Monday 6 February: It’s a pity that Liz Truss implemented her good ideas so incompetently

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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579 thoughts on “Monday 6 February: It’s a pity that Liz Truss implemented her good ideas so incompetently”

    1. 370802+ up ticks.

      Morning EB,

      What a magnificent sight to behold, you at full gallop coming up the inside.

  6. It’s a pity that Liz Truss implemented her good ideas so incompetently

    Were any actually implemented?

    2. She would not follow WEF policy thats why she had to go. They want big state and small people.

    3. She unfortunately didn’t have the communication skills of Boris so couldn’t take the people with her, and so the “powers that be” were able to wreck her plans before she got the chance to implement them.

      1. Morning Elsie. I don’t doubt that it was the Globalists that did for her! The pressure from the markets was certainly rigged!

    5. Britain being successful economically is against the WEF’s agenda and so even if Truss had only an outside chance of achieving success she had to be stopped straight away.

  7. More than 100 bodies found after powerful earthquake devastates Turkey and Syria. 6 February 2023.

    At least 100 people are confirmed dead after a massive earthquake rocked southeast Turkey and northern Syria – but it is feared many more victims will be discovered as morning brings the true toll of the disaster to light.

    Hmm. Early days yet. Earthquakes here usually have large death tolls!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/06/turkey-rocked-major-earthquake/

    2. 370802 + up ticks,

      Morning AS,

      Lets not forget our priorities, how about the importance of wearing a mask and standing 6′
      away from another in England.

    3. Gawd help us all

      More Turkish barbers and taxi drivers will be queueing for a place on the rubber boats, and finding their way into rural areas like ours .

  8. Good morning all.
    Still getting light, but it’s dry and a rather chilly -5°C when I went out for the milk.

    1. Good morning, BoB. Here is a tip to keep you warm every morning. Keep the cow indoors overnight on cold mornings instead of up the hill. Lol.

  9. Early par 4

    Wordle 597 4/6

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

    1. Me too.

      Wordle 597 4/6

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

      1. Well it was a beautiful ballon until it was shot down by a passing jet and we ended up in the drink! ☹️

  12. Ukraine’s defence minister to be moved from post, says Zelenskiy ally. 6 February 2023.

    Ukraine’s defence minister, under pressure from a corruption scandal, is to be reshuffled into another government job as Russian forces close in on Bakhmut amid heavy fighting, a close ally of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has announced.

    The position of Oleksii Reznikov, one of Ukraine’s better-known figures internationally, has been under threat after it emerged the defence ministry paid twice or three times the supermarket price of food to supply troops on the frontline.

    The Defence Minister is on the take while the country is at war! That has to do wonders for morale at the front! It doesn’t say so here but several others who have been purged from the Government are Ethnic Russians. There’s no word of this in the MSM but my suspicion is that there is a vast schism in Ukraine between the native Ukies and Russians. The stories about Ukraine United is bunk! Are the Russkies resisting the draft? Just how enthusiastic are the Ukies for this war? One would like to know all sorts of things but the chances of reading about them in the MSM are essentially nil! I have a suspicion, and it is no more, that the Ukie army will collapse from its internal divisions when their losses pass a certain threshold!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/05/talk-of-resignation-and-retreat-swirls-in-ukraine-as-bakhmut-enters-endgame

    1. But, but, but… How can the Skies possibly lose, Minty? After all, they won the Eurovision Song Contest last year, didn’t they? And Russia came nowhere, in fact I think they weren’t even allowed to compete.

      PS – I typed Ukies but Spellchecker changed it to Skies. Aaarghh!

  15. Morning All.

    In stark contrast to HughJ’s tale of Korean war gallantry, from RT:

    Corruption scandal in Ukraine’s ‘International Legion:’ Why an Australian TV star is accused of stealing millions
    The organization’s celebrity ‘conwoman’ has come under investigation for fraud Emese Fajk.

    Few Russians or Ukrainians will likely have heard of ‘The Block’. It’s an Australian reality show in which couples compete against each other
    to renovate homes and sell them at auction for the highest possible price. This may have provided the perfect cover for Emese Fajk, a participant who fled the land Down Under after she attempted to buy a renovated property at great expense using fake bank slips, to join Kiev’s International Legion as its official spokesperson.

    Fajk was first publicly linked to the group in July 2022.
    To the extent the mainstream media has acknowledged its spokesperson’s criminal past before, it is in the context of her work for the armed forces offering her a chance at “redemption.” That opportunity, if it ever existed in the first place, seems well and truly spent, given that she – known in Kiev under the callsign ‘Mockingjay’ – is now being investigated for fraud by authorities in the East European city.

    The essence of the accusations
    Fajk is accused by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) of stealing millions of dollars worth of medical supplies intended for Ukrainian soldiers, and Legion funds, which she denies. She was reportedly involved in the disappearance of a “massive” $2.5 million US shipment of medical supplies, and siphoning international donations intended for Kiev’s war effort.

    The medical supplies – which included painkillers, such as the deadly opioid fentanyl – arrived in late October, but never made it to the frontline. “Considerable efforts” to locate the missing shipment were conducted, to no avail. Fajk claimed to know nothing of the shipment’s existence in the first place, but testimony by the individuals who delivered it places her at the scene where it arrived.

    The lack of supplies meant countless injured Ukrainian soldiers on the frontlines were left in agony for hours or even days while awaiting help. The SBU’s report on the incident notes that when further questions were asked of Fajk, and it became obvious to her she was under suspicion, some of the supplies miraculously turned up at long last.

    The same cannot be said for the “large amounts” of money donated to the Legion, which were “confiscated by Mockingjay and sent to places unknown.”
    Since Fajk joined in April 2022, the group has relied on two fundraising organizations, both set up and solely controlled by her, including the Civil Front, which is based in Norway.

    The SBU has documented how many legionnaires complained of a lack of transparency regarding these entities. Fajk is also said to have been caught on a secret recording admitting she “routinely utilized the funds in this account for personal profit.”

    While Western journalists failed to ask serious questions about whether she could be trusted in her role, both public and private donors overseas were apparently extremely wary of her presence, and failed to provide pledged funds, in the millions, due to fears she would embezzle the money, and a general perception that the Legion was “plagued by corruption, incompetence and abuse,” which had “a chilling effect on fundraising, logistical support and recruitment.”

    By the time she was placed under official investigation for fraud, Fajk had already been internally judged to be a security threat. She responded by threatening to release damaging information about the Legion, or expel legionnaires from the Armed Forces, “unless they did her bidding” and/or remained silent about their concerns over her leadership.

    “In every aspect of her job she has proven to be an abject failure. She does not have the confidence of the rank and file of the soldiers, local or international press or even those who work directly with her,” an SBU report obtained by the London’s Daily Mail reveals. “It is a nearly unanimously held belief within the legion that she is a cancer on the organization that must be excised lest she destroy the entire body of the organization itself.”

    This assessment was sent to the US Embassy in Kiev, which subsequently refused to have anything to do with Fajk, and asked for a different liaison with the Legion.

    Symptom of a major disease

    The Mail’s disclosures mark an exceedingly rare example of a Western news outlet acknowledging rampant corruption and criminality at all levels in Ukraine’s International Legion. Set up by President Vladimir Zelensky days after the Russian offensive began, it received so many applications from foreign volunteers that recruitment had to be paused in April, mere days after Fajk herself joined.

    Many of those enlisting were young, impressionable males taken in by media tales of Ukrainian heroism, who had little or no experience in the military, let alone of direct combat, and a growing number have paid for that decision with their lives. Those who survive frequently leave within mere days or weeks, as they are sent straight to the frontline to serve as cannon fodder, facing a
    relentless, and highly deadly, Russian artillery onslaught.

    As RT has previously documented in detail, several foreign fighters from English-speaking countries have testified publicly to how poorly trained, undisciplined new recruits and veteran mercenaries alike buckle under the hopeless realities of the conflict, a situation greatly exacerbated by a lack of supplies, air support, artillery cover, or extraction teams.

    These are frequent features of interviews with Legion veterans, but they most commonly report unbridled corruption and theft. For example, a
    former legionnaire who joined from the US Marines has spoken of a thriving black market for Western weapons, such as anti-tank
    missiles, which are stolen in a highly professionalized, systematic manner. Upon reaching the frontline, an unmarked van would subsequently
    arrive to ferry the arsenal away to places unknown.

    Another former Legion fighter claims NATO anti-aircraft guns constantly disappeared from his unit’s armory within days, but despite the disappearances being reported to the SBU, no action was taken, and Legion commanders implicated in the crime weren’t punished. Meanwhile, anyone raising the alarm internally was threatened with being sent on suicide missions if they didn’t keep their mouths shut.

    To date, all this bombshell testimony has been universally ignored by the Western media. Fajk’s story is the rare case that is not only reported on by a major news outlet, but also provided with extensive details. It is possible that the celebrity status of the
    suspect had an influence on the coverage of the conflict – as well as her previous criminal activity.

    It is difficult to draw conclusions in this context, but with the proxy war’s Western donors increasingly questioning the wisdom of sending so much unaccountable money and materiel to Kiev, someone needed to be thrown under the bus

    1. The Mail’s disclosures mark an exceedingly rare example of a Western news outlet acknowledging rampant corruption and criminality at all levels in Ukraine’s International Legion.

      Mornin LiM. This just feeds into my suspicions (and earlier post) About Ukraine and its leaders. They are as corrupt as the old South Vietnam!

      1. Hello Minty. Prior to hostilities CNN reported that Ukraine was the most corrupt entity in the world. Now, of course, they report on the plucky Ukes.

    1. Reading this thread it seems to me that Chellee does not work in Britain for the NHS – she works in a hospital in the US.

  18. Good moaning all,

    Frosty but clear start at McPhee Towers following a braw bricht moonlicht nicht. -1℃. Another sunny day in prospect.

    Following on from the posts yesterday about Neil Oliver’s monologue on Saturday and his talk with William Keyte about the Common Law Constitution and the rôle of the jury, here’s David Starkey on the History of the Coronation Oath. You’ll hear that the oath has been amended a number of times down the ages but essentially it remains a contract between the Monarch and the People. I think we need to pay attention to this.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iDOq0lSDXc

  19. Good moaning all,

    Frosty but clear start at McPhee Towers following a braw bricht moonlicht nicht. -1℃. Another sunny day in prospect.

    Following on from the posts yesterday about Neil Oliver’s monologue on Saturday and his talk with William Keyte about the Common Law Constitution and the rôle of the jury, here’s David Starkey on the History of the Coronation Oath. You’ll hear that the oath has been amended a number of times down the ages but essentially it remains a contract between the Monarch and the People. I think we need to pay attention to this.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iDOq0lSDXc

  20. Kate tells primary school pupils to ‘talk about your feelings’ for Children’s Mental Health Week. 6 February 2023.

    Princess Kate has urged a group of youngsters to “keep talking about your feelings” when she marked the start of Children’s Mental Health Week by joining them for a craft lesson.

    The Princess of Wales made paper chains with pupils from a primary school in London’s East End and chatted with them about how they cope with their feelings in a video released as the awareness week began.

    If children do have mental health issues it’s due to initiatives like this! People called Mothers used to take care of this before they were displaced by the State!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/royal-family/princess-of-wales-kate-mental-health-week-b2276385.html

    1. ‘Morning, Minty. Yes, the more our ‘mentaw elf’ is talked about, the more snowflakery is to be expected.

    2. Yo Minty

      If children do have mental health issues its due to initiatives like this! People called Mothers are fast disappering

      Go to any (High Street) card shop and you will find Cards to Dad and Dad & Mum and Mum

      I know of ‘marrted female couple’, who each have an IVF child, via the same sperm donor:

      how will those half siblings grow up, or is that the New Norm, as our whole way of life is turned on its’ head
      The siblings have not a hope in Hell (a town in Norwya) of appearing in TV adverts/shows, so that will be another pronlem for them to face

  21. Good morning, all. Bright and dry in N Essex this morning.

    ‘Sustainability’, whatever that means in this context, has reached my home town – now a faux city.
    The soundtrack isn’t that good but I’m sure the gentleman speaking asked a question re whom the council works for, the UN or the people. I would add the WEF to that other poisonous NGO.

    https://twitter.com/nbreavington/status/1622278361145032706

    1. I had an email from Roger Buston. He is already kicking up a stink; in my reply I drew his attention to the 15 minute con.

    2. Has Colchester said it wants to start this 15 minute nonsense?

      As for ‘who do you work for’ what a stupid, left wing comment. They’re all statist wasters in the trough. They don’t work at all.

  22. ‘Morning, Peeps. Dry and sunny here, although 8°C is the best we can expect today. Good enough, though, for the pup’s first visit to the beach, her predecessor’s favourite place.

    Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – Liz Truss, who claims to have been “brought down by the Left-wing economic establishment”, was the first prime minister in decades to hold genuinely Conservative views.

    The problem was that she proved to be absolutely terrible at communicating those views, and equally bad at implementing them – which leaves us where we are today. Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, is seen as a safe pair of hands by the mandarins, who know he doesn’t have any original ideas and will simply agree with them. Britain’s current economic policy could have been devised by Gordon Brown on a bad day.

    Continuing down this path will lead to the end of this Government, and perhaps even the end of the Conservative Party.

    Charles Penfold
    Ulverston, Cumbria

    I think the prospect of losing the next election is very real, despite the promised fall in inflation. Ideally the replacement of the party with something that is truly Conservative may follow but I’m not holding my breath.

      1. Thanks Sue, we will do our best! She’s too young for sea swimming (nearly 5 months) but in time we hope she will be as good as our others have been.

  23. SIR – Even if the Government and Bank of England do nothing, inflation is likely to go on falling this year, so there would be no harm in next month’s Budget promising a cut in personal and business tax rates from April 6 2024. It would give us cause for optimism, boost confidence and serve as a much-needed Conservative response to our present gloom.

    Donald R Clarke
    Tunbridge Wells, Kent

    Yes, inflation may well fall (despite the government’s efforts) but just because it starts to drop out of the figures doesn’t mean that it has disappeared. Once it’s in the system all those rises are still there! And it’s a great way of the government inflating away debt, too.

  25. SIR – Once again the virtues of wood-burning stoves are being extolled.

    The suggestion is that everything will be fine as long as the wood is dried and a suitable stove is used, ignoring the fact that wood contains carbon. No amount of drying will remove its content, which presents itself as CO2 in the flue gases after combustion. In fact, for the same heat output as coal, burning wood results in more CO2 being released into the atmosphere.

    So by all means enjoy your wood-burner, but don’t pretend that it is eco-friendly.

    Jack Haddon
    Burgess Hill, West Sussex

    For as long as they are permitted.
    Our ‘ban everything’ government hasn’t finished yet!

      1. Well, coal can, it just takes ‘a few decades’. Growing trees for fuel just doesn’t make sense.

    3. Good morning Hugh J

      I expect many people will remember charcoal burning in broad leaf woodlands …Small copses and woodmen magically producing charcoal, I can just remember the lovely woody smell of slow burning and also men coppicing clumps of hazel and ash for hurdles and fencing .

      Landowners don’t appear to care for their woods any longer , and now that many rural shoots have declined in number , once lovely managed woods with carpets of bluebells and wood anemone are now overgrown with bramble and spindly nothingness.

      They never talk about that on Countryfile , do they?

      2. ‘Morning, Belle. There is still some charcoal burning in Sussex, but for pity’s sake don’t tell anyone…

        As for Countryfile, I long ago gave up on the greenie version of Blue Peter.

      3. I remember the account of the Two Billies – the charcoal burners – in Swallows and Amazons and Young Billie showing the Walker children the adder.

      4. Nobody has the skill any more, and even if they did, nobody will pay for it – especially when you can shred the plants using a tractor mounted flail.

      5. As it’s A A Milne, this poem is inevitably a bit twee.

        “The Charcoal Burner

        The Charcoal Burner has tales to tell.

        He lives in the forest,

        alone in the forest;

        he sits in the forest,

        alone in the forest.

        And the sun comes slanting between

        the trees,

        and rabbits come up, and they give him

        good morning,

        and rabbits come up and say, ‘beautiful

        morning’…

        And the moon swings clear of the tall black trees

        and owls fly over and wish him goodnight,

        quietly over to wish him goodnight…

        And he sits and thinks of the things they

        know,

        he and the forest, alone together —

        the springs that come and the summers

        that go,

        autumn dew on bracken and heather,

        the drip of the forest beneath the snow…

        All the things they have seen,

        all the things they have heard:

        an April sky swept clean and the song of

        a bird…

        Oh, the Charcoal Burner has tales to tell!

        and he lives in the forest and knows us

        well.

    4. I would have thought it came under the heading “renewable energy” as you can grow replacement trees. CO2 is plant food as well to make the trees grow faster.

  27. SIR – When I ran the RAF Officer and Aircrew Selection Centre from 2002 to 2004, the two full days of medical, aptitude and leadership testing were as objective as possible (Letters, February 4), the sole aim being to maximise military effectiveness by identifying those most likely to succeed.

    The manpower planning also made the process brutal. It didn’t matter how gifted you were, or how much clout your parents had. If the training requirement for that financial year was 10 pilots or administrators, and you came 11th in the selection process, you missed the cut.

    Even then, there were targets to encourage an increase in the representation of women and ethnic minorities, but to let this skew selection or entry into training would have negated the point of the centre.

    Gp Capt R J A Powell (retd)
    Barry Island, Glamorgan

    Those were the good old days, Gp Capt Powell! If more BAMEs than usual make it into the selection procedure initially…

    1. SIR – I read with sadness Allison Pearson’s criticism of the RAF diversity drive.

      It is well established that a person of colour, and specifically a black person, is less likely to do well at school, less likely to go to university, less likely to get a higher-paying job and more likely to be incarcerated. These are shocking statistics in any day and age.

      How do we try to readdress the balance? Well, partly, in my view, through measures such as positive discrimination. Yes, it’s uncomfortable – and, yes, it means that some will miss out. However, it is a way to overcome systemic inequality of opportunity.

      So instead of recoiling in horror at the thought of positive discrimination, let us stop and ask some deeper questions, including: what kind of society do we want to be? I know I want to be part of one that has the capacity to see the bigger picture and is able to approach societal challenges with an open mind.

      Penelope Walker
      Lower Somersham, Suffolk

      Never mind all that malarkey, Ms Walker, when it comes to defending the country only the best available will do. Let other occupations live with your ‘positive discrimination’ if they must, but we all know where that leads!

          2. Well, the ones in nearby Ipswich probably have time on their hands.
            When they’re not murdering each other, that is.

          1. Tell her they are building a very large asylum centre on the outskirts of her village, only taking 18-30 year old black males and see how enthusiastic she would be.

          2. They are actually surrounding a lot of villages in the area with so-called ‘Solar Farms’.

        4. And has little or no idea, it seems, about what it takes to be a fast jet pilot – they really do need the very best!

          1. What! If I can find my driving glasses, I can exceed the local speed limit.
            Surely the RAF wouldn’t discriminate against a pensioner who is keen to do her bit for King and Country.

      2. And why is that Penelope? Is it because they don’t have fathers? That they’re likely to be utterly welfare dependent? That they are brought up by mothers who don’t speak English as a first language?

        How about, instead of pouring money into these kids innstead of pretending they should be pandered to, how about we cut welfare, stop rewarding failure and demand better of these boys?

        Then, left to their own effort – as the other boys are – we can see if the problem is endemic in that environment and culture rather than ‘waycism’.

      5. Lower Somersham is an absolute hot bed of diversity. So she is speaking from experie …….

      6. She’s got it wrong, it’s not equality of opportunity she wants, it’s equality of outcome . The opportunity is there for all from the start.

      7. I hope Penny experiences the societal changes that islam will bring with an open mind. She might find it educational (except for Boko haram).

      8. So, Ms Walker, how come “people of colour” of south and east Asian origin do so much better in our education system?

    2. The BTL posters are not impressed:

      Anastasias Revenge
      7 HRS AGO
      Dear Penelope Walker – and I want a society that is functionally democratic, whereby the majority are recognised and respected and not derided as “stale, pale & male” (and female). Where I can know that the person dealing with my concern is the best possible person for the job, fully competent regardless of anything else and definitely not some hasn’t-got-a-clue token minority, whose ineptitude might put my life at risk.
      BTW before there were many “persons of colour” there were other people in the same societal position, white people, who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, with no government help and there is no reason why the present bottom strata could not do likewise.

      Piggy Malone
      7 HRS AGO
      “It is well established that a person of colour, and specifically a black person, is less likely to do well at school, less likely to go to university, less likely to get a higher-paying job and more likely to be incarcerated. These are shocking statistics in any day and age.”
      They are shocking facts (no statistics were cited) but instead of levelling down by disadvantaging the offspring of parents who have made the effort to bring up their children properly, the home environments of those black people who are underachieving need to be examined. A fact not quoted is the disproportionate number of black children being raised in single parent families, usually by a mother with no input by the absent father. This child rearing model disadvantages black boys in particular who could benefit from a strong male role model in the home to keep them focussed on education and prevent them falling into bad company. Black underachievement at school and black on black violence are problems to be resolved within the black community, as their origins are to be found there. Not all disadvantage experienced by black people is the result of systemic racism.

      Party Pauper
      2 HRS AGO
      Here’s my post from the other day on positive discrimination. Now seriously, Penelope Walker, read this and Professer Matthew Godwin’s article in the Daily Mail (link in my comment below) on white working class boys and then just do one you woeful idiot!
      “Everybody is a loser with positive discrimination. The employer loses somebody better able to carry out the required duties; those not in the target group lose out on job opportunities; the successful candidate will probably be in over his/her head and suffer stress as a result or feel patronised because they didn’t get the job on merit; and society loses out because it fosters resentment and stokes prejudice, and if the job is in the public sector, they end up paying for a sub optimal employee.
      Enough already. Always give the job to the best candidate regardless of skin colour, race, sex, religion, disability, or anything else.”

      1. Irrespective of colour etc we seem to have now settled for a much lower standard of common denominator.
        There are 650 of them under one roof for starters.

      2. From my experience in the US, the black boys, occasionally girls, are mocked and bullied by other black kids if they work hard at school and get good grades. They are accused of trying to be white.
        When I was in CT an experiment was begun to bus some black children from Hartford to schools in other towns. Two were sent to our school and it was a dismal failure. There was no problem with the children in the school but the two boys sent to us didn’t want to be there and made it clear. They were never rude or badly behaved but they made no attempt to be friendly or to take part.
        The experiment was soon stopped as other schools had experienced similar results, or lack thereof.
        And we had black and Asian children already in the school so it wasn’t as though these two guys were the only ones.

        1. Same where i lived. White working class. If you wanted to do better people thought you were a class traitor.

          1. You should have heard my dad’s sister in law when she found out I was going to university. Too big for my boots and should get a proper job- i.e.- a typist or summat. Nothing wrong with that at all but I had other plans and achieved them.
            I think many people feel threatened by those who have goals beyond the so called accepted norm.

          4. Rita:
            Have they sacked you?

            Dr. Frank Bryant:
            I made rather a night of it last night so they’re giving me a holiday. Two years in Australia.

            Rita:
            Did you bugger the Bursar?

            Dr. Frank Bryant:
            Metaphorically.

          5. With the lack of ambition from so many of them, the Working Classes have long been their own worst enemy.

          6. When i left school i wanted to go to catering college. My mother insisted i go work in a factory. She wanted rent.

          7. Same thing with my mother. She was offered a scholarship to train as a Domestic Science teacher but was taken out of school and put into service with a couple near Ponteland.

          11. My mother threw away all my stuff. Well, I say all. Everything that she couldn’t sell. It was interesting some years later seeing my record collection residing with my older brother and my books on the book shelf of my other brother. Including books that had been bought as gifts to me and signed with birthday wishes.

          12. I have to say that my grammar school expected even those of us who came from working backgrounds to achieve and be ambitious.

          13. One of my brothers recalled our father trying to beat me with his leather belt in an effort to force me to leave school and get a job instead of wasting my time on education. I guess that I was fifteen at the time.

            I was allowed to complete the O level course and luckily he had walked out on the family before A levels became an option.

          14. Working class inverted snobbery. I hate it. I am from what is called a working class background but I refuse to identify as belonging to any social class. I only dared say “At my grammar school…”and the sneering begins. I went to an all boys’ Catholic grammar where at least two thirds of boys had Irish parents, including a few life-long friends. These parents did not appear to have those British working class hang-ups and were proud that some of their sons went on to University and became professionals.

    4. I was part of that, coming 12th. 1 to 10 got the RAF University scholarship, 11 and higher didn’t. 410 home from Biggin Hill at the end of the week knowing one wasn’t in the medals… again. bugger! Story of my life, really.

      1. I tried the RN way, for Dartmouth

        A lad from a working class family, Comprehensive School(ed)m, Midllands accent, no dress sense, up against a cartel form Gordonstoun and its’ ilk
        This was 1960

      2. I tried the RN way, for Dartmouth

        A lad from a working class family, Comprehensive School9ed)m, Midllands accent, no dress sense, up against a cartel form Gordonstoun and its’ ilk
        This was 1960

      3. I did it the other way round. They offered me a cadetship at Cranwell – I wanted one in the Engineering Branch so I turned it down.
        Many years later they offered me a commission in the Engineering Branch – too effin late – turned it down

  28. Over in the Gatesograph letters, Penelope Walker of London SW20 is dismayed at Alison Pearson’s criticism of the RAF’s diversity drive. She goes on to ask:

    “So instead of recoiling in horror at the thought of positive discrimination, let us stop and ask some deeper questions, including: what kind of society do we want to be?”

    I’ll answer that for her. A traditional Anglo-Celtic one.

    1. One where the best person for the job gets he job, without any kind of preference and no consideration of secondary characteristics such as genital configuration or skin colour.

    2. Discrimination is in equilibrium. If you’re positively discriminating in favour of one person or group then you are negatively discriminating against other people or groups. If Penelope Walker supports positive discrimination then she must also support negative discrimination. I wonder if she would accept that?

  30. Headline in the DT:

    “Markets latest: National Grid fires up coal power stations as wind power drops – live updates”

    This is a non-story…the records show that coal stations were in use every day for the past seven days. We were even burning coal in the summer!

  31. 370802+ up ticks,

    Dr David Unwin he graces the lughole with sound comment, ditch the carbs,

    Dt,

    How I reversed my type 2 diabetes – and you can too
    Type 2 diabetes is skyrocketing, with 5.5 million people in the UK predicted to be living with it by the end of the decade

    1. Diet has a lot to do with it. I have type 2 and the B/S level was so high that I was put on insulin injections twice a day but through a sensible diet and willpower I got the level down enough to be put on a small dose of Gliclazide daily. I know if I stray from my diet the level will shoot up again

      2. 370802+ up ticks,

        Morning FA,

        I have it but treat it with diet strictly
        watched by my lady , the diabetics nurse told me years ago it was a progressive ailment, now we know better.

        1. It can get worse Ogga especially if you don’t exercise. My average levels are up slightly since I gave up driving the recovery truck

      3. Morning FA

        Moh is now on the same routine as you / no insulin needles , just tests himself everyday, Gliclazide and Metformin, diet and exercise

        I am quite firm with him .. and if he feels peckish , a hard boiled egg and celery is a treat, just hard boil some eggs and keep them in the fridge .. We keep those packs of dextrose tablet sweets in the car/ my handbag / coat pockets , just in case .

        Re the eggs , not too often .

  32. Morning all 😉 😊
    Lovely start bright sunshine with a touch of Frost.
    I’ll be ‘smoking’ later this afternoon, we have the results of my good ladies garden trimmings to burn. Green bin is stuffed.
    Little Grandson (three next week) about to arrive, haven’t seen the little chap for two weeks after he was hospitalised.

      1. Yes thanks Ellie, but he has to go to hospital this afternoon for his chemo treatment and other monthly meds.
        He’s such a brave little fellow.
        At the moment he loves standing on a chair at the kitchen sink ‘washing up’ sleeves rolled up apron on getting stuck in, with of course plastic items.
        I don’t know where he gets that from. 🙂
        But first he’ll be helping nanny bake and decorate some little cakes to take home.

        1. Bless the little chap, and all the family! He must be such a joy to alleviate the gloom!

    2. Have a wonderful time Eddy! The twins are being potty trained at the moment, and we’re getting through quite a number of chocolate buttons! They’re great with the wees, but not so great with the other! And as a mother of two girls, these willy things are very odd!

      1. The ones with willies are easier to train out in the garden! Bit cold at this time of year, though.

        1. Talking of willies (well we are now) there was a guy getting a medical before joining the Army. He had an extremely long willie, the doc mentioned it and the guy said it was his mothers fault as she only had one arm and it was the only way she could lift him out of the bath

  33. Shirley the words “Racial Equality” are now meaningless. Racial preferenece is now to the for

    I know I want to be part of one that has the capacity to see the bigger picture and is able to approach societal challenges with
    an open mind.

    So, for the sake of ‘racial equality’ it would be better for someone of the likes of Dizzee Rascal to be flying our warplanes,
    than the like of Douglas Bader or Guy Gibson, whose dog cannot be talked about

    1. No – donate the Dizzee Rascal-likes to the Ukrainians to fly their planes/drive their tanks. Because we care.

    2. No – donate the Dizzee Rascal-likes to the Ukrainians to fly their planes/drive their tanks. Because we care.

    3. Bader would be okay; like Nelson (Admiral Lord, not Mandela) he could play the disabled card.

    1. And it will probably prove that many people of ‘importance’ didn’t even have a real jab.

        1. I wonder if HMQ and PP were persuaded, or just not informed of the adverse side effects in case they kicked up a fuss on behalf of the UK. And because, not being deliberately informed, they thought it was ok to have it. I would have thought PP would have been pleased about a depopulation event though. Perhaps the WEF (and the monster TB) wanted them both out of the way.

          2. She still had a mind though, didn’t she? Or maybe the Royals aren’t allowed to go onto forums like TCW, that’s something they should be made aware of, if not.

      1. Where the USA directs, we go. Always (except the once, when Harold Wilson refused to get involved with Vietnam, and even then we were punished by having to tear up the plans for our prototype fighter ‘plane). The political Yanks have always been b*stards.

        1. It’s almost blasphemy, but in some ways President Roosevelt was the biggest villain of WWII. He must have despised Churchill, but even more so than Stalin, played his cards carefully.

        2. Funnily enough, I was talking about the TSR2 this afternoon. The Yanks made us destroy the jigs.

          1. Yes. the b*stards. So that we (and everyone) would have to buy inferior Yankee-produced fighters.

  36. Ukraine promises not to hit Russia with new long-range missiles. 5 February 2023

    Kyiv will not use new long-range weapons from the West to strike targets in Russia, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov promised on Sunday.

    “On Friday our partners decided to provide us with weapons capable of firing at a distance of 150 kilometres,” or around 90 miles, Mr Reznikov told a news conference.

    “We always… [promise] not to use the weapons of foreign partners against the territory of Russia, only against their units in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine for the purpose of de-occupying our land,” he said.

    Of course we should believe them despite the fact that they are already trying to get us directly embroiled in this fiasco! If the Front collapses and it looks like the leadership’s asses are on the line what would they not do to try and save them?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/05/ukraine-russia-war-latest-news-putin-zelensky-wagner-missiles/

    2. At least the leadership’s (Zelensky)’s assets won’t be on the line – he has made sure of that.

  37. Ukraine promises not to hit Russia with new long-range missiles. 5 February 2023

    Kyiv will not use new long-range weapons from the West to strike targets in Russia, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov promised on Sunday.

    “On Friday our partners decided to provide us with weapons capable of firing at a distance of 150 kilometres,” or around 90 miles, Mr Reznikov told a news conference.

    “We always… [promise] not to use the weapons of foreign partners against the territory of Russia, only against their units in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine for the purpose of de-occupying our land,” he said.

    Of course we should believe them despite the fact that they are already trying to get us directly embroiled in this fiasco! If the Front collapses and it looks like the leadership’s asses are on the line what would they not do to try and save them?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/05/ukraine-russia-war-latest-news-putin-zelensky-wagner-missiles/

  38. 370802+up ticks,

    Would it be cynical to post that the very sad affair of the
    Turkish / Syria earthquake, some will put down as the fault of global warming ,brexit, putin, etc,etc when point of fact it is nature reasserting its position in the cycle of life upon the planet, one could say natures way of levelling up.

    breitbart,

    Powerful Earthquake Rocks Turkey, Syria: Death Toll Stands at 640+ and Rising

      1. 370802+ up ticks,

        Morning JN,

        That would not suit many whereas brexit
        fits their purpose nicely.

    1. No where in that article as far as I could make out, actually explains what ADHD stands for.
      Perhaps i also lost my concentration.
      It seems the ‘usual suspect’s’ are just seeking attention by latching onto a new trend. Unless of course they have discovered they are really just a bit thick.
      A few years ago many people in the lime light claimed to be dishlexic. 😉

  40. Morning all! Here is Jordan Peterson announcing an alternative to the WEF and their corrupt doings. Professor Peterson goes off on a mini lecture about Moses and Exodos, but please hang in there and listen to the end, I think you will find it fruitful. To keep track of this alternative to the WEF subscribe to Petersons twitter feed.
    An Invitation to the Future
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_cjujecPsE

      1. And King Charles is one of the supporters of WEF along with many of our politicians.

          1. The Harry apple doesn’t seem to have fallen far from that tree with his views on everyone but himself and his ghastly wife being muzzled.

        2. I don’t think his intent is evil – just that he is too stupid/naive to realise what they are up to.

    2. “All the responsibility you abdicate will be taken up by tyrants”.

      Amen to that.

      As the saying goes: All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

  41. Good Morrow, Gentlefolk. Here is today’s language list:

    Wonderful English from Around the World

    In a Bangkok Temple:
    IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ENTER A WOMAN, EVEN A FOREIGNER, IF DRESSED AS A MAN.

    Cocktail lounge Norway:
    LADIES ARE REQUESTED NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THE BAR.

    Doctor’s Surgery, Rome:
    SPECIALIST IN WOMEN AND OTHER DISEASES.

    Dry cleaners, Bangkok:
    DROP YOUR TROUSERS HERE FOR THE BEST RESULTS.

    In a Nairobi restaurant:
    CUSTOMERS WHO FIND OUR WAITRESSES RUDE, OUGHT TO SEE THE MANAGER.

    On the main road to Mombasa, leaving Nairobi:
    TAKE NOTICE: WHEN THIS SIGN IS UNDER WATER, THIS ROAD IS IMPASSABLE.

    On a poster at Kenco:
    ARE YOU AN ADULT THAT CANNOT READ? IF SO WE CAN HELP.

    In a City restaurant:
    OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK AND WEEKENDS.

    In a Cemetery:
    PERSONS ARE PROHIBITED FROM PICKING FLOWERS, FROM ANY BUT THEIR OWN GRAVES.

    Tokyo hotel’s rules and regulations:
    GUESTS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO SMOKE, OR DO OTHER DISGUSTING BEHAVIOURS IN BED.

    On the menu of a Swiss Restaurant:
    OUR WINES LEAVE YOU NOTHING TO HOPE FOR.

    In a Tokyo Bar:
    SPECIAL COCKTAILS FOR THE LADIES WITH NUTS.

    Hotel, Yugoslavia:
    THE FLATTENING OF UNDERWEAR WITH PLEASURE, IS THE JOB OF THE CHAMBERMAID.

    Hotel, Japan:
    YOU ARE INVITED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHAMBERMAID.

    In the lobby of a Moscow Hotel, across from a Russian Orthodox Monastery:
    YOU ARE WELCOME TO VISIT THE CEMETERY, WHERE FAMOUS RUSSIAN AND SOVIET COMPOSERS, ARTISTS AND WRITERS ARE BURIED DAILY, EXCEPT THURSDAY.

    A sign posted in Germany ‘s Black Forest:
    IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN ON OUR BLACK FOREST CAMPING SITE, THAT PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT SEX, FOR INSTANCE, MEN AND WOMEN, LIVE TOGETHER IN ONE TENT, UNLESS THEY ARE MARRIED WITH EACH OTHER FOR THIS PURPOSE.

    Hotel, Zurich:
    BECAUSE OF THE IMPROPRIETY OF ENTERTAINING GUESTS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX IN THE BEDROOM, IT IS SUGGESTED THAT THE LOBBY BE USED FOR THIS PURPOSE.

    Advertisement for donkey rides, Thailand:
    WOULD YOU LIKE TO RIDE ON YOUR OWN ASS?

    Airline ticket office, Copenhagen:
    WE TAKE YOUR BAGS AND SEND THEM IN ALL DIRECTIONS. (Just Like British Airways!!!)

    A Laundry in Rome:
    LADIES, LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES HERE AND THEN SPEND THE AFTERNOON HAVING A GOOD TIME.

    And finally, the all-time classic, seen in an Abu Dhabi Souk shop window:
    IF THE FRONT IS CLOSED PLEASE ENTER THROUGH MY BACKSIDE.

    1. Very amusing. Just like the notice once seen on the London Underground:

      DOGS MUST BE CARRIED ON THE ESCALATOR.

      Does that mean:
      a. You can’t go on the escalator is you don’t have a dog to carry?
      or b. One dog is not enough, you have to carry two or more?
      or c. You should pick up your dog if you have one with you prior to using the escalator?

      I imagine some people might struggle to lift a labrador guide dog let alone a St. Bernard or somesuch.

  42. Monday Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1b99d005e604965e19d6d39a25e4b672c48d92974b9c705564a50374da084ae6.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/45fe1fc32ecc209620606fe576f6ee638caedbd056fcc091a337465a22e9c40a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/321a908a2bd961fb9a022acf88e6da4371ab0553c79b9f27b24e315822b41ba3.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/23927a4763b131563c15bc01f8c90bde64ee10dd616a07a7543393c22402b6a7.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d9cdb5a6a183324eb1ba3a3d5d42fb2b8a579eda5fc128e4a4937c1e0aef74af.jpg

    Life in 15min cities

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0beb69ea1a49c0677395b75537856b8800a8e91224bfed430ae6cb2c0004092e.jpg

  43. When vegetarians and vegans have a very high expectation that places to eat must offer them something suitable. Why when I have to go into a vegetarin cafe or restaurant they never have any proper meat for me.

    They realy are an awful set of selfish people..

    1. I have wondered that too. When one has vegan/vegetarian family/friends around one is automatically expected to offer a meatless course, which we are happy to do. When we visit them we have to eat vegan/vegetarian.

      I am delighted to say that our little ‘vegan’ family – our younger son, his wife and two small children, seem to have returned to eating properly after 18 months to 2 years of a semi-almost-vegan diet. It really doesn’t seem sustainable in the long term.

      1. As our daughter said to us when home from Uni. By the way I am now a vegeterian except for lamb chops. I did not last very long.

        1. Back in the 60’s, one of our chums decided to go vegetarian; except for steaks and pork sausages. Possibly bacon …. and then there’s …….
          The sod it factor kicked in after a few weeks.

        2. Made me laugh! It’s usually bacon sandwiches that are irresistible.

          Even though I was concerned about our son and his family’s diet, I decided to say nothing apart from reminding him on one occasion that this plant-based food stuff was highly processed and mangled out of all recognition from its original form, with added chemicals for flavour and preservation. Experience is the best teacher.

  44. May I ask someone to explain todays head line, I don’t recall anything Liz Truss actually did.

  45. How an F-22 Raptor jet shot down China’s spy balloon. 6 February 2023.

    A suspected Chinese spy balloon that sparked a diplomatic firestorm has been shot down by a US fighter jet on the orders of Joe Biden.

    On Saturday, flights were suspended from several airports as the American military deployed its most advanced fighter, the F-22 Raptor, to “take care” of the balloon.

    Television footage showed a small explosion, followed by the balloon and its payload descending toward the water, where recovery teams were ready and waiting.

    Is this supposed to be something worthy of celebration? What next? Destroyer sinks rubber duck?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/06/china-spy-balloon-joe-biden-us-shot/

    2. I think there are better ways of intelligence collection! Has anyone checked to see if Taiwan has been invaded…

      1. No Kaypea, it’s being ignored.

        However MOH has pointed out that during the last three weeks the price of gold steadily rose to $1960.

        On Friday the price collapsed, and today it’s down to $1865.

        Whatever occurence the bankers were anticipating didn’t happen.

    1. …new higher penalties for truck drivers found with illegals on board

      They are simply making the Truck Drivers a distraction and scapegoats for their own double dealing!

    2. Last time I received a begging letter from RNLI I just wrote on the envelope “return to sender” and “I won’t subscribe to your taxi service”.

      1. It is a shame; the RNLI has no choice but to respond, even when it’s the Border Farce making the call.
        The rot became visible when some bint from RNLI HQ kicked up a stink about a volunteer’s jokey tea mug – one given to him by his chums as a birthday present.

        1. True, but I pay enough for those passengers once they set foot on our soil. Yes, that silly woman was absolutely wrong and looked ridiculous – the men are voluntarily putting their own lives at risk. These woke loons have no idea.

          But – the people in dinghies are often in less danger than someone crossing the road and they deliberately put themselves where they are for the sake of monetary gain. Sorry, but my charitable self has gone away. Maybe I need to take a niceness pill or two.

          2. The Grench make sure of that. After all, that’s what we pay them £millions for. Isn’t it???

        2. They may not have a choice about responding, but they surely have a choice about taking them back to France.

      2. Each time I get a begging letter from the RNLI (they never seem to learn) I send it back in their envelope with the message “you’ll get nothing while you assist illegals to land in the UK” or words to that effect written on it.

  48. Second massive 7.7 magnitude quake strikes . 6 February 2023.

    A second earthquake has struck Turkey just hours after a massive 7.8 magnitude tremor struck the same region, killing at least 1,500 people.

    The epicentre of the first quake was in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, with much of the devastation centred along the border region, where hundreds of thousands of refugees reside.

    The second quake struck around noon and is feared to have caused many more deaths.

    It is not at all unusual for more people to be killed by aftershocks than in the primary quake. Turkey lies on a multi-fault system and a major strike can be expected every ten or fifteen years. It is a testament to the short lived memories of human beings who invariably return to the scenes of former disasters so as to enact the same tragedy again.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/06/turkey-earthquake-live-updates-gaziantep-map-tremor-news-latest/

    1. Like those people building further and further up the slopes of Vesuvius as the magma continues to build up.

      1. Didn’t people used to return there to farm because the volcanic ash makes the soil so fertile? Building houses closer sounds daft.

      2. This was the view on approach to Solo airport in Central Java. The smoking active volcano (Mt Merapi) in the distance didn’t trouble us or the many mountain farmers. It did erupt whilst I was there one year, killing many. The locals believe in their god and the Spirit of the mountain to protect them. It didnt seem to work for those who didn’t scarper. https://scontent.fbhx1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/82325060_10157313326212006_6746314730526212096_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=8024bb&_nc_ohc=m1fv-zgvT_EAX8KQpsu&_nc_ht=scontent.fbhx1-1.fna&oh=00_AfDRr6Ym8mM_jsfOF40t-_bho6kP1V3_XxgM8R43-GJQxg&oe=6408A2D4&dl=1

    2. And proud man thinks he can compete with nature?

      How completely irrelevant most of our politicians are dressed in their little bit of brief authority and most ignorant of what they’re most assured!

  49. Morning, all, from sunny Buenos Aires (sorry! 😈🤣🤣). Just popping in to say I’m still around, but trying to limit my scrolling through doom and gloom, which is most of my Substack, TCW and Twotter reading. 🤣🤣 At least Nottlers leaven the grumbling with very welcome humour – thank yiu all for that!

    I am enjoying learning to tango, and have decided that I need to learn Spanish conversation properly (I can’t understand everything people say to me when out dancing, with music playing loudly), so am hunting around for a language partner here.

    So I shan’t be returning just yet.

    Have a good day, everyone!

    Katy

    3. I read somewhere that Bournemouth something or other is offering tango classes. Guess it wouldn’t be quite the same though.
      Have fun for all of us- you know you can do it!

      1. I did try to find classes in both Germany and England. They either required people to attend as couples, or were mostly women. And while I have no problem dancing with other women, I want to follow when dancing tango, and I would inevitably be made to lead. A far better balance between the sexes over here!

    5. Have a good one Katy! I find in France if I say utter gobbledegook, followed y ‘eh-hon’ in a nasal fashion they all know what I mean.

      1. 🤣🤣 I’m pretty damned good at that approach, but find it leads rather quickly to trodden-on toes on the dance floor!

  50. Gosh – lovely sunny day, now. Colin turned up at 10 to split the “rounds” and so the MR and I have spent two hours barrowing logs….and stacking.

    Now completely knackered. I don’t know how Robert does it all – own his own, too.

    Have come indoors for a rest.

  51. You will know from your Spitfire training:

    https://youtu.be/WnPVD8FhDxE

    that there is a voltmeter on your instrument panel:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1fa745d443a035c0ca3246abf2aae452805fb426056abb7ae498e59355292776.jpg

    Normally the ground crew should have prepared your kite for takeoff using the Trolley Acc but you need to know how to read this meter in case you should find youself wishing to do an emergency takeoff without one.

    Later I shall show you how to interpret the meter readings but using the voltmeter installed in the latest Kona variant of the Spitfire.

    1. …and behind the pilot’s head is a VHF 1984 series Rx/Tx.

      That was, on PS 853 a Mk XIX PR spitfire I worked on at RAF West Raynham.

    2. If all else fails, it could be ‘bump started’…… honest.

      The same of course applies to helicopters.

      On a serous note: gas turbine engines, in a fixed wing aircraft can be restarted In Flight

      It is called Relight and pilots have to prctice it ON Twin Engined Aircraft

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flameout
      f

      The very aircraft that I carried out the First Line Servicing and signed for,, (it was a Hunter GA11), did not return
      After carrying out an Engine Test Flight, satisfactorily, the driver practiced aerobatics for the upcoming Air Day
      He flew upside down, for about 11 seconds, with enough fuel for just 10!
      He tried to Relight, failed and ejected

      1. I gather that Spitfires had a problem flying upside down antil negative g carburetters were installed.

      2. 40-odd years ago I was one of the air-test qualified pilots doing post-servicing and post-engine change air tests on Hunter F6As, FGA9 and T7s at RAF Brawdy. Part of the schedule was to fly inverted (i.e. at -1G) for 15 seconds to check the fuel recuperator function worked and the engine didn’t flame out. We always did it at 10,000 ft, pointing towards the airfield and within gliding range.

        One day while doing this on rolling upright again the engine oil-pressure didn’t recover and I had to go straight into a fixed-throttle emergency approach and landing using tight turns with the airbrake out to reduce speed enough to get the gear and flaps down. On shutting down the engine after landing the ground crew opened the engine compartment and found oil everywhere. The oil filler cap hadn’t been properly secured.

      3. 40-odd years ago I was one of the air-test qualified pilots doing post-servicing and post-engine change air tests on Hunter F6As, FGA9 and T7s at RAF Brawdy. Part of the schedule was to fly inverted (i.e. at -1G) for 15 seconds to check the fuel recuperator function worked and the engine didn’t flame out. We always did it at 10,000 ft, pointing towards the airfield and within gliding range.

        One day while doing this on rolling upright again the engine oil-pressure didn’t recover and I had to go straight into a fixed-throttle emergency approach and landing using tight turns with the airbrake out to reduce speed enough to get the gear and flaps down. On shutting down the engine after landing the ground crew opened the engine compartment and found oil everywhere. The oil filler cap hadn’t been properly secured.

          2. Yo Conners

            He was an Air Warfare Instructor, teaching RN piolots to be Airwarfare Instrucors

      5. Didn’t the Hunter have a recuperator, or did that have a limited supply time? I never spent much time on Hunters, I worked on Meteors, Javelins, Canberras, JPs, Blue Steel, Varsities, Comets and Lightnings

        1. The GA!! and T8 both had a collector box, that had hinged doors/flaps that allowed the box to fill with fuel whwn in normal flight
          and the pump acted normally

          When the aircraft turned ‘upside down, the ‘flape shut retaining a 10 ish second supply of fuel for the pump, whilst inverted.

          He was inverted tooooo long.

          No fuel to engine, adrenlin made
          Could not Relight
          Ende up on Buckie Golf Course

  52. You will know from your Spitfire training:

    https://youtu.be/WnPVD8FhDxE

    that there is a voltmeter on your instrument panel:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1fa745d443a035c0ca3246abf2aae452805fb426056abb7ae498e59355292776.jpg

    Normally the ground crew should have prepared your kite for takeoff using the Trolley Acc but you need to know how to read this meter in case you should find youself wishing to do an emergency takeoff without one.

    Later I shall show you how to interpret the meter readings but using the voltmeter installed in the latest Kona variant of the Spitfire.

    1. “Scottish Power admitted 71 of its windmills were hooked up to the fossil fuel supply after a fault developed with their power supply.”

      Does that equate to’ when the wind stopped blowing’?

      1. I would think that the supply was to motor them over occasionally to avoid damage to the bearings

        1. So the windy turbines are hybrid sustainable energy, requiring fossil fuel to allow them to generate cleaner electricity. Bit like a Prius.

  56. How I reversed my type 2 diabetes – and you can too. 6 February 2023.

    Until recently, a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes was considered a one-way street. It meant a lifetime of medication and declining health. But a growing body of evidence indicates that many people, especially in the early stages of the disease, can put their Type 2 diabetes into remission simply by losing weight.

    Yes I’ve done it twice though I think the diet itself (since it must involve the omission of sugars to be effective) is a major part of it!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/how-reversed-type-2-diabetes-can/

  58. My ancestors were pillaged to bring the Benin bronzes to England. It is white supremacy that keeps them here. 6 February 2023.

    The Benin kingdom was one of the last independent African kingdoms, and a thorn in Britain’s side, with its Oba (king) refusing to allow Britain’s Royal Niger Company to form a trading monopoly in the region. Britain ordered an expedition to dispose of him, but it was defeated by Nogbaisi and his allies. In response, Britain ordered another expedition, which began on 9 February 1897. Troops massacred an unknown number of people, destroyed the walls of Benin (at one point a longer structure than China’s Great Wall), and looted everything valuable.

    The Benin expedition was launched after a previous British negotiating team were ambushed and murdered. At this time Benin was a slave owning and slave dealing autocracy that indulged in human sacrifice and cannibalism. When the British Forces penetrated the Royal Palace they found many slaves murdered and crucified to assuage the Gods. Benin is a fair example of Africa in general before Colonialism!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/05/british-museum-benin-bronzes-nigeria

    2. Which is why the whingers should all be offered a one-way ticket back from whence they originated (and no they did NOT originate in Balham).

      1. Afternoon H. The author is a descendant of the Oba of the time but now lives (wouldn’t you know it) in the UK!

        1. If it’s all so awful in the West, why not relocate permanently to the paradise that is Benin today?

          1. Ditto all those slave descendants who find the USA so unpleasant.
            Think of all the talent and skills they could bring to Africa to help it recover from the malign effects of colonialism.
            Start counting now ….. ninety nine, ninety eight ………….. sixty seven, sixty six, sixty five …………… twenty four, twenty three …….. it seems to have gone awfully quiet.

          2. Afternoon Anne. They did try that as I am sure you well know. They all suddenly discovered that, horrible as America and Whitey is, its still better than rule by Black in Africa!

          3. They didn’t enjoy the freedom of Liberia.
            Isn’t it a dysfunctional state? Even by African standards?

        2. Afternoon, Minty. We seem to attract the descendants, even giving them doctorates, professorships etc., letting them become MPs etc. Positive discrimination abounds…

      2. Afternoon H. The author is a descendant of the Oba of the time but now lives (wouldn’t you know it) in the UK!

    3. Sounds to me that the Oba had few or no negotiation skills and if he wanted something e.g. fresh meat, he took it.

    4. My father took a dim view of cannibalism and slavery and certainly took a strong line with anyone who tried either of these things when he was the governor of the Northern Province of the Sudan.

  59. Good afternoon, NoTTLers! We are having a mega sort out and clear up (including getting of the microwave which I managed to explode the inside of today). So we are going to our local recycling centre (aka dump) to get rid of some things, in a couple of days’ time. I looked it up for opening times etc. and found the following useful information. The third tip is especially typical of the attitude among local authorities:

    Tips to avoid the queues
    Try to avoid school and bank holidays.
    Pre-sort your waste to save time when you get here.
    Try using other recycling points. [i.e. go somewhere else and don’t bother us].

    What an attitude!

      1. I forgot that you don’t put unpricked eggs in their shells into the microwave – I haven’t put eggs in the micro for years.

        I was glancing at an undertaker’s leaflet that had been posted through the door with the message “Get the send-off you want” when there was an almighty bang…

        Thinking that perhaps I was about to experience a send off that I didn’t want I waited for more explosion/s but that was it. I opened the microwave and there was a big gouge in the bottom and one of the heat bars from the top was hanging down inside. Two eggs! I ask you!

        2. I’m sorry, but that has absolutely creased me up.
          Funny in retrospect – better still, it didn’t happen to me.

          2. I’m glad – I did think that the leaflet that I was glancing at was rather ironic…D will probably split his sides when he sees the leaflet and the micro together…

        3. You need to be more careful. Quite a few people have been badly burned by exploding eggs from a microwave. Heat differentials can be lethal.

    2. Most impressed by the continued clearout effort! Definitely deserves a large G&T – I shall join you in spirit!! 🙂

      2. The clearout is a long and drawn-out process, A certain local man keeps on coming round and causing devastation and mess! And to top that, we pay him!

    3. I caused a fire in my microwave by mis-reading the destructions.

      I read 35 seconds as 35 minutes.

      Set off the fire alarm and had the fire service (complete with fire-engine) turn up, as they always do here if the alarm goes off.

      What a bummer! The μwave still works.

      1. Mrs VVOF read about keyless entry for cars and where to store them overnight. The best location to place the keys overnight is in a RFID box. She choose the microwave instead and turned it on next day forgetting they were in there.
        That knackered them, do you know the price of replacement Jaguar keys!!! That was 5 years ago, I dread to think how much they are now, and they had to go to the dealer to get them programmed up, incurring more expense.

      2. Mine has a hole in the bottom and a forlorn heat element hanging down inside. I don’t think i’ll try it.

    5. Some years ago at Mother’s local dump, my Brother and I had just unloaded and sorted the stuff. Looked in the skip for electronic goods, and an employee came over and threatened us with dire warnings if we tried to take any of it away – like the TV the size of HMS Prince of Wales (and just as broken, I expect). What a way of behaving!

      1. Our local tip is dreadful. Off-hand, unhelpful people – who shout and point. A complete contrast with the excellent blokes at the tip in Laure..

        1. Apart from one fat bloke (who is fat for the good reason that only his mouth gets exercise during his working day) our tip people are jolly helpful.
          No doubt that’s why ECC is introducing a system that will p!ss off both ‘clients’ and tip workers.

          1. I have never seen a rounder man than the one who drives the JCB at our déchèterie. he is quite jolly but when it comes to his circumference he certainly outpies his r twofold.

          2. Goodness, do Essex clients actually tip workers who p!ss them off. How very Christian of you all!

        2. Ours is excellent, staffed by helpful people who will provide assistance if required. It’s like a department store with a section for each commodity. It’s kept clean and tidy as well.

    6. Essex starts a booking system next month.
      We will be up and down the road to the tip like yo-yos before X number of *booking clerks* get their feet under their town hall desks.
      ** Recycling Office Facilitators?

    7. Our déchèterie is much better than that. Indeed we are about to take a trailer-load of laurel clippings there. However they have removed the containers for glass as too much broken glass made the place look rather messy so we now have to go the mairie instead.

    8. When we cleared out MILs place a few years ago, we had a hell of a time. The tip was for residents only and I was driving a rental car that didn’t belong there on the few days that the tip was open. In the end we took some stuff down to the tip in Brentwood, it was less hassle.

      A far cry from our local tip with friendly helpful assistants, there again we do have to pay (about five pounds for a car full).

  61. Checking your voltmeter on the auxiliary 12 volt battery in the Kona.

    You should crosscheck your state of charge (SOC) voltmeter

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c17eaec4b493f632b6b4f7c7886fd72cf7d0ec346570cfe683dd10ecd1e78429.gif

    with the earlier load tester output:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5dcebc62881ac96169c6d3d1be6034808681462a31e4ae554696e3cbeeae93cc.jpg

    They should be more or less the same – in this case the voltmeter shows orange light for medium charge so you should be OK to start the engine.

    In the meantime we shall relocate the voltmeter into the cockpit instrument panel from where will attempt an engine start.

    3. But why exactly is it a GOOD battery? Is it one that has never been charged, or one that has never been found guilty?
      This saga could run and run.

    4. Here’s the engine START/STOP button, the voltmeter in the centre console and its connection to the 12 volt socket under the console:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8c3dde07382aed6ff66aff5bd6fc6d6aa8a35cee4be175fd38224078d7ee5c66.gif

      The charging voltage quickly rises to over 14.8 volts and this is held for one hour after engine starr in UTILITY mode which is then terminated by the dual acton STOP button.

      The auxiliary battery is then returned to full (98%) charge, https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b76e408fe2e423d2e08fda1f535502641c4ad50cdf115bd758e8ef3247983085.jpg

  63. I do love Freecycle.
    Yesterday lunchtime, I put up 3 items. By teatime they were all gone.
    Today, I start again. That’ll teach charities to be sniffy.

    1. I know the feeling. This arvo a bloke came and took away a brand-new, still in its carton, wash basin – bought 25 years ago but never installed!

      1. I know it sounds bit Lady Bountiful, but I do get pleasure from people benefitting from stuff that would otherwise be binned.

        1. #metoo.
          Schools here have flea markets in the spring and autumn, typically for the benefit of the school band/music group. It’s a reat way to recycle stuff that’s unwanted but perfectly good, so someone gets pleasure from it and someone gets the financial benefit. That goes from furniture to books.

    3. Just put your discards into an empty TV or microwave box and put the box on your doorstep- it will soon be collected at no cost to you.

  64. Matthew Lynn
    Trussonomics is slowly winning the argument
    5 February 2023, 2:55pm

    It was self-indulgent, whinging. Dull in places while completely batty in others. All the usual insults will be hurled at former prime minister Liz Truss for her essay defending her short time in Downing Street, published today. Perhaps it would be better for her to retire gracefully from public life and let some ambitious young revisionist historian in the 2060s make the case that she was treated unfairly. Except she still has one key card to play. Events are gradually showing that she was right along: Trussonomics, or whatever it will be called next, is gradually winning the intellectual argument.

    Her argument has something else going for it: a ring of truth

    There won’t be many people in the Conservative Party welcoming Truss’s return, and certainly not in the government. Her successor Rishi Sunak and his team were probably hoping that the voters would have completely forgotten who she was by now. The last thing they need is to stir up bitter arguments about personalities or ideas. The outlook for the party is already grim without bitter internal rows. Even so, the essay was a sober, well-argued reflection on her brief time in office: honest about what went wrong, as well as her own personal failings. Most importantly, it pointed the finger at the civil servants, the Bank of England, and the ‘left-wing economic establishment’ who rounded on her free-market radicalism with a fury that was both unexpected and lethal.

    Truss’s essay won’t resonate because of the fluency of her language or the power of her rhetoric. She isn’t Boris Johnson. But her argument has something else going for it: a ring of truth. Even in the few months since she was so brutally evicted from office, the British economy has clearly gone into a steep decline. We are close to a recession. Interest rates have carried on going up. Wages are falling in real terms at the fastest rate in a generation. Inflation is stubbornly high. Taxes are rising to record levels – yet none of the extra money ever seems to improve public services. The workforce keeps shrinking. Investment is falling. The trade deficit has ballooned to extraordinary levels. A few people might believe that without Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget everything in the economy would be humming along perfectly well: but it is not very plausible. Instead, it is becoming increasingly obvious that something has gone badly wrong. And that, surely, is the point Truss is making.

    Neither Sunak’s centrism, nor any of the alternatives offered by the liberal-left (or indeed by the ‘economic establishment’) have anything to say on that. They can tinker around with investment allowances for industry, but no one thinks that will have any more than a marginal impact. Or, like the Labour Party, they can plan a ‘green energy giant’ creating lots of well paid ‘green jobs’ – although given the US and the EU are throwing hundreds of billions of dollars and euros at the same projects it is hard to see how a relatively small country like the UK can compete. Or they can fiddle around with more devolution, or more training, or tweaks to the welfare system. That has all been tried for years and has mostly made things worse.

    In reality, it will take more time, and probably a Labour Government, or perhaps even two, for Truss’s arguments to sink in. But the blunt truth is that the UK economy needs radical reform, and some combination of lower taxes and less regulation will be the only way to achieve it. Eventually the argument will be won – because with every year that passes it will become more and more obviously true.

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

    Sue Ward
    a day ago
    Looks like the Speccie’s Sunak fanboys and girls are starting to suffer a twinge of buyers remorse.

    Bill Rogers
    20 hours ago
    She never lost the argument. She was removed by a left-wing coup led by the media but supported by the BofE and the civil service. The woke establishment will not tolerate a conservative PM.

  65. THE BASTARDS !!

    GBNews has bottled it and bowed to OFCOM,listen to Mark Steyn describe his new unsignable contract (from 20 mins)

    https://www.steynonline.com/audio-video/1399.mp4
    Any sign of real opposition must be crushed I wonder how they’ll get Neil Oliver………
    Edit
    A real wanker opines and gets ripped to bits in the replies
    https://twitter.com/DrMatthewSweet/status/1622625931708825601?s=20
    Help yourself NoTTL twitterers there’s no fighter cover…………..

    1. I wonder how they’ll get Neil Oliver……Sports bag in a bath…Novichok…slit wrist…heart attack…

    2. Will Mark Dolan, Laurence Fox, Nigel Farage, Dan Wootton or Patrick Christys and Neil Oliver have the testicular strength to stick up for Mark Steyn on air?

      If they are craven and lacking in all testicular strength then GB News deserves to fail.

    3. A copy of my e-mail to GB News:

      to Gbviews

      Since Mark Steyn has highlighted and refused to sign his new contract, it seems that GB News is now in thrall to Ofcom.

      Oh well, that’s another news channel I won’t be watching.
      Regards

  66. Today I had to go and watch the Boat Safety Scheme examiner check the condition of various items on the boat. It passed so all is good for the next 4 years when I’ll have to have another BSS examination. However, I did have to fork out for 3 new fire extinguishers on the grounds that A) The large foam fire extinguisher is no loner acceptable and A) the two I kg Dry Powder extinguishers (9 years old) might possibly not function in the event of a fire. I’ll have to take the old ones to the tip – part of me wants to try the old ones out – but where?!

    6. My old mate Bruce in Melbourne has just put there shared lovely beach house on the market. Over the two years he’s been renovating it (a splendid job well done) he’s been plagued by stoopid Council inspector. They even made him install a smoke detector in the basement. And explain how the rain water soakaways work on a sand base. Never had the slightest problem in the last 40 years.
      Because they have effed him about so much and its taken more than two years to get it on the market, the value has risen phenomenally.
      He’s going take the cheapest bottle of wine and an insulting card and present it to them in the office.

      1. We have had to put a sprinkler system in the curling club. I guess that the inspectors thought that the ice might catch fire.

      2. Neighbours of mine had a fire that gutted their house. Apparently it started in their basement, where they were using a heater to dry something.

    8. You are missing out on a wonderful opportunity to use your narrowboat as a source of huge income.

      You could easily nip over to Calais and deploy it to convey your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free; the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!.

      It is a guaranteed moneymaker.👍🏻

  67. This chap is a tad verbose but he has a reasonable track record of pointing out where the next earthquake might hit. In this video he suggests both Greece & Italy are potentially in line for a Magnitude 6 earthquake in the near future following on from the Turkish earthquake:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_MLd6EsvwM

  68. A quieter day today.
    A drive into Twiggs in Matlock for a couple of Jubilee Clips and a bit of shopping.

    Then got one of the smaller diseased elms rigged up for pulling uphill to stop it from falling in the wrong direction and got it dropped & cleared away ready for further sawing, splitting & stacking.

      2. Exceedingly rare photograph of a lumberjack leprechaun, deep in the forests of McGillycuddy.

    1. A copy of my e-mail to GB News:

      to Gbviews

      Since Mark Steyn has highlighted and refused to sign his new contract, it seems that GB News is now in thrall to Ofcom.

      Oh well, that’s another news channel I won’t be watching.
      Regards

      1. I hoped that Dolan, Wootton, Fox and Farage would have the guts to stand up for Mark Steyn on GB News.

        The fact that they haven’t yet done so says a lot about them!

  71. Unforeseen circumstances with wind farms? Air defence radar affected.
    UK Column report.

    The dots are established wind farms.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9b8e9ef27235a3f01a90df2d5ee197710829426eb1045fb337571128bd4faf1c.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cafee8140c70ccebafb51343b543e45d77ccd7ea8e867d29863d379d404dd38c.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ecf13c8b5cb76aff2d7ba25a2348d1832265d401ee59ae73b64a3cae948b9289.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ccf220efad603279a90e8a42c3a52accfdb7013feda1eb9e6bb675f807114913.png

    1. All that aside, I’m almost sure some of our political classes have and are still earning a lot of money from each turn of the blades.

    5. A couple of windmills at Spondon are reported to have interfered with the Air Traffic Control radar at East Midlands Airport.

      1. By encouraging people to waste electricity by complaining about the use of “kids” for children, in turn causing climate change?

  73. That’s me gone for today. Shifted lotsa logs (I know I am echoing Robert!!) We reckon there are 50 barrow loads left to pick up, transport and stack – which we’ll do over two or three days. Then Colin will log in to split a dozen or so large lumps of tree….so, by the end of the week all will be
    done ‘n dusted. Then I have to wait and wait for a north wind. Quite extraordinary these last six months. Barely a day with a northerly. Global warming innit…

    Lovely sunset – a sunny but cooler day in forecast.

    So have a spiffing evening – bet you can’t WAIT to hear the Untrussworthy giving “her truth” on Spectator TV…. Daft bint.

    A demain

    1. Truss has a more balanced vision – albeit poorly expressed – than that of Sunak-Hunt, Bill . . .

  74. My contention has always been with wind farms that once we go beyond a certain level of trapping the natural wind pattern cycles that they would be more damaging to the climate than CO2, if CO2, does any damage at all.

    2. And another:

      “Wind power for 1.2m homes is wasted because of lack of storage. Turbines switched off during winter due to capacity issues.

      Enough wind power to supply 1.2m homes a day was wasted over winter because there is no capacity to store extra energy generated on gusty days, according to new research. National Grid’s electricity system operator asked wind turbines which were expected to generate about 1.35 terawatt-hours of electricity between October and January to switch off instead because they were not needed to meet demand at the time, according to the consultancy Stonehaven. Meanwhile, gas-fired power turbines burned an estimated 65 terawatt-hours of gas over the period when wind speeds were lower – costing an estimated £60bn.”

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/02/06/coal-power-station-put-standby-low-winds-forecast/

    3. Many years ago, an academic did a study that showed that a significant part of the heat from the earth’s core was lost to space through the winds warming across the earth’s surface, then rising to release the heat to space. Intefere too much with the winds, and…

    1. So let’s get this straight. Having forked out £180 for the Boat Safety inspection plus £58 for the Pass Certificate plus £63 for 3 new fire extinguishers you think I’ve still got some dosh left to be able to hand our loaves and bloody fishes to London’s House boat community?!!!

    2. So let’s get this straight. Having forked out £180 for the Boat Safety inspection plus £58 for the Pass Certificate plus £63 for 3 new fire extinguishers you think I’ve still got some dosh left to be able to hand our loaves and bloody fishes to London’s House boat community?!!!

    3. So let’s get this straight. Having forked out £180 for the Boat Safety inspection plus £58 for the Pass Certificate plus £63 for 3 new fire extinguishers you think I’ve still got some dosh left to be able to hand our loaves and bloody fishes to London’s House boat community?!!!

    1. It’s like the mutants portrayed in the Film X Men all of whom have super powers. The super power in this X’s case is the right to not be offended!

  77. If this was featured on here last Sunday then I missed it.

    PETER HITCHENS: Even I balk at Happy Valley’s depiction of grim modern Britain (and I’m an Olympic-standard pessimist)

    I refuse to like Happy Valley. Like so much else on the BBC, it is insidious propaganda for a society and a moral system which have failed. A new elite, including the Corporation, pressed for years to dismantle the old-fashioned family, to undermine the authority of parents, to pretend that crime came out of ‘deprivation’ rather than out of unrestrained human evil. And what they got was mass divorce, fatherless families, legal and illegal drugs, and more criminals than our prisons can hold, however fast we build them.

    And many Unhappy Valleys, too.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-11687621/PETER-HITCHENS-balk-Happy-Valleys-depiction-grim-modern-Britain.html

    And no, I’ve haven’t seen a single episode.

    2. I watched them all, and enjoyed them thoroughly. Hitchens is entitled to his opinion, after all his profession is writing, and the more controversial he is the more noticed he becomes, but I don’t agree with him.

  80. Thought for the day:
    If you could utterly eliminate any doctrine, which one would you choose and why?

    Heaven knows there are so many; communism, socialism, religion, Islam, which I do not count as a religion it is political, like communism.

        1. It all depends on how it’s projected.
          Where and when its forced upon people, its usually too constrictive. As for Islam, it’s usually just forced Labour. With severe repercussions.

        1. And politics is religion by the same token. I also believe that geography and history are the same. Because every location has existed through time; and every historical event has taken place somewhere. You cannot separate the two as they are intrinsically entwined.

  82. I was just thinking, suppose they create low emission zones around fossil fuel power stations, will electric cars irunning in towns and cities miles away have to pay their ULEZ charge?

  83. At last HMRC have come to their senses: I have been informed that this last tax deadline is the last one I’ll have to meet …. thhey showed remarkable persistence in my case, someone who’s lived in the same terraced house for 33 years and has no yacht or other things the neighbours can feel envious about … Oh BTW, HMRC, Google and Amazon went thattaway.

  85. If Sturgeon is brought down because of her deluded and insane policies, you will hear tap dancing from heaven. It will be my late and missed Scots uncle dancing while he has a few celestial drams.

    1. If / when Sturgeon is brought down because of her deluded and insane policies, I will be dancing the highland fling . . .

  86. For those who have an interest in the Common Law Constitution, Neil Oliver’s monologue on Saturday 4th and his subsequnet talk with William Keyte UK Column News picked up on it today. It’s worth a look. People are getting interested in this.

  87. Right, I’m off to bed.
    A busy couple of days planned. T’Lad is here tonight to go to Manchester with me tomorrow to pick something up for him, then, after dropping it off at his place on Wednesday, down to Woodford Bridge for another pickup for him.
    Stopping overnight in the Prince Regent Hotel and home Thursday.

    Have we anyone in that area I wonder?
    G’night all.

  90. Evening, all. Just back from a looong parish council meeting. I needed a drink! I don’t think Truss got the opportunity to implement her ideas, incompetently or otherwise, did she?

  91. Something nice… our neighbour who sadly lost her little dog before Xmas has been thinking of us again. I have been meaning to pop round and see her but it’s been a 3 ring circus here. Anyway, she put an envelope through our door, I saw her and went after her, slowly because I move at the speed of a tortoise.
    I thanked her and filled her in with what had been going on and apologised for not going to see her. A brief chat and then I went home. Then I opened the card.
    She already knew about MH’s accident (jungle drums have been beating) and the card was full of kind and caring words.
    Plus a card, which I call a gift card for the heart. A lovely credit card size card with words on along the lines of ” if you need a friend or a cup of tea…& etc”. I have put it in my wallet. I cried when I saw it as it’s been a tough few days.
    I often forget that there are kind and caring people around and it is evidenced everytime we get a cab from our local company or the 3 guys who remained with MH, called an ambulance and waited until it arrived.
    I have seen it here also with your kind and supportive comments.
    Hopefully, this week will be a better one.

    1. It sounds a bit off topic, Ann, but I just met a whole bunch of lovely people at open mic. They are still around, and not all of them are ancient like us Nottlers.

    2. It’s a pity, but also a great blessing, when one discovers how many kind people there are out there. Gives one strength.
      And, of course, there’s the kind, caring, irreverent folk here on Nottl for you, too.
      😀

  95. Where are you Geoff? Languishing in the Tower? Sold to White Slavers? Murdered by Mi6?

    2. That’s exactly what I was thinking, Minty. (Good morning, btw.) Should we look in our respective fridges?

      1. Morning Elsie These are such times as one can think the unthinkable with a reasonable chance of being right!

          1. Well, that’s me now off to put the kettle on and have another cuppa. I’ve been up since around 3.45 am, so will leave you and Herr Oberst to compete with Tom for first place. I’m back upstairs to bed again and will “re-start” my day later on. Give my best wishes to all NoTTLers.

  97. Took a vote with myself in attendance result being Elsie FIRST.

    Taken the donkey outside to chastise it soiled the bottom of the bed last night…. again, wondered why my feet were getting warm.

    1. Well, ogga1, I waited for half an hour for Geoff, but then gave up and did something productive: I went back to bed and slept and slept. It turned out that I did the right thing: Geoff is OK and only had a Senior Moment, I didn’t waste three hours or so getting grumpier and grumpier, and now the morning mist has cleared so – after a very late elevenses – I can drive to the local tip with some broken de-cluttered book shelves too large for the bin men.

  98. Yo all

    I bet the Ctrl V Team are poised with their Posts, waiting to pounce.

    For those who cannot sleep, the Sally Army will take your bedding

  99. Good morning all.
    A bit of a worrying silence from Geoff, I hope he’s OK.

    It’s another chilly and clear start today, -4°. As soon as t’Lad is ready we’ll be off to pick up a motorbike he’s bought in Manchester.

  100. Cost of rail tickets could fluctuate based on commuter demand. 7 February 2023.

    The price of train tickets could be based on the level of demand as part of a government trial.

    Rather than the traditional fixed-price ticketing system based on peak and off-peak windows, a new more reactive “airline-style” system, dubbed “demand pricing”, is set to be introduced on one of the country’s major rail lines.

    The plan will be revealed in a speech on Tuesday by Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, with a trial being launched on the government-run LNER line before a potential wider roll-out.

    It’s a Government Idea! What could possibly go wrong?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/07/cost-rail-tickets-could-fluctuate-based-commuter-demand/

  102. In the absence of Geoff, We’d better proceed on yesterday’s page.

    Good Morrow, Gentlefolk. Here is today’s Non-PC list:

    Politically incorrect

    Police in London found a bomb outside a mosque…
    They’ve told the public not to panic as they’ve managed to push it back inside.

    =============================

    During last night’s high winds, an African family were killed by a falling tree. A spokesman for the Birmingham City council said “We didn’t even know they were living up there”.

    =============================

    Jamaican minorities in the UK have complained that there are not enough television shows with minorities in mind, so Crime watch is being shown 5 times a week now.

    =============================

    I was reading in the paper today about this dwarf that got pick-pocketed.
    How could anyone stoop so low?

    =============================

    I was walking down the road when I saw an Afghan bloke standing on a fifth-floor balcony shaking a carpet. I shouted up to him, “What’s up Abdul, won’t it start?”

      1. ‘Morning, Maggie,

        I’ve been collecting them from sources all over the place (world) since 2000 and I now have a Bumper Joke Book.

        1. I will add to that the preface of the book:

          Preface

          All of the jokes in this little book have been gleaned from various sources on the Internet. People the world over, all enjoy a good laugh and most are very happy to share the humour with others. Which is the reason why there is no copyright on this publication – you can’t keep a good joke down!

          A word of warning, I have certainly found all the jokes and stories, without exception, very funny but some of them are unashamedly filthy, many are definitely politically incorrect, some are racist. So don’t lend the book to your maiden aunt, liberal bleeding heart, education counsellor or the Chairman of the Race Relations Board -–they have all had a humour by-pass!

          I must pay tribute to two of the richest sources for this book. The first is an Internet ‘Tabloid’ called The Daily Dirt. An amusing website but with a heavy overdose of pornography thrown in for good measure – go there if you dare! The second is an Anglo-Swede who must remain anonymous for her own sake but suffice to say that having worked with her in Stockholm, her good looks were a daily tonic to us jaded consultants. Now that she works elsewhere, her circulation of a lot of the jokes and stories in this book still acts as a daily tonic. Thank you S.

          I did try and classify the stories but quickly found that too many stories on the same theme soon palled – so take ‘em as they come and enjoy

  103. Good morning all,

    Where is Geoff, I do hope he is alright .

    It is such a cold morning , I wonder whether he has had a power outage or burnt his porridge .
    Will some one ping him to see if all is well?

  104. China’s spy balloon
    SIR – The Chinese balloon drifting above America (Leading Article, February 6) has many aggressive precedents.

    Tethered balloons were used by the British Army in the First World War for observation. In the Second World War, the Japanese launched 9,300 incendiary balloons, 33ft in diameter with a 300lb payload, across the Pacific, causing the only deaths on mainland America by enemy action.

    Beginning in 1942, the British Operation Outward launched 99,000 8ft diameter balloons, with the Women’s Royal Naval Service sending up to 1,000 a day from a golf course in Felixstowe, causing forest fires and damaging electrical equipment in Germany.

    All such balloon flights, including those launched by the Chinese, are left to the vagaries of the winds; they cannot be reliably steered.

    Roger Croston
    Chester

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2023/02/07/letters-politically-inept-tory-mps-abandon-liz-truss-readily/

  107. Good morning, all. Misty and frosty this morning in N Essex. Off to the ‘city’ (formerly town) centre this morning. Dead and alive hole that it is, my bank is there along with a shop or two I find useful on occasion, and I mustn’t forget my hairdresser.

    A propos richardl’s comment below about battery storage for electricity generated from renewable sources.

    Considering that a Finnish government’s report claimed that the Earth has insufficient rare metals etc to create the batteries required for electrification of vehicles let alone storage capacity the claim made in the linked tweet is plausible.

    https://twitter.com/JohnLeePettim13/status/1622576019583516673

  108. As I suggested the other day re the missing mother , presumed drowned in the river .. I do hope the police examine her Face book page . She is a mortage advisor , and probably has a list of clients .. and probably a stalker knows her movements .

    Just saying that, okay?

    1. Morning Belle. I’ve put on my Agatha Christie hat and think that the dog got into difficulties in the river and she went in to rescue it. The dog then made it the bank and she was swept away!

    2. From what we can all see of the river by the bench where her phone was left. If she had fallen in, she would have been able to climb straight out. It’s not exactly flowing.

      1. The police superintendent who was interviewed on TV yesterday stated that there were no signs of scrape marks, or

        scrabble marks on the river bank.

        I don’t know what the temperature of the water was, but if I had fallen into near freezing water I would have been

        desperately scrabbling to get out, whilst shrieking for help.

    3. DM sys the ‘expert’ diver they have now employed is confident the body is not in the river.
      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11721383/Baffled-diving-expert-hunting-Nicola-Bulley-fears-phone-left-bench-decoy.html
      “‘Baffled’ diving expert hunting for Nicola Bulley fears her phone could have been left on the bench as a ‘decoy’ after suggesting her dog would have been ‘howling’ beside the riverbank if she’d fallen in as search continues”

    4. DM sys the ‘expert’ diver they have now employed is confident the body is not in the river.
      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11721383/Baffled-diving-expert-hunting-Nicola-Bulley-fears-phone-left-bench-decoy.html
      “‘Baffled’ diving expert hunting for Nicola Bulley fears her phone could have been left on the bench as a ‘decoy’ after suggesting her dog would have been ‘howling’ beside the riverbank if she’d fallen in as search continues”

    5. As I said yesterday or the day before….she took that route every day, someone knew that and was waiting. I hope I am wrong but I think she’s been abducted.

  109. Morning all 😉 😊
    No Geoff today, I hope he’s alright.
    Fog and frost.
    And I’ve got to visit the phlebotomy department today for two blood tests.
    From past experiences I may be some time.
    Slayders 😉.

  111. Morning all.

    Fear not – Geoff has not been arrested – Alf is speaking with him on the phone right now!

  112. Right, that’s me & t’Lad off to Manchester, well, Leigh actually. See yers later,

  113. A copy of my e-mail to HertsLass:

    ‘Morning, Tine,

    As Geoff hasn’t appeared yet, we NoTTLers are worrying that something may have happened to him.

    Do you have his ‘phone number and if so, will you give him a call and check if he’s OK?

    Hugs

  115. Good morning all – Tuesday’s – delayed – new page is here.

    Thanks are due to Alf the great for poking me with a sharp stick. I was sure I had posted the new page around 6.30 am, but it appears I sidetracked myself without completing the task… Mea maxima culpa

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