Monday 5 May: The challenge for Reform UK is to prove that it is capable of governing

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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352 thoughts on “Monday 5 May: The challenge for Reform UK is to prove that it is capable of governing”

    1. Just to say that I simply can't get my computer working, so my post thanking Geoff for today's new NoTTLe site and my Wordle result (I did it in 5 attempts) will have to be posted here. PS – Good morning everyone.

  4. Morning, all Y'all.
    Sunny, but a frost last night, and +2C just now.

  5. Good morning Geoff and all NoTTLers. Today there are two Monday Chuckles, both about marital infidelity:

    Jim lamented to his friend Larry that all the excitement had gone out of his marriage. “That often happens when people have been married for ten years, like you,” said Larry. “Have you ever considered having an affair? That might put a bit of life back into your relationship.” “No, I couldn’t possibly do that,” said Jim. “It’s immoral.” “Get real,” said Larry. “This is the twenty-first century. These things happen all the time.” “But what if my wife found out?” “No problem. Be upfront. Tell her about it in advance.”

    Overcoming his initial misgivings, Jim plucked up the courage to break the news to his wife the next morning while she was reading a magazine over breakfast. “Honey,” he began hesitantly, “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way . . . and please remember that I’m only doing this because I truly, truly love you, otherwise I would never dream of it . . . but I think maybe . . . just possibly . . . having an affair might bring us closer together.”

    “Forget it,” said his wife, without even looking up from her magazine. “I’ve tried it, and it’s never worked.”

    A woman was going to Italy on a ten-day business trip. Before leaving, she asked her husband if there was a present he wanted her to bring back. “How about an Italian girl?” he laughed. The suggestion was met with stony silence.

    Ten days later, she returned home and he asked her whether she’d had a good trip. “Yes, it was surprisingly enjoyable,” she replied. “And where’s my present?” he smiled. “What present?” “The one I asked for–an Italian girl.” “Oh, that! I did what I could; now we have to wait nine months to see if it’s a girl.”

  6. ' swirls in ' on a slightly cooler but still glorious spring day .
    Good Morning, hope you've had a good weekend.

  10. Good morning, everyone. I had great difficulty logging on this morning.

  12. Good morning all.
    A bright and sunny morning again but a bit colder with a tad over 6°C outside after it struggled to barely get above 13°C yesterday!
    Forecast is cloudy with sunny intervals, (or should that be sunny with cloudy intervals?) but no rain.

  14. 405018+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    One of its major tool assets is currently governing the United Kingdom, one of a nastier nature you would be hard pressed to find.

    It and its heinous henchthings are on the verge of orchestrating
    our return to the eu jail even after ALL the culling /spraying / corporate killing it still has its tribal supporters. https://x.com/BowesChay/status/1918789816017199319

  15. The bloody idiot actually survived!

    A 29-year-old tourist was attacked by a female crocodile after he invaded its enclosure to take selfies at the Zamboanga Sibugay Zoo in the southern Philippines. The incident occurred on Monday (28), when the man mistook the 4.5-meter-long reptile, named Lalay, for a decorative statue.

    https://x.com/otempo/status/1917269929348259954

    2. There is neither an antibiotic nor a vaccine to cure or prevent stupidity.

  16. Second thoughts after naming a newborn baby.

    SIR – My mother was named Catherine when she was born (Letters, May 3), but my grandmother was somewhat disappointed, as she had really wanted a boy. Her sister, as a joke, told her to pretend that my mother was a boy and call her Peter.
    She was then known as Peter for her entire life. Very few people knew her real name. She even has Peter on her gravestone.

    Liz Kwantes
    Cookham, Berkshire

    SIR – Dame Edna Everage named her daughter Valmai. The only other person I know with that name is my mother, who assures me that she never met Barry Humphries.

    Joanna Bunkham
    Newton, Glamorgan

    SIR – My late first husband chose our daughter’s name, Fiona, to honour her Scottish connection, but she is known to relatives and close friends as Spanky, after a friend’s fastidious cat.I chose Jonathan for our son but he is known universally as Max because it’s shorter.

    The Countess of Macclesfield
    Northend, Oxfordshire

    SIR – Nameless for about a week after birth in 1965, my youngest sister was eventually called Colette. This was because we had watched La Collette power station on the island of Jersey being built during a seven-month stay when my father was posted there for work.
    I don’t think there will be many people who have been named after such structures.

    Wendy Marshall
    Southampton

    I was invariably called Alan (my first name) by everyone until my secondary school life when a particular teacher (Bob Bailey, technical drawing) decided to call everyone by their middle name (and inventing one if they didn't have one). Consequently George (my middle name) became currency between all my chums too. I was introduced to my first wife as George and to everyone in my subsequent jobs. Alan was only used by immediate family (much to the confusion of my mother since George was my father's name).

    My second wife insisted that I be called Alan and reprimanded anyone calling me George! This led to confusion at mixed get-togethers and parties. Those who only knew me as George said they couldn't think of me as Alan, and vice versa. Many were confused. I never have been.

    When I moved away to Norfolk, where the only people I knew there had always called me Alan, I became known by that name in my employment there too (a strange feeling initially). I'd not been there long when a telephone rang, which I answered. The caller, a colleague, asked who it was and I replied (without thinking), "George … er … Alan!" The caller grunted, "Well, make your mind up!"

    These days I invariably use both names on official forms.

    Alan George Grizzly.

        1. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwrights in London in the early 1890s.

          1. That’s one I do know. Same as Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie (‘Lulu’), and Sir Ranulph Twistleton Wykeham (call me ‘Ran’) Fiennes.

    2. We have similar in the hockey club. Nicknames we only use for each other but which cause confusion when we are out with other friends. lol.

      I escaped my Midlands’ club nickname when I moved to London, only for my London club to make up a different nickname but using the same thought processes (both referencing my, let’s call it, exuberance for life. The funny thing is, I no longer have that “exuberance”. It either an age or a marriage thing).

      1. As a “funny” aside. I spent Saturday being handed over the club accounts (which is why I was in Twickenham). I was previously Treasurer when I first joined the Club and it indirectly led to me meeting my husband. (Btw did you spot him on the picture I posted the other day?). It’s a long story but essentially revolved rounf me having to know everyone in the Club. So I did have a little joke that I might find myself a second husband. It was a joke; mine might be grumpy on occasion, but he does put up with me!

        He is back from Cornwall and making Cornish pasties using the proper beef skirt I bought for the exercise.

        2. I’ve checked the picture, LIR! Which one is your ‘toy boy’?

          1. The bald one! (Middle, white shirt!)

            He’s currently mowing the lawn.

    3. My neighbour is called different names by different groups. All his Navy chums call him Shirley. Everyone else calls him Garry.

      He got the nickname because his last name is Crabtree.

      Quite funny when we are in the pub and his mates call his name.

      1. Is he a Big Daddy?

        A new head of electrical maintenance at Raleigh, in Nottingham, when I worked there was called Paul Boothroyd. One day he was on call at home and needed urgently in the department.
        An electrician rang his home and the phone was answered by his wife. The electrician asked her, “Is Betty there?”

        After he turned up at work, red-faced, he told the electrician that his wife was in hysterics and wouldn’t stop calling him “Betty”.🤣

    4. One of my brothers, the one who’s recently had surgery, has always been known by his middle name but the NHS insist on his first name. When he came round after the operation, the first thing he heard was a voice saying, “C…, do you know where you are”? Yes, he knew where he was but he had to think about who C… is!

      1. That practice of the NHS to refuse to recognise that a patient might not be known by their first forename is appalling rudeness, and has the potential to cause a serious problem of identification. I'm not known by my first forename, so my GP practice has altered my name on its records so that it is. The only problem is when I'm occasionally asked for my full name in hospital that I have to remember to answer with my NHS pseudo-name rather than the real one.

        1. My mother was called Catherine, sometimes Cathy toher siblings but never Cath! While in hospital, she bused to wince when the staff called her Cath, so I had words with one of them.
          "What should I call her?"
          "How about Mrs XXXXXX?" followed by a bemused look but they complied.

    5. If I'd been born a boy my mother intended to name me Timothy, got me instead. Only my parents ever called me by my Christened name, which I associate with a telling off, my grandmother couldn't even pronounce it, called me 'love' instead. So do you prefer Alan, George or Grizzly (or Grizz)? 😊

      2. It doesn’t really matter, Kate. It’s your choice since I respond to all of them.
        As my dad used to say, “Call me anything you want, but don’t call me late for dinner!”

        During my schooldays I had various nicknames. In infant school I was ‘Bisto’ (similar to my surname).
        At junior school I became (to NickR’s eternal amusement) ‘Beatnik’ (a teacher was taking the mickey out of my summer shirt).
        At secondary school my flat-footedness became noticeable so I became ‘Duckfeet’.

        All water off a duck’s back to me. Sticks and stones etc … My non-wokeness means I do not get offended.

      2. I was in college with a bloke whose middle name really was Danger.
        Cool parents

      3. My Dad was at school with a Hereward Wake. My sister knew Annette Ball.

    7. My next door neighbour had a sister named Valmai. Sadly she died aged 50 while on a plane, flying home from a holiday.

    8. My paternal grandfather's given name was Charles. I also have his signet ring engraved with the letters CB – Charles and Bertha (my grandmother). However, as a boy he was called Sunny Jim and the Jim stuck with him throughout his adult life. Even my grandmother called him Jim.

      1. An Army friend of mine called Peter was known as Taff. Even his wife still calls him Taff after 45 years of marriage.

  17. I’ve been a bit slow on the uptake and am about to get my bunting out.

    1. 405019+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      I would suggest the FF&F party as the answer SURELY lies in the English soil.

  20. Good morning, all. Overcast at 06:00 but brightening now. Possibility of rain mid-morning.

    Generalising about white men isn't a very intelligent stance to take. Some men, and women, of all hues have done their best to ruin the world they inhabit.

    https://x.com/GarbageHuman24/status/1918833508090270019
    Does anyone really believe that this statue with its exquisite detail and polished surface, sculpted from what looks like a type of granite, was made using "pounding rocks" and copper chisels? The history of the Giza Pyramids has recently been challenged by new earth penetrating radar techniques. Not everything is as we've been told.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2cc76a280712c56b033dcf1c4369667ba0ad1255cf3237a245ce6fcd21ad9775.png

    1. Nubians sadly for the poster above were not “black”. Oops!

        1. They appear to have regressed from mega -engineers and talented craftsmen to mud-hut dwellers.

          1. And I have witnessed mud huts being built when working in Mozambique.

      2. Nor are Persians. They’re Indo-European. The statue is Egyptian surely? From the time they were ruled by Greeks.

        1. I believe so, Sue…not a massive stretch from NA to Egypt…day sightseeing up the Nile…

    2. I keep getting a lot of posts about Egypt coming up on Facebook – some of them are very interesting and it's always had a fascination for me…… but you can guarantee that a lot of the comments below are of the opinion that the ancient Egyptians were black Africans, not brownish Mediterranean people.

      1. This mania about "Black Africans in Roman Britain" misses the obvious point that any Romans in Britain were a foreign invading power, not natives.

        1. There were probably some black African legionnaires. They weren’t British though.

  22. Good morning, all. Late on parade because I was slaving away making a loaf.

    No news I see. Apart from it blowing a hooley here. Horrible out.

  23. 405110+ up ticks.

    Tread very warily treachery could very well be afoot, at least build on a back up anti treachery party.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021

    ·People didn’t vote FOR Reform they voted AGAINST the UniParty traitors out of desperation.

    More Tory rats will desert the sinking ship & join Reform. The very people who betrayed us 2019-2024.

    Reform is, & will be, exactly what I always said it was – an alternative Tory Party. If you imagine it will be, or say, or do, anything radical you are sadly mistaken.

    Farage has taken voters for a ride & will continue to do so. Just wait & see me proved right.

    1. See what Ben Habib, Katie Hopkins, Rupert Lowe have to say about the trio Farage/Tice/Yousef…can they all be wrong. Habib especially is interesting re: funding, there's a video of him somewhere online talking about it.

    2. You sound like you are more happy with what we have now. I am happy that its a move in the right direction. If I had to choose what we had now or a new Tory pary led by Nigel Farage I would pick the latter and cross bridges that we need to in the future.

      1. 405010+ up ticks,

        Morning JN,

        Correct it is a move in the right direction but one must keep ones eye on the lead steer.
        In my book a majority of the herd suffer from loco weed addiction.
        To my mind “nige” has always been, on reflection,a tory (INO) party coxswain from way,way,back.

        I really do believe it is in our own interest and more so our children’s that a new party running parallel to reform is formed, as I said prior all that glitters currently, in the main,is shite.

          1. 405010 + up ticks,

            JN,

            Hope, last thing out of the box, and fickle,

            Safety first in regards to childaren & family,
            Build on a parallel party as a cautionary move.

            If the electorate have not learnt by now we must consider talks of terms of submission, islamic or eu.

          2. The mob never learn. The believe all that the governments tell them

      1. Deeee fence! Sorry, my lot play/ed basketball! Lots of American type shrieking!

  27. Morning All 🙂😊
    Sunny not warm rain later.
    Typical bank holiday Monday.
    My mates wife arrived home an hour ago after her month in Sydney with family. An exhausting trip, even with a stop over in Singapore.
    I would imagine with stored experiences Reform would be able to govern. Anything the dog brought in would be more useful and better equipped than what we have now.
    Their biggest problem will be with the far left bandwagoners in the civil service.
    How many boats are you stopping today Starmer ?

  28. Today Tortopani tels us why he's left Reform for Ben Habib's new Integrity Party. Please read Why I left Reform and Joined the Integrity Part y and let us know if you agree with him.

    In Englishness as a Brand Graham Cunningham looks into why some find Englishness such a problem. Please let us know if you agree.

    Energy watch 08.30: Demand: 26.82 GW. Total UK Production: 21.36 GW from: Hydrocarbons 9.3%; Wind 32.8%; Imports 23.2%; Biomass 7%; Nuclear 12.8%. Solar: 12.1%

    One more thing! Please support the magazine by reading and commenting on the articles. This motivates writers and helps attract more, allowing us to grow and reach more readers.

  29. Bunting is up, waiting for Plod. Please come and visit me in prison.

  30. On an aside. Husband got back yesterday and said mummy frog/toad was dead which explains why she hasn’t moved in 5 days. Not sure what to do now. She was definitely alive once as she moved from one side of the pond to the other.

    2. Did she have any lesions on legs or body, there was some sort of infection a few years ago for water creatures, fish etc..

      1. I don’t know, i will ask. I am sad. But we do look like having tadpoles.

    1. 405010+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Will this be prior to stopping the boats or after ?

  32. The South China Morning Post is awash with a constant drip of 'US/China de-coupling' stories.
    Those that didn't read the memo.. Ursula Von der Leyen & Ed Milliband.. will eventually find out there is no middle ground. You either join USA, Australia, Japan, India, Thailand, Vietnam or you join China.

    China’s Xi Jinping readies for ‘mutual trust’ mission with Putin in Russia..

    Some young Chinese struggling even to secure restaurant work due to Britain’s tough labour market and tightening visa rules..

    Chinese firms in Vietnam halt new investment, face closure if Trump’s tariffs return..

    China stunned by Trump’s lack of caution and understanding: ex-diplomat Kerry Brown..

  33. Yo and Good moaning all, from a sunny but cool C d S.

    We are now entering an energy usage period, when Standing Charges cost more than power usage.

    Standing Charges cost £300 year, which equates to £25, which does not seem a lot when you say it like that

  34. I’m a GP. These are the six most commonly asked questions. 5 May 2025.

    3. Surely I don’t need a statin?

    By reputation these cholesterol-lowering drugs are ranked beneath most politicians. Often the mere suggestion of starting one will result in facial contortion of the patient sitting opposite me. I recently interviewed a cardiologist and asked him why statins had received such bad press? His response was that – as far as your heart was concerned – he had never seen a bad news story for statins. Of course, all drugs have potential side effects. Top of the disgust list for patients are stories of muscle pain and weakness. Reassuringly, a meta-analysis study in The Lancet, showed that over 90 per cent of muscle pain blamed on statins had nothing to do with the statin at all.

    I’ve only recently started taking statins having deliberately avoided them for many years. The latest version foisted on me, has swollen everything below my waist. My legs are like tree trunks, the skin stretched over them, and my feet can barely get into my shoes. They have also restricted my movement. I used to be able to cut my own toe nails and can now barely bend my knees. Walking any distance is excruciating. Yesterday for the first time ever I had trouble getting out of the bath.

    I’m not taking any over the next few days. I am going to try and recover from these effects. All this places me in a dilemma since I am taking them not for my heart (which is in excellent condition) but for their effect on my eyes. The word of mouth complaints about these drugs are too common to be coincidence. One suspects the pharmaceutical industry of covering up the truth.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/conditions/cold-flu/im-a-gp-these-are-the-most-commonly-asked-questions/

    1. "Reassuringly, a meta-analysis study in The Lancet, showed that over 90 per cent of muscle pain illness blamed on covid vaccinations statins had nothing to do with the statin vaccinations at all."

      Just saying!!

    2. Minty. Please google Dr Stephanie Seneff. She has extensively researched statins and cholesterol. A statin damaged my memory and I stopped taking them. Your suspicion of big pharma is well placed.

      1. Iteresting. Asked ChatGPT what opinion she has of statins, and got this result:

        Dr. Stephanie Seneff, a senior research scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, is a prominent critic of statin medications. Her skepticism stems from both personal experience—her husband's adverse reactions to statins—and her research into their biological effects.([ http://Mercola.com ][1])

        ### Key Concerns Raised by Dr. Seneff

        1. **Cholesterol's Vital Role**: Dr. Seneff argues that cholesterol is essential for numerous bodily functions, including maintaining cell membrane integrity, producing hormones, and supporting brain health. She believes that artificially lowering cholesterol with statins can disrupt these critical processes. ([WordPress for WWU][2])

        2. **Adverse Side Effects**: She highlights a range of potential side effects associated with statin use, such as muscle pain, cognitive impairments, and increased risk of conditions like diabetes and heart failure. Dr. Seneff suggests that these side effects may be underreported and can sometimes be irreversible. ([ResearchGate][3])

        3. **Questionable Efficacy**: Dr. Seneff contends that the benefits of statins in preventing heart disease are minimal for the general population. She points out that the absolute risk reduction offered by statins is relatively small, questioning whether the potential harms outweigh the benefits. ([ResearchGate][3])

        4. **Alternative Perspectives on Heart Disease**: She proposes that heart disease may be more closely linked to deficiencies in cholesterol sulfate rather than high cholesterol levels. According to her, the body might develop arterial plaques as a compensatory mechanism to produce necessary cholesterol sulfate. ([ http://Mercola.com ][1])

        ### Controversy and Criticism

        Dr. Seneff's views have been met with skepticism within the medical community. In legal proceedings, she was dismissed as an expert witness in a case against Pfizer due to a lack of recognized medical credentials and insufficient evidence linking statins to specific harms. ([Wikipedia][4])

        ### Summary

        Dr. Stephanie Seneff is a vocal critic of statin medications, raising concerns about their potential side effects, questioning their efficacy, and offering alternative hypotheses about the causes of heart disease. While her perspectives are controversial and not widely accepted in mainstream medicine, they contribute to ongoing discussions about the role of cholesterol and the use of statins in healthcare.

        [1]: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/01/can-statin-drug-cause-liver-and-heart-to-fail.aspx?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Statin Drugs May Cause Liver Injury and Heart Failure – Dr. Mercola"
        [2]: https://wp.wwu.edu/gigiberardi/2015/07/21/food-heroine-stephanie-seneff/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Food Heroine — Stephanie Seneff – Gigi Berardi"
        [3]: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stephanie-Seneff/publication/228381241_Statins_and_Myoglobin_How_Muscle_Pain_and_Weakness_Progress_to_Heart_Lung_and_Kidney_Failure/links/543bdda10cf24a6ddb97b729/Statins-and-Myoglobin-How-Muscle-Pain-and-Weakness-Progress-to-Heart-Lung-and-Kidney-Failure.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com "[PDF] Statins and Myoglobin: How Muscle Pain and Weakness Progress to …"
        [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_Seneff?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Stephanie Seneff"

      2. I was put on Statins shortly before I left the Army. When I registered with a civilian GP later that year, he immediately took me off them.

    3. Morning Minty.
      I took statins for a long time, but as I read more and more about adverse effects, I decided to have a trial pause. While taking them, I suffered from quite severe joint pain, particularly in my hips, and after walking more than a mile or two, the pain was almost unbearable.
      After I stopped, the pain soon disappeared completely. Now, I know that subsequence doesn't necessarily mean consequence but…
      Anyway, I don't want to fall out with my lovely Doctor so I haven't told her; I just throw them in the bin.

      1. My OH was put on statins along with various other drugs after his triple bypass op. He took them for more than a year and began to show memory loss. I suggested he stop taking them (gave him some reading matter to help him decide) and so he did – he just left them off the list of meds he ordered and nobody said anything or queried it.

          1. Not really…….he's never had perfect recall of events past, but his map memory was ok. I've always got lost so it's normal for me. But he knew the way to places and now he doesn't. He still seems reasonably compos mentis in other ways though. I have to direct him even to familiar places now.

          2. May I ask did he have any Covid vaccines, Ndovu? My memory shot following Ozempic (four years ago)…taken a long time for me to regain any memory, slowly returning. Online message boards, reading articles, has helped me (and individual kindnesses, family having been a bit impatient ).

          3. He had two Pfizer ones and a booster in 2021. We'll never know if that's what caused his heart trouble but he was always a very fit and sporty man. The first inkling of trouble was when he collapsed during a table tennis match. It happened again – and that was the start of all the tests etc that led to the triple bypass op just after his 80th birthday.

            I had two AZ ones – just more travel jabs, I thought. No more jabs for me, though I had no noticeable side effects. Being in the older age group, we had ours before the younger people who showed the most damage.

            Ozempic? Was that before it became used for weight loss?

          4. Sorry, just goes to show how bad memory is…I had two both AZ and Cominarty. Didn’t want any, very suspicious about the whole thing. Family argued, I said I would have them if they promised not to take grandson, and that’s how it turned out. They now tell me they ‘regret’ making me go. No comment from me. Watching VE day now, thinking of my dad. See you later x

          1. I'd love to watch it all, but the annoying and unnecessary music gets on my nerves and is intrusive. Too many YT videos are spoiled by music and audio effects which appear to be used "simply because they are on the machine".

      4. Shouldn't bin them, they end up in landfill and poison the environment. Take them to a pharmacy, or just don't pick them up at all.

    4. The pros and cons of any medication can only be truly assessed at the individual level by personal experience. I'm sorry that statins seem to have adversely affected you. I take 40mg of Atorvastatin on a daily basis and I'm not aware of any adverse consequences.

      In 2019, as I was recovering from cardiac surgery, I began to vomit gastric juices – not food as I was on a nil by mouth regime. A scan revealed a blood clot in my abdomen had resulted in the death of a section of upper bowel. Urgent surgery was necessary to remove the dead tissue and perform a resection of that which was healthy.

      Ever since, I've been taking Atorvastatin and Apixaban, a blood thinner. I will continue to do so as I want to reduce the risk of another such clot as I still live with its effect. An abdominal hernia first emerged in 2022, very likely a consequence of the surgery 3 years before. I had more surgery in February to repair it but a dehiscence – wound reopening – after the clips were removed has meant fresh wound dressings on an almost daily basis while it gradually heals.

      If Atorvastatin and Apixaban help prevent another clot and its adverse consequences, I'll happily continue taking them.

  35. I had the Warqueen put some HC45 on this bite on my bottom. Even she said it was quite a sight – the bite, not my bum!

    It's bally painful. Just taken some paracetamol.

      1. Honestly no idea. Was ok one day and noticed it was a bit painful to do wide legged forward fold stretches. A couple of days later I've this inch across spot.

        If there's no improvement in a week I'll go to the docs.

          1. Might have been. Something I'm alergic to is wasps and such. It's just a delight.

          4. Wibbles, I would take Sue’s advice and go A&E – or at least a chemist

          5. Small ones the worst, opopanax..have you seen that one with what looks like a skull on its body……

          7. Not me..I have a clear plastic cup on my table…I catch/encourage any insect to walk in, then put a small piece of paper on top so they can’t escape whilst I study them. Just love all things in nature, good, bad, ugly, indifferent….:-DD

      2. Honestly no idea. Was ok one day and noticed it was a bit painful to do wide legged forward fold stretches. A couple of days later I've this inch across spot.

        If there's no improvement in a week I'll go to the docs.

      3. Hands up, all you Nottlers, who still have your own teeth, ie no falsies (that can be read 2 ways)

        2. I have my own (mostly) but with some caps, bridges, fillings. Never even had a toothbrush as a child. My own children have checkups but have never had any treatment.

        3. Three caps and four fillings, otherwise my own, not exactly, pearly Wwhites due to tetracycline staining when a child.

    2. A couple of summers ago I had a mosquito bite that came up like that. It was on my arm so showed it to a pharmacist. He said contact your GP and ask for antibiotics. It was getting worse and the GP practice was closed so I went to A&E and came away with a prescription. No one at the hospital suggested I was wasting their time.

      1. Aye, I will give it a bit longer to either change or reduce. It's not 'painful' in itself, just uncomfortable.

        1. A horse fly. Are you sure it wasn't an elephant fly that you saw? (DUMBO joke). Lol.

    3. Would try pharmacy, they can prescribe certain meds I think, will advise you. Surgeries likely closed, but pharmacies in some supermarkets now.

    4. I have noticed quite a few wasps around already this year. Perhaps it was one of those bug gers.

  36. What on EARTH are Ukrainian forces doing at our VE-Day commemoration?

    Words fail me.

    2. Apparently “we are stronger together” or so the Starmer narrative goes regarding our involvement with Ukraine.

      The truth is that Starmer is investing £5 billion of our borrowings annually into keeping Ukraine on life support. This is money better spent on the people of the UK. Instead we witness the withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Allowance from those in need and the attack on benefits for the disabled.

      We have allowed successive governments to covertly wage war on Russia. We have trained and are training Ukrainian soldiers and have assisted in the planning and preparations for the prosecution of the war in Ukraine for a decade.

      We must remain eternally grateful for Vladimir Putin who, in contrast to our idiotic western leaders, has shown great calm and restraint in the face of hideous provocations.

    3. Ukraine is a former part of the USSR, which was an ally when Uncle Joe Stalin was bumping off millions of his compatriates.

  37. It’s inconvenient that Stalin was on our side in WWII and the Ukrainians were with Hitler but lying about it doesn’t change anything? It was the Russians who liberated Auschwitz, whatever the Soviets inflicted on Poland. As the Left themselves like to say, it’s complicated. (Did Stalin really say, “He can’t even shoot straight” when his son attempted suicide?)

    1. I always thought that "can't even shoot straight" comment was one that de Gaulle made after the OAS tried to ambush his motorcade.

  38. @The election results should be the strongest possible signal to both the Labour and Conservative parties that they need to change their leaders.@

    The election results should be the strongest possible signal to both the Labour and Conservative parties that they need to change.

    The general population do not want:

    Net Zero

    Unlimited and uncontrolled immigration

    Imposition of Tax Increases, that cause job losses and poverty

    Imposition of minimum wage level that cause job losses and poverty

    Civil servants dictating to the Government

    Hetrosexuals being out-castes

    etc

    1. Critical race theory leading to DEI
      ”Equality” act
      political prisoners
      ECHR

    2. Government is like a particularly thick project manager. They pop up, demand an update, write it down, want to know when you'll finish and then five minutes later do the same. If you ignore them, they hound everyone around you demanding the same information.

      After several hours of this they ask why you've not finished.

      The Left are economically illiterate and refuse to understand that taking money from earners and giving it to others does not create growth, it creates dependence.

  39. They are…….I don't kill them but I cannot touch one. I get my OH to remove them.

    1. I now have a ninja level.of expertise in trapping them, sliding card to seal the glass, then releasing them elsewhere.

  40. Several RAF aircraft beginning to circle in the North Sea. One came over here but the cloud base is too low to see it. Heard it, though!

      1. Having noisy F-15s from Lakenheath flying overhead was an everyday occurrence when I lived at Briston. Occasionally there was the odd Typhoon or F-16 from elsewhere joining in the jamboree.

        1. We used to get waved at by Vulcans ar one point of my childhood.

          Probably explains a lot. 🤣

  41. The photos below are of Glasgow St Enoch's station and hotel and the ghastly shopping centre that replaced it. The station was opened in 1876 and closed in 1966 (I think the hotel lingered on until 1974). Both were demolished in 1977. The shopping centre was opened in 1989. It too now faces demolition. Easy come, easy go…

    We don't get much right, do we?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c27eb7a5a5848ae4f7b0311e02604ba21968cc9762063157dea7ad7e8837b256.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f4ef2c704eb3e4be4d6102c11a1d95f5047a895c531ffa61d214929a09eab78c.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/155e69b1030a69d00cbb21d81884566fdf0d5ca906375503394008ed06e89866.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/400f7623f285ccb277ed0b00b3da0dda64686b83df639412252db0cffebe8d2d.png

    1. I remember St Enoch's Station and hotel well, I lived in Glasgow from 48 to 64. Glasgow City Corporation were a soulless lot, responsible for much destruction of heritage, replaced by soulless edifices across the City.

      1. A Bit like Coventry then.

        The Germans did not like the City, in WWII, see Coventrate:
        From Coventry +‎ -ate (verb-forming suffix), following German coventrieren. Coventry, England, was devastated by German firebombing in November 1940, during World War II.

        After the war, the City Council did more damage than the Germans could have ever hoped to do

    2. I remember St Enoch’s Station from visits to Glasgow and my site at Hillhead in the seventies (Hunterian Art Gallery and Museum).

      I witnessed some shocking acts of destruction during that time. I visited Macintosh’s Scotland Street School only to find it isolated and surrounded by a wasteland of post-demolition rubble and wilderness. The bastards would have destroyed the school were it not for a nascent conservation awareness.

      Since those days the Glaswegians have even managed to burn down Macintosh’s Glasgow School of Art, not once but twice.

    3. St Pancra to St Enoch used to be an alternate London-Glasgow route. The Thames-Clyde Express was the named train on that route for years. Took a lot longer than either the ECML or the ECML,, though.

    1. Thank you for this, very interesting. Goodness me, what an unlikeable individual Mosley was, as well as the black gaps in is teeth!

  43. Statoin & hotel have presence and grandeur. The shopping centre is soulless, lifeless and crap. But cheap.

  44. Brrrrrrr……it's perishing cold out there! Put extra layers on but too cold to stay out for long. Shifted some bags of compost out of the boot of the car and filled up a few pots for my tomatoes – back in the warm now.

  45. Firstborn's place seems to have some kind of bright yellow and black hornet. Look nasty buggers. Live in a hole in the ground, and his poor tiny cat got a paw stung by on yesterday.

    1. Chaos happened to me, though it was my fault, because I sought it out. I arrived at a ruined airport as the sun set over Africa. This was Mogadishu, capital of Somalia in the middle of a civil war and a famine.

      The Russian cargo plane slowed, halted, and turned off its engines. A profound silence fell.

      Night was not far away. There was no immigration desk, there were no customs, just a bunch of 14-year-olds with AK-47s (I remember they had blue plastic stocks) who knew enough English to ask me and my companion, the brilliant photographer John Downing, ‘You want bodyguard?’ and to name a price in dollars. Dollars were almost the only useful thing we had brought with us, as it turned out.

      An American fixer for one of the news agencies, waiting to pick up cargo from the same plane, was the only person we could ask. Should we hire these teenagers? ‘Oh yes’, he said mildly, ‘You’ll be dead and stripped naked by morning if you don’t have any armed protection. They’re probably good kids’. They were, or I wouldn’t be writing this.

      Their car had no interior trim, a common feature of such places and I suspect they were high on khat, the local stimulant, but more by luck than by judgement they bore us into the centre of what had once been a city – by then a maze of shuttered ruins.

      They took one serious wrong turn, driving straight into a wide boulevard full of crazy militias, all mounted on garish, rusted, Japanese pick-up trucks, each with its machine gun and crew of headbanded, dead-eyed killers. All wore bandoliers made of large-calibre bullets. They looked like heavily-armed rock stars.

      Luckily they were preparing to leave, as a US Marine invasion was expected at any minute (I had gone there to observe this mad event, which would lead in the end to the wretched Western defeat depicted in the movie Black Hawk Down). And so they did not notice my panic-stricken white face peering at them goggle-eyed from the back of the flatulent little car.

      ‘So this is what death looks like’, I thought to myself rather unoriginally, gibbering slightly. We turned and fled, and by a series of happy accidents, I was allowed, if not exactly welcomed, into the small fortress occupied by a German TV crew who had come a bit better prepared than we were.

      A young militiaman, part of a factional group fighting during the civil war of 1992, strikes an intimidating pose

      Boys play football in the street, seen from the window or an armoured car last month in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia

      A private security officer stands at a lookout point on the edge of a private beach south of Mogadishu last month

      They were properly equipped for the end of civilisation. They had a generator, a water filtering plant, a satellite telephone that worked, and some grown-up armed guards. They looked pityingly at us but shared their camel stew and let us sleep on their concrete floor.

      I fell asleep to the sound of gunfire, and of screams in the middle distance, emitted by people who had not been lucky like me.

      I could not have had a more basic introduction to the essentials of civilisation. In a few short hours, since I stepped blinking off the plane and into the Bronze Age, I had been living in a place deprived of law, order, electricity, water, food and modern communications. It was like Doctor Who’s Time Travel, but without a Tardis to go back to, a sonic screwdriver or all the other wheezes the Doctor uses to keep peril and chaos away.

      If any of those gangsters had taken it into his head to open fire on us, that would have been that. It might have taken weeks for news of my fate to get back to England, if ever. When I finally got through to my then newspaper’s London office on a satellite phone, a bemused person responded to my suggestion that we leave immediately, by asking vaguely: ‘Can’t you go to the British Embassy for help?’

      At that time (December 1992) that embassy had been closed for nearly two years, something the Foreign Office rarely does but on this occasion thought wise. I performed a major feat of self-restraint, and explained gently that this was not an option. We did in fact get out, running out of cash to pay our bodyguards a few minutes before we escaped.

      Soon after I got home, I saw some photographs of Mogadishu in the 1950s. They showed a sophisticated city, with pavement cafes, white-gloved policemen directing opulent motor cars down a broad boulevard, which looked worryingly like the muddy, rubble-strewn desolation where I had met the gangsters.

      In the 1950s Mogadishu was a busy capital with smart buildings and modern services like the Roma Bank

      There are concerns of a jihadist resurgence in Somalia amid growing attacks by the militant group Al-Shabaab, which has been fighting the government for nearly 20 years and controls swathes of the southern and central parts of the country

      The lesson has never left me. It was reinforced when, some years later, I saw what happened to Baghdad after the US invasion. Electricity stopped. The pleasant suburban streets became places of fear as darkness fell. Citizens took up position in their porches and let off bursts of sub-machine-gun fire if they thought they detected thieves, kidnappers or other marauders. And they were not imagining things. Kidnap, especially, became a thriving industry in those times.

      Civilisation is terribly precarious, a thin crust on top of a jealous, powerful chaos, as ready to break out as weeds are to infest and choke a well-tended garden as soon as its owner ceases to care for it. In Spain and Portugal this week, people were given an unpalatable foretaste of this, as supermarket shelves were stripped of essentials and long queues formed at cash machines in the darkness.

      In any place I visit, I can now easily visualise how it would look after a decade of civil war, or after many years of repeated power failure or cyber-attacks.

      Take a look at your own city and see how its delicate, expensive and vital infrastructure, which has often taken years to build, lies open and vulnerable to terrorists, hackers, saboteurs, hybrid-warfare experts, cheap drones and missiles. We have built a society that is astonishingly dependent on order, while doing very little to ensure that order thrives, at home or abroad. This is even more so since we became so utterly reliant on computers.

      Some of you may have seen the terrifying 2011 film Contagion, in which a virus far more deadly than Covid spreads across then world. I suspect that it was too horrible to be a big success, especially the scenes showing a prosperous suburb descending with amazing speed into kill-or-be-killed savagery.

      Of course there is no guaranteed way of protecting ourselves against these sorts of disorder. But the withdrawal of the police from the streets, the decay of an accepted morality and of manners, the decay of neighbourliness, all mean that if the blow falls, we shall fare worse.

      Our national enthusiasm for entangling ourselves in far off wars would dwindle fast if the jingoes involved had ever seen what such wars do to people like them, where they to happen. What if, eventually, all our meddling comes back to haunt us, and we are ourselves a war-zone, providing amusing fiery film clips for Chinese TV watchers and internet-surfers? One thing you may be sure of is that cash will come in very handy indeed.

      1. Is this from Peter Hitchens' article? Irrespective a very observant and thought provoking piece. I've been to Baghdad and Basra, not in a military capacity. We looked at photographs of both places in the 20s through to the 50s, and talked to Iraqis who had lived through those times and also through the Hussein days and the 2003 invasion. Civilisation is based on a thin, fragile veneer. The problem is most of our politicians have no idea.

    3. Unfortunately Mail+, the online subscription service, is required to read that article, although the first month is free and anytime cancellation is said to be permissible. I'll give it some consideration.

      1. If you belong to or can join a public library, I commend Pressreader to you – just about every national and many international newspapers free.

        1. I have a library card somewhere in the house but I cannot think of anything in the news that warrants the effort of going to the library to read it (and the effort of hunting for the card).

          2. Pressreader is an app for iPhone/iPad or Android which gives you free access to a huge range of newspapers and magazines.

  47. If the French know that they have stopped 52%, of boats crossing the channel, why did they let 48% get across

    The French 'excuse', I think, has been that they did not know how many left the country, in this case, another 48%.

    FFFFFing liars

  48. The Lanc is just west of Chelmsford, heading the orderly queue of the rest of the Royal Air Force….

  51. Presumably there isn't enough fuel available for more than a dozen RAF planes to fly at any one time.

    2. There ARE only a dozen RAF planes.
      They crashed the Spitfire at the weekend.

      1. I understand the Spitfire, MJ627, which made an emergency landing on Saturday was privately owned.

        1. The damage didn’t look too bad, but as Fallick wrote, the engine will have to be dismantled and crack tested as it looked, from the propellor, taht it was running when the blades hit the ground. But otherwise, it didn’t look too hard a belly-landing.
          Hopefully, they have insurance.

    1. The muslim pakistani paedophile rapists shouldn't have been jailed, they should have been castrated, flogged and then hanged.

      But we don't do justice in this country. Labour are clearly protecting their support base: the countless Labour wonks, unionists and common purpose plod who protected the pakistani muslim rapists. The Labour party know this and will do anything to stop such an inquiry. It'd see thousands of them sent to prison.

      2. 405010+up ticks,

        Afternoon W,

        With united peoples power it is well within our grasp to make real justice happen.

    2. I can't upthumb that. It's too horrible to contemplate.
      Had it happened to my daughter (I don't have one), the revenge would kick in and I'd attend court as a viewer, with my trusty 44MAG revolver under my coat, and blow the fcuckers away. Hopefully, it would hurt something shocking, but grabbing them from the police and pouring burning petrol down their gullets would be a tad complicated. Whilst violating their arses with a jar of jalapenos, lid off.

      1. This is one of the functions of the male – to protect the females from predation.

        1. None of the girls were protected, most parents were disfunctional in some way – the girls were out on the streets most evenings, hanging round take away places etc. The men would approach them there, offer them gifts, a ride home in their car etc. Some of the injuries were absolutely horrific. See my post above.

          1. I'm trying not to think about it, it's too upsetting – no matter what the background of the girls, nobody should be treated that way.

      2. A number of parents were single, alcoholic, unable to care for themselves let alone their daughters. Mark Steyn covered this on GBN some years ago, interviewed at least one of the girls (with whom he stays in touch), was sacked from GBN for his pains, went to France for work where he suffered four heart attacks quick succession, ended up in a wheelchair, his hair turned white. Thankfully survived, and thrived – he can be found online. His work picked up on again by the young investigative reporter Charlie Roberts again of GBN. Anne Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley told Keir Starmer about it in her constituency I think around 2008. Starmer was DPP at the time, I believe he was even acting on behalf of some of the accused. Wasn't just in northern English towns and cities, also in Dumfries area of Scotland. I first heard about this on BBC Radio 4 (You and Yours), similar time.

        1. Good on Steyn for making it public.
          Sometimes, revenge should be biblical.

      3. 405010+ up ticks,

        Afternoon O,

        Yours are feelings one can quite easily understand.

    3. I would like to meet Michael White. Whilst not being a violent man by nature, for him I could make an exception.

    4. No wonder they don’t want an enquiry, and are intent on pushing through an “Islamophobia” (sic) law…

  53. Good point, Elsie. Some of those Ancient Egyptians were odd looking chaps and chapesses.

  54. A 'wasp' hovered outside my window. The thing must have been 3cm long and a good cm wide.

    They don't die out. Over Winter they go to some sort of 'git school' where they learn even nastier tricks to make people miserable.

    This thing though – this was a veritable flying biological weapon.

    1. A similar beast was hovering about just inside the window on Friday. I left it open for the first time this year on what was an unusually warm day. Other than droning within earshot, the striped creature was no trouble and eventually drifted off to find something of greater interest.

      1. There are hornets about already this year, to my surprise and disappointment.

        1. I think my visitor must have been a hornet. It was rather bigger than the typical wasp with stripes of black and amber, not black and yellow.

          10. NOT a good idea.

            One of my earlier cats chased and caught a wasp – was stung – and very nearly died within an hour.

            I just got her to the vet in time

          11. There’s a legend that Saint Helena took a boat full of cats to Cyprus to chase away the snakes and this is offered as an explanation for the high number of stray cats on the island today. Shurely nonsense?

          12. Improbable legend, but cats DO breed if left to it. When we arrived in Laure in 1984 there were, quite literally, dozens of feral cats. Two local people, who later became our dearest friends, are cat people and Thérèse took it upon her self to befriend the cats, get their confidence, trap them and have them neutered (both male and female). They were then released to carry on their catty life but without the risk of breeding.

          13. I noticed many feral cats in Doha, Qatar, brought in to deal with rats.

          14. Findus gets me to chase them away, Auntie Elsie.
            You forget our respective status: he is the boss, I am the provider of fish.

    2. If it was 3cm long it must have been a hornet, as queen wasps are about 2cm compared with an ordinary wasp at 1.5cm. A couple of days ago I discovered a hornet on the wall of my living room just above the fireplace. How on earth it got into the room is a mystery, as I didn't have any doors or windows open to the outside. There's a slim possibility that it might have come down the chimney, though. It was pretty dopey so I trapped it with the glass and sheet of cardboard technique.

      [Edit to add after three upvotes]
      Having seen the pictures posted by WS a few seconds after my comment, it was a European hornet. I've just measured the corpse and it is exactly 3cm in length. (Hornets kill honey bees so I kill them as we need honey bees to pollenate food crops.)

      1. They hibernate in my log store and I (unwittingly) bring them into the house, where they re-hibernate and come to life at this time of year.

        1. Thanks for the information. As I burn logs there's a slim chance that might have happened.

      1. We seem to have the Eurohornet.
        A benefit of being part of the EEA…

        1. The Asian hornet is a dangerous and voracious bee-killer. Sightings should be reported.

        2. That is the species that is found in the Northern Hemisphere across Europe, Asia and North America.

        1. Flipping goal keeper anti missile cannon would've struggled against that beast.

    4. Sounds like an Asian hornet, they kill bees, rob their hives. Don't go anywhere near it (as if you would)………

  56. Well, our lovely big bathroom is now a real mess – like the site of a plane crash :-((. The builders have stripped most of it out, and it's in the garden waiting to be put back, or to be collected and thrown away. The guys, both Polish, rocked up at 07:56 for an 08:00 start this morning, and have just left at 17:00. So far, the only problem is that we have no common language, I don't speak fizzing, and they don't do English, Norwegian or German. Never thought to try Italian… but the work ethic is good!

      1. The boss is good in English. And invoicing… the guys seem to know what they are doing, and were on time. Small signals that give confidence!

  57. Explanation from Aftenposten in Norway for the blackout in Iberia a week or so ago:
    ChatGPT translates.

    **What actually happened?**
    It all started just before 12:33 local time on Monday, April 28. Red Eléctrica points out that the grid may have lost power from two solar power plants one after the other, with a 1.5-second interval.
    It is unusual for a power grid to experience multiple outages almost simultaneously. This imbalance then triggered an automatic disconnection of the power link between Spain and France. As a result, the power grid in Spain and Portugal became isolated from the rest of Europe and left to fend for itself.

    **A vulnerable system**
    At this point, more than two-thirds of the electricity was coming from solar and wind power in an isolated system. Spain was now dominated by unregulated production and lacked a stabilizing buffer against disturbances.
    The disconnection from France meant that Spain no longer had access to the grid stability the country is used to. This especially refers to the stability it receives through its connection to French nuclear power plants, which provide strong resilience against disturbances.
    The lack of this stability had dramatic consequences. The frequency dropped rapidly, and within just five seconds, more than 60 percent of Spain’s electricity production was lost.

    **The lesson**
    The rapid frequency change shows how important it is for the power system to have enough stability – in other words, a built-in buffer – that can dampen the effects of sudden outages. When this buffer is missing, the frequency drops too quickly for the system to cope, increasing the risk of large-scale power outages.
    Just a few days earlier, Spain had celebrated even higher shares of solar and wind power without any blackouts. This highlights the importance of an interconnected power system. Without contact with the rest of Europe, the country can no longer benefit from the stability it otherwise takes for granted.
    This power outage serves as a clear warning. If we continue as before, we risk more frequent and more severe blackouts in the future. For Europe’s green transition to succeed, energy security must play an even greater role than before.

    My comment: Instability in the system isn't helped by not having physical mass spinning, to give some inertia and help the rest of the net to restabilise. If it's only inverters and solar cells, then that's not good.

    1. This Iberian event suggests that the higher the proportion of solar and wind power, the greater the risk of outages. Common sense indicates that we will always need a back up of gas and/ or nuclear power generation.

      The day of 'cheap electricity solely from renewables' will never happen.

      1. If unreliables were, well, reliable, did not require subsidy, worked continually rather than being dependent on the weather, were not polluting, did not kill wildlife and were not hopelessly inefficient then they'd probably be acceptable.

        But then they'd also be an SMR nuclear plant.

        We could, and should be building thorium reactors all over the place. A dozen by the end of the decade but no. Not while Milioaf is in post. He's determined to destroy the country.

        1. Rolls Royce designed small nuclear reactors some years ago, never seemed to get off the drawing board.

          1. They have powered nuclear submarines for50 years.

            There has been no government support for domestic SNR development.

            A Marxist compunction to destroy British manufacturing industry.

          2. Sounds very much like it. Thanks, lacoste. I have a friend working in Germany, on hydrogen. Been there a while, not certain it’s anywhere near the future, yet.

      2. Instead it's the planned days of "teach those peasants not to take 24/7 electricity for granted" that will happen.

    2. I wonder if this is why Miliband recently started talking about installing flywheels? Has he only just had the stability issue explained by someone who knows about these things?

  59. Wordle No. 1,416 4/6

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

    Wordle 5 May 2025

    Pipe down Par Four

    1. Bogey today.

      Wordle 1,416 5/6

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

      1. I just kept making stupid guesses but it was that sort of word today!
        Wordle 1,416 4/6

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

    2. Not so noisy there

      Wordle 1,416 4/6

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

    3. Another word I wasnt sure of – vernacular? Only one that fitted…….

      Wordle 1,416 4/6

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

    5. Pleased with a birdie today.

      Wordle 1,416 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  61. Phew. I had visions of you having to dash to a shopping mall to find a loo….{:¬))

  63. Well, that's me gone for this cold, gale-ridden and inhospitable day – typical Bank holiday.

    I shall shortly have a glass of wine (or two) and watch this morning's parade. The fly-past was a bit of a disappointment – planes never really come across well on television. Rather more exciting was watching the assembly and circling patterns develop for the couple of hours prior to the event!!

    I shall be away tomorrow – a day of culchur – a guided tour of Euston Hall and Gardens – just the ticket when it will be cloudy, cold and a gale. Can't wait….but was made to wait!

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A mercredi….

      1. I recall it was always very cold in the cottage on Minchinhampton Common. It was always warner outside but yes it’s perishing today.

        1. There’s been a cold north east wind blowing the last couple of days – as we had much of the time earlier in the spring, but not last week when it was much warmer. Of course, we are quite high here and exposed on the north side.

        2. It brightened up eventually – I was even able to take one of my layers off. Glorious sunshine now and the wind doesn’t feel so cold.

      1. 👍. Or when your lad doesn’t listen to you….and doesn’t get his car fixed…

        We had to decide: let him stew, or help him.

        I’m glad we went to help. RAC started at three hours then pushed it out…so we got to him quicker. Husband limped the car back to his Cardiff house and I took him on to Swansea. He starts his internship tomorrow.

        Despite annoying us by not getting his exhaust fixed, (a) he did the right thing by pulling into the Services when his car lost power (rather than carrying on and potentially breaking down on the motorway) and (b) he did very well getting his internship, he still had exams and coursework to do and if your parents won’t support you when they can, what sort of message does that send?

        Well. I was wallowing in self-pity with my very sore left shoulder, which has been bad for weeks but made worse with the weekend’s cleaning, so it took my mind off the pain. Now my mind is very much back on the pain.

      2. 👍. Or when your lad doesn’t listen to you….and doesn’t get his car fixed…

        We had to decide: let him stew, or help him.

        I’m glad we went to help. RAC started at three hours then pushed it out…so we got to him quicker. Husband limped the car back to his Cardiff house and I took him on to Swansea. He starts his internship tomorrow.

        Despite annoying us by not getting his exhaust fixed, (a) he did the right thing by pulling into the Services when his car lost power (rather than carrying on and potentially breaking down on the motorway) and (b) he did very well getting his internship, he still had exams and coursework to do and if your parents won’t support you when they can, what sort of message does that send?

        Well. I was wallowing in self-pity with my very sore left shoulder, which has been bad for weeks but made worse with the weekend’s cleaning, so it took my mind off the pain. Now my mind is very much back on the pain.

  66. A visit to Exbury Gardens today, the first of the season.
    @aladynamedaudrey:disqus https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0a47b1fe3a1337755641eb3a8a39fcfb1c47685be85519320bb72e5ea2b1a051.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/756bea18be3721378cc7dbd243e7e8d42d6384e5444381946439bd336f7663bf.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1326d34b23abc0829cc801eb395555104919ab885bacff4e01bd9affe78a9ec6.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fab8381184368c46a38e496e54ef0dfe449454b3763ff943db8b11b0580dd930.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9d2bb5bc0a3eb12e2827518e08881f950b1f66cef8a77aea1005c8a6522769c4.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/94dd1f04a2646913eb690f0727a87e4c06f48dc3daf1a5d9eccadceefbe3e88f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c682d5f15ad699d5f5e6f1059015ac2ffb1a4fad1b6d67827f7cbf908737275.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff41de115653a5741fc9a96599cbc8aa0fa7e2ca54e4bdec897ee3dbe16c97bf.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/74325c3c2ab97c9db0fe3aa1ce68b8ec9955326edc78038cfe12e80ef9951a52.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/93f85af03541e3e5d40e9265beac53264897b5b2040a4c80101161127311f514.jpg

        1. Like Isabella Plantation in Richmond Park -where I was last week as my bike was being stolen….

    3. How enchantingly beautiful GQ, magnificent colours .

      1. Well worth a visit this time of year Audrey. The photos don’t do the colours any justice.
        August is good as well for the hydrangeas.

        1. I shall do so later in the summer GQ, it looks amazing.

    4. Hope you don't mind but I've saved a couple of those photos with a view to maybe painting them later

  67. A visit to Exbury Gardens today, the first of the season.
    @aladynamedaudrey:disqus https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0a47b1fe3a1337755641eb3a8a39fcfb1c47685be85519320bb72e5ea2b1a051.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/756bea18be3721378cc7dbd243e7e8d42d6384e5444381946439bd336f7663bf.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1326d34b23abc0829cc801eb395555104919ab885bacff4e01bd9affe78a9ec6.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fab8381184368c46a38e496e54ef0dfe449454b3763ff943db8b11b0580dd930.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9d2bb5bc0a3eb12e2827518e08881f950b1f66cef8a77aea1005c8a6522769c4.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/94dd1f04a2646913eb690f0727a87e4c06f48dc3daf1a5d9eccadceefbe3e88f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c682d5f15ad699d5f5e6f1059015ac2ffb1a4fad1b6d67827f7cbf908737275.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff41de115653a5741fc9a96599cbc8aa0fa7e2ca54e4bdec897ee3dbe16c97bf.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/74325c3c2ab97c9db0fe3aa1ce68b8ec9955326edc78038cfe12e80ef9951a52.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/93f85af03541e3e5d40e9265beac53264897b5b2040a4c80101161127311f514.jpg

    1. To get the sting looked at? If it’s become infected, you really need to.

      1. She said 'it's not reduced at all and is red. Which was nice to hear.

        It's also hard, as if fluid is squashed in it – which is, I assume; where the discomfort comes from.

        1. Does it look like 'bullseye' …a red ring around solid white middle…I had that with tick bite…antibiotics get you sorted x

      1. Brings a certain peace (and a tear to the eye) to a tired and busy soul.

        1. Funnily enough, our music teacher had us singing it in English but when it came to the title, "All through the night" was sung as "Ar Hyd y Nos".

      2. Yo Mr Grizz

        I used to get 'sent off' for singing at school, parties, Rugby matches, in fact every where.

        It is not my fault everyone else is out of tune

    3. Just back from our 7 hour pun planned trip to Swansea via the Cardiff service station….

  70. From Coffee House the Spectator

    03 May 2025
    Coffee House
    Theo HobsonTheo Hobson
    Are Protestants free to criticise Catholicism?
    4 May 2025, 6:42am

    The death of a Pope is a time for assorted reflections on the Catholic Church. Protestants can be wary of speaking up. Even the word ‘Protestant’ is not a very familiar one these days. Sure, most of us know that the Church of England is Protestant, and that Luther was Protestant and that the Reformation was the birth of the Protestant movement. But the Church of England doesn’t draw attention to its Protestant identity. There’s a vague sense that to do so would be bigoted. For doesn’t Protestant mean anti-Catholic?

    The last proud Protestant was Ian Paisley – and even he softened in old age. It is now widely felt to be embarrassing that the British constitution has an anti-Catholic aspect (the monarch is still not allowed to be a Catholic, though the ban on marrying a Catholic has recently been lifted).

    Protestantism still has much to learn from Catholicism

    So the old sectarianism is dead and gone, to the relief of all, and mutual respect reigns supreme. But not quite. It seems to me that the playing field is not very level. If a Protestant suggests that Catholicism is rigid and reactionary, that is seen as the bad old bigotry, but if a Catholic denigrates Protestantism – as weak, wet, muddled, spinelessly in thrall to secular trends – no one blinks.

    Traditionally there were two main grounds for opposing Catholicism. It was seen as linked to tyranny. And it was seen as clouding the Christian message with made-up rules and rituals. Of course, these criticisms were often crudely expressed, and accompanied by terrible bigotry. But I suggest that neither of them has become entirely redundant.

    Modern British politics was born kicking against Catholicism. By the late seventeenth century, ‘liberty’ was central to national identity, and it was decidedly a Protestant rather than a Catholic thing. Why? Because the Catholic Church opposed freedom of religion and favoured ‘absolute’ monarchy. Admittedly, most Protestants were not very good liberals either, but the aspiration was there. But the Protestant state didn’t allow religious freedom for Catholics! True, but Catholicism was viewed in much the same way as communism or Islamic extremism: a total ideology that had to be banned, if frail liberty was to have a chance. There was a huge political difference between Catholic and Protestant: only one favoured political liberty.

    The reader probably assumes that this difference had faded away by the early twentieth century. No: for most of the century the Church was in cahoots with extremely right-wing regimes; only in the 1960s did it officially agree that religious liberty was a good thing. And of course its affirmation of liberal values has remained incomplete. You could say that it still associates Christianity with nostalgia for a pre-liberal order, in which the Church has cultural supremacy. Protestants (or rather the majority of them) are more affirming of the liberal state, and the principle of secularism. They should feel free to say so, even if it means sounding critical of other Christian traditions (by the way Orthodoxy is also wide open to such criticism, as its Russian version shows).

    Many readers will be shaking their heads sadly: what a shame that I want to reheat a dated polemic. Let’s move on, and assume that these days all forms of Christianity sincerely seek the best political outcomes. But why should Protestants be pressured into shutting up? The fact is that most Protestants see Christianity as firmly in tune with modern political ideals, and this puts clear water between them and Catholics. This is fundamental to their identity: why shouldn’t they too take pride in their identity?

    The other grounds for opposing Catholicism is that it clouds the Christian message with rules and rituals. This is, of course, the original message of Protestantism. Luther’s first target was the web of rules around penance that the Church had developed; this became an indictment of a whole religious culture.

    In this case, political correctness is even stronger, for Protestants are liable to offend Muslims and Jews as well as Catholics when they focus on the question of religious rules. Among monotheists, Protestants are uniquely averse to religious rules. They reject the idea that certain moral rules express God’s will; they say that the gospel frees us from this ‘legalistic’ approach. So Protestants naturally resist a hard line on abortion, divorce and homosexuality. Again, this is central to their identity, they should take pride in it.

    My comments might seem to jar with Pope Francis’ reputation as a lovely liberal grandpa type. Hmmm. I’m a bit wary of that reputation. It seems to me that the Catholic Church has been doing an odd variant of ‘nice cop, nasty cop’: nice pope, nasty rules. I’d rather that the Church began to reform its rules, than confusing critics with an open-minded front-man.

    It is good, at least, that Protestants and Catholics have become wary of offending each other. But we should be allowed to criticise each other’s religions. And in a funny way, a more liberal form of religion has it hands tied these days. For it is assumed that one cannot be authentic and serious without being distinctive and counter-cultural. And Protestant identity overlaps with the mainstream liberal culture, making it rather invisible.

    As you might expect of an Anglican, my position contains ambivalence. I admire much about Catholicism, especially its confident affirmation of ritual. But ‘ritual’ is too small a word. I mean its deep knowledge that religion is as big as culture, not an odd compartment of it. For most of its history, Protestantism got too close to a bloodless rationalism and lost sight of the dramatic otherness, or weirdness, of religion. In fact, I was first struck by this when Pope John Paul II died in 2005, and huge crowds, from all corners of the globe, converged on Rome in a festive spirit despite their grief. Watching the coverage, I had a twinge of faith envy: this form of religion was not abstract and muddled and weak, as Anglicanism often feels. It was a world-sized show, a purposeful pageant, colourful, alive.

    So, to attempt a conciliatory conclusion, Protestantism still has much to learn from Catholicism. But it should not be ashamed of its stating its core difference, though of course it will sound like the carping younger brother.

    Theo Hobson
    Written by
    Theo Hobson
    Theo Hobson is the author of seven books, including God Created Humanism: the Christian Basis of Secular Values

    1. Hang on Martin Luther was not a "Protestant", the name came along after his words and deeds. It's like saying Jesus Christ was a Christian.

      1. Henry VIII didn’t change his mode of worship. He rejected papal authority and had an almost socialist envy and resentment of the wealth and perceived power of the religious houses but he wasn’t a Protestant.

    2. Are Protestants free to criticise Catholicism? They are unlikely to get their heads cut off if they do so, unlike criticism of another religion.

      1. There was a time this was not the case. Which is how we arrived at the notion of "tolerance". Not setting about your neighbours with anything to hand, like what happened on the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre. The mad-Left have manipulated that word into having to accept any old sh*te they care to shovel down our throats as opposed to peaceful disagreement.

        1. Freedom of religion was not an option before and during the Reformation. Any dissent from the prevailing religion, be it Protestant or Catholic, would be met with swift and brutal consequences. Fortunately attitudes changed over the ensuing centuries and we now live in an era where religious freedom (and freedom from religion) is taken for granted in the Western world. This freedom is likely to be tested over the next few decades with the growing influence of Islam, when differences between separate Christian denominations will be seen with hindsight to be little more than petty squabbles.

          1. My thought for the night. Luckily, the Islamic religion is also rife with schisms. Not enough yet, but we need to exacerbate these schisms so that their violent tendencies are focused inwardly.

    3. I'm a 'middle of the road' Anglican. But I've also been an organist in the CoE for 54 years. My current employment comtract emds on 30 September. Certain parishioners think yjey can get by with volunteers…

      I've ordered popcorn…

      1. I picture you, eating your popcorn, Geoff….enjoying the show (not wincing at all at some of the notes)….hope you're doing OK, good to see a post from you x

    4. Hobson bangs on as though what Martin Luther set in action is one coherent thing. It isn't. It's very much the opposite.

    5. A lot of mudling the C of E and Protestantism. The C Of E was merely Henry's version of the RC church with him in charge, not the Pope, as against a "seeing of the light". Grabbing all the church's wealth was the nearest he came to a vision. Catholic ritual stayed in place for a long time, and some of it is still with us, e.g. the Apostles' Creed, with its reference to the holy Catholici Church – that bit always confused me when I was a youngster. We used to have to attend a CofE church chosen by the headmaster for various school services. It was "high church", which in the day was basically distinguished from an RC service by being in English, not Latin, but still with incense and candles.

      Lutheran style protestantism is not like that.

      1. At St Barts Smithfield we’re Anglican but the Gloria, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei are sung in Latin by the choir at Mass. Likewise the Benediction and Salve Regina after Evensong.

    2. Except: you really shouldn’t if you live in the UK as the risk of skin cancer os lower than the risk of other life-shortening diseases caused by lack of sunlight on your skin.

    3. Some truisms there.
      The government will blocking the sun out. ☻️

  75. Well, chums, it's Elsie's bedtime. So I wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well and I hope to see you all tomorrow morning.

  76. Morning all 🙂😊
    I ran out of battery last night.
    But amazingly slept for over 9 hours.
    A nice cuppa on the way.
    Slayders.

    1. It had many roles Grizz, maritime reconnaissance, electronic surveyance, patrolling, based at Lossiemouth

      1. I suppose its only drawback was the airframe was a converted De Havilland Comet (that of metal-fatigued window cracks).

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