Monday 7 October: A year on from Israel’s darkest day, the country’s allies must stand firm

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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669 thoughts on “Monday 7 October: A year on from Israel’s darkest day, the country’s allies must stand firm”

  3. Good Morning All – it's Monday again. just waiting for our wonderful Geoff.
    Today's Tales
    Steve took his dog for a walk down to the local pub on Saturday night. He was having a quiet drink when the footy results came up on the television set. Steve’s team had won and the dog started running in circles and yelping with delight.
    “What does he do when your team loses?” asked the barman.
    “Somersaults,” said Steve.
    “How many?” asked the barman.
    “Depends on how far I kick him.”

    George came home one day and found his wife in bed with his best friend. He shot his wife but gave the dog a reprieve.

    An Alsatian went into the Post Office to send a telegram. He wrote down, “Woof woof. Woof woof. Woof woof woof. Woof woof.” He handed it over the counter and the clerk studied it.
    “You can have ten words for the same price.”
    “So?” said the Alsatian. “It wouldn’t make any sense if I added another woof, would it?"

    2. Oscar sleeps beside the Warqueen. Lucy beside me. Sometimes Lucy creeps on to the bed and sleeps on my legs. Yes, I regularly sleep with two girls. Boss!

      Love the Alsatian one.

    3. Oscar sleeps beside the Warqueen. Lucy beside me. Sometimes Lucy creeps on to the bed and sleeps on my legs. Yes, I regularly sleep with two girls. Boss!

      Love the Alsatian one.

    1. Tax credits were a socialist abomination. A Brownian nonsense to reward one group while punishing the rest. The simpler solution was just to cut taxes, but Brown refused to do that.

      As for Lammy – the idea he is a 'grown up' is laughable.

    1. I find if you say Morning whatever the time is then you're right most of the time. I've even got our cable guys doing it.

      1. The head of my conservatoire, a renowned tenor, used to emit a magnificently voiced 'Mmmmmmmmorning!' whenever one ran into him. He said it saved him from ever having to warm up his voice! 🤣

  6. Morning Geoff and all,

    What a Gray day as she walks out of No 10.
    Things can only get bitter. 🤔

    1. Morning Bill, disrupted sleep as I am going to die from the ebola today. Having to get up because the kidney stone demanded it was not fun either.

  9. Keir Starmer 'will take away pensioners' free prescriptions..

    Not so fast. From what I hear the NHS dish out prescriptions for high blood pressure as though Big Pharmas profits depended on it.
    Gawd pensioners might seek alternatives such as exercise, good diet & trimethylglycine supplements.

    1. …or use up my stash and then no more. I shall die of a massive heart attack, thus achieving his objective of slaughtering the old and infirm.

  10. Happy Birthday Vladimir Putin.

    Vlad is seventy two today. Younger than me. It seems quite incredible.

    Happy Birthday Vlad. Happy birthday to you.

    Many Happy Returns. Lol.

    1. Why do we not see these photos every day on the muslim broadcast network that is the BBC?

      1. Because of the rules of impartiality, they'd have to show photos of all the innocents killed or missing there in the last year. At least 40,000 of them.

        It would therefore be a good time to bury bad news at home, and the litany of wretchedness would lose viewers the will to live.

        1. Who is responsible for the deaths of the innocents? The Israelis warn before they strike to enable the innocents to get out of the way – but the innocents are stopped from getting away by Hamas.

          Is it "impartial" not to talk about the Hamas use of human shields?

          The BBC should be honest about why innocent people have been killed.

          1. If I recall, the IRA usually gave fair warning before blowing something up. Occasionally they forget, but British police got to know when the call was from the IRA and when it was a prank. I suppose it made it ok.

            Coralling people into “safe spaces”, and then bombing them because there might be soldiers taking cover there too – now that is not fair, and rather negates the purpose of the fair warning.

            You say that Hamas is preventing refugees fleeing to Egypt. Yet who closed the border? Besides, they know that once they have vacated the premises, they will never get them back. It’s probably already been earmarked for valuable beachside real estate for settlers from America.

            As for taking hostages and human shields, then what’s sauce for the goose… Precedent having been set, I’m sure Israelis could grab a few enemy trophies and distribute them among the kibbutzes to dissuade enemy attack.

        2. The figure of 40,000 undoubtedly includes Hamas fighters, who are definitely not innocents.

          Also, the figure of 40,000 has been shown by statistical analysis to be – beyond reasonable doubt – a fabrication and propaganda falsehood.

        3. Yea, yea, and don't forget that all those 40 thousand murdered innocents were women and children sheltering in Red Cross hospitals and schools, except for the heroic grand mothers who fought a valiant battle against the massed tanks of the Disraeli Offence Force attacking a humanitarian shelter for care workers and nurses. You have to admire the BBC's neutrality in the face of fascist far-right threats and the blatant lying of multi-millionaire Chewish(sic) oligarchs.

          1. Disraeli was a 19th century British politician who lived before tanks were invented, and “Chew Chew Toffee Crisp at sixpence a bar” was a Chewish TV advertising jingle from the 1960s.

    2. I doubt if many are alive still. What caring mass murdering rapist will have the time and ability to feed and care for half dead, disease infested captives and bow to Alibaba ten times a day?

    1. The Left have a narrative and cannot deviate from that. It causes them all sorts of problems.

      I once asked a very Left wing friend what it was like, being wrong about everything and he started spewing the most hilarious tripe that was batted away with logic and common sense. I then asked again, what it was like, being wrong about everything.

      His returned, open mouthed expression of shock was a sort of human divide by zero error. We all laughed and said 'the programming has no escape loop!'

    1. Forced into exile: the Chagossians scattered in Mauritius and Britain

      More than half a century after all of its inhabitants were forced out, the UK is relinquishing sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, a remote but strategically important Indian Ocean archipelago. After years of protest over a displacement described as a crime against humanity, the UK will cede the islands to Mauritius. Here are some of the exiled Chagossians uprooted to Mauritius and the UK, photographed over several years by Morgan Fache

      https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f4938b77a49304678675fbfa47cf9833f8adb91c/0_0_5600_3733/master/5600.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=0d69a9595f0f7d531a436b7fe110c298 Lucie, 2017, Crawley, UK
      Lucie Tiatous was born on Peros Banhos and grew up on Diego Garcia until she was 12, when her family moved to Mauritius. In 2008, she and her husband moved to the UK, where Lucie lives with her daughter Mylène. In 2012, she visited the Chagos Islands. ‘We only stayed seven days, under escort by US soldiers. I went to the church where I did my first communion. I looked at the sea when the boat brought us to Peros Banhos. I was happy and sad at the same time.’ As Lucie’s husband was dying, he asked for his ashes to be scattered at sea so he could return to Chagos

      More below at https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2024/oct/07/chagos-islands-diego-garcia-chagossians-forced-exile-mauritius-britain-morgan-fache

      1. Since 1700 the Chagos Islands has been the dumping ground for slaves brought by the French from Africa and India to cook their frogs and snails and wash their backsides. By the Treaty of Paris of 1814, France ceded Mauritius and its dependencies to the United Kingdom. They should have been returned to Africa and India.

    3. The truth may be that the British can no longer defend the Chagos Islands. Since the British Merchant navy was decimated in and after 1982 and the Royal Navy has more admirals than ships these days, it is highly unlikely that we would win the Falklands back this time round.

      I'm beginning to wonder if we even have the military resources to defend the Isle of Wight.

      Still, it's not all bad. Normal people are driving bigger cars than they did.

    7. Happy 64th birthday, an age like few others.
      2x2x2x2x2x2
      4x4x4
      8×8
      Don't be an old square, have a splendid day.

    9. As I said last night after wishing you a happy 64th birthday, Bob 3, you only have to wait another 16 years for your OBE. Over Bloody Eighty of course. Lol.

    11. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday, Bob! Have a wonderful day! 🥂🎂🍷🍺🎉💕

  16. Steep rise in Russian executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war. 7 October 2024.

    Executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war by Vladimir Putin’s forces have surged this year, with a top Kyiv official warning it could indicate a shift in Russian policy.

    Some 80 per cent of the 93 prisoner executions recorded since the start of the war took place this year, Yuriy Belousov, the head of the prosecutor-general’s office, revealed on local TV.

    Gruesome videos and photos that appear to show the killings are often circulated by war bloggers and Telegram accounts, becoming vital evidence for Ukraine’s investigations.

    That's a steep rise in accusations not evidence. In this particular case when the Ukie fortunes on the battlefield are in decline. We can be pretty certain that no Russian general order has been issued to kill prisoners because not only would we have heard about it, but the numbers would vastly exceed 93; beside which no senior officer or politician would be dumb enough to put his name to such a policy and no junior would have the authority.

    Unjustified killings; though it is a fine distinction, of combatants in wartime are not unusual. The numbers are probably underestimated rather than otherwise because they happen on the cusp between actual combat and surrender. The perpetrators do not dare to take the risk and opt for the safest way out. They are not organised events, which by their chaotic circumstances are beyond prediction. The SAS was only accused last week of unjustified killings in Afghanistan and where these occurred it was almost certainly for the same reasons.

    Where these accusations fall down is in that they are presented by the Ukies as being part of a policy. This is highly unlikely for the reasons given above and that such would be counter-productive. For one thing it discourages surrender and makes the opposition more resistant. The second is that such orders are illegal under all military codes and individual cases would lead to probable Post War prosecution.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/06/steep-rise-in-russian-executions-of-ukrainian-prisoners/

    1. Yes – when does a surrendering combatant become a POW? Let's assume we have a face off. One chap raises his arms to indicate surrender. The other bloke, surging with adrenaline, fear, shock, ears ringing from gunfire, eyes wide as saucers sees a chap further down the line reach down. He doesn't know what for, he has less than a second to think through what to do and in the heat of it gun in hand he opens fire to protect himself from men who, not a minute ago were trying to kill him.

      It's easy for lawyers and politicos to go for the soldier but the simple truth is war has one purpose: to kill the enemy. All the nonsense we put around it to make ourselves feel better about that fact is a side issue. the more violent, vicious and sudden the assault is, the sooner the fighting stops.

        1. Is it not asking a bit much to expect 8 billion people to adopt a Stepford Wives positive thinking behaviour whenever being offended against?

          The Geneva Convention tries to mitigate the effects of war, and has to be mutual in order for it to work.

  17. 394268+ up ticks,

    Our stance as a nation in regards to justly supporting Israel is not of a clear vision nature, with ALL the pro palestinian, home turf action taking place.

    Plus the fact, we are seemingly witnessing the political overseeing kapos & pharmaceutical elites joint actions, holocaust MK 2 in the creation mode.

    Only treacherous fools, politic scammers,carpetbaggers would allow this to continue within British borders, to fester until death dealing eruption is the end game.

    Monday 7 October: A year on from Israel’s darkest day, the country’s allies must stand firm

    1. If we accept that even Palestinians have the right to defend themselves against an aggressive foe, then what strikes me about the raid into Israel a year ago is its sheer bloody military incompetence. What the hell were they thinking by taking on one of the best defended, globally supported and paranoid nations on earth without making damned sure its capacity for retribution was taken out first?

      Far better to hold fire until they were ready.

      1. 394369+ up ticks,

        Morning JM,

        Intentionally poking bee nest, NEVER let the issue settle into
        a peace like period, keep the war mobile etc,etc.

      2. You think that Israelis are paranoid when one of their recently-deceased sworn enemies (Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah) said the following in a speech a few years ago: "Lebanon was a Christian country, but we took it and now it's ours. After we kill all the Jews in Palestine, we will just have begun. We won't stop until every country on Earth is ruled by the law of Allah and the people of Islam, like our prophet promised." And he could back up that threat with the build-up of weaponry on the Lebanon-Israel border.

        You think that Israelis are paranoid when they face that level of existential genocidal threat? Calling them that is sufficiently adjacent to anti-Semitic Jew hatred that I'm calling it out as such. I think that an apology and a retraction are called for here.

        2. There was once a book which set up the Not Terribly Good Club of Britain, which glorified brazen incompetence. For all his hot air and cursing of the Jews, this genocidal maniac was easily neutralised with a booby-trapped pager. If only Hitler was so easy!

          The Jews have every justification to be paranoid after what Hitler did to them, but it hardly helps their cause when they mete out the same treatment to others, claiming divine approval.

          It is a free country though, just, and you can think what you like. So can I.

          1. I don't see "paranoid" as pejorative in the case of Israel. Common sense to be paranoid, more like.

      3. The aim was to provoke the usual robust Israeli response, leading to masses of Palestinian casualties and a propaganda victory. They know they cannot defeat Israel militarily, so the strategy is to get the USA and World opinion to do it for them.

        1. Hasn’t worked though. A year on, and we are still supplying the rockets being fired on the defenceless in Gaza and Lebanon. Any dissent is quickly dealt with by heavies manhandling the protester out of earshot of our leaders.

      4. Don't tell me that the Palestinians would have managed the attack they did without considerable financial backing and insider help! People can't see this because they have been trained to believe in the myth of the mighty muslim terrorist.

        1. I believe that all sorts of malicious forces financed this atrocity, not all of them linked to Muslim interests, and quite possibly there are various psychopaths involved. As I suggested earlier, it was militarily very stupid to take on Israel without first dealing with its capacity to deal in heavy retribution.

          There are three main branches of Islam, relating to various stages of Mohammed’s history.

          The Shias represent the Mecca period, when he was married to Khadijah and was a respected elder of the city, with responsibility for stewarding the Kabbah. Khadijah was a woman of very high social status in the city, and therefore the Shia have a definite heirarchy and code and are far more centralised and prescriptive and happiest in an Establishment setting. His legacy was perpetuated his daughter Fatimah and his cousin and son-in-law Ali.

          The Sunnis represent the Medina period, after Khadijah died, and Mohammed was thrown out of he city for violating personal icons in the city. He formed a private army and then proceeded to convert the heathen at the point of a sword, rather than by edict from an Establishment. They are much more decentralised, and tend to be run by local sultanates, who have absolute power and discretion. This legacy was led by his young widow Aisha and her various favourites.

          Then we have the mystics,the Sufis, who went off on a tangent, and tend to be the most tolerant.

          I suggest that religious conflict between Jews and Gentiles, or between Muslims and Kuffah, are masking a much older ongoing situation well documented in the Old Testament, which seems to have been revived in recent times. Philistines are Philistines, be they Christian or Muslim.

          1. Yes. Most people don’t take on board that there are so many sociopaths in high places who don’t act like normal people. And I believe that old struggle is still ongoing too – there is too much evidence of it. Luciferians/Sabbateans/Frankists/whatever one calls them, it comes to the same in the end – are not some harmless cranks who get a thrill out of desecrating churches – they are organised and evil.

  18. Good morning, all. Clear and bright here.

    I'm off to Norfolk this morning to attend a wedding, the bride is in her late seventies and the groom his early eighties. The groom is a motorbike enthusiast – he regularly rides a Norton Dominator – and his future wife has taken to this mode of transport and rides pillion wearing leathers. You can't keep some 'oldies' down.

    I wish them well.

    Tough love?

    https://x.com/LozzaFox/status/1842865183900795264

    1. The child is a teenager.
      The child wants a separation from her parents – a space for 'her'.
      She wants some privacy.

      This sounds a bit like the parent doesn't trust his daughter or more likely, the boy.

      My mother would constantly invade my room. Moving things around, dusting, tidying, rummaging through papers and diary. I made a pact to myself that I wouldn't interfere with Junior's room (s) at all. They'd be his. He has a clothes bin and a waste bin and a little peddle bin for anything else. He knows where the bin bags are and can use as many as he wants.

      This means he can leave his lego out where he wants to, his paints and hobby room as he wants to. I figured if I can do what I like in my room, so can he.

      1. I am an untidy slob. My first son, Christo, is just as slovenly as I am but his younger brother is meticulously neat and well-organised.

      2. My mother was like yours. She'd go through my possessions and throw away what SHE didn't think was worth keeping. She also took the old coins I'd put to one side because they were rare and spent them. I couldn't wait to leave home.

      3. Kids deserve a bit of privacy, but not girls hanging out in their bedrooms with teenage boys. That's just asking for teenage pregnancies. Far more teenage girls have abortions than are ready to admit to it. It's not a good start in life, to put it mildly.
        Some courageously keep the baby, but if they are going to do any training or work, babysitting duties will inevitably fall on their parents, as well as costs.
        How would you feel if your son was fifteen and allowed to hang out in his girlfriend's bedroom, and a pregnancy ensued?
        By the way, one of the biggest lies sold to young women is "The Pill works!"

      1. My daughter at that age was very sensible but I can understand it. Perhaps his plan is to put the door straight back on and has just done it done it to scare her a bit.

    4. I heard once that the tutorial rooms at Royal Academy of Music all had clear glass in the doors. That made it easier to avoid potential inappropriate behaviour by students and teachers.

  19. A long time ago I worked for many years alongside a bloke who, in a motor cycle accident had lost his lower legs. He had mechanical walking stilts but usually nipped about in a wheelchair. He bought a bungalow recently and had it adapted and what not. When he got his new carbon fibre roboty legs we had races up and down the corridors. He taught me all the tannoy free areas and I got him access to the comp stock room so he could snaffle ram and extra disks for his computer.

    We both have the same problem. We're too wide for modern – or even older – homes. Rooms aren't big enough. Doors are an arse as they open… and then block access to the room. His solution? Take all the doors off.

          8. Brill…we don’t unfortunately, but likely one soon..from my window I can watch it lurch from one side of the valley to the other. Stay safe, Johnny:-)

        1. We don’t have too much holly, anne – the ones we do have are quite bare, but often have been in the past. Also, some of the younger shrubs have leaves which start by turning brown and then become lacy in appearance – not sure of the cause of that. Apparently holly didn’t use to have thorns, it’s evolved to stop animals eating the leaves – newer leaves higher up the shrub/tree don’t seem to have the thorns, perhaps because there are no dinos/giraffes around 😀

          1. Thank you for making me remember the glory that is a new holly leaf, light green, waxy and flexible. I love new leaves of all descriptions (happily watching them bursting out all over Buenos Aires at the moment), but there's something special about holly.

          3. Maybe your holly bushes/trees are all, or mainly, male? Unless they are hermaphrodite (like Van Tol) you need two to tango and produce berries.

          4. oh my goodness Conway, hadn’t considered that…will take a look. The tango eh….:-)) would that be the Argentinian one….

          5. It’s the females who have the flowers, and thus the berries. I have a lot of hollies, but not many are female. If you grow one from seed there’s a 50/50 chance of its being female. If you want to guarantee berries, you need to propagate a female. Confusingly, Silver Queen is actually a male! Golden King, on the other hand, is female!

          6. Thought I'd replied, but seems to have disappeared..didn't know the info, thanks. Silver Queen a male and Golden King a female – must watch out for those in Garden Centre:-)

          7. No, it’s there. I have both Silver Queen and Golden King (and Van Tol and quite a few others). I am thinking of getting a hedgehog holly (REALLY prickly!) but haven’t seen any when I’ve been visiting garden centres.

          9. Sounds a bit like box moth. Have you checked them for caterpillars (probably too late now)?
            I found box moth caterpillars on a Japanese holly, (which is not really a holly)

          10. I haven’t seen one, BB2, as you say likely too late. Very elegant moth, according to RHS been a bumper year?!

          11. Check the bush in April – June next year, though the little pests are active all summer. Horrid little green and black caterpillars that can jump.
            Xentari is the best spray if you do find them – it’s not a noxious chemical. I now spray my box bushes whether I see the caterpillars or not.
            “The caterpillars eat the leaves that have been treated withTOPBUXUS XenTari® treated. Via enzymatic degradation in the stomach of the caterpillar, the protein crystals of Bacillus thuringiensis are broken down into toxins.”

    1. They are creating prisons in plain sight. The intent is to monitor and control everything you do. The future – the painfully near future – is appallingly authoritarian. It's nothing less than a fascist's ideal.

      1. The “left” has become Nazi Fascist. As it always has been. Thats where to look for the far right.

  22. Good morning all.
    A misty damp start with a heavy drizzle and 5½°C on the Yard Thermometer.
    Forecast to brighten up later on.

    A year since Hamas sprung their trap in Israel.
    They knew EXACTLY what they were doing concerning the Israeli response and had their Propaganda Element primed up to flood the media with anti-Israeli stories.

    1. As I commented to a chum over dinner, all the muslim had to do was stay in bed. He could have made a brew, sat outside, read the paper. But no. He straps himself into a glider and drops bombs on his neighbour.

      You have to look at the mentality of that character and realise they are never, ever going to stop. They don't care about life, freedoms, democracy, they're insane. Their hatred is all they know, all they have. It consumes their very being. This ends when the muslim is too cowed to fight back or when one side is glass.

      1. Hamas was more than prepared to see their Human Shields killed because they then became Propaganda Fodder.

        1. That's the way those vile bastards have been carrying out their operations for years launching rockets from schools and hiding weapons in hospitals and housing estates.
          The press seems to have a problem even mentioning that.

          1. Where else should they hide them?

            Since Israel forbade foreign war reporters from the province, we only have their word that they are there, and Hamas's word that they are not. I wouldn't trust the word of anyone during a war.

            It strikes me that this is a Bart Simpson response. Strike the hospitals, schools, refugee camps and designated protected zones first and then automatically claim there were enemy rockets or fighters there. Any evidence to suggest otherwise having long been obliterated.

            Incidentally, has anyone friendly to Hamas, with a clipboard and a set of regs suggested that they may care to do a Health & Safety risk assessment on the proximity of a military base to a school or hospital in a war zone? Such a suggestion made to a colonel under fire might though be met by a two word expletive ending in off.

            About the most conclusive evidence that an Israeli shell has hit an ammunition dump is the size of the bang in proportion to the warhead used. Even so, the collateral damage does seem disproportionate and its newsworthiness selective. Hearts are bleeding, rightly, for the several hundred innocent hostages claimed during the raid into Israel last year, but why then is it haram (or whatever the right word is) to spare any thought for 40,000 dead, most of them as innocent of any crime as the Israeli hostages, just because their lives don't matter?

          2. Considering that it is Iran's and their lapdogs avowed intention to destroy Israel and murder the entire population, I think that Israeli military have been remarkably restrained.
            Still time will tell.

          3. I don’t think I would trust of an Israeli propagandist when a Cathy Newman style assertion tells us what Iran’s intentions are. Before we make comparisons between Ahmadinejad and Feiglin, who have remarkably similar avowed intentions for their respective foes, are either of them fit to speak for their nation?

            Do you deny that Israel has made quite a mess of Gaza and are now doing the same in Lebanon? Or is that mere enemy propaganda? If what I see for my eyes is “restraint”, then I dread to think what might happen if Israel takes advantage of not signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, applying the Book of Samuel in justification.

          4. We have a completely different view. Restraint by Israel means more violence from the religion of peace. As always.

          7. Oil rich near neighbours and the uses of slavery. Perhaps this is why millipede is so keen to stop oil …………or not.

      2. It all stems from their ideological belief that the non-believer is worthless and should be destroyed.

    3. Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran the Israelis announce their targets and warn people to get out of the way before they attack. The innocent people who get killed are the human shields deliberately left to be slaughtered by Hamas and Hezbollah.

      So why has the BBC fallen into the trap and supported the Palestinian propaganda campaign? Why does the BBC blame Israel for the death of innocent people?

      1. What really gets to me is that the BBC never stops repeating the propaganda from Hamas about the number of casualties in the Gaza Strip, even though academic statistical studies have shown that they must be complete fabrications and deceit.

        The BBC is determined to show its even-handed unbiased reporting by giving equal prominence to falsehood as it does to truth – or even more prominence to the former.

        1. I wouldn't trust "academic statistical studies" with the truth.

          More to the point, any survey of damage done to buildings in a heavily populated area, and it's quite implausible that the weren't casualties on the scale reported. I actually think it an underestimate, since they haven't counted those still buried under the rubble.

          Has corresponding damage been done in Israel? It can be no surprise that their casualty count is relatively light, and that the reporting is correct.

          Of course, as I once asked during a similar attack by Russia on its provocative neighbour, I said that all reports of heavy civilian casualties could be debunked simply by showing current images of intact buildings and people going about their business in reasonable safety. I am waiting.

          1. Try reading these:
            https://fathomjournal.org/statistically-impossible-a-critical-analysis-of-hamass-women-and-children-casualty-figures/
            Final paragraph: “It is likely that reductions in casualty counts reflect the IDF’s increasing reliance on ground force attacks, rather than airstrikes, as well as reticence on the part of its forces to engage Hamas terrorists that have fled into hospitals and other areas of concentrated civilian populations. These Hamas tactics – embedding among the civilian population to achieve a ‘human shield’ strategy – have resulted in the very real and very tragic deaths of an unknown number of women and children. The same Hamas war criminals who have engineered these tragic deaths are also behind the absurd and fabricated propaganda statistics so widely cited by the western media.”
            https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers
            Quote: “Taken together, what does this all imply? While the evidence is not dispositive, it is highly suggestive that a process unconnected or loosely connected to reality was used to report the numbers. Most likely, the Hamas ministry settled on a daily total arbitrarily. We knowthis because the daily totals increase too consistently to be real. Then they assigned about 70% of the total to be women and children, splitting that amount randomly from day to day. Then they in-filled the number of men as set by the predetermined total. This explains all the data observed.”

            Any apology and retraction for referring to the Israelis as ‘paranoid’ when they face an existential threat on several fronts from genocidal terrorists?

          2. Paranoia is a necessary attribute in times of war. Anyone trying to fight a battle without being paranoid about the enemy is a cissy.

            Considering that it is Gaza and now Lebanon that has been invaded, where do you draw the line between offensive military action and civil defence?

            Israel’s own invasion lasted about three days before the occupiers were chased back over the wire with their trophies. Whilst it was a triumph for Israeli civil defence, it was a pity that they were allowed to retreat and not apprehended there and there and dealt with. Or was it part of the plan?

      2. Is this what you meant, Rastus?
        "The innocent people who get killed are the human shields deliberately left by Hamas and Hezbollah to be slaughtered "

    4. As the Israelis always respond in the same robust manner, it wasn't difficult to forsee.
      I keep hoping that they will do something different – like the pager bombs, that was a masterstroke!

  23. Good morning all,

    Grey skies have cleared in the last half hour at McPhee Towers, wind South, 13℃ up to 16℃ today. Showers.

    Yesterday they said she'd resigned. Today they say she was removed. I wonder what the real reason is? It certainly isn't what we're being told. That much we can be sure of.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ca480468d1bf583b05c5398e0da089f41525235d9bf803bc727aeb65f7355113.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/06/sue-gray-ousted-as-downing-street-chief-of-staff/

    Anyone else think she looks a nasty piece of work? Possibly (probably?) a Satanist?

    2. No, but she is a member of the Labour party and thus far more dangerous than most being both thick and mendacious.

      I imagine after a short time she'll get a peerage and be booted upstairs to trough.

      1. Given her origins and strange back story, I suspect she literally knows where the bodies are buried.

    5. Certainly satanist, whether by design or not and they’ll ennoble Lady Muck to give her a voice in the HoL.

      1. 'Morning Sue 🙂 I'm guessing she and Rayner had a set-to…eeekkk, to be a fly on that wall…

    6. What with that sour-faced bitch and the weasely-looking ginger Irishman the infighting already apparent in this dreadful government will be the death of them. It can't come soon enough.

      1. For a small corner of the British Isles, NI seems to produce a high ratio of nasties.

        1. They, the nasties, as always, are the ones with the biggest mouths. The greater majority are fine, as nice a people as you would meet anywhere. In the south, it is exactly the same. And I speak as a proud Englishman.

    7. What with that sour-faced bitch and the weasely-looking ginger Irishman the infighting already apparent in this dreadful government will be the death of them. It can't come soon enough.

    9. Ozymandian frown and sneer – but now without the cold command!

      But not totally devoid of the maternal instinct – she did her best to secure money for her boy from a rich Arab!.

      But will his political career now be blighted too?

    11. She and her replacement are both Irish Republicans. What is Starmer's objective for the continued membership of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom? He recently visited Dublin and had discussions with the newly appointed Teasock (Prime Minister).

  24. Good morning all,

    Grey skies have cleared in the last half hour at McPhee Towers, wind South, 13℃ up to 16℃ today. Showers.

    Yesterday they said she'd resigned. Today they say she was removed. I wonder what the real reason is? It certainly isn't what we're being told. That much we can be sure of.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ca480468d1bf583b05c5398e0da089f41525235d9bf803bc727aeb65f7355113.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/06/sue-gray-ousted-as-downing-street-chief-of-staff/

    Anyone else think she looks a nasty piece of work? Possibly (probably?) a Satanist?

  25. Good morning, chums, and thanks to Geoff for today's NoTTLe site. Back from an enjoyable visit to York, where I met a lot of former colleagues at the Odeon Seniors annual get-together. I said last night that the journey back was quite traumatic. This was because, although I was travelling as a passenger with a couple from nearby Sudbury in Suffolk, after just 30 minutes on the motorway the car's front offside tyre began to drastically lose pressure. We carefully coasted for 15 minutes into the nearest services station and started to find a way to get the tyre replaced. To cut a long story short in the end both front tyres had to be replaced. And it was just before 6 pm – almost 7 hours later – before we got going again. The plan was for me to get home by about 4 pm, but it was in fact 9 pm before I arrived home. A very long day and not only stressful but also an extremely expensive day for my two friends.

    Wordle 1,206 5/6

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    2. While no fun, you were safe, your friends were safe and no one else was injured.

      It's easy to put the spin on these things when I wasn't impacted, but for your being here today rather than in an accident is a relief far greater than anything else.

      1. Well said. When one of my colleagues was bemoaning the fact someone had run into the back of her car I asked her if she was hurt. She wasn't. I pointed out the car could be (and was) repaired.

    3. I can sympathise.

      My spare tyre needed replacing, so I dropped it off at Walker's Garage and went to Wirksworth for a Type 2 checkup.
      Called in to the Co-op afterwards then saw that the Front Left had deflated.
      Gingerly drove to the tyre pump on the other side of the building and re-inflated it, luckily it held pressure.
      Drove straight to the Garage and left the van there for them to sort out.
      Picked the van up later with new front left and spare tyres.
      Drove to Stoke to see Stepson and coming in to Hartington, saw an oncoming tractor and wide trailer and pulled a bit further over to the left, hitting a collapsed rainwater gully as I did so.
      Van appeared to be ok, so carried on with Journey.
      Stopped at Ipstones for a bit of shopping and restarting the journey heard nasty noises so pulled in to the Agricultural Supply Shop in the village to find ANOTHER deflated Front Left!
      Luckily one of the lads working at the shop gave me a hand replace the wheel.

      But THREE New Tyres in Three Days is more than a bit over the top!!

      1. We keep getting a warning on our dash telling us front nearside is losing pressure. Probably the valve. I'm quite sure caused by bloody pot holes.
        Obviously the roadtax and all the other associated expenses of motoring doesn't cover the costs of the necessary road repairs.

      2. God morning, Bob

        Tyred out already – and still a lot of wood to cut and chop!

      3. Poor you Bob

        An expensive three days for you , tyres are not cheap.
        We are also having a grand time avoiding tractors , they are so busy bringing in the maize , more tractors than in previous years, nearly every field contains acres of maize .

        1. No wonder with the roads. Perhaps the council will pay the bill. of course they wont.

          1. There's one road here that's so bad it's laughable. You'd need a tank to drive comfortably over it.

  26. Has there ever been, in British history, such a coterie of clueless, guileless, gormless, hapless, witless, aimless, humourless, meaningless, careless, feckless, cashless, toothless, valueless, visionless, talentless, soulless, rudderless, hopeless, pitiful set of moronic zombies tasked with running the country as there is right now.

    2. Good morning, Grizzly. In this country, perhaps not. But in the USA the current President Biden takes some beating.

      1. Vindictive really does sum them up.
        Going through life beiing so humourless and mean minded must be very tiring.

      1. Morning, Maggie.

        I’ve seen some useless cretins in government but this lot take the (bourbon) biscuit.

        I used bourbon (biscuit) because I could never stand them!🤮

    9. Are you sure about that. I thought they are mush worse but cannot put it into words like you.
      I agree with you totaly.

  27. Good morning, Auntie Elsie. Was York as lovely as I remember it? Did you visit Whip-ma-whop-ma-gate?😉

    1. Mrs N and I spent our first holiday together in York, what a great city. We walked all of the city walls. Part of the defence was marsh and bog so the wall did not surround the full city. We found the tomb of the Blessed Margaret Clitheroe befor she became a full saint.

    2. I was stationed in York for two glorious years in the 80s. I later was posted to Maastricht which closely resembles York, only with the splendid continental cafe culture and better opening hours.

  28. Morning all 🙂😊
    Another grey start. More rain later.
    Many thanks for all the kind words regarding the loss of my good old mate Bruce. We did have good times.
    Look up William Charles Bradley in regard to the Southend peir hero. He was Bruce's great grandfather. Similarly characteristic ran in the family. Although married to one of my wife's cousin's he didn't have any of his own children, sadly neither did his sister in Devon or brother in Norfolk.
    But Bruce's two adopted children (one now a grand mother) called him dad. And he loved the company of the many dogs they cared for.
    And like Bob was a prolific log chopper and splitter.

  29. 394269+ up ticks,

    A leader the voters deemed we did NOT need.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021

    ·
    Oct 5

    Here’s what I think is most likely.

    The Yanks told the British Govnt to get out. And being completely subservient to the US they will.

    I also don’t blame Starmer entirely for this. A big move like this would have been decided a while ago under the Tories he’s just inherited it..

    Britain should stop pretending we are still a great imperial power – we’re not. We should assess our real vital interests & concentrate on them.

    We should also stop slavishly doing what the US says – we don’t have a special relationship we have a servile one.

    Make England great again! And that means focusing on our needs / strengths in defending & exploiting them ruthlessly.

    ‘We’ve been betrayed’: Chagos Islanders’ fury as UK hands territory to Mauritius
    Chagossians exiled to the UK say they are opposed to the Government's sovereignty deal

      1. Morning Rastus
        But the people do not matter – they never matter to Socialists politicians.

  32. 394269+ up ticks,

    I do believe that labour is out finally, to wield the back stabbing sword to the heart of old Blighty.

    It could very well have been any of the political gangsters close shop trio, just falls that it is labour who currently has the shout.

    The tories in name only are making some sort of comeback on the grounds of "They want to be the nation killers" ALL this having the consent of the tribal voter via the polling stations.

    Illegal Migrant Crossings of English Channel Hit Daily Record for Year as Nearly 1,000 Cross From France

    1. The only mention of this on BBC TV is a one-hour programme in which “Jane Corbin meets four families whose lives have been changed by the conflict forever”. I bet that this means two Palestinian families and two Israeli families, with little mention that it was a group of fanatical, evil Palestinians who launched, with full approval and support of the majority of Palestinians, a vicious assault against innocent young people enjoying a music festival. The Palestinian families had their lives changed only because of the actions of other Palestinians. Had this been an assault by hordes of ultra-orthodox Jews against Palestinians peacefully carrying on with their lives, the BBC programme schedule would have been awash with remembrances and condemnations.

    2. Tom, I responded to your post but, for reasons that defy, well, reason, it was “detected as spam”. This happens on just about everything I post on The Conservative Woman” but this is the first time on nttl. I’ll repeat what I said and see if it happens again. It might be because I quoted from the Radio Times a reporter’s name or the naming of a particular community so I’ll introduce a little but of editing that might get round this.

      Dhobi Mick
      Tom Armstrong
      34 minutes ago
      Detected as spam
      The only mention of this on BBC TV is a one-hour programme in which “Ja ne Cor bin meets four families whose lives have been changed by the conflict forever”. I bet that this means two Palestinian families and two Israeli families, with little mention that it was a group of fanatical, evil Palestinians who launched, with full approval and support of the majority of Palestinians, a vicious assault against innocent young people enjoying a music festival. The Palestinian families had their lives changed only because of the actions of other Palestinians. Had this been an assault by hordes of ultra-orthodox CHOOSE against Palestinians peacefully carrying on with their lives, the BBC programme schedule would have been awash with remembrances and condemnations.

      1. Dhobi (are you an ex-seaman?) I’ve just checked our spam box – disqus can be erratic about spam and it is beyond a site’s control.

        Can I ask you to pop over to our site, Free Speech, and try posting your very good post again please and if you let me know youve done it, I’ll check it out.

        freespeechbacklash.com

        1. Firstly, I am not an ex-seaman but ex-RAF. The term “dhobi” was, maybe still is, widely used in the RAF, along with many other words of Arab, Indian or Far Eastern origin – gary (truck or lorry), bundu/bondu (jungle, dessert), amah (maid servant), for example.

          Secondly, I suspect that the offending word in my post that caused it to be detected as spam was the four-letter word for the adherents of major religion of Israel. I’ll post on freespeechbacklash to test this?

          1. Please do. In the merchant navy dhobi means to wash. Washing powder was dhobi dust, and you used it to do your dhobying.

            Please post with the offending word Mick.

  34. My word it's lovely and sunny now I'll get on with digging the well rotted compost from one of the bins. It's black and damp but mixed with sharp sand will be very useful for potting up.

  35. Blooming heck!
    Not only has the rain stopped paused, but the sun is making an effort to come out!!

  36. Good morning dear people

    We had a burst of rain earlier , no not a shower , a tropical down pour, lasted five minutes then sunshine , 15c , now cloudy , more rain due , slight breeze .. the local news said beware of tornados, what on earth?

    I slept badly , nightmares .. I read the article by Alison Pearson . https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/10/05/oct-7-israel-survivors-stories-state-of-the-nation/

    One person in every hundred people in the UK is an illegal migrant .. just been announced .. How can that be ?

    The government should be ousted pronto..

    1. I've just read Allison Pearson's article and watched the dash cam video of the grenades. What a brave young man that was.

  37. Let's not forget, the illegal immigrant situation is as a result of the last government. However, I agree, things are not going to improve with the present lot.

      1. It was just a week, fantastic weather with the heat of summer over there subsiding. Off to somewhere a little bit further for some warmth in Nov, not sailing though.

    4. The last government x 7 + the senior civil service of at least the past 15 or so years.

    1. You have to admire the man. Not many people can balance on their head and talk out of their arse whilst gesticulating profusely at the same time. The content of his discourse does require a little more attention though. 9/10 for effort!

    5. An era of peace and tranquillity good lord. What a berk. Labour wreck the economy. The problem is the economy is already a wreck. Labour do not have the ability to resolve the problems we have because every single problem is caused by Labour ideology or policy.

    6. I'm in the fortunate position of not having much of an opinion about this woman. She is just a vague name and blurred image in my mind. By making little to no effort in keeping up with current affairs, I'm spared the grumpiness which attends others on the mention of her name. Would I be correct in thinking that spending time on finding out about her would in any way add to my happiness or alter the course of events surrounding her? If so, blessed ignorance seems to have been the best course of inaction.

    8. What a nasty man Andrew Marr is! Talking of nasty men I saw Michael Crick on GB News last night. I think there are very few people quite as odious as this repulsive person.

      1. GBN manages to serve up quite a few to rival Crick. Lis, Dunlop and Myskow are probably the top contenders at the moment.

        1. I agree completely – I think GB News is very naughty in that it deliberately chooses odious or extremely stupid left-wing people on their panels in order to point out just how abysmal the Left is!

          1. One has to factor in the willingness of those people to make fools of themselves. My guess is that they're treated very well off camera and may even be friends. I have frineds from way back who are lefties. I'm sure GBN producers do too? Patrick Christys and Benjamin Butterworth disagree on air but Benjie was at the Christys wedding, photographed hugging the happy couple.

          4. I've seen very little of GB News and what I have seen underwhelmed me. I'll make no effort to see any more.

      2. The BBC has become the lowest of the low. No plitician has done anything about them.

        1. The same people/institutions pull the strings of both the politicians and the media bosses.

    1. Now.. does anyone with half a brain think that these psychopaths of the Biden/Harris administration won't be cheating at the election?

      1. I am beginning to think that it does not matter how many people vote for Trump and how many people vote for Harris.

        The corrupt Democrats won in 2020 by cheating and got away with it. Why on earth should they not cheat again and win again?

    2. I don't understand the reasons for that. Why would they care is private citizens are investing their own money to help others?

      1. The accusation is that the Biden/Harris regime are doing it deliberately because Carolina is a Republican state that will vote for Trump. Considering the way that American politics has been injected with venom, I wouldn't be surprised if that accusation is true.

        1. Funnily enuff the EU used to dish out love in the same way to the UK. The Libturds cheered it on.

      3. They (the present US govt) don’t want them helped, rescued – they want them gone. And their Republican votes gone with them. The people in govt want their land, extensive lithium resources there; Harris’s husband is rumoured to have vast investment in the mining of lithium via Blackrock. Some time ago the govt tried to buy the land from the people who lived in NC -they said No. The poorest people are now being offered a loan of $750, to be paid back within a year otherwise their property will be seized. Wheels within wheels.

  42. Former deputy Labour leader Baroness Harriet Harman has said "missteps" and "clunkiness" should be expected when a new administration arrives in Downing Street.

    Blog reply.
    I am not sure lying about a black hole, openly bribing your paymasters with 25%+ pay hikes, preparing for the greatest tax raid ever to pay for it, stealing money off pensioners to do the same, handing over UK territories to 3rd world countries without asking the residents and destroying private education due to ideological spite is really "misstepping".

    1. Nor Milioaf's closing of gas licences, the demented waste of money on carbon capture, the appalling AR6 generosity, union bungs (which is where the 'black hole' came from), the blatant corruption and fraud.

      Folk just don't seem to understand: the state spends 22bn in 8 days. A third of that is borrowed money – future debt to our children.

    2. Rachel Reeves calls off pension tax relief raid amid warnings it would impact public sector workers

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13931197/Rachel-Reeves-planned-pension-tax-raid-amid-warnings-unfairly-impact-public-sector-workers.html

      Rachel Reeves has called off her planned pension tax raid after being warned that it would unfairly impact up to a million teachers, nurses and other public sector workers.
      The Chancellor had planned to raise funds by reducing tax relief on those earning £50,000 or more per year.
      But senior Treasury officials said the move would disproportionately hit those who have given their careers for the state.
      The original proposals would have seen public sector workers on £50,000 a year face an additional annual tax bill of £1,000.
      But last night a senior government figure said it would be 'madness' to inflict large tax rises on workers who have just been handed a pay rise, according to The Times.

      Yet it's OK to take money from people on far far less.

    3. It's not misstepping – it's planned destruction of our country in the shortest possible time.

  43. Lack of judgement again Starmer ?

    Who is the replacement for Sue Grey?

    Morgan McSweeney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_McSweeney

    Reception and recognition
    In September 2023, New Statesman ranked McSweeney third on a list of the most influential left-wing figures in the UK and described him as Starmer's "most trusted aide".[14] In the next edition of the list, in June 2024, the magazine upgraded McSweeney to first place, naming him "the most influential person on the left today".[24] The Times stated in October 2023 that "nobody without elected office wields as much power in British politics as McSweeney,"[6] and The Guardian has described him as "the most influential backroom operator in the party."[25]

    I am asking seriously .. why doesn't a Prime Minister wield power anymore ..

    How left wing is left wing , meaning what ..

    Is that new bloke an agitator .. is he head honcho of Momentum?

  44. Please listen to this because the man on the left is ex royal air force and he has a great deal to say. Not just about that but also our responsibility as English people, an issue that has been occupying me a great deal lately and which I find quite vexing because, with my health, I can do very little, For me defeatism, the idea that we, the English people, are doomed, is not an option, it's the cowards way out, self indulgent, self pity. I have more or less settled on studying history because that is something I love and can transmit to the young. By doing so what I learn enables me to act as a corrective to the lies that the mainstream inflict on our children and teaches them to hate themselves.

    Death of the Royal Air Force
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcxTq6AlORY

    1. I have two friends (twins) who built their own plane, flew it to South Africa, did aeronautical engineering at (different) universities and were in the OTC. Both rejected by the RAF (this was say 2 years ago when there was the scandal about recruitment of white lads).

      Both have now found their way on the commercial world.

      England’s loss.

      Still, if the recent success of NZ’s navy is anything to go by, there should be no problems at all.

      1. Our Christo wanted to be an RAF pilot but his eyesight was not good enough. He studied aerospace engineering at university and is now an aerospace engineer. He is passionate about hang-gliding:

    1. What I said a couple of days ago. I hope this turns into such a scandal that it destroys any chance of Harris becoming President.

      1. Only if it is reported nationally – and I can't see US main stream media doing that.

        1. Rather like the Hunter Biden laptop story that was memory-holed before the last election. However, I guess this story would be much more difficult to hide.

        2. I just scanned through some US news sites and unless you go to FoxNews there is nothing specifically about the delayed FEMA support.
          The New York Post has been keeping readers aware of what is not happening in NC but as with other news outlets, today is October 7th revisited.

        3. It has gone nationally because Fox is the most watched news channel in the USA.

    2. Wall to wall coverage of this devastating event over here in Blighty…oh… wait….

      1. 394369+ up ticks,

        Afternoon LS,
        Many got deservedly so what they voted for. out of pure spits

  47. A Labour group formerly run by Sir Keir Starmer’s right-hand man was fined for failing to declare some £730,000 in donations.

    Morgan McSweeney, the Labour leader’s former chief of staff and the party’s current campaigns director, was the director of the Labour Together think tank between 2017 and 2020.

    The group set out to develop alternatives to the hard-Left policies of Jeremy Corbyn and had the backing of a number of MPs who now sit in the shadow cabinet.

    But the Sunday Times reported that Mr McSweeney stopped alerting the Electoral Commission to new donations made to Labour Together in December 2017. This meant hundreds of thousands of pounds went undeclared within the watchdog’s 30-day limit. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/11/12/labour-group-fined-failing-to-declare-donations/

    Starmer's lack of judgement .. yes, as I mentioned earlier, Mr McSweeney is the replacement for Sue Grey .. ,

    1. Imagine if this were the Brexit Party. The electoral commission would have been all over it.

      Luckily for Liebour, there is two-tier governance by Regulators in this benighted country of ours.

    2. I was puzzled by the reference to the shadow cabinet, until I checked the article and found that it was published in Nov 2023 (as I have now noticed in the web address). I'm commenting on this to alert other readers who might also be puzzled initially. 🙂

    1. The idiot is actually proud of the fact that he's scientifically illiterate and wasting our taxpayer's money on things that are unachievable while boosting the GDP of China, India etc. Miliband has probably done more damage to the UK than the Luftwaffe!

        1. Apols Ndovu, but this is another black hole. The first one was a giant bung to unions for bankrolling Labour. This is even more debt. Added to which will come the pointless quango 'British energy' – which is neither a supplier, generator, producer, seller or .. anything… in energy.

    2. I'd like to ask him – if the UK ever reaches net zero and we're a Dark Age society, what difference will it make? What will change? Will the climate stop changing?

      Milioaf doesn't care. He's pocketing millions in back handers and there is nothing we can do to stop him – except deselect him.

    3. DILLIGAF
      Belle, I wonder how many Nottlers know the meaning of DILLIGAF in the post above. For those who don't, it stands for Do I Look Like I Give A F*** .

    4. It's not just China laughing the whole of the rest of the world is laughing at us. Especially the middle east. Many countries are totally reliant on oil the even use it in sea water desalination.
      Then dump all the extracted salt back into the sea. Where all those useless bodies who claim to object ?

      1. He is the type who would have sided with the Germans , betraying his own tribal people ..

        He will oversee the cold discomfort of the elderly and carry on grinning ..

        That man has no soul.

  49. 394269+ up ticks,

    Althrough serious I do believe there are much more odious issues being acted out than assaulting & injuring a police officer.

    Is the reform party throwing its weight behind Andy Bridgen and the,in my book,political / pharmaceutical
    life takers ongoing case ?

    Dt,

    Has the party taken a serious look at the islamic invasion troops coming ashore via a governing parties controlled bridgehead ?

    prosecution of men in Manchester Airport fight with police
    MPs write to Home Secretary over concerns officers involved have been ‘thrown under bus’ while men have so far gone unpunished prosecution of men in Manchester Airport fight with police

      1. Perhaps an adequate answer is 'you first'. Then a published audi log of who has access to this content – publicly posted names, when, where, how. If a machine uses it for processing then someone is named responsible for that access. Database auditing is simple.

    2. Socialists are always going to "tax the rich" buth they are the rich and their wealth comes from theft.

      2. SOCIALIST
        What is a Socialist? one who is willing
        To put down his penny and pick up your shilling.
        If any Nottler knows the author of this lovely couplet, please report it on this website. I have looked all over the place for a source.

        EDIT: Found it! It is not a long time since the kindest estimate of Socialism by the average man was that expressed by Ebenezer Elliott, "the Corn-Law Rhymer," in the once familiar cynical doggerel:— "What is a Socialist? One who is willing To give up his penny and pocket your shilling."

        1. The version I know is slightly different:
          What is a Communist? One who has yearnings
          For equal division of unequal earnings;
          Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing
          To fork out his penny and pocket your shilling.

          I think I found it in the New Oxford Book of Light Verse?

        2. The version I know is slightly different:
          What is a Communist? One who has yearnings
          For equal division of unequal earnings;
          Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing
          To fork out his penny and pocket your shilling.

          I think I found it in the New Oxford Book of Light Verse?

      3. SOCIALIST
        What is a Socialist? one who is willing
        To put down his penny and pick up your shilling.
        If any Nottler knows the author of this lovely couplet, please report it on this website. I have looked all over the place for a source.

        EDIT: Found it! It is not a long time since the kindest estimate of Socialism by the average man was that expressed by Ebenezer Elliott, "the Corn-Law Rhymer," in the once familiar cynical doggerel:— "What is a Socialist? One who is willing To give up his penny and pocket your shilling."

    3. Odd how the vaunted 'rights' the EU sets ou suddenly don't apply when it wants something.

    4. Well it beats this random burglary lark. You will now be able to hack into the registry of good stuff and select which homes you will plunder.

    5. Reporting your Wealth
      That EU proposal is nothing new. We already have a version of it in the UK. If you are an Executor filling in the Inheritance Tax forms before you can apply for a Grant of Probate (e.g. for your deceased parent) you will first need to fill in Form IHT 400. Question 27 asks “Are you including on this form all assets specifically referred to in the Will?”

      If No, go to question 28 which asks for a list of all items referred to in the Will and not included on this form IHT 400.

      In case you, the executor, thought you could quietly distribute some of the nice things to the inheritors without recording them for Inheritance Tax, not so fast! You must list all such items, saying who they were given or sold to; the date of gift; the value of the item at the date of sale or disposal and, if the item was sold what did the deceased do with the sale proceeds? So that’s easy if you haven’t been a naughty boy (or girl) executor.

      Phew! If No to question28, move on to question 29 which is in 3 parts, about whether the deceased had benefited from transfer of the unused Residence Nil Band (£175,000) from his/her pre-deceasing spouse (that’s Forms IHT435, 436 and 402). That's pretty easy.

      Go and make a cup of tea or perhaps a stiff drink because questions 30 to 41 await you.

      These use Forms IHT 403 to 414 to demand details of all gifts made in the last 7 years, (14 years if a Trust is involved); ALL assets owned by the deceased, including Bank and Building Society accounts, all personal possessions, stocks and shares, life assurance and annuities… Uncle Tom Cobley and All.

      So there you have it: the State already wants to know every detail of what you had at the date of your death.

      The difference here is that the EU is proposing that you do that DURING YOUR LIFE.

      1. Ah but residents of the EU don't do compliance.. if you recall it was only the UK that followed rules.

          1. Good question —- all stems from the differences between the practice of common law & civic law. The first makes everything legal in principle.. until it isn't then compliance kicks in and is taken very seriously.
            In the EU everything is not permitted, and a permit is then issued. Everything that is permitted is listed in reams upon reams of articles.

            Perfectly illustrated by trying to open a restaurant in London. No way would you dare open until you obtained all the permits, and would be in deep do-do if you did. Same in Hongkong. Whereas in France you just open, and only comply 'when you get caught'. Then you shrug your shoulders, spit at the official and carry on.

      2. Ah but residents of the EU don't do compliance.. if you recall it was only the UK that followed rules.

  51. I once made book club read a book by Howard Jacobsen as there was some connection with Wolverhampton. We didn’t rate the book. But his article on Unherd today is moving.

    “Of the images I have not been able to clear from my mind over these past 12 terrible months the most tenacious is that of two young women: one in an elegant hijab, one not, laughing for the camera as they deface a poster of a hostage.

    Laughing for the camera. An unintentionally pointed preposition. I think I meant only to say at, but what if it was performative, either in response to a cameraman urging the women to vandalise a photograph of an unknown and possibly already slaughtered Jew, or an act of bravado on the women’s own parts? You never know for sure what you are looking at on film or how it came to be there. But the brief scene was unforgettably hateful in its callous insolence, however one interprets it. Scrawling with a marker — a marker bought for the occasion? — over the face of someone you don’t know. Someone in desperate trouble. A small act of terror in itself, I thought. And then, in tearing it off the wall, as though to say “may you never be found’, a smiling act of collusion in the abduction, the disappearance and, perhaps ultimately, the murder. A message to the family who invested hope in that poster: may you be eternally disappointed!…

    What does it feel like to hate so irrationally, to so relinquish your independence of judgement that you will hate on someone else’s say so and make an enemy of a poster?…”

    1. I read a couple of Howard Jacobson's novels in the 1980s. Peeping Tom was an amusing thriller based on the sexual fantasies of Thomas Hardy!

    2. muslim hate, unrelentingly. The Left don't understand why what they do is wrong. If they did, they wouldn't do it.

      I don't think muslim realise they're doing anything wrong. To them, Jews are just sub human. As if the pallies are justified in doing whatever. It is a sick, twisted justification for what is nothing more than evil.

      1. The koran tells them the kuffar (the non-muslim) is "lower than cattle". They are the Untermensch. The parallels with another problematical ideology are frightening.

    4. They're manipulated by propaganda, like about 90% of the country unfortunately.
      He could ask the same thing of the rabid covidians.

  52. Reform plans private prosecution of men in Manchester Airport fight with police. 7 October 2024.

    Reform UK is planning to launch a private prosecution of the men involved in the altercation with police at Manchester airport earlier this year.

    Reform MPs have written to the Home Secretary to say that they believe the officers involved have been thrown “under the bus” while the young men have so far gone unpunished.

    They said they also believe there has been a cover up of video footage showing the beginning of the incident and how the men became involved.

    This is obviously a good thing though we have to bear in mind that Reform are not just going up against the Political Elites but a co-opted Legal Establishment and that they cannot be allowed to win.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/07/reform-plans-private-prosecution-manchester-airport-fight/

      1. Afternoon Del. Yes they will probably quash it if they can. They don't want a trial.

        1. Listened to an ex-Met polis man on TalkTv. He reckons they’re waiting for the PCC to suspend/sack the officers then they’ll quietly drop the charges against the thug muzzies.

    2. I disagree, this isn't a good thing. There's a reason why the state is not acting. That's what Reform should be exposing. The fascists were very quick to label those angry at the murder of children by an immigrant but seem to be letting the muslim thugs – who were guilty of assault, GBH, you name it – off whereas writing on the interweb against government policy brought 20 months in jail.

      It is the double standard that needs to be raised. The state needs to be embarrassed by their cover up.

    3. the beginning of the incident

      That'll be the decking of the passenger by Fahir Amaazand & Muhammad Amaad that bumped into the kind & gentle mother Shameem Akhtar.
      I guess the same person on the flight who racially slurred the same kind & gentle mother.
      Flight from Pakistan? Racial slur on packed flight? So don't think so, unless it was a Punjabi.

      Then that really would make it problematic for Leftie Andy Burnham. If he was faaaaaaaaaaaaar right then that would present a No-Brainer for Andy.. but a Punjabi.

      Oh dear. What a pickle for Libturds.

      1. I suggest everyone just forgets the whole incident.. except for the criminal investigations of the firearms police officer & the bitch that tried to inflict pain on Fahir Amaazand with her nose.

      2. I suggest everyone just forgets the whole incident.. except for the criminal investigations of the firearms police officer & the bitch that tried to inflict pain on Fahir Amaazand with her nose.

    4. Also, this is what happens when the Police & CPS have been captured by Progressives.. the public loose trust and have to resort to PPs.

      There are recent examples of successful private prosecutions resulting in convictions where the police and CPS have deliberately failed to prosecute for political reasons & social cohesion issues..

  53. Reform plans private prosecution of men in Manchester Airport fight with police. 7 October 2024.

    Reform UK is planning to launch a private prosecution of the men involved in the altercation with police at Manchester airport earlier this year.

    Reform MPs have written to the Home Secretary to say that they believe the officers involved have been thrown “under the bus” while the young men have so far gone unpunished.

    They said they also believe there has been a cover up of video footage showing the beginning of the incident and how the men became involved.

    This is obviously a good thing though we have to bear in mind that Reform are not just going up against the Political Elites but a co-opted Legal Establishment and that they cannot be allowed to win.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/07/reform-plans-private-prosecution-manchester-airport-fight/

  55. The MSM are sickening…

    Lobby Spins Downing Street Implosion as Starmer’s ‘Ruthless’ Genius

    As Guido predicted yesterday the pundits have poured as much praise as they can get away with on the disastrous implosion of Starmer’s Downing Street 93 days into government. Got to keep those new sources sweet…

    https://i0.wp.com/order-order.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/LobbyPraisesStarmer.png?resize=511%2C720&ssl=1

    Remember when Gray was the person be be cosied up to? Profiles flattered where they could: “One Labour figure said Gray had been a good listener“, “She’s pretty ruthless at timekeeping.” Now it’s Starmer and McSweeney’s turn to have the spinning done for them…

    Lobby journalists pretend to be shocked by Starmer’s “ruthlessness” in getting rid of Gray. Guido doesn’t recall them spinning Cummings’ departure as Boris “bolstering his No 10 operation”…

    7 October 2024 @ 10:39

    1. Ruthless at timekeeping. Either she expected people to be on time, to deliver work on time or kept meetings short. In either case it's as little as can said about someone utterly useless.

    3. Hang on, hang on. Does anybody remember the outrage over Dominic Raab, a man who had the gall to demand that civil servants actually do their job to an acceptable standard? How does that square with the same people fawning over ‘ruthless’ Starmer?

    4. Why isn't anyone asking hard questions about civil service bias, especially as Starmer praised Sue Gray for her help before the election?

  58. Eylon Levy
    Israel is fighting on the frontline of the free world. Thank us later

    One year on from October 7, the West’s enemies are counting on Jerusalem’s allies to give up

    “We want you to win.” That is what then British prime minister Rishi Sunak told Israelis just days after the October 7 massacre. He was not alone. Shocked by Hamas’ atrocities, world leaders lined up to support Israel’s goal of bringing Hamas down and the hostages home. They understood what was at stake: an Iranian-backed jihadi regime could not be left free to repeat those attacks “again and again,” as it vowed.

    One year later, Israelis want to know: does the free world still want us to win, or has it changed its mind? Because a year after Hamas burned Israeli families alive, the stakes are even higher. Israel is not only fighting Hamas; it is fighting for its life against the Iranian regime and its proxy armies on seven fronts. And as we fight for our survival, we know that we are fighting on the frontlines of the free world, against the enemies of the free world, and making the world safer for you.

    We don’t need your thanks. We do need you to hold your nerve.

    On October 7, Hamas pulled the trigger of a regional war. It slaughtered 1,200 people and seized over 250 hostages, including babies. The next day, its Lebanese ally Hezbollah saw what it did and opened a second front; it has rained over 10,000 missiles and drones on Israel, forcing tens of thousands of Israelis out of their homes. Then their Yemeni allies, the Houthi pirates, joined the feeding frenzy and started firing ballistic missiles and drones, seizing control of the Red Sea. Iran’s proxy armies in Syria and Iraq have killed Israelis with their own drones, and West Bank terrorists are trying to resume suicide bombings. The Iranian regime has targeted us with two of the biggest ballistic missile attacks in world history.

    The October 7 War is existential for Israel – and for the free world. To secure our survival, we need to remove the threat of the terrorist armies on our borders, hellbent on our destruction. Israel cannot accept a ceasefire that leaves these terrorist armies free and emboldened to intensify their religious war to annihilate us. But it is also existential for the free world, whose future depends on the fate of three democracies, at risk of extinction by aggressive neighbors: Ukraine at the hands of Russia, Taiwan at the hands of China, and Israel at the hands of Iran.

    Those threats are interlinked, because Russia, China, and Iran are trying to undermine the global order and destabilize Western countries from within.

    At stake is whether the enemies of the free world conclude that it won’t stand up for itself, and will throw its allies under a bus when the going gets tough. Because the Iranian regime and its proxies understand the critical importance of Israel to the West’s security, perhaps more than some Western leaders do. They want to weaken us to weaken you; they want to hurt us to hurt you.

    This is not a war Israel started, wanted, or even expected. But it is a war that we must win, because we want to live. Much of the West wants this war to go away, but the war cannot go away until the threats go away. And we cannot wish them away.

    We cannot accept a return to October 6 2023, with Iran’s terrorist armies waiting for a moment of weakness on our borders. Obviously we want a diplomatic resolution, but what is the diplomatic off-ramp from a seven-front war against us, by terrorist armies threatening more October 7 massacres until Israel is destroyed? Right now, “deescalation” is simply another word for appeasement, a policy to give Tehran’s terrorist proxies a chance to catch their breath when Israel has them on their knees.

    Israel is doing the world’s dirty work. It does not want your sympathy; it demands your respect. It is single-handedly taking out the world’s most wanted terrorists with bounties on their heads. It is dismantling the Iranian regime’s proxy armies and disrupting their supply routes. It is conducting espionage operations far beyond Q’s wildest ambitions. It is showing the world what it means to have a spine and stand up for yourself, your survival, and your country. To withstand unimaginable pressure to do what you’ve got to do to keep your family safe.

    In Israel we all dream of peace, but we know peace is impossible while we are surrounded by enemies that openly seek our annihilation. A ceasefire that leaves Hamas in power, hostages in Gaza, and Hezbollah threatening a bigger October 7 from Lebanon would only set the clock ticking to the next war.

    And have no doubt, if Israel does not win the October 7 War, there will be a next time, and it will be worse, and it will be worse because the enemies of the West will conclude that it will keep saving them from the wars that they start.

    The Iranian regime and its proxy armies are counting on Western states to abandon a major ally and leave themselves exposed. They want you to bottle it. Don’t.

    Eylon Levy is a former Israeli government spokesman. He now heads the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office and hosts the State of a Nation podcast

    1. It will get worse, imv this is some kind of proxy war to draw America (and allies, notably Brits) into outright war, so far being resisted and we should hope continue to be so until Trump re-elected and see what he/Cushner brings.

      1. Back in the late sixties, I could with all honesty opine that "America doesn't want a war". I couldn't say the same now.

          3. "When all else fails, they take us to war"
            People know this, yet they still fall for it, every time.

          5. "When all else fails, they take us to war"
            People know this, yet they still fall for it, every time.

    3. Killing innocent people is not good public relations.

      The Israelis are well aware of this so when they are going to bomb legitimate military targets they give an advance warning in order to give the innocent people time to get out of the way.

      But Hamas and Hezbollah are cunning and can see that innocent people can be very usefully used as human shields. They also know that the MSM, many ordinary people and most politicians are as thick as porcine excrement so Hamas and Hezbollah pile people into the areas they have been warned will be bombed in order that they will be killed.

      And when they are killed the people blame Israel when the truth is that Hamas and Hezbollah are responsible and the evil murderers of their own people.

      And the BBC claims its reportage is impartial?

    4. Am I the only person who is still saying "But wait a moment, how did those terrorists manage to pass over the most heavily guarded and observed border in the world, which several former Israeli soldiers came out and testified was impossible, and why was a professional camera team on hand to film Hollywood standard footage?"
      Yet on the international stage, nobody asked any sensible questions, instead they leapt into one extreme view or the other, and now a year on, we're seeing October 7th raised to legendary massacre status with no questions asked? Why can't people see that it stinks?

    1. Dear God, can only hope that's a fake. Even a doe can give a nasty kick, I generally swerve both if I see/hear them. Few years ago, we we warned we might see wild boar…thankfully not, to date..

        3. John Betjeman was not too keen on tarted-up pubs!

          …… I felt a filthy swine
          For loathing beer and liking wine,
          And rotten to the very core
          For thinking village inns a bore,
          And village bores more sure to roam
          To village inns than stay at home.

      2. Brittany is overrun by wild boar and they have regular hunts to cull them.

        The animals get into our garden and make a mess by rootling.

      3. Due to my gregarious nature and way with women of all types, I can attest being kicked by a mare is very, very painful.

    2. BOTH her father's brain cells?
      Come on, Anne, if he had another braincell it would be lonely.

    5. I once dozed off on a sunny day in the garden at Knole in Kent. I was close to the house and I thought far away from the deer in the park but I woke to see a very impressive pair of antlers at very close quarters. I didn't move and the stag sniffed at me and went away.

          1. Indeed, Lacoste. I have a book of the late Rowland Hilder’s wonderful watercolour landscapes; they are a cut above any I’ve seen from anyone else.

        2. My wife inherited a limited edition copy of 'Faversham Creek' – I think it's fabulous! (and worth about £500 :-)) )

    6. Those deer see a lot of humans and can smell that she is a female child, so probably less risky than it looks.

    7. The only people in Richmond Park these days are MAMILs and our friends with four wives (and lots of children).

      1. During 1967-68, I used to exercise polo ponies every Saturday morning at 8 a.m.

        None of the above in those days!

  61. DT Letters 7 October

    Miliband’s folly
    SIR – Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, has announced a £22 billion investment in commercially “unproven” carbon capture and storage projects (report, October 4).

    For that money, the Government could build a number of small modular nuclear reactors, each of which would be able to power a city the size of Leeds, with zero carbon emissions.

    Not only would backing this cleaner, more reliable energy source create thousands of new jobs – it is surely more in line with the Government’s desire to demonstrate global leadership on net zero than spending the same amount on burying carbon emissions from existing generation.

    Peter O’Kane
    Whichford, Warwickshire

    1. Mr O'Kane is, like so many people; confused into thinking that net zero/climate change has anything to do with energy. It's simply another way to force social control. It's not about the environment – with 1000 tons of concrete poured into the ground for each pointless windmilll and 1000 litres of oil, not to mention rare earth metals, concrete and steel no, the green agenda is merely the latest effort by the Left to control people.

    2. I thought RR were already doing this, lacoste, or at least well on the way to it. I know a chap in hydrogen business, fully on board as you'd expect. Sticking with oil fired u/floor for now and future, plus woodburning stove. Everything else electric.

      1. They are. They have the technology. We can rebuild him… err, hang on.

        Milioaf won't let them. They're selling to Turkey I think, though. Again – the climate change tax scam is NOT about energy. It's not about emissions, the environment – anything the lies spout. It's about control. Theirs over you.

        1. Rebuilding Millibollix a very good idea. Yes, they’d turn energy on n off as they pleased, if possible. Think there was a punk rock song about it :-))

    3. Trouble is, Peter, old chap, Milibrain is not only technically and financially illiterate, but it really has nothing to do with global leadership on "net zero" – more to do with removing Britain's capability to facilitate a global leadership takeover.

  62. OT – question.

    Any NoTTLers know anything about Electrorad Vanguard Ceramic radiators?

    We are removing 35 year old Dimplex night storage heaters (inefficient and very expensive to run – even on the "low" (ha ha) night rate – which is ending next year, anyway unless one has a smart meter) and want something efficient and economic to replace them.

    Any helpful suggestions gratefully received.

    1. We had something similar – Intelliheat jobbies. They work. Our biggest one – a 2kw radiator – could be put on and would heat the upstairs. Apps make them easier to manage and timers allow even more control over them.

      However, for us that 2kw of heat goes almost as soon as the radiator goes off – you get about an hour of residual depending on insulation and room size. In addition, you're only heating one room – if you've five rooms, say and want all of them to be warm you've got to turn on 5 radiators – or otherwise hope the heat moves around. Each will cost about a KW/hour to run. Our house was costing £2-3 an hour to heat to 18'c.

      I gave up on them except in extremis due to the cost and 'single room' issue. However: at a technical level they work. and do heat rooms. It's quite a dry heat as well. Just make sure you get an electrician to install as the plug for the 2kw got warm.

      1. Thanks, Wibbles. Each is to heat just one room. Certainly I'll use an electrician. Don't know my red from my blue!

        1. My pleasure Bill. To reiterate, they do work. I just found them too expensive to run. As much as this heat pump terrifies me with the installers '1kw an hour' It's cheaper than the individual rads and you get every room warm for the same cost.

    2. I am in a similar situation. It depends on your future plans as a couple and of course your resources.
      My first suggestion would be to bite the bullet and plan for oil fired central heating, using an exterior boiler. An exterior boiler would be installed outside, hence the name, usually under some sort of shelter; the advantage is that there would be no smell of oil in a utility room. Calor gas tanks are even cleaner, but more expensive to use.
      Second option is to buy a large quantity of photovoltaic (solar) panels, not necessarily to put on your roof. Panels only cost about £100 each at the moment, and forget the govt subsidy (ha ha). Disadvantage is that they produce loads of watts in summer, but not much in winter. A good battery (should be well away from the house) starts at about £1000, and you will need an inverter & control panel. Payback period about 5 years by my estimation if you know a reasonable electrician/handyman.
      Lastly, you could install a woodfired boiler to heat radiators AND hot water. That requires a plumber and or heating engineer. Good boilers are made in Bulgaria or Italy, but available in the UK. Needs a header tank, control valves (electric) and of course some rads.
      The joy of oil fired central heating is that you can switch it on and off easily; and there will come a time when neither of you will want to be moving logs in and ash out. Yes, the French have their woodburners high off the ground, less kneeling, and the Americans have ash shutes down to their basements.

      1. I have OF CH – but not in the two rooms where the night storage heaters have been since 1988. I have had solar panels since 2011. I also have an OF AGA which heats the hot water as well as for cooking.

        It is just a case of the least expensive but most efficient way to replace to ancient 3 KW night store heaters.

          1. Would probably need a new, more powerful boiler. My oil fired boiler struggles to heat the radiators on the end of the system.

          2. Far too complicated. The two rooms are in an extension. The plumbing cost would be disproportionate.

          3. If they are in an extension why not just use a fan heater when you are occupying them and keep the doors closed otherwise, perhaps with a curtain over the door too?

          4. Because one room is the office. The other where we relax…!!

            I have though of all these things, you know!!

          5. Change of use?

            I’m sure your house has many mansions/alternative rooms.

            Otherwise, why not get an oil filled electric heater? Much better than an old fashioned night storage one.

          6. I have an old-fashioned night storage heater. It is old and inefficient.

            I wish to replace it with a modern, very efficient, ceramic electric heater that can be controlled by a thermostat/timer. Such things exist. My question was to enquire of NoTTLers whether anyone had bought such a thing lately…..and if so, what make they recommended.

            How I wish I had never asked….!!!

          7. If you’re that sure about them why don’t you follow your instinct?

            Looking for somebody to sue are you?

          8. That really is NOT funny.

            Oh FFS – I was just asking whether anyone had any experience of modern electric. heaters.

          9. Sorry.
            It was too tempting.
            I’d still say go with your instinct, you appear to have done the research, trust yourself.

        2. Foolish me, trying to give advice when I know nowt about your property. Incidentally, when you dismantle a 1980s night storage heater, there are usually some dense and heavy bricks inside, possibly useful in the garden.

          Storage heaters are a daft idea for homes in that they slowly heat up at night and release the heat during the daytime when one is generally out at work. The new heaters you mentioned will be simpler to use if they only need a 13amp socket, but will not be more efficient than the NSHs; even the Rt Hon Edward Miliband must obey Ohm’s law (etc).

          You could install some extra PV panels and use them to heat up the NSHs in the daytime, but I imagine the dated appearance and bulkiness might be a factor; also the weekly running cost of between £15 and £21 per week for each NSH.

          Last thought, could you extend the central heating system and put in some free standing radiators? (weight is on floor, not walls) Govt policy is to make the mains electricity compulsory and expensive.

        3. I seem to have deleted my long-winded second reply, whoops. NB night storage heaters (Dimplex, 1980s) often contain really hard and potentially useful bricks/blocks, useful in a garden or as a hearth. These gadgets, hydronic heaters, are not widely used, but combine heat from hot water pipes with an electrically operated blower (not as in cricket) and are designed to fit under kitchen worktops:

          https://www.plumbnation.co.uk/smiths-space-saver-ss3-fan-convector-kitchen-plinth-heater-777-12794?queryID=80f40c484c65fec10dc22ec8c7d1c590

          Cost upwards of £200, plus pipework installation, but the purpose is to save space.

      2. I have oil central heating and don't get any smell of oil in the house (boiler is in the kitchen).

    4. Friends of ours had a central heating system hooked up to a wood-burning stove that takes logs. They replaced it with a pellet stove with an auto feeding mechanism, and can't sing its praises highly enough.
      I was told that it's possible to get pellet stoves that can also run on logs in an emergency – but no auto feeding mechanism of course. I haven't looked into it further than that.

      1. Quite impractical. The position of the two rooms (in an extension) was why I put in the night storage heaters – which were inexpensive and efficient 35 years ago!

        I just want them gone and two modern efficient electric rads that will run on timers and thermostats..

  63. I will just park this here…

    The Lotos-eaters
    By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
    "Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,
    "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
    In the afternoon they came unto a land
    In which it seemed always afternoon.
    All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
    Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
    Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
    And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
    Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

    A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
    Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
    And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
    Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
    They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
    From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
    Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
    Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops,
    Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.

    The charmed sunset linger'd low adown
    In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale
    Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
    Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale
    And meadow, set with slender galingale;
    A land where all things always seem'd the same!
    And round about the keel with faces pale,
    Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
    The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

    Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
    Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
    To each, but whoso did receive of them,
    And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
    Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
    On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
    His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
    And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,
    And music in his ears his beating heart did make.

    They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
    Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
    And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
    Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
    Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
    Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
    Then some one said, "We will return no more";
    And all at once they sang, "Our island home
    Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."

    CHORIC SONG
    I
    There is sweet music here that softer falls
    Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
    Or night-dews on still waters between walls
    Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
    Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
    Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
    Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
    Here are cool mosses deep,
    And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
    And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
    And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep."

    II
    Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness,
    And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
    While all things else have rest from weariness?
    All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
    We only toil, who are the first of things,
    And make perpetual moan,
    Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
    Nor ever fold our wings,
    And cease from wanderings,
    Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;
    Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
    "There is no joy but calm!"
    Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

    III
    Lo! in the middle of the wood,
    The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud
    With winds upon the branch, and there
    Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
    Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon
    Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
    Falls, and floats adown the air.
    Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,
    The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
    Drops in a silent autumn night.
    All its allotted length of days
    The flower ripens in its place,
    Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
    Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

    IV
    Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
    Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
    Death is the end of life; ah, why
    Should life all labour be?
    Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
    And in a little while our lips are dumb.
    Let us alone. What is it that will last?
    All things are taken from us, and become
    Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
    Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
    To war with evil? Is there any peace
    In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
    All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
    In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
    Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

    V
    How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
    With half-shut eyes ever to seem
    Falling asleep in a half-dream!
    To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
    Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
    To hear each other's whisper'd speech;
    Eating the Lotos day by day,
    To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
    And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
    To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
    To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
    To muse and brood and live again in memory,
    With those old faces of our infancy
    Heap'd over with a mound of grass,
    Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!

    VI
    Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
    And dear the last embraces of our wives
    And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change:
    For surely now our household hearths are cold,
    Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
    And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
    Or else the island princes over-bold
    Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
    Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,
    And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
    Is there confusion in the little isle?
    Let what is broken so remain.
    The Gods are hard to reconcile:
    'Tis hard to settle order once again.
    There is confusion worse than death,
    Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
    Long labour unto aged breath,
    Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
    And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.

    VII
    But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,
    How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
    With half-dropt eyelid still,
    Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
    To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
    His waters from the purple hill—
    To hear the dewy echoes calling
    From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine—
    To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling
    Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine!
    Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
    Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine.

    VIII
    The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
    The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
    All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
    Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone
    Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
    We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
    Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
    Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
    Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
    In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
    On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
    For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd
    Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
    Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
    Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
    Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
    Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
    But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
    Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
    Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
    Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
    Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
    Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
    Till they perish and they suffer—some, 'tis whisper'd—down in hell
    Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
    Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
    Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
    Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
    O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

          4. Unfortunately not true, I can only aspire to my good friend Philip’s notoriety on these pages………

  64. Afternoon, all. Will be hale and farewell tonight because the first Monday is RAFA in the early afternoon followed by the parish council in the evening.

    I don't see anybody who could do something about it acknowledging that the problem is islam and we need a Reconquista/Gates of Vienna moment.

    Edit – that should be "hail" – I knew I should have stuck to Latin (ave atque vale).

  65. A dusty Birdie Three?

    Wordle 1,206 3/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟨⬜⬜🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Par four for me.

      Wordle 1,206 4/6

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

    3. Well done, I was jammy with a lucky 2.
      Wordle 1,206 2/6

      ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      3. Phew! A shocker for me.

        Wordle 1,206 6/6

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

    4. Well done Rene – sneaked one in myself!!

      Wordle 1,206 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
      🟨⬜⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  67. Well done, Mr Speaker

    Speaker Slams Lammy Over Giving Up Chagos During Recess

    Speaker Lindsay Hoyle slammed the government for pushing through the decision to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius during recess. Instead, Starmer and Lammy could hide from questioning whilst the announcement was made. Hoyle said:

    “It is frustrating for members on both sides of the house where major planned announcements are scheduled during periods when the house is not sitting particularly towards the end of recess… members [should] have had the first opportunity to question the Secretary on it rather than learning about it through the media. Ministers should come to the House to announce their policies in the first instance.”

    Guido agrees…

    1. "…pushing through the decision to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius during recess."

      The Prime Minister should be indicted for disrespecting Parliament!

      2. Perhaps the Speaker could "name" them both and give the House the ability to show their displeasure by voting to suspend them.

  68. That's me for today. Sunny but chilly. Quite agreeable. Bike ride,too.

    Sweep came this morning – seems just the other day he was here – 12 months ago…{:¬((

    Tomorrow – culchur. A study day on the life and painting of Turner and Constable (sounds like a respectable local trader!)

    There must be at least ONE NoTTLer who has installed recently electric heaters……

    A mercredi.

      1. I quite understand. Trouble for me is that it is the only alternative without completely changing the whole CH/AGA system – which would cost many thousands. It is JUST for two rooms!!

        1. Couldn't you put a wood burner in one and leave the door open? I haven't seen the layout so that is probably quite impractical.

        2. When it came to upgrading the gas boiler for the family home a few years ago I designed a standalone gas CH/HW system replacing the existing HW storage tank with a bigger new standby dual electric immersion storage tank on an Economy7 controller should I need to have to turn the boiler gas off.

          The five oven gas AGA (two electric three gas) provides both cooking and background home heating at a constant 1kW gas usage and runs 24/7.

          I can't see any cost justification or energy saving by replacing a CH/AGA set up with an fully electric system particularly as the ratios of gas/off peak leccy/peak leccy costs per kWh are 1:2:5.

        1. Calor gas for cooking. Oil for heating the water (once I finally get the coil replaced). I used to have electric cooker and an immersion heater. I also have a solid fuel stove for cooking, heating and hot water. Unfortunately, that requires electricity to run the pump, hence I have acquired a generator to do that when we get power cuts. I also have open fires, candles and paraffin lamps and a new push mower to cut the lawns without any juice. I fully expect a rerun of the seventies so my chipper shredder is also petrol.

          1. Well prepared:-)! I remember there was quite a big storm a decade or so ago, lots of flooding, so our juice was out a couple of weeks. Lived quite nicely using woodburning stove for warmth, boiling kettle, heating simple meals…and sleeping in sleeping bags in front of the fire….we have a generator too, electricity sufficient at times to get online..might you get the coil replaced before winter, some reports it’s going to be a cold ‘un…mind, you’ll be fit after your new push mower:-)

          2. The Rayburn heats the water when it’s lit. I’m using the oil (hence no hot water) at the moment because I can switch the heating off when it’s warm (as it was today – 20 degrees C without heating). You can’t do that with the Rayburn.

          3. We have oil too, and solar panels, also Tesla battery (should have seen the car they turned up in…wow..) oil heats underfloor water pipes and domestic. I don’t know anything about the installation, I just use it. I remember we had a few air bubbles in underfloor water but that seems settled now.

          4. I only use the woodstove for cooking in winter. We have a tall one with a hot plate on the top. Can't understand why so many people hide them away in the fireplace where all the heat goes up the chimney!
            You can cook most things on it, even baked potatoes with a Dutch oven, and boiled cakes.

          5. Ah you reminded me BB2 of the boiled fruit cake I used to make…luvverly with a bit of cheshire or cheddar…off for muesli now 😀 btw have you seen the stoves they used to use (still do?) in parts of Russia…some people even sleep on them:-)

  69. Starmer Donor Alli Pushed For UK to Rejoin EEA and Customs Union

    Questions about the motives of big Labour donor Lord Alli are swirling in SW1. The party’s line that he’s just a peer without any agenda, and that he doesn’t intervene politically apart from ‘being Labour’, took a hit when Guido exposed his arguments against the ousting of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Coupled with the fact he was sent to Iraq by Number 10 to meddle in the January 2005 elections, Labour’s defence line is quickly wearing thin…

    Guido has dug through the archives and found more evidence of Alli intervening politically. Back in May 2018, then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn urged his MPs to resist calls for a Norway-style Brexit deal. Lord Alli was far from happy, denouncing the move as “cowardice.” He made his case in the Lords for why the UK should remain in the European Economic Area (EEA) and the Customs Union:

    “The amendments are an attempt to ensure that we end up with a framework to deal with not just the goods we import and export but the services we trade in. The customs union amendment that we passed overwhelmingly a few weeks ago is only one half of the equation. The customs union deals only with goods. That is very important: it deals only with goods—tangible items such as cars, washing machines and televisions—where we have a £96 billion trade deficit.

    The EEA deals with services—such as retail, tourism, transport, communications, financial services and aerospace, where we have a £14 billion trade surplus…without an EEA equivalent, it will damage our profitable export business and therefore the jobs and livelihoods of many thousands of people. It is for that reason we need to ensure that any continuation in the customs union must include continuation in the EEA or its equivalent…this is bigger than party politics. It is about people’s jobs. It is about the future of our economy.”

    The House of Lords ultimately backed what former shadow cabinet minister Chuka Umunna—an ally of the pro-EU Open Britain campaign—termed “Lord Alli’s EEA amendments.” Not only is Alli politically active, he also knows how to get results. As Starmer continues to cosy up to the EU, it’s no wonder these two get on…

    7 October 2024 @ 14:30

    1. "Labour’s defence line is quickly wearing thin… " i e the tissue of lies is starting to unravel.

  70. Whoo-Hoo UK is the illegals capital of Europe.
    745,000 ready made fighters ready to go when they give the word.
    Actual figures x4.. 1,000 arrived yesterday.

    Mr Starmer said doing so well "feels good", and added he's "ready to serve our country, ready to restore Britain to the service of working people".

    Nige says.. The country wouldn't be falling apart if everyone had voted Reform.

    2. Only a small proportion of illegal immigrants are dangerous Ropers. Many are simply cheats who have broken the terms of their admission to the country, some of them arriving long before the Channel invaders.

  72. Suella Braverman
    Britain’s response to October 7 has been shameful

    We have seen commentators, activists, and politicians struggle to condemn Hamas. But in adversity, Israel has shown awesome heroism

    07 October 2024 9:00am BST
    Suella Braverman

    What do you say?

    What do you say to a bereaved father who waits, broken-hearted, for the head of his murdered son to be returned by his killers? What do you say to a mother who prays for her daughter’s return, and who is tortured by thinking the unthinkable: is she dead, or alive in the tunnels? Has she been raped, or was she spared?

    What do you say to the grieving mother of a young soldier kidnapped and later murdered? What do you say when she affirms, through her tears, that she couldn’t be prouder to see her two other children fight for their homeland? What do you say to a young woman who survived the Nova festival, by playing dead as her friends lay murdered around her? What do you say to a family displaced by rocket-fire: homeless, uprooted, and uncertain about their future?

    Sometimes there are no words. Only humility, pain, and tears. One year on from the largest pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust, what does our country’s response say about us?

    I wish I could say that our Government stood proudly with Israel: on the side of justice, self-defence, and freedom. I wish I could say that anti-Semitism has been stamped out, like other forms of racism. Sadly, I can’t.

    For me, the most grotesque revelation of the last twelve months has been the lengths some will go to deny or defend terrorism. For some, even the evidence of murdered babies, sexually abused men and women, and other acts of heinous violence isn’t enough to loudly condemn the atrocities of Hamas or Hezbollah.

    You don’t need to be Jewish to do so. But October 7 has exposed an ugly anti-Semitism that overshadows some of our institutions and communities. I’m not talking about isolated pockets of bigotry. This has the stench of a more ingrained and cultural prejudice.

    Since the atrocities of October 7, we have seen commentators, activists, and even Left-wing politicians struggle to condemn Hamas. Consider the marches around the country on October 8, weeks before any Israeli military action in Gaza, not in solidarity with the victims and the hostages, but to celebrate the ‘resistance’.

    We have seen chants of “Jihad”, the firing of flares, and the defiling of our monuments too often go uninterrupted by our police. Thousands have protested our railways stations, our cities, or Parliament, with their mantra of “From the river to the sea”- Israel erasure – echoing throughout.

    Placards have been waved bearing ‘Victory to the Intifada’. Hateful slogans have been projected onto Big Ben. Armistice Day has been spoiled by protestors and counter-protestors fighting at the Cenotaph, to the background drum of apology after apology from the leaders of the Metropolitan Police.

    What about the posters of Kfir Bibas, the baby taken hostage, ripped down by keffiyeh-clad activists? Or the hundreds of Palestinian flags that adorn whole roads in parts of our capital? What of the exponential rise in anti-Semitic incidents this year? Or the many Jews who have left the UK because they feel safer in Israel? It says something when a war zone seems more welcoming than North London.

    How about the Islamist thugs who intimidate MPs, injecting their own sectarian politics into our democratic system? Or the death threats that forced a Conservative MP to leave public life? Or the hi-jacking of the Rochdale by-election and the silencing of Parliament? Labour MPs have been scared to speak, and terrified to vote.

    And then our media. The BBC’s early refusal to describe Hamas as terrorists was but the tip of the iceberg. They have been accused of breaching their own impartiality guidelines 1500 times following October 7. It doesn’t stop at the BBC. Remember a Sky News presenter comparing Gaza with the Holocaust? After the apologies, how much changed?

    Or what about our universities? Surely they would encourage tolerance, inclusion, and respect? Too often that spirit does not seem to extend to Jewish students. A five-fold increase in anti-Semitic incidents at our universities has been reported. The portrait of Arthur Balfour at Trinity College has been vandalised. Jewish students have been harassed.

    Theatres, shops, and local councils have boycotted Israel since the atrocities. From the swastikas daubed in the toilets at an exclusive girls’ school to 600 top lawyers accusing Israel of genocide, a hatred for the Jewish state has almost become fashionable. Those pushing this creed have become so liberal that they are now illiberal, so pious that they are now dishonest.

    But in the face of adversity, I’ve also witnessed awesome heroism. The Jewish people have been under siege for millennia and have always prevailed because of their ingenuity, resilience, and strength. Even as thousands of rockets rain down on them, when acts of unspeakable inhumanity have broken their hearts, and the world vilifies them, they don’t give up.

    I am certain that, with or without her allies, as Israel battles for Western values and civilisation itself, she will succeed once again. As the country wins this battle for humanity, many of us will be honoured to say : “Israel, we are your friends”.

    1. Watching and listening to the harrowing WWII experiences of the Jewish community captured on film snd in interviews on Yesterday.channe! I can't help but think that this is payback time for countries who believe in destruction of the Jewish state particularly as triggered by the heinous armed onslaught and hostage taking of Oct 7th.

      1. This has been going on since the first Arab Israeli war in 1948.
        The Muslims are never, ever going to accept Israel on anything other than their terms.
        I hope that Israel ploughs through them all so that they beg to settle on Israel's terms.
        Give me Judaism over Islam every time.

        1. I state my belief on the DT, Gaza should be flattened. The evil ingrained in the islamic ideologyy cannot be ignored or forgiven. They play a very convincing game of taqquia with floods of tears but underneath there is hatred for the kuffir.

      2. Yes; but how did they and their camera crew get over the most heavily guarded and observed border in the world, which multiple former Israeli soldiers came out and said was impossible at the time?

          1. Angie, do you seriously believe that? A bunch of Palestinians managed to outwit and take by surprise the most thoroughly and heavily defended country in the world? They don’t just have “goon towers” they have all kinds of technology, sensors, cameras etc. One of the soldiers who expressed disbelief on twitter said that he had seen a full alert over a few storks flying across the border.

          2. It’s difficult to believe anything now.
            That’s why I take things with a pinch of stork.

    2. “…“And yeah, big part of that is a parallel kind of, you need to have digital IDs to get CBDCs to work. And they've been pushing these digital IDs for a long time, but it's like, how do you create a catalytic moment to implement them? They were trying to do that with the vaccine passports, but it didn't quite take on.”…”

      From Jerm Warfare: James Patrick on Planet Lockdown and the future of freedom, 7 Oct 2024
      https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/jerm-warfare/id1475255493?i=1000672037363
      This material may be protected by copyright.

    2. TTK is a seriously nasty piece of work.
      He is extra dangerous because his grey apparatchik persona conceals the real man and his aims.

      1. "real man" , who are you kidding? He's a robotic puppet controlled by the WEF and his sponsors.

        Even Lammy would be better, at least with Lammy there's no hiding the malignancy and stupidity.

  77. Bit of a shitty day here. MiL passed away 7:30 am. BiL passed away 12:30 pm. Another BiL seriously ill in hospital….

    As a young evacuee, MiL was taken up to Ughborough beacon on Dartmoor by relatives and watched Plymouth being blitzed by the Luftwaffer during the War….

    3. Stephenroi,

      This is such a hard time for you and your family , nothing prepares us for shocks like that .

      Do what you have to do , but please relax awhile and gather your thoughts .

      So sorry to read about your sad news , many of us on here have had similar shitty days .

      If you want to tell us the story , we will read and listen and empathise x

    5. Your wife must be devastated.
      Stay strong yourself, you're an anchor for them.
      Good luck and prayers.

      1. Thank you. With regards to MiL it is a blessed relief for her – having been on Morphine for 4 years. So not a shock. Likewise BiL had undergone treatment for Cancer over the past couple of years until nothing further could be done. BiL in hospital has multiple health issues so I don't know what the prognosis is for him….

        1. It still hurts.
          Your wife's a lucky woman to have you supporting her.

          Not for me to advise, obviously, but can you do the ringing round for her?
          I'm sure it would be a blessing.

    9. Oh Bless you, Stephen and your lovely wife. Condolences to you and the family, and thoughts are with you.

    12. Sincere condolences; two in the one day must be devastating. In December 2006, Mrs Bee’s parents died 10 days apart and that was hard on the family. The only ‘silver lining’ if you could call it that was the undertakers gave us a discount on the second funeral… Very sombre Christmas and New Year.

    1. From the picture: One might even posit that the creature had an erection, whether for the child or the goat who knows?

    2. It's a brave man who will walk along the road with both his wife and his girlfriend.

    1. Daily. She only lived 2 miles away. She was 95 and still fully compos mentis until the end, insisting on living alone in the old farm cottage. She passed away peacefully in her sleep.

      1. Was that a MiL by your current squeeze’s friendship rather than marriage?
        Mine is 98 and HG speaks daily.
        She too lives alone, but in a flat.
        She physically, rather than online, does all her own shopping etc and gets out and about every day.
        If one gets to live that long I would prefer to be “CM” and fit at the end and then go without bothering the neighbours.

        If mine doesn’t get well past 100 I will be amazed, assuming I last that long.

        1. Technically my MiL (she considered herself to be so) as I am not married. I first met her 22 years ago and she — and her husband (who died in 2012) — took to me instantly despite my inability to speak Swedish and their inability to speak English.
          A farmer and farmer's wife, salt of the earth, both.

  84. Meanwhile, demonstrations pro-Palestine and pro-Israel in Bergen had to be separated by riot police with helmets and shields.

    1. I hope they policed equally, but having done so, equally, they gave the poo-Palestinians' skulls (sic) a very good follow through cracking.

  85. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Can Kamala Harris rewrite her political past?
    Kate Andrews7 October 2024, 4:07pm
    Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast interview with Vice President Kamala Harris was largely a love-in. But when you have been actively avoiding the media for the majority of your presidential campaign, even the most innocuous of questions can accidentally bite.

    ‘You don’t do too many long-form interviews,’ Cooper put to Vice President Harris at the start of their 45 minute podcast recording. ‘What made you want to do Call Her Daddy today?’

    It made complete sense to kick off Harris’s ‘media blitz’ with a long interview
    One answer is listenership. Republican circles may scoff at the platform Cooper gives to sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, but those topics – and her business savvy – have roped in millions of listeners, transforming the podcast into a $100 million (£76 million) media venture which boasts some of the highest podcast downloads across the United States.

    Yet Cooper’s question still hung in the air, made even more pointed (again, accidentally) by the introduction that came before the interview. ‘No topic was off limits,’ Cooper tells the Daddy Gang (her listeners) in her preamble to sitting down with Harris. ‘I prepared seven different versions of this interview. Do I talk about the economy? Do I talk about border control? Do I talk about fracking?’

    It turns out no – she does not talk about these things. ‘Let’s be real. I’m probably not the one to be having the fracking conversation’ she says. Instead the full 45 minutes is a conversation about reproductive rights, with a few personal questions sprinkled in.

    This might have something to do with why Harris opted for this ‘long-form’ interview. When pressed on those other subjects, it tends not to go so well. Talk of the economy reveals that she may not actually be aware of what ‘price-gouging’ is – let alone what her proposed policy of price controls might do to the supply of basic goods. Talk of fracking raises anticipation about what position she’ll take – having held both pro-fracking and anti-fracking views in a very small window of time.

    Most popular
    Robin Ashenden
    The 1990s were Britain’s sunset years

    What Harris likes to talk about – indeed what she is trying to make the election about – is reproductive health and access to abortion, ideally with very little fact-checking thrown in. It made complete sense to kick off her ‘media blitz’ with a long interview, speaking on the ‘most-listened to podcast by women on Spotify’ on the one topic the Vice President considers safe ground. Less ‘safe’, however, was some of the misinformation spouted. ‘Every state in the south, except for Virginia, has an abortion ban,’ Harris insisted – a confusing piece of information in states like Florida and Georgia, for example, where access to abortion in the early stages of a pregnancy remains legal. Harris also doubled down that the election was also ‘about access to contraception, which is very much at risk with these folks’ – despite Trump (albeit after some deliberation) having ruled out any kind of crackdown.

    But the biggest rewrite was not about Trump’s record on women’s reproductive rights, but rather her own record in California. ‘A lot of my career was as a prosecutor,’ the Vice President told Cooper, ‘and so it was about really wanting to protect the most vulnerable and where they did not have the power…because they were the subject of an imbalance of power.’

    It’s a claim from Harris that the American left has always struggled to grapple with, especially when asked to vote for her (she wasn’t able to muster up double digit polling support back in 2020, partially thanks to the revelations that her career as prosecutor and district attorney in the Golden state was anything but). Her bids to increase conviction rates – locking up non-violent drug offenders and pursuing vulnerable parents with truant kids through the criminal justice system – do not gel with the image she tries to promote now. They certainly don’t reflect a record where the needs of the vulnerable came first.

    Of course, none of this was pointed out in the interview. That’s why it made sense to do it. Harris isn’t the only one to use the podcast platform to her advantage. Donald Trump has been sitting down with Lex Freedman and David Ramsey on their multi-million listener shows. The goal – for all hosts – is to attract listeners, which interviewers do by giving their guests room to breathe. It’s this more relaxed and flexible relationship between the interviewer and interviewee that is proving popular. It also guarantees a lot less scrutiny.

    Trump has the opportunity to have a bit of fun. ‘We reached out to former president Donald Trump to come on the show,’ says Cooper. ‘If he also wants to have a meaningful, in-depth conversation about women’s rights in this country, then he is welcome on Call Her Daddy anytime’. He should take Cooper up on the offer, on the condition he’s asked similar questions: What values did your mother instil in you from a young age; how do your opponent’s unkind words affect you; when people tell you ‘no’, what does that ignite in you? Not even Trump’s most avid critics could resist knowing how he’d answer that last one.

  86. Completely and utterly off topic.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-13934187/Kanye-West-wife-Bianca-Censori-SPLIT-weeks-agody-divorce.html

    Kanye West and wife Bianca Censori 'SPLIT weeks ago' as he tells friends he is 'ready for divorce'

    I hope that the silly girl sues that controlling bastard to buggery and back again.

    Twice.

    And then sues him again, to the point that he'll never repay his legal fees.

    Yes she was a silly cow, but that creep is a noxious shit of the most revolting kind.

    2. I have to agree, it was revolting to watch the way she was paraded like a piece of meat for his delectation. What an asshole….

    3. They're both controlled in the fashion of Diddy and Epstein. He broke away a few years ago (it was all out in public at the time) but shortly afterwards, it was business as usual, which is about the time he and the sad naked woman got together. Hollywood is a dark place.

  87. So is satire is all but dead these days with the Left controlling mainstream media, it rolls on just the same even with a Labour government, like a branch of national socialism acting as if those that have never had a proper job but have managed to amass wealth through academia by brown nosing every woke agenda are some sort of smarter master race.
    But really they are just steering the West towards extinction, including themselves.

  89. There is a military solution but it involves nuclear weapons.

    In a sombre statement to the Commons, Sir Keir said: 'The region cannot endure another year of this.
    'Civilians on all sides have suffered too much. All sides must now step back from the brink and find the courage of restraint.
    'There is no military solution to these challenges, so we must renew our diplomatic efforts.'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13933611/Keir-Starmer-warns-MPs-Middle-East-close-brink-scale-war-year-7-October-Hamas-attacks-PM-slams-Irans-malign-actions-tells-Israel-no-military-solution-crisis.html

    1. Who writes the script? TTK can’t be stupid enough to think Hamas would honour a ceasefire?

      3. Anything coming out of his mouth is essentially meaningless anyway. He's sly, dishonest and prefers Davos to Westminster.

    1. Bliar thinks our press is “very biased [and] right wing”. The Overton window is further left than Stalin.

      1. That tactic (moving the Overton window) served him well and he's too old to think of a new one now.

  92. 'Night All
    i was in the pub last night telling my mate the joke about, "What would you do if an epileptic was having a fit in the bath…throw the washing in." However, the bloke on the next table said, "My brother who is epileptic had a fit in the bath and died."
    Fuck me. If the ground could have swallowed me up l'd of been happy. I said, "Sorry to hear that, mate. Did he drown?"
    He said, "No; he choked on a sock."

    3. Glad I can now put a face to that joke. Great to meet you at the party before you get banged up!

  94. A bit of a quieter day today. Only a couple of hours shifting logs and playing with the chainsaw.
    Bloody thing is ready for sharpening so will get that done tomorrow.
    Off to bed.
    Good night all.

  96. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    What’s the truth about ‘irregular migration’ levels?
    Ross Clark7 October 2024, 4:19pm
    Should we trust a new study that claims that the level of irregular migration in the UK has essentially not changed in the past 16 years? That is the assertion being made in the reporting of a project called Measuring Irregular Migration, or MIrreM – a collaboration between Oxford University and 17 other universities across Europe and North America.

    ‘Irregular Migration to the UK and other large European countries is same as 2008, research shows,’ states a headline in the Guardian. This, needless to say, flies in the face of reports over the weekend that nearly 1,000 migrants arrived in small boats in a single day. Visibly, irregular migration appears to be out of control: so is the Guardian really right to state that nothing has really happened since 2008 – in other words, nothing to see here, please move along?

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    Steerpike
    Watch: Labour red prince flounders in GB News grilling

    The first thing to note is that irregular migration is not synonymous with small boat arrivals – the latter is only a subset of the former, which also includes people arriving in lorries, turning up at ports and airports without documentation – as well as people who overstay visas. Moreover, the MIrreM study is attempting to count the number of irregular migrants living in Britain, not new arrivals. So it wouldn’t be impossible for small boat arrivals to be soaring at a time when the overall number of irregular migrants living in Britain is static.

    But when you actually read the MIrreM report, you realise that, for the UK, it is actually comparing 2008 with 2017 – the latter of which is seven years ago and predates the phenomenon of mass arrivals in small boats. Moreover, there is a wide spread in its estimates. It puts the number of irregular migrants living in Britain in 2008 at between 417,000 and 863,000, and in 2017 between 594,000 and 745,000 – which is not all that informative. Nor does the MIrreM study include any original counting – all it is doing is taking existing estimates made by academics, think tanks, government and the like, and then scoring them according to its own quality criteria – which includes such things as asking whether the raw data has been made available. It is what you might call a desktop study – it isn’t sending anyone around to the nation’s restaurants, sweatshops, or shanty towns to count the number of foreign nationals living here without proper documentation.

    What do the official statistics on irregular migration tell us? The Home Office publishes comparable figures for 2018 to 2024, which show that the number of detected small boat arrivals was 299 in 2018, and 29,437 in 2023. The number of people arriving at airports without the right papers was 4,769 in 2018, and 3,854 in 2023. The number arriving in ports was 1,052 in 2018, and 327 in 2023.

    What the Home Office does do is publish statistics on the number of people who have overstayed their visa. When the think tank Migration Watch UK dug into the figures in 2021, it found that there is no record of 91,000 of those with visas that expired in 2019/20 either leaving the country or renewing their visas. This suggests that visa overstayers may be the largest group of irregular migrants by far – which wouldn’t be surprising as it is a lot easier and safer than coming to Britain on a rubber dinghy.

    But the overall message is that we don’t have very good statistics on overall irregular migration – which is not all that surprising thanks to its clandestine nature. This is at least admitted in the MIrreM report, if not in the reporting of it. We do, on the other hand, have reasonably robust statistics on the number of people caught arriving on small boats – and that number has very definitely exploded.

    1. There isn't any mention of the most important statistic:

      The ONS stated some months ago that 1.1 million "migrants" had written on their application papers that

      they had no intention of working once they were allowed to settle in Britain.

  97. Thanks, Conway…I know where there are a few young’ uns, will check them out, and also for box moth damage (which I think I’ve seen but didn’t know what it was until now). Interesting the Silver Queen is actually a male and the Golden King a female (think I’ve only seen this one in Garden Centres?)

  98. from Coffee House, the Spectator

    Ex-Green leader declares war on strawberries
    Steerpike7 October 2024, 1:19pm
    Who remembers Natalie Bennett, the Aussie-accented eco-warrior whose car crash interviews briefly enlivened the 2015 election campaign? The onetime Green leader has since been installed as one of our great unelected masters in the House of Lords. But it seems that all that the institutional knowledge there has not yet rubbed off on Bennett, who continues to suffer a chronic case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. Many such cases…

    In her never-ending quest to make life worse for the British people, Bennett has found a new scourge on which to direct her ire: strawberries. Yes, that’s right, apparently growing the popular red fruit in colder months is killing the planet and must be banned immediately. Talk about priorities eh? Taking to Twitter last night, the Green peer shared a Times article on a British farm which dared to use LEDs to grow strawberries for Christmas. It prompted Bennett to indignantly thunder that:

    Do we _need_ strawberries in winter? No. Maybe @marksandspencer @sainsburys & @Tesco you could sell them in season only? And have frozen the rest of the year?

    Put that on a poster and vote for it. When the Greens promised a new kind of politics, Mr S didn’t realise that Cromwellian Puritanism is what they had in mind…

      1. I am a dedicated vegan. I only eat vegan cows, vegan sheep, vegan pigs, vegan ducks, vegan geese and vegan chickens.

    2. To grow strawberries out of season in your garden you need a good cloche and access to horse manure. Make a hot bed with the manure (it produces heat as it rots – doing the muck heap in winter is a way to keep warm!), put soil on top, plant your strawbs and then cover with a cloche. No electricity required. The plants will need a period of cold first, though. If they don't suffer vernalisation they don't fruit.

  99. The BBC on it's website is claiming that Trump's statement that FEMA resources have been used to support illegal immigrants (and is not available for hurricane disaster relief) is false.

    This has been fact checked and is found to be false…

    https://x.com/FoxNews/status/1842974594128552077?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1842974594128552077%7Ctwgr%5E89ed6d351fda196886651124bac9f79bad9742bb%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Fhurricane-helene-exposes-deep-betrayal-america

  103. Oh dear. Sur Gray’s successor also mired in a nepotism scandal, involving thr think tank he used to work for (which donated £10k to his wife to run as an MP). Said wife has duly been appointed as an aide to Thieves.

    Meanwhile, Bliar says “we still have a very biased Right-wing press in this country.”

    I wondered – where is this biased Right-wing press? And then i realised. No wonder we are all depicted as far-right loons, when the powers that be think the Grauniad is Right-wing.

    1. Corruption has been normalised to such an extent, I doubt there is an honest man or woman among them.
      The civil service is a swamp that needs draining – open political bias (Sue Gray), going on strike when threatened with having to turn up in the office two days a week. It's obvious why some of them don't want to do that – they are drawing a London salary and living overseas.

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