Friday 30 June: Regulators have failed to hold debt-ridden water companies to account

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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615 thoughts on “Friday 30 June: Regulators have failed to hold debt-ridden water companies to account”

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    A Diagnosis

    A middle-aged couple are a bit alarmed when the wife starts getting pains in her chest, especially when they’re at it in the sack. So her old man persuades her to go and see the doctor. When she comes back, he asks her what the doctor said.

    “The doctor said I have acute angina”, she replies.

    He says, “Yeah, you got nice tits and a great ass, too, but what’s up with those chest pains?”

  3. Good morning, chums. Still having computer problems, so don’t be alarmed if I don’t appear next week as I am taking my computer in for repairs on Monday. Hopefully I shall be back by Friday next week. Enjoy today.

  6. Regulators have failed to hold debt-ridden water companies to account

    It’s all down to Blair and the EU, he got rid of the governments golden share option because it went against EU free movement of capital rules thus allowing our privatised utilities to be treated just like Manchester United have been treated, bought up by foreigners and loaded with debt.

    1. What do we really do about water? Heck, what do we do about the utilities generally? The state refuses to not stop meddling. It is desperate to ration energy, it refuses to diverge from the EU on water control and management, trains are a mess, the road network is collapsing and… the state still refuses to bugger off and leave markets to solve the problem.

  7. 374025+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Why Britain can’t ditch triple locked pensions – despite the alarming cost
    The policy has hugely boosted pensioners’ incomes – but its cost is increasing fast

    The real reason is thousands fold jying stretched in 5* hotels once upon a time costing 6 million a day hut as with everything gone up a great deal since and increasing daily.

    Then financing other peoples wars don’t come cheap all done
    via the lab/lib/con./ current ukip / WEF / NWO coalition and with a royal seal.

    MPs bleed copiously as do anyone, on the end of a pike.

    Health & safety warning,

    Vote lab/lib/con/current ukip at your peril

      1. No point. They are another small, ego-based party who would rather infight than actually do the heavy lifting required to actually gain any influence in Westminster.

      2. 374025+ up ticks,

        Morning FM,
        Read up on the one year successful leadership of
        Gerard Batten 2018/19, terminated treacherously at the hands of the ukip party nec/ farage.

    2. The bigger question is hypothecation of the monies paid for a pension. If that money were not wasted on whatever big government wanted and ring fenced, invested and left alone it would provide vastly higher returns.

    3. State pension may have “hugely boosted pensioners’ incomes” but now I am being taxed on a very small private pension which I’ve been receiving for 13 years! HMG giveth with one hand and taketh with the other.

      1. 374025+ up ticks,

        Afternoon VW,
        How true I don’t know but the whisper is they are investing in a chinese lab
        who are looking into third
        arm cultures.

    1. Given the numbers of battery fires in EVs and Hybrids, it was only a matter of time before a tragedy occurred.

      Italian green car researchers die after prototype explodes
      Solar-powered vehicle funded by the EU caught fire during a test-drive

      By
      Adam Mawardi

      Two Italian researchers tasked with turning combustion-engine cars into solar-powered hybrids have died after a prototype vehicle exploded during a road-test.

      Maria Vittoria Prati, a senior scholar and engineer at Italy’s National Research Council (CNR), and trainee Fulvio Filace were hospitalised with severe burns after the prototype vehicle caught fire in Naples last Friday.

      The CNR confirmed on Thursday that Mr Filace, 25, died overnight. It comes days after Ms Prati, 66, died of complications from third degree burns on Monday.

      Earlier this week, the CNR paid tribute to Ms Prati as “a brilliant researcher” and “an authority in the field of the study of emissions and the use of alternative fuels.”

      The pair were test driving a modified Volkswagen Polo equipped with experimental technology that would enable drivers to transform their old cars into solar-powered electric vehicles.

      Naples authorities are investigating the cause of the explosion although have yet to identify any specific suspects, according to the ANSA news agency.

      CNR said on Thursday that it has launched an internal audit to “reconstruct the causes of the very serious event” and cooperate with investigators.

      The Rome-headquartered government agency said in a translated statement: “The loss of two lives, moreover in such dramatic circumstances, deeply marks the scientific community, in every part of Italy.”

      The prototype was developed by Life-Save, an EU-funded project seeking to encourage drivers to switch to greener transportation without having to pay for expensive new hybrid cars.

      This involved retrofitting regular combustion-engines with additional electric motors, which were charged by battery and solar panels fitted on the vehicle’s roof and bonnet.

      Solar-powered cars have been regarded as a potential solution to the lack of infrastructure and cheap charging needed to accelerate the electric vehicle revolution.

      Life-Save has received about €1.8m in funding from the European Commission since 2017 under its Life programme, an environmental investment which supports clean tech start-ups helping the continent become carbon neutral by 2050, the Financial Times reported.

      Life-Save has since disabled its website, which now features a tribute expressing its condolences to the late researchers’ families.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/30/italian-green-car-researchers-die-after-prototype-explodes/

      1. Nasty. Must have gone up really violently for them not to have time to stop and jump out.

      2. I can only think that too much power went to the battery too quickly, causing rapid expansion and explosion. There are some odd videos out there that pretend electric batteries are ok compared to petrol while ignoring the cell based approach.

      3. Perhaps it’s just the translation but ‘The Naples authorities…have yet to identify any specific suspects…’ , seems a bit strange. I presume they mean reasons.

    2. That’s pretty horrible. Expect it to disappear from the news in 5, 4, 3…

      RIP.

  9. Good morning all.
    9½°C and a cloudy start this morning. At least it’s dry!

    A shocking article in the paper today:-

    Colonel ‘forced out of Army’ after stating ‘men cannot be women’
    Kelvin Wright says he had to resign following warning from junior officer that his views could be at odds with MoD transgender policy

    By
    Ewan Somerville
    29 June 2023 • 7:38pm

    A colonel has claimed he was forced to quit the Army after he was criticised for stating that “men cannot be women”.

    Dr Kelvin Wright, 54, had been a Reservist commanding officer with 14 years’ unblemished service, including two tours in Afghanistan, before his “honour was attacked” with a transphobia complaint and an investigation he described as “hellish”.

    In May, he shared a post on his private Facebook account from Fair Play for Women, a campaign group that works with governing bodies to preserve women’s sport for those born female, which consisted of a quote from Helen Joyce, a feminist campaigner backed by the author JK Rowling.

    The quote, shared without any additional comment, said: “If women cannot stand in a public place and say ‘men cannot be women’, then we do not have women’s rights at all.”

    This prompted a junior officer to warn him that his gender-critical views could be at odds with Ministry of Defence transgender policies, before what Dr Wright calls the Army’s “LGBT champions” allegedly drew up a seven-page dossier about his “substandard behaviour” – which he was not allowed to see.

    A formal Army investigation was opened in May that could have led to him being formally dismissed or censured under the Major Administrative Action process, through which he has been asked to make a statement.

    Dr Wright, who led a team of 60 troops in 306 Hospital Support Regiment alongside working as an NHS intensive care consultant, has this month felt forced to retire six years earlier than planned, slashing his total Army pension in the process.

    He is being supported by the Free Speech Union, which has appointed an employment barrister to defend him, as the investigation is still ongoing.

    Dr Wright told The Telegraph: “This attack on my honour made my position completely untenable. I could no longer remain in an Army which treated its officers with such disrespect.

    “What message does it send to women in the Army, that merely for noting the existence of women and women’s rights even a colonel can be placed under investigation? I therefore feel there is no other choice but to make this matter public.

    “It makes you wonder who is running the Army: the Chief of the Defence Staff, or Stonewall?”

    He said too many within the Armed Forces “all love the idea of getting onto Stonewall’s list of top employers” and some Army LGBT champions “can’t see two sides to an argument”.

    Saying he is now “taking the gloves off” because “I want my name cleared, my honour cleared”, he added: “This is about freedom of speech and protection of women – there is nothing that ever says I have been anti-trans or anti-LGBT at all… I have never let any of my beliefs interfere with my command.

    “As a commanding officer, I annually teach my soldiers about moral courage, doing the right thing and treating others with respect. Someone with a bit of moral courage could have said this is absolutely trivial, this should be dismissed early on and we should get on with the business of war-fighting, should it ever happen.”

    ‘Absolutely disgraceful’
    Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, said: “The way in which Dr Wright has been treated is absolutely disgraceful. The freedom to express your views in the public square is a fundamental human right that the British Army is supposed to be defending, not attacking.

    “Continuing to hound him following his resignation just adds insult to injury. The Army should apologise, thank him for his service and close the case.”

    Dr Wright, who has been called “one of the best” and “inspirational” by his troops, served in the Army Reserve for 14 years.

    During his reservist career he undertook two tours, serving in Afghanistan twice at the height of British combat operations, including on medical evacuation helicopters and as the head of a military emergency department.

    It is the latest diversity row to hit the Armed Forces, after the RAF instructed staff to stop choosing “useless white male pilots” and the Navy said it was considering multiple ID cards for those who are gender-fluid.

    An Army spokesman said: “We are aware of a post shared by a service person to their own personal social media account which may have caused offence. We are not prepared to comment further as this is an ongoing internal matter.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/29/colonel-forced-out-of-army-after-saying-men-cant-be-women/

    1. That someone complained tells you everything. The article’ own language :

      ‘
      … Fair Play for Women, a campaign group that works with governing bodies to preserve women’s sport for those born female, which consisted of a quote from Helen Joyce, a feminist campaigner backed by the author JK Rowling….’

      You mean.. women. As a man is biologically distinct from a woman. He can put on a dress and pretend to be something he is not, but he is still biologically male. Always will be.

      This madness has gone on far too long. The emperor has no clothes on, a man in a dress is not a woman.

    2. Those standards weasel words: “ which may have caused offence”. To whom? What tort has been perpetrated?

    1. 374025+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      A real genuine expert Og, not a flat pack expert assembled for the occasion.

    2. But we had the BBC only today saying that Tickock was not removing disinformation from people who didn’t believe in anthropogenic climate change!

      You have to look at that and wonder if the journalist could actually say it. If they could actually genuinely believe that it is necessary to obliterate a dissenting voice to promote their own lie. The terror they must feel at the fragility of their argument is comical, worse is their eagerness for the UK, a supposedly free society to call on China – a supposedly totalitarian state – to eradicate dissenting views.

      Oh the irony of the fascist Left.

  11. Another night of trouble in France again
    I blame Brexit for the complete lack of rioting and anarchy on our streets.
    We are way behind the EU average now.
    Something needs to be done

    1. We tend to get fed up, mumble and grumble then explode. The frogs get uppity on a daily basis, when we do it governments get removed.

  12. Good morning.
    Here’s an analysis of what’s happening in Ukraine from a financial perspective.

    https://kingworldnews.com/putin-winning-decisively-in-ukraine-soon-to-unleash-gold-backed-rouble/

    It’s clear that the lizard elite that has been strongly associated with Britain and the USA over the last two hundred years or so is managing the transition from debt-based fiat dollar to multi-polar world. This changeover featured in the WEF presentation from around 2018. Macron, the ultimate bankers’ President, wants France to join BRICS. The WEF has its meetings in China. Etc.
    At the top level, they all work together.

    1. Morning, BB2.
      What are the implications of a change from “debt-based fiat dollar to multi-polar world”? I ain’t no financier…

      1. Neither am I!
        There is a BRICS conference in Johannesburg in August, and they may announce a gold-backed BRICS exchange currency. There’s likely to be some kind of commodity backing.

        Which would you rather have, a currency that you can exchange for gold, or a debt-based fiat currency like the dollar, euro, pound, yen etc?

        They seem to be bringing the dollar down slowly on purpose, and all the signs are that the reserve currency status will be shared between the BRICS currency and the dollar.
        But it’s not clear how much gold the US has. They did some dumb, dishonest deals by which they leased their gold out to bullion banks, who then sold it and bought US Treasuries, which paid a higher rate of interest than the lease fee for the gold.
        I think the point was that by flooding the market with all that gold, they’ve managed to keep the price of gold down and hide how weak the dollar is.
        What’s going to happen when they suddenly need the gold back to compete with the BRICS commodity-backed currency though?

        I think the long term implications for us are that our countries will be poorer. We’re entering a long economic cycle where commodities will be valued, and we don’t have too many of those. The ones we have, we are being instructed by the lizard elite via their Green enforcers, to ignore.
        We have been living beyond our means by creating ever more debt for too long.

        The short term implications are that they will probably inflate the debts away, so hyperinflation. That’s when they’ll move us over onto the CBDC.

        1. I think you’re right. The intent has always been to devalue the currency for political machination.

          What’ll be interesting is the commodity used. My money’s on energy rather than a physical substance. With the West desperate to destroy itself on the green altar having energy used as the reserve would be ironic.

          1. A physical substance like gold or silver does represent the energy needed to extract it from the ground and refine it.
            They will do anything to avoid peasants like us holding gold, although the richest families in the world and the world’s central banks are stocking up on it as fast as they can.
            I think they won’t be able to avoid having a commodity-backed currency, and they will probably try to pull of some smoke-and-mirrors trick as you suggest. They sure as hell won’t want us, the citizens, exchanging our CBDCs for anything tangible that represents actual wealth.

            If the central banks do try and pull in the gold that they leased out during their price-fixing years, numbered gold bars will be what they will be able to identify and pull in. Not that anyone here owns any of those, of course.

          3. I notice they are counting gold-backed ETFs among the proven resources. I personally would be very sceptical about how much gold is backing these ETFs. If you own an ETF, you own a piece of paper.

          4. There are certain ETFs which hold physical Gold, but we agree with you that the majority of ETFs

            are just sophisticated paper IOUs

          6. The Physical Gold ETF that MOH has claims that the physical gold backing is held in a bank in New York, and

            audited every year. As it has been going for many years he suspects that it’s genuine.

            However many ETNs are just IOUs to be paid in the form of gold, so have no intrinsic value. He

            tells me that in the event of a sudden leap in the price of gold these would be unable to

            meet their obligations.

            Of course, there is no income from Gold ETFs; in fact, management cashes in a small amount of

            the gold holding every year to pay their expenses ( 0.7% in his case)

          8. Look at it like this; they can either save the currency, or they can save the financial system. In the past, they have always chosen to save the system and sacrifice the currency. (Lynette Zang)

        2. That’s got all the hallmarks (pardon the pun) of a Conspiracy Theory. And just look at the way the recent ones turned out………wait a minute….

          1. Jokes aside, it is a summary of recent serious analyses. There’s a very good reason why it’s not being published in the mainstream media; they don’t want to panic the masses. In particular, I should think they don’t want a stampede out of the fiat financial system into tangible assets.

          2. In that case BB2 there would be a quiet move into Gold by those in the know.

            Instead we’ve had a quiet move out of Gold in the last six weeks or so.

            I wonder why?

          3. Short term speculators, I think. June/July are traditional months where the gold and silver prices slump. When you see the mainstream media articles telling you that gold is a bad investment, it’s usually having a price dip.

            Central banks haven’t stopped buying it. This graph’s a bit old, but the situation hasn’t changed. After 2008, they recognised that the dollar was over.
            https://www.cmi-gold-silver.com/central-banks-big-buyers-of-gold-in-2019/12-12-19-central-bank-gold-purchases-graph/
            In one of Andy Schechtman’s videos, he said that there are a lot of unidentified big buyers of gold and silver at the moment, who he thinks are trust funds of very rich families.

  13. Good morning, all. Grey. Dry. Very little rain – though four of the water- butts have filled.

    End of the world, I suppose.

      2. The video that I saw of the event wasn’t clear, but it appeared that the policeman had his gun against the side window of the stationary car. The driver suddenly accelerated away and the policeman spun around. The car sped off and then crashed.
        I would not be at all surprised if the gun was discharged accidentally when the driver sped off and then the crash contributed to the death.
        The video in your link doesn’t seem to show it. That might be because it isn’t downloading properly today or the video I saw was from a different, longer one. My immediate thought when I first saw the one I am referring to was that the shooting was accidental.

        1. I think not. The flic told the thief that if he moved the car he would get a bullet in the head. He moved the car…

          1. I heard that bit too, but if you can find the video I saw (I’ve tried but no joy) it is clear that the cop was spun and if he had his finger on the trigger the car itself could have caused him to pull the trigger involuntarily.

          3. I don’t follow such things in French news.
            In France is a gendarme guilty until proved innocent or guilty until confirmed guilty even if innocent, as in the UK/USA?

          4. Under the Code Napoleon you have to prove your innocence. It’s where it differs from Common Law, among other things. One reason why I voted to leave.

  14. Good morning peeps,

    Grey skies at McPhee Towers this morning with rain forecast from midday onwards. Wind Sou’-Sou’-West, 12℃ going to 16℃ so a tad cool for the last day of ‘Flaming June’.

    When I saw this picture in the Gatesograph this morning I thought Danial Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury, was standing with a cardboard cut-out of Wishi-Washi but, no, it’s the real thing. He still hasn’t found a proper tailor despite his vast wealth.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/db0d542a22611d4c647c0727312eb401229120db10ee510a98b0c1264ba3658f.png

      1. Why does he always have such short sleeves and trouser legs? Is it a ploy to make him look taller?

          2. It’s not his lack of stature either. He could be short, and still have gravitas. Plenty of world leaders are, and do.
            Gah! makes me cross thinking about politicians! Must get on with work.

            Hope you slept OK in the night, LotL.

      1. A bit on the breezy side which makes accurate fly-casting tricky. I’d catch more vegetation than fish

    6. Ha ha! ha ha ha haaa! Haa! Stupid stunted runt. Why are we cursed with these ineffectual rodent like clowns ruining our country?

    7. Kawczynski is a tall bloke – Sunak should have known better than stand next to him unless he had a soap box handy.

  15. Good morning peeps,

    Grey skies at McPhee Towers this morning with rain forecast from midday onwards. Wind Sou’-Sou’-West, 12℃ going to 16℃ so a tad cool for the last day of ‘Flaming June’.

    When I saw this picture in the Gatesograph this morning I thought Danial Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury, was standing with a cardboard cut-out of Wishi-Washi but, no, it’s the real thing. He still hasn’t found a proper tailor despite his vast wealth.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/db0d542a22611d4c647c0727312eb401229120db10ee510a98b0c1264ba3658f.png

  16. Morning all, Playing 70 miles away today at a care complex (as if the residents don’t suffer enough)

    2. Mother always enjoys the live music, even though she doesn’t do singing, so they do get a boost from it, Spikey.

    4. Good for you!

      I always love hearing the posts of your fantastic keyboard playing. The residents are in for a treat.

      1. Just back home – There’s life in the old dears yet – those that weren’t up dancing were hand jiving. Great day out – even for me

  17. Bret Weinstein has just released a podcast he did with RFK jnr in late 2021 which he had been keeping in his vault. So far I’ve listened to a little over a half of it and it’s dynamite. It may not be up on YT for long so you may have to look on other platforms for it (Odysee?). It’s long, 2 hrs 45 min, so get a comfortable chair and a bottle of whatever your preferred poison is.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocxl_Do1nx8&t=6188s

  18. ‘Morning All

    Littlejohn

    “I have maintained all along that, guilty or

    otherwise, Boris Johnson’s fate should have been in the hands of the

    electorate which gave him an 80-seat majority, not decided by an

    embittered bunch of nobodies full of their own importance.

    And once debate and disagreement is outlawed among MPs, they might just as

    well abandon elections entirely and leave the governance of Britain to

    the courts and the Great and Good of the standing quangocracy, which is

    what appears to be happening already.

    As Ken Livingstone once observed: If voting changed anything, they’d abolish it.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12248829/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-days-one-worldview-permissible.html

    1. At least three possibly four of our most recent PMs could have done with a term behind bars. Perhaps Johnson could be made some use of and put on community services for six months.

  19. From the Gatesograph letters #1:

    SIR – The Environment Agency employs about 10,600 people and last year cost taxpayers £94 million. As it is incapable of even dealing with sewage discharges, what exactly is its purpose?

    Roy Hodgson
    Little Brington, Northamptonshire.

    Well, Roy, it’s to interfere with centuries old land management practices (drainage, dredging, forestry etc) so that the ensuing floods and/or wild fires can be blamed on ‘climate change’ and thus to help the progress of UN Agenda 2030.

    1. There are probably following orders from the Brussels mafiosi. No new reservoirs or dredging allowed.

      And to date the government and Whitehall and our so misnamed justice system are costing us 7 million pounds every day of the year by pandering to illegal immigrants AKA invaders.
      How long can this senseless nonsense be expected to carry on ?

      1. Til the money runs out…and then the invaders will be competing with the natives for scarce resources like food…

        1. People on guard at allotments.
          Other travellers have been known to steal garden produce.
          Sheep rustling, that already happened.
          But the Government and keeping the price of everything thing they can get their hands on to pay for their ongoing errors.
          Which particular section actually imagined the judiciary would be on their side?

    2. To obey EU water management and climate change policy feverishly, regardless of what the real world needs.

  21. Medley Time

    Fact checkers……….Oops that ones vanished check out Tony Heller

    FFS

    https://twitter.com/unitynewsnet/status/1674470021727133717?s=46&t=jsYaoYdKZNkuKlRjhvxpuQ

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bea4111aca3b51e60daea93a6718c62ed6b2bb483684befea804d1ee7e970df2.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c6046682460387fcb42c3a5190d49d59429c5588716857cfef879e164fe5cc0b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a2eef49404db743730b4f7a132d71d163222084d5a146394ae3417bb772f6e5.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/61292f4ecea9af92dd43ab4ee0f531caccec099317dc769f2232c3ef14e8c538.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d7f741d4c0954f7a6d638498fe9ce129142c251d7f3adbf945f3514f891d8c4e.png

    https://twitter.com/CartlandDavid/status/1674334764625526784

    1. As Greta gets older, she is beginning to look more and more strange. A sort of mixture of child and old woman.

      1. With every speech like this, she is probably assuring the AfD of more votes…

    3. In the Greta pic – is the conman tunberg or Zelensky? Both are peddling lies.

    4. Rats. Every time I hover the mouse over the up-vote, I get the box with other up-voters showing.
      Up vote from me, especially the perverts/ drag queen (take your pick) , vegan and the David Cartland tweet.

        1. Can we use for the distress caused by the blip?
          Is it a hate crime? No, on second thoughts, it can’t be that, we are privileged whites.
          Or is caused by the ‘global climate emergency’, Brexit, Trump or Pootin?

  22. Morning all 🙂😊
    Lovely sunny day but only 15 degs, which is quite nice actually.
    11 hours sleep last night one ‘bath room break’.
    Water companies out of control ? Oh well we’re use to our political classes and Whitehall effing up everything they come into contact with.

  23. SIR – I remember American burgers arriving in the UK in the 1970s and maintain that they are horrible. Steak? Great. Sausages? Wonderful.

    The burger is a lump of mince squeezed into a disk. Awful. It has no place on a British barbecue or grill.

    Andrew H N Gray
    Edinburgh

    Gawd , I hate BBQs, at least the meat variety.. meaning sausages, burgers, steak etc although I love boned shoulder of lamb.

    Mackerel wrapped up in tin foil, or even giant prawns , marinated chicken and cauliflower kebabs, sweetcorn , bananas , pineapple etc.

    1. I keep telling you Margaret: you hate BBQs because you’ve never had meat cooked on them properly by someone who knows how.

      I guarantee I would change your mind forever.

          3. Ours are much the same – lots of flowers. Once they arrive – they go mad!

        2. It depends on the chef – the key is time. Namely a lot of it to really get the smoke deep into the sausages and burgers over red hot, but not flaming charcoal. Add oil soaked wood chips for flavour.

    2. When we have ‘hamburgers’ the pattie is about 5cm thick and 10 wide and made from real minced beef, onions, splash of rosemary, sage and thyme.

      It’s not these ghastly processed abominations.

  24. From the Gatesograph letters #2

    SIR – If we had played hardball with the French government from day one, we could have insisted that all illegal migrants who were picked up mid-Channel by our Royal National Lifeboat Institution and HM Coastguard were immediately returned to France (“Prime Minister to appeal to Supreme Court after Rwanda migrant plan blocked”, telegraph.co.uk, June 29).

    Had that been the case, we would not have this farcical situation where taxpayers fork out millions of pounds in hotel fees and have the deportation plans disrupted by opportunist lawyers.

    Time to put pressure on the French.

    Alan Skennerton
    Bracknell, Berkshire

    If we had played hardball from day 1, Alan, the dinghies would have been met mid-Channel by armed Royal Marines in RIBs and turned back towards France. 24-hour surveillance of the Channel would have spotted the ones getting through which would have been met on the beaches by soldiers of the Parachute Regiment and detained. If we had played ‘hard ball’. If we had a government which actually wanted to stop the invasion.

    1. I have never been able to understand why we have always treated the French government (not its decent people) with more respect than would be proffered to a mangy smelly angry cat.

      1. I have to say, these past few years have drained my stocks of compassion.
        I now only have enough for my family and those who I know. Farewell to vague feelings of benevolence towards fellow human beings.

    2. Pensioner? Or straight white man. Because we all know straight white men are lowest of the low when it comes to “victim hierarchy”

    3. Filthy, sub-human savages. I have been thinking about taking the train to visit family in Aberdeenshire and further north. ON my last two such trips, pre-convid, I had to change at Edinburgh then take the smelly, overcrowded old bone shaker train on to Aberdeen. That was bad enough, but this has put me right off.
      Plan B now sounds infinitely safer. Make the 500+ mile journey up in stages with a few overnight B&B stops. It will take far longer.
      Flying up is another option but then there’s the hassle of a long drive to an airport with the added time at ‘security’.
      Edit: I forgot my manners. Good morning all.

    4. Can’t open it, Belle. When and where was it, as it doesn’t appear in any Scottish news!🙄

    5. No doubt they will be excused because they will claim their victim was being RACIST!!!

      However, a bit more info on what kicked it off would be welcome or at least a link to the full story.
      As well as when and where.

  26. https://www.takimag.com/article/could-somebody-keep-trumps-promises/

    In 2006 — or about 5 million anchor babies ago — the Los Angeles Times‘ star investigative reporter Sam Quinones (more recently, author of The Least of Us) previewed the new country our politicians were designing for us in a story about a Mexican illegal immigrant, Angela Magdaleno, who had just given birth to quadruplets.
    That made it 10 anchor babies for Angela and her husband, Alfredo Anzaldo, also an illegal, who had three additional children with two other women.
    Shockingly, Alfredo was unable to support his wife and 13 children on a maximum salary of $400 a week as a carpet installer. Nonetheless, before the quadruplets, Angela had given birth to triplets, at age 36, after undergoing an operation to reverse her tubal ligation and taking gargantuan amounts of fertility drugs — because her husband wanted a son.
    The U.S. taxpayer was on the hook for her fertility treatments and multiple pregnancies. Also the free school lunches, subsidized housing and $700 a month in Social Security payments. Not to mention 100% of the health care needs of this very pricey family.
    Four of Angela’s anchor babies were born underweight, one with hydrocephalus. The hydrocephalic kid had already undergone three taxpayer-funded brain operations “and will require several more,” Angela observed.
    Neither Angela nor Alfredo spoke English, despite having lived in this country for 22 and 28 years, respectively. Nor did their teenage children.
    Two of Angela’s illegal alien sisters — out of 10 siblings in the country illegally — had already fled California for Lexington, Kentucky, because, as one of them said, there were “fewer Mexicans there.” The sister raved about Kentucky, saying, “We’re in a state where there’s nothing but Americans,” citing the clean streets, police presence and lack of gang activity.
    She’s right! Doesn’t it sound lovely? But unless DeSantis is our next president, soon she won’t be able to find a place like that anywhere on Planet Earth.

    Sound familiar?

    1. But … but …. we are always told that there is no public health cover in the USofA.
      How can this situation happen? Is the GBP being lied to?

      1. Yes. It is illegal in the USA to deny healthcare for anyone who needs it but isn’t insured.

  27. Well – back home and, today, to the nurse. Hole in back still not right. Another dressing – another apptmt on Monday. Can’t fault the GP practice.

    Important info for any NoTTLer planning to go to yer France. As you will know, tolls are payable on most motorways. There are widgets (“badges”) that you can obtain from the autoroute companies that you put on your windscreen and enable you to sail through many tolls without stopping. We have one (he says smugly).

    However – in the middle of France, around Moulins/Nevers (and elsewhere) they are now using NPR. You drive under a gantry filled with cameras etc – no stopping, no ticket, no payment. Just pay online within 72 hours. I’ll bet there are non French drivers who assume that the gantries are just for traffic management and have no idea that they have to pay….

    You have been warned.

    1. How does the payment system work for the badges? Do you just pay a flat fee up front? How much if so?

      That’s how it’s done in Austria – you just buy a vignette and then it’s valid for 10 days or a month or whatever.
      Thanks for the warning about the online payment – I hate this kind of trap.

        1. Is there one at Gatwick? I knew about the Dartford Tunnel, wasn’t aware of Gatwick?

          3. As far as I can remember, it was £5- for the first ten minutes, then £1- per minute thereafter.

            Anybody know the up to date charges?

          6. I don’t mind paying, as long as you can pay there and then, and not get some “fine” later because you didn’t have some internet system set up.

          7. Just for info, but at Gatwick and Heathrow there is free parking for 2 hrs in the long term car park. Usually just a 10 min bus ride in, ideal for meeting arrivals. Just be sure you note where your car is parked or you might just exceed the 2 hrs and get dingged with a day’s charge after looking for it! I just made it with the help of a chap with a van…

          8. As far as I can remember, it was £5- for the first ten minutes, then £1- per minute thereafter.

            Anybody know the up to date charges?

          9. Dartford Tunnel is about to change its service provider – which will mean everyone with a contract to renew their details.

      2. The MR contracted for a badge in 2009. I think she paid €10. Every time you go through a toll, the fee is added to your account and, once a month, the total taken from your bank account. There is no charge for the badge – though if you don’t use it in a year (as during the plague) they deducted €10 a year. Very good system that saves ages at toll booths.

        1. I don’t care about time at the toll booth, I would rather pay cash. I hate systems that take money silently from my bank account.

          Thanks for the explanation! I’ve seen these no pay gates, but always managed to avoid them.

          1. On a busy autoroute on a bad day, you can wait 20 minutes in a queue of hundreds of cars.

          2. I would rather do that than rack up unknown debts, and give my bank details to some agency to be fleeced.

          3. Well, in 14 years, the autoroute companies haven’t “fleeced” her and we have saved – quite literally – many, many hours of hanging about in petrol fumes.

          4. Sorry, I did not mean to criticise your choices – I just like to stay in control of my bank account (years of single parenthood), and I read too much security news about hackers stealing people’s bank details. Each to their own!

          5. Also handy for a snoozing passenger not to have to be disturbed, the driver being on the ‘wrong’ side in France to effect payment. The toll payages used to come up remarkably freqently.

          6. We don’t use autoroutes very much.
            The tele-gadget is good, and allows one to go through at 30kph where the right sort of gate is in operation.
            Driving in France on the departmental roads is a pleasure compared to the UK.

          7. Except for the wretched villages and “30 kph” zones through which one has to pass.

            On Wed, driving north from Moulins to Bourges – the main N road was cut for road works. The déviation added 30 miles to the journey and went through countless villages. Bloody nightmare.

          9. Idiot 30’s certainly are a bane.
            The route we take going up is getting more of them, but so far it’s not too bad.

          11. Yer French still haven’t worked out how to use them, they take the strangest lines when crossing and seldom signal.

    2. Similar to the M50 round Dublin. The Dublin system (and the QE 2 toll system) was designed and installed by a French company, C-S Systems d’Integration. I think they do several of the French ones as well.

    1. Light drizzle here.
      I’ve just rigged a dead ash so it’ll be pulled away from the road as I fell it.
      If the rain does not get any worse I’ll do it after I’ve had my mug of tea.

    2. Very overcast here – no rain as yet, but I’ve got a load of washing on so it’s probably coming.

  30. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/245f78abcccd9d5169b222cc3130ae0732ce0005f77b1905d6939a8572d66f0c.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/honesty-bar-revenge-reviews-bad-behaviour-british-hotels/

    I think we have become much nastier over the years. It is perfectly possible to complain politely when one has received poor service but there is no need to be offensive.

    BTL

    The trouble is that people no longer are properly brought up. We have experienced in the last fifty years the great yobbification of people regardless of their social class. The expression we used to use, but must not use any more is: “Those people are as common as dirt!”

    1. When my daughter was working at a bakery earlier this year, a woman came in, bought a sandwich, ate half of it at the table, and then came back to the counter to complain that her sandwich was too cold.

    2. As a Geordie, the expression used would be ‘as common as clarts’! As in clarty! Or ‘hacky mucky, pet’!

    3. As a Geordie, the expression used would be ‘as common as clarts’! As in clarty! Or ‘hacky mucky, pet’!

  31. Breaking:

    Lord Goldsmith, environment minister and ally of Boris Johnson, quits accusing govt of abandoning environmental commitments

    He says that Rishi Sunak is ‘uninterested’ in the environment, accusing
    the govt of ‘apathy in the face of the greatest challenge we have faced’
    One piece of good news then now let’s get fracking!!

    3. A Lord in government? Two fat salaries and lashings of expenses.
      He won’t starve.

      1. His father was a billionaire; the Goldsmiths have never had to live on own brand beans on toast.

    4. Would that were true. If it were he’d have announced the cancellation of Net Zero and the reapeal of the Climate Change Act.

  32. Good moaning.
    NOW I understand the pain Michelangelo went through; painting ceilings is not for the faint hearted.
    Yesterday afternoon, I sealed the summer house ceiling with an oil based paint. It turned out to be thicker and whiter than I expected.
    MB and I looked at the experimental area and, if we had been cartoon characters, our thought bubbles would have contained words like “Oh, crap” and “Clucking bell”.
    All I could think of was the ageing Elizabeth Taylor’s improbably blingy gnashers.
    However, I’d started, so I had to finish. If necessary, I’d have to apply a second coat of a more subdued white.
    However, as the paint sunk in and dried, the restrained, almost shabby chic effect that I’d been aiming for appeared.
    That evening, we sank a bottle of Trivento Malbec rosé to celebrate a narrow escape.

    2. I was awaiting a photo of a Michelangelo inspired ceiling;-) Wot, no cherubs or seraphs?

      1. Don’t …. just don’t. I’m already traumatised.
        But that’s as nothing compared to your trials and tribulations. How are you this morning? Did you get a decent night’s sleep?

        1. Sleep- OK. Today bloody awful. Pain relentless. Going for a shower soon which at least makes me feel a bit better.

          1. This sounds pathetic, but when I’ve been in horsepiddle, the sweatiness caused by the plastic covered mattresses has always bothered me far more than the actual reason for being in the darn place to begin with.

          3. With you there, Anne. Allied to the hot-house setting on the central heating.

          4. Have they scheduled operation yet, Ann, or what are they going to do first?

          5. Oncologist/facial surgeon on Tuesday and then I guess all will be revealed. Husband has appt with his consultant on Thursday. Nobody can say we don’t have “fun” at Lake Lodge.

          6. Good, you will feel much better physically after operation or is this just an pre-op interview?

          8. OK then operation wont be long after that. You will let us all know when?

          9. If I can bear to think about it. Only been in hospital 3 times….once to give birth and two miscarriages; nothing like this.
            A gibbering idiot is lurking….

          10. When they operated on me I decided that there was nothing I could do anyway, so just go with the flow. I feared being put to sleep but, again, better than being awake! I would confess I was frightened but in realizing that the likelihood of dying was about zero and that when I woke it would all be over, sustained me and kept me from freaking out or being to worried. You will find that all of the staff will be really nice to you and very reassuring. Besides all you can do is put your trust in their hands, do that and you will be fine, in other words surrender to them, to the operating room staff, an act of faith, as it were. They are there to alleviate your suffering, not to hurt you. I found it was anticipation that was the ‘killer’ and that, in the end, it was quite unnecessary. Also just keep thinking, after it’s done you will feel a lot better. You may be in pain, but nothing like the way you are now. It will be temporary pain which will fade.

    6. Lovely pictures of a county I love – but a sad reminder of what we have lost.

    7. Britain as she was, a Sceptr’d Isle and a Happy Breed of Men. I think I recognised Port Isaac and St.Ives before the grockles arrived?

    8. I hope that they did a health and safety evaluation before allowing the boys to climb all over that wreck.

  34. We went to a cousin’s son’s funeral yesterday. He was only 55. Diagnosed with cancer of stomach and kidney in February. Had a stroke in May followed by another whilst in hospital then early June, still in hospital, had a heart attack which he didn’t survive.
    Knowing my cousin I think all her family would have been jabbed and boosted. Not that I’m suggesting anything untoward. But.

    2. Sad news.
      And you’re probably correct.
      I had a local friend who was pretty fit he had a sudden heart attack followed by a fatal stroke.

  36. Good morning all. Everyone OK Although I am aware that Ann isn’t feeling to great.
    It’s quite chilly and a bit dull here in West Sussex which actually, makes a nice change.
    Went to quacks yesterday to meet the respiratory team. Shouldn’t complain, I know, but it turns out that almost all of the information and help I have been given up to now has been wrong. So an appointment is being arranged with a breathing coach, who, hopefully, will be able to train me to clear my lungs so I can breath much better and even walk, which I can’t now other than a few feet. So good day but it started off with me so bad I had to have someone to lean on in getting to the car, I was so screwed. Thus it goes. There is always light at the tunnel even when you are feeling at the lowest. All things pass, and that is actually a comfort if you keep it in mind.

  38. I am no supporter of Farage but this is frightening because I would think almost any of us on here could be targets considering our conservative values.

    ‘Without a bank account, you are a non-person’ | Ann Widdecombe on Nigel Farage being debanked

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utvg_zddQA8

    1. The MSM should pursue Chris Bryant mercilessly.

      He must be strongly encouraged to give a full and unequivocal apology for what he said and insist that it be noted in Hansard or he must repeat his statement about Farage receiving funds from Russia outside Parliament so that he can no longer cravenly shield himself behind the protection of Parliamentary Privilege

      1. The thing is that a coward like Bryant wont do that because he knows he is lying. So he will continue to: “…cravenly shield himself behind the protection of Parliamentary Privilege.” As you well know.

        1. The more pressure that is put on him the better.

          Excrement like him should have the lavatory cistern repeatedly emptied upon him until he is flushed away into the sewers – or the septic tank – where he belongs.

  39. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a1d32985d5e388cca2e446bedd491c951930d59cd78dca72370ec6cfb10666c.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/06/29/nigel-farage-says-may-have-to-leave-uk-bank-closes-accounts/

    BTL

    The odious Chris Bryant refused to repeat outside parliament his mendacious statement that Farage had received money from Russia. The craven coward had no evidence for his claim and he knew that, without being protected by ‘parliamentary privilege’, he would be taken to court.

    It is high time that the MSM put extreme pressure on Mr Bryant to repeat his accusation outside parliament or to retract it in full with a proper apology.

    The fact that Mr Bryant is happy to use parliamentary privilege to slander or libel a person with whom he disagrees politically should be of grave concern to us all; it would be grossly irresponsible for the press not to pursue Bryant on this matter.

    1. If there is no evidence then the bank has no reason to use this. Farage hasn’t said which banks have refused him, or why. There’s no evidence of fraud.

      I don’t really understand why this has come about. I can only imagine there’s political motivation behind it, in which case this entire farce is sickening. What next? having secret services investigate him? Hiring forensic accountants to smear? Where will the state end in it’s terror?

      Of course, we know the answer to that: it won’t. It doesn’t seek power for any reason, just to have it.

      1. First they came for Tommy Robinson, but no one cares for him anyway. Then they went for Farage, quite a few dont like him. But as they went for truckers in Canada, personal standing is not going to be a bar to being cancelled in the world of today.

        1. It is all very disturbing. The Left have always used such tactics before and I doubt legal action will make any difference as the statists collude together to achieve the result they want.

          It is almost an act of terrorism by big Left wing state.

          1. Almost? It depends how terrorism is defined – like so many other words nowadays, that word may need re-defining.

      2. I read somewhere that it was apparently (and I have no idea) Coutts, which is in the NatWest/Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

  40. Bugger. Rain stopped play.
    Just dropped a couple of side stems of the horse chestnut I want to keep, 4″ & 3″dia. that would have caused the 2 dead ash I’m trying to drop to hang up and it’s raining a lot harder.
    As the two ash I plan felling are not only on the steepest part of the bank, but over a third of the way up it, the only practicable way to get down to them is to drop down using a rope and it’s now too wet & slippery for that now.

  42. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37da2ac5a6a1855e3b811f58fa9c8c0d15bfadf1d9a849dcc8c5e42d03c7e6bf.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/pay-back-house-deposit-gift-loan-interest-family-feud/

    BTL

    We had some money earning very little in a bank deposit account.

    We decided to lend our son enough money to buy a property with his fiancée. We decided that the rate of interest would be the current BoE base rate – this would cost our son less than the cost of a mortgage with a commercial organisation and it gave us more interest than we would get from a bank account.

    We had the mortgage agreement drawn up by our lawyer and notified the tax authorities and this was given to our son to give to his lawyer.

    Of course we love and trust and son but in financial agreements – and especially in agreements with family members – the terms must be made crystal clear at outset and properly documented.

    1. Agree with the comment. You’ve got to specify family financial arrangements in writing at the start, so that it’s clear and fair to everyone.

      1. Or, even better, avoid them completely. A bank doesn’t care about you. Rip off your relatives and you lose something vastly more important: Your own integrity.

        1. There, I cannot agree with you. Imagine how much stronger a family is that doesn’t have to go to the bank for everything, but has enough capital to be their own central bank.

      2. Emotional arrangements can also be rather tricky. I remember this song lyric from the 1970s – perhaps it is too truthful to be palatable?

        You can have my affection but don’t ask for something more
        Or you’ll get my rejection and end up outside my door
        For I want you to know where we stand,
        And I don’t want to be underhand
        I just don’t want you finding I’ve shattered the dreams that you’ve planned        .

      3. We didn’t when we gave our daughter a larger sum to get her into the market. But then it WAS a gift and we are all clear about that.

        1. Very generous.

          It is wrong for children to be financially indebted to their parents.

          2. We take the view that we have a duty to her to so manage our affairs that she has an inheritance which, if not totally free of IHT, is at least liable for as little IHT as possible. Hence the gift.

          3. I put my son through his undergraduate degree- no debt. When it came to his masters- up to him.

    2. My dad lent me £20k in 1997 to help buy a flat and i repaid him an agreed amount for about 10 years and then he wrote it off.

      #dads are great.

      My mum gave me £10k to help buy the flat. She said it would have been my wedding present (my brother had just got married) and not to expect anything if i ever did get married. So when I eventually tied the knot, I wrote her a thank you letter for the present i had had 5 years earlier.

      #mumsaregreattoo

      1. Strange how that old saying has so much meaning.
        You can take the ………..

    1. I have picked up a new phrase to use as an expression of contempt: Les Leaders Mondiaux.

          1. Keep me up to date- you will be in my thoughts tomorrow. What time is your appointment?

          2. Thank you, very kind.
            I have to be there by 9:30, so we’ll leave home before 8. It should only take just over an hour but we’re allowing for any hold-ups. I’ll be panicking as it is, so would rather be early. The A14 can be somewhat unpredictable. Hopefully, less so on a Saturday.
            The doc said I’d be there about 6 hours, more if more than 2 lots of removal are needed. Hoping to not need a skin graft, though not sure if that gets done there and then.
            MH will drop me off then get a bus into the city. Heffers bookshop could do good business tomorrow!
            Remind me please, your appointment is Thursday next week?

    4. Riverside Cottage should stop its food business and become a haven for illegal immigrants.

        2. He’s brought out his own version of vegan sausages, on the Label it says Prick With a Fork.

      1. He trained at the same Pinko luvvie restaurant as J. Oliver: The River Café at Hammersmith.

    6. ‘No one puts a child in a boat, unless the water is safer than the land’.

      So the English Channel is safer than mainland France?

    8. Doesn’t Whittingstall realise in a different culture people perceive and treat their children differently? What a numbskull.

  48. What does duplicitous Smarmer stand for re immigration? Watch these clips and it’s clear he doesn’t to know what he wants, or does he? Being caught on video saying what is ‘fashionable’ with the electorate on one occasion and then recorded backtracking on the first statement on another video shouldn’t be a thing to be caught doing if you want to be taken seriously.
    The problem we have is the current political class, lying, obfuscating, U-turning and once in power ignoring both their manifesto and the electorate as a matter of course. Never before have so few held so many in contempt.

    https://twitter.com/TiceRichard/status/1674463919656542208

    1. The boats are easy to stop. Sunak has to repeal the HRA, modern slavery, migration pact and leave the ECHR. He won’t, because he doesn’t want to. He then forbids legal aid for immigration and asylum cases.

      It is doubly heinous that gimmigrants, loafing on the tax payer get expensive lawyers to fight for them to stay here at public expense.

      1. They also shouldn’t be offering hotel stays, money and phones to lure them here. Straight to a spartan migrant removal centre would make more sense.

          1. But, but they throw their papers overboard the minute RNLI have taken them on board.

          2. Then send them back to bloody France. This is the French retaliation for Crecy, Poiters and Agincourt.

          3. I am inclined to agree on that. And govt retaliation for our misvoting on Brexit.

          4. Take their mobile phones and see where they’re registered or a compulsory DNA test.

      2. Sunak needs to sack the judges, it’s perfectly clear they must have age related dementia and have not notice the state this country is now in.

        1. It doesn’t affect them, so how are they going to notice? They are insulated from real life.

          1. Exactly Conners.
            That’s one of the mist consistent problems in this country. The out of balance social structure.

      3. The boats are stoppable with a courageous and determined leader but the truth of the matter is that even if Sunak wanted to stop them he has neither the necessary courage nor he leadership ability to do so.

    2. Given a few long poles with spikes on the end, we could stop the boats ourselves. All’s fair in love and war. The rule of law as handed down to us by our forebears has already gone. The “rules based order” is just an elite make-it-up-as-you-go-along game.

      1. Get thee over to France pronto with your spikey pole and a few friends, a wad of money (the French seem to be susceptible to bribery in this area) and job done.

  49. Good old Tony Vivaldi…always soothes and relaxes one. Getting things done slowly but today, so far, has not been easy.
    Whinging over for now;-)

  50. Re the Riots in France:

    BTL Comment:

    ‘In other news, there were no muslim riots last night in Poland or Hungary and the EU is completely puzzled by this’.

  51. The Dearly Tolerant & self are off to Nottingham soon for The Halle at the Royal Concert Hall.
    Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol,
    Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez
    Lili Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps
    Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

    See you all later.

  53. Wow…………. just had a phone call and an email from the hospital i’ll get back later.

  56. Famous Five clue to Durdle Door closure as film crew moves in
    The Enid Blyton books were set in Dorset and are being adapted by the BBC for the first time, with filming taking place across the south west

    A TV adaptation of Enid Blyton book series The Famous Five could offer a clue to the closure of Durdle Door. The Dorset beauty spot is closed to the public for two days on Tuesday (June 27) and Wednesday (June 28) for filming.

    No further details have been given on the reason for the filming. The Lulworth Estate, which owns the beach and car park, stated only that Durdle Door Beach and car park would be shut for filming, with nearby beaches and coastal paths remaining open.

    However the PA news agency today reported that filming has started on The Famous Five, which is being adapted by the BBC for the first time. The original books were set in Dorset and filming for the series is said to be taking place across the south west.

    https://www.dorset.live/whats-on/whats-on-news/famous-five-clue-durdle-door-8555610?fbclid=IwAR13N585295GKuzIGKFh22adXPrzenv1OOD54-gbf6XlV2IvT4sZif8c5KA

    A thought has just occurred to me .. perhaps the Famous Five will represent diversity . That’s what the BBC always do, don’t they , unless Timmy the dog is black , and Uncle Julian speaks Hindi or whatever .

    2. Uncle Quentin was a bit of a weirdo at the time, Belle! We mentioned him yesterday!

        1. Not to worry, Belle! He was an ‘inventor’ with a famous temper!! 😱

    4. Two will be different eugenics, one will be gay, one will be a trans girl (or it might identify as a cheetahs). One may even represent a combination of non normal, possibly a disabled, bleck, trans gay slammer.
      Edit. I didn’t notice that ‘effnics’ got autocorrected to ‘eugenics.’

    5. Of course it will, it’s going to be the ‘Woke Five’.

      Watched one of those BBC Do You Know Who You Are programmes last night with a pair of twins whose name escapes me, TV doctors both or somesuch, with Dutch heritage and name. Tracing ancestors in the Netherlands they came across a 5 x great grand father who had been an accountant on slave ships who worked his way up to owning first, a slave ship engaged in the trade, and then a plantation in Demerara with about 120 slaves. The shocked virtue-signalling, (feigned?) horror and desire not to know any more about him was puke-making despite the fellow who gave them the information (who was himself of mixed race) telling them that it was nearly 200 years ago, everyone did it back then and among his own ancestors he had both slaves and slave-owners. SWMBO looked at me with arched eyebrows as I shouted at the screen “FGS, he’s only one 5x great-grandfather, you’ve got 127 others!” But you can imagine it was just what the BBC wanted for their programme..

        1. I know, I know. But SWMBO likes to watch some things especially Antiques Road Show. Sometimes these trace your ancestors programmes are interesting just as the one featuring Judi Dench was. She had Danish aristocracy in her forebears – the real Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern! How fitting is that for a Shakespearean actress?

          1. Each to their own, of course. Apart from Remembrance Sunday, we never watch any live telly. Record the odd docu that seems interesting – often deleting after a couple of minutes because it is clearly dross.

          2. That’s us too really. The commonest words passing between us at supper are ‘nothing on the telly – good’.

          1. “And, Police – don’t stop and caution transgressors – just shoot them. A few bodies in the gutter will quickly get the message across.”

          2. And access to doctors will be have to be limited …… Oh, hang on, we never got our GPs back properly after Convid.

      2. They always get away with it. Plenty of practice and favours to be had and done. Remember House of Cards.
        “Everyone has their price Maddie”.

    2. Not half Tom. What would anyone expect from all these habitual and pathological liars.

  58. Well earlier I had a phone call from booking at St Barts. They have finally fixed me an appointment for the long awaited ablation late next month. That will give me enough time for me to land safely from my trip over the moon.
    I suspect it might have been the young lady I saw yesterday at my appointment at my local GP practice. And seemingly not a GP in sight.
    And rest……

    1. Well done the young lady! I hope it works for you.

      My OH has now been on the Amiodarone for over three weeks but hasn’t noticed much improvement in his heart rate or breathlessness. Though the GP did say last week that it sounds a bit more regular. It has made him feel pretty grim.

      Let us know how it goes.

      1. When I was first prescribed Amiodarone around six years ago, it was a very strong dose and they reduced the dosage after about two weeks. I wish they had done it this time.

        1. He was on three a day for a week, then two, and then one. Probably how it normally goes. But it’s made him feel like a zombie and everything tastes metallic. He’s gone right off coffee and is not eating much. He’s lost weight over the last few months.

          Are you still taking it?

          1. So many vital medications seem to have unpleasant side effects. My late MiL was on goodness knows how many different tablets, some of which were to dampen side effects of others.

          2. Lotl says you are starting some treatment today – I think I missed what has been happening to you, but I do hope all goes well and am thinking of you.

          3. Same as I was. I stopped taking it a few weeks before the ablation.
            Not taking it this time.

          5. No side effects at all just a stable heart rate. I have an old friend who was taking it for much longer. He didn’t look at all well. Very grey and his mannerisms had slowed down immensely. But I haven’t seen him for a long time now.

        1. Yes – there’s a long list of nasty side effects, some of which we were warned about and others we weren’t. If his heart rate hasn’t reduced to a more normal level by the end of this month I shall push him to contact the cardiologist again. It took a bit of pushing to get him to do something.

        1. When we saw the consultant the other week, she said to give it a couple of months to settle down, and if things hadn’t improved, there were other things to try, including cardioversion.

          1. When I challenged my consultant about the need for a cardioversion after seeing insufficient evidence on my ecg of sufficient irregularity to need one we continued to find a more acceptable drug regime with fewer side effects.

            A consultant should explain the risks associated with a cardioversion and the additional risks involved with the drugs that should be taken prior to stopping the heart during a cardioversion.

  60. A wee Birdie Three today.

    Wordle 741 3/6
    🟨🟨🟩⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Well done! Par four for me today.

      Wordle 741 4/6

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

        2. Now you know how I feel about competitive Solitaire scores.
          I came 6th in a group of 50, but overall I was in the top 5000 in nearly 600,000

    3. Par today. Late on parade watching Surrey vs Somerset.
      Wordle 741 4/6

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

  61. Well – I can’t put it off any longer………. have to go and do the shopping. Hope I can get the car out!

  62. God bless the BBC for lightening the mood. Radio 4’s PM programme has started with a report on the ‘violent rioting’ in France…

    1. “Poor France ..”

      Ha, no more than they deserve for allowing the transients (en route for UK) free passage.

    2. Suella isn’t following Sunak’s required programme. She (well, claims to be) is trying to stop the invasion, naughty Suella.

      1. She called it “an invasion” which was why they all turned against her. Telling the truth (I nearly said calling a a spade a spade – but, fortunately didn’t) never goes down well in Whitehall/Westminster.

      2. Isn’t Suella “… a whore, a slut, an unfit mother”?

        I’m sure that is what J R Ewing told her she is.

        1. Nice one. That reminds me, I have my brother’s two Dallas box sets to watch. That’ll keep me occupied for a day or two.

      4. I love popcorn.

        When HG goes to the UK on her own, to visit her mother, I usually eat it as my main meal of the day.

        Cooked in lashings of salted butter and washed down with red wine.

        Health food for heroes.

          3. Wha hey, three helpings!

            Heaven beckons.
            Take that as you will, you cholesterol-phobiacs

          5. Home cooked, straight from the pan, popped corn is delicious.
            The rubbish you have probably eaten, in cinemas and the like, is disgusting.

          6. I don’t eat the blasted stuff, sos! The smell makes me retch – the same as sesame.

          7. Ahah, so I don’t need a store of garlic, silver bullets and crucifixes after all….

          8. I used to make it for the girls and their friends. One of the most awful chores!!

          1. I’ve never denied that I’m odd.

            Actually, I’m normal, it’s the rest of the world that’s odd.

          1. Hedge their bets – drive around in their rainbow-coloured cars and then throw orange paint over the Pride marchers.

  66. The UN is also poking its nose in, telling France to do something about its ‘racist’ policing. Perhaps the Gendarmerie should shoot a few white demonstrators to even up the score.

    1. Well, yer Gendarmerie is quite good at shooting members of the, er, Gandarmerie….

  67. That’s me for today. Never sunny – though warm enough to dry three loads of washing. Then became decidedly chilly. The Wet Office says it may be warmer (but windier) tomorrow. Who knows? They don’t.

    Still, got the garden roughly sorted, tomatoes tied up, roses dead-headed – weeding and watering. Funny thing – greenhouse tomatoes are half-cock; while outdoor ones are thriving…. Trombetti beginning to grow well.

    Have a spiffing evening planning your visit to the French banlieues. Such diverse thrills to be seen and had….

    A demain.

  68. Healthcare plan for future.
    With Artificial Intelligence years of training could be fast tracked simply by using ChatGPT.
    This guy explains how OpenAI’s freely available platform can summon up an expert in any field to enable fast and reasoned study programs to achieve any desired outcome:

    https://youtu.be/vYvOTGk7hOA

    Too good to be true? 🤔

    2. I don’t think that, at my time of life, Angie, I really want to know what horrors face us.

      Sad to say, I have to leave all that to my descendants.

  69. 374025+ up ticks,

    Leniency will be shown on account of him terrorised initially by having to escape from a free country, then he did wait a few days before allegedly committing the criminal act.

    breitbart,
    Illegal Boat Migrant Charged With Raping Woman Just Days After Reaching Britain

  71. Bournemouth council are discussing the future of the free Bournemouth Air Show ahead of a budget short fall.
    So far there is no mention of whether the free Pride Week will be discussed.

    1. My whisky and beer intake negate all that, so I’ll be happy to just die in my sleep, having so far enjoyed most of my 79 years.

      I hope they find me before my body becomes useless to Edinburgh Medical School.

      1. My mother was 90 when she died her younger sister also reach the same age. Their elder sister who lived in QLD was 96 she supped a wee dram every evening before turning in.
        Keep it going.
        I do enjoy a single malt but having my ticker problems has put me off it for some time.

        1. Please. Eddy, I DON’T want to reach 90 plus, all it means is years of wanting help and need. Not for me.

          Here is my wish as identified to my friend Sue MacFarlane:

          Good evening, Gentlefolk. If necessary, just treat this as a final plea for help for, hopefully, a warm and caring older female, who maybe, finds herself in a similar life-time position – floundering in a similar part of the world.

          Floundering for the warmth of a person of the opposite sex and companionship and warmth in a mutual bed, relationship and want of a warm body to share in the autumn/winter of their life. I, not only can cook but know enough to fix most things that may go wrong. I have been brought up to understand that ‘Common-Sense’ actually means ‘Good sense‘ because it ain’t that common.
          Are you willing to take on this 79- year-old and share with him the final years, days, and months of our lives, hopefully together and leaning on each other for help and support?

  73. I’ve been posting about ‘useful idiots’ doing the bidding of the elite and expecting to be included in that cabal when all is done and dusted. Here, in response to the desecration of our towns in pursuit of Net Zero, are others who feel the same way.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/38e6250902092b8a33d28840b0be5b1d9dee6a5926f4a82b5eec4020cc89a337.png

    Daily Sceptic – Nihilism of Net Zero Killing our Cities and Streets

    How and when all these ‘useful idiots’ were recruited and persuaded (brainwashed?) to follow the path they have taken would be a great task for a few real investigative journalists.

    1. I feel, ‘ere long, someone is going to get seriously hurt or ‘offed’.

  75. I think that that’s me for the night so I’ll say, Goodnight and God bless, all NoTTLefolks until the morning and it’s story-time arrives.

  76. Bumped into Brian earlier his mother, a granddaughter of Sir John Franklin, will be 104 in August…!

    1. My Franklin paternal Grandma insisted on ‘Franklin’ as one of my christian names; I’ve always been happy with that!

    3. Granddaughter or great granddaughter?

      Although family trees can be a bit unreliable on the web, I read that Sir John had 7 grandchildren: Elizabeth Eleanor Franklin (1850-1909), John
      Franklin (1851-1884), Philip Lyttelton (1852-1926), Mary Frances
      (1854-1946), Henry Willingham (1856-1942), Alice Honora (1857-1927) and
      Lucy Dorothea (1859-1939)

      1. Thanks I’ll check with Brian. If your info is correct then she can only be a great granddaughter. I’ll ask him her maiden name….

    4. We have some neighbours named Franklin.
      What can I tell them about their
      name ?

    1. Got to use up stocks somehow otherwise what would the Public Accounts Committee say about all the waste?

    2. No chance, Mum, I’ve avoided it thus far, and will continue so to do.

      I have no wish to die of myocarditis.

    1. Another stupid person trying to capitalise on the exigencies of army training.

      If you can’t take the pain don’t go for any gain.

    2. She probably didn’t join as an officer – the report says she “rose through the ranks”.

        2. I would think so, for someone who joined up as a private. It takes quite a while to work through the ranks.

      2. It’s a much misunderstood term. One nephew of mine joined as a Signaller. rose to Warrant Officer 1 and was awarded a Late Entry commission. LE officers don’t need to go to Sandhurst. He is now a Captain. His younger brother went to Sandhurst after University and is now a Major.
        There is a third path. Some Officers started off in the ranks, got so far and applied for a commision which entails going to Sandhurst. Neither of them took this path.

  79. An interesting statistic:
    If every employee of the NHS was a trained soldier then we would have a bigger army than the United States.

    1. By a factor of 3.
      And some
      And that’s only England.
      In fact there are nearly as many NHS England as there are in the total US military, army, navy and air force.

      1. The NHS is the largest employer in Europe! I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing….😱

        1. At over a quarter of a trillion pounds a year I would have to say not.

    2. 01. Walmart, Inc. 2.3 million 2020 United States
      02. China Railway 2 million 2013 China
      03. Ministry of Public Security 1.9 million 2016 China
      04. McDonald’s Corporation 1.9 million 2015 United States
      05. UK National Health 1.7 million2015 United Kingdom

      [Wiki]

      Where’s US armed forces?

  80. Bristol fitness instructor who carved his name into Colosseum wall begs Italian police for forgiveness – as top cop warns he could be jailed for up to FIVE years

    Good.
    Graffiti/graffito is one of my pet hates. Mindless morons carving, spraying, scribbling.
    Make them all clean off what they have done using their noses and tongues.
    Keep them in prison each night until the clean up is finished.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12252177/Bristol-fitness-instructor-carved-Colosseum-wall-begs-Italian-forgiveness.html

      2. No, and what makes anyone so special that they are permitted to deface things?
        People will quote, “but what about Banksy?”
        My view is that if they want to add their “comment” they should buy the building/wall and then do so.

          2. I’d take some photos then whitewash over it. Then offer the pics to the highest bidder.

    2. I wonder how many Italians are in jail for the mass of graffiti throughout their whole country ?

        1. I remember walking from our hotel in Pisa to the old town where the tower is, we walked through an underpass it was absolutely covered in graffiti.
          I’ve never seen anything like it.
          It’s seems to be a long standing tradition in the county. As lovely as most of it is.

  81. Back from b-i-l’s funeral. Village church full (100+), crem about half full. Mind you he had been a County Councillor for 25 years. Retiring music at the crem was Everything for You by David Gates/Bread – very poignant. Now s-i-l has to adjust to being without the man she spent over two thirds of her life with.

      1. And to you. I keep thinking of you and your plight ( and wish I had shares in Pinot!)

    2. Poignant.
      How does the extended family relationship work where the two are s-i-l and b-i-l to you?

      Your comment re the time together made me think about my place.
      HG and I have now spent three quarters of our lives as “an item”

      1. I’m usually a bit pedantic about the relationship, but didn’t do it this time. S-i-l is wife’s sister who has lost her husband, technically he was my wife’s b-i-l.

        1. Apologies.
          I wasn’t being pedantic, merely wondering how it worked.
          Relationships nowadays are so complex that it’s hard to see how the connections work out.

          1. I wasn’t inferring that, sorry. When speaking to friends recently about his illness I have usually referred to him as my wife’s b-i-l, so there was more clarity about his place in the family.

    4. I hope your s-i-l has lots of friends locally she can call on. It’s important to have support during the period of adjustment and afterwards.

      1. With him having been on the Council, she has many friends locally. Also her elder daughter and family returned to the village about 8 years ago. We hope to move closer to her soon.

  82. Goodnight Y’all. Pain has made me worn out.
    Please keep mumisbusy in your thoughts tonight.
    See Y’all tomorrow DV

    1. Both you and Mum2 are constantly in my thoughts and wishes for a great recovery for you both.

      Just KBO, girls.

  83. Evening, all. Chillier day today (15 degrees C) and raining. I did manage to get a bit done in the garden before I risked getting wet.

  84. Now I really mean it , Goodnight with the caveat that, If any of you know a female thus, Please put her in touch with me:

    Good evening, Gentlefolk. If necessary, just treat this as a final plea for help for, hopefully, a warm and caring older female, who maybe, finds herself in a similar life-time position – floundering in a similar part of the world.

    Floundering for the warmth of a person of the opposite sex and companionship and warmth in a mutual bed, relationship and want of a warm body to share in the autumn/winter of their life. I, not only can cook but know enough to fix most things that may go wrong.

    I have been brought up to understand that ‘Common-Sense’ actually means ‘Good sense‘ because it ain’t that common.
    Are you willing to take on this 79- year-old and share with him the final years, days, and months of our lives, hopefully together and leaning on each other for help and support?

    2. What happened with the lady you were meeting the other day? Didn’t it work out? Maybe take things gently and not expect a bed companion straightaway. Let someone get to know you first.

      2. We meet on occasion, Jules but we know the limit of our expectations.

        This lady lost her husband in February of this year, having nursed him through cancer for six years.

        Yes, we both want companionship but I cannot see it going further, nor do I expect it.

  85. There’s a video doing the rounds of the Apple store in central Strasbourg being looted in broad daylight, in the middle of the day.

    Another video of a father discovering his son looting a store and dragging him away! Kid grounded for life by the looks of it.

  88. Our Government has abandoned ‘Defence of the Realm’ and many other responsibilities . . .

    If it were responsible, it should resign forthwith.

    1. We should be feeling very fearful , Lacoste , and we should watch our back as a nation .

      Biden doesn’t like us , Macron is feeble and a con merchant , and Germany has problems of its own…it is as if we are being consumed and overcome by fire ants.

      We have lost our belly to hold onto our national corners .

      What are we going to do?

      1. 374025+ up ticks,

        TB,
        For starters stop supporting / voting lab/lib/con coalition.

      2. We (Boris and Rishi et al) have been backing the wrong horse: President Zelenskyy, a former comedian and actor – and a stooge for Biden and NATO – will lose.

        Biden could up-the-ante to tactical nuclear weapons (he has insufficient conventional military resources) and could initiate nuclear WWIII.

        Dopey Joe should be sectioned or put down.

        Putin has never been our worst enemy.

      3. Ukraine has lost in its conflict with Russia. The loss of Ukrainian soldier lives is in the hundreds of thousands. Everything militarily Ukraine possessed from the USSR period has been destroyed along with much of the arsenal and materiel provided by the US and collective west. The idiots in Washington seriously miscalculated the strength in depth and resolve of the Russian people.

        The peaceful resolution by negotiation, scuppered by Bunter Johnson two years ago is no longer on the table. Russia will now insist on the complete demilitarisation of a rump Ukraine, the redrawing of boundaries, the removal of NATO weaponry from recent NATO accession states such as the Baltic states, Finland and other naive applicants such as Sweden.

        Ukraine is meanwhile being denied both admission to the EU and also admission to NATO. The combination of a corrupt Obama neo-con war agenda with the installation of the willing Zelensky puppet has backfired disastrously.

        Ukraine is partly in ruins and whilst Russians enjoy a high standard of living, we in the collective west will be short of energy and food for years to come. God help the surviving Ukrainians. Expect Zelensky to be lynched along with his cohorts when the penny finally drops that a nation has been lied to and misled.

  89. As a further investigation into the way that AI could be used most effectively particularly with interfaces with ChatGP like Microsoft’s Bing, I found that the framing of prompts was an acquired skill i.e, asking the ri https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f0469d1f762fb52d5b1c849391e1cb55b473832aa659b58edd8151c32e9ee788.jpg ght question:

    Here’s an explanatory video:

    https://youtu.be/k13v8jp8H5o

    So given the adverse side effects of Amiodarone that a Nottler had reported in this forum, I asked Bing AI what other drugs there were for treating heart beat irregularity that had fewer side effects.

    I got the following answer:

  90. A bit late to be posting, but has anyone seen this?
    (Appalogeys if it’s already been done)

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66054946
    “Covid pandemic linked to surge in child and teen diabetes”
    I thought, wow, things are coming to light. No chance, vaccines for youngsters weren’t mentioned.

    1. MM

      I heard that on the radio late afternoon . I was driving home from my dog walk area .

      Unless of course there are other reasons , bad diet , emotional distress etc .

      1. Agreed, there might be all sorts of reasons, but just to not even consider the possibility of a new vaccine enforced on kids, who weren’t at risk in the first place, is laughable (except it’s not funny).

          1. None of my friends and family have had adverse reactions to the Covid-19 vaccines.

          3. Good morning David

            How fortunate for your friends that they haven’t suffered any adverse reactions .
            I ended up in A+E with a bad reaction to the jab , as well as suffering a 6 week spell off Covid , and I know many who suffered like wise.

            My doctor advised me not to take up this years routine jabs.

    1. Perhaps because they’re only going to replace a Conservative immigration-loving government, Maggie.

      1. Hardly, Mola, they are both cheeks of the same arse.

        Get rid of FPTP and give us Proportional Representation.

        Don’t vote Lib/Lab/Con/ Green, use NOTA if necessary.

      2. Hardly, Mola, they are both cheeks of the same arse.

        Get rid of FPTP and give us Proportional Representation.

        Don’t vote Lib/Lab/Con/ Green, use NOTA if necessary.

    2. What Pathetic system of politics we have. But it’s all labour have as well.

    3. 374025+ up ticks,

      Evening TB,

      The only ones that say it must be like that , iare the electorate.

  93. I’m late but I’m on my way up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.
    Good night.
    Good news today re my appointment date in July. I’m so pleased I might manage to get my two years of lost lifestyle back. Might be able to get walking again. Unfortunately with out our lovely Lottie black Lab.

    1. My OH just wants his life back – he’s normally fit and active, was still playing tennis last summer, and table tennis till mid-autumn. He doesn’t like just sitting around.

      1. Same as Ellie. That’s what I told the lady I saw at the local practice.
        I felt after supporting the NHS for over fifty years when I needed them most the more senior level had abandoned me. Because they could get away with it. I don’t knock front line staff. Just some of the people who have obviously come to work in the UK at higher levels for the money they can earn.

  94. Just back from Nottingham and I’m off to bed.
    An excellent concert, but bloody hell, that Rite of Spring is chuffing loud!!

  95. The national bestseller that shocked the nation–The Death of the West is an unflinching look at the increasing decline in Western culture and power.

    The West is dying. Collapsing birth rates in Europe and the U. S., coupled with population explosions in Africa, Asia and Latin America are set to cause cataclysmic shifts in world power, as unchecked immigration swamps and polarizes every Western society and nation.
    The Death of the West details how a civilization, culture, and moral order are passing away and foresees a new world order that has terrifying implications for our freedom, our faith, and the preeminence of American democracy.

    The Death of the West is a timely, provocative study that asks the question that quietly troubles millions: Is the America we grew up in gone forever?

    https://www.amazon.com/Death-West-Populations-Immigrant-Civilization/dp/0312302592/ref=nodl_?dplnkId=5aeba230-d8a7-41e3-a7c6-8f06d5f2a34c

  96. Good night, chums. See you all tomorrow, and I hope you all sleep well tonight.

    1. Ha, That would be nice Elsie. meantime, I shall go to bed when it suits me.

      I still need that older female to call me to bed when the time comes.

      See my earlier comments and needs.

Comments are closed.