Saturday 19 April: The Church of England must ditch its modish obsessions and get back to basics

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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640 thoughts on “Saturday 19 April: The Church of England must ditch its modish obsessions and get back to basics”

  1. Morning Geoff – am I first? Today would have been my 60th Wedding Anniversary.

  3. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's Easter Saturday NoTTLe page.

    Wordle 1,400 4/6

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    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      What an annoying non-word today!
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      1. Totally agree. Took me several hours of on and off looking for a possible word.

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    1. There were always only two genders. There've never been any more. The insanity was forced on us by lunatic nutters desperate to destroy our society.

      1. Two sexes. Languages often have 3 genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Yer Norwegian does, but (prophetically?) the masculine and feminine are blending together to form a common gender, with mostly masculine characteristics.

          1. I have an app on my phone for when I visit the Netherlands, De De of Het. Very useful.

    2. Good morning. Dolly decides when she wants to go out. This morning she doesn't want to. I'm not arguing.

  7. Morning, all Y'all.
    Sunny, but almost freezing. A lovely day to stay in for now and enjoy another freshly-brewed coffee!

      1. Was hoping to sit out in the sunshine and enjoy breakfast, but too damned chilly (+2C) for that. Firstborn's tiny cat was undeterred, just shot out to catch some Easter breakfast.

  8. Here's how to deal with shit: No messing about. From https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/499522

    Tropic Air flight 9N711, a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan EX, was hijacked after takeoff from Corozal Airport, Belize by a passenger holding a knife. He demanded to be taken to the United States.

    The flight diverted to Belize City Airport (BZE).
    A licensed firearm holder on board shot and killed the hijacker moments after landing.
    Watch https://youtu.be/CUrnlac7Ooo

      1. I'm ashamed to write that my first reaction to the news that a border-runner* had drowned in the Channel yesterday was "good!" I corrected myself, but still feel shame that I thought that way. How have I become such an inhuman person?
        * – aka illegal, rubber-boater, slammer invader.

        1. Morning Obs.
          I remember seeing a clip on how the Russians dealt with Somalia pirates. They machine gunned them all a sank their boats.
          That seemed to be the finish of that.

          2. There was an occasion when the pirates stormed a ship without realising it was a French naval auxiliary carrying 100 marines…

        3. There is a youtube video which shows that if the cost is zero, immigration demand will be infinite. Using gobstoppers IIRC.

          1. And yet, the “That’s Life” programme about Winterton and the Kindertransport posted a little earlier today had me in tears. Why he difference? Maybe because the rubber freeboaters are opportunists coming for a free ride, and the Kinder were really fleeing for their lives, leaving family behind.
            Apropos that, how do you say goodbye to your small child, knowing that you will likely never see them again? That’s hard.

    2. The hijacker was a US citizen, Akinyela Sawa Taylor, who was a 49-year-old military veteran.

      1. 9mm costs pence per round. Even a whole magazine-full wouldn’t pay for a lawyers morning cappuccino.

  9. Here's how to deal with shit: No messing about. From https://asn.flightsafety.org/wikibase/499522

    Tropic Air flight 9N711, a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan EX, was hijacked after takeoff from Corozal Airport, Belize by a passenger holding a knife. He demanded to be taken to the United States.

    The flight diverted to Belize City Airport (BZE).
    A licensed firearm holder on board shot and killed the hijacker moments after landing.
    Watch https://youtu.be/CUrnlac7Ooo

  10. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/18/renaud-camus-banned-mass-immigration-free-speech/

    What JD Vance considers free speech is almost the exact opposite of what Starmer thinks of it. To Stamer, it's ok, as long as you don't offend anyone – especially his favoured groups. To everyone else, it is the freedom to say what you choose.

    A clear indication of the utter lack of free speech is the difference between the muslim screaming abuse and waving placards about, being told to hide weapons at a mosk by plod and a Conservative writing – not doing, writing – to burn down gimmigrant hotels after the murder of children by a muslim fanatic known to the state – and covered up by that state to keep the truth away from people.

    I disagree with this as the hotels aren't the problem. Burn the gimmigrant, not the property.

    2. Why are people who frequent mosques known as Muslims? Surely they should be called Mosquitos?

  12. SIR – Can anybody explain to me how I should go about extracting the stone from an avocado without injuring myself? I have run out of family and friends to ask about this matter, and am reluctant to approach some passer-by in the street.

    Graham White
    Huntingdon

    Oh dear.

    Score the flesh down to the stone while rotating the fruit.
    Twist the two halves away from each other.
    Whack the knife into the stone and pull from the flesh.

    Better still…eat seasonal home grown fruits.

    1. Most people don't know where their food comes from, let alone that most of it is imported. That said, we could grow them here but we don't because it's too expensive – the energy use of greenhouse growing is significant.

      That's the fault of the Left, forcing what socialism always results in: starvation.

        1. Good morning OL, and everyone.
          Technically the UK Govt is attacking landowners, not mere farmers.
          However, the result will scare away capital from investing in traditional agriculture.
          The alternative to family-owned farms is corporate farming, or 'landmining'; firms exploit the ground but have no incentive or intention of putting anything back.
          As a recent example, I know of some land that has been planted with vines by a wine producer; the vines run up and down the hillside (approximately at right angles to the contour lines) which means that when there is heavy rain, soil erosion will occur, along with flooded ditches below.
          The erosion will be gradual, by which time the company will have recovered its investment and will move on.
          FYI, the planting was designed to maximise sunshine on the grapes.

          1. Also, by running up/down the hill, mechanised harvesting becomes possible. Across the hill, the machine will tip over.

        2. Good morning OL, and everyone.
          Technically the UK Govt is attacking landowners, not mere farmers.
          However, the result will scare away capital from investing in traditional agriculture.
          The alternative to family-owned farms is corporate farming, or 'landmining'; firms exploit the ground but have no incentive or intention of putting anything back.
          As a recent example, I know of some land that has been planted with vines by a wine producer; the vines run up and down the hillside (approximately at right angles to the contour lines) which means that when there is heavy rain, soil erosion will occur, along with flooded ditches below.
          The erosion will be gradual, by which time the company will have recovered its investment and will move on.
          FYI, the planting was designed to maximise sunshine on the grapes.

      2. Most commercial greenhouse producers pump in CO₂ to speed up growth, but don't tell anyone.

    2. That's how I do it. Knife-edge chopped into the stone, twist a bit & lift.
      Half-fill the well left behind with Worcestershire sauce – Lea & Perrins, not that sweet Heinz muck.
      I hope the OP is aware of the vast amounts of water needed to grow avocadoes, and in tropical parts, how that can be very damaging.

      2. Same with quinoa. Huge amounts of water to satisfy greenie vegans the other side of the planet when most of the indigenous go hungry.

      1. In proper DT Letters English

        Pull into a lay-by in your Triumph Herald
        Move the jars of and Marmalade to get a knife…….

      1. 🤣 When they are properly ripe they are delicious. The problem is that, certainly in England, the ripeness phase lasts approximately three minutes.

  13. I guess it being Easter Saturday, the papers aren't reporting real news, just filler articles. For example, see https://www.bbc.com/ for a combination of "Oh! Why! Oh! Why!" and Sunday supplement articles.
    Anyhow, stay at Firstborn's smallholding about to be over, we've achieved the Great Barn Tidy and removal of the hay drier fan, and with SWMBO in Devon I need to go home and amuse/feed the cats. So, after coffees and de-scumming the dishwasher, I'll be on the road again.
    https://youtu.be/dBN86y30Ufc?si=WrIQI6haMKUAN1aY

        1. There’s always been a line down the centre. But not everyone stays the correct side of it.

  14. Well I've been awake for ages but it's not as early as I thought 😅 – my watch is on a go slow and needs a new battery.

  15. 404465+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    We seem to excel at knocking out prototypes rotherham was a classic in the foreign repeat raping reptile covered up by authorities as in civil & police, each playing equal parts, diversity being pushed with criminal intent.

    A partnership forged in hell in many cases
    with authorities criminal inaction on par with the raping reptiles odious actions.

    A common denominator judgement on
    modern England.

    https://x.com/EvaVlaar/status/1913294981265342486

  16. Waltzes in. Good morning. Easter Saturday blessings, it's more chilly today.
    I do believe as it's past Good Friday that I can have some of my Easter Egg .

    1. Happy anniversary, N! Hope you have happy memories of 56 years ago, and the intervening period as well.

  18. Morning all 🙂😊
    Another bright start, moving cloud but stops the sunburn eh 😉
    It seems that many people in many various walks of life have logged into their prefered Dopey Wokey extremisms. Including the C of E.
    Replace the words in the Okey Cokey with Dopey Wokey and shake it all about. Left arms of course.

  19. The Spectator have some Christian articles up this Easter, quite unusual and nice to see .

  20. That fire that destroyed the monumental aircraft hanger at Salisbury was handy for the developers.
    I hope the authorities force them to rebuild it.
    They were supposed to have been repairing some damage. I expect a fridge freezer or something burst into flames eh !…….

    2. Often, a blowtorch used to melt asphalt paper onto roofs results in the fire.

      2. You are too nice. All the Colchester "accidents" occurred before any building work had started. While waiting for permission to redevelop the site to be granted, often with inconvenient conditions like archeological digs or respecting the site's history.

      3. I’ll massively increase my insurance I’m about to refelt our shed roof.
        I could get a new lawn mower out of it. 😉

      4. A bit like when the Mechanical Engineering building of Derby Polytech on Keddleston Road, now known as Derby University was burnt down.

    3. Planning permission was granted last week for housing on the site on condition that the Grade 2* listed building was restored.

      It is routine for the big developers favoured by Government to have these conditions removed after public attention has drifted elsewhere, and appropriate action taken to seen that it no longer becomes an issue.

      When I was a trade union rep in the Post Office back in the 1980s, I remember a meeting with management whereby they sought union advice as to how to improved the figures for the employment of disabled staff. "That can be arranged" was the reply from the shop steward at the centralised mechanised office.

      How is the rebuilding of the Crooked House pub going?

      1. Did they fake the disabled quota or break a few legs? I once lost a job to a disabled colleague because the department needed to fulfil its quota but the disabled woman left the organisation around twenty years ago and I’m still there.

      2. Yes I read that later about the planning permission. Obviously it was arson. I wonder if any arrests have been made yet ?
        I think it was back in the early 70s I was staying with my sister in Harpenden working in WGC.
        There was a very old cottage on a corner of a junction in a village I drove through each day. And suddenly it caught fire. Soon after, a medium size block of flats filled the site.

    4. Colchester had a session of similar events; all on sites where planning permission was bit "slow".
      One former institution near us managed two fires in one week.

      2. Who’s we ?….. I just give up.
        It’s funny how we didn’t realise that our lives would change when we should have noticed the our MiL’s carried on.
        I’ll get me pinny…….

  23. Trump transforms Covid support website into lab leak ‘truth page’. 19 April 2025.

    The website claims that Anthony Fauci, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases when the pandemic broke out in Mr Trump’s first term, had pushed a “preferred narrative that Covid-19 originated naturally”.

    A key paper called “The proximal origin of Sars-CoV-2” argued that a natural spillover event caused the virus to spread around the world and turned medical consensus against the “lab leak” theory.

    I have to confess to a sneaky pride in that I never fell for this stuff. I looked and read Rik’s posts and then researched the mortality rate of the virus and concluded that it was no threat to me. I’ve had no injections and yet here I still am. This does, I admit, leave the numbers of dead unexplained. Is there perhaps something else that they are not telling us?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/04/18/trump-covid-website-lab-leak-wuhan/

    1. DNR notices. Intubation. Putting infected people in care homes to speed the process.

        1. Over-use of ventilators and midazolam.

          – and Remdesivir, of course. And never forget the sharp uptick in suicides, and deaths due to undiagnosed conditions, and increased incidence of murder, including murder where domestic abuse was implicated. And the increase in incidence of fatal stress-induced myocarditis, including many cases in previously- fit athletes; and the increase in incidence of acute unexpected thromboembolic episodes. Never forget.

    3. I decided against vaccination early on, as the virus was apparently a version of influenza at the time, and I had one-only flu vaccine and was sicker than a dog – so, never again. Instead, started vitamin D3, never had even a cold since, and never had covid.

      1. That's when I started taking vit D3 – also vit K2 and C. I think they've kept us well.

        1. I think it was your reccommendation that started me and family on D3. Had no noticeable illness since, not even a cold.

      2. Ditto. I had my only influenza jab in 1970 and I promptly passed out when I returned to my workplace. Never Again!

    4. IMHO all of the animal disease out breaks were probably deliberately set as well.
      Because of current thoughts on land use, farm animal necessities, especially pigs it could all start again.
      But not as easy to start as 'wild fires' or obsolete aircraft hangars old pubs churches etc.
      We all now know there are some nasty people out there.

    6. Some people caught a flu – like illness that developed into pneumonia. Sadly they died. Most people didn't. 🙄
      Later people died from unwanted side effects of a dangerous injection.

      1. I had covid but before the hysteria kicked in, so I just thought I'd got 'flu, went to bed and waited to get better. Had I had it after the propaganda, I'd probably have thought I was doomed and failed to recover!

        1. With hindsight, I suspect MB and I may have had it during the January through to the February.
          We both had coughs and cold symptoms that were a butter ugger to shake off.

        2. I don’t think I had it unless the bug I had in January 2020 was it. I was left with a dry cough for several weeks but that was about it. I wasn’t ill enough to stay in bed.

    7. Having fallen, briefly, for the Statins con, that has done untold damage to my body, I have vowed never ever to take a medication that the government says I should. As the neurologist who finally told me that I should never have been prescribed Statins as, at best, I was a borderline case. He went on to say that doctors must get back to prescribing for the patient and not by government diktat.
      I read an article in TCW a while ago by a team of doctors saying they’d found a link between Statins and peripheral neuropathy. I was diagnosed with PN soon after coming off that dreaded drug and it is getting worse and worse and there is no cure for dying nerves.

      1. Vitamin E can be beneficial for nerve damage, particularly in certain contexts like chemotherapy-related neuropathy and vitamin E deficiency. It acts as an antioxidant, protecting nerve cells from damage and potentially aiding in nerve regeneration. However, the effectiveness of Vitamin E in treating nerve damage can vary depending on the underlying cause and individual circumstances.

        Vitamin E also reduces the harm that smoking causes but doctors won't tell you that…

      2. Felt bad on statins, as did Firstborn & SWMBO. None of us go near the damned things now.

      3. I noticed last year that my OH was becoming forgetful – I put the start of his memory loss down to statins and persuaded him to stop taking them. He did, but I'm not sure it's made any difference to his memory.

      4. I noticed last year that my OH was becoming forgetful – I put the start of his memory loss down to statins and persuaded him to stop taking them. He did, but I'm not sure it's made any difference to his memory.

      6. I was put on statins shortly before I left the Army. Later that year, I registered with a civilian GP who immediately took me off them. Very lucky there.

    8. I had two AZ jabs – against my better judgement but as I had a trip to Kenya booked (and twice postponed) I decided it was clearly going to be a requirement and just another travel jab of many.

      I did need to show the jab certificate in Nairobi in 2022 and 23. Fortunately they dropped that requirement a while ago now.

      I had no reactions of any sort but I won't be having any more jabs.

      1. I am continually getting texts and phone calls to have the convid jab. I made it clear last time I saw the GP the I would not have them or the flu jab.
        I only ever had the thing before because I was trying to protect MB at the height of the scamdemic. That went well; he now has a dicky heart in addition to other health failings.

          1. He only had two. His myocardial infarction occurred a fortnight to the day after his first jab.
            We had the second jab because there was no reason at the time to make the link.
            We have refused to have any more.

          2. So many people have developed ‘turbo’ cancers and heart disease in the last few years. And excess deaths went up instead of down.

        2. My GP no longer looks forward to my annual health check because I routinely tell him that most things he suggests are wrong.

          He also hates it when I show him how much healthier I am now that I routinely ignore the "health advice" from the WEF, Global corporations, Big Pharma, UN, and all the world's health authorities and universities.

          I foresee him refusing to see me in the future.

          1. I used my recording pulse oximeter to derive a computer printout showing that the verifiable instabikity in my noctural high resolution SpO2 level was consistent with the imminent onset of congestive heart failure.

            The next day I showed the printout to my GP who had been prescibing the drugs I had been taking and he said he was no longer going to see me as a patient.

          2. I used my recording pulse oximeter to derive a computer printout showing that the verifiable instabikity in my noctural high resolution SpO2 level was consistent with the imminent onset of congestive heart failure.

            The next day I showed the printout to my GP who had been prescibing the drugs I had been taking and he said he was no longer going to see me as a patient.

    9. A lot of the deaths were due to what used to be considered medical malpractice. Do you remember the instruction to go home from the hospital until you couldn't breathe? The banning of the use of antibiotics? Drugs such as Remdesivir? Putting people on respirators from which 80% of them did not return?

  24. A belated good morning to one and all. Late out of bed because of the DT having a rather disturbed night and, in turn keeping me awake.
    A damp start to the day after last night's rain and an almost imperceptible drizzle which, at a tad over 10°C on the thermometer actually feels quite refreshing and pleasant.

      1. “How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child”

        Many parents probably feel this at one time or another.

        "Blow, blow thous winter wind
        Thou art not so unkind
        As Man's ingratitude."

        And I remember my mother saying to me when I was a truculent, ungrateful adolescent: "After all I've done for you …."

    1. I'm not sure about celebrating that a man was put to death in a horrible manner – think, if anybody much had listened to what He had to say back in the day, how things might have turned out.
      However, He achieved a good deal of attention by being crucified – maybe His message wouldn't have endured so well without that. Who knows?
      I'll raise a glass to him when I'm home and not driving.

        1. Christians celebrate the Resurrection, not the Crucifixion.

          Yes- we celebrate the former, and meditate upon and give thanks for the latter.

        2. You wouldn't expect a heathen to appreciate that. It's like not "celebrating" Lent. We observe it.

    2. I have searched and searched for Cur Ikea Slammer's Easter "message". Perhaps he is saving it for tomorrow. (Sarc).

        1. I should hope not. Bloody Christians – who do they think they are? Special holidays and events. Definitely not the "caring culture" of much better known sects….

      3. Actually, it was refreshingly upbeat & conciliatory.

        "To the people of Britain, the country wot I love, we may experience a hat-trick of hold-ups on Thursday, Friday through to Monday as drivers visit family and friends during this Easter Rising. Let me make this clear it will get worse."

      4. Actually, it was refreshingly upbeat & conciliatory.

        "To the people of Britain, the country wot I love, we may experience a hat-trick of hold-ups on Thursday, Friday through to Monday as drivers visit family and friends during this Easter Rising. Let me make this clear it will get worse."

  28. After my original experience with the 'vaccine' I wouldn't touch it with an elongated barge pole. Nor now the flu 'vaccine'.
    Even though I did eventually get over my then health problems. All of our family except for the children ended up catching covid.

    1. I wasn't anti-vaccine before – hell, I've had polio, cholera, BCG and all the usual vaccinations for years 'n years. Which is why, one year, I had the flu vaccination. Then, tales of the adverse reactions to the Covid version began to be spread, and I realised I might have dodged a bullet.
      It was also rather suspicious how quickly vaccinations became available…

      1. I had one flu jab – in 2020 when the propaganda must have got to me. Never bothered with one before or since. The GP surgery has bombarded me with jab invitations since then and I've ignored them all.

      2. Vaccines are usually a 'eureka!' moment after 8-15 years research, when they are found at all, and not Johnson's claim of "we'll have a vaccine by Christmas"!(!!) Whenever have they known that in advance? Also Gates's involvement was a big no-no for me, I recalled his saying a couple of years or so earlier that he could reduce the world population with vaccines by 10-15% and even more with 'better' reproductive health. I didn't like the sound of that. I had also read that the pharmaceuticals were looking for ways to make more people sick in order to up their profits (I couldn't believe the wickedness of this statement).

        I have always had at the back of my mind that vaccines would be a good way to dispose of people. Twenty six elderly people passed away in a Norfolk residential home in the first two weeks of the roll-out of the vax in Dec 2020 – I expected it to be withdrawn but it was not. It was an enormous red flag holding all the other red flags surrounding this event. In any case, I had decided years and years earlier against any pharmaceutical intervention in my health.

  29. A bollocks are the name of the game for trans.

    A man to woman trans have them

    A woman to man does not

    1. I cut mine. #4 clipper. Takes less time than it used to, the follicle count is reducing in proportion with my age increasing.

        1. My clippers have been in use for about ten years now. The first cut paid for them, when compared to going to a barber/hairdresser.

  32. OT – last night we watched a programme on PBS America about 300 Jewish children who managed to survive the horrors of death camps and – eventually – were brought to England to start a new life. Some were as young as three.

    https://www.pbsamerica.co.uk/series/the-windermere-children-in-their-own-words/

    One of the most moving programmes I have seen for many years. If you can find it on catch-up or Youtube – DO.

    (Don't confuse it with a feature film that was made some years ago)

    1. In the 1980s, I worked closely to two Professors who were the results of the Kindertransport to the UK, an event that still makes me proud, representing the UK at its best in offering refuge to those truly in need.
      Harry Block and George Solt's parents were not seen again. Good men, both.

        1. Thank you for that clip. Most moving. A great man I hardly ever heard of before.

        2. Compare and contrast with those honoured and awarded unaccountable power in our present era.

  34. SIR – I am a transgender woman, having had surgery 20 years ago, and am as affected as anyone by the Supreme Court judgment. Amid the noise, I would like to explain my own experience.

    I reached the point where my entire life was being affected, and torn apart. I had to make a choice. I knew there was only one outcome that offered any possibility of rest and resolution, and that was to cease appearing to be a man. It was the hardest decision anyone could make. I went through two weeks of trauma before deciding to go ahead.

    But the key thing is the phrase I just used: I was only appearing to be a man. I did not fit in with men. They knew I was different. I tried to cover it up, but never succeeded. It was just as bad with women, who would expect me to act like all the men they knew.

    Since transitioning, I have had no trouble fitting in among women. I avoid men, but when I do interact with them they seem to have no problem in accepting that I am female.

    None of this was anything like a whim or a fantasy or a fetish. Given a choice, I would rather have lived without it. I’m still not sure that the drastic solution of hormones and surgery is the best method. But I have no doubt that it worked. I don’t care what sex I was born with. I am not a man, and never have been. I do not, however, feel I have anything in common with many of the activists who have dominated this debate. People like me are at risk of being drowned out.

    SE Taylor
    Leeds, West Yorkshire

    No, Dearie, you are not a "transgender woman", you are severely mentally ill. You should have been treated for this condition as soon as your warped mind started showing the symptoms.

    Those who are not mentally ill are nothing more than chancers (perverts) who think that being so weird will bring them benefits. In either case a spell in a correctional facility (breaking rocks) would do you good.

    1. I suppose there is a difference between men who just put on a skirt and say they are women; and those men who have their testicles and penises removed, have surgery which gives an imitation of female genitalia and have hormone treatment to grow breasts.

      The first group deserve to be locked up; the second group deserve some sympathy.

      1. Why? They must have some form of mental disorder to think that they’re in the wrong body.

        1. Interestingly I was intrigued to overhear a conversation on an adjacent table between two (it has to be said) butch men and a mother with three small children.

          The mother was evidently divorced and the men gay friends who were enjoying her company and that of her children over lunch.

          I have known several gay men none of whom feel the need to advertise the fact by wearing lipstick and cavorting around in ill fitting women’s clothing. Such men simply blend into society without fuss and are accepted as such by mature people.

          1. Just that, corimmobile. Why they feel the need to tell the world that they’re nuts is beyond me.

          2. I have known several gay men none of whom feel the need to advertise the fact by wearing lipstick and cavorting around in ill fitting women’s clothing. Such men simply blend into society without fuss and are accepted as such by mature people.

            Same here. I honestly would fear for the physical safety of any "cavorters" who found themselves within punching distance of my acquaintance *****…….."I'm a man…..I happen to be homosexual…..so fucking what? These nancies need a fucking good shoeing as far as I'm concerned"…….and so on. Top man.

          3. I was reading an article about 'chemsex' in the gay community.

            Apparently, smoking crack is quite popular in those circles.

            You'd think those fellas would know about lube.

            Ahem…

        2. Well…..both groups are more or less mentally-ill; both groups are more or less deserving of sympathy and appropriate psychiatric treatment; neither group should permit sympathy to be leveraged, behind the mask of tolerance, on behalf of the agenda of sinister, politically-subversive interest-groups who take pains to keep their true motivations concealed from their useful-idiot foot-soldiers.

  36. SIR – I don’t suppose the experts at the IMF have spent more than 40 years in engineering, as I have. I was on the spanners at 16 and am now 59.

    My knees are missing a good portion of cartilage, with wear to the top of my tibias and some arthritis. My shoulders are starting to cause problems, and I have vibration white finger. Some days, especially in the winter, the aches and pains start before I have even attempted to get out of bed.

    Do I really have to go on working into my seventies? I wonder if anyone would like to grant me some money for retraining.

    Richard Mark Stilgoe
    Dereham, Norfolk

    I didn't need to work for 40 years in engineering to knacker up my knees. I managed that during my apprenticeship as a plater (fabrication and welding engineering technician), between 1967 and 1972.

    Very little attention was given to health-and-safety in those years, especially by the company I worked for. Basic protective equipment — like gloves and goggles — had to be specifically requested. Knee-pads were unheard of and I was expected to kneel down on concrete, tarmac and cast-steel 'beds' — with only my trousers and boiler-suit as cushioning — in order to perform my job.

    I have never been able to kneel down in comfort ever since, even with a cushion or knee pads. I tend to do such low jobs sitting on my arse, which makes many tasks impossible.

    On one occasion I was struck by half-a-ton of falling sheet steel (¾" thick, 8ft diameter) that toppled over onto me when the chain hanging from the overhead crane that was hoisting it slipped. This broke my hip. A fellow apprentice had his thumb completely severed by an ancient 'guillotine' (sheet steel shearing machine) when it malfunctioned and the blade came down unexpectedly.

    I couldn't leave that employment quickly enough.

    1. Wow, Grizz: You were lucky to get out of it alive!
      I guess, with office work, one suffers from paper cuts and callouses on the bum, maybe minor scalds from spilled tea. Workshop & field work is different, as your experience shows – more hazardous, more loads on the body.
      My Brother was a production brewer, and now can barely walk, his knees are shot after so many stairways up & down the brewing vessels. Firstborn is a specialist motor technician who is on sick leave due to inflammation of foot tendons due to continuous standing and lifting (had to be called back last week for a few hours to fix an issue that others failed to, after a week of the car being in the workshop…).

      1. That steel plate knocked me to the ground then (fortunately, for me) came to rest atop two steel castings which prevented it from causing further, more severe, injury.

        As I was lying there, semi-conscious and in pain, a group of my nearby colleagues rushed to help and they managed to get the plate moved away from me. The two things I remember most were:

        The works' nurse standing directly over me giving me an unfettered view of her underwear as she came to my assistance.

        And, as I lay there my friend, Eric (a welder), sauntered down and remarked, laconically, "What are tha' doin' down there?" His gallows humour had me laughing out loud, despite the situation, and it summed up the ridiculousness of my predicament.

      2. When ordering protective clothing over the phone to the boss, my work mate looked at me askance when i said my inside leg was 26 inches. I am 5 foot 8. Turns out my thighs are at least 3 inches shorter that they should be for a man of my overall height. I was 41 at the time. I had knee damage while in the Army. crepitus. Clicking knees etc.
        I had always walked briskly, much faster than others – I just thought it was normal. Still my job involved a lot of cross-country pipeline survey work. It stared getting worse in my last couple of years at work – I found myself climbing slowly into trenches on construction sites, instead of jumping in. I retired early at age 59 and now I wobble when I walk,

        1. I wobble too, but due to brain damage from a stroke, as opposed to worn-out body.

  37. If criticising mass immigration can get you banned from Britain, free speech is dead
    The Home Office has barred a controversial French author from entering the UK. But this will only help to spread his explosive views
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/18/renaud-camus-banned-mass-immigration-free-speech/

    When Sir Keir Starmer visited the White House in February, he stoutly rejected JD Vance’s claim that free speech is increasingly restricted in Britain. “We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom,” retorted our Prime Minister, “and it will last for a very, very long time.” This was of course reassuring to hear. Unfortunately, however, the Home Office appears to have missed the memo. Because it has just barred a French author from entering the UK to give a speech about the dangers of mass immigration.

    Renaud Camus, 78, argued in his 2011 book Le Grand Remplacement (“The great replacement”) that unchecked immigration in Western European countries is part of a deliberate plot by the powers-that-be, which will ultimately lead to these countries’ indigenous inhabitants being “replaced” by people of other cultures. Does the Home Office deem this to be an unacceptable line of thought? I can only infer that it does. Because in an email seen by the Telegraph, officials informed Mr Camus that his “presence in the UK” was “not considered to be conducive to the public good”.

    This is an intriguing claim. Not least because I’m reasonably confident that there are at least some members of the British public who subscribe to Mr Camus’s theory. Does this mean that the presence of these British people is not conducive to the public good, either? If so, what do our authorities propose to do with them? Should those British people be banned from Britain, too?

    At any rate, I fear that the Home Office’s decision to bar Mr Camus is liable to backfire. Such a draconian intervention will only reinforce his supporters’ belief that he’s right, and that those who rule us are conspiring to silence him. Indeed, news of the ban may well lead lots of people who had never previously heard of Mr Camus to take an interest in his theories, too. Better, surely, just to let the man speak, no matter how horribly problematic his opinions may seem. After all, how many people in this country would even have known about his proposed talk, if the Home Office hadn’t prevented him from making it?

    Still, perhaps some British voters will look on the bright side. How exciting, they will think, that the UK authorities have finally found a foreigner who they believe should not be granted automatic entry into our country. Nigel Farage could even call for a new bank holiday, so that, each year, the public can commemorate this historic occasion.

    As for Mr Camus, I don’t know whether he still wishes to visit. But if so, has he considered eschewing the Eurostar in favour of a dinghy? Then the authorities would welcomed him with open arms. And if, before setting sail from Calais, he remembers to bin his passport, he’ll be able to stay for as long as he likes.

    The caring side of the firing squad
    Could the American public turn against capital punishment? A leading US academic believes so. Writing for the Guardian, Austin Sarat – a professor of political science at Amherst College in Massachusetts – notes that some US states have recently gone back to using firing squads to execute condemned criminals. This, he argues, represents “a defeat for death penalty supporters” – because the firing squads will act as “a vivid reminder of the brutality of state killing”, and thus “undermine the pro-capital-punishment narrative”.

    Is he sure? Personally, I find it hard to imagine many ordinary Americans saying, “I used to be in favour of executing this mass-murdering paedophile. But only in a soft, wholesome, lovely way, such as gently smothering him in his sleep with a bundle of kittens. Now I’ve discovered that executing people isn’t necessarily very nice, I’m firmly against it. I’d hate to think that this mass-murdering paedophile might suffer.”

    In any case, American firing squads can be surprisingly thoughtful. In 1996, John Taylor – a child-killer from Utah – was due to be executed by this method. On the appointed date, he requested, for his last meal, a pizza “with everything on it”: sausage, pepperoni, ham, mushrooms, hot peppers and extra cheese. Having wolfed down his pizza, however, the child-killer complained that he had an upset stomach. What happened next was so blackly comic, it could have come from the pages of Joseph Heller. Because the guards went and fetched him some antacid. This was wonderfully kind of them. After all, they could have said: “Um, sir, we’re about to shoot you dead. Literally minutes from now. So don’t worry if your tummy’s a bit queasy. It won’t be hurting much longer.”

    What a load of rubbish
    Birmingham bin strike activists, we learnt yesterday, are planning to cause a political earthquake. Feeling let down by Labour, they want to form a “real workers’ party” – which would comprise Left-wing trade unionists, environmentalists… and “Free Palestine activists”. I wouldn’t have expected to see this final group included in a “real workers’ party” – if only because none of them seem to have jobs. During normal working hours, “Free Palestine activists” tend to be far too busy vandalising buildings and blocking traffic. Thus preventing “real workers” from getting to work.

    1. On being told that this was the day of his execution, Pierre Laval tried to poison himself. His stomach was pumped, and he was executed when he was in just about fit state to be shot.

    2. Two "British" MPs have been barred from entering Israel. Cue much leftist hysteria. What a contrast.

  39. I've had mine nearly 20 years, the lady who used to come and cut mine only charged £5 so it took 4 visits to pay for mine. It takes me 5 min to cut mine and round the back it is done by feel but as it's all the same length it's easy and I take the attachment off to do any lining or tapering

  40. It appears that SE Taylor conducts herself with discretion and respect for others, and . She recognises that she is different from the norm and has offered a dignified explanation of her background and status. If mental illness is at play in this particular case it is by those whose own mental illness is characterised by a total lack of compassion and understanding for someone who has not, as far as can be told, done any harm to anyone and is probably unfulfilled and unhappy. Yes, a correctional facility is needed but not by SE Taylor.

    1. Indeed. No evidence of "in-yer-face" about sexuality, and that we must at all times put his position ahead of anybody other's.

      1. You are right, of course, but I wasn’t sure how to refer to the person in question without ambiguity. Does it really matter though whatever pronoun the person wishes to be known as as long as it causes no harm, is not made for any financial, sporting or social gain, isn’t intended to cause offence or isn’t exploited to disrupt society? I can’t see that SE Taylor has done any of those things and is living a quiet, harmless life.

        1. I find it easier to just address someone like that by their chosen name. I know one who calls himself Tina and I have no problem with that but he’s not a she.

          3. Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman
            But she was another man.
            All the girls around her say she's got it coming
            But she gets it while she can.

          1. The letter presented a courteous, reasoned and objective explanation. There was no proselytising and the only grievance expressed was to those who genuinely are a noisy, aggressive menace to society. Why would anyone who wished to be better informed and was willing to listen to a view that might not accord with their own object to a letter to a national newspaper?

          2. Better informed about his mental state? No thank you. I don’t need to know.
            Actually, I neither need nor want to know.

    3. It may well 'appear' that way but how on earth is it possible to extrapolate — from a letter to a national newspaper — precisely what this individual thinks or acts like in reality? That letter could very well be a smokescreen.

      The irrefutable fact is that the modern proliferation of these confused types is directly attributable to the perceived advantages being 'different' gives them … in their own minds, that is.

      Countless accounts are given daily in the news media of the antisocial atrocities this grouping routinely commit. Time to be much firmer with them and make them realise that a sensible society will not tolerate their abominations. Give medical and psychiatric help to those with mental confusion. Thrash, soundly, those who are nothing more than perverted chancers.

      1. “how on earth is it possible to extrapolate etc”? – in exactly the same way that you have extrapolated to determine that SE Taylor suffers from mental illness. Allow me the same right to extrapolate from your comments and assess that you are a very sick individual.

        1. Well, I am extrapolating from your retort that you consider transvestism to not be a mental illness. That puts you in a very thin minority, pal.
          Who is the sick individual now, mush?

          1. I thought that this thread was about transgenderism and not transvestism – perhaps you don’t know the difference and just lump them all together with trades unionists, Jews, graffiti artists and anyone else who offends you.

  42. Just had a power cut! They used to be very frequent here but not so often now. Lasted half an hour or so.

  43. Lots of sheep noises outside. I assume they have been finally let out to graze for the first time (this year, maybe for the first time for some of the younger ones). Most rural… the farmer uses GPS collars, much easier than having to maintain a strip grazing fence several times a day.

    1. If if and if again.. your agencies were inclined they could solve the sinister puzzle in about 24 hours.

      Into one file insert.. then press button for Ai to assess..
      Actors three month mobile phone records.
      HMRC tax submissions.
      The all important cross reference of "contacts list".
      Car movements.
      Extended family files at GCHQ.
      Cash in bank.
      Binance transactions over last three months.

      Alternatively, approach designated community elders at local mosque and renegotiate current contract.

      1. All these Turkish barber shops with very expensive cars parked outside was a bit of a giveaway. Not that plod seems to notice much.

  45. I look after sponsorship and grants for our bowls club and have a weekly email via Bowls England for grants they consider are appropriate for bowls clubs. These two I thought particularly interesting but don’t know how the would fit.

    15/04/2025: Government Funding for Groups Providing Advocacy Support for Windrush Compensation Scheme Claimants
    https://funding.idoxopen4community.co.uk/bowlsengland/Launch/News/8aa6f9db095942f4b3d7c569a6d3844a/GRUKBP3!N80978

    11/04/2025: Funding for Youth-led Organisations Working to Address Climate Injustice Across England
    https://funding.idoxopen4community.co.uk/bowlsengland/Lau

    Another example of government spending our money to support people who came here voluntarily and never went back.
    Makes my blood boil.

  46. Yet another false start for watchers of the Tory leadership psychodrama
    A mistaken invite on WhatsApp set off a flurry of frenzied speculation about Robert Jenrick’s political ambitions
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/19/yet-another-false-start-for-watchers-of-the-tory-leadership/

    BTL

    The problem is not whether Kemi Badenoch should be party leader.

    The problem is not whether Robert Jenrick should be the party leader.

    The problem is that the problem has no solution because it is irrelevant who drives the hearse containing the coffin containing the corpse of the Conservative Party to the mortuary.

    1. I'd have thought loyal Tories would want the body to drive. With any luck they'd never get there.

    1. As most mail takes a week to get here – who'd notice the difference?

      Anyway – "to help local customers" the Post Office is closing the village PO at Little Snoring. This service was an enormous benefit to people in a five mile radius. So- naturally – the PTB would wish to close it.

      1. Our local PO closed over 10 years ago – but we have a lady with a van on Tuesdays and Thursdays for an hour or so.

        1. Our local post office down-sized (and became 90% shop). Hence queues are out the door and down the street at peak times. Soon to be along the main road as well if people are forced to do their banking at the Post Office!

  49. Russia snatches men from gyms in Putin’s new conscription drive. 19 April 2025.

    Kremlin conducts raids across the country in ‘overtly aggressive’ bid to enlist more recruits for the war in Ukraine.

    Actually they are not. The Russian police (not the Kremlin) are looking for draft dodgers. The level of propaganda in the UK is approaching puerile levels.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/04/19/russia-snatches-men-gyms-putin-conscription-drive-ukraine/#comment

    2. Emperor's New Clothes. But now the Supreme Court has played the part of the little boy who calls out that the Emperor is naked.

  53. I’ve just received an email from a former work colleague to let me know that another former colleague has died. For many years Regina was broadcast assistant for Newsnight. She had to watch every programme and compile the post production paperwork. Towards the end, as the programme slipped further and further to the left, she found it increasingly difficult to watch and coped by smoking more. The fag breaks kept her going. The cancer spread from her chest into her spine but even when she was so heavily medicated that she was barely conscious except for a few hours a day, she always delivered the paperwork on time. Regina helped me out with archive clearances for the John Paul II obituary, as she spoke Polish. Her family were from Krakow. RIP Regina.

  54. That's a relief!
    The two solar panels I picked up yesterday for fitting to the van both work and, despite the overcast conditions, are producing 18v. About £400 pounds worth of panels for under £25.
    Now I need to order a kit to mount at least one of them onto the van roof and a battery charge controller.
    Why only one on the roof?
    I've a potential use for the other.

      1. No.
        One of my 10' cut down ISO storage containers has the original style doors with rubber seals which makes it very damp inside with condensation.
        I intend getting a bank of 4 or 6 12v fans linked up to the spare panel to provide some positive ventilation.

        We had a similar problem with the yard shed and Welder Son used another panel I acquired some time ago to sort that out in the same way.

    2. I suggest you get a mount that you can lie flat when travelling; it will cut down the drag and not increase fuel consumption – or probably you've already thought of that.

      1. It’ll be mounted flat on the roof.
        Arranging for it to be angled towards the sun is possible, but a bit complicated.

  56. Watching an old film this afternoon whilst eating my Easter bunny .

      2. Me too. It was delicious, with slivers of garlic pushed down into deep cuts in the lamb, and washed down with with a nice glass or two of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Plenty more left for future days.

      1. It’s in a conservation area in a village outside Basel – with a very good art gallery that we’ve been to several times.

      1. I don’t know how he managed it then, but he’s lived there 26 years. It’s a bit different from his eighth floor flat.

    4. It's very pretty. Taken from a different angle, excluding the square block in the distance, you're looking at jigsaw puzzle or chocolate box material.

      1. Yes – he told us at Christmas he’d bought a terraced house, but I assumed it was a modern one – this one’s rather nice.

        2. Yes, but he was pardoned by autopen and so all of Biden's autopen pardons are now regarded as being invalid, according to US posts on X.com .

      1. 404465+ up ticks,

        Afternoon JS,

        Enough time passes in the land of fools and it will become the norm.

    1. The marinaded lamb is to be joined by Bombay – note not Mumbai – potatoes! The kitchen looks even more like a war zone!

  65. Excellent pithy and pointed article by Kathleen Stock on UnHerd about the Supreme Court ruling:
    https://unherd.com/2025/04/how-women-won-the-gender-wars/

    This made me laugh out loud;
    "We on the gender-critical and sex-realist side were called harpies, transphobes, bigots, Christian nationalists, National Socialists, and white supremacists; and that was just by Guardian writers."
    also
    "And even worse for their opponents, despite all the bullying, many proud inhabitants of Rainy Fascist Terf Island maintained an irreverent sense of humour, something nobody has ever said about British transactivists with a straight face."

      1. I've read the linked substack article, and while it does point out some difficulties that may well present themselves – transactivists continuing to make trouble for the rest of us – the overall style of the writing strikes me as exaggerated and hyperbolical.

        1. Miri speculates – she thinks things through to a conclusion, and she’s probably further down the rabbit hole than most people. I think she is right that in the current aggressive, black-and-white climate, there will be confrontations. If we find that confrontations are being pushed under people’s noses by the Daily Mail, then I’ll be willing to believe that this issue is being used by TPTB to push a genderless future.

  66. He told me I'd have to sleep standing up if I visited before he's ready for visitors……….

  69. From Coffee House the Spectator

    19 Apr 2025
    Coffee House
    Bijan Omrani
    What English Heritage gets wrong about the origins of Easter
    18 April 2025, 5:22am

    English Heritage's Easter trail suggests that Easter might not have its origins in Christianity (Alamy)

    Easter is, of course, the time of year when Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but don’t expect to learn that on the English Heritage children’s Easter trail.

    ‘Did you know Easter started as a celebration of spring?,’ children who take part in the trail are told. Any mention of Christ or Christianity is omitted from that sign, which has been planted at English Heritage sites across the country. However, one god does get a look in. This first panel, decorated with children collecting flowers, painted eggs and a cheery Easter bunny, gave the following account of the origin of Easter:

    ‘Long ago, people welcomed warmer days and new life by honouring the goddess Eostre, who gave Easter its name!’

    The sign then relates a further ‘Fun Fact’:

    ‘Some traditions for Eostre included dancing around bonfires and decorating homes with flowers.’

    The sign may be charming for young children, but it is almost completely devoid of truth. It’s somewhat worrying that an organisation charged with looking after our country’s heritage is willing to put its logo on such a sign.

    English Heritage’s Easter trail
    English Heritage could do with a history lesson. The only mention of the goddess Eostre in the whole corpus of ancient and medieval literature is made by the great Anglo-Saxon scholar, the Venerable Bede (673-735). In one work, The Reckoning of Time (De Temporum Ratione, chapter 15) he explains the origins of the Anglo-Saxon names of the months. April had the Anglo-Saxon name of ‘Eosturmonath’. This, he said, was now designated as ‘Paschal month’ but that it was once called after a goddess ‘Eostre’ in whose honour during that month feasts were celebrated. In England, he then says, the Paschal season had taken her name, or the name of the month (his Latin is unclear on the point), designating the joys of the new ritual (i.e. the Christian celebration of the death and resurrection of Christ) by the old observances.

    There are many things conspicuously absent from Bede’s account. We do not know of what Eostre was a goddess, nor do we have any evidence of specific customs in celebration of her, certainly not dancing round bonfires nor flower decorations. There is no evidence that her festivals were connected with the spring. There is certainly no mention of Easter eggs nor Easter bunnies, nor any such customs connected to her or to the Easter season in other Anglo-Saxon writing.

    Indeed, some scholars doubt whether Bede, despite his careful scholarship, might have even been mistaken about the very existence of Eostre as a goddess. Certainly, he is very vague about her; one conjecture is that he derived her existence from the name of the month, rather than vice versa. Others use evidence of place or personal names to argue for her existence. The first part of Austerfield, a village in Yorkshire, for example, may be cognate to ‘Eostre’ and thus once have been a shrine to her. Near Morken-Harff in southern Germany, a number of offerings were made to the matronae Austriahenae, a triad of goddesses, whose name might also be related to ‘Eostre’. But even if this shows her existence, it does not tell us anything about her character.

    But with the Christian Easter, i.e. the festival of Christ’s resurrection, we are on much surer ground. Literary evidence shows its regular celebration long before Anglo-Saxon times. Writings of Melito, Bishop of Sardis, show that it was certainly established by the mid-second century AD. Even by that point, people were arguing about on what date is should be celebrated. Some argued for it to be on the same date as the Jewish Passover, at which time the gospels recorded Christ’s death and resurrection to have taken place, whilst others wished it to be on a nearby Sunday. It is likely to have been celebrated in the British Isles in the late Roman empire, but we have no written evidence to show this. However, Bede’s history attests that soon after St Augustine’s mission from Rome to convert Britain in 597 Easter was being celebrated, and indeed, that arguments about its date continued here until the Synod of Whitby in 664. In England, Easter takes its existence, meaning, and date from Christian doctrine, and only its name from the Anglo-Saxon past.

    English Heritage’s own webpage on Easter is in marked contrast to its trail. Acknowledging Easter’s Christian origins from the beginning, it is scholarly and engaging, with tales of the origins of the hot-cross bun, the Leicester Easter Monday Hare Hunt (the hare apparently replaced with a dead cat soaked in aniseed water by the eighteenth century) and an informed discussion of the history of egg-rolling. In this properly written and researched history there is plenty to keep children engaged. One must devoutly wish that this Easter Trail panel is not a sign of English Heritage’s intended direction of travel, but rather a moment of aberration, just like the mad March hare.

    Written by
    Bijan Omrani
    Bijan Omrani's new book, God is an Englishman: Christianity and the Creation of England, is published by Forum Press

    1. The Venerable Bede is sitting in heaven shaking his head and wishing he’d never mentioned the darned pagan goddess.

  70. Send in the Clones
    3h
    THE SIMPLE MAN'S GUIDE TO WHITE COAT BUTTONING.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5ba519789af0763faee790601e4867b77bc0fc5cf572b70c3a1f315ef0f3eaa4.png
    Paleface
    3h
    The DT is calling Milibrain "the most dangerous man in Britain" over the damage he is causing through his net zero mania.
    It seemed a reasonable accusation.

    But then the Turnip's puzzled face floated into view scolding president Putin about his war, and I reckoned our Foreign Secretary also would be a strong contender for the "most dangerous" title.

    You have to wonder why the Dear Leader (another contender) still has them both in his cabinet, unless it is because they are so utterly dreadful they take an unwanted spotlight away from him.

  71. Veritas numquam perit
    a day ago edited
    There was a reason why i stopped my membership of English heritage and the national trust, and thats because of people like Katherine Lyndsay Mavor, CBE who was CEO from 2015-23. Her job, like so many Left wing female qango appointees was to ensure every aspect of British and especially English history was corrupted, twisted and tainted with slavery. Where possible we were to greeted with other races in our historical costumes, or to arrive to an array of pride flags. For some daft notion a homosexual history needed to be invented in parallel with the rest of history, so they invented one. Her job was to ram home that "there is no such thing as white british identity", to tear down even every aspect of who we are.

    Jez
    a day ago edited
    It is simply a pure ignorance of these middle class, isolated and out of their depth organisations. They cannot thrive in the new UK. The CoE, English Heritage, etc, etc offer only complete subjugation of every core principle that once made them relevant. What they conceptualise as a politically correct strategy to appease alien cultures, religions and races, they isolate their core audience and in turn are ignored by the multitude of groups they are begging for acceptance to.

    Running parallel are the minute number in the UK population (but utterly dominant in every public establishment) of extreme liberal zealots driving this cultural self suicide. The BBC, educational establishments, the legacy media, most of Westminster?

    Margaret Robinson Jez
    a day ago
    I’m not convinced it is pure ignorance. I think it’s deliberate and malign. Yet another instance of denigrating our rich culture and trying to ensure the next generations continue and increase that destruction.

    Westcollapse
    a day ago
    Gosh, it’s almost like all our institutions have been captured by cultural Marxists.

    1. As the 23rd of April approaches, doubtless every mention of St George will be accompanied by "he wasn't English y'know" in the usual attempt to denigrate anything English.
      Strange that I never see any mention of the fact that St Patrick was not Irish and St Andrew Scottish.

      2. Quite a few St George’s flags out already in Ashbourne (Derbyshire) today as I drove through

  72. That's me back home, to a tumultuous welcome from the cats (well, one said "meow?" in an offhand manner).
    Cold, drizzle, not so much fun.

    1. Bit like when I open the front door, instead of the MR. "Oh, it's you….where is she?"

        1. I do get a manic grin (indistinguishable from a snarl for the non-terrier-cognoscenti, like the ex-vicar who felt the need to give her what he thought to be a discreet kick upon receiving such a greeting, but I saw and did not forget).

          Also get a most gratifying chorus of houyhnhmms from the Houyhnhmms

    1. David Lammy, the epitome of being a dick, a cunt and an arsehole all at the same time.

  77. Amongst the replies to Johnny Norfolk's Twitter post about the Supreme Court ruling:

    Caractacus@Jason2295396699
    Actually I don't see this as a positive. We have just reinforced the power of the courts by relying on their decision on something that society knows, knew and always did. We've effectively decided to abandon common sense.
    The courts' word will become absolute in all circumstances.

    Chief@platinumMeasure
    Well, it was legislation that tied the hands and minds of sane people. Get rid of faulty hate and discrimination (discernment) laws and this would have cleaned itself up. Nobody wanted to lose their life savings to fight the battle alone.

    They're both right. It was the stupid and dangerous Equality Act that led to the court ruling but the 'gender' madness was already taking root when that act was passed. The Supreme Court [sic] is another matter, especially when it gets involved in matters beyond specific statue law. Its interference in Brexit and its judgements on the HRA are cases in point.

    Just because it made the correct decision here doesn't justify its existence. It was created by Blair to be a constitutional court with the powers to hobble Parliament, which before had been the highest court. As we have seen several times, its members relish their role as unaccountable makers of law.

    1. Seriously worrying – these lunatics need to be in prison, or the secure wing of a hospital

  81. Keith Guevara
    1h
    Just a couple of days ago, only a few people in this country had ever heard of Renaud Camus.
    Today, The Great Replacement is on front pages.

    Excellent work, Yvette Cooper! Keep it up!

    3. You'd have thought they might have taken a clue from the banning of certain songs which then rocketed to No 1.

  84. I was puzzled by the seaCURE image posted here yesterday and then explained later by the BBC.

    I realise now it was all about putting acid in sea water to release the CO2 and then neutralising it afterwards with an alkali.
    I didn't see how this had anything to do with carbon capture so I looked on the internet to find out why you want to remove CO2 from water in the first place. I found an answer:

    https://www.deloachindustries.com/blog/why-remove-carbon-dioxide-co2-from-water#:~:text=While%20you%20can%20adjust%20water,rich%20air%20through%20your%20water.

    I still can't see how this has anythingthing to do with addressing climate change.

    1. I think it is just a mechanism for the transfer of funny money from the printing presses into the pockets of the chosen, with assistance from the brainwashed.

    2. It doesn't. It's a way of lining certain people's pockets and will almost certainly have unintended consequences that probably won't help the planet and may be deleterious.

    1. Obviously too much time on their hands. Fire 75% of them on Tuesday. Across the board, but concentrate on management grades, allowing this to take place.

    1. I believe they do know what a woman is but are too timid to state it openly.

  87. Just walked back home from a perfect lunch, standing in the back garden and smoking my once-a-month cigarette. (Bought the packet last July.) Listening to the chicks in the trees chirping. They're saying "For God's sake, hurry up and finish smoking so my mother can bring me some more food!"

      2. My sister, in her crazy youth, decided to smoke a clay pipe! (Don’t ask – it was the very late ‘60s!) She smoked Old Holborn tobacco and kept it in a tin with an apple ring! She discovered that the baccy became very soggy! And unlightable!

    2. A smoke-a-month should surely be a tightly-packed cigar? Not cheap US stuff.

        1. I used to like Davidoff. You had to suck so that your face caved in, but the flavour was supreme. Tried cheap Yank stuff, the flame pretty well ran down the cigar up to your face, and the remainder went all wet 'n soggy. Yukk.

  88. Just back from lunch and shopping at Westfield. Computer Says No. All the card readers are down and declining contactless. I had enough cash for everything I needed.

    Got home and put the telly on to find Dawn Neesom interviewing Marcus Walker, our rector at St Barts. There are a significant number of young men under 30 in the regular congregation and apparently some survey or other has decided that’s a trend.

      1. The young men? Mostly English though there’s also a notable number of men and women from Hong Kong.

          1. Marcus is very worthwhile. We're also lucky here. Rev Colin Heber-Percy is a fairly newly-minted member of the trio who look after 7 rural parishes. He used to be a script writer at the Beeb. I'm going to hell because, despite being an R.C., I far prefer going to listen to Colin than the local wokey RC mob.

          2. Heber-Percy – that rings a bell. Bishop Heber was rector of Malpas and a missionary. He's depicted in the East Window of St Oswald's.

  90. A man has a willy,
    A woman has a womb;
    Our politicians really don't know
    How to read the room.

  91. Phew – blowing a gale out there but ok in the sun. Just planted geraniums in hanging baskets – they arrived yesterday but were likely to blow away in their plastic trays. Hope they will survive.

  92. Stop giving student loans to those who will never repay them
    University funding mess impacts our public debt – grants should go to those in need
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/jobs/schools-universities/stop-giving-student-loans-to-those-who-will-never-repay/

    The best thing we did for our two sons was to pay for their university fees and living expenses so that they entered the world of work free from debt.

    BTL

    Do we want our young people to be saddled with unrepayable loans throughout their working lives?

    Student loans should be interest free as they are in more civilised countries.

    When students start working and paying tax the repayment of their loans should be a charge against their tax.

    Companies should be given tax incentives to help their employees pay off their student loans.

    1. My two boys had grants for their living expenses as I was a single parent – and they also had small loans which they paid off quickly after starting work. They also both worked during the holidays in quite menial jobs which did them no harm.

      1. Henry worked in a call centre when he was at university and this paid for him to live well. We paid all the tuition fees, the book bill, the meals and the accommodation.

        At the age of 29 he is earning a very good salary writing AI software programs while his long term fiancée has a PhD and is a university lecturer.

      2. I had a grant (to which my parents contributed) for living expenses and my fees were paid by the local authority. My parents weren't well off but they worked and paid taxes. This, however, was in the sixties and seventies before Blair made the whole thing go tits up by declaring 50% of young people, no matter how unsuitable, should go to "uni".

  94. From The Telegraph

    BBC fails to mention mass killings in educational communism video
    Broadcaster claims Bitesize clip is for use alongside extra material after critics say it provides ‘dishonest’ view of communist regimes
    Craig Simpson19 April 2025 12:08pm BST
    The BBC has been accused of giving children a “dishonest” view of communism.

    The BBC Bitesize website provides an overview of communist ideology and history but critics have said that the teaching materials gloss over mass murder.

    The material, aimed at educating pupils aged 11 to 14, outlines the central tenets of Marxism, and the emergence of the Soviet Union.

    However, the video does not mention Soviet dictators such as Joseph Stalin, or the tens of millions who died under communist regimes.

    Communist party supporters carry portraits of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, left, and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin during a demonstration marking the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Moscow, Russia
    The BBC Bitesize video does not mention Soviet dictators such as Joseph Stalin, or the tens of millions who died under communist regimes Credit: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
    The narration in the BBC video concedes that some people think the ideology and economic system may place “too many limits on individual freedom” and be “too centralised”.

    However, no other downsides of communist regimes are presented in the teaching material, which does not mention the famine and mass killings in the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong’s China, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia.

    In a parallel video covering capitalism, BBC teaching material lists a greater number of common criticisms, including the concentration of power in a minority “capitalist class”.

    It is stated that critics of capitalism believe this class “profits from the exploitation of workers” and seeks profit “over what’s best for society, sustainability, and the environment”.

    Fascism is also a topic, and pupils are told that the political system involves “eroding democratic institutions” and an “authoritarian regime in which many aspects of life are tightly controlled”.

    It further states that such regimes are “usually ruled by one party” that creates a situation in which “violence and oppression are used to crack down on opposition”.

    While these characteristics are equally applicable to states including Cuba, Soviet Russia, China and Vietnam, they are not presented as features of communist countries.

    Prof Robert Tombs, a Cambridge historian, said of the teaching material: “To teach the history of communism as if it was just another political theory with a few minor downsides, rather than the basis of many of the most inhuman forms of totalitarianism in history, is utterly dishonest and makes it impossible for children to understand the modern world.”

    Concerns about the BBC material come amid ongoing debates about the impression of communism given to young people.

    In 2021, Wikipedia users attempted to delete an entry on the encyclopaedia website detailing “mass killings under Communist regimes”.

    The page covering the deaths of millions in one-party states was flagged for deletion after some users responsible for maintaining the site took issue with blaming mass murder on communist ideology.

    The dedicated entry listing the actions of figures such as Stalin, Mao, and North Korea’s Kim Il Sung was accused by some users of putting forward a biased “anti-communist” point of view.

    Clifford D May, founder and president of the international relations think-tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, accused the BBC of “backtracking” on its World Service history.

    “During the Soviet era, millions of subjugated people from East Berlin to Vladivostok would huddle over short-wave radios to listen to the news on the BBC World Service – despite knowing that doing so could land them in the gulag – or even end their lives,” he said.

    “They understood that the greatest enemy of communist regimes is the truth. Communism necessarily means a one-party state, no separation of powers, no opposition parties or independent civic associations, and no freedom of speech or conscience. Communism goes against everything the BBC has historically represented.

    “The BBC should not be backtracking. The BBC should be forthrightly telling young people these truths.”

    He added that the broadcaster’s role was “especially important now”, highlighting that “the most powerful communist party in history – the Chinese Communist Party – is leading a new Cold War against the West in close association with the neo-imperialist dictator of Russia, the jihadi dictator of Iran, and the dynastic dictator of North Korea”.

    The BBC said it had not received any complaints or feedback about the Bitesize for Teachers resource.

    A BBC spokesman said: “This is a Bitesize for Teachers resource and clearly labelled for use by teachers, not for direct use by students. It is designed to be used alongside other resources and therefore is not a comprehensive summary of the curriculum area. There are other resources for teachers which cover the oppression and murder by communist regimes.”

    U

  95. From the Telegraph

    The British constitution may be unwritten, but it is working
    Meanwhile across the Atlantic, the decisions of the judicial branch of government are flouted with total impunity
    Janet Daley19 April 2025 10:58am BST
    By a remarkable coincidence, we have just had Supreme Court rulings with potentially historic consequences in two countries which are both reputed to regard the authority of the law as sacred. One of these judgements will bring about substantive changes in public policy, and the other is (at the time of writing) unlikely to have any effect at all.

    In the UK, the highest court in the land has decreed that trans women are not women. Not long ago this would have been equivalent to a judicial pronouncement declaring that the earth is not flat, but we are where we are.

    It will now be necessary for state institutions, the education system, most public services and a good many private providers to revise their guidelines on how to deal with matters on which sex differences impinge. Having previously altered their procedures to comply with what had been the prevailing interpretation of the Equality Act, they will now have to re-adjust them to conform with the Court’s new clarification of that Act – which means returning to the status quo ante in terms of who can be regarded as being of which sex.

    This will be quite an undertaking although not as monumental a task as some of those bodies’ spokesmen, who have been dominating the broadcast news coverage, are insisting. We will, after all, simply be returning to the assumptions and practices which prevailed until very recently and are still the accepted truth for most people. But what is most significant is that, apart from a handful of never-say-die campaigners for the trans lobby, there is no serious suggestion that this definitive judicial decision should be defied or ignored. The meaning of the law is what the judiciary decides that it is and, however inconvenient or discomfiting that decision might be, it will be respected.

    Most significantly, the Labour government which only moments ago was ambivalent about who could be considered to be a woman – and what the necessary constituent parts of a female body were – clearly has no intention of overruling or delegitimising this ruling.

    Sir Keir Starmer may have expelled MPs from his party for expressing the view that the Supreme Court has now endorsed, but he will not defy what has become, by definition, the law of the land. He does not regard his parliamentary majority or his position as head of government as giving him a right to disregard or dismiss a decision by the judiciary. The Prime Minister accepts that he, like everyone else in Britain, should be bound by the law.

    The fundamental principle here is that the British prime minister is not an elected dictator. And nor is the president of the United States. Or, at least, that is what had traditionally been assumed. In fact, that is what the Constitution clearly states. The American president is the head of the executive branch of the federal government whose power over the country is shared by the legislative branch (Congress) and the judiciary (the Supreme Court). Last week, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled in support of an earlier court judgement that a migrant who had been wrongly deported by administrative error, should be returned to the United States. This man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, now being held in a notorious El Salvador prison, has had no access to due process and has never been charged with – let alone convicted of – any crime.

    The punishment (by deportation and consequent imprisonment) of a person who has never been tried in a court of law is absolutely forbidden by the US Constitution. It is at the heart of habeas corpus, and would be considered a fundamental breach of human rights in virtually every modern democracy outside of wartime.

    Perhaps Donald Trump believes that the US is now in a state of war with its migrant population. His repeated insistence that illegal migrants are all dangerous criminals who are likely to commit the most heinous crimes would seem to suggest this. In what appeared to be an attempt to reinforce this point, one of those bizarre White House press briefings last week featured an appearance by Patty Morin, the mother of a woman who had been raped and murdered by an El Salvadorean migrant.

    Ms Morin’s account was horrific and deeply moving but it had nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with the case of that other migrant from El Salvador whose fate was now in question. So what was her testimony intended to imply? That all men from El Salvador – or indeed all illegal migrants – were likely to be rapists and murderers? (Sometimes Mr Trump says exactly this without any qualification.) This is nothing more nor less than guilt by association which is a notorious practice favoured by autocratic rulers.

    Everything that is generally considered to be required for justice to be done in a free society is being trashed – the need to make a clear accusation of a crime, to produce evidence, to achieve a guilty verdict in a legitimate court – supposedly in the name of the popular feeling which brought Trump to power. When confronted on this, the President simply insists that because he was elected to put a stop to illegal migration, anything that he does to achieve that must be permissible. At an Oval Office press briefing alongside the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, he pointed out that since he “was elected to get rid of criminal migrants”, he did not know how judges “can take away [my] right to do that”.

    Answer: they have every right to do exactly that. Indeed, that is what they are there for: to stop the president (the executive branch of government) from acting in any way that is unlawful. And because this particular president seems to know nothing at all about the Constitution and very little about the consequences of ignoring the rule of law, they are going to have to be exceptionally diligent.

    It would seem that Britain, which does not have a written constitution, has more regard for historic rights and responsibilities than the United States which has enshrined those principles in a sacred document. Perhaps cultural memory is more important, in the end, than written rules.

    1. Trump knows all about the Constitution, he just believes it does not apply to him – despite swearing an oath of uphold it. That's the trouble with someone whose whole approach to life is transactional – no immutable values at all.

    2. Starmer will no doubt try to overturn the court judgment by stealth and hope we don't notice.

      1. Yes, that’s what that Daly woman doesn’t seem to understand. Too much of an Anglophile to realise how civil rights in the UK have been so damaged in the last sixty years precisely because the PM has so much power. The US still has a double jeapardy protection. Blair abolished that one with a wave of his wand.

        1. To align with the EU. So much of what's eroded our traditional rights and freedoms has been done by people in thrall to the EU.

          1. And political expediency. I was put in mind of Burmah Oil fighting for compensation from the government for war damage. Finally the House of Lords recognised they and others were entitled to compensation and so the law was changed so that no compensation had to be paid. That's Janet Daley's great British constitution. She can dream on with her romantic ideas about her chosen country.

  97. Hello all ,

    My IBS really kicked in over the past few days .. I mean it early in the morning as the birds wake up, I don't know where I am when the pain kicks in, I feel confused and desperate, similar to labour pains (as in child birth)

    This morning was bad , so dear MOH took me to A+E and arrived at 6.30 am ..

    I do have medication which I take , nothing kicked in , antispasmodics , painkillers etc

    Was checked in , still in jim jams , and was given more pain relief , liquid paracetamol and ORAMORPH, B/ and blood tests .

    My B/P was racing , and all I wanted to do was lie down on the A+E floor .. I sat around until midday.
    ORAMORPH made no difference ..

    I was eventually seen by a nurse practitioner .. a sharp , rude woman.. who summoned me from my chair , my stomach pain was intense .. She told me from a distance to come on and hurry up as I shuffled from my seat .

    She then lectured me that A+E was for emergencies and not for IBS and I should have consulted my doctor .
    It is difficult to get an appointment with a GP doctor for weeks , and then it has to be triaged on line ..

    This wretched nurse practitioner had no concept of what pain is , unless of course one is having a heart attack , broken leg , knife wound etc

    She told me my condition was chronic long term pain and I should not have walked into A+E.

    She suggested I ask my doctor for an ultra scan or go privately to an outside source because waiting times are lengthy for any investigative treatment .

    Thankfully my bloods were clear , thought it was my pancreas or kidney or any other organ I have left in my body .

    Moh and I departed for home after 12.30 ( cost £7.50 parking fees), as we ( I staggered back to the car, Moh noted how very very fat young modern nurses are, jolly nice happy girls , but large ..

    If you saw the contents of my fridge , there are plenty of vegetables , fish and chicken and salady stuff .. Moh and Son are as lean as racing snakes ..

    So where am I going wrong , I don't eat cheese or gunk , no pastry , cakes etc but I do buy a couple of fresh chocolate eclairs once a week . Like an avocado pear , and a bit of fruit

    We don't drink, we are boring .

    1. Hello Belle…sorry if this is a repeat post my Disqus all out of whack, again. I posted earlier, I have diverticulitis which isn't quite as bad as IBS..but I changed my diet to a low fat one. Perhaps ask to see a specialist, someone who will help you with best diet, have a search online whilst you have to wait to see one? I know how debilitating it can be, have spent days at a time in bed with it (which is no good for my sciatica). Good luck, hope you get over current bout soon.

      1. Many thanks Kate.

        Yep, I also have diverticulitis .. Poor you though , my diet is low fat apart from a chocolate eclair sometimes .

        I am so tired now , and feel at an unfair advantage .

        Backache yes , lower backpain , I have lost 3" in height over the past five years.

        I just want to be 26 years old again.

        1. So sorry to hear that, Belle what a ghastly experience and what an awful woman! Where else are you supposed to go when you’re in chronic pain?

          1. Hi Sue , Moh was with me all the time , and he was shocked by her short sharp aggressive rhetoric . She told me off for being there .

            Moh was telling her like it is , and she asked the killer question " Was my doctor aware of my condition " We both said yes , then she asked about treatment , I told her antispasmodics , ant acid , etc, but no investigations , tube down or up.

            Then she started her rant about why I was there .. and I said , Please reassure me nothing sinister is present and to receive stronger pain relief if possible.

            I was quite prepared for them to cut me up, do anything to look at blockages etc..

            My confidence is shattered .. my GP practise has a new system , type in request to see a doctor , outline symptoms and be triaged on line .. All of us in the village are truly fed up .

          2. Our GP surgery has gone onto the Anima online triage system, but you can still get through on the phone. I made an appointment a few weeks ago for OH.

          3. Gee I thought that the Canadian system was bad. It took a week 5o get an appointment to see a doctor but then she was very pleasant and ended the exam with anything else? Blood tests the next day followed by a call from the GP to discuss the results.
            The only thing missing is the x ray on my knee which is why I went there in the first place – just wait your turn, no private options here.

        2. We could be twins:-) I find anything to help me, will pass it on to you. It is very tiring, plus I now have pollen irritating eyes. I hate taking any meds. As for backpain, I found yoga (Maiya Fiennes) helped me. And yes I used to be proud of being 5’1 and a bit “…now just about 5′. Hear you on the age wish. Think I’ll have a glass now, ease things momentarily. All the best x PS I like the odd chocolate eclair too. My main treat is Lindt dark choc, couple squares a day.

          1. Snap, me the same with Lindt chocolate .. it is nice being frugal .. a couple of squares and I suck them until they dissolve in my mouth . Recommended during Covid period , if you suck a couple of bits of nice chocolate , it helps ease a nasty cough .

            I keep a couple of bars in the fridge , one bar of Galaxy and one Lindt .. luxury x

            I am now 5'1"..

            Back ache , spinal stenosis which appeared when my dearly loved late Jack spaniel was arthritic and I had to lift him into the back of the car dog crate .

            Before Christmas I was forking out £50 a time for private physio treatment , every 2 weeks , then I was put on the list to see NHS Muscular Skeletal Unit .. long waiting list .

            This getting older thing is hideous . Before Covid , Moh and I used to speed walk a few miles , and now I am so slow and careful.

          3. We just have one square each……
            I've probably lost height but I haven't been measured.
            I had a couple of Dexa scans while I was taking Letrazole some years ago.

          4. Very similar here, but no spinal stenosis which sounds absolutely awful, so sorry for you having that. My dog has liver problem which I do my best to control with his diet and milk thistle supplement. Spent several hundred pounds recently at vet’s – blood tests, x rays, scan, prescriptions (which didn’t seem to have any effect, milk thistle seems a bit better). He lost a lot of weight, slowly regaining it. Husband was seeing NHS specialist with arthritic hip, very long waiting list, asked if he operated privately – yes he did, using same facilities out of NHS hours. Daughter had skin cancer, same story. Do you think physio helped you at all? Didn’t seem to help him, or other family for various things. Easy to get drawn in until cost is realised. We have one of those treadmills in spare bedroom – might that help you keep fit…try one out local gym, perhaps …good luck Belle.

        3. Maybe a flare-up of the diverticulitis?

          It reminds me of when my mother was so ill – she was in terrible pain but she said it was in her back……. but internal. It wasn't just backache.

          Her GP sent her for an endoscopy but all they found was a hiatus hernia which she'd probably had for years. He prescribed Zantac and Gaviscon, but she couldn't keep any food down , and lived on soup and Complan for several months. After my ex made a scene at the surgery, they arranged for a carer to go in and make her soup for her.

          Eventually, after I called a locum doctor on a Sunday, she was admitted to hospital for tests….. but she died a week later and post mortem they said it was pancreatic cancer.

          Don't let them fob you off, Maggie.

          3. It was a long time ago now……. but she didn't complain and it was allowed to go on for too long.

        4. I told you that steroids (prescribed for asthma) cured my long term IBS almost overnight.

        5. 26 again. Yes. High heels in the wardrobe and Mum on the phone. I was told IBS and change your diet. My stomach was x-rayed and my abdominal organs scanned. Nothing. Then my pulse went sky high and oh, sometimes heart problems register in the stomach. It’s a woman thing. Persevere.

        6. Just thought of something else, Belle..have wooden floors here, after a few days I could barely walk, hips, legs, feet all hurt so much. Bought some of those FIT shoes with a thick sole, really helped me, couldn’t manage without them now (expensive tho, got mine from Amazon). K

    2. That's a bummer Maggie and a bad A&E experience.
      I can only recommend more fibre like what cured mine – Porridge and gluten free stuff

    4. Sorry to hear this Belle. It seems to be the norm now when dealing with the NHS.

    5. That's terrible TB how can anyone make an appointment to see a gp with in a week let alone walk in and see one if you spoke to your gp on the phone they would suggest that you go to A&E or phone 111.
      I hope you took her name and soon write a complaint to the hospital board.
      I heard from our neighbour that now if you want a GP appointment you will now need to fill in an application form. For assessment.

    6. Get a scan quickly. You are describing some of the same symptoms Jill had. At least when I took her to the ER, they did immediate X-rays and MRI's.

    8. Sorry to hear all that, Belle. I know nothing, but I've had a bad stomach for quite a long time amongst other things. I was tested for B12 and I was about zero. Since I've been getting regular B12 injections my stomach and digestion has changed for the better, not perfect but a lot better. You're a nurse and probably know all this but just a thought.

      1. Hello Mm

        That is terrible for you , yep B12 can make a hell of alot of difference .

        I really feel for you , do you have to jab your tum yourself , B12 stings like hell ..

        Are you managing to fish for something tasty this weekend? x

        I really assumed I had a fatty liver or a pancreatic problem , itchy skin etc .. I react to all sorts of food and colourants and spices , and nursing has changed hugely re testing and diagnosis .. my bloods were clear .. so rather than being squeezed and examined and tapped and saying 99 or ah , diagnosis is done on bloods .. and not wee blah blah .

        The first Covid jab gave me a severe headache and pushed my BP to highs of 210 /110 , A+E kept me in for a while in those early Covid days.

        Spoke to a great girl Staff nurse and she told me that many many patients had had jab complications and that was one of them and I was lucky not to have ended up with a heart problem … EEEEEK

          2. No. Oh, went fly fishing with 2 friends on Wednesday to Burrator Reservoir. A beautiful sunny day but with a strong cold wind. We had about 30 rainbow trout between us, but it's not the same as lure fishing for bass.

        2. Post-covid jab a friend of ours from France got myocarditis; as she collapsed she hit her head on the table and fractured her neck….. It has taken two years for her to get back to some sort of health but she is not as she was, she can no longer drive as she cannot turn her head. She has since required a pace-maker to be fitted. She was also found to be B12 deficient and now has to have B12 injections every 3 months. Before the jab she was a super-fit lady, running the South Coast Challenge Jurassic Coast at the age of 68. She had the AZ jab plus Pfizer boosters. I hope you haven't become dairy intolerant like our son, he said it gives him terrible internal pain if he eats the slightest amount of dairy now. I do hope you get it sorted xx💕

    9. Oh, Belle, that reads awfully, I hope at least the pain has cleared.
      Seems logical, ask for a GP appointment in two weeks time when you are doubled up in pain. Fucking nurse obviously had a sympathy bypass.
      Take care, you hear?

    10. Have you tried probiotics? Or perhaps some fermented food like sauerkraut…Both are supposed to improve gut health.

    11. I hope you told the half-witted "nurse" that it is not possible to SEE a GP at the weekend. Or at all.

    12. That's adding insult to an already unpleasant situation. Complain to PALS at the hospital. Point out that you had to attend A&E as there was no choice.

        1. I suppose the info is all out there but not many people are aware of them all the same. My sis, who is a Dr, pointed them out. Very useful if you are looking after aged parents who can often get unwell at awkward times but not life threatening stuff. There are also out of hours GPs based in hospitals (not A&E), I believe.

    14. What an unfeeling cow Belle, I’m so sorry for you. My son has IBS too and has given up on trying to isolate causes of flare ups. He now eats whatever he wants to barring some certain foods and says he will put up with the pain once in a while. I Don’t know what sets him off but it must be really awful to go to AandE. Hope things calm down really quickly for you.

    15. A thought Belle. If there is a next time call 999 and the ambulance will deliver you to AandE. I’m sure youdube much better looked after going in that way.

      1. I was about to say the same thing.
        If asked, say you have also banged your head. That gets them jumping.
        (Could be true if you are feeling that rough and unsteady.)

  102. I thought Rachel Reeves was single , and possibly trans .

    Starmer has a strange bunch in his Government .

    Rachel Reeves isn't trans , well I suppose she isn't because she has a family.

    Personal life.
    Reeves is married to Nicholas Joicey, a civil servant and Gordon Brown's former private secretary and speech writer. The couple have homes in Leeds (Bramley) and London.

    Reeves announced her first pregnancy on 20 September 2012 and gave birth to a daughter, and in 2015 to a son.

    Early life and education
    Rachel Reeves was born on 13 February 1979 in Lewisham.[1] Her parents, Graham and Sally Reeves, worked as primary school teachers, were very focused on education, and divorced when Reeves was seven.[2][3]

    Reeves cites the influence of her father on her and her sister Ellie Reeves' socially democratic politics. She recalls how, when she was eight years old, her father, Graham, pointed out the then Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock on the television and "told us that was who we voted for". Reeves says she and her sister have "both known we were Labour since then".[4] She joined the Labour Party at the age of sixteen.[5]

    She was educated at a comprehensive school, the Cator Park School for Girls in Beckenham.[6]

    After sitting A-Levels and achieving four As[7] in politics, economics, mathematics and further mathematics, she studied philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford, where she was an undergraduate student at New College, achieving a 2:1 Bachelor of Arts degree in June 2000.[8] From 2003 to 2004, she studied for a master's degree in economics at the London School of Economics (LSE), graduating with a merit.[9][10]

    Education
    Reeves opposes more selection in the education system.[124][125] In 2018, she said that she wanted to see "more children educated at comprehensive schools" and "fewer children being educated at grammar and private schools", and said that she has always and "always will" oppose more selection in the education system due to her belief that it was a "backwards step not a forward step."[125]

    Reeves has been supportive of abolishing private schools.[124] She said that independent schools "segregate children based on parental wealth" and "entrench privilege and divide communities".[124] She has also been supportive of Labour Against Private Schools, a campaign group calling for private schools to be integrated into the state sector and previously for Eton College to be abolished, stating that she was "proud to stand" with the group at its launch in July 2019.[1

    1. I thought exactly the same thing about her….and I still suspect it……plus I don't expect to see any other stripe of government in my lifetime, it's all sewn up.

    2. I was "segregated" into a private boarding school because the country my parents were working in, paid by the UK Government, was unable to provide anything more than primary school education. So, boarding prep and public school it was for me. My Parents repatriated to the UK about a year before I was done with public school, no contrat to pay for it, so paid themselves rather than move me just before A-levels.
      So, how would you handle that, Rachel?

    3. I was "segregated" into a private boarding school because the country my parents were working in, paid by the UK Government, was unable to provide anything more than primary school education. So, boarding prep and public school it was for me. My Parents repatriated to the UK about a year before I was done with public school, no contrat to pay for it, so paid themselves rather than move me just before A-levels.
      So, how would you handle that, Rachel?

    4. Then, within a few months, she was Governor of the Bank of England and Managing Director of HaitchBos.

    5. She presumably thinks intelligence doesn’t exist and throwing money at idiocy will produce genius. Bright working class kids had social mobility via the grammar schools.

      1. Example: My Father.
        Son of a mine worker in West Hartlepool, ended up as Ph.D Professor Head of Department and Deputy Vice Chancellor of a University in Northern Nigeria. Fended off the army who wanted to shoot the students who were rioring during the civil war. Ran a College in University of Wales on return to the UK.
        Not bad for the son of a mineworker whose first proper schooling was a grammar school.
        So, this kind of advancement (admittedly not usual) is to be denied to working-class kids, is it? Bastard.

    6. So she never had to think and make up her own mind then; daddy told her how to vote and that's how it will always be. No wonder she's incompetent! It struck me as I was renewing a membership today and they were pushing me to switch to direct debit "so you never forget to renew" how everyone seems to need everything done for them and nobody seems willing to take on personal responsibility for anything.

    7. Nicholas Joicey is not just any old civil servant, he’s Second Permanent Secretary and Group Chief Operating Officer at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

      Guess he can’t protest at the treatment of farmers or the fact that solar panels, windmills and housing are to cover the English countryside.

      2. Doesn't matter with these civil servants. They never achieve anything, just bouncing from job to job accumulating titles but never competence.

    8. Grammar schools were always the way up for working class children. Till Labour closed most of them. We do still have grammar schools in Gloucestershire – one of the few places.

    9. She is a moron. Of course they provide more for those who can afford it. That's the point of a superior product.

      You'd think, even with her lead filled skull that she would seek to emulate the success and the reasons why, not destroy them. But of course, this is a socialist, so she obviously wants to tear down something better.

      Labour must be removed. They simply have to go.

      1. Morons tend not to be spiteful, just dopey but well-meaning and easily led. She is a stupid and nasty piece of work, I agree in full. But we have let this happen by allowing our fury over the TINO betrayal to give these absolute traitors the keys to the henhouse.

    1. Used to hear the loaded coal trains pulling away from Newbiggin Colliery when aah wez a bairn and there would be several wheel-slips before the trains really got going.

    3. Left-arm or right-arm? Finally delivered it right-arm. The bowler must tell the umpire which arm he/she will use and whether over or round the wicket. Any deviation from this will be called as a no-ball.

  107. Wordle No. 1,400 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 19 Apr 2025

    In-tray for Birdie Three?

    1. Par today. Surely it’s two words.

      Wordle 1,400 4/6

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

    2. Well done, a bloody silly one.
      Wordle 1,400 4/6

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

    4. Blimey, well done – I thought that was a potential killer. I was delighted to get a par as my fourth guess was really only a shot at positioning the vowels (and the only option I could think of at the time!

      Wordle 1,400 4/6

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

      PS If anyone else reading is wondering what the hell we're going on about, today's word was INBOX

    5. Another one to struggle on

      Wordle 1,400 5/6

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

  108. Afternoon, all. Just a quick visit today as I'll be off to the Holy Saturday service later. First Eucharist of Easter and a vigil, although I shan't be able to stay long for that; I'll need to get back to Winston. He's been much improved of late, but I haven't left him long so I don't want to spoil the progress.

    The Church of England needs to rediscover it is about spreading the Gospel and worshipping the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness. Not jiving in a warehouse and making it up as you go along. Traditional services are what attract, even the young.

      1. That's why I avoid them like the plague and have moved my place of worship of choice. We have BCP services (admittedly early morning) and our vicar dresses properly.

      2. If I throw a ball for Mongo – or any of the dogs – they look at me as if to say 'Well, that was silly. You've got to find it now.'

  112. From Coffee House the Spectator
    19 Apr 2025
    Coffee House
    Mark GaleottiMark Galeotti
    Why Putin is keeping Trump waiting for a Ukraine deal
    18 April 2025, 6:04pm

    There is an odd contradiction in Russian attitudes to the current negotiations with the United States. On the one hand, a sense that the window of opportunity may be closing, on the other no real rush to take advantage of it, or at least to offer Donald Trump any concessions to show willing.

    Mikhail Rostovsky, a columnist in the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, put it best when he noted that the window is likely to close at the end of this month, which marks the end of the first hundred days of Donald Trump’s second term:

    ‘No one expected Trump to fulfil his boastful campaign promise and stop military actions during the first 24 hours of his presidency. But if the US president does not present any results on Ukraine in the period that begins on the eve of the most important Christian holiday of Easter and ends on April 30, this will be perceived unequivocally as a failure.‘

    This seems to have become the prevailing view in Moscow, since implicitly confirmed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s assertion that ‘we need to determine very quickly now, and I’m talking about a matter of days,’ whether or not an agreement is ‘doable.’ Yet what then? The hawks who argue that Russia is on the verge of even greater triumphs in Ukraine regard this as a good thing. Others may not be happy, but think that Trump could never deliver any kind of real peace, and so a ceasefire would have been pretty much pointless.

    This was, then, in the words of one former Russian diplomat, just a ‘moment of mirage – we could distract ourselves with the illusion of a peaceful oasis in the distance, even though we really knew we were in for a long march through the desert.’

    Yet the Kremlin does not seem to have given up on the thought that the talks could get somewhere, even while unwilling to make any concessions or present Trump with the kind of meaningless but flashy win that he so clearly enjoys. Has it some last-minute rabbit to pull out of the hat, or does it really believe that it can trade intangible promises about future joint ventures in the Arctic or a major order of Boeing airliners for real gains? The Russian leadership is certainly giving no hint that it is softening its maximalist demands.

    They continue to demand that Kyiv not simply accept Russia’s control of the 20 per cent of Ukraine currently occupied, but also hand over those parts of the five regions Moscow annexed – in direct contravention of international law – not yet conquered.

    Trump’s negotiator Steve Witkoff, after his latest meeting with Putin, waxed enthusiastic about the prospects for a ‘permanent peace,’ but also made it clear that beyond ‘these so-called five territories…there’s so much more to it…There’s a security protocol, no NATO, NATO’s Article 5…There are a lot of details attached to this complicated situation.’

    This, after all, may be the Kremlin’s real goal: not just chewing away a fifth of Ukraine and imposing limits on the sovereignty of the rest of the country, but some grand bargain with Washington that reshapes the security architecture of Europe and sees a normalisation of relations with the United States that also paves the way for sanctions relief. It is an audacious and frankly implausible design, yet consider the two sides. On the one hand you have an autocrat determined to make his mark in history (‘how will they be writing about me in a hundred years?’ is one of his favourite questions to ask scholars) and presumably well aware that a war-ravaged slice of Ukraine is unlikely by most Russians to be worth an estimated 900,000 dead and wounded – and counting.

    On the other is a real-estate tycoon and, in Witkoff, a real-estate lawyer: men who want to believe that there is a deal to be made, that statesmanship is measured in dollar sums, and that, frankly, Ukraine and Europe are not worth defending, especially compared with the prospect of being able to proclaim peace in our time. Those who have prospered off well-spun dreams and glossy prospectuses are also the most susceptible to them, too.

    So far, Putin is selling the sizzle, not the sausage – and the great value of the sizzle is that you can always and easily make more. This is presumably the calculation, that even if no deal can be struck by 30 April, all he needs to do is provide a little more sizzle and keep Trump’s mouth watering. It may work, it may not, but from Putin’s view, as his armies continue slowly to advance, as the West continues to unpick decades of unity, and with such a potential prize to be won, it’s worth a try. Rightly or wrongly, Putin still seems confident in his capacity to wrangle Trump – and that even if this initiative fails, he will be no worse off.

    Mark Galeotti
    Written by
    Mark Galeotti
    Mark Galeotti heads the consultancy Mayak Intelligence and is honorary professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and the author of some 30 books on Russia. His latest, Forged in War: a military history of Russia from its beginnings to today, is out now.

      1. I wonder if they still are on Scotland? And you haven't been allowed to say W in this regard for quite a while now, lest you offend the todgered ones.

  115. my daughter and I are back from our jaunt to Kinder Scout. We did the long route (9 miles) – 5 hours. Lovely. Lots of people coming the other way, not sure if they were just going up and down or the short round route. Very diverse. Also lots of litter (in my opinion)(and I am not saying there is any correlation – there isn’t). Mainly tissues, also coffee cups(?) and orange and banana peel. Bits of plastic. Very sad.

  117. Canadian Election at the end of the month and advance polls are open this weekend (up yours liberals, they wanted to move the scheduled election to avoid Diwali but are quite happy to ignore Easter). Polls have been very busy across the country with over thirty minute waits at many polling stations.

    One has to wonder about the significance if any of such a high turnout in the early polls – does it auger well for the conservatives or the less than honest liberals.

  118. That's me gone for this sunnyish but decidedly cold Easter Saturday. Did some gardening but the cold stopped it being fun.

    For Elton John fans – tonight ITV is screening the concert he did a couple of weeks ago with some C&W singer. My brother-in-law – one of the country's best sound engineers – (and a very cynical chap) says it was one of the finest shows he ever worked on. So we have set it to record.

    Have a spiffing evening – staying warm.

    A demain – one hopes.

  119. I went for a bimble around Badbury Rings this afternoon, and what a very pleasant Spring day it was too: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/64d789c72c9c12c86240786847f34065003785c90e402d4163f3fda31024d73d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/859bb93625a340c2ac3306755ce42804ef5ba22b9cda996f8a97740943a376cb.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/158bb43dbc47a18a1f60fad9fc12b55415c08588519880cf66afc4866c382f6d.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/38e9e52673161fcb199d7128341e917c2b4c038225adc4505cf317432b1eb2bc.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6eb79544e95303903c0e0fc0955fd4f963b22d57b18cb605f2cc426eb88b75c3.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/08943d60d51e3b18b8766ff336cfd76c31315022ba8309d91707762635af8bad.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ecccde8c339098e869ef0911e6e17b7470dfb5f9a976a43406572606fd6cdb7b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/347ae3b9677b4f7786152b8491989832588ad079f6269fcae570b2d66e7345e2.jpg

    2. No they don't need to do that. A tame media spouting liberal lies and Trump sticking his nose in in favour of Carney has probably set the scene for another liberal government.

      Another $130 bilion in spending promised today, that's not going to help overcome tariffs.

  121. In the run up to the election over here in Canada, the liberals have just promised billions for diversity programs over the next few years.
    A white boy from a working class background is going to have no chance here either.

    May as well move to Zimbabwe and be a minority.

    1. It's appalling.
      If my Dad could do it, then anybody else with the drive needed should be able to, and not held back by arseholes in government who seem to think that keeping the working class down is the right approach.
      It makes me so furious. Labour, my left buttock.

  122. Last time I was in the UK (Christmas last year) I was horrified how much junk, cans, bottles, crisp packets and the like were just lying in the country road verges. England is a country coated in rubbish – didn't go to Wales that time, so can't comment, but it was absolutely disgusting what a shitheap the place was.
    So, afraid your experience is a continuation of that.

    1. Next week the schools go back. Thanks to the break, locals have had a chance to clear the rubbish. The fields and walks are beautifully clear.
      I doubt I'll be saying the same thing next Saturday.

  123. Labour hates the working classes to get on. Once they do, they see the light and stop voting Labour. I am similar (though not so distinguished); my grammar school gave me an excellent education and I made the most of it.

    1. Good on you, Conners.
      It takes a great deal of personal effort, not just a few years at Grammar school. Risk-taking, hard, grinding work, and a touch of good luck. One reason why Dad died relatively early, the other being working with uranium in the UK atomic Weapons programme when younger.

      1. Nothing so dangerous for me; I worked in academia – mind you, 9C last thing on a Friday was pretty hair-raising! :0

    2. Good on you, Conners.
      It takes a great deal of personal effort, not just a few years at Grammar school. Risk-taking, hard, grinding work, and a touch of good luck. One reason why Dad died relatively early, the other being working with uranium in the UK atomic Weapons programme when younger.

  124. Good morning from San Diego! Pretty easy direct flight from YYZ after a long drive south and an overnight stay in Toronto. A very pleasant 19C at the moment with a sea breeze and a decent cup of coffee in Little Italy to accompany the meat, cheese and olive breakfast – which was a lot better than I thought it was going to be!

    1. Sounds scrummy, DC. How is it in San Diego – I've never been. Houston is the limit of my US experience.

      1. First time I've been, O! In fact, first time in California. The Mexican influence on the architecture is very visible.

        I'm going to do some exploring today – heading off to see the USS Midway for lunchtime, followed by a boat trip around the harbour this afternoon. Then, being taken to dinner by my client – which is a surprise – so no idea where! 🙂

        2. My son lives in San Diego and we've been a couple of times. Been on USS Midway – fascinating. One highlight was visiting the Hotel del Coronado – think 'Some Like It Hot'. I stood on the spot on the beach where Marilyn stood!

          1. Thanks for the tip, Sam! I have a few days to myself before getting down to business, so I’ll add that to the list. I see it’s only about 5 miles from where I’m staying, which is on Ash Street.

          2. Please do keep us stay at homes informed. With pics if possible. As you know i like to hear about people's food experiences.

          3. Will do, Phiz! I don’t take photos of food inside other peoples restaurants, but there’s some good sights to see! When I’m back I’ll share some. 🙂

    2. Evening DC.
      I've some good memories from that city. We broke down on the full orbital we did and ended up spending four weeks there. The USN and locals treated us like Royalty.

      1. Hullo GQ!

        Yeah – first bar I went to still had your picture up on the wall and the bar staff asked me if I knew you….

        1. Probably best to deny it mate because with compound interest, the bar tab I owe them will be several million dollars.

        2. Nah – these muppets are "barristers". In the 1950s, when I started, the (admittedly far fewer) nignogs passed the bar exams but then returned to India, Bongo-Bongoland etc etc. Now the fuckers stay in Engerland. (Sorry – it's the wine speaking…)

    3. Once they take over, native Brits won’t get a look in.

      Woke Whites are stupidly naive. Or they just don’t care because they themselves are raking it in, now.

  129. Just watching the TV drama of Decline and Fall starring Jack Whitehall. Hilarious British farce at its best. Some very big names in it.

    The characterisations are all very Gormenghastly.

    1. Does the N word survive? Waugh definitely uses it in Decline and Fall. One of the socialite women is described as being married to a n*gger.

      1. I doubt it. It's on iplayer.

        There are some great character names…Beste-Chetwynde pronounced beast cheating.

        Still enjoying it though.

        1. Try reading the BOOKS – sweetie – they are infinitely better than ANY filmed version.

    2. Of course not. Apply your mind to REAL things – hate crime, criticising your "leaders". etc

  134. Got the buggers.. within hours of posting.. tracked down, cuffed and taken away.
    .
    You can tell by the stern look & frown on Plods mug.. this is a serious matter.
    The one below needed CID.
    Sirens on, screeching halt in the car park, both doors on the Granada slammed hard.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d32939b0cb0340cd97d881e67e0bee569838ee92e282c5bafd06de56e9db056f.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/95b27e17949e118485366778be6853c1132b09becf1155c8027fde08ef576f48.png

    1. No one.. repeat no one.. complains about immigration on my watch.
      Unless you fancy doing a bit of jail time.

    2. Political policing seems to be out of control. The problem is that any expression that is taken as triggering an emotional response is now regarded as malicious communication. The principle that giving offence is not a crime has been neatly sidestepped by allowing individuals to declare that they have been caused distress or anxiety. Game set and match to those who dislike the opinions of others. I await a similar work around on the trans ruling.

    3. I thought they'd made themselves useful and found who had set the old aircraft hangars on fire.

    1. They'd already invaded before we bought the house. They do provide a bit of colour at this time of year but they're not a patch on the real ones.

    2. They'd already invaded before we bought the house. They do provide a bit of colour at this time of year but they're not a patch on the real ones.

    1. I recall watching the "Three tenors" on TV in 1990 (I think it was), and being blown away by particularly Pavarotti's voice. That was a long time ago now, the year I entered the oil & gas business.

      3. There was a video on YouTube a while ago, of a young baby sitting in his pushchair, seemingly parked to watch TV…Pavarotti started singing, baby stopped singing, entranced.

    1. I went there with my mum and dad a few years ago, as part of our “Suffolk” tour. We had a drink in a nice hotel which was covered in ivy – the Angel from memory, opposite the ruins of the Abbey. And we went on to Woodford, staying at a Tudor house called Seckford Hall. We had a lovely holiday. I remember swimming in the North Sea. And we visited Sutton Hoo. And back via Lavenham. A long way east for Wulfruniams, but a nice time.

      1. My late cousin lived near there – at Worlington. My aunt's friend ran the Swan at Lavenham in those days.

        2. Gosh! My maternal grandparents had their honeymoon at the Swan and named their house Lavenham!

    2. One of my late cousins was mayor of Thetford and my sister and I went to his funeral in Bury St Edmunds, there's a family irony in that.
      There seem to be so many decent towns and villages around. But we have a tendacy to stay put. And take our holidays overseas.

    3. I visited my cousin in B St E three weeks ago. It was very stressful. She is 80 and has very recently separated from her partner of 20 years. She is living in a McCarthy and Stone apartment now, she has hardly any supporting financial back-up but with a small private pension there is no govt financial assistance. Anyway, she is no longer 'all there'. En route to B St E she phoned me six times. When I got there I realised she was much worse than I thought. The journey home was stressful. The satnav went rogue and sent me on a circular route twice around the mediaeval streets of B St E at 'rush-hour' and into the lowering beams of the sunset, arriving back in both instances at the point from where I had set out. Suddenly the satnav came to its senses and directed me in the opposite direction (why couldn't it do that in the first place?) from which I had started and – hurrah! – a mile down the road it was sign-posted for the A14. A journey home that should have taken 45 minutes took an hour and a half.

      Fast forward three weeks a by now obviously loopy cousin phones to tell me she has fallen; at the age of 80 she was running to catch-up with a friend and has tripped/fallen and fractured her shoulder, her arm is in a sling. She has carers coming in at first twice, but now once a day. She has no memory of her fall, when it happened, being taken to hospital. It took four phone calls to elicit the little afore mentioned information . She does have a son who lives in Soham (about half an hour away) who is just about dutiful. Her younger son lives in France. So I will be making a return trip to B St E next week. There's not a lot I can do except keep her spirits up, put washing in the washing machine and just be there so she knows she's not alone.

      2. Is the former partner estranged or still involved? Did she decide to move because of the break up or because she found somewhere better? What a shame about the fall. A stressful journey home. But even if she's not all there, she probably appreciates the company.
        My cousin would have been 80 now, had she lived, but she died at 60. Her widower still lives in Worlington.

        1. Hello Ndovu. The former partner is estranged, but he still lives in B St E. The relationship fell apart over several years, 'covid' lockdowns finished it off; I am wondering if it was because of personality changes caused by impending dementia "he's hiding things from me" when in fact she had put things down somewhere and couldn't remember where she had put them. I haven't known her all my life, we didn't meet until I was in my fifties, she was born t'other side of the blanket (her father is my mother's elder brother) and she set off in search of her biological family, and she found me. She doesn't have a lot of cash either, her first marriage was to a seventh day adventist minister, and accommodation was provided by the church. She misses her former house, but she said things had become impossible, they simply weren't talking to each other. At least when I visit her again I will know to turn right instead of left when leaving!

          1. Oh – poor old soul! I’ve met a few distant cousins via Family history research – the most recent ones being two very elderly sisters ( and it’s time I arranged to go and see them again) who are my 3rd cousins. They are now both over 90 but still quite independent. Their gt grandfather was my gt grandfather’s elder brother – and a bigamist! He was a very well known and respectable solicitor in Bristol but he had this second family – and he actually married the lady, who was his real wife’s 2nd cousin. They went to London for that, where they would not be known. His son who was the two sisters’ grandfather was much more respectable and followed his father into the legal profession, working from the same chambers.

          2. Good grief! What a tangle of relationships – very similar today but not quite the same – societal differences between then and today causing the ‘rhyming’ of history (sorry, I’m not being very clear but I know what I mean…!).

            The other problem for my cousin is that her sons have P of A, the younger one is in France so is out of the picture, but the elder one lives half an hour away – she found the elder son had lifted a four figure sum from her account, a small inheritance from a relative. When accosted the son said it had been intended for him anyway….! My cousin has been to the bank and she was told that they cannot transfer the money back to her account but they have put a stop on her son from transferring any more funds from her account. The thing is, as she requires her son’s assistance to navigate the world, she has been unable to do very much except voice her disapproval. Honestly – families, eh?!

      3. When working on the drive testing of the Airwave Tetra radio system I had to drive round B St E I found the centre of the town VERY confusing, a thought agreed to by the other lads who had worked the town.

        1. I was really starting to panic to the point of tears on my second trip around, it wouldn't have been so stressful had it not been rush-hour and the roundabout from where I took my departure was jam-packed solid, two lanes, on both occasions.

  143. Regarding the trans protests. Either there are far more of these people than we thought, or it is the usual great-unwashed jumping on the latest band waggon to cause trouble. Given that trans rights have not changed in law, I suspect the latter. Although, a result of the ruling should be that receiving a P45 for mis gendering or not believing people can change sex, should become a thing of the past.

    1. All the usual paid left wing trouble makers. One would think they would be happy with this government.

      1. This rentabmob just hate everything. As they're useless wasters with nothing else to do they just go around destroying things.

    2. And all those cancelled etc should be reinstated and compensated.
      AND I'm not generally a supporter of compensation for "things that happen"

  144. Another unexplained huge fire near Basildon today. I think most people will understand what is happening. But what are the 'authorities' doing about all this scorched earth ?

    1. S*d all. It is all part of the deliberate undermining and breakdown and trashing of our society. The intended phoenix to arise from the ashes is communism.

  146. Family day tomorrow, late lunch, roast leg of English lamb. Laced with Garlic and rosemary.
    A get together after their recent trip to Paris France and Tenby Wales. Dubai number three will probably turn up for a chat by phone.
    Good night all 😴

    2. We (daughter and me) are psyching ourselves up for the big Stiperstones extravaganza tomorrow!

      1. Shropshire ?
        Looks lovely I wouldn’t be able to manage the hills anymore. Pub looks inviting. 🤗😉

    1. I really really must get my eyes tested; I read that as: ' A bedtime composition for Nottler onanists who like playing dominos'….shesh..

      Evening and good night all.

    2. Good on him.

      My wife's parents were devout atheists.

      Caroline was baptised and became a devout Roman Catholic at the age of 24 – just before meeting me!

  149. Well, chums, I am off to bed now. So Good Night to you all, sleep well, and see you all tomorrow.

  152. Goodnight, all. Winston has blotted his copy book. He managed to escape from his crate and do a fair bit of damage. He is not flavour of the month and is being ignored. I've yet to decide whether to relent and let him have his pre-bedtime biscuit. Happy Easter.

      1. The heart has its reasons; I’m not so sure about Winston! I was thinking last night that if he’d been able to squeeze back into his crate he would have left Kadi to take the rap.

    1. Easter, here again and thankyou Geoff for exercising and energising our thought processes .

      We all know you have may many difficulties and challenges , but I do hope that this day of reflection holds a few good experiences for you xx

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