marguettes grow like crazy here, set seed and don’t need good soil.
          Look at the big weeds that you like and accept it will be a mess for a third of the year.
          It will pay you back tenfold with butterflies, birds and then up the food chain, owls, falcons and more.
          I’ve seen lots of Rastus’s picture and I’ve little doubt it could be a successful venture on the spur.

          2. Nasturtiums like poor soil (they don’t produce flowers, just leaves, if the soil is too rich) if you’d like something to give it a bit of colour while you’re getting established. Clover enriches the soil (it has nodules in the roots that fix nitrogen).

        3. If you can get someone to send you some wild flower seeds from here, we’d be happy to do it, and see what happens. As they are weed like ie wild flowers they’ll probably grow. A few coppers a pack.
          Worth a try?

          1. Yes, probably worth a try. I’ll see if our son can help… he doesn’t have a garden but grows lots of stuff on his balcony and seems to have greener fingers than I do.

        4. If you see a plant you like we have a free app, iPlant, that can identify it quickly.

        5. Get lots of seeds for dry, stony soil and just throw them around in spring, preferably when the weather forecast says it’s going to rain. A few of them will come up and self seed. Repeat for several years, until desired effect is achieved.
          The ones that want to grow will grow, and the ones that don’t want to, you can’t make them grow for love nor money!
          Cut the grass late in the summer when they’ve all flowered and seeded.
          I learned quite a lot from my mother who was a very keen gardener, but mostly I just experiment, and have as many failures as successes!

          1. We have friends who have simply stopped mowing their grass; they now mow paths through the high grasses for access. I can’t say it looks very good at this stage as it is just high grass and no flowers, but they say that the birds like it.

          2. It definitely needs a bit of helping along in my opinion! I have a wildflower lawn that is a work in progress – it starts with violets, crocuses and snowdrops, and progresses through milkmaids, dandelions, tulips (left by the previous owners!) and various things whose names I don’t know. I cut it at the end of July. Some of the things I’ve planted have lasted a few years and then just disappeared – but the fritillaries seem happy enough.

        1. Are you absolutely sure? If yes I will hunt out some seeds which have yet to germinate and pop them in the post….

          2. Poppies do well in almost any setting. Get your students to bring you packets of seeds. They can all spend an hour or two creating your wild garden. They can sing as they do it ! :@)

    7. Hi Caroline.
      An excavator and dump truck would be useful. Have a look at the link below, to a Spanish company website, and perhaps you could find out if any agricultural contractor has a similar stone removal machine in your area.

      https://triginer.com/en/7592/

      If the material was once good enough for buildings, you might find an enthusiastic expat who would like to remove the stone in exchange for covering your costs; you know, some eccentric Englishman who is in the process of restoring/extending a farmhouse in Brittany.

      1. We knocked down the walls and buried them about 8 years ago now. At the time, there were no takers at all for the stone. We asked the digger chap – who also does major stuff for the local rural Mairies – if he had a stone removal machine, or if he knew anyone who had one, and the answer was no. (We have a major agricultural contractor just down the road, too!) What they did do, however, was to thump them down hard with a machine they did have, in order to bury them a bit deeper. But it’s only been in the last two years or so that Rastus hasn’t been removing rogue stones that he hits with his mower blades in that part of the garden.

    8. Hi Caroline.
      An excavator and dump truck would be useful. Have a look at the link below, to a Spanish company website, and perhaps you could find out if any agricultural contractor has a similar stone removal machine in your area.

      https://triginer.com/en/7592/

      If the material was once good enough for buildings, you might find an enthusiastic expat who would like to remove the stone in exchange for covering your costs; you know, some eccentric Englishman who is in the process of restoring/extending a farmhouse in Brittany.

    9. All you need to do is plant two separate strains of ground elder – you’ll find the resultant explosion of plants impossible to kill! 🙂 It seems to me you would be better off turning it into a rockery with alpines that like dry soil and are shallow-rooted.

  57. Anyone finds some half-typed drivel from me, please let me know. I pressed the wrong key and it all vanished before the thought was finished, let alone the typing.

  58. That’s me for another grey and unwelcoming day. Raining now.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain.

  59. This is very strange.

    Shani Louk’s father says the abducted festivalgoer ‘was killed on the spot’ by Hamas and ‘did not suffer’ after Israeli president claimed she was decapitated and skull had been found

    I think it is the father consoling himself rather than facing the truth.
    I doubt we will ever know, but she or her body appears to have been being displayed by Hamas and her mother thought she was alive, again consoling herself perhaps.

    Either way, the Hamas pigshit did it to her.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12688801/Shani-Louk-decapitated-Hamas-Heartbreak-family-hoped-miracle-Israeli-president-reveals-sadistic-animals-murdered-young-festivalgoer-skull-found.html

    1. Netanyahu may well be trying to keep the anger burning in the hearts and minds of the Israeli population in order to achieve his ambitions; her father may well be right as her body was filmed in the back of a truck.

  60. Muslims, they look after their own.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12688451/Doctors-NOT-punished-airing-pro-Palestinian-views-British-Islamic-Medical-Association-says.html

    Doctors should NOT be punished for airing pro-Palestinian views, British Islamic Medical Association says
    Group claims Muslim medics are being reported for Pro-Palestinian comments

    If a Christian doctors’ pressure group suggested that all the pro Palestinian medics be rounded up and transferred to Gaza to look after the sick and injured they would be subjected to intense scrutiny and probably sacked.

    2. Let us hope that THOUSANDS of such complaints are made.

      Having these murderous bastards in GP surgeries beggars belief.

  61. I don’t really believe in all this Halloween malarkey,
    Souls returning from the dead and all that.
    I’m more of an aghostic on the subject

    2. Well done. Mine is self explanatory.

      Wordle 863 6/6

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

    3. Plodding along with my normal par

      Wordle 863 4/6

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

  63. Oh, happy days.

    Look you stupid bastards, why don’t you just finish it, so we can all enjoy our last day “On the Beach”

    U.S. announces new NUCLEAR weapon 24 times the power of one dropped on Hiroshima – days after it emerged China plans to double its warheads by 2030
    The B61-13 would deliver a yield of 360 kilotons
    The Pentagon said it would ‘provide the President with additional options’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12688663/Nuclear-Hiroshima-bomb-Biden-Xi-Taiwan-Putin-Pentagon.html
    Giving Joe Biden such options is like giving a mentally defective six year old an automatic rifle and infinite ammunition..

  64. Well, if you had any doubt whatsoever, now you know whose side they are on.

    Fury as Met Police officers pull down posters of kidnapped Israeli children in London ‘to avoid inflaming tensions’ – after force failed to clamp down on Islamists chanting ‘jihad’ at pro-Palestine protests

    Neutral police? Ha bluddy ha.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12689391/Fury-Met-Police-officers-pull-posters-kidnapped-Israeli-children-London-avoid-inflaming-tensions-force-failed-clamp-Islamists-chanting-jihad-pro-Palestine-protests.html

    1. To be fair, or at least balanced, Cullimore Chemists seems to be staffed by muslim pharmacists. Here is a recent Gurgle review: “Pharmacist Hassan has been really helpful to me for years with prescription issues. Now that the shop has expanded he is usually only there once/twice a week. But I have had excellent help from the newer pharmacists in recent times, and want to thank Emal, Abdul and Davina particularly for sorting issues with my medications. I recommend Cullimore to all local residents.”.

  65. Question for the day:

    If Islam is the religion of peace, what on earth could be the religion of war?

        1. Correction; islam is an ideology, much as National Socialism was. It just masquerades as a religion to take advantage of the protections afforded to religions.

  67. Thought for the day:

    If Islam is the religion of peace, is Hell Heaven for the damned?

    edit for capitalisation

  68. They’ve changed the headline now, but first time around was the better reflection!
    my emphasis

    Fury as Met Police officers pull down posters of kidnapped Israeli children in London ‘to avoid inflaming tensions’ – after force failed to clap down on Islamists chanting ‘jihad’ at pro-Palestine protests

      1. At the lower end of the “answer” box you will see
        a gif, a mountain scene, B, I, U underlined, S with line through, a something or other that I don’t have a clue what it does, an eye with a strike through, another I haven’t a clue, and finally a large ” quote mark.
        Highlight what you want to block quote and the press the large ” icon.
        voila.

    2. Typo aside, the state refuses to do anything about the violent muslim cult in this country. It needs to. All 25 million of them, welfare scroungers, aliens, intolerant wasters needs to go.

  69. Another thought for the day:

    If there really is a God, who created Heaven and Earth, why did he/she/it allow religions to form?

  70. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-67262984
    So, who knew?

    The UK’s top civil servant told colleagues in private that Boris Johnson “cannot lead” at the height of the Covid pandemic.
    In WhatsApp messages from September 2020 disclosed to the Covid inquiry, Simon Case said the former PM “changes strategic direction every day”.
    He added that he was making government “impossible,” and “we cannot support him in leading with this approach”.
    “I am at the end of my tether,” he wrote, calling other ministers “weak”.
    In a day of explosive evidence, one of Mr Johnson’s former aides also said he thought Mr Johnson had questioned why the economy was being destroyed “for people who will die anyway soon”.
    The aide, Imran Shafi, told the inquiry he believed the former PM had made the remark during a meeting with then-chancellor Rishi Sunak in March 2020, around the time of the UK’s first lockdown.

    1. Mr Johnson had questioned why the economy was being destroyed “for people who will die anyway soon”.

      Looking at it dispassionately, (oh, ok, like a heartless bastard) why shouldn’t that question have been asked?

      1. And, in any case, how can an economy be being destroyed only for people who will die anyway soon? “.

      2. It should have been, and if the answer was a positive one, counters to negative press coverage developed.

  71. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-67262984
    So, who knew?

    The UK’s top civil servant told colleagues in private that Boris Johnson “cannot lead” at the height of the Covid pandemic.
    In WhatsApp messages from September 2020 disclosed to the Covid inquiry, Simon Case said the former PM “changes strategic direction every day”.
    He added that he was making government “impossible,” and “we cannot support him in leading with this approach”.
    “I am at the end of my tether,” he wrote, calling other ministers “weak”.
    In a day of explosive evidence, one of Mr Johnson’s former aides also said he thought Mr Johnson had questioned why the economy was being destroyed “for people who will die anyway soon”.
    The aide, Imran Shafi, told the inquiry he believed the former PM had made the remark during a meeting with then-chancellor Rishi Sunak in March 2020, around the time of the UK’s first lockdown.

  72. Everyday this country gets closer to the edge of total demise. And still our dick heads in Westminster and Whitehall don’t seem to be taking it.
    It’s not going to away you divots, it’s diversity. You wanted it, it’s failed, now sort it out before it’s too late.

    1. Westminster is rubbing its hands in silent glee as its long-laid plans are all coming to fruition. Get out of London and the big cities.

      1. It isn’t safe, even here in the sticks. The blek and alien have been distributed among us.

        1. They’ve got to go. If we repealed the endless mess of laws the EU forces on us that’s easy to do but big government refuses to diverge.

          If we stopped paying them they’d go of their own accord eventually. Cut off benefits entirely. Scrap housing and child over 4 years.

    2. 378241+ up ticks,

      Evening RE,
      Must disagree, treacherous dickheads they are without doubt, but they are controlling the every day happenings in the name of the
      WEF / NWO

      Their actions / in-actions are NOT via ineptness, they are manipulatively orchestrated to subdue / control.

    3. They don’t want to. They like an unstable country. The gimmigrant and welfare addict make huge demands on the state.

  73. England’s green and pleasant land:

    Belas Knap, long Barrow 3,500 BC

    Mill Lower Slaughter circa C19th Century

    Latter day Westonbirt Arboretum

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2c974fcc77b9e56c07b26ecc09f05a4d465953ed6e35fdcea3c7274bfe240fd0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0bc0b703a1076a5b46b875c74cfbe36659d895baa761d4aaa5ad9242060d9bbb.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89c08dff4dedb9773d379b0117014dd89b161d41f2d81d4c5be244371bc99a9b.jpg

  76. Regarding the supposed ‘freak accident’ where an ice hockey player died on court by a cut throat it appears that the wound was inflicted by an opposition player performing a king fu style kick using his skate. There is video but I find it so horrific and do not wish to post.

    It seems our press and authorities have lost all sense of the Truth.

    1. Having owned ice skates I can testify that freshly ground blades are incredibly sharp…

    2. My uptick is for not posting the link to the video showing a potential case of murder / manslaughter.

    1. On the walk to the pub tonight I picked up one toad and popped it into a garden, but then found a flat one. I like toads.

  78. 378241+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    We must not let Hamas off the hook
    The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly for a motion calling for a ‘ceasefire’. The UK should have opposed it

    Surely that is NOT near the top of our priority list when we have suffered excessive deaths via vaccine, have what amounts to a
    foreign uninvited standing army within our borders, with more adding to their ranks on a daily basis,etc.etc,etc.

    A “ceasefire”can be construed as a delay and time to consolidate your forces thereby if anything lengthening the
    warring period.

    1. There might be other reasons – not just the one – why excess deaths have been recorded, such as responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, by both government and the health profession, which have lengthened waiting lists, delaying both diagnoses and treatments for other conditions, or the general public itself shying away from healthcare services in fear of the virus, sometimes with fatal consequences. Then there have been junior doctor and consultant strikes, lengthening waiting lists all the more with the same sad outcomes. Covid-19 itself is still killing people, although not in numbers which would fully account for the excess death tally. Trying to untangle the different threads and attributing excess deaths to each is not at all easy. Official efforts to enumerate excess deaths due to the vaccines will be disbelieved by many people, so it’s probably not worth trying unless they come up with big numbers.

      1. What I find peculiar is that these excess deaths seem to appear in many countries. It does seem that the 2023 figures are less high than the 2022 ones, so we live in hope that things will level off.
        Here in France, where the health service is generally considered to be much better than in the UK, we didn’t have doctor and consultant strikes to add to the mayhem and yet we still have excess deaths in similar proportions to across the Channel.

        1. The excess on last year isn’t so high because that qas very high.
          We need to compare with pre-vax averages.

      2. 378241+ up ticks,

        DW,
        There was a fear campaign run parallel in many cases to the blackmail, accept
        vaccine with no jab pedigree or lose job.
        Those that lost loved ones will demand honest answers when the inquiries concludes.

        2. The Covid enquiry is a sick joke. It is designed to throw a bucket of whitewash over the whole affair.

          The eventual prosecution of Johnson, Vallance, Whitty, Farrar, the bods at Astra Zeneca, Pfizer and Moderna (to name but a few) will be achieved not by accomplice governments but by private prosecutions. This thankfully is now ongoing.

          Incidentally many immunologists and scientists such as Mike Yeadon have determined that the mRNA ‘vaccines’ were designed in bio-labs to cause blood clots.

          If someone would just join the dots they would realise that the shifting of billions to an un-winnable proxy war in Ukraine is as much to do with the US bio-labs deliberately positioned there, the money laundering operations of the Biden regime and their corporate sponsors and the child trafficking by the elites for which Ukraine is the central hub.

          We are dealing with and witnessing some truly evil people running our world, the fight between good and evil. People be good.

    2. I see plod are taking down the kidnap victims. All in the name of community relations. Frankly, that’s insane.

      That such a ‘community’ exists is intolerable in the first place. It should have evaporated on arrival, refusal to do so cause for expulsion. The state is an obscenity, pandering to a bitter, vicious terrorist group it has deliberately brought here out of spite.

      Instead of tolerating the intolerant we should be destroying it like the cancer it is.

  80. Beeb trumpeting Global Climate Armageddon:

    “One of the most critical are sooty particles called aerosols, which mainly arise from the burning of fossil fuels”

    Well that let’s the UK off the hook since all our manufacturers come from coal burning China & abroad!

    3. The BBC really equated an aerosol to burning fuels? Are they stupid? Ah, no, it’s about controlling the narrative and demonising words.

      I hate the Left. Hate them.

    4. Some missing of the point going on here. These particular aerosols are good!

      They also re-examined the role of other, non-carbon factors that impact warming.

      One of the most critical are sooty particles called aerosols, which mainly arise from the burning of fossil fuels.

      They contribute heavily to air pollution but have an unexpected benefit for the climate because they help cool the atmosphere by reflecting sunlight back into space.

      The new research paper finds that these aerosols have in fact a far higher cooling impact than previously thought.

      But as the world strives to clean up dirty air in cities and to use less of the most heavily polluting fossil fuels, the number of aerosols in the atmosphere declines – meaning temperatures go up faster than previously thought.

  81. For a better tomorrow, Palestinians need to forget historical grievances

    Many peoples have tales of tragedy and displacement, but success comes when you are able to move on

    ANDREW ROBERTS, HISTORIAN • 30 October 2023 • 6:49pm

    If Israel succeeds in extirpating Hamas, it will provide the Palestinians with a unique opportunity to re-examine their national destiny, and history can be their guide. For nations must tailor their ambitions to what is politically, and ultimately militarily, practical, and for no people is this more pressingly true than the Palestinian Arabs.

    In professing to believe that it can expel the Jews from the river to the sea, Hamas has been selling a dream that has brought only tragedy and rubble. Once Hamas has been destroyed, the people of Gaza will only be able to flourish if they learn from all the other peoples who suffered large-scale population transfers in the later 1940s, and forswear revanchism.

    Rather than endlessly trying to re-litigate the Naqba – the “Catastrophe” in 1948 when hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs left or were forced out of Israel – they must recognise it as an irreversible historical fact that is now three-quarters of a century old. They must accept that back in the immediate post-Second World War period, many national groupings had to move en masse from the lands they had previously occupied, and happiness has only come to those who have been able to deal with it.

    Indeed, in the late 1940s, some ethnic groups had to move far longer distances than the Palestinians, and in much the same or more traumatic circumstances. The transfer of power in India saw 16 million Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus move from their homes in the Punjab and North West Frontier, for example, never to return. Many made the journey taking only what they could carry, and they built modern-day India and Pakistan by not constantly dreaming of return.

    The Crimean Tatars (who lost 46 per cent of their number), the Soviet Chechens, the Ingush and Balkars, the Volga Germans and Meskheta Turks were all “relocated” (as it was called by the Soviets) in their millions by Stalin, and forced to build new lives for themselves elsewhere in the USSR, under unimaginably harsh conditions. Historians estimate that up to one and a half million of them died. Yet most made the best of their new lives, rather than plotting to return with rapine and baby-killing.

    The Japanese and Korean Kuril and Sakhalin Islanders were forcibly moved from their homes in the postwar period, too; even the Italians of Istria. More recent have been the Greeks of Turkey in 1956, the Greeks of Cyprus in 1974 and the Vietnamese boat people in 1975. Although these people were displaced more recently than the Naqba, they have dealt with the upheaval and moved on emotionally and psychologically, in a way the Palestinians have simply not.

    Starting in the late 1940s, some 800,000 Jews from Arabia, whose families had lived there for centuries, were expelled. After the German defeat in 1945, more than three million ethnic Germans were forced to move 300 miles westwards out of Silesia, the Sudetenland and other historically German areas east of the Oder and Neisse rivers. As with other refugees, they took only what could be carried or rolled on carts. Yet where are their violent demands for the return of their ancestral lands presently lived in by Poles and Czechs?

    None of these peoples, nor the Chinese Nationalists who were forced off the mainland into Taiwan in 1949, are today actively demanding the right to murder the people who have now lived in their former lands for over seven decades. They have instead built new lives for themselves, looking forward rather than back. Taiwan, which gave up raiding the Chinese mainland in 1979, today has a far higher standard of living per capita than its old enemy. Many of the Vietnamese who emigrated to the United States are today living the American Dream.

    The sole exception to this sensible and mature policy of moving on from national catastrophe have been the Palestinian extremists, whose irredentism and recurring intifadas – and whose latest sadistic eruption in southern Israel – have turned much of Gaza City into rubble.

    “That men do not learn much from the lessons of history,” wrote Aldous Huxley in 1959, “is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach us.”

    Just as Hamas is using roadblocks to prevent Palestinians from moving south and away from the Israeli attack on northern Gaza, so is it also preventing the Palestinians from moving on from the utterly doomed hope of retaking the land of Israel. While the vast majority of displaced peoples of the late-1940s have eschewed the path of violence, instead choosing peacefully to try to advance their national stories and make the best of their circumstances, getting their revenge by working hard, living well and being happy, the Gazans voted for Hamas in 2006.

    The Palestinians have thus become the willing dupes of the cynical policy of foreign countries to use them to pressurise and destabilise the world’s sole Jewish state. Were each Arab state to take in 100,000 Palestinians – fewer than the number of Ukrainians that Britons welcomed in – then Gazans would be safe. But that would also mean a safer Israel, which is not what some Arab states want. Until the Palestinians are finally able to accommodate themselves to that fact that Israel is here to stay, they can never find contentment.

    Meanwhile, the so-called “Arab street” continues to look away from the Houthis killed by the Saudis in Yemen over the past seven years, preferring instead to protest against Israel and call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

    Benjamin Netanyahu’s best reply to those demanding a ceasefire before Israel can destroy Hamas ought to be that of his hero Winston Churchill, who on 14 July 1941 said, “We ask no favours of the enemy. We seek from them no compunction. On the contrary, if tonight the people of London were asked to cast their vote whether a convention should be entered into to stop the bombing of all cities, the overwhelming majority would cry, ‘No, we will mete out to the Germans the measure, and more than the measure, that they have meted out to us.’ … We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst and we will do

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/30/palestinians-israel-history-grievance-future-forget/

    I’m not sure all of Mr Roberts’ comparisons hold up too well. If they do, then can we add the white urban Briton driven from his cities by legal migration?

    1. How will Palestinians – and their supporters – be persuaded to accept the fact of Israel’s existence? Israeli retribution has yet to succeed. Is it because there hasn’t been a sufficiency of it?

      1. Since they start from the premise that Israel has no right to exist and should be destroyed, that’s going to be extremely tricky.

  82. Does the ageing process make it more difficult to sit through a tv programme without nodding off? It seems to be the case with me. If it’s a download or recording of my own, I have to keep rewinding to see the bits I’ve missed.

    1. You’re not alone. I fall asleep and miss most quite regularly. It took me 5 sittings to see all of Gladiator.

      This is why we don’t go to the cinema that often!

    2. Yes and the worst of it is that I can nod off on a bus, a tube train, at my desk if I’m not careful but at night, in my bed…

    4. I wouldn’t know; I don’t watch TV programmes except the racing and that keeps me interested.

  87. Like Joe Biden’ administration which is wrong about every foreign policy position the BBC follows blindly. The latest example the supposed spontaneous attack on a flight from Tel Aviv in Dagestan.

    This was organised in advance by a former Kremlin opponent of Putin long based in Kiev and initiated on the directions of Zelensky. Those involved in ‘chasing the Jews’ were organised plants of Kiev.

    They walk among us in the UK too, just waiting for activation by the enemies of Israel and other provocateurs. Witness the organised sea of pro-Palestine morons, doubtless funded by Soros, polluting the streets of our capital city and other cities in the UK.

    Does anybody stop for a moment to ask where these mobs obtained the Palestinian flags and other paraphernalia. To my mind they are even better at protesting than the Unite Union and that is saying something.

    There is no such thing as a Palestinian. These are Arabs unwanted by Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Comments are closed.