Saturday 22 May: The Dyson report reveals longstanding flaws at the heart of the BBC

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/05/21/lettersthe-dyson-report-reveals-longstanding-flaws-heart-bbc/

525 thoughts on “Saturday 22 May: The Dyson report reveals longstanding flaws at the heart of the BBC”

      1. Play golf in that yesterday but with horizontal rail, nobody seemed to care about their health though

        1. They’ll all be forgiven molamola.

          You remember when Victoria Derbyshire made some extremely left wing comments, and the management of the BBC said huffily that she

          wouldn’t be allowed to appear on BBC for six months.

          Surprise, surprise!

          Within a few weeks she was back, first on obscure programmes, but now announcing the news.

          Busier than ever, and doubtless paid more for increased appearances.

      1. Strangely enough, when I’m riding a bike I discover a hill in our road. It’s not there any other time.

      2. I recall my geography master, George Pointer, describing East Anglia as undulating. That description covers a multitude of steep ups and downs in my experience.

        1. Those who enjoyed the Asterix bande dessinée books will remember Asterix in Switzerland. You will recall that when Obelix returned to Armorica (the part of Brittany in which we now live) he reported that Switzerland was very flat.

  5. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f2a8f893f006aad027e01609616cf53ad29dd74b/0_0_3272_2452/master/3272.jpg?width=720&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=052522a382c6d9a0c09848d8c69b02e4
    The Cats Paw nebula has the appearance of a cat’s paw but is actually a cloud of gas that can be found in the constellation of Scorpius. It is an emission nebula that emits light at different wavelengths depending on the chemical makeup of the gas. It is about 80 light years in diameter and located approximately 4,300 light years from Earth

      1. I can make you walk up countless Norfolk hills that would take the wind out of your sails, Nursey.

    2. Love the use of the word ‘but’, just in case anyone thought it actually is a giant cat’s paw.

    3. Another beautiful photo posted today. Thanks, Citroen. Makes me want to practise my own photographic skills.

      2. I’m actually watching a live game drive now and am looking at a leopard resting in the branches [not the one in pic]. Leopard had just hauled up an impala

      3. And now a third superb shot, Citroen. Have you taken these or do you find them on the Internet?

        1. The Grauniad and the DT frequently have appealing photogalleries on a theme. I seldom post my own happy snaps.

  8. morning all. I presume most focus this weekend for MSM will be on the House of Saville [HoS] and no surprise first couple of DT letters are on same subject. Mary Al Naber tried and failed to rattle some jewelry. Usual topics – GPs, woke restoration etc. :

    SIR – Lord Dyson found that manipulative and fraudulent behaviour led to Martin Bashir’s Panorama interview with Princess Diana (report, May 21), and attempts at a cover-up in the subsequent inquiry. What is also emerging now is a culture of fear at the BBC, where potential whistle-blowers are afraid for their jobs.

    The corporation will be hoping that, after profuse apologies and a period of severe embarrassment, the matter will go away. If this is allowed to happen, these abuses will continue.

    If the scandal had involved a commercial organisation and ordinary citizens, there would certainly be civil suits and perhaps prosecution.

    Michael G Harriss
    Malvern, Worcestershire

    SIR – Yet again, the BBC has lost its integrity and trashed its reputation. Complaining to the corporation is a waste of time, and the same goes for its statutory regulator, Ofcom, which is significantly influenced by ex-BBC employees.

    At present, the BBC is a chartered monopoly, backed by £5 billion a year, with grossly overpaid senior personnel. Contrary to what Michael Grade, a former BBC chairman, said on the Today programme yesterday morning – that “the public would not stand for” the BBC to be “bashed” on account of yet another systemic failure – the British public are sick to death of BBC scandals, such as Jimmy Savile and the Cliff Richard witch hunt, not to mention its blatant lack of impartiality. A new editorial board would achieve nothing. Unlike newspapers, the BBC is not a “journalistic organisation”.

    The corporation needs its Royal Charter varied and the Government review needs to be root and branch. Ofcom should be reviewed, too. The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee will surely hold an inquiry into the BBC’s systemic failures and put an end to this nonsense once and for all. The law must take its course.

    Sir William Cash MP (Con)
    London SW1

    SIR – Can we really trust the BBC, as it so persistently tells us we can? Does it deserve a Royal Charter? Does it speak for the British people?

    Surely it is time to reduce it to a free-to-air, verifiable news-reporting service, not an opinion-based one, and to scrap the licence fee.

    Dr Frank Booth
    Exmouth, Devon

    SIR – Mr Bashir’s faking of documents to obtain his interview was a disgrace. He played on the feelings of a lady who was going through a traumatic, high-profile separation and undoubtedly confirmed her suspicions about a conspiracy against her.

    However, while feeling sorry for the Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex, I do not approve of Prince Harry’s public soul-searching and accusations against his family. We are all products of our upbringing – some parents get it right, others do not. Most of us simply try not to make the same mistakes.

    Rae Duffield
    Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire

    The battle to see GPs

    SIR – I am grateful for the support Allison Pearson and I have received in exposing the NHS’s working instructions for GPs during the Covid pandemic, and that we could use my late wife Joy’s tragic story (Features, May 5) as a catalyst for change.

    Sadly, however, it seems the battle is far from won, judging by the British Medical Association’s disgraceful response to orders given by the NHS for GPs to see patients face to face (report, May 21). According to its GP committee, advising GPs to see patients face to face without extra guidance on how to protect against infection was “at best nonsense, but at worst extremely dangerous”. Is the BMA saying that GPs can’t do what, for example, dentists have done, and adopt practices that prevent infection?

    The real issue is that the BMA is interested only, in its own words, in “the needs of the profession”, with no thought for the needs of patients. Telemedicine and triage provide a pretence that they are looking after us, but in reality they are ignoring the possibility of unforeseen consequences, such as my wife’s death.

    I hope that sufficient GPs will realise how they are misled by their leaders.

    Nick Stokes
    Worton, Wiltshire

    Business held hostage

    SIR – I manage a technology firm, and a large export project is on hold because we cannot visit the red-listed country to deliver services and products. Significant revenue is at stake.

    The Covid crisis has to be paid for by businesses trading and exporting, which necessarily involve travel. A stay-at-home period after a red-list visit is reasonable, but expecting a business professional to isolate in a Government-mandated hotel is not. This is a once-size-fits-all policy that doesn’t reflect the reality of commerce.

    David Johnson
    Royston, Hertfordshire

    The Forgotten Army

    SIR – Penny Mordaunt (Commentary, May 20), the Paymaster General, referred to Alamein as the “first and last victory of the war to be achieved chiefly with British leadership”.

    A campaign began in Burma in 1942 which, at its peak, involved a larger, mainly Commonwealth army of 1.25 million personnel. The Japanese Imperial Army surrendered in Southeast Asia in 1945 following a very sound defeat. The victorious army – the 14th – nicknamed itself the Forgotten Army, and it is a shame that a former defence secretary should indeed forget its great achievements, including the largest British-led campaign of the Second World War.

    Viscount Slim
    Chairman, Burma Star Memorial Fund
    London SW1

    Dolled-up dog

    SIR – In the 1940s and 1950s we had a terrier, whom our grandfather had named Von Tirpitz. I am sorry to say that, when little, I often dressed Tirp in my old clothes and pushed him around in a pram, which he seemed to like.

    He also enjoyed trips out alone (Letters, May 20). A neighbour once told us that he had seen our dog down at the shops, wearing a dress.

    Carole Feeney
    London E4

    SIR – My uncle and aunt owned the boxer, Marxie, referred to by Helen Selby (Letters, May 20). He was a great character, whose exploits were often reported in the local paper.

    James Norris
    Ottery St Mary, Devon

    University for the few

    SIR – Charles Moore (Notebook, May 19) asks what “levelling up” is, and suggests it could be achieved by abolishing “the insistence on a university degree for any job in the public service, perhaps for any job at all”. This isn’t the solution.

    The Government hopes to dissuade not just working-class school-leavers from going to university, but middle-class ones as well. “Levelling up” means levelling down. This is nothing new: the privileged have always wanted to keep the higher-education path – more fun, with better prospects – for themselves.

    Professor Chris Barton
    Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire

    SIR – With regard to pointless degrees (Letters, May 19), the rot started when the hugely successful polytechnics were redesignated as universities.

    As a lecturer at Leeds Polytechnic, I used the description of “placing intellectual study within a practical framework” as a way of explaining what that type of education offered.

    Their sad demise, and the expansion of universities – into which students unsuited to degrees are admitted at great expense on to courses of doubtful academic or practical value – have devalued degrees, to everyone’s cost.

    Bill Townsend
    Leeds, West Yorkshire

    Vintage medicines

    SIR – Len Biggins (Letters, May 20) can return his unwanted medicines to his pharmacist, who will happily dispose of them. Regrettably, once medicines have left a pharmacy they cannot be recycled as the dispenser can’t be sure that the product has been stored correctly. The NHS arranges collections of returned medicines from pharmacies for safe disposal.

    Andrew Graham
    Upper Poppleton, North Yorkshire

    Creepy cooking

    SIR – In Maryland we are experiencing the emergence of Brood X cicadas.

    They appear from the ground in their billions once every 17 years, climb the surrounding trees, mate very loudly, lay their eggs and die. The resulting nymphs drop to the ground, burrow down and wait 17 years to emerge in their turn.

    Some people cook and eat them (Letters, May 18), finding them delicious and a fine source of protein. I am not among them.

    Mary Al Naber
    Parkton, Maryland, USA

    Hopes for the fate of Whitechapel Bell Foundry

    SIR – I hope the Whitechapel Bell Foundry (“Imagination is required to save a piece of living history”, Arts, Charles Saumarez Smith May 18) enjoys a happier fate than the world-renowned Bow Street Police Station, which was built in 1881 and closed in 1992.

    It was then disgracefully left to decay for decades in a major tourist area, being opposite the Royal Opera House. It is about to open again as a hotel after extensive reconstruction, and will include a museum dedicated to its history.

    Good luck Whitechapel.

    Neil Doak
    Wallington, Surrey

    SIR – It is a disgrace that the Whitechapel Bell Foundry – where both the 13-ton Big Ben and America’s Liberty Bell were built, as well as bells for so many churches all over Britain – is being sold to developers in order to be turned into a hotel.

    Doesn’t Robert Jenrick, the Communities Secretary, have any sense of history?

    Charlie Caminada
    London SW10

    SIR – I was saddened to read of the distressing fate of this historic building. Surely it is worth preserving. In 1954 I visited it with my fifth-form classmates and the school science department. It was very memorable and afterwards the science master pointed out that we had half an hour until our bus departed and that there was a venerable pub just across the yard.

    We all adjourned for what was, I think, our first pint in a pub. Another important part of our education.

    Les Harper
    Bristol

    SIR – The plans to redevelop Whitechapel Bell Foundry will not mean “losing practically everything that is special” about the site, as Charles Saumarez Smith claims. They are respectful and would also allow public access.

    The Hughes family ran the foundry from 1904 and, with their knowledge of the industry, decided that continuing was no longer viable. As part of the regeneration, a working foundry will remain to produce small bells under licence from the original owners, using some of the original tools. The hotel replaces a modern, unlisted building on the site.

    Historic England helps all manner of historic places have productive, viable futures when their original use is no longer an option. Across England, historic buildings have had many uses in their long lifespans and, where they face an uncertain future, a sensitive change of use can give a new lease of life.

    The regeneration of neglected spaces in King’s Cross, for example, including the Grade II listed Granary, has transformed perceptions of the area, kept its historic character, created a sense of community and boosted the local economy. Whitechapel Bell Foundry deserves a similarly bright future.

    Duncan Wilson
    Chief Executive, Historic England
    London EC4

  9. Let Me Put It Another Way

    A very shy guy goes into a bar and sees a beautiful woman sitting at the bar. After an hour of gathering up his courage, he finally goes over and asks, “Um… excuse me, but would you mind if I sat here beside you?”

    She responds by yelling, at the top of her lungs, “NO, I DON’T WANT TO SLEEP WITH YOU!”

    Everyone in the bar turns to stare at them. Naturally, the guy is hopelessly and completely embarrassed and he slinks back to his table.

    After a few minutes, the woman walks over to him and apologises. She smiles at him and says, “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. You see, I’m a graduate student in psychology and I’m studying how people respond to embarrassing situations.”

    To which he responds, to the max of his lungs, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, £200?“

    1. This joke was posted on this site some weeks ago, Tom, but it’s still very funny.

      1. ‘Morning, Elsie, ’twasn’t posted by me – I keep a check on what I’ve posted – but then I’m rarely on in late afternoon and most of the evening.

  10. As per Ogga’s request on yday’s thread [most recent for me this am] – the “e-print” variant of same post for those who didn’t catch it:

    Another “Woke arm of Government” trying to fly under the radar.

    Seems every effort’s being made to deflect attention from the House of Saville [HoS = BBC]. The man guilty of failing to address these is John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale, OBE MP, a part time politician and Culture Secretary who took the decisions that extended the HoS’s charter in 2017, though there are others involved in the mix. Whittingdale’s reputation is so bad even May felt the need to sack him, but the Fat Controller reinstated him to his current pinnacle of incompetence as Minister of State for Media and Data.

    ‘Minister of State for Media and Data’ means Commissar for Censorship and keep the HoS within the woke tramlines. When MPs were under scrutiny for fiddling, it emerged that Whittingdale failed to declare a couple of ‘fact-finding’ trips to lap dancing clubs.

    His half brother, Charles Napier, a former teacher and former treasurer of PIE, is a nonce and has been banged up since 2014.

    Expect more of woke attention / focus on “racism” et al with HoS compliance and Grauniad worrying if the attention zeroes in further on them as part of the deception agenda

    1. 333191+ up ticks,
      Morning AWK,
      Bearing in mind the saville plague has been with us for decades and since the 70s the toxic trio lab/lib/con have openly consolidated as a coalition sharing responsibility.
      Harriet Harman expresses ‘regret’ over links to paedophile …https://www.dailymail.co.uk › news › article-2567329
      25 Feb 2014 — Miss Harman, her MP husband Jack Dromey and former Health Secretary … during the 1970s and 80s, the NCCL described PIE – granted formal ‘affiliate’ … Harriet Harman talks to BBC’s Newsnight about Paedophile storm.

      1. the issue never went away just more attempts to cover it up as it always involves those higher up the woke career ladder. And the net / scope keeps widening

  11. As per Ogga’s request on yday’s thread [most recent for me this am] – the “e-print” variant of same post for those who didn’t catch it:

    Another “Woke arm of Government” trying to fly under the radar.

    Seems every effort’s being made to deflect attention from the House of Saville [HoS = BBC]. The man guilty of failing to address these is John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale, OBE MP, a part time politician and Culture Secretary who took the decisions that extended the HoS’s charter in 2017, though there are others involved in the mix. Whittingdale’s reputation is so bad even May felt the need to sack him, but the Fat Controller reinstated him to his current pinnacle of incompetence as Minister of State for Media and Data.

    ‘Minister of State for Media and Data’ means Commissar for Censorship and keep the HoS within the woke tramlines. When MPs were under scrutiny for fiddling, it emerged that Whittingdale failed to declare a couple of ‘fact-finding’ trips to lap dancing clubs.

    His half brother, Charles Napier, a former teacher and former treasurer of PIE, is a nonce and has been banged up since 2014.

    Expect more of woke attention / focus on “racism” et al with HoS compliance and Grauniad worrying if the attention zeroes in further on them as part of the deception agenda

      1. he’s in the top tier of them yes. I’ve already mailed him directly battering him with the usual tsunami of questions, none of which he’ll answer. I don;t expect him to, but he knows he’s being held accountable. Every time he doesn;t respond, I merely mail him again and cc in a few Independent cross bench HoL members then he’s desperate to attempt to cover his arse, and failing

  15. I like to think that people are coming round to realising that this government is leaderless without a steady hand on the tiller and that this state of affairs leads to the utmost levels of incompetence. Yesterday there was a report that the Cabinet has never been briefed on the impact of the measures taken during the CV-19 panic: was this deliberate i.e. mushroom management? Are members of the Cabinet so weak and unthinking as to not have the wit to demand this information or are they so “career” driven that they are literally frightened to put their heads above the parapet?

    Now we have this latest example of right hand, left hand…

    https://twitter.com/SuzanneEvans1/status/1395656781611810816

    Chief executive Johan Lundgren admitted to being baffled by the Government’s advice on flying abroad and said ministers will face tough
    questions from the travel industry if they refused to put more countries on the green list soon.

    “There’s a traffic system where green doesn’t mean green because you have restrictions,” he said. “And amber is sometimes red, and sometimes it is green, but with more restrictions.”

    Ministers have given conflicting opinions on whether Britons should fly to “amber” countries. Boris Johnson and Grant Shapps have told the public to stick to the green list for leisure travel, but George Eustice has said people can fly to amber countries as well.

    Mr Lundgren said: “You have to respect the fact that people are confused about this.”

    And the buffoon “in charge” wants to run a “green” revolution incorporating changes to our way of life never before contemplated when his “team” are incapable of putting together a governmental travel brochure.

    1. I notice that the “government” is now trotting out “ministers” of whom one has never heard – Fuckland, Useless Eustace – to pontificate and defend the indefensible…

      1. and par for the course, no brief, just a headline with the order – “go and bump gums, say whatever you like”

      2. During the panic I was always suspicious of the same ministers being given airtime and that the remainder of the Cabinet remained unknown and mute. Raab was wheeled out once or twice and cocked up and Patel when she was allowed to tell us what she wasn’t going to do appeared on a few occasions.

        We also have a report of Johnson fighting his corner against Gove with regards to lockdown policy. Some people think that this is being stage managed to make Johnson “the good guy” as he battles to save his irreversible road map. Perhaps deflecting and spreading the blame is now the tactic.

        1. covering up inner splits and perceived ego entitlement and it’ll boil down to who most convinces the “money men”. Start from that perspective and “Conservative Party” are holed below the water line. But every attempt will be made to cover it up entering the public domain. the positive side [if there is one] of the Lockdown, is more people have had more time to start raising their own questions and doing more thorough checking / research, way beyond the standard MSM position

    2. welcome to the advantages of the emergency measures Coronavirus Act where you can do whatever the hell you like and if need be, inform nobody, least of all those within the system deemed collateral damage, let alone virtue signalling / order barking to the public

    3. 333191+ up ticks,
      Morning KtK,
      They have been ” coming round ” to that way of thinking for at least three decades, then go into three monkey mode in the polling booth at the crucial moment.

      IMO we are NOT witnessing a Country hoedown in any shape or form, more like an orchestrated Country takedown.

    4. Why cannot they get said briefing from their staff, or research it themselves? It isn’t difficult to do, just fire up Google and type the question. Pathetic.

    5. Mr Lundgren should be pleased about the total disorganisation in the Civil Service.

      By the time they’ve organised the construction and operation of HS2 we’ll all be long gone.

      Time to set up more flights out of Birmingham, Mr Lundgren.

  16. I like to think that people are coming round to realising that this government is leaderless without a steady hand on the tiller and that this state of affairs leads to the utmost levels of incompetence. Yesterday there was a report that the Cabinet has never been briefed on the impact of the measures taken during the CV-19 panic: was this deliberate i.e. mushroom management? Are members of the Cabinet so weak and unthinking as to not have the wit to demand this information or are they so “career” driven that they are literally frightened to put their heads above the parapet?

    Now we have this latest example of right hand, left hand…

    https://twitter.com/SuzanneEvans1/status/1395656781611810816

    Chief executive Johan Lundgren admitted to being baffled by the Government’s advice on flying abroad and said ministers will face tough
    questions from the travel industry if they refused to put more countries on the green list soon.

    “There’s a traffic system where green doesn’t mean green because you have restrictions,” he said. “And amber is sometimes red, and sometimes it is green, but with more restrictions.”

    Ministers have given conflicting opinions on whether Britons should fly to “amber” countries. Boris Johnson and Grant Shapps have told the public to stick to the green list for leisure travel, but George Eustice has said people can fly to amber countries as well.

    Mr Lundgren said: “You have to respect the fact that people are confused about this.”

    And the buffoon “in charge” wants to run a “green” revolution incorporating changes to our way of life never before contemplated when his “team” are incapable of putting together a governmental travel brochure.

    1. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH x 100

      Yo all

    2. Norfolk (the county): true blue with splashes of Limp Dim yellow.

      Norwich (the city): as red as Trotsky’s ice-pick.

      1. Love your Norwich (the city) descriptive phrase, Grizzly. (Good morning to you and all NoTTLers, btw.)

    3. Morning all.
      This country is rapidly going to the asylum. What we really need is a very large bottomless pit for all these woke idiots to slide into.
      I wonder if the old but famous British band has been invited to play Comfortably numb and just Another Brick in the Wall.
      Pink Floyd……….
      Meanwhile the veggies are stopping peoples choice in what they like to eat. MacDonald’s supply depots are being blocked from sending out burgers.
      But no news on the halal slaughter front wokes are generally pathetic cowards.

      1. This stupid Norwich fiasco was mentioned on face book yesterday, but i think it was taken down, there is no sign of it now.

      2. 333191+ up ticks,
        Morning RE,
        The lab/lib/con coalition supporter / voters are averse to change .

        The empty can of halal meat is being kicked down the road
        whilst the contents are being consumed via the parliamentary canteen menu, today.

        1. I just wonder when muslims are going to do something useful and indeed amicable.

          6. 333191+ up ticks,
            RE,
            Courtesy of lab/lib/con coalition supporters / voters voting pattern they gain strength physically vocally daily, not long now we will know what the daily orders are via the local imam.

      3. Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters is so right-on that he’s probably in support of it.

      1. 333191+ up ticks,
        Morning A,
        Goes without saying, by the same token there is, as with a GE
        & appertaining to council elections, no barbed wire around the change department via the polling booth, people power
        CAN be used beneficially if ever tried by the electorate.

    5. I assume they’ll be doing something similar for all the innocent white people who have been knifed or shot by black immigrants who have only come here to live off our taxes, get free lives – and commit crime? Of course they w***

    6. My response to the council:

      I am disappointed to see you plan a ‘homage’ to George Floyd. Please advise cost of this and if it will be borne by council-tax payers or the councillors who voted in favour of it. Please also advise if the council’s remit extends to ‘matters American’, rather than the more local ones that councils are usually associated with.

      Although Floyd’s death is of undoubted concern, I think it wrong to make him appear some sort of hero. Perhaps his life could be put in context? ‘Violent American Criminal’ could sum it up, although extra detail could include his lengthy ‘rap’ sheet and long periods in jail, together with potentially lethal amounts of
      Fentanyl, and a cocktail of other drugs, found in his system at the time of his
      death.

      Should you continue to be involved with events in USA, could you consider an element of balance? I suspect the name of Cannon Hinnant means little to you – an innocent 5 year old white boy allegedly shot at point-blank range by a black man. This was almost totally ignored by the US media but, had skin colours been reversed, I imagine huge coverage – and riots – could well have ensued.

      Can you consider commemorating him too please?

      Please respond.

      1. 333191+ up ticks,
        Morning VOM,
        Well penned, should be used as a prototype missive by the
        decent members of the herd en masse.

    7. Maggiebelle posted this last night.

      Many of us here have strong connections with Norwich and I am sure we are all totally disgusted.

      1. 333191+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        I read TBs post last night I repeated it this morning as a vehicle for my suggestion of once the fire dies down & the potatoes retrieved they can get busy clearing the site and employing yesterday’s DOVER influx erecting a couple of tower blocks to house todays DOVER influx.

        ALL parties lab/lib/con coalition / decent peoples, satisfied.

    8. My response by e-mail this morning:

      Your virtue-signalling on the anniversary of a drug-dealer, thug and liar, does you no credit but merely underlines your support for the racist thugs of BLM Antifa and Extinction Rebellion.

      As a Norfolk boy, born and bred, I am ashamed of you and wish you to take down the signs that say, “A Fine City, Norwich.”

      Shame on you

      1. 333191+up ticks,
        Afternoon NtN,
        I just followed through in the nicest possible way with
        ” Are you a new terrorist organisation starting up and if so will you use taxpayers money or seek foreign backing”

    1. How appropriate, given the current Lord of the name.

      Go’ morgen Grizzly.

  20. Brown bears euthanised after escaping from zoo enclosure in Bedfordshire. 22 May 2021.

    Two brown bears have been euthanised at a zoo after escaping from their enclosure.

    The animals managed to climb across a fallen tree that had come down in strong winds and attacked a wild boar in the neighbouring section.

    Bosses at Whipsnade Zoo in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, said they had no choice but to euthanise the bears over concerns of an “immediate threat to human life”.

    Morning everyone. As always when I read these stories I shout at the screen: “They should have saved the bears and shot the humans!”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/22/brown-bears-euthanised-escaping-whipsnade-zoo-dunstable-bedfordshire/

    2. Shame on the zoo, shame on their lack of humanity .

      Why did they HAVE to kill them , how racist , where are the protests , the banners , lighting up the city hall. We need investigations .

      Did the crack shots pay a large fee to euthanise the poor creatures …

      I dare say they will be euthanising a few more animals when the opportunity arises , animals in a zoo must cost a fortune to feed , only the grazing ones will be left.

    3. Why couldn’t they have used a tranquilising dart? There was no need to kill the bears.

    4. What was a wild boar doing in the human area. Or did they mean a wild bore?

    5. Seems hard on the bears. By “euthanised”, they mean shot & killed. Why not darted, or just left alone to wander back to their own space?

    6. There’s obviously a great shortage of wild boar in Bedfordshire to shoot two valuable bears in order to save one.

      I suggest that the keepers at Whipsnade Zoo visit Sussex.

    7. Colchester Zoo did the same with some wolves a little while back. I am sure they could have darted them.

  21. 333191+ up ticks,
    Bet this little number will find a great deal of usage in today’s political climate.

    Pity the poor “best of the worst” type voter you need a degree to distinguish the difference.

    Children under the age of 16 can consent to their own treatment if they’re believed to have enough intelligence, competence and understanding to fully appreciate what’s involved in their treatment. This is known as being Gillick competent. Otherwise, someone with parental responsibility can consent for them.

  23. Britain will regain mastery of political warfare after taking ‘eye off ball’ over Russian threat. 22 may 2022.

    Britain has “woken up” to the threat from Russia after we “took our eye off the ball” at the end of the Cold War, the general in charge of cyber and special forces has said.

    General Sir Patrick Sanders, the head of Britain’s Strategic Command, says the West “assumed our adversaries would see the world as we did” when it ended but “they didn’t”.

    He warns they “continued to pursue [us]” through “political warfare” because they “saw how advanced we had become in the more narrow definition of warfare” and realised “it was a fool’s errand to take us on”.

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE

    John Phelan21 May 2021 10:27PM.

    Russian threat? Sitting on a bench in St Petersburg some years back, watching the general public (especially the pretty girls) walking by, I felt more kin with those people than I do with the creatures I view driving through certain areas in many of our towns and cities these days. Along with the Russians, all of the indigenous folk of Europe, us and the white Americans are already declining in such numbers, we might just as well have been fighting a war amongst each other already. We are being successfully invaded by boatloads of welfare seekers every day of the week. And yet this clown thinks Russia is the main peril when we will be in a minority in our own country come 2050-60-70?

    Amen to that Mr Phelan! The opinion that Russia poses no threat to the UK is pretty much 100% on this thread though I don’t suppose that it will reduce the propaganda.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/21/exclusive-britain-will-regain-mastery-political-warfare-taking/

    1. Thankfully, when one of our aircraft carriers is off harrying the Chinese we have another to keep the Ruskies at bay (when it gets some aircraft)! I agree with the comment, Vlad’s values are for his people and country, I dont see many bame ghettos over there.

  24. Good morning All

    How many of you have put an extra jumper on, switched the gas central heating on in the evening , contemplated a cosy coal fire in the hearth, cooked a few more meaty casseroles than you normally would in May, it has been very cold in the evenings , hasn’t it.

    We haven’t switched the heavier bed duvet over for the lighter summery one yet.

    Does Green minded Boris Johnson know what he is doing with regard to his insistance that our heating choices will be severly limited in a few years.

    1. Good morning, Maggie.

      Just realised why this month is called May.

      It May Rain.
      It May not.
      It May be Sunny.
      It May not.
      It May be Windy.
      It May not.
      It May Hail.
      It May not.
      It May make its mind up.
      It May not.

      1. Good morning Grizzly

        Ne’er cast a clout till May be out

        “The wind is tossing the lilacs,
        The new leaves laugh in the sun,
        And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
        But for me the spring is done.

        Beneath the apple blossoms
        I go a wintry way,
        For love that smiled in April
        Is false to me in May.”

        – Sara Teasdale, May

        1. May brings flocks of pretty lambs;
          Sporting round their fleecy dams.

          The Months, Sara Coleridge.

    2. We’ve had the heating on this week. We don’t bother changing the duvet- we don’t have a summer one.

      1. I have a summer one (and a spring/autumn one, and a winter one). On really hot, sticky, July and August nights, only an empty duvet cover is used, and frequently that gets cast aside!

        And NO, I never wear pyjamas (nor a Wee Willie Winkie nightshirt!).

      2. We have a heavy tog 15 duvet fr winter , and a lighter tog for the warmer months .

        Although our house was built in the eighties , we have no central heating in the four bedrooms upstairs , and yes it can get very cold because we have under eave storage in the bedrooms upstairs and bathroom etc , and when the cold wind blows , brr.

    3. Good morning, Maggiebelle

      Has Boris Johnson actually got a clue about anything?

    4. Nearly June, and we will have braised oxcheek tonight. Complete with comfort veggies like mashed potato, parsnips and sprouting broccoli.
      We are still adding ‘extra’ blankets at night. Normally by now they would be washed and put away until about October.

      1. Raining, windy annd 8C here today. Midsummer in a month, June in a week or so, and I’m freezing me knackers off. Heating still on. Too wet to do anything useful. Buggeritall.
        mumble, mumble, mumble… :-((

    1. Morning Minty

      BBC has a left agenda and the ability to incite riots and bad behaviour , they are Woke , anti white , they have filthied up young minds with progressive fiction .
      They have given permission by allowing people to behave badly .

    2. Like the dude said:

      A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury – signifying nothing.

    3. They may well be untouchable, but more and more people are switching off.

  28. Why is Disqus, this morning, asking me to ‘sign in’ over and over again, even though I am signed in?

      1. 333191+ up ticks,
        Morning AS,
        Health warning,
        DO NOT mention goats in any derogatory manner unless you have a safe house.

    3. I can’t log in on my mobile any more it keeps telling me my email and password are already in use……….?

  29. Binmen kick up a stink in support of suspended Batley teacher
    Tutor who lacked for support after suspension for showing picture of Prophet Mohammed finds unlikely allies in the Bury branch of Unite
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/21/binmen-union-submits-emergency-motion-support-suspended-batley/

    It says something when binmen are more willing to stand up for the teacher and the principle of freedom of speech than are his own school and teaching union.

    1. 333191+ up ticks,
      A,
      What finer backing, them boys can recognise a cowardly sh!te issue straight off.

    2. Just as the dockers supported Enoch Powell when he was villainised by his own party.

    3. These are the people who the Labour Party have decided are beneath representation – what I guess would be called Working Class. They tend to have a strong sense of what’s right and what’s wrong, patriotism, and don’t like to be bullshitted.

    4. Mr Bamford claimed that an NEU official attempted to pressurise him into withdrawing the motion on the basis that it was “unhelpful” to draw further attention to the issue.

      He said he was phoned by the official who asked him to “reconsider” the motion since it “risks inflaming what is an extremely sensitive and very complex situation” for members.

      Mr Bamford was told that the NEU has an obligation to the “wider community in Batley” and that any further attention on the matter would “set back quite sensitive negotiations”.

      You could substitute ‘HMG’ for ‘NEU’…

    5. Would the teacher’s local MP have supported him? I mean the late Jo Cox.

      The current Labour MP for Batley has done a runner to become Mayor somewhere.
      I would imagine that all the increasingly moslem constituencies will have their own mossie MPs within a generation.
      Question is, will they be decent respectable well-bred Sunnis or stinking pedo Shia? (insert appropriate emoticon or ironycon)

      1. They will all be peace-loving members of their community. Until anyone says anything about their religion, of course.

  31. Good morning my friends

    A good article in today’s DT by Charles Moore about fake news and how there should be no place for it on the BBC.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/21/prince-william-right-bbc-public-service-broadcasting-fake-news/

    The trouble is how to define what is fake and what is real.

    The MSM piously say they are keen to eliminate fake news but virtually the whole of the world media were saying that reports that the US election was stolen were fake when it is becoming more and more apparent that the Democrats engaged in gross electoral fraud. Internet providers now censor any views with which they disagree to be aired on the grounds that they are fake news.

    I quote from Charles Moore’s article:

    Laura Kuenssberg revealed that Sir James who, she said, was a Conservative Party donor, had illegitimately texted Boris Johnson demanding unfair tax advantages when making anti-Covid ventilators. …………. This revived the favourite BBC story line of “Tory sleaze”. But, as the apology belatedly admitted, its basis was false. Sir James is not a Tory donor, and his work on ventilators was given at his company’s own expense, following a prime ministerial request for emergency help.

    Yes, the BBC is in very urgent need of reform but my confidence in Boris Johnson doing anything about it is likely to be mere sound and fury but no action. Look at Johnson’s extraordinary presentation of fake news over Brexit – he claimed it to be brilliant but the truth is that both his WA and his “deal” were disasters which betrayed Britain. It is rapidly being proved that those who said the WTO was the only sensible option were not peddling fake news any more than those who claimed that the US election was fraudulent.

      1. As long as the money is put to good use unlike our demand for the licence fees.

    2. It’s important to recognise that the BBC doesn’t necessarily lie. It’s just careful to not tell the whole truth. For example, over Israel it will not mention that Hamas started firing rockets, nor that a lot of Palestinian casualties are from Hamas rocket misfires.

      1. This is a quote from a publication in 2017:

        Every Party needs to be “BBC-approved” or else they know they’ll face
        relentless, overt opposition from the State Broadcasting Leviathan, all
        day every day, alongside the subtle (and often not so subtle) insidious
        bias in their usual drama, comedy and news programming.

        So the Tories – not having the courage of a Trump – know they have to
        keep the BBC onside, and they think dropping their trousers in craven
        surrender, selling out their instinctive supporters, and appointing a
        bunch of Blairites and other assorted Lefties will do it.

          2. 333191+ up ticks,
            A,
            ” Sack er” far from it she will become a poster role model.

        2. Oh dear, I didn’t see a link.

          ‘Morning, Belle, Hope you are feeling better. X

        4. PC Nusheen Jan new recruit? Old recruit to the Muslim Brotherhood ( enrolled at birth ) but new recruit to the MP ( formerly the Metropolitan Police but now correctly renamed Mecca Police )

          5. 13.53 here in Nairobi. Was busy using DHL tracking on my inboind UK driving licence. More so in having proper flag on licence not that EU rag

          7. spot on. With our as always power rationing gig here, I try and get on here early as KPLC pull the plug whenever they feel like it. Normally when Uhuru’s going to bump gums

          8. Don’t worry though, as Ambrose Pritchard said you’ll have so much green energy that it’ll be free.

            /snort.

          9. mng, that’s the intention of US corporates. It’s getting no slack here as any limited excess power generated from solar is fed back into KPLC to top up their system and depsite National agreement they never pay. So especially down south around Mombasa, anyone with excess power only provides it under their own local arrangement with local population

        5. Ticked the right boxes.
          Female
          Diverse
          Muslim
          She’s got her job for life.

          1. They had that rag head who won the charity race at Goodwood on TV twice today. Strange how none of the previous winners got asked back. But then, they were white and at least nominally Christian.

        6. Not wearing her mask properly either. Where’s plod to smash down her door?

      2. This is where, in a democracy, if such were done those council leaders doing this would be told no, you won’t waste public moeny on this, sent the bill personally and then sacked, forbidden from working in the public sector ever again.

    3. What about the July the 7th victims?

      I’ll bet there’s nothing on the BBC.

  34. Good morning from a bright but damp Bursledon. At least the overnight rain has stopped.

      1. Hello, Richard.

        Hadn’t heard the song before – thank you, and yes please do add me to your list. A lovely NoTTL touch, your list.

    2. I note the genderist assumption that only “ladies” use mascara. Cancel them!

      1. An option, being a “democracy” Joseph is shirt lifters and associated Limp Wristed Wokeists could send their “offerings” to The Labour Party, Labour Central, Kings Manor, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 6PA or c/o the Home Office for “cleansing” of illegal economic migrants

  36. 333191+ up ticks,
    Surely without lab/lib/con coalition current member / voters input we could do the same , could we not ?

    Spain Sends 6,600 Migrants Who Entered Ceuta Back to Morocco

  37. Gosh, it is cold in North Narfurk this morning. Took plants to the Plant Sale. Driving wind and rain making the display look sad. Likely to go on until the end of the World, apparently.

    1. Never mind Bill, you could go to Thart Narridge and join in with the Floyd kneelers.

    2. End of the World? Is that Narfuk speak for when the Ginger Whinger stops moaning?

    2. We had a horrendous trip to North Edinburgh yesterday. It took us two and a quarter hours to over the 35 miles. I will not entertain you with the horrors of tram construction work, gridlocked bypass, closed roads and endless diversions in a city that has given bicycles priority. The Sultana had to do an emergency stop when a fox ran in front of us, and stopped to glare. This was in Granton at four o’clock in the afternoon, in a well-populated area on a busy road.
      Ho Hum.

  48. I’m slightly surprised that this letter didn’t invite comment.

    SIR – Charles Moore (Notebook, May 19) asks what “levelling up” is, and suggests it could be achieved by abolishing “the insistence on a university degree for any job in the public service, perhaps for any job at all”. This isn’t the solution.

    The Government hopes to dissuade not just working-class school-leavers from going to university, but middle-class ones as well. “Levelling up” means levelling down. This is nothing new: the privileged have always wanted to keep the higher-education path – more fun, with better prospects – for themselves.

    Professor Chris Barton
    Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire

    The Prof pops up on the Letters page now and then. He’s a professor of family law at Staffordshire University, formerly known as North Staffs Poly. He’s a bit prickly about HE institutions and comes across as a bit of an arse. Unfortunately, I’ve only been able to find two of his published letters to demonstrate the point (but see below):
    ________________________

    28.08.20
    SIR – Roger A Lounds (Letters, August 27) extols the Open University for allowing people to better themselves while holding down demanding jobs and bringing up families. In fact, its greatest success – achieved via its national identity and advertising budget – is sustaining the myth that it is the first, biggest and best provider of part-time degree-level education.

    That distinction goes to the former polytechnics, whose teachers continue their long history of staying on after tea to do it all over again. For many years I had the honour of keeping the doors of such a place open for grown-ups to study law. That is how a former miner became a head of a barristers’ chambers, and many “housewives” became solicitors and barristers.

    I resent the oft-heard assumption that my successors and I were moonlighting for the Open University rather than doing our jobs at Staffordshire University. I also give credit to the students’ partners for keeping the home fires burning.
    ________________________

    27.10.12
    SIR – David Laws, an education minister, claims (report, October 26) that teachers should be blamed for not encouraging children to aim for “elite” universities.

    The real problem lies in the culture, assiduously maintained by ill-informed, self-interested snobs, that such largely self-selected entities are the only ones worth attending.
    ________________________

    And then there’s this from Conservative Woman (04.03.20):

    Plans to make ending a marriage possible in as little as six months with new ‘no-fault’ divorce legislation have been criticised during their progress through the House of Lords…

    Implausibly, it’s now being claimed that there will be another loser in this most recent attack on the family. ‘Lawyers will lose, not gain, employment from the removal of fault in divorce proceedings,’ Chris Barton, a professor of family law, would have us believe, explaining their ‘overwhelming enthusiasm for the proposed change’ in a bid for the moral high ground.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/this-grotesque-law-that-lets-you-kill-off-your-marriage-no-questions-asked/

    ________________________

    Some of you may remember compilations of unpublished DT letters. There are a couple of books with the titles, ‘So That Went Well…’ and ‘I Rest My Case’. The Prof appears in both:
    ________________________

    SIR – Hannah Betts admiringly recalls he fellow tutor at Oxford University telling a fellow student to “Shut the f—up”.

    As – horror – a former polytechnic lecturer, I humbly acknowledge the unbridgeable pedagogic gap.
    ________________________

    SIR – Am I alone in being appalled by your decision to publish the expression ‘get your ass in gear’ in a letter by Admiral Sir John Woodward? Rather than that lamentable Americanism, you should have deployed the good old English word ‘arse’.

    For shame, sir!
    ________________________

    I wonder which real universities rejected his job applications all those years ago…

    1. All I get is “This page doesn’t exist”??? Edit: And now your link has vanished too!

      2. David Lammy put a sweet video on Twitter showing a goose and her babies heading for a stream, except he called them ducklings .. and within minutes he was ribbed, so he withdrew his Tweet because everyone called him a Townie !

    2. All I get is “This page doesn’t exist”??? Edit: And now your link has vanished too!

      1. David Lammy put a sweet video on Twitter showing a goose and her babies heading for a stream, except he called them ducklings .. and within minutes he was ribbed, so he withdrew his Tweet because everyone called him a Townie.

        1. would have been even more humourous if a goose and her babies had shown a video of Lammy – doing anything vaguely proactive and withdrawing tweet for being racist

          1. I won’t kick the bloke for not knowing the difference. I imagine Lammy the man probably thought ‘that’s really nice!’ and posted it.

            Now Lammy the man will just go on about how everything is racist.

    2. Isn’t Amber – in the traffic sense – stop if you are able?

      Around here amber is treated as ‘floor it so you can get through and block up the next junction’.

      As a genuine question, why can a bloke pack everything he needs for a week away in a rucksack suitable for carry on and a woman requires a haulage firm?

      2. I hoped we’d seen the end of that Ruddy woman who resigned as Traita May’s home secretary – but the horrible truth is – and always was: She’s a ruddy remainer!

      3. I hoped we’d seen the end of that Ruddy woman who resigned as Traita May’s home secretary – but the horrible truth is – and always was: She’s a ruddy remainer!

    2. 333191+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      “How did it come to this”
      Over the last three decades it was hard work, but now the lab/lib/con coalition
      supporters / voters can see their continuing input
      come to fruition.
      Without their voting persistence we could NEVER have got to where we are today as a nation.

    2. I put some chili powder on the sunflower hearts on the bird table earlier. There’s at least 4 of the beggars that come a stealing. The first one had a nibble and flew down the garden path to their oak tree exit and then via the overhead power line to the woods across the road. Warmed it up though.

    2. On the one hand, great stuff. He’s reading. On the other… why should someone be paid to read? Why not read simply for pleasure?

      However, mathematically speaking, that’s 5 books a week. Junior finished the first Harry Potter in 3 weeks or so, reading for 2 hours a day and some weekends. I’m a cynic, and pleased the child is reading but…

  56. The Beano to replace character Fatty with Freddy to stop children using name as insult for overweight peers
    Britain’s longest-running children’s comic brought to life enduring characters such as Dennis the Menace and Minnie the Minx
    Daily Mail Story.

    What about a rendezvous on Blueberry Hill for Mr Waller, Mr Domino and Mr Arbuckle. I’m sure they will be able to say they aint misbehavin!

    2. The Dandy, like its stablemate The Beano, featured a bewildering variety of obscure and short-run characters the likes of which you Wouldn’t Get Away With These Days, such as Black Magic Bongo the Schoolboy From The Congo, The Tickler Twins, Black Bob and Cripple Dick, and someone of whom the blurb advises, “Everyone is laughing at Willie Willikin’s Pobble!” In which case, maybe he’d better get a dose of “Mary’s Magic Medicine”, sharpish.

      1. I used to get Playhour in Nigeria, by mail, monthly (approximately).
        Now there’s a thought I haven’t had in decades…

        1. I have a good friend who worked in Lagos for a while, he was an electrical engineer. His name is Alec H.
          He also worked on the Shard construction in London.

          3. Crimea is the place to go.First class road,rail and air access.Beautiful beaches,home grown wines and no neo-nazis!

          4. Just the Russian Black Sea Fleet – and the Russian (Red) Army to keep the peace. Sounds ideal. I expect Vlad will look in to make sure one is comfy…

    6. All being replaced by ‘Timmy Tourette and his f**king dog Blackie’ and ‘Asperger Andy’s imaginary friend’.

  57. The scam continues.
    Long thought that when the jab roll-out began here that the PTB would lower the PCR Ct rate to a level that “demonstrated” the efficacy of the potion with a resulting drop in cases and deaths. Lo and behold, the potion worked so all go along, get jabbed and thank Boris the saviour.
    Now, in the USA the CDC have been caught out fiddling the figures. Surprisingly they appear to have announced their intention before realising what had happened and have now amended their website. Caught Red-Handed – ZeroHedge explains.

    3. Interesting. What do other media organisations say about it, or have all been bought off?

  58. Ex-BBC director general Lord Hall resigns as National Gallery chair. 22 May 2021

    The former BBC director general Lord Hall has resigned as chairman of the National Gallery saying continuing in the role “would be a distraction to an institution I care deeply about”.

    They should sack ‘em all and shut the damned thing down!

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/22/ex-bbc-director-general-lord-hall-resigns-as-national-gallery-chair-martin-bashir-diana-interview

    1. Don’t worry soon enough the ruling Sharia Council of Engladesh will order the closing of the National Gallery on the grounds that Art is Haram (forbidden) by the Koran

      1. 333191+ up ticks,
        Afternoon E&S,
        Some indigenous heads will roll shortly when the take over is triggered, the imams mindset will be, this electorate has proved over decades to be untrustworthy so examples are to be made.
        I mean who in their right minds would allow islamic ideology to blossom in a country to the point of governance.

        1. The enablers names are known & they can be found in the ranks of past & present Labour party, Lib-Dem, SNP & Green party leaders & MP’s and in the media, judiciary, police , academia & NHS. All have set up the conditions for the elimination of Western style democracy, individual rights & freedom that emanate from our Judaeo-Christian based values and have them replaced with the poisonous ideology of Islam .

          1. All have set up the conditions for the elimination of Western style democracy, individual rights & freedom that emanate from our Judaeo-Christian based values and have them replaced with the poisonous ideology of Islam .

            Strangely enough i have just an hour ago been discussing the same thing with my neighbour.

          2. Hi Eddy, all of us with an IQ of 110 + are capable of understanding that the hordes of sub-80 IQ mongrel dogs from the 3rd world that our Globalist leaders have forced on us by way of both unlimited legal immigration & unchecked illegal immigration are being imported specifically to take over all Western countries & establish a Globalist one world semi-dictatorship, this has always been the Marxist Communist desire & they have welded themselves to the Islamic Jihadist aim of establishing a global Caliphate, probably because the delusional Global Elites think that the Muslims will allow them to remain in power once Islam has enough people in the West to take it over. The Muslims of course will once they have political power in the West dispose of the Global Elite in the same brutal manner they dispose of Homosexuals by dragging them through the streets behind speeding vehicles & if they are still alive after that either hang them from lampposts or throw them off tall buildings.

          3. I will never be able to come to terms with this disgusting state of affairs the fawning attitude or political classes have towards islamic beliefs. Including the obvious deceit, deception and treachery involved. There is no gain what so ever and never will be any.

        2. I reckon if the dreaded JS had survived he probably have been promoted to executive status a few years ago. Now then now then.

      2. I thought that had happened to the Tate Modern years ago.
        Last time we went to the TM I found the wooden block floor more interesting than the ‘exhibits’.

        2. When I went to the Tate Modern, the chief exhibit was a crack in the floor. I thought there had been subsidence, but no!

          1. There was once a garden shed exhibit that had been blown up and the explosion had been photographed, all the pieces had been set up mid air on wires as the shed bits would have been positioned during the explosion. That was brilliant.

          2. Yes, I saw that. It must have been about 2006/7 because I was still doing my art degree. I used an old shed in my Foundation final show – I had it as the Museum of English Life (it showcased all the things we’d lost to modern life and diversity).

    2. Don’t worry soon enough the ruling Sharia Council of Engladesh will order the closing of the National Gallery on the grounds that Art is Haram (forbidden) by the Koran

    3. Shouldn’t he and the other Bbc executives be charged with malfeasance in public office?

    1. Soldiers’ desire for ‘unnaturally’ sparkly white teeth causing problems for army dentists
      Royal Army Dental Corps Major warns rise in interest amongst military personnel for a ‘celebrity smile’ is damaging their teeth and gums

      By
      Danielle Sheridan,
      POLITICAL AND DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT
      22 May 2021 • 2:00pm
      Soldiers’ taste for teeth whitening has caused problems for army dentists who are seeing a rise in complaints.

      The Telegraph understands that there has been an increased number of military personnel asking about teeth whitening as a treatment option “because it is becoming more mainstream”.

      A defence insider added that “some personnel have also enquired as to whether potential treatment would be covered under Defence Primary Healthcare (DPHC)”.

      The uptick in interest led Dental Officer Major Christoph Harper, of the Royal Army Dental Corps, to pen an article in Soldier magazine in a bid to warn troops not to get ‘unnaturally’ sparkly white teeth like celebrities and influencers due to damage it can cause to teeth and gums.

      Major Harper said: “Don’t risk it. Such products may contain illegal unlicensed substances like acids or higher concentration bleaching agents, which greatly increase the risk of irreversible damage to your teeth and mouth.

      “Dental bleaching is regulated by UK law and it is illegal for dentists to use bleaching agents containing stronger than six percent hydrogen peroxide.”

      As part of the DPHC troops will only be treated where tooth discolouration has been caused by trauma infection or developmental defects.

      It will not be done when there is no clinical need or when the staining has been causes by poor levels of oral hygiene or smoking.

      The Defence source added Major Harper’s piece was “also about educating them that should they wish to pursue this outside of the military, they do so with a registered dentist rather than products from the internet”.

      They added that it “was to address the rise in interest amongst personnel which is a reflection of the growing trend more widely”.

      A recent survey showed almost a quarter of a million online inquiries for teeth whitening are made every year from people in London.

      The poll for expressdentist.com said people from Birmingham are the second most likely to get their teeth whitened, making 34,000 inquiries to do so a year.

      Bristol, Manchester and Liverpool came joint third with 19,200 inquiries a year.

      (Thus providing a better night time target for the enemy)

      1. 333191 + up ticks,
        Afternoon TB,
        Has Molamola ( Fang) have any views on the
        issue ?

        1. HC has written what I would have said. Jack London’s White Fang also sprang to mind, and just to show off I read it in Switzerland as Croc Blanc in French.

      3. An old buddy i’ve know since we were 5 years old who has lived in Adelaide for nearly 50 years had his teeth either whitened or veneered, he’s an elderly chap now and i told hem that he looks daft. I took the mickey and sent him a photo in return, I had white tissue paper over my teeth. Same effect.

      4. Fluoride mottles teeth in young children; a reason why blanket fluoridation of water is a bad idea.
        Tetracycline can mottle the developing teeth of foetuses and young children.

      5. By gum, an Army board of inquiry must be set up to get into the teeth of the matter & take biting action to end it without any hard fillings!

  61. From time to time some yobbos or BAMEs are arrested for slavery offences, often involving car washes. This is small time stuff.
    The big time stuff is different.
    Companies buy up cheap houses in places like Middlesborough. Lots of them. Other companies are paid by the government to help to bring immigrants into this country. Lots of them. The unskilled immigrants, illiterate in any language including their own, are put into the cheap housing. Their social security benefits, that is, housing allowance, is paid directly to the landlords of the cheap housing.
    The immigrants cannot go anywhere as they have no skills to offer any employer although they may be able to do simple cleaning jobs for businesses owned by the same people who bring them in and own the housing. The immigrants do not need to go anywhere, or even work, as they are “all found” at the expense of the UK taxpayers.
    Is that arrangement not as near to being slavery as makes no difference?

    2. DIVERSITY STRENGTH!

      The Left don’t care. They don’t give a stuff about the people, it’s all about righteousness.

  63. Just in from 2½ hours in the greenhouse – pretending that it is a warm spring day. The plants look at me in despair – fated to perpetual lockdown rather than out and about in the garden…. One knows how they feel…….

      1. Sunshine?

        Ours have too – and a week ago I potted on a dozen for today’s plant sale – ad they almost doubled in size.

          1. I got some Strawberries from the Marks and the Spencer.

            About 6 in a hooooge tub of plastic. The war queen liked them, so I suppose that was ok.

          2. I bought some bigguns from Sainsbury’s. They came from the New Forest. Has to be poly grown but they were sweet.

            Unlike the Spanish ones that taste like red sprouts.

  64. I was about to post this BTL comment under the Daniel Hannan article but both the Hannan article and my comment with it have disappeared:

    A BTL Comment

    And where does Gove truly stand? Has he ever wanted a proper Brexit?

    I was very deeply suspicious when he arrived at Brussels at a time when Lord Frost was adamant that Britain would not budge an inch on Northern Ireland or on taking back complete control of our fishing water and would go for WTO terms rather than concede. Two days later the deal was agreed that surrendered on both these issues.

    I cannot help connecting Gove’s arrival at Brussels and Johnson’s capitulation and it makes me wonder if there is something that Gove has on Johnson with which he is blackmailing him.

    1. When we got the results the next morning, I’d assumed we’d lose. Then we won. My chum battered me on IRC about how it was practically the end of the world. I told him that it didn’t matter. The state won’t let us leave in any way but on paper. To make a success of Brexit means doing all the opposite things that the EU stands for. Cutting taxes. Letting rip an unfettered market economy. Looking at capitalism not as the enemy, but embracing it without hestiation. It means cutting immigration (to ensure competitiveness in workforce salaries). Crucially, it means driving a combine harvester through the state machine.

        1. Sometimes articles disappear from the ‘headline’ pages and you have to find the author’s section to see them.

  65. What follows is an infantile tantrum.

    I have run out of space. I wanted to rig up some decent LED strips to give me more hobby room light. Had a plan – bolt together using chicago screws a couple of strips of aluminium. I get half way and the drill batteries die.

    Then there’s no room in the garage to drill through 4m (long 4mm deep) of aluminium. Then has nowhere to plug battery charger into, nowhere near enough storage, tools are slung in a draw or bag, working on the floor and.. it’s raining outside.

    You look at beautiful set ups and lovely gardens and… if I turn around too quickly, I walk into a wheelie bin. The ‘garden’ is a dug up minefield due to dog and child, the ‘field’ we sort of borrow is horse toilet.

    I suppose it’s a bit llike standing on a lego brick. No one means to leave it there, it’s a minor thing, but it sets off a chain of frustrations.

    But the roof’s done!

    (I did say it was infantile).

    3. Very graphic, I can picture your set up .

      It is like me here living with two hobby type chaps , husband and son.. husband resolves matters by throwing stuff out with out even examing it , like paperwork .. We have drawers and drawers of cable and old computer stuff going back to Apple Green screen Sirius , Zx81 , Spectrums , Atari , leads that belong to old mobile phones , tapes , nuts and bolts and stuff that rattles, and is around on kitchen windsills, duct tape , all colours ..

      Son’s model airplanes are taking up shed room, and there are drones of all shapes and sizes in the house , including tiny drones that fit into the palm of your hand.

      Boxed model cars , there is no market for them these days , and clutter galore!

      The book cases were taken down a few years ago when we had a tidy up , and I have boxes of books on the landing , books I love and don’t want to discard… Even my old red times table book and school bible .. What do we do with stuff?

      I don’t have daughters , my softer touches are here there and everywhere , but the dogs are cleaner and tidier than the males .

      Treading on a plastic golf tee is no fun when getting out of bed , bit like Lego bricks I guess!

      1. Sounds rather like our house! We do have bookshelves, though,and lots of books on them.

        The sons moved out but they left their stuff behind, especially the younger one who lives in Switzerland – his room is full of bits and pieces of electronics and computer stuff.

        I inherited my mother’s collection of books and LPs – they are all here………..

        1. Mother hasn’t unpacked my late Dad’s books. She never will. She hates booked. The one bookcase they have has a plant on it. A complete waste of space. I imagine they’re rotten by now.

          I don’t know if LPs can survive in a garage for 20 years. It’s sad really. Now I see it while they moved house, Dad never got to have his home.

          Sorry, a rant there.

          1. That’s sad, books in boxes. They need to be on shelves, and examined now and again. How can you hate books?
            As long as the LPs are standing up and not in sunlight, they should be OK. The sleeves may well suffer from damp, though.
            If folk don’t want stuff, why not sell it or give it to a charity shp, not let it occupy house room and fester?

          2. When we cam to view this house, one of the things I noticed was a large wide shelf on the stairs. That’s where the LPs live. Sadly, we haven’t got the right kit to play them now.

          1. I’m happy in my clutter, as was my mother. I’m certainly not a minimalist. Marie Kwando wouldn’t get anywhere here.

  66. Before I decide whether to battle with the crossword or the needlepoint chart, here’s a Spekkie item:

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-there-anything-more-uplifting-than-our-yorkshire-farm-

    Is there anything more uplifting than Our Yorkshire Farm? | The Spectator

    I’m not sure what to say about Our Yorkshire Farm, a documentary on the utterly redeemed Channel 5, that doesn’t sound hyperbolic to the point of idolatry and slight nuttiness. If there is anything else in our culture that is as wholesome, pure and good as this, please tell me about it.

    Amid all the murk and sleaze and bigotry and inverted bigotry and tired complacent mediocrity, there is a family that knows how to live well – a family that has more or less restored the whole notion of virtue. Yes, virtue! Amid all the crappy Netflix shows, there is Sidney, who is learning to run his first sheepdog.

    Amid all the stale chat about how we’re going to learn lessons from the pandemic, maybe, there is Miles, who looks after the chickens. Amid all the tediously quite-good novels by people like Kazuo Ishiguro, there is Violet, who found some owls nesting in a barn. Amid all the pollution and traffic and roadworks and angry looks from angry drivers, there is Nancy, who found a ginormous snail. Amid all the depressing chat about depressing racism in depressing American cities, and every other branch of the stupid boring culture war, there is Edith, who came last in the family fell race. Amid all the ghastly vile plastic celebrities camping around on unforgivable game shows, there is Ruben, who is doing an apprenticeship. Amid all the dull dull dull political chat about visionless politicians, and the boring pious enthusiasm of bumptious Radio 4 scientists, there is Raven, who is studying medicine, and is greatly admired by all her younger siblings.

    And now I feel like Maria in The Sound of Music, praying in her bedroom, because she has forgotten Kurt’s name and has to say ‘God bless the other one’. But yes God bless the other beautiful little girl. And God bless their dad, whose name I’ve also forgotten, a wise and gentle Yorkshire man with no bluster or pride or chippiness, just a deep love for his work, and a deep gratitude that he belongs to ‘the finest profession in the world.’ Clive, that’s it, God bless Clive.

    And of course I’ve saved the presiding deity for last. What can I say about Amanda Owen that doesn’t sound gushing and creepy? I don’t care how it sounds. She is basically the best person I have encountered in recent years. She is better than all the vacuous show-offs who write articles in newspapers and launch their own range of who-cares-what and think they have the best opinions about everything. She just lives well, and mothers well, and loves well, and farms well, as far as I can tell. There is no need to say anything clever or witty or insightful about her. Just rejoice that this ghastly time has produced such authentic pastoral purity.

    And please God let her call it a day now with the publicity, before the shallow shabby world gets its clutches on her perfect brood. She has given us the gift of a symbol of light and hope. Let her now back off, and shut the farm gate to us needy intruders, while all is well.

    1. I have never seen the programme.

      I just don’t quite understand why the couple have so many children. You’d have thought that, living on a farm, they would know about “cause and effect”…{:¬))

      1. It’s nice, and gentle, and clean, Bill. And, God knows, there’s not a lot of that about.
        Some cute animals, and lovely scenery, too.
        And Yorkshire, Gods Own County.

        1. I can see all that – it’s just all those children. I know they are white and not slammers but still. Nine? NINE??

        1. That’s right, I don’t think there’s a minimum wage for family employees.

      3. I might have said that the more children they have, the greater chance there will be of having one keen enough to take over when they die (the rest having fled the fields for the fleshpots of Richmond) but then I found out that the farm is owned by American-born billionaire Robert Miller, co-founder of DFS.

      4. In fairness, they are an interesting family and the children certainly aren’t spoilt brats.

          2. Nine – well brought up children to feed into future generations because they are not thick, like hard work and love their farm, life and animals.

            Can’t say fairer than that, Bill.

  67. Intrigued by an article claiming that Covid ‘cases’ had risen, I tried to find a breakdown by age and sex but couldn’t find anything, current or historical. This is important because there is a world of difference in risk between ‘cases’ for youngsters and oldies. Are the figures being kept from us in order to maintain the governments campaign of fear? Has anyone seen anything?

    1. Culture of fear (or climate of fear) is the concept that people may incite fear in the general public to achieve political or workplace goals through emotional bias

      1. Thursday’s Planet Normal podcast has an interesting section on this. The expert is Laura Dodsworth; I’ve tried getting her book but it seems to be sold out everywhere and the best forecast for availability is a month away, so it looks as if if I’ll have to settle for the Kindle edition on my iPad.

    3. Are the increasing cases due to our Kent invaders and or the Indian air passengers ?

      1. Those invaders are bringing far worse diseases to these shores than the Cold virus. Many have rotting teeth, ulcers, venereal diseases, polio and all manner of other ailments.

        They are also likely to be highly dangerous comprising Jihadis sent here deliberately by those who would do us harm.

    4. They’ve been doing massive “surge testing” in a lot of areas, so naturally, they will be finding “cases”. It doesn’t mean anyone is ill.

      1. The big lie is that healthy people, (they call healthy people ‘asymptomatic’) are infected and could infect others.

        This is of course nonsense. There is no evidence whatsoever that healthy people can infect others. The very notion is a deliberate invention designed to stigmatise the unvaccinated under the pretence and pretext that they are dangerous for not submitting to the jabs.

        The worldwide exploitation of a faux pandemic by the global elites is gradually being unmasked. All the while the real plans to enslave and dispossess us and kill off millions with gene therapies continues apace. The aim is the destruction of small business in favour of a dozen or so corporates who already own most of the wealth, confiscation of property and personal wealth. The principal player is not Soros, although that skunk has a small but significant input, but Jeff Bezos whose wealth has been deployed for all manner of despicable events since 9/11 both before and after.

        The elites are acting now, under cover of Covid, because they have infiltrated every government agency, the security services, the Police and politicians through bribery and corruption. If you control the security services and armed forces under their control you can do whatever you wish to your own ends. The absurd election of Biden in the States illustrates perfectly the power that these people have and wield.

        Edit: I remain hopeful that the bastards will eventually be brought before a Nuremberg style trial and severely punished on conviction and their vast wealth confiscated.

        1. If people have it and don’t have an inkling that they do, surely they are likely to be carrying a weakened version and should be encouraged to give that weakened version to as many people as possible to build “herd immunity”.

          1. I have read that it doesn’t work like that. You have to be symptomatic in order to infect others. Even the WHO have attempted to cover their fat arses by stating that asymptomatic infection is ‘very rare’.

          2. A.) If it can’t be spread by asymptomatic people, why do we worry about them?
            B.) errr….

          3. I have read that it doesn’t work like that. You have to be symptomatic in order to infect others. Even the WHO have attempted to cover their fat arses by stating that asymptomatic infection is ‘very rare’.

  68. Cambridge alumni should withhold their donations from the woke vice-chancellor

    Under the leadership of a Canadian lawyer called Stephen Toope, Cambridge University has become a home of politically correct absurdity

    DOUGLAS MURRAY

    Conservatives underestimated a lot of things about the woke wave. Not the least of these was the presumption that the country’s elite institutions, such as higher education, might be protected from it, that while the lower-ranking universities might fester in a soup of “peace studies” and feminist dance courses, the jewels in our crown would remain sparkling and unblemished.

    Not so. Under the leadership of an undistinguished Canadian lawyer called Stephen Toope, Cambridge University has become a home of politically correct censoriousness and absurdity. It harbours invidious and unqualified academics of the radical left and censors or publicly humiliates academics identified as being on the political right.

    In the last year the regime of Vice Chancellor Toope suffered one of its first challenges. Academics and students were due to be forced to sign up to a new charter of values which included the demand that they “respect” all views, by which, of course, the woke authorities meant all views except conservative ones. A collection of dons rebelled and successfully reworded the motion to turn “respect” into “tolerance”. There are still some smart people in Toope’s Cambridge.

    Toope went away to lick his wounds and has now come back with an even more insidious proposal. This is the publication of a new list of potential offences that academics and students can use as the basis to anonymously report on each other.

    These new offences are intended to hound out “inappropriate” behaviour. There is also a list of policies and resources which all form part of a “Change the Culture” initiative, including a register of so-called micro-aggressions (aggressions so small that they can hardly be seen, and may indeed be imaginary). Mr Toope’s guidance warns that micro-aggressions might include the question “where are you really from?” and may also include behaviours such as “a change in body language when responding to those of a particular characteristic, for example, raising eyebrows when a black member of staff or student is speaking”. Also “dismissing a staff or student who brings up race and/or racism in teaching and learning or work setting.” The idea of a Cambridge where no eyebrows can be raised is a Cambridge that few would recognise.

    But some of us who are not in academia still have the right to twitch our facial muscles, so permit me to commit a macro-aggression against the Canadian lawyer currently trying to run one of our great universities into the ground. I would like to ask him – and think more people should join in doing so – “Who do you think you are? What right do you think you have to tell people which facial muscles to move? This is a great university, not a playpen filled with your lurid and bizarre phantasms.” [Tsk. Just too polite, Dougie old fella.]

    All donations to Cambridge should be withheld all long as this menace of a man is in place. Faculty members may soon no longer have the right to raise an eyebrow about their Vice Chancellor, but the university’s alumni still do.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/22/cambridge-alumni-should-withhold-donations-woke-vice-chancellor/

    1. One wonders what goes through their mind. I suppose it must be like;
      “What goes through the mind of a fly when it hits a car’s windscreen travelling at speed?”
      Answer: Its arse….

    2. Next up sexuality expert Peter Tatchell will refute that statement by Deanne Carson & say babies enjoy having their soiled diapers changed & that little toddlers enjoy being buggered !

    5. It’s all about edging towards the sexual consent of children and undermining parental authority.

  70. The comments on the Telegraph letters have been stopped since late afternoon.

    1. Comments on the DT ended mid-2015 when they stopped using Disqus, since then posting comments on there are just a pale shadow of it former glory!

    2. And on comments by Charles Moore and Janet Daley:
      on the BBC / Martin Bashir scandal – arguably the scandal/ topic of the day …

      The BBC subscription gives it power to bury embarrassing commentary, sack whistle-blowers, create false documents – as well as bribery …

  71. That’s me for the day. Two minutes of watery sunshine – to be followed by 48 hours of grey, gloomy (and leaking) skies.

    Have a jolly evening preparing your applications to be Chairman of the National Gallery….

    A demain.

  72. 333191+ up ticks.
    Anything mentioned about mass uncontrolled immigration,mass uncontrolled paedophilia, mass uncontrolled killings / knifings, mass uncontrolled political treachery ?

    Fact , keep supporting / voting lab/lib/con/green coalition and shortly the family will receive a bill for the price of the bullet outcome of the 3 am knock.

    https://twitter.com/Fox_Claire/status/1396051881038913536

    1. Just read that thread and it’s very disturbing. Twitter makes you delete posts they disapprove of, so what has this woman done to deserve this?

      Similarly, the case of the law student who in a seminar, defined a woman as ‘having a vagina’ – she’s now being threatened with having her degree withheld as somebody complained that she was being disrespectful to trans people…….

      The world really has gone mad when people can be arrested just for saying the truth.

      1. 333191+ up ticks,
        Evening N,
        To my mind the electorate have a political tiger by the tail as in, their party must keep out other party even though there is no difference betwixt them.
        A multitude of small issues are used as diversion material
        whilst bigger issues covertly stir in the jungle.

        Orchestrated political madness.

      2. Trans people don’t deserve respect. They’re simply indulging a fantasy. That doesn’t warrant special treatment.

        They might want it because it’s part of their desperate need to be indulged, to be spoiled and to feel special, but they are not, and they know they are not and these sad, pathetic creatures can’t accept that.

    2. Is she being invited to make homophobic and transphobic tweets at the nick?

    1. We share a love for Rachmaninov, sweetie ! … x

      I sang in the RSNO Chorus in 1978 in ‘The Bells’ Symphony …

    2. We share a love for Rachmaninov, sweetie ! … x

      I sang in the RSNO Chorus in 1978 in ‘The Bells’ Symphony …

      1. Chairman of National Trust, Post Office, etc., etc.

        Oxford PPE and chairman of Labour Club

          1. Rich, too, I expect – as all “successful” lefties are…

            (pace: “Lord” Hall….)

    2. Against all that I have said and believe and it pains me to admit it , I have with great reluctance re-joined the NT just so I can join Restore Trust and vote this deluded wuckfit and his cohort out at the AGM

    3. Against all that I have said and believe and it pains me to admit it , I have with great reluctance re-joined the NT just so I can join Restore Trust and vote this deluded wuckfit and his cohort out at the AGM

  75. Wise Words……..

    In the 60’s, people took LSD to make the world weird.
    Now the world is weird, and people take Prozac to make it normal.

    Peace and Love Brother…

    3. I recon that watching the loopy luvvies from California is now better than watching tv.

    3. The politicians should all go to the War Graves and see how many died during the two World Wars keeping this country “Free” – they all died for nothing. Our leaders are spitting on their graves – while WE have to pay taxes that are used for our own extermination.

    5. Noel Edmonds: my old friend on Radio Luxembourg – received in the ‘Fifties on my home-made crystal set …

    6. Full? It’s overflowing. iggest problem is that the gimmigrants are having vastly more children than the locals.

    3. Frightened the life out of me Polly and I’m just going to bed.If I have a nightmare I’ll blame you….buenas noches….
      ,

  80. The BBC has devoted more than 400 hours to celebrate the 80th birthday of Bob Dylan. It has also devoted 30 minutes the the memory of the Twenty two people killed and 800 wounded in the Manchester Arena bombing. Good to see it has changed its ways after the recent revelations of corruption and malpractice. Thirty minutes is a start, I suppose.

      1. With 99 genders and St George of Minnesota, there will hardly be any days left not to celebrate. Don’t mind if I do, hic…

    2. No celebration of their former favourites Jimmy Saville and Rolf Harris then?

      They rammed those bastards down the throats of the public for decades. Two Little Boys and Jake the Peg with his extra leg (guess what that was) still raise my hackles to this day when the distant memory is provoked.

  82. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/05/20/record-heat-russia-canada-climate-change/

    It’s only May, and temperatures near the Arctic Circle in northwestern Russia are approaching 90 degrees. In Moscow, temperatures have shattered records on consecutive days.

    It has also been unusually warm in central Canada, where raging wildfires in Manitoba are sending plumes of smoke across retreating ice in Lake Winnipeg.

    Summer has yet to begin in the northern hemisphere, but temperatures in high latitudes are already alarmingly warm, portending another brutally hot season while signaling more climate troubles.

    Record heat in Russia
    Since last week, historic warmth has swelled over much of western Russian and bled into eastern Scandinavia.

    On Thursday, the mercury surged to 89.4 degrees in Naryan-Mar, Russia, a town near the Arctic Ocean and almost 1,000 miles northeast of Moscow. The temperature shattered the previous monthly record of 82 degrees, according to Serge Zaka, a meteorologist in France.

    The scorching reading came a day after the temperature surged to 86.5 degrees in Nizhnyaya Pesha, about 800 miles northeast of Moscow, also inside the Arctic Circle. Etienne Kapikian, a meteorologist for Meteo France, tweeted it was one of the earliest 30 degree Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) readings ever seen that far north.

    2. Only 90 degrees in this part of Ontario yesterday, nothing wrong with that!

    3. I wish some of it would come this way; it’s been cold, grey and extremely dismal. I’ve got the heating on (had to order more oil yesterday as I’d run out and then had to get the bloke in to bleed it as it had an airlock). I must be getting nesh in my old age.

  83. On this sad note …I’ll wish you all goodnight.x

    NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING’ BY STEVIE SMITH

    Nobody heard him, the dead man,
    But still he lay moaning:
    I was much further out than you thought
    And not waving but drowning.

    Poor chap, he always loved larking
    And now he’s dead
    It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
    They said.

    Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
    (Still the dead one lay moaning)
    I was much too far out all my life
    And not waving but drowning.

    2. Are you alright this evening Plum,
      Just detecting much melacholy in you .

      Stay a little longer on here if poss , and kick that mood out of the window.

          2. Aww sorry Conway. Losing a beloved pet is like losing a close family member, it hurts like hell.

          3. Indeed. We had had him just over seventeen years – that’s a big chunk of my life. The difficulty I’m having trying to get another one has to be seen to be believed. I haven’t had to get a dog from a rehoming centre since 1987 (the others have been rehomed as “free to a good home”) and then it was so simple; I turned up, chose a dog, paid a donation and took him home. Not now!

          1. Would it were that simple, mola2. I’ve been trying to adopt a rescue dog for nearly five weeks; I have missed out on several for various reasons and the latest I’ve put in an adoption bid for, only to be told they’ll look at all those who apply (no timescale given) and let me know which one applicant they’ve chosen! Whatever happened to going and looking at the dogs and taking the one you want home as we did in 1987?

          2. Our dog was from a rescue litter and I had nothing to do with it and was against having it. But I was made to go to the centre to be ‘vetted’ by them. When I did go I fell in love with the damn dog and it’s got worse over the last 6 years. It’s not a quick process anymore, you’re right.

          3. Glad you were won round in the end. I’ve seen one (the fourth I’ve tried to get) that I like and have put in an adoption request but it seems to be a lottery now. Not just, “oh, we’ve got someone who wants to have this dog”, more “we’ll wait and see how many applications we get for this dog and choose the one we think is best – but if they fail our home check, we’ll offer it to someone else”. I don’t want to operate like that; I want to be able to have a dog to fill the void and preferably asap. While I’m waiting to find out I’ve been rejected, I could be finding another dog – but if I do and put in an adoption request, but am accepted for this one, I’ll have wasted somebody’s time somewhere along the line, not least my own.

  85. Evening, all. We have long known that the Bbc is not fit for purpose. Good job Dyson didn’t sweep it under the carpet 🙂

      1. That’s very kind, AtG. I’m about 5 minutes from the Good Intent. Assuming you will be travelling via Normandy anyway, I’m 150 yards South of Wanborough Station (i.e. on Glaziers Lane). If you let me know what time you’re likely to pass the spot, I’ll lurk on the corner… :-)) Thanks.

        1. We’re picking Rik up at 11.30 and should be with you around noon. You’ve got my mobile number haven’t you if not G has it.
          We look forward to seeing you on 1/6.

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